bonch

Except that you can't download the source for Honeycomb. That's kind of the point of the discussion.

Yes, because Google's privileged partners like Motorola get to access the source before its official release in order to have it ready on their products immediately, while everyone else has to wait.

"This ignores the difference in technical competence of consumers versus Apache users."

And Google's behavior ignores the spirit of open source, which expects the source to actually be available regardless of whether or not somebody's trademark might look bad.

I wonder why it has taken so long for people to realize this. After all, Google's primary business--the search and advertising platform--is as closed source and proprietary as Windows.

"I don't understand all the justifications for Google's behavior being posted."

By catering to the emotional OSS crowd, Google has bred a flock of fanboys even more defensive than Apple's.

Yeah, uh, StackOverflow is written in ASP.NET.

"Gorgeous?"

I"m so sick of hearing hipsters bitch about Twitter's "dickbar." You'd think it's the most important issue in tech right now.

> It certainly shouldn't be any kind of tipping point in platform choice for developers.

It won't be. After the usual anti-Apple trolls have had their say, everyone will have forgotten about this phony "controversy" by next week.

> Apple already wastes gigabytes on printer drivers and extra languages you don't need.

No, they didn't. For example, Snow Leopard downloads printer drivers from Apple as you need them.

Give me a break! $5 for accounting legislation compliance is a personal insult to you? How is it at all comparable to selling tickets to leave a restaurant? You have to leave a restaurant. You're perfectly free to download the Xcode 3 developer tools, which are still available on the developer page.

The melodrama from people criticizing this is embarrassing to read. People on Reddit were acting like it's some huge scandal.

I didn't see anything in the article that supported the dramatic claim that OS X isn't for developers.

Pretty sure iOS developers were too busy drooling over the iPad 2 to suddenly switch to a practically user-less tablet platform.

That settles it, guys! One game proves that Android's app problem is over.

One developer with an average game that has no competitors (unlike on iOS) means Scoble was right?

One of his arguments is that the platform is slower and less efficient than iOS, so developers are going to want to target it to show off their programing skill or something. It's a ridiculous article full of wishful thinking.

It's actually a really good point. A game like this can do better on Android because iOS has so many more well-known, competing games in the genre. Since Android has so little, the user base is funneled through fewer games.

As for fanboys, I find Android fanboys to be the worst because they loudly tout "openness" as if it justifies everything.

You think Besthesda is an exception? Oblivion was pretty crippled in features and gameplay compared to Morrowind and Daggerfall despite having physics and "realistic" faces. The AI was embarrassing. Bethesda is one of the main culprits in trading gameplay for graphics as well as latching onto "next-gen" marketing hype.

Note that these aren't graphics from a next-gen console. It's just a tech demo of what Epic would like next-gen consoles to be able to support.

Personally, I think next-gen consoles are a ways off. Consumers aren't that interested in another console generation. Good visuals are already a solved problem with today's hardware, and people are exploring new, simpler types of gaming on the web and mobile devices.

Basically, the 90s obsession with pushing for better graphics is long gone. It's more about art style now.

If you like it now, check out what's in OS X Lion and (inevitably) iOS with regards to keeping interface objects lined up. No more struts and springs.

Hmm, not exactly a ringing endorsement. It's interesting how so many Android fans call the fragmentation issues FUD, but developers consistently confirm it as a real problem. Supporting multiple devices like that is a headache for the small developers that make up the majority of mobile app development.

Maybe the Android fans needed something to cheer themselves up with after last week's Apple event. :)

First off, like many Android fans, you insist on comparing an operating system to a single phone. It would be a shock if a free OS on multiple phones didn't outsell a single phone. However, the word "outsell" is a weird one, because Android doesn't cost anything, so it's not Android that's outselling anything--it's the total sum of the multiple phones that just happen to run Android compared to the one phone that runs iOS. Almost all of Android's market share gains came at RIM's expense, not Apple's.

Android is not a serious competitor for Apple because it's not making Google money. It has a negligible app presence and a fragmentation problem. iOS is still what guides the industry, it's what people talk about, it's what Android is copying (Android was going to look totally different before the iPhone came out in 2007), and it's where the developers are.

It took an operating system with no price tag and the promise of total control for the carriers to outsell a single phone. That's a big deal. Even then, not one single Android handset outsells the iPhone on its own, and the iPad still has no legitimate competitors.

More importantly, Apple make huge profits on iOS devices. It has the developers, and it gets the press attention. Android makes no money for Google, barely has developers, and is known as the geeky platform for cross-armed OSS evangelists who hate Apple. It's also experiencing a non-trivial rise in malware--two negative articles came out today in major news outlets. Sorry, but Android is not a serious competitor for Apple.

> As a developer #1 in market share is a very significant milestone.

Unless you're Android, which has significantly less apps than iOS and is getting bad press for its malware problems. Additionally, iOS runs on the iPad, so iPhone developers can universally target the #1 tablet in the world.

Google makes very little off of Android. They've been following Apple's lead design-wise (look at images of what Android was going to look like before the iPhone came out). As a free operating system that carriers can exert full control over, it's no surprise that it's #1 in marketshare compared to a single phone on two carriers, but if that doesn't actually translate into profits for Google, developers for the platform, or innovation for the industry, does it really matter? The iPhone is still directing the smartphone industry and getting the positive press, and the iPad practically has no competitors to this day.

Oh, geez. Lighten up.

Huffington Post likes to post headlines and blog posts praising all things green energy, Obama, and NBC. The bias is pretty obvious. The original point of the site was to be a left-wing alternative to Drudge Report--even the name is a play off of it. Ariana Huffington herself has spoken at several Democrat events over the years and is considered politically left-of-center.

"Seriously? Bigger and more important than the invention of the Internet and WWW?"

Well, Possibly. I think he's referring to tablet computing in general. It represents the fruition of progress toward a true household computing appliance, the kind of handheld "electronic book" that used to exist only in science fiction. Someday, the paradigm of the desktop PC and its required upkeep and complicated interfaces may be considered the short-term condition of a young industry.

Where are you getting your marketshare figures?

It's no surprise that Android phones have numbers. They're on multiple carriers compared to just one (now two). Tablets don't have carriers backing them like that--they must stand on their own.

Apple fought off "iPod killers" for 10 years, so they've proven they know how to keep a lead. I think there's a lot of wishful thinking from some people wanting Apple to fall. For some reason, Apple's constant success antagonizes them.

"Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on something else."

Ah, the old meme that people are just brainwashed by marketing into being happy with their Apple products, complete with made-up "95%" statistics.

The difference from smartphones is that carriers are pushing Android. It's a free OS they have total control over, unlike the Apple-controlled iOS. Tablets aren't phones and must stand on their own as legitimate appliance computers. Apple has proven before that it can win that kind of battle--the iPod has been the dominant MP3 player for almost a decade.

Good journalist? Look at this guy's article history. He writes about nothing else but Google and Android. Of course he's going to be critical of one of Google's major competitors.