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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

Anybody can polish a device that has intentionally-limited functionality.

Very true. And yet we still have so many feature rich yet experience poor devices, programs, and services out there. It's almost as if most people don't get the idea of quality over quantity...

Your assertion is debatable, but even accepting it: can just anyone figure out what functionality to leave out, and what functionality to polish?

Yes, and if there's a better recipe for success in consumer electronics, I can't begin to imagine what it might be.

One reason why Android is beginning to scare Apple is because the cell-phone carriers that aren't AT&T are marketing their Android-based phones against the iPhone with the good-old feature checklist. The iPhone gets one check "can receive phone calls", while the Android phone gets checks for things like "can play Pandora streams while you browse the web" or whatever.

People paying money for things like features.

Conventional wisdom has it that Android isn't so much scaring Apple as pissing off Jobs personally.

If Android is starting to scare Apple is because Google is doing ad revenue shares with carriers and device makers.

As for your example, first, it's requires too much qualification to really work on a feature matrix. Second, you really think that Apple can't/won't support app backgrounding or a more open app store if their current offering really starts hurting them?

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