Comment by lionhearted | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lionhearted | Hacker News Reader

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> I think you might be missing the point.

I got his point, I just think he's wrong.

He says Google shifting from trying to compete from Blackberry/Microsoft to competing with Apple was basically an act of war, so Apple is justified in fighting back in the ad market.

I think that's wrong for three reasons - first, Google didn't go after Apple, they're building things people want. Their devices resemble Apple's more than Blackberry's because Apple is also doing what people want, whereas Blackberry isn't.

Second, it wasn't an act of war/betrayal/attack/breach of the Apple/Google business relationship (which Gruber implies).

Third, Apple are kind of being pricks pulling the rug out from a company after Google acquires them. They can do that because it's their business, but it's not justified as some sort of retaliatory measure. It is justified as business if they want, it's kind of prick-ish, but it's their right to do.

So, I understood, I just thought some of his points were wrong. I agree with him about not having comments on his site though - except in rare instances with a carefully built commenting community, comments become just noise and take away from a site. I like Gruber and have learned some really good stuff from him. I'm just not with him on this one.

That's kinda sorta not true tho' - BlackBerries account for 40% of the smartphone market. If you were going after the biggest slice of the pie, they're who you'd target.

I always end up wondering how can a company have so much of the market and so little of the buzz? (Of course, if you can maintain that level of market share, it may not matter.)

They sell to corporations. Citigroup and similar companies give their employees blackberries and generic dell laptops. Their employees are sufficiently un-excited about it that there is no buzz.

And i'd hazard a guess and say the rate of growth in the consumer smartphone market is growing faster than the corporate smartphone market.

(Don't run for where the ball is, run for where the ball is going to be. Or however that saying goes.)

It's a puck, so I suppose it would be skating.

I've heard it for basketball and soccer as well. (I also have a tickle in the back of my head that says I've heard a variant in some movie's kung-fu training scene. Keanu in the Matrix? This is going to bother me for hours now...)

Strikes me as a generic sports/life tip: anticipate and be there first.

Edit: Gauius's reply suggests I'm probably dead wrong about the movie. Never knew where the quote came from. Thanks.

Believe the quote is Wayne Gretzky, an ice hockey player.

I don't think that's true. People say "I love my BlackBerry". Regardless of where they got it, they form the emotional attachment to the brand. Jay-Z mentions his BlackBerry in his music. It's a lifestyle object, it says, I am taking care of business, baby. I am an insider, I have my act together, I make decisions. People call them CrackBerries because they're addictive.

But I've never heard anyone say "I love my Android", people talk about how clever it is, but the brand doesn't seem to resonate nearly as much, and it's not as clear what it says as a lifestyle accessory.

First, I love my Eris. Love it, love it, love it. Would sleep with it under the pillow, if I weren't so worried about its well-being.

Second, in my experience, people react to it with a "So you're a DIY-er, huh?" That is, people are aware, however vaguely, of the opensource/hacker vibe that the brand carries. I'm not sure if that's what you meant by "what it says as a lifestyle accesory," but I think it is.

(Btw, you had your +1 at "Jay-Z mentions...")

You live in the Bay area?

Up here in Mass, I tend to see Android devices being carried by unpleasant, street hoodlum types, which I guess to be a consequence of and reinforce the "iPhone knockoff" image associated with them.

I see this got into the negative, so let me upvote and point out that this is totally expected.

This is exactly how it was with the Danger handsets 5-7 years ago, simply because they were great for power-texters, had a camera and were way, way cheaper than BlackBerries. And yes, as a result they were great for conducting street business -- don't be all shocked if that's true of Loopt as well.

I think a part of that is that "Android" is the software, and the hardware is all over the place. "iPhone" is a package deal - hardware and software. The brand means both at the same time. Same with Blackberry - there are lots of different blackberries, but when people mention the brand, they mean both hardware and software.

I love my Nexus One. I love the Android platform. I wouldn't say "I love my Android", because it doesn't make any more sense than saying "I love my Windows" (whereas a Mac user would easily say "I love my Mac", as the hardware and software are a deal package).

The "Droid" brand is starting to change that, though. People are referring to all manner of Android phones as "Droids". It's a name that is being used to refer to both the platform and the hardware. I could easily see it gaining the same kind of brand mindshare that the iPhone and Blackberry brands have.

I love my Nexus One - and yes, it is an Android. It doesn't really make sense to say "I love my Android"

> I love my Android

That's because you don't buy an "Android". I've heard tons of people say "I love my Droid" or "I love my Nexus One".

hmmm, for some reason I can't reply directly to @gaius' comment. I find the I love my BB argument interesting. While he's right, I don't understand the attraction for these people.

I've been doing some BB development lately using a Storm II. Compared to the iPhone 3GS, it's a flying turd. I wonder if these BlackBerry lovers just haven't tried an iPhone or Android device.

Maybe I would think differently if I was testing on a keyboard device like a Bold, but I can't imagine it would change my opinion that much.

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A good portion of them are women with long nails, who can't use capacitive touchscreens very effectively, especially for typing.

The BB's UI is garbage, but the iPhone really misses a big point on missing a real keyboard.

<anecdotal> I teach at a high school, and although there are a lot of iPhones, I would say that one in every two phones is a Blackberry. And as Gaius says, they love the hell out of the things. (I speak as someone who has had to take one away from its owner.) </anecdotal>

The buzz I meant was media buzz. Among users, I think Blackberry has plenty. Their users are fanatical. (Stephen Fry had an article on this a bit back, as I recall.)

One of BlackBerry's features is BBM, a private IM network for BlackBerry owners. People love it because it's counted as part of your (fixed price) BlackBerry mail, so there's no extra charge like SMS or a conventional data connection. Apple and Google don't have anything comparable. Sure there's Google Talk but anyone can use that, there's no exclusivity.

Google Voice can be setup to basically give you free SMS, with the added bonus that you can send and receive to anyone, not just BB users.

RIM's market share in 2010/Q1 according to Gartner (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/google-android-smacks-...) was 19,4% and year before that it was a little bit over 20%.

It's said that the next Nexus (Two?) is going to target business users and have a full hardware keyboard. To really eat BlackBerrys pie, they'd need tight Exchange integration, and I'm not sure how Google plan on doing that. BlackBerry requires you to operate an expensive BlackBerry server on your network, that's not exactly Google's MO.

Google didn't go after Apple, they're building things people want. Their devices resemble Apple's more than Blackberry's because Apple is also doing what people want, whereas Blackberry isn't.

There's a lot of people out there who love physical keyboards and who must type with their thumbs!

The Droid has a physical keyboard. The platform can support both physical and software keyboards quite easily.

Eating someone else's food is an act of war when you're both starving and most companies always seem to be starving. Expecting your one agreement with a person to remain constant despite antagonizing them is foolish. And yeah, Apple is going for the low blows, but they're actually the much smaller company here still right? Despite the market cap and everything.

Android was Google seeing a rich opportunity to take uncertain ground from Apple and now it's a dance to find a stable boundary line. One smart, if risky, way to get another couple moves to extend that line is to attack them somewhere else. Even Google has limited attention. Best, for Apple, is that this attack strengthens their smartphone position. It sounds really clever to me.

No, Apple is not the smaller company here. There is no reasonable measure by which you could say Google, a company with one monetarily successful product and a smaller market cap, is bigger than Apple, the dominant consumer technology company of our age.

EDIT: I don't normally respond to downvotes, but I find it odd that at least three people have disagreed without anyone explaining how this very factual comment is wrong. If there's something factually or logically wrong in my comment, we would all be better off if you'd explain the truth rather than (or as well as) downvote.

I didn't up or down-vote your comment, so I can't speak for those that did, but I'll just point out that market influence is likely a bigger competitive factor than resources at one's disposal or market cap. The market cap difference between Google and Apple are not all that relevant to the amount of money they choose to invest in development, acquisitions or marketing, the aspects that influence their ultimate ability to compete given the will to enter a market. Market influence, however, is a hugely different story. Google owns 90%+ of the web search market, comparable to Microsoft's daunting lead in the commodity PC OS or office productivity software markets. Google's search business is the core of Google's profitability, bringing in the lion's share of their revenue.

Let's compare to Apple, who doesn't have a majority share in any competitive market besides portable music players and digital music distribution. The actual share of revenues from these businesses is a small and shrinking fraction of Apple's income. The portable music player business is collapsing in the face of evolving consumer smart phones and mobile internet devices like the iPod Touch, and the digital music distribution is an insignificant part of Apple's revenue. All the areas in which Apple is making all their profits are either nascent markets like consumer tablets and mobile internet devices, or Apple is a relatively small player. To imply that Apple can use their position in these markets it doesn't dominate to unfairly move into other established markets needs a bit more supportive evidence than that.

Apple essentially owns the mobile application market — and the tablet application market, if you're inclined to separate that out. Apple's position in those markets is at least as strong as Google's in search. (Yes, they make more money from hardware, but remember we're discounting that under the premise that market influence is the decisive competitive factor.)

Apple also has disproportionate influence even in markets where it is not a monopoly.

It's not clear that those markets have ever been truly competitive or relevant in the first place. To someone like the FTC or the Justice Department, mobile apps are a nascent market, and they're not going to touch it with a 10-foot pole.

As for Apple's skill in managing media exposure and marketing, that's certainly not an area in which they can hope to have any kind of monopoly.

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