IPhone vs Android? No. We're fighting the wrong fight

http://eliainsider.com/2010/09/14/fighting-the-wrong-fight/

by turoczy • 16 years ago

366 157 16 years ago

lotusleaf19872• 16 years ago

Why are we paying for voice/text/data when it is essentially all just data? We should just be paying for data plans. It shouldn't cost extra to tether either.

Tyrannosaurs3• 16 years ago

Surely what you mean is the only additional cost for tethering should be the additional data you use as a result?

It's not unreasonable for the carriers to charge those who use their networks more extra. It's all data but the differences between top end and bottom end users is massive.

lotusleaf19872• 16 years ago

If you're paying for a data plan it shouldn't matter how you use the data. Especially if they are charging you for a set amount say 5GB, what does it matter if that data is coming from tethering or streaming Netflix on an iPhone?

MartinCron• 16 years ago

This is what annoys me so much about AT&T and their data plans that don't allow tethering without an additional fee. You should either restrict what I can do (e.g. no tethering on basic "unlimited" plans... I understand that) or meter what I use and charge appropriately. Doing both just seems greedy and wrong.

drpancake2• 16 years ago

A mobile telco's entire business model only works because of this distinction. Infrastructure and licenses are expensive. It costs a lot more to shift data than you might imagine.

(I work for a very large global telco)

artsrc• 16 years ago

Surely if you work for a large global telco you understand that bureaucracy and empire building cost a lot.

In many markets payback time for mobile infrastructure is a few years.

If no-one bid high prices for licenses, then they would be cheap. It is surely the expectation that consumers will over pay that creates the problem.

extension• 16 years ago

A new 3G carrier, Videotron, just launched in Quebec and I was surprised to see that they offer the Nexus One:

http://www.videotron.com/mobile/service/mobile/appareils/det...

I'm not sure how much they've modded it though, or if it can be as easily unlocked/rooted as one bought straight from Google.

lzw8• 16 years ago

This article highlights why I'm a fan of apple more than google. Apple is going to exert the power to control the carriers. Apple is about the only company that can, or will, exert this kind of power.

I hope google changes, and starts getting control over os installation.... But I can't see that happening.

In this case, the openness of android works against google.

As an app developer, I'm keen to put products out for android, but the combination of fragmentation and very slow adoption of latest releases by the android mass market are two of the biggest hurdles.

Apples market has little fragmentation and high hardware consistency.

But I digress. Without google imposing some licensing terms, android users are always going to have a poor os upgrade experience, it seems.

And I thin android is at risk of carriers introducing bloatware that you cannot uninstall.

demallien2• 16 years ago

Yup. And I'm starting to wonder if in the end Android isn't going to reverse the trend towards carrier openness started by the iPhone. (A quick aside, when I say carrier openness, I mean that the carrier starts acting as just a data conduit, instead of imposing their branding everywhere on the user experience. So the iPhone introduced manufacturer-initiated updates, no operator logos stuck on the phone, apps controlled by Apple, not the operator, etc. The iPhone experience is the same regardless of which operator you find yourself on, around the world).

So, with Android proving itself to be a decent competitor to the iPhone, it has reduced Apple's bargaining power with operators. That, added to the fact that the "openness" of Android ironically allows the operators to lock it down, means that we may very well be seeing the end of a very short era where handset manufacturers could dictate a decent amount of the user experience. If the difference between the iPhone and all previous phones is an indicator, this is a great shame.

loewenskind5• 16 years ago

>dded to the fact that the "openness" of Android ironically allows the operators to lock it down

Why would this be ironic? It's very obvious that the more open you are the more people can do exactly what they want, and that includes locking down.

kenjackson6• 16 years ago

Actually I think the opposite. Google and MS will exert more control over carriers. MS in particular.

The problem with Apple is that they signed an exclusivity agreement with a single carrier. I'm sure that if Google told Verizon, "The only place an Android phone will be for the next four years is Verizon", Verizon would jump through hoops for them.

But by getting the phone on all carriers, yet still doing 90% of what Apple is doing on a single carrier is impressive.

And MS has taken this a step further with the hardware requirements and no skinning, and one centralized market. Yet, they're doing this across all carriers.

nanairo4• 16 years ago

You make it sound easy. Apple would have loved for nothing more than having their phone on every carrier. But at the time they were a nobody in the mobile arena, and not only was their phone a huge departure but they also wanted to keep the look and feel untouched and have the carrier implement some ad hoc changes for things like visual voicemail.

By the time Google had to make a deal, Verizon was seeing their customers moving to AT&T and needed something to rival the iPhone. Before the iPhone Verizon is said to have told Apple that its contract (to have a Verizon iPhone) were not acceptable. I doubt Verizon would have replied like that had the roles been inverted.

Anyway, the exclusivity will hopefully end soon. What will be your stance at that point?

Retric• 16 years ago

Apple created real smartphone competition in the form of high quality UI linked to an unlimited data plan. They only needed to get AT&T to move a little before competition forced Verizon etc to keep up.

rimantas3• 16 years ago

  And MS has taken this a step further with the hardware
  requirements and no skinning, and one centralized market.
  Yet, they're doing this across all carriers.

And what leverage MS can use? MS first have to convince phone makers to use their OS instead of Android.

martythemaniak3• 16 years ago

Let's not kid ourselves - all the power Apple wrestled away from AT&T it kept for itself - the consumer didn't see much of a change, or saw a regression.

Prior to the iPhone, loading your own apps and changing settings on your smartphone was standard practice. What Apple did was bring the featurephone practice (jumping through somebody's beaurocracy to get to consumers) to the smartphone market. Suddenly, being in control of your own smartphone is an "openness feature".

Now, to loyal Apple fans, who love and trust Apple, this transfer of power/control from AT&T to Apple is the same as them (the Apple consumer) seeing benefits. To other people, it just means dealing with someone else, without any change in the fact that you still have to go through somebody.

lzw8• 16 years ago

Prior to the iPhone, apps on an a phone were paying $3/month to a carrier for crappy junk. The phones were locked down. It was far from "standard practice" to load your own apps onto your own phone, and the apps you could choose to use were highly limited and far more controlled.

I think people forget that before the Apple AppStore there really were very few apps for phones.

roc4• 16 years ago

There's a huge difference between a phone maker having control and a network having control.

Consider: When Verizon doesn't allow mp3 ringtones ... well, you just don't get phones with mp3 ringtones on their network [1].

When Apple doesn't allow mp3 ringtones, Verizon is compelled to open the door to Android phones that happily allow mp3 ringtones so that they can compete.

The only reason Verizon and AT&T have rolled back any of their customary phone-crippling practices is because other phones must compete with the iPhone.

Consumers have 'won' to an astounding degree since the iPhone released. I don't know anyone who's purchased a phone in the last three years, that didn't wind up with a device head and shoulders more capable and well designed than what they had before.

Frankly, I can't think of anything remotely close to a 'regression' that actual consumers would have been forced to swallow post-iPhone.

[1] Yes, I completely discount the existence of unlocked unsubsidized phones on US networks prior to the iPhone. 1. they were horrible, 2. there was no break on service fee for having an unsubsidized phone, if not an outright charge for bringing your own unlocked phone, making the effective price wildly prohibitive.

ellyagg• 16 years ago

You've got to be kidding. The iPhone has attracted hoards of new consumers to Apple who were not previously "loyal Apple fans, who love[d] and trust[ed] Apple". Apparently many normal people feel that they saw a major change for the better after this power redistribution.

padmanabhan01• 16 years ago

//the consumer didn't see much of a change, or saw a regression

The consumers did see a change. The phones beacame usable (pleasure to use) from being unusable (pain to use).

ynniv2• 16 years ago

Pfft. Smartphones used to be more open because they were the Lexus LSA that gets customers excited about buying their $20k Toyta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect#As_a_business_model). Anything was acceptable because they were not seen as a primary market to optimize.

Enter the iPhone, the first smartphone to achieve mass market. The iPhone requires a premium data plan. The iPhone requires an additional data plan to tether only on AT&T. AT&T may have gotten veto power over certain apps in the AppStore. They certainly had input on the maximum file limits over cellular. You see that Apple has considerable power, and that AT&T still has power, but what you don't see is that the consumer has more power in this equation than in the Android formula. Android users can't even install a vanilla OS or their own updates half of the time.

Overall the consumer may have less power than in previous smartphone systems, but to lament this is to assume that the carriers would allow a previous smartphone system to become as dominant as the iPhone without imposing restrictions similar to the state of Android.

awolf• 16 years ago

You touched on this in your last paragraph, but I think it still deserves saying: Apple wields a lot of the power it wrenched away from carriers to the benefit of it's consumers. I'm stoked that my iPhone doesn't com preloaded with crap ware and that my girlfriend's 3 year old device receives OS updates immediately once they are released to the public.

doki_pen2• 16 years ago

I think the balance for Google is whether they fight Apple, or the carriers. Fighting the carriers will fight themselves out of existence. If they cater to the carriers, they can kill the iPhone.

That doesn't mean I like it. Just as locking down devices and forcing apps through the App Store, although beneficial to Apple, doesn't make it good for consumers.

Ultimately, I want an open phone that works on the carrier of my choice. I just don't know if that formula could ever win.

lzw8• 16 years ago

Think about your assertion that the appstore isn't good for consumers. Do you really believe that?

Consumers are not hackers. Consumers do not really understand technology that well. The appstore provides a safe buying experience for consumers, and now, rather than the app marketplace being infintesimal, it is massive and growing quickly.

Apple lit a powderkeg there. How is this not good for consumers?

Imagine if Apple had not provided any protections? You'd have malicious apps all over the place, and constant stories about how bad and dangerous iPhone apps are, and a lot less consumers using apps.

I don't really buy that the iPhone is closed. Any app I can think of that is not evil, Apple will approve for sale on the store. If I want something that doesn't make sense to sell, then I compile it myself and sign it myself with the developer certificate.

The random consumer is not going to be even installing XCode, let alone figuring out how to build even open-source software. So, the $99/year for the keys to sign apps is not really a big deal to me.

loewenskind5• 16 years ago

> Just as locking down devices and forcing apps through the App Store, although beneficial to Apple, doesn't make it good for consumers.

Nonsense. Consumers don't want to have to know all kinds of useless details just to be able to use their device. Personally I hate installing software on windows. There is a vast amount of it, but there is no one there making sure it's not going to damage my system (for the most part, of course you can restrict yourself to only software that has the MS seal). On OSX this is slightly better, but I still hate it when that little box opens up asking me to grant access.

On iOS however, I install without much thought. I know that anything I download there has been vetted by someone with a strong interest in making sure their platform doesn't look bad (among some other interests that are less to my benefit). For me the trade off of not ever having to think about this stuff is worth missing out on things like Google Voice.

I don't think the reason Android has been doing well in the US has anything what so ever to do with silly "open" dogma, but rather that it's cheaper and isn't tied to AT&T.

jokermatt999• 16 years ago

I agree that Apple has done a lot to reduce carrier control, but I don't like Apple's control either. The main issue I have with them is not allowing sideloading of apps and their strict control over the App Store. I see that as just as evil as what a lot of the carriers were doing beforehand. That's why I look more toward Android than Apple. Yes, Android is not as free or open for the end consumer as it could be because Google has made too many concessions to carriers (modifying UI, apps that cannot be uninstalled, slow updates, etc). However, their model is still far more open than iOS, for the simple fact that you can install anything you want on it. Yes, Google still does not allow all apps in the Marketplace, but there's still sideloading.

Edit: Just to make it clear, I agree with the article. I don't mean to say that Google/Android will fix everything. The real issue is still the carriers. However, I think Google is a better example of open than Apple, even if that works against them sometimes.

lzw8• 16 years ago

Think about it this way. You can install any app you want on your iPhone as well.

The thing is, Apple charges $99 a year for the privilege. Get a developer account, and run whatever you want.

In order to have any security, you need to sign executables, and Apple's $99 essentially covers the cost of doing that. This is much better than the $100 per app up to many thousands that previously you'd have to pay.

Maybe unsigned executables is a risk you're willing to take on, but given the level of derogatory misinofrmation that people spread about apple as it is, I understand why they want to limit the potential damage. The media does not distinguish between some code downloaded over the internet for jailbroken phones and something from the appstore, as it is.

And everyone is apparently very eager to make hay whenever they can blame something on Apple.

loewenskind5• 16 years ago

>I see that as just as evil as what a lot of the carriers were doing beforehand.

Seeing Apple's behavior as evil is just not rational. It is a simple, obvious trade off. By having the control they do they can control the iPhone experience and make sure as few people as possible have a bad experience (and since they're selling phones they want to make sure no uninformed user can blame the phone for a bad experience. The only way to do that is try to make sure they can't download misbehaving apps). The cost are: people can do every possible thing they would want to and may not like that, developers have to wait for their app to be on the store, it may get rejected, etc.

Android chose the opposite, an app marketplace that's almost completely open (I'm assuming they don't allow obvious malicious software). This is not more or less evil, it is simply a different trade off. The costs are: people can do anything they want and will sometimes do bad things (accidentally or on purpose), etc.

People need to take the emotion out of the argument. The iPhone isn't becoming a legislated requirement or anything, there is no reason to get emotional about it.

andrewljohnson• 16 years ago

As a developer of both iPhone and Android apps, I see the biggest problem with Android as being the friction to buy.

On iPhone, every single person is pretty wealthy, and more importantly, has a credit card entered into iTunes. On Android, the first app you buy usually involves inputting CC information.

If Android can't address this issue, then the handset measure is meaningless. Android will need to sell 100 or 1000x more than iPhone to create the same market for developers like me.

rimantas3• 16 years ago

There are many many countries you cannot use Android marketplace at all.

patrickaljord2• 16 years ago

> but the combination of fragmentation and very slow adoption of latest releases by the android

Actually, Android is doing not doing worse if not better than iOS here thanks to over-the-air updates of android. To update your iOS you need to connect it to a PC and sync it with iTunes, too much for many people whereas Android updates automatically over the air which makes updates applied very fast once available, check out the numbers here:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/09/11/the-state-of-android...

> Apples market has little fragmentation and high hardware consistency.

>But I digress. Without google imposing some licensing terms, android users are always going to have a poor os upgrade experience, it seems.

Again, I couldn't disagree more. Not having to use iTunes and over-the-air updates is such a better experience than updating an iPhone, so much that Android users update their OS sooner than iPhone users. Plus if you look at the stats, most of the big phones got their update 1 to 2 months after the official release of Froyo, so it's not that bad. And if you have a Nexus or a rooted phone, it's instant upgrade.

alttab• 16 years ago

The upgrade experience is better - but you do that a lot less than making phone calls.

I had an iPhone and just switched to Android. After a couple of days Android is annoying me. With my iPhone, after unlocking my phone I hold the home button then click on a name to make a call.

On Android, I unlock the device, click Phone, click favorites, click the name, then click call. I went from 2 clicks to 6. Its just not as usable.

My fiance got a Palm Pre and despite the lack of "apps" I like the interface way more than Android phones.

billmcneale• 16 years ago

Right, because Apple's influence over AT&T has led to drastic reductions in monthly fees for all iPhone owners and given them access to additional features such as MMS, tethering and unlimited data for free.

evgen2• 16 years ago

The words of someone who obviously never paid for a cellular data connection before the iPhone came along. For approximately the same cost as my previous usb dongle and data plan I get to unplug the dongle from my computer and use it to make phone calls and play games.

amirmc• 16 years ago

It seems that only Apple is left trying to maintain control over the device/experience/software. This is a shame since with some decent competition (read: Google), the grip of the carriers could have been loosened further.

Jobs deserves credit for convincing the carriers to relinquish some control (despite the fact we might not like who he made those deals with). It would be tragic if things went back to the way they were before.

slantyyz2• 16 years ago

The carriers annoy me orders of magnitude more than even the worst iPhone or Android troll could.

lzw8• 16 years ago

Back in the 1990s, Apple, as prescient as always, proposed to the FCC that certain spectrum be set aside for "wireless internet use". This spectrum would have been open to anybody, and would have allowed anybody, using spread spectrum to operate a data network, nationwide.

The reason we're in the spot we're in, and the carriers have so much control, is that the FCC issued only three licenses for each goegraphic area in the spectrum auctions. This limits competition and ensures a near monopoly pricing power for the big three carriers. Subsequent changes have loosened this a little bit, but not a lot.

The real problem here is the idea that spectrum can be "owned" and that our government gets to dictate (based on bribes- which is what spectrum "Sales" are really) who gets to "own" the spectrum.

Apple tried, and I believe google tried recently, to create unowned spectrum. Spread spectrum technology lets people share space-- hell Wifi works on the same frequency as microwave ovens, and still manages to work when the microwave is running. I cant think of a harsher environment than that!

So long as government has a ruthless grip on spectrum, and forces us to deal with the three headed monopoly, there is a limit to how much freedom of choice we can have.

slantyyz2• 16 years ago

As a Canadian, I'm still jealous of the wireless options you guys have. Sure, we can have an iPhone on all major carriers, and we can tether too, but I still feel like the rates and plans you guys get are more competitive than ours.

egb3• 16 years ago

It's tempting to envision a world where phones are like PCs, that you'd just pick one out from Fry's and then install any apps you want (after choosing an app store that you liked) and then hooking up to some voice/text/data plan that you liked, and competition makes all the players work hard for your business...

But I think the paradox of choice kicks in, somewhat, in that users really like the iPhone world's somewhat-curated experience, and that you get a base set of well-built apps that are provided by Apple for the basics (phone, texting, web, email) and they form the core of your mobile usage until you start adding in your own apps.

Having said that, I'd love to be able to pick a carrier for my iPhone, but I don't want the fractured environment/ecosystem of Android.

Tyrannosaurs3• 16 years ago

The scenario you describe - where you just pick a phone like a PC - is what the carriers are trying to avoid. That turns them into a commodity, a bunch of wires.

They'll obviously fight that to the death, hence the customising of phones, the exclusive models, the provision of non-transferable services, handset subsidies and doing everything they can to prevent the average user seeing the alternatives.

The problem is that so long as they keep doing handset subsidies, they'll likely keep winning. I know someone who has just bought a Dell Streak on a two year contract. He got it free but over time he's going to pay more for it than he would for an iPad. Now he's a smart guy - if he's not thinking in those terms you can bet the average consumer isn't.

Basically the networks are providing cheap credit to tie people in to overpriced telecoms services and the consumers love it because it means that for $50 a month (which you can afford) you can have a $600 phone (which you can't, at least not easily).

CountSessine• 16 years ago

Exactly.

We need to stop the carriers (through banking regulation, ideally) from behaving like incredibly dishonest banks the way they are now. At the very least they should be forced to break out the handset subsidy amortization on your bill - IOW your bill would show $25 for your voice service, $25 for your data service, and then $15 for your handset amortization. Moreover they'd have to list a proper interest rate and how much of your principle is left with each bill.

Once people visibly see the handset amortization on their bill, they can reasonably ask, "if I didn't upgrade to a new phone, why am I still paying handset amortization?"

auxbuss2• 16 years ago

At some point, someone will enter the market and provide "just the pipe". Or, the telcos will fight themselves into that situation. We just have a lot of historical baggage to work through first.

Telcos are already a commodity, there's just a bit of cognitive dissonance going on.

knowledgesale2• 16 years ago

The system you described is implemented in parts of Europe, specifically in Eastern Europe - the cell phone and voice/data plan markets are separated completely. As a result, the prices are very low and the network coverage is much better than in the North America.

egb3• 16 years ago

Will we ever see a separated appstore ecosystem anywhere?

NumberFiveAlive• 16 years ago

This has certainly been my experience with my Verizon DroidX. Fantastic hardware, and I love Android, but it came loaded up with crapware I can't uninstall. A Blockbuster App!? Hell, why not put AOL on it while we're at it.

moultano• 16 years ago

It's pretty comical that half of the responses in this thread are trying to place the blame on either Apple or Google.

lzw8• 16 years ago

I don't see it as the same as Apple vs. Google. Apple and Google both have to fight the carriers and they have positions with different strengths and weaknesses.

I think both want to break the carriers power and end up with open networks, but their strategies are very different.

tyng• 16 years ago

Android - good deeds fell in the wrong hands, nuff said. Welcome to Corporate America

orangecat3• 16 years ago

This is war. And this war will go nothing like Apple v. Microsoft. This is about who controls the experience

Quite disturbing that "the user" is not one of the plausible answers.

eogas• 16 years ago

To say it's disturbing is a bit of a stretch. "Disappointing" is what I would call it.

cheesey• 16 years ago

In most wars, it's the people who don't have power that suffer.

Tichy• 16 years ago

But they do have power: buying power. Maybe one could somehow give them the information they require. Of course the operators have done a good job obfuscating the information.

Maybe some people don't want to be helped, either.

biafra3• 16 years ago

To me all those problems with carriers dictating anything looks like a US-only problem.

You can fix this! Just buy more unlocked phones. Since 1994 I never bought a net locked phone. Subsidizing does not have to be linked to a net lock. Subsidizing was never (AFAIR) linked to a net lock in Germany. The iPhone was a first for us (here in Europe). From here it looks like the iPhone brought this consumer-unfriendly practice to us. Thank goodness no Android phone is net locked here in Germany at least no net locked only.

sapphirecat• 16 years ago

> Just buy more unlocked phones.

In my experience, if you buy an unlocked phone, you hand the carrier a bonus payment of the cost of the phone. They don't give you any cheaper service.

And, when I went to replace a Nokia POS that died 3 days after warranty, I discovered that Verizon even subsidizes their prepaid phones: you can get an LG VX5600 for $40 with new service, but to replace the Nokia with the existing account, they wanted $200. (Allegedly, they "don't sell" the Nokia in question as a prepaid, and thus couldn't offer a direct replacement; which raises the question of why phones they "don't sell" come with their branding and work on their network.)

Splines• 16 years ago

I was wondering about that. Why bother buying an unlocked phone if your payments don't change?

I mean, you have the freedom to change carriers at will, but I wonder how often that's exercised.

alf• 16 years ago

T-mobile offers less expensive plans with no contract (and no subsidized phone).

nuclear_eclipse• 16 years ago

T-Mobile will gladly sell you a plan with a significantly cheaper monthly price if you pay the full cost of the phone up front.

RK• 16 years ago

T-mobile USA is (AFAIK) the only US provider that is making unlocked phones better deals. They provide two service types: with contract and without contract with the latter being cheaper.

abrahamsen2• 16 years ago

Here is an example of how it works in Denmark:

https://www.telmore.dk/t2/shop/shop.do?shopUrl=product.actio...

The slider let you choose between low initial price, high monthly payment (top position) and high initial price, no monthly payment (bottom position).

No matter what, the phone is always unlocked.

The only exception is this one

https://www.telmore.dk/t2/shop/shop.do?shopUrl=product.actio...

which is only sold with a high monthly payment, and locked for six months.

So I don't really see Apple as saving us from the tyranny of the carriers, in this part of the world.

blasdel• 16 years ago

You actually can't buy a non-industrial device from anyone but Verizon with their branding and firmware that they will allow on their network. They fought FCC regulations that forced them to open up and lost (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/11/verizon_open.h...), but instead just made their device approval process more public — they never actually got rid of it: http://opennetwork.verizonwireless.com/

Tuna-Fish• 16 years ago

I would also like to point out, that the reason for this is that Nokia has been fighting carriers from since they started making phones, up to and including lobbying for legislation that banned network-locked cell phones in many countries.

Why do you thing they never made much headway in the USA? Because Verizon and AT&T spent more money greasing the congress, and Nokia didn't want to give up.

evgen2• 16 years ago

Nokia never made much headway in the USA because all of their good models were GSM phones -- in the US that meant t-mobile or AT&T -- and back before the iPhone appeared most US cell phone users were on CDMA networks (Verizon and Sprint.) Nokia decided to roll their own CDMA chip instead of paying off Qualcomm (big mistake) and ended up with a weak presence in the CDMA market. Nokia screwed the pooch all on their own when it came to fumbling the US market.

lzw8• 16 years ago

It is worth noting that in every region where Apple does not have carrier exclusivity, they sell unlocked phones.

So the locking is an exclusivity / subsidy component.

It seems clear to me, by studying Apple's patents, that they originally wanted the phone to be unlocked and on every carrier, they even tried to end the subsidy system by selling the iPhone direct....

drpancake2• 16 years ago

My theory is that carrier exclusivity was the price they paid for maintaining complete control of the OS. This seems to make more sense in the UK, where O2 was the exclusive carrier to begin with, until it was given to the other carriers later on.

It was a bargaining chip.

aphexairlines2• 16 years ago

Android phones in Germany (except for G1 and N1) are still dependent on the manufacturer for OS updates and so on. The user (you) can't decide you want 2.2 on your phone when it's released.

aw3c2• 16 years ago

Not true, you can buy unbranded devices.

biafra3• 16 years ago

And you can in the US?

What other phones can be updated without manufacturer support?

Even for the ADP1(G1) and the N1 you need some binary-only files from HTC.

I was successful in building Froyo for my N1. Not so much for the ADP1. (No GSM and no Wifi) I am missing some binaries that seem not available in the stock 1.6 image for the ADP1.

bryanlarsen• 16 years ago

In my opinion, Apple & the carriers are on the same side of this fight. Who controls your phone? The user or some big corporation?

The difference between Apple & the carriers is that Apple is far more competent in its control, carefully avoiding short term gains at the expense of long term gains. Locking crappy adware apps into your phones is an obvious long term mistake that Apple would never make.

Being more competent, Apple is much more dangerous.

ZeroGravitas4• 16 years ago

Android is only free of carrier abuse if you're geeky enough. However, Apple is only free of carrier abuse if you're affluent enough. The average joe is getting shafted either way. (Though, to continue the class theme, note how offended people are that it's NASCAR apps that they can't uninstall, as opposed to the stock market apps they can't uninstall from Apple). Remember when Sony charged more to remove the junk they themselves put on their machines? The subsidies earned by these bits of software lowered the price for those who would struggle to afford them otherwise and for the geeks who repave as an automatic response, similar to how people spending at the overpriced hotel minibar reduce the room prices for everyone else.

If this is actually considered important for folk in the US, then they're going to have to stop the Apple fanboys in the media using it as a stick to beat Google with and face up to the reality that Apple has failed to change the carrier business model too, just as Google's Nexus One failed. I seem to recall that just like the Nexus One, the iPhone was supposed to be sold direct to consumers at the full unsubsidized price.

orangecat3• 16 years ago

I seem to recall that just like the Nexus One, the iPhone was supposed to be sold direct to consumers at the full unsubsidized price.

Excellent point. It was sold unsubsidized initially, but people were apoplectic about spending $600 for a phone. Apple quickly realized that joining the subsidy model was better than fighting it, so they announced the price "cut" on the 3G model and got glowing press, while hardly anyone noticed that with the monthly rate increase customers would be paying more over two years.

Apple has far better taste than the carriers, to be sure. But both agree that you should not have control over "your" hardware.

kylec• 16 years ago

It may have been unsubsidized, but it was still locked to AT&T and only available with a 2-year contract with an ETF. It was basically the cost of an unsubsidized without any of the benefit.

Terretta• 16 years ago

> Android is only free of carrier abuse if you're geeky enough. However, Apple is only free of carrier abuse if you're affluent enough.

Not sure about that dichotomy: unsubsidized, both cost roughly the same, and for both, root/jailbreaks are free.

ZeroGravitas4• 16 years ago

I think you're perhaps only comparing the Android handsets that get featured on sites like engadget. They'll occasionally laugh at some low-end phone and wonder aloud who on earth would buy something like that but generally they just ignore them. Apple has as much intention of fighting for that market as they do of entering the netbook space.

grhino3• 16 years ago

"people spending at the overpriced hotel minibar reduce the room prices for everyone else" only works in a very competitive marketplace where prices are necessarily driven down by competition. Otherwise, the hotel just figured out how to wring out more profit by simply offering an overpriced minibar.

SoftwareMaven• 16 years ago

There's a big difference between the NASCAR app and Apple stock market app. It is exceedingly clear that the NASCAR app was bought by somebody outside of the phone chain (me, manufacturer, service provider) and forced on me. The Apple stock app is a goofy app the manufacturer put on to make sure the home screen wasn't empty.

Yes, it annoys me I have to have a folder of "stuff I don't care about" on my iPhone, but I know Apple and/or AT&T didn't put it there to pad their pockets at my expense and that makes all the difference.

ZeroGravitas4• 16 years ago

Are you sure that they didn't just think "most of our customers would like this" and simply not bother expending any energy to allow people offended by its existance to remove it? Hanlon's razor and all that? And probably the same thought process Apple used for not making its built in apps removable, more work for them and who really cares so just don't bother?

I'm not in the US so I've no first hand experience so maybe this app is some kind of spyware but I'm not sure how spamming people with sports coverage works as a business model and I've seen various people quite pleased at one or other of the "crapware" things they've got. (It seems like a killer app for the iPad is some baseball app, so I can see how people might think that sports coverage is something people actually want.)

biafra3• 16 years ago

"Android is only free of carrier abuse if you're geeky enough."

Or if your carriers behave. In most parts of the world they do nowadays.

PedroCandeias2• 16 years ago

Yesterday I gave a friend's Galaxy S a spin and was mighty impressed. It's light as a feather, the screen is gorgeous and it's an order of magnitude more responsive than my old iphone 3G. I was all set to buy an iphone4, but samsung's device game me pause. So I asked about the apps. What good stuff was there on the Android Market? "Well", he started, "there really isn't one, because the carrier doesn't allow it. I just get the apps my carrier lists on its website". I think that's preposterous, so as impressed as I am with the Galaxy S, I'm afraid I'll be sticking with Apple's product (I live in Portugal... experience will probably vary from carrier to carrier and country to country).

auxbuss2• 16 years ago

Blocking the Market is something Google really should put a stop to. I've never seen this, though, myself. Then again, buy unlocked and it's not a problem

Still, if you you liked the phone, then get one via another carrier.

PedroCandeias2• 16 years ago

Yeah, I'm going to compare the two more thoroughly before I buy. Right now I'm leaning towards the iphone4 but that's just because of the apps. Hardware-wise, from what I've seen, they're about in the same league.

illumin82• 16 years ago

Keep in mind you're comparing a brand new, state of the art Android phone with a 2 year old iPhone. Technology has improved quite a bit on both platforms. You should probably check out an iPhone 4 and compare it with the Galaxy S instead of the iPhone 3G.

swilliams• 16 years ago

What is the rationale behind blocking the market? Is it because the carriers are worried that you'll get a bandwidth hungry app? It just strikes me as completely preposterous and backward thinking.

presty• 16 years ago

That's very strange (the carrier not allowing access to the market). I've never heard of such a thing in any of the Portuguese carriers (TMN/Vodafone/Optimus). Are your sure that's the problem?

Also, It's pretty easy to install apps through the .apks and unofficial markets. Aptoide is an alternative to the Official Android Market.

nanairo4• 16 years ago

I agree with the main arguments. Although as others pointed out this is mostly an american problem (though it still occurs abroad, but less so).

But I find this argument naive: "But this pipe dream is being crushed quickly. The carriers, after giving up ground initially, are fighting back. They are using Android’s openness against the company."

The point is: if Google hadn't done that, the carriers may very well not have supported it. Let's remember that although now we consider Android a strong contender, at the time Android was neither that strong, nor the only contender. I'd be ready to bet that other carriers supported Android as much to hurt Apple as because they knew they could control it.

Personally I'd go as far as to say that Google developed Android the way they did fully aware that this could happen: the bottom line is that Google doesn't make money from Android, and as nobody holds the market in the palm of their hand Google is happy... even though it may mean basically subsidising other companies fight against Apple (at the time).

illumin82• 16 years ago

> The point is: if Google hadn't done that, the carriers may very well not have supported it.

I don't buy this argument. This is one of those slippery slope arguments that are used to justify everything. Let's say you're a Cisco and you want to sell routers and network gear to the Chinese. You can either give their government back doors to spy on traffic and make it easy for them, guaranteeing the business will go to you, or you can take the moral high ground and refuse to build these features into your products. Too often big companies like Cisco, Google, and Microsoft take the approach that money trumps all morality concerns, and we end up with a big brother police state enabled by the very technology companies that were supposed to save us from this future.

Google should do what Apple did and stick to their guns - refuse to let carriers mess with Android.

wvenable• 16 years ago

The first Android phones were nothing compared to the iPhone. Giving everything (including revenues) to the carriers and manufacturers is exactly why Android exists now.

Google could have stuck to their guns, but the situation would be unchanged.

protomyth• 16 years ago

Given Google's approach to Android, it looks like carriers are going to treat Android phones as feature phones and not smart phones. This might be ok for the user, but it certainly is looking like it will hurt developers and power users.

The continued existence of non-commodity broadband providers is going to be a pain for everything on top of the stack.

cies• 16 years ago

Clearly the carriers should be regulated. In the Netherlands they are and we have the cheapest rates (between our narrow borders, outside the borders they screw us double).

For instancen we can keep our number when switching carriers or unlock phones after the contract's finished.

I'd say regulations are needed in order to keep the market from degrading into customer-slavery. :)

gxti• 16 years ago

> For instancen we can keep our number when switching carriers

This has also been possible in the U.S. for as long as cell phones have been widespread. Presumably there is a regulatory reason because I can't imagine a strong reason a carrier would implement it otherwise.

mechanical_fish• 16 years ago

This has also been possible in the U.S. for as long as cell phones have been widespread.

For values of "as long as" shorter than fourteen years, that is:

In the US, local number portability was mandated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1996 with the First Report and Order on LNP and Number Pooling.

Those of us who owned cell phones in the early 1990s remember very well how screwed we used to be.

allwein• 16 years ago

This has only been possible in the U.S. since 2004

http://wireless.fcc.gov/wlnp/index.htm?job=home

mseebach2• 16 years ago

Keep in mind that regulation that forces carriers to be open will entrench the incumbents (that will do absolutely nothing in favour of customers when not a gunpoint) at the cost of new offerings that makes a play to disrupt the market.

The time when regulators gets their eyes open to this problem, is about the same time that regular customers do the same and get ready to leave the incumbents. Best case, you've regulation that says the carriers are supposed to do something they were already going to do, worst case you stripped a potentially disruptive play of it's advantage.

pmb• 16 years ago

Your model of how the world works seems contradictory to the parent's model. In order to decide which model works better in the real world, we can see which more accurately reflects things today.

Netherlands: cheapest rates, entrenched incumbents, good service, unlocked phones, number portability

US: more expensive, entrenched incumbents, middling service, locked phones, number portability

Parent's model more closely matches reality! We have a winner!

This particular market has never been free in the way you seem to think, and the "disruption" you are hypothesizing has some extremely high barriers to entry (first rollout a national infrastructure, second ...), which have prevented it from occurring at all.

RexRollman• 16 years ago

I am not a fan of the iPhone because of its dependency on iTunes. iTunes is an overweight bloated piece of junk and I won't go back to Windows just to run it.

I am not a fan of Android because each individual maker gets to decide if you can have an update or not. That would be like buying a Dell PC and then having to go through Dell, not Microsoft, for Windows Updates.

So for now, I will keep going with my non-smart phone. At least until things change.

matwood2• 16 years ago

"I am not a fan of the iPhone because of its dependency on iTunes. iTunes is an overweight bloated piece of junk and I won't go back to Windows just to run it."

You do know they will activate for you in the store and then only time you ever have to use iTunes again is when an update comes out? Now, this means your phone will not get backed up, but if you set Google up as an Exchange server all your emails, contacts, and calendar items are stored on the cloud anyway.

hasenj• 16 years ago

You're wrong.

You still need iTunes to put music on your phone

ergo982• 16 years ago

Apple has a lot of very positive points going for it (moreso with their recent changes to be less aggressive towards developers), however many of these pro-iPhone pieces (make no mistake, that is what this submission is, with such a distorted view of the world) could be mechanically written by simply parsing the dominant talking points and mashing them together into some sort of superficial slurry that passes a cursory scan test, but falls apart when you actually look at it with any detail.

EDIT: For those without any sense of informational discretion, let me extract the pertinent pieces-

-Apple made an exclusive deal with AT&T. Meaning they bound themselves to a carrier to a much greater degree than historically normal.

-Facetime doesn't work over anything but WiFi -- this is not a technical limitation. Tethering doesn't work without a tethering plan, after finally, grudgingly, being rolled out. Google Voice was strongly believed to be blocked (along with similar apps) because AT&T vetoed it.

-Apple's original resistance to the whole concept of apps was sold on the idea that apps would go crazy and destroy the network. This, again, was bowing to AT&T.

-Apple absolutely and completely controls everything you install on your device. Comments about AT&T not allowing side-loading seem extraordinary when the champion example is Apple, which simply bars that universally. At least consumers can choose to buy a different Android device, perhaps on another carrier. That option isn't avialable for iOS.

-The fact that the Skype example keeps getting brought up points to the extraordinary shallowness of this argument. Skype got paid money by Verizon, presumably, to provide software for its handsets. This is software business-as-usual as long as time. This has nothing to do with Android, and that it keeps getting conflating as some counter example of openness is pure stupidity.

-The installation of Bing on some Verizon phones is exactly what the Android ecosystem allows. In fact Gruber some time back sarcastically (as such is the level of his wit) opined that maybe Android would get Bing given its "openness" (the point clearly being that of course it never would), yet here it is. That's the point. Consumers can choose to go elsewhere. Microsoft can completely coopt Android for their own purposes if they want, and that is how it is supposed to work.

Android is built on the assumption of competitive forces. Verizon's heavy-handedness on the Galaxy S will lose them customers.

Many of the comments in this discussion point to the extraordinary ignorance there is about the pre-iPhone world. Way prior to the iPhone I worked at a business where we distributed Windows Mobile applications: We required no blessing or grant from Microsoft, and on the handset we had pretty much universal control.

Apple's recent moves have made them decidedly less evil, but these current pro-Apple talking points are outrageous, and quite simply deceptively ignorant.

The core problem is that people still have a mentality that handsets should be from $49-$199, which means that you're going in with the carrier on your device. Of course most carriers let you bring your own device (if this isn't legally mandated, it nonetheless remains the practice), giving you an actual claim to own the device.

guelo• 16 years ago

My question is who won this battle when Verizon and Apple negotiated the iphone coming out next year. I'm guessing Verizon wasn't able to get any crapware on there beyond Apple's standard crap, but you never know, Apple really wanted to expand beyond AT&T.

As far as Android, I get the sense that Google is not happy with this situation and they do have one big stick they can use, access to Android Market.

I'd also like to remind the ridiculous Google haters that it was Google that fought the FCC and the carriers to get open access rules added to the bandwidth auctioned off in 2008, those rules should loosen at least what Verizon does in the future.

loewenskind5• 16 years ago

>I'd also like to remind the ridiculous Google haters

Ugh, people who don't fall in love with the same things you do aren't necessarily haters.

ankimal• 16 years ago

".. reducing them to what they should be: regulated pipe providers just like your gas and electric company."

I come from India, the second largest mobile market in the world. (Its a complete mystery why we got 3G just a few months back, but atleast we re getting there). The key in India is that the providers are just that, regulated pipe providers and one only pays for service. I m free to go buy whichever phone I want and do whatever the hell I want with it. I dont have to be in "contract" and I dont have to keep going near windows to make phone calls.

dikbrouwer• 16 years ago

Let's not forget that this is all fairly US-centric; In Europe the handset manufacturers are more powerful. As a consumer, you select a device first and add-on the network operator after. That's 180 off from what's going on the in US. However, it hasn't created the device innovation that we see now in the US with Google and Apple weighing in...

aphexairlines2• 16 years ago

Can you install whichever OS you like in European handsets?

jackvalentine• 16 years ago

Something else to question: is the GSM/CDMA split partially to blame here for intensive carrier lock-ins? I like to follow the US carrier market, but from the perspective that in my own country the last CDMA network was shut down in 2008. Here I can choose to buy a carrier branded phone with a subsidy, or as many people do - just buy a phone outright and pay month-to-month swapping carriers as simply as swapping the SIM card.

known• 16 years ago

iPhone is a Gadget. Android is an Operating system. Why are we comparing them?

IPhone vs Android? No. We're fighting the wrong fight

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