Apple's Arrogance Stokes Android Gains | Hacker News Reader

Apple's Arrogance Stokes Android Gains

informationweek.com

13 pointseplanit19 comments

Yes, I'm sure Android's success is a result of consumers' response to all this tech-world inside baseball, and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Verizon's network is so much better than AT&T's.

You know what? That's Apple's fault, too. They went with AT&T. AT&T is what Apple wanted, and AT&T is a part of the iPhone experience. Everyone says how Apple works really hard to make sure every aspect of the experience is rock solid, etc. Fine. AT&T is apart of that. Apple said "The AT&T experience is how we want to be represented in the mobile world." If AT&T's service isn't good, this reflect directly on the iPhone, and Apple. The iPhone is Apple's product, not AT&T's.

Yeah, if the article had made that argument it would have a lot more validity.

Actually, it was more of a "AT&T accepted Apple's terms when it came to developing a new phone back before anyone had seen the original iPhone." As thanks, they got a 5-year exclusivity agreement with Apple.

However you want to swing it, Apple went with AT&T as the provider.

Sad when the "legit tech press" have to resort to linkbait headlines to get eyeballs.

The simplest answer to Android's success has more to do with the number of models and network availability than with some bogus claim about arrogance. A better headline would have been "Is Apple being bitten by Android because of its exclusivity agreement with AT&T?"

I have to agree with you there. I'm certain that the iPhone's ties to AT&T only has to be a drag on iPhone sales. Not everyone is willing/able to switch to AT&T.

For myself personally, I love my N1, but I probably never would have got to know that if the iPhone had been available on other carriers. I wanted to by an iPhone since back when they first came out, but AT&T get's completely crappy reception in my neighborhood. :-( If there'd been a TMobile iPhone I would have bought one a loooong time ago.

(I realize you can run a jailbroken iPhone on Tmo, but that just never seemed worth it. You lose 3G, and I'm not excited about ruining the warranty right out of the box on something as expensive as an iPhone.)

How come this is the only article claiming that the engineer who lost the phone was fired?

The author also claims that criminal charges were filed against the blogger who found the phone. What blogger would that be? The phone was bought by Gawker who had one of their paid bloggers write about it, but he did not find it. Did the person who found it also have a blog?

Also, he claims Apple files these alleged charges. Really? I must have missed where Apple became the District Attorney. At most Apple reported the phone stolen.

There have been a gazillion articles covering this, and a gazillion minus one were better than this one.

I don't mean to be pedantic (and I certainly don't mean to defend this article), but the author doesn't claim that the engineer was fired; they say, "Apple may yet fire the engineer". Which is true, I suppose - Apple may yet fire any of their employees. Nevertheless, it is still a ridiculously speculative thing to write in a "news story".

An hour ago it said "Apple fired the engineer who ...."

So we've learned that, when IW prints incorrect information, it will silently update the story without making an explicit correction.

I am fairly sure that is a rewrite from when I read it. I reacted on how they claimed the engineer was fired in no uncertain terms.

It looks like the article is being updated (without being so marked). Shortly before I posted it said that "Apple summarily fired the engineer who lost the phone".

Oh dear, as if this article needs another reason to add to the list of why it is terrible... My apologies for blaming you for the error.

It may also be that the new Android phones kick butt. A friend of mine just got the HTC Incredible, which runs on Verizon, and it's smoking fast.

"News that Google Android-based devices are outselling the iPhone may be a sign that consumers are fed up with Apple's increasingly restrictive policies and behavior that, in the minds of many, could be characterized as nothing short of bullying."

Or it may not be, as we present no data to back this claim, but that's OK because we put the "may be" qualifier in there, so now we can write the rest of the article assuming that our premise is true.

There are almost 50 Android phones, and every major carrier sells at least one Android phone. Apple can't possibly win against that. In fact, they aren't trying to. They want to build the "best" (in Steve's eyes) phone in the world. They aren't trying to build the phone for everyone. These two tasks are mutually exclusive. Android will find its way onto $5 phones in the developing world, for example.

But hey, that sure is a news grabbing headline.

It would be nice if the "best phone in the world" reliably made phone calls.

This article is complete garbage. It gives absolutely zero facts to back up the author's assertion that Apple's recent behavior has led to Android's gains.

How can a publication publish this? Look at some of the ambiguous language used by the author: "...may be a sign..." "...in the minds of many..." "...bad taste in many consumers' minds..." (The last one is not only ambiguous, it's a cliche, and a mixed one at that.)

Is this supposed to be an opinion piece? It's certainly not labeled as such. IW should be embarrassed to have published this drivel.

On iPhone, automatically redirects to a general home page; this story buried among the other headlines. When will companies learn basic mobile web ux?

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