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Comment by CamperBob | Hacker News Reader

No, it's not "quite" that simple. Almost every other mobile computing manufacturer is tripping over their own shoelaces these days to copy Apple's policies and practices.

Look at Microsoft's direction for Windows Phone 7, for instance, and tell me it's going to be any sort of alternative.

And as for Android... eventually, someone is going to release some kind of really hideous malware that does substantial harm to a large portion of their user base. Jobs will spin this event as inevitable -- just as he has already tried to do by casting Android as the "porn" platform of choice -- and Google will end up marginalized further in the public view because they made the silly mistake of leaving their garden gate unlocked.

The harm done by Apple's policies can, and has, rippled out across the entire mobile computing sector. It is dangerously naive and disingenuous to claim that you can dodge this damage by "choosing not to buy an iPhone."

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Your post contains the implicit assumption that "really hideous malware" will strike the Android platform before it does the iPhone, which is the necessary condition for Jobs to say "I told you so." (I make the assumption that Jobs would not be able to credibly deliver that line if iOS became a malware target before Android did.)

I don't own an Android phone, and am only superficially familiar with its OS or software stack. Do you think that the Android OS is architecturally more susceptible to malware than iOS? If not, do you think that Android's application distribution model is more likely to get malware onto people's phones that Apple's highly restrictive one?

That's my understanding, yes.

However, unlike a lot of people including Jobs, I don't see the ability to write deceptive malware for a platform as a "bug." People need to challenge this assumption early and often.

I still have the choice to install the malware on my phone if I want too or not, same as installing malware for OSX, Windows,Linux.

My choice.

The app store review process wouldn't catch a hidden trojan type of malware.

Apple policies are not 'harmful' to general consumers. They're unappealing to certain tech-savvy consumers, but those people are a niche. The average phone buyer has priorities more in line with what a curated app store provides, and that's why other companies are following Apple's lead.

Even if Google decides to focus on making Android appeal to a broader audience and starts following Apple's strategy, the market will still exist for open devices. Either someone will cater to it (which I am confident Google will continue to do), or the market has become so small that no one will bother. Either way, it's just the free market at work, not some evil conspiracy.

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