Android Again
mattmaroon.com
mattmaroon.com
As businesses purchased IBM PCs instead of terminals for large IBM mainframes or minis, more and more people were exposed to computers. Apple was selling computers into a very different market—they were serving computer 'enthusiasts', in the 1970's that was a very limited group akin to those people who build thier own sailboats or airplanes. IBM was exposing a much larger and more homogenous group of people to computers—people with jobs ;-)
As computers became more mainstream over the years there were just more people who had used and were familiar with 'PCs' running MS-DOS, which eventually transitioned into Windows. The Microsoft piece of the personal-computer market has ALWAYS been bigger in the modern era, because it was the easy choice—people used it at work, bought it for home, and were comfortable recommending the same approach for their friends and co-workers.
Mobile devices such as smartphones are VERY 'personal'. With the possible exception of the BlackBerry, which will have been imposed on a lot of people through their jobs (as the PC/MS combo was in the 70's and 80's) people are free to choose whatever they want for their device. The majority of the market will not choose a smartphone based on whether or not the OS is 'open' or 'closed'—they will very likely not understand the distinction.
Apple understands that users will not be interested in apportioning blame between the hardware manufacturer, the OS provider and the applications developers. AT&T probably understands this too, and so will other carriers. If/when Android develops any of the little issues that are very common with applications written for other 'open' platforms, those issues will reflect poorly on all parties involved.
The public at large will not understand and accept the compromises in applications that those of us in the "blogosphere" take for granted They will not keep coming back to try an application through 25 "point" releases until it is finally/potentially better and more robust than any 'closed-OS' alternative - they will give up on it.
Customers will choose smartphones based on how USABLE they are, how many useful and easy-to-use features they have, how reliable they are, and how 'cool' they are. Unfortunately, Android and any other completely 'open' OS is likely to have more buggy applications and security issues than a semi-monitored 'closed' system like the iPhone OS. I do not think Android will ever be a major player in the smartphone space unless/until they modify their definition of 'open' to allow some method for 'vetting' of applications.
What is the lure going to be for people to stop moving to webapps, and suddenly embrace an open platform and installable apps?
The web, through a browser, is the best open platform IMHO
The fact that internet connectivity on a desktop vs. on your mobile device is different by an order of magnitude. When you get ubiquitous and fast internet on the mobile device (not some bizarre spotty coverage), then things will change. Maybe Europe is ahead in regards to that, but in the US, I don't see that happening very soon.
Edit: oh, and also the processor speeds. So, basically I will bet on webapps for mobile after 3-4 years. Until then, at least, installable apps will work better.
Another Edit: perhaps, when something like Google Gears is everywhere, it might change. But offline support - both for code and data - is kind of essential.
HTML 5 includes a storage API, including a SQL database. Apparently the iPhone already has it, and any browser based on WebKit (Nokia, Android?) will likely have it in the not too distant future.
I don't know about processor speed, I can see some intensive 3d special effect games needing native, but for puzzle games, or most 'apps' javascript in a browser is pretty much there.
Lots of stuff benefits from integration with the OS.
It makes sense, webkit is getting so much work for mobile from google and apple and others, why not.
First, if you narrow you scope a bit you see that the Mac is still the market leader in certain market segments.
Those markets have always been dominated by Mac.
The PC dominates overall because it is a generic business machine. But can you say the same about cellphones?
It seems to me that cellphones are much more narrowly defined and used. Some are fashion accessories, some like the Blackberry are like a communication utility.
But none are a generic computing device, and I don't think they'll ever be. So it is easy to imagine the cell market being dominated by the most shiny thingy.
You could even say that with Vista's DRM, even the PC is heading that way, where the open platform will eventually be relegated to a niche enthusiast market.
People like us will pay a premium to get a PC as open as one anyone can by today.
If you're willing to play the "in this market segment" game, you can make anybody a winner. OpenBSD totally has a lock on the "paranoid dudes in their mom's basement who think Debian is too damned corporate" market segment.
The PC dominates overall because it is a generic business machine. But can you say the same about cellphones?
I think you can. "A generic mobile device". There, I said it.
The PC, in hindsight, I think was obviously a case of fully proprietary (Apple) vs. mostly open (the PC, with DOS and later Windows). One can easily say, "It's the applications!" And you'd be right...but why were there more apps for PC than Mac? Bigger market, sure. But, if Apple could stop people from making applications for the Mac, and Microsoft couldn't, I know which OS I'd be developing for. And that's the situation here. Apple are basically being bastards to their customers and their developers, and because Apple products are really attractive, extremely well-executed, and generally good and useful, people haven't immediately noticed what a bastard Apple is being about the whole thing. But, I think Matt's right. People will notice that Apple is treating them like crap, with abusive contracts, abusive terms for distribution of applications, and anti-competitive practices with regard to who gets to make and sell apps for the iPhone. It's already happening, and Apple will either wise up, or lose out.
You could even say that with Vista's DRM, even the PC is heading that way, where the open platform will eventually be relegated to a niche enthusiast market.
Nobody is saying that Microsoft is open, or good for consumers. At least, I didn't take Matt's post to indicate that at all. He merely used the early PC vs. Mac war as an interesting historical precedent for what's going to play out in the mobile market and for the very same reasons: Cost, availability of apps, and control (i.e. who controls your device: you, or the manufacturer?).
I think the comparisons are pretty obvious and pretty difficult to argue against. The current behavior and direction of Microsoft (and its own historical abusive behavior) is irrelevant. Nobody is going to argue that the PC was a less open platform than the Mac in the 80s and 90s, and changes in the landscape since then don't alter history.
So it is easy to imagine the cell market being dominated by the most shiny thingy.
I think it'll be dominated by the cheapest thing that does what people want, just like PCs. It is becoming a commodity...as most mass-manufactured goods do.
I have no hatred for Apple. I have very little interest in Apple, in general. But, we're witnessing a really interesting time in computing, and I think it's worth paying attention to how it plays out, because it will shape how we use computers and online services for years to come. So, my feelings for Apple, in particular, aren't strong in any particular direction...but I'm paying close attention because my livelihood will be shaped by what plays out over the next year or three. If the industry follows Apple+AT&Ts lead, I believe it would be really bad for consumers.
Abusive contracts: who knows who forced an abusive contract for the phone?
We can know, with confidence, that the telco and Apple worked together to come up with the abomination that is the 2nd gen iPhone contract. The mobile industry, coming from the telco industry of old, is about as abusive as an industry can be and still be legal (and with a wee bit of competition allowed), and yet Apple managed to one-up every other phone contract to come up with the crazytown that is the iPhone contract. It's the worst contract in the industry, as far as I know, and that's saying something. Since AT&T does offer more reasonable contracts for other devices, I'd say it's pretty clear that Apple had a hand in devising the iPhone contract. If you'd like to believe that Jobs is a gentle soul who only wants the best for the world, and would give away free ponies to everyone if those evil telcos would only let him, you're certainly free to continue to do so. I'm not of that opinion. I'm of the opinion that Jobs is a less (monetarily) successful Bill Gates (though far more successful on other fronts...like product development). I don't hate Bill Gates, or Microsoft, either. I just avoid dealing with them as much as possible.
What did they do to you, man?
Nothing. They have no power over me, at all, since I've never entered into any contract or agreement with Apple, and probably won't as long as they are as controlling as they have historically been.
I perhaps use strong language...I figure I'm among friends here at HN, and that you'll all understand that I'm coming from a somewhat more extreme position than is the norm (I contribute to EFF regularly, I have been an Open Source software developer for ten years, and I generically hate anti-competitive practices wherever they appear). I'm not saying Apple kills babies, just that they are on the wrong end of history if they think they can maintain the level of control they have over the iPhone without dramatically damaging their future market share. I'm not RMS, but I think and hope that openness will win out over fully proprietary.
If you don't think the iPhone has an abusive contract, by all means, buy and use an iPhone with joy. If you don't think iTunes terms of service and DRM are bad for consumers (and that poor Steve is being strong-armed into using DRM by those nasty record labels), then by all means buy your songs from iTunes. I'll continue to use a mobile device other than an iPhone. I'm planning to buy the HTC G1 when it arrives, assuming the contract is sane. And I'll continue to get my music from other, non-DRM encumbered, sources, like emusic, Amazon Unbox, Amie St., direct from artists, etc.
Not sure how things are (& were) in the states, but down here I think Apple did something interesting. The iphone plans must come with 'data plans.' These have been available but something that consumers just didn't want (to pay for) previously. They always took the 'pay as you go' options, & just avoided using it. So the majority of people that bought phones in the past couple of years had internet enable devices that they never used. Apple broke that.
I think it comes back to Apple's measures of success. They don't just measure sales, they measure use. Do you check mail? Do you listen to music? Do you use the browser?
The contracts (while highly priced) are there to optimise for those latter metrics. It's a much more forward minded strategy then most of what we've seen up to now. Given the whole segment a kick up the arse.
Matt's central assumption is that they will become generic computing devices and I concur. Why do you think they won't ever be generic computing devices? I think of my iPhone as pretty generic and "capable" of doing a lot of things. I had a dumb phone-only-phone a year ago.
Why I say UI, I don't mean the iPhone, or any one phone, but any device small enough to fit into one hand.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I do think ease of use will be more of a selling point then power and capability.
I think you're wrong, but not because the tradeoff will be "ease of use" vs. "power and capability". Power and capability are coming to mobile devices, both from Apple and from the market at large, and people will use that power and capability. It won't matter whether you ("you" being a placeholder for pretty much everybody in the developed world) think you need more apps running on your phone--you will have them, and you will like them, and you will use them more and more in place of your desktop or laptop machine. This is the way it will be in a couple years time, and you can quote me on that.
You're coming to the conclusions you are (that the iPhone will somehow become the leading mobile device--note that I didn't say it would maintain a leadership position, because it has never had a leadership position...it has 25% of the smart phone market, but that's a small niche of the whole mobile market) because you're framing the question wrong.
You're assuming there are huge tradeoffs: Ease of use with the apps that Apple says you can have vs. hard to use, ugly, but with super jet powered applications that allow you to rule the world while sitting on the toilet. The reality will be more like how the PC industry shook out (I'm pretty darned sure, anyway): Good enough ease of use, good enough products, nice enough looking, and dramatically cheaper and more powerful than the Apple counterpart.
When every phone is a smart phone, the smart phone market will look dramatically different than it does today. It'll look a lot more like the regular mobile phone market (which is to say, a hodgepodge of products from a hodgepodge of manufacturers--but Android has a good chance at being a leading OS on those products).
"And there’s the Shuffle, which I’m not really sure if anyone ever purchases, but maybe it’s just for people who are too poor to buy the Nano and only own 3 CDs because most of their collection is still on 8-track."
That make me dislike Matt - there's just something about the tone of that statement.
Symbian has a 70% of the market. Why is Android suddenly so important?
sorry but as much I like Google I don't want them running the O/S on my phone.
And you're right about the development, its hell!!!!
I just want to add, the J60 isn't as good as the Android's Java environment (not even close), and it carries the penalty of the J2ME slogan write once test everywhere (to the point where different open S60 devices will behave differently)
Symbian week point is its development environment, I imagine they will have to respond in that front in the next versions.