Comment by staunch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by staunch | Hacker News Reader

This company was founded on the myth that the original Android OS was an important part of the history of smartphones. And that Andy Rubin was somehow an important innovator. His arrogant rant on the Essential homepage explains why they failed better than anything else could.

The version of Android that Google bought was just another crappy blackberry clone that would have likely gone no where.

It became Google's cover story for their effort to clone the iPhone because its in their legal interest to claim that Android was an independent effort that just happened to become an iOS-like operating system over time.

But history proves otherwise. The original Android was a crappy Blackberry clone: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/HT...

And the Android phone they released over a year after the iPhone was was a half-Blackberry half-iPhone clone monstrosity: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/HT...

From Wikipedia:

An early prototype had a close resemblance to a BlackBerry phone, with no touchscreen and a physical QWERTY keyboard, but the arrival of 2007's Apple iPhone meant that Android "had to go back to the drawing board". Google later changed its Android specification documents to state that "Touchscreens will be supported", although "the Product was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption, therefore a touchscreen cannot completely replace physical buttons". By 2008, both Nokia and BlackBerry announced touch-based smartphones to rival the iPhone 3G, and Android's focus eventually switched to just touchscreens. The first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23, 2008.

Strongly agree. Android came to dominate not because of great business, design, or engineering prowess on the part of Rubin but because of the economics of its ecosystem. Google revenue shares with carriers, who in turn demand devices from carriers with Google software. Meanwhile, the user base builds up with a wide variety of phones spanning many user preferences and budgets, leading to a huge market for app developers. You could have put anybody in charge, put out even worse phones, and still achieved smartphone dominance given the economics of the system.

The fact that Android is now also the best choice for users has little to do with the design decisions in the early days.

> His arrogant rant on the Essential homepage explains why they failed better than anything else could.

Pretty sure it was the fact that Samsung is the primary supplier for the majority of parts so they always end up making money. But sure, the homepage is totally why millions of people didn't buy the phone.

I claimed that his rant explains why they failed, not that the rant itself is why they failed.

I think his rant says a lot about how he views his role, company, and product. He seems conflicted about starting the company at all, dismissive of his coworkers, delusional about his role in history, and confused about what makes people want products. And yes, the fact that the product's homepage features him above the product itself is also a very bad sign.

The T-Mobile G1 you posted is probably the best phone of its time. I have not met a user of that phone who does not want to go back to the smooth keyboard feel.

A physical keyboard turned out to be unnecessary.

The software keyboard became far superior, for input speed. And accuracy, with the use of spell-checking and auto-correction, for most cases.

The auto-correction feature allows you to type faster with a software keyboard. It corrects it on the fly. But you must re-read what you typed, to ensure that it is correct.

The annoying part is when it selects the wrong word.

The other useful feature is the auto-suggestion, which allows you to tap on the word that you want to write. This sometimes help to reduce your typing.

But overall, I find the software keyboard allows me to type far faster on a smartphone, than a physical keyboard ever could.

Wanna know how I'm 100% certain that your job and hobbies does not involve typing beyond casual chat messages?

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