Android Chief Andy Rubin Sends His First Tweet — And It’s Aimed At Steve Jobs
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But his pseudo-definition of "free" is rather misleading. I don't think Jobs argues that Android isn't free in the sense of being closed-source, or being sold for money, or not being available on most devices. It is. I know that I can compile it right now, from my command line. I know that I wouldn't have to spend any money. I know that, with enough tinkering, I can put it on my iPhone or whatever.
In the real world, on the other hand, this free Android doesn't exist. When I buy a Samsung or HTC or Motorola Android phone, I don't get plain vanilla Android - I get a distorted version full of crap and software I neither need nor want. In the real world, Android is almost never the pure version Rubin wants it to be. It's a weird hybrid, coerced into submission by Verizon, Motorola and friends. The jailbreak community for Android is as large as the one for the iPhone, meaning that in a very import sense, real-world Android is about as open as iOS and webOS.
I don't care about theoretical openness. That's just rhetorics. Jobs merely points that out.
Additionally, even if warped, personalized and differentiated Android variants have turned the underlying OS into a success, that doesn't imply that it's a good thing. Coincidence, iffy business tactics and "being good enough" are exactly why Windows took off.
And that is what Jobs is getting at. He want to make the best possible experience for the customers not create a fragmented ecosystem that allows anyone to make a version of how they see Android.
Android gives the possibility of building unlocked phones ... from there it's just an issue of customer-demand.
If only one manufacturer, like HTC or maybe Samsung, has success with an unlocked phone, the others will start replicating the recipe.
Big enterprise havs cash cows and until those cash cows are gone they will be making all sorts of ego driven decisions.
You would be surprised how much is driven by individuals and how little is driven by rationality.
There are states within the states with their own motives.
It is my experience that besides with the cash cows, it's anything but rational decisions that are being made in most cases.
Oh, I wouldn't, I see it every day. Thank god for consultants, you can bring them in, and they will say the obvious/rational thing.
We are talking normal consumers no hackers.
No one beside a small fraction of this world cares what operating system they have or can have. They change OS when they buy a new computer.
Normal people don't care for their OS, but they care about installing whatever they want on their PC, no matter the source or function.
And you know what? All the friends I have with non-technical skills that own a gaming consoles (about a dozen of them) ... have had those consoles unlocked.
The reason gaming consoles come locked is piracy, since most profits come from selling games. This is not the same situation with PCs or with phones for that matter.
Dismissed as reflected in what? Apples latest quarterly results? Their overall success?
How has the consumer dismissed trusted computing.
Normal people don't install things. It's really as simple as that.
Before the iphone most people didn't even know what an app was.
Over 90% of PCs are Wintel. Apple's market is a niche.
Apple's shit I'm talking about is similar, but different: we aren't talking about over 1 billion people (more like 50 million).
> Normal people don't install things
You're the one that must be joking.
And no I am not joking. Most people use the browser and that is really it. This is why many people think that Google is their browser.
You're seriously wrong here. I mean, this statement alone makes me think you have no idea what you're talking about. Care to clarify what you meant by that? Or even what you meant by Trusted Computing (because your current definition is definitely incorrect).
What would be best.
If the customer had to go to three different app stores to get what they want or just one.
A fragmented ecosystem can never be a benefit to consumer as it hinders the free flow of information and increases friction.
I did a longer post about digital ecosystems if you are interested
With apps stores, it is the same. You can have your favourite shop, where you do your shopping most of the time. But you have an option to change. Which is important, because the shop owner is also aware of this. As a result, he will not trying to f*ck you so hard, as he would, if you didn't have this option. (If you are locked in and the conditions change to worse, what are you going to do? Accept and submit, that's what.)
If I have an android I have to go to different app stores to get different apps.
With apple I just have one store where I can get all my apps no matter what telco I am on. That is the benefit of the integrated approach.
I have yet to see how apple is exploiting customers. They aren't setting the price, they are allowing free apps.
Aren't you confusing being a developer with being a customer?
No. On Android, you can get most apps in most stores. Some stores are more popular than other (have more customers and more apps). As for now, the most popular is Google Market.
On Apple, you must go through store. Even if you have .ipa on you harddrive, you must go through store.
Apple sets conditions, what an app can and cannot do. Would you accept similar scheme for your computer?
In most businesses, sole supplier is a no-no (if you ever forget, your risk auditors will remind you). There is a reason for that, believing in benevolent dictatorship will get you nowhere.
Setting conditions to streamline and create consistency is good for the consumer not bad.
No one is forcing people to buy apple products. If you want you can just choose android or Nokia. But people want the iphone because it's easy.
Apple isn't sole supplier I don't know why this strawmen keeps getting thrown around.
I think a point that most people are missing is that Android isn't actually hard at all. With the newer devices, we are seeing better and better interfaces. The reason many people think iPhone is better is because the marketing comes from one direction, rather than the diffuse marketing from Android. So iPhone gets cast in a better light. In reality? Not a huge difference.
I do agree that consistency is good for the customer. But so is direct competition and choice. I think what will decide who dominates in the (far) future is which hardware people will develop more for and I can see either one being on top.
I think that if that was the case, there wouldn't be an immediate discussion following Jobs' comment on the same thing. If anything, I think the fact that these remarks have made it all the way to this discussion proves that it isn't such a clear-cut answer.
In fact in many areas I'd disagree with the statement that integrated is better. While in some cases simplicity is great, what the hell is the difference between a store with 170,000 applications versus 90,000? If you're saying that the average consumer can tell the difference, I'd call BS. If you're talking about an above-average user, then the issue is moot because they will know how to get the applications they need without hassle anyway.
Not only that, but fragmentation in itself has many levels. Yeah, everyone that codes iPhone applications has to use (somewhat) similar tools and API. However, what's the main draw for an app-maker? If anything, I think what platform a developer writes for has a lot more to do with his previous experience than the current dominant or integrated platform.
Don't distance the developer from this. Consumers and developers, especially in these kinds of micro-transactions, are intimately tied. Things that affect developers DIRECTLY affect consumers, and I don't think it's so easy to draw the line.
The fact that apple have the most popular ecosystem out there with nothing even close.
The fact that everyone knows how to install an app on the iphone.
The fact that the iPhone helped introduce the idea of an application to the general consumer.
The fact that the iPhone just works and is consistently thought through, the UI is easy to use.
The fact that apple not anyone else solved the GUI for touch screens.
iPod, iPhone, iPad what can I say they all resolve around the most lucrative ecoystem that exist besides the internet itself.
The fact that when you want to write for iPhone you write one an distribute to all devices.
Want to write for Android? Good luck. Ask Tweetdeck how many versions they had to develop to get out on as many android versions as possible.
I am not even talking about the number of apps that each store have.
I am talking about the in my mind pretty simple fact that an android with only one market and one system to develop to is better for both the the consumer and developer than 3 different markets and who knows how many permutations of the android platform that exist out there today.
I'll give you this - writing for iPhone is certainly easier in the sense that you only have to write for one (maybe two) software versions. However, take a look at Tweetdeck's later response to the comments : that they had a team of TWO to deal with versioning. Sure, it's a bit of a hassle, but there are always trade-offs.
That's also not the only consideration. There are many factors - App pricing, prior programming experience, target market, etc. that play into making an application. Not only that, having one market and one system is not necessarily better, and it's definitely not a fact.
It comes back to the issue of competition; I'm not talking about Android vs. iPhone; I mean the competition between developers in putting out applications that are meaningful and easy to use. Neither system (right now) is inherently better, and I think that casting it in the light of integration vs. fragmentation turns the spotlight in the wrong direction.
Yes, why don't you ask them: http://twitter.com/iaindodsworth/status/27813709366
If the customer had to go to three different app stores
to get what they want or just one.
I also have one mall where I make all my shopping and one phone carrier that provides me with what I need.
BUT I CHANGED my phone carrier twice in the last 5 years, and I ended up with one that has better contractual terms and lower prices.
It's not about finding iphone apps but about having to have your credit card info in one store (iphone) vs. having it a different app stores (android)
With regards to changing your phone carrier that actually just proves my point.
With apple telcos can't make their own app store with android they can.
In other words, androids ecosystem will be fragmented, I will have to be a verizon customer or a Amazon customer or a t-mobile customer.
You don't have that problem with Apples app store. And that is the reason why it's better for the customer.
You've also probably been spoiled by the country you live in, but I used to live under a communist system where there was no such thing as consumer choice and competition.
YES, it makes people unhappy to make choices (I've seen the switch in mentality on a large-scale). But it makes their lives better, since a free marketplace that allows choice is driven by natural-selection, with trends like lower and lower prices, better and better service.
That's called a paradox and you're not seeing the forest from the trees, or you're just some shill.
My claim was that multiple app stores isn't a benefit for the consumer. You still haven't told me how that is a benefit to the customer. What is better about the multiple app stores that sells android apps and then the app store from apple.
Pray tell. How is that better today? From a consumers point of view? Is it more expensive? More tedious? So far your sole argument is confusing communism with consumerism.
The I think rather than open vs. free, Android and iPhone could better be compared by choice vs. simplicity. Android gives you choice on just about every bit of the phone (new marketplace, new home screen, new soft keyboard -- all without rooting) whereas on the iPhone it's Steve's way or the high way.
Now Steve's way is pretty damn good and it benefits a ton from the simplicity of not having choices, but it's not really possible to make a "best" choice for everyone, and Android can really hit a wider range of tastes. Whether any of the manufacturers/networks are doing that well now is very debatable.
Also, how the ability to discover apps is not part of the market, having my credit card in only one store is much less important to me than finding good apps. In fact if one store allowed me to use paypal instead of a credit card I would probably use that store.
No one is talking about only one market.
I have a number of top notch companies fighting for my attention and purchases, all of them generally on a common "app level": None have the comfort of sitting back, cocky that you'll have to choose them anyways.
Do I want a Galaxy S? Maybe a slider? That new dual core? Maybe an inexpensive LG?
It's extremely good for consumers.
We are talking ecosystems here. Namely Androids vs. Apples
That is simply wrong.
Sidenote: The phone companies don't customize the handsets at all. The manufacturers do it for them. If the Verizon Samsung comes with a particular app or has a feature removed, it's because Samsung -- an Android partner -- did that for them. It's a small nuance, but it's an important one.
I am all for choice between Android and Apple.
But we are debating choice WITHIN Android ecosystem.
I.e. different app stores for the same type of os.
That isn't good for consumers there is absolutely no advantage to that. What should that be?
With an iPhone you've got a shiny device that just works and doesn't come with shit installed and that you cannot tinker with.
With an Android you've got a shiny device that many times comes with shit installed and that you cannot tinker with (depending on the manufacturer).
The difference: you can build your own unlocked Android device, and because of competition there will be phone manufacturers that will do just that.
Windows PCs aren't locked, and this came to be mostly due to harsh competition, or am I missing something? Don't you think the likes of Compaq/HP would've rather sold locked devices akin to gaming consoles (also popular at that time)?
You're saying it is "theoretical openness"; I'm saying the market is too young for Android's openness to unravel.
I'm not in the US, but the fact that no-one even bothers to advance any actual reason for not wanting it beyond it being "NASCAR" leads me to assume it's plain old snobbery.
Wrong. Because handsets are subsidized by the carriers and won't sell otherwise -- so all that competition is equally focused on pleasing the carrier as they are on pleasing the customer. Besides, it's been pointed out many times to me here that the majority of consumers don't care if the platform is open.
In the United States. I saw an iPhone sitting in a glass case here for 600 Euro the other day.
Since Android is Apache-licensed, the openness isn't enforced to all users of the software.
sudo apt-get install git-core wget && mkdir -p ~/bin && export PATH=$PATH:~/bin \
&& wget http://android.git.kernel.org/repo && chmod a+x ./repo \
&& mv ./repo ~/bin && mkdir android && cd android \
&& repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git \
; repo sync ; make
1) I just tried that line out on my Fedora machine - it doesn't work, doesn't know what repo is.
2) after running 'make' does my computer turn into an Android device?
3) If not, what is the hardware I have to use
4) where are the instructions for loading the newly compiled code onto my device - I see a make, but no make install... I mean I like binaries as much as the next geek, but they aren't terribly interesting unless they, you know, run.
5) I tried loading the binary on my device, but it refused - something about unauthenticated code - what should I do to use your wonderful open system?
OK, obviously I'm trolling a little here, but Andy's tweet is every bit as much a troll. I doubt very much that RMS agrees with Andy as to the openness of Android... In fact, I just went and looked, here's his thoughts on the subject:
Android's source code is free software, but in many phones the binaries of Android are not free, because the phones are set up to refuse to run modified versions if the user installs them. [This practice is called ‘tivoization’, named after the product that pioneered it.] If the software in Android were under version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), users would be guaranteed the freedom to install their own modified versions.
Even when Android is not tivoized, it needs non-free drivers or firmware to run. As far as I know, no smartphone is made that can be run without proprietary software. None respects its users' freedom.
The shortest path to making it possible to run a smartphone without non-free software is to reverse engineer those non-free drivers or firmware and write free replacements - RMS
So that would be a 'no'
I think that, with time, we'll see more truly open, Nexus One style phones. I really wish they hadn't given it up so easily: something like that would be competitive in Europe where it's much more common to pay full price for an unlocked phone.
Sometimes, I think people forget just how cool open source is in terms of being able to take stuff and hack on it.
Maybe I'm being naive, but when I hear 'open' I'm thinking that that means that if I don't like a small part of my otherwise great smartphone, I can go in and modify the code that handles that specific part, compile it, and download the modified code onto my phone so that it does what it wants. That is several orders of magnitude of effort away from today's reality of:
- find a security flaw
- design an exploit of the security flaw so that I can root my device
- extract the drivers from the binary so that I can add them back into my new image after recompiling
- modify code and compile
- reload new image onto phone
I just feel that the open source community is getting sucked in to supporting this solution that is dragging us away from what would truly be an open platform. If Rubin was being honest about an 'open' Android, it would be under GPLv3, as RMS says. It's not, and the reason it isn;t is because it is not open. Rubin is spinning this, and I do not respect that.
I agree that we're still not seeing manufacturers do quite what we'd like, but I think it'll come with time, most likely in places that are not the United States: Europe and China most likely.
And, to be clear, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that it's going to come from Apple.
Before you can approach whether or not the software is free you must first define what free is. The parent poster is relatively safe in this because he provides RMS's definition of free, which is encoded in the GPLv3. Until you provide a similar definition I don't think one can state the software is either free or unfree.
I agree that we're still not seeing manufacturers do quite what we'd like, but I think it'll come with time, most likely in places that are not the United States: Europe and China most likely.
And, to be clear, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that it's going to come from Apple.
I think this is just speculation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition - Android qualifies, except for a few bits and pieces.
> I think this is just speculation.
I'd bet a lot of money on it. Apple has a long, long history of making beautiful, innovative, forward-thinking, and fairly locked down products, from the Mac onwards.
OK, but you admit that your definition of free isn't everyone's definition of free. To be even more precise, the OSI itself doesn't even call that definition free, they call it 'open source.' The FSF, in fact, has a contrary definition that they maintain is actually free software. Both parties refer to the OSI as 'open source' and the FSF as 'free.'
This leads in to the main problem that Google/Android have -- when they market Android as being open they don't really define what open is. It is prima facie true that Android is not open on all fronts, so the question is really what Google considers "open" to mean.
Jobs put this observation into an interesting context because it's important to note that a lot of software in the iPhone is free as well. In the manual you will find a list (quite a long one) of all the GPL and BSD licensed software included inside the iPhone. The question, then, isn't who is open and who is closed, but what the definition of 'open' is and who more closely abides by it.
OK, but you admit that your definition of free isn't
everyone's definition of free
If it where for me I would include a new rule in the OSI definition that excludes GPL from being called "open source", because its copyleft extends to the whole package that links to GPL pieces, and for me this is not "free".
Both parties refer to the OSI as 'open source' and the
FSF as 'free.'
It is prima facie true that Android is not open on all
fronts
If my voice doesn't matter (I'm a nobody) here's the voice of Linus Torvalds (you know, the guy without whom you can't speak about Linux):
[Stallman] calls it "tivoization", but that's a word he
has made up, and a term I find offensive, so I don't
choose to use it. It's offensive because Tivo never did
anything wrong, and the FSF even acknowledged that. The
fact that they do their hardware and have some DRM
issues with the content producers and thus want to
protect the integrity of that hardware.
The kernel license covers the *kernel*. It does not
cover boot loaders and hardware, and as far as I'm
concerned, people who make their own hardware can
design them any which way they want. Whether that means
"booting only a specific kernel" or "sharks with
lasers", I don't care.
No? Well Android is a lot more open, regardless of definition.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Also, the FSF (and I assume by extension RMS) has no problem with the Apache 2.0 license which is a free software license and compatible with GPLv3.
> openness in phones is decreasing, not increasing - each new generation of Android devices seems to contain more and more locked-down proprietry code.
"openness in phones" took a huge leap forward with Android. 5 years ago, the idea of a widely deployed, almost completely open phone system would have seemed like science fiction. Just because some companies are adding crap doesn't take anything away from the core system, which continues to be free and continues to improve.
> the open source community is getting sucked in to supporting this solution that is dragging us away from what would truly be an open platform.
Which is, pray tell? Google has poured millions of dollars into Android, and we get that under a very free license. The "open source community" isn't some magical thing: it takes real work to make stuff happen, and Google is doing it with Android, including stuff like usability and GUI work that the "open source community" hasn't been so strong at in the past. So I don't really see some magical solution just wafting down from the heavens... it's simply not on the radar at this point. The only other remote possibilities are Meego and perhaps Symbian, but I don't really see much going on there.
It's nowhere near RMS approval at all.
What else out there is closer? That has a remote chance of being successful?
I see it as a "perfect being the enemy of the good" situation. Android is the best, most open thing out there, even if it's not 100% open, and not 100% the best thing, either.
Completely irrelevant. If I say a donkey is not a horse and you then say "Yes, but it's closer than a manatee!" the donkey doesn't suddenly become a horse. Successfulness also really has no relevance to whether or not it's free.
What's missing? Some drivers and firmware? The RMS quote is, from above, "The shortest path to making it possible to run a smartphone without non-free software is to reverse engineer those non-free drivers or firmware and write free replacements", which to me indicates that Android is fairly close. He is not saying "the shortest path is to go write something else from scratch" or "gee, it's not really free yet, so I'll buy a shiny iPhone because... what the heck, I owe it to myself and I'm tired of harping about this free software bullshit anyway".
As a kernel developer I'll just say that my opinion is that this is a monumental task that says that Android is about as far away as any other embedded proprietary Linux-based device (including the Nokia phones).
Edit: That should be not including the Nokia phones. The Nokia Maemo phones are far easier to deal with than the Android phones.
First of all, I'm talking about the percentage of the source code and the system created from it, not about animals. We're all technical here, so let's not go off on tangents.
That said, it's a compromise. I want something that is open, and I want something that is reasonably widespread, and I want something that works well, because of the positive network externalities inherent in much of the software world. I'm ok with not 100% open and not the market leader - indeed, I'm fairly biased towards open, being an Ubuntu user (even though that is not 100%).
Beyond what I want, a completely free system is useless if no one produces actual hardware for it, so I think Android's compromises are good ones in that direction. Perhaps RMS does not agree, but that's his right.
What is so 'monumental' about the drivers and firmware that are missing?
I think you are discounting the value of the GUI and user space stuff, which is given to you under a free license with Android. Recreating that stuff would be a monumental task in and of itself.
Completely irrelevant. If I say a donkey is not a
horse and you then say "Yes, but it's closer than a
manatee!" the donkey doesn't suddenly become a horse
So this particular point is completely irrelevant ;)
As a kernel developer ... Android is about as far away
as any other embedded proprietary Linux-based device.
I'm not going to play the semantics game, I'm relying on the reader to not be dense.
You've got to give some concrete facts here, as this is too vague.
OK, to give an example of a problem of similar scope, the first thing that has to be done is root the phone. Luckily, we have a canonical equivalent to bypassing the digital signed software -- Tivo. Tivo was basically the same deal. In order to load your nonsigned code into the firmware of the device, one first needed to find a security hole and exploit it. From there one would have to recreate the necessary drivers and such. This would essentially be equivalent to the effort to reverse engineer the Broadcom wireless drivers, which is still not complete (partially because I think they recently announced their intention to release at least some source code).
An example of a device which directly contradicts davidw's statement that Android is the most free smartphone is the Nokia N900. The development work needed to customize the N900 is a fraction of that of the Android platform.
davidw didn't say that. What I said is that overall, I think Android is our best bet for something that's free, but also "matters". OpenMoko is quite free, for instance, but doesn't really matter - no one will ever use it. I honestly don't have a good idea about what's in MeeGo, how free it is, how much it's possible to tweak the installation on the phone, and so on.
> I'm not going to play the semantics game, I'm relying on the reader to not be dense.
You are the one who brought the zoo into it. The rest of us were talking about mobile phone software.
Also, in terms of their DNA, a donkey is far closer to a horse than a manatee is, if you really want to get into comparisons of animals...
However, the notion that you can simply say that Android is more open than the iPhone, universally, is simply untrue. I'm attempting to promote a semblance of formal statement here, wherein the parties actually state their axioms as opposed to making otherwise semantically meaningless statements like 'Android is more open than iPhone'.
It's pretty simple:
Where can I download the source code for the iPhone's UI?
Does iPhone have anything like Android's intents that allows me to plug my own stuff in?
Can I install my own applications on my own damn phone without paying Apple?
There may be some metric where iPhone is more open than Android, but I can't think of it.
There are plenty of nice things to be said about the iPhone: it really changed the phone game, it's beautiful, well designed, and so on. But 'open' and 'free' aren't really words I'd associate with it.
Apache license gives freedom to developers, including freedom to take freedom away from end-users.
They are very good at this, and I do not fault them for it, but I also do not confuse altruism with what is clearly a profit motive.
Free software is cooler, open source is only kinda sorta cool ;p
And you can see this: 1) The market is strongly biased towards ad-supported aps. Who benefits? Google. Whose data is passed to the advertisers? Mine. 2) All of Google's ad-supported services are preinstalled on the devices. 3) Android handsets must be activated before use. I've paid for the hardware, but it's useless until I give more data to Google.
Google's business model is giving away cool stuff in return for milking you for information. I can't believe people think that this is "free" or "open".
Also, it is open source, so you've got a very good base to fork from to make something of your own, should you so choose. I think we'll see more of that in the future.
Sure, Google adds some stuff on top, but I think that's a small price to pay for all the free stuff you get underneath, which is more than enough to build your own Google-free system should you choose.
I think that should have said "git" instead of "repo"
There are a dozen dependencies not listed in that tweet to build android. JDK5.0-12, flex, bison, libncurses, etc etc etc.
"Everyone thought that Android would usher in a new era of freedom for handset users. Unfortunately, it just turned out that Android is more open not for users, but for Carriers to do as they please. Compare the crapware installed on Android phones vs. the iPhone. In a weird way, Apple has done more to push freedom for the (non-hacker) end user than Android has."
Of all the android devices currently available, the N1 (which is around a year old and getting outpaced by newer devices) is the only one that even remotely allows you to play with it in a truly open way.
Open isn't "it's able to run mostly-google-certified apps". Open is: Let me modify this OS here and upload it to that device there.
Open isn't being unable to uninstall bloatware and trialware put in place by carriers to get a couple of extra bucks.
Open isn't not being able to use all the features of a handset/os just because a carrier decided they don't like the feature (with no official way of turning the functionality back on)
Yes, because everybody can make an Android phone, even if it's too technically challenging: there will always be smaller companies that will compete on openness.
HTC, Motorolla, Samsung are competing on features, but just wait another 2 or 3 iterations.
At least Android (both the OS and the Marketplace) gives you this possibility.
To get these, you have to agree to some licensing terms with Google. The terms are not publically disclosed and for what we know, it's Google forcing these security-features into these devices.
Android is all but open.
There is a difference. They are not all considered "Android". You can very easily live without any of those closed features if you so desire. Buy my Openmoko Freerunner from me, and you can run a 100% open Android system. You can even find or make replacement applications for all of the proprietary Google apps if you want to.
Without the Google Tools, the experience you would get on that device is subpar compared to what a device with the Google Tools would provide.
It's not the the (excellent) Gmail app we are talking about.
First and foremost, it's the Andorid Market.
I know that it's possible to install any .apk on a device, but you'd need to get them. As it stands now, most of the better-known Android applications are only available on the Android Marketplace.
So without the Google tools you don't just lose the few Google Apps (Google Talk, Gmail, Google Voice), but also most of the Android Apps currently available.
And it doesn't stop there. In Froyo, Google added the Cloud-to-Device API (that's the c2d I was referring to) which provides about the same functionality as Apples background notifications.
That, too, requires the Android Market, so a non-google-device loses that functionality as well.
This is just one feature, but it shows a trend of Google being willing to couple core API and system components to the availability of the Google tools, so you just plain don't know whether pure free Android will continue to be something you can put on a device you want to be competitive with (if any device without the Android Market can be called that nowadays even)
So if the 'Google certified' version of Android wins, I'm not sure how that is good for anyone other than installing Google as the Microsoft of the mobile age. In that scenario, I'm not sure why I should be rooting for one dictator over another, other than that at least one has taste.
Mr. Jobs said that the issue of openness was a side issue to the real issue of fragmentation/integration, iirc.
So regardless of the accuracy of that statement, a response would have to address that point.
Openness != Open Source
"Don't worry dad, you can remove those pre-installed apps from your carrier by re-building the OS." Right.
Edit: Apparently some of you are either offended by money or have mistaken this for a joke. My bad in either case. I was (and am) unable to think of a way to point to the proverbial elephant in the room without sounding at least a little bit smarmy.
I am not an uncomprehending oaf here. I can look at this and say "Oh, neat!", too, but if this is to be taken as a reaction to Jobs's criticism, then I don't think you can escape the context of that criticism. Jobs did not say "open is not neat", he said "open does not always win"--where "winning" is inescapably to do with profit--and this, I believe, only serves to clarify what exactly does not win without actually refuting the claim. "Open" is not a panacea. It is not magic pixie dust that turns shit into gold. It's a cop out answer to the tough question of how do you build a great product, and it makes correspondingly little money for Google. If you were in Jobs's position would you not take this as a sign that your approach--the approach which relies dramatically less on partner companies not dropping the ball and that has already made you money hand over fist--is one to have greater confidence in?