The Android Opportunity

http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/the_android_opportunity

by superjohan • 17 years ago

173 136 17 years ago

A well-written piece from an avowed fan of Apple. What makes Gruber not a mere fanboi is his willingness to take valid criticisms of Apple seriously.

lacker3• 17 years ago

I'm confused by this comment. In this article Gruber is saying how much better iPhones are than everything else. He doesn't seem to take the biggest criticism of "no fixed keyboard" seriously.

jvdh• 17 years ago

He has taken the "no fixed keyboard" argument seriously. He wrote about it a number of times. He came to the conclusion that (when implemented well) there is not much of a difference, except user preference.

http://daringfireball.net/2009/07/mobile_phone_keyboards

georgekv• 17 years ago

"A monoculture benefits no one in the long run, because it’s competition that drives innovation."

I found myself agreeing with this statement strongly.

nkurz2• 17 years ago

To the contrary, I found myself shaking my head. Why is it in Apple's interest to be forced to constantly innovate simply to maintain market share?

To say that 'a monoculture is not in the consumer's interest' make perfect sense, but why wouldn't Apple prefer a case where it has no strong competition? Their goal is profit via market share, not innovation for the sake of innovation.

Calamitous• 17 years ago

Which is precisely why competition is so important. With no drive to innovate, they could saturate the market and park the technology where it is for decades (think Microsoft).

By being forced to innovate, they (or a competitor) can drive consumption up by obsoleting the current wave of technology.

three14• 17 years ago

Because companies that get complacent seem to lose the ability to innovate, so you get ten years of steady profits, and then finally someone eats your lunch.

Anyway, I have an ethical problem with companies maximizing profits at the expense of doing anything useful. Why not innovate even when not necessary? You can call it R&D and not be blamed for wasting shareholders' money.

unalone11• 17 years ago

Their goal is profit via market share, not innovation for the sake of innovation.

Apple's goal is making good products. If they wanted shitloads of cash, they could have sold out at any time in the last decade. Instead, they try to make things that people will love.

If Apple has no competitor, they'll continue to innovate, have no doubts. However, they might not innovate in all ways at once, meaning they might not focus on annihilating all their weaknesses. If they've got a competitor, suddenly there's incentive to beat their rivals in every way possible, and the resulting products are even better.

AndrewO3• 17 years ago

I disagree with the parent, but don't think he should be downmodded (at least not below 1 as it is now). He's making a point which goes against what most people here probably have, but it's prompted more discussion and was made civilly.

stcredzero4• 17 years ago

I hope that someone over at Palm reads this and uses it as a playbook for the Pre. Actually, I hope that someone over at Palm already thought of all this, and that this is their playbook. And others as well.

The platform you need to beat in this plan is not the iPhone. It's the jailbroken iPhone. Make something that the real tech-heads and first adopters cheer, and they will be your beachhead. Do that, and you can get droves of the rest to follow you!

As usual, the hard part is not the idea, it's the execution.

jgfoot• 17 years ago

Actually the Pre has all the features the article is recommending for Android: Over-the-air calendar, contact, and email syncing through Google services; background-capable apps; and no centralized App Store under one company’s ironclad control. (OK, there's no app store at all, although precentral.net and others are already distributing homebrew apps that can be installed if you download Palm's SDK).

stcredzero4• 17 years ago

I wonder why Google isn't doing an App Store?

jsz02• 17 years ago

Probably the single biggest growth stunting problem with the Android platform is the lack of a good advertising campaign. Google, and the handset makers, are allowing Apple free reign of the air waves. If you didn't follow technology it might be easy to believe Apple is the only company selling SmartPhones with third party apps. Google needs to spearhead the campaign and show off a few different Android handset and some applications and generally put their stamp of approval on it. They certainly have the money for it. The lack of aggressiveness on the part of Google with the Android platform has made me question their commitment to it from day one. There are many examples of a first mover taking an insurmountable lead in an emerging market. Google should fight now or it may be a lost cause. Apple is selling A LOT of iPhones.

Goladus• 17 years ago

I wouldn't say advertising campaign specifically, so much as basically little marketing campaign targeting actual phone-buyers at all. I didn't hear about the Palm Pre via those creepy advertisements I saw a pile of tech reviews and youtube videos for it.

mattmaroon6• 17 years ago

He's missing the #1 area where you can compete with Apple (at least for now) and why I think the Palm Pre will do well: carriers. Most people, even high-end smart phone users, choose their carrier first and their phone second. You'd lose sight of that reading TechCrunch or Engadget too much, but talk to people in middle America and you realize it's overwhelming. Be it due to laziness, marketing, employer discounts, customer satisfaction, not understanding how simple number portability has made it, whatever. I'd bet for every person who has bought an iPhone there are 1 or 2 who at least would consider it if it were on their network.

The Palm Pre and Android are both at a huge advantage here. That may not be true when Apple's deal with AT&T runs up though, but for now it's easily the biggest competitive edge available.

qhoxie2• 17 years ago

Most people, even high-end smart phone users, choose their carrier first and their phone second.

I think there is a lot of truth to that, but I also have seen a big shift since the iPhone. Countless friends and colleagues of mine have said something along the lines of "I would never use AT&T if it were not for the iPhone."

mattmaroon6• 17 years ago

The numbers indicate that it's a small shift at best. People switch carriers every 3-4 years on average (usually citing employer discounts, pricing plans, family networks, etc,) meaning that for any given phone, you'd expect 25-33% of purchasers to be new customers. The iPhone is somewhere between 30-40%, meaning that it's probably outperforming the average by 5-10%, which is great but not indicative of a sea change in consumer habits.

It's probably more effective at keeping people on AT&T who would otherwise have left than in bringing new people on.

mechanical_fish• 17 years ago

the #1 area where you can compete with Apple (at least for now)

Your qualifier here explains why Gruber doesn't dwell on this. He wants a competitor to Apple that can succeed in the long haul, not a bunch of scavengers who survive for another year or two, picking off the edges of the market that Apple hasn't gotten around to steamrolling yet.

Indeed, my off-the-cuff take on the state of the market is that Apple's carrier exclusivity is a positive danger to the competition. Because it means that the market sends all the wrong signals. You put out an iPhone knockoff that runs on another carrier, and a bunch of people sign up. Your product is a success! But: The reason your product is succeeding is that the playing field isn't level. And it's non-level in a way that Apple can fix, just as soon as the agreement with AT&T runs out.

My take on the smartphone market in the USA is that Apple's competition needs to race to come up with a product that can survive the day when iPhones are being offered on every carrier. Because I see no reason to believe that such a day will not come.

raganwald2• 17 years ago

In the book "Marketing Warfare," Reis and Trout emphasize that a strategy should attack a competitor's strength, not its weakness.

Weaknesses will all be fixed over time, so attacking a weakness is simply making hay while the sun shines. Of course you should do it, but it shouldn't be a cornerstone of your strategy. It costs your competitor nothing to fix a weakness, they simply fix it and get better.

When you pick a competitor's strength and attack the strength, your competitor has a problem. Fixing the strength will cost them customers.

For example, it's a strength of Apple that they control the hardware and the software, so having Android run on multiple hardware devices from different vendors is attacking iPhone's strength, much as Windows attacks Macintosh's strength by running on commodity PCs.

Offering iPhone on other devices would cripple the user experience, so Apple can't respond without weakening itself. The AT&T deal, OTOH, is just a wekness. When it expires Apple loses nothing by offering iPhone through other carriers.

mattmaroon6• 17 years ago

I'm not so sure Apple will fix this. I mean, why did Apple tether themselves to AT&T in the first place? AT&T was a giant turd that everyone hated 2 years ago, just like it is now. If anything it's gotten far better in that time, and the iPhone has racked up serious sales. It wouldn't surprise me if both parties are very happy with their relationship, and AT&T willing to concede even more for exclusivity.

They did it because they thought they'd make more money that way, and maybe they did, and maybe they still will. Maybe they knew they'd sell 1/2 as many phones that way, but make 3x more per phone and therefore come out ahead, and maybe that math hasn't changed. Certainly AT&T will cling to the iPhone the way the Cavaliers will to LeBron.

Verizon doesn't need Apple. They'll steamroll AT&T with turds like the Blackberry Storm if they have to because they're far and away the best network in the U.S. and everybody loves them. Apple needs Verizon far more though, which means they won't get anywhere near the deal there they will from AT&T in terms of money, control, etc.

So if I had to bet (with someone who doesn't have insider info of course) I'd say we see continued exclusivity with AT&T. I wouldn't lay odds on it, but I'd take even money.

sp332• 17 years ago

The latest Hak.5 episode (The Content-Free Episode http://www.hak5.org/episodes/episode-526 - Skip to 9:30) has instructions to fix this.

Hint: it's a MiFi http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/05/13/verizon-mifi-2200-r...

whatusername• 17 years ago

The Palm Pre runs on 2 major US networks. 2. And just about no-where else in the world.

I can go to Optus, Telstra, Vodaphone, Virgin, 3 - and get a subsidised phone (even free upfront). Or I can even go to http://www.apple.com/au/iphone/buy/ and buy one - and put in whatever random sim card I like.

While googling for this comment I found that palm are looking at releasing a gsm phone soon - that might change things - but for now - the iPhone has a major advantage in carriers - it's called GSM.

andreyf2• 17 years ago

Emphasize that Android apps are background-capable, and that there is no centralized App Store under one company’s ironclad control. There are no tales of rejected Android apps because there are no rejected Android apps.

As much as Apple mucks things up, it isn't without reason that Apple made the apps-in-foreground-only design decision and put so much effort into controlling what software goes on the device.

Unless the Android is going to be marketed to people who care to check which of their background processes has a bug and decides to eats up their battery every once in awhile, there's a big advantage to having apps "just work", even if distribution of those applications is a pain for developers.

jrockway12• 17 years ago

As a recent Android convert, I am confused by all the "issues" that people keep mentioning. Everything on my phone Just Works. When I change the color of a calendar on Google Calendar, the color on my phone's calendar widget changes. When I change a contact on my phone, GMail and Google Voice update almost instantly. When I dial a number on the normal dialpad, my call is automatically routed through Google Voice. When someone who is not in my contacts calls me, a little message pops up with the White Pages lookup results. (This is a third-party app.) When I feel the need to tweet a picture, I click a button, the camera turns on, I take the picture, write some text, and my picture and tweet are posted. When someone messages me on Google Talk, and my computer's Jabber session is idle, my phone makes a noise and I see their message.

I was on the train today, and wanted to catch up on HN. I read five or six articles, and all of them rendered perfectly in the included browser.

Basically, this is what I consider an absolutely perfect phone experience. I could not be happier, as an end user. (And as a developer, I am really really happy.)

I am just confused as to what these iPhone converts are doing. I think they are expecting an iPhone clone instead of a completely different smartphone.

One more thing. I found this comment especially ignorant:

Android suffers from the same issues that have plagued Linux on the desktop for years: the lack of integration between software and hardware, buggy and under-featured applications, a lack of attention paid to user experience issues. The encouraging openness and bits of innovation in Android are overshadowed by mediocrity.

What does this even mean? I see perfect integration between my apps (and the Google apps on my computer), and of course, the underlying OS kernel has no effect on the user experience unless it is really bad.

lacker3• 17 years ago

People who switch to an Android after using an iPhone for a long time are going to interpret anything different as poor UI design. That said, I think the iPhone browsing and app experience is superior, whereas the Android email and chat experience is far superior due to background tasks and the notification tray.

rimantas4• 17 years ago

I am just confused as to what these iPhone converts are doing.

That's exactly why iPhone is superior (so far): it is not about what, it is about how

rimantas4• 17 years ago

Btw, anyone downmoding me cares at least to say, which part you disagree with: do you think that Andoroid phones are superior, do you think it is not about how; or both; or are you just not happy with the way things are? :)

mcantelon2• 17 years ago

In other words, iPhone is about style over substance.

runinit• 17 years ago

They probably mean "it doesnt' work with itunes"

albemuth2• 17 years ago

Yeah, morons, they should just do rsync or something right?

nailer7• 17 years ago

Sure it does - get DoubleTwist. It also works with WMP and Banshee out of the box.

hedgehog• 17 years ago

Which handset is this on? How's your battery life? I have an iPhone but I'm thinking about making the switch for two main reasons: first that things like VOIP apps and Google voice won't happen on the iPhone, and second that Android's security model is vastly better. The thing is, I've spent some time with the myTouch at the T-mobile store and performance was terrible (app launching, returning to launcher screen, scrolling web pages, software keyboard). I've written an Android app but we really mostly ran it in simulation... Then again, it could have just been the floor model's problem. How would you compare performance in extended usage with the iPhone?

jrockway12• 17 years ago

I have the T-Mobile myTouch 3G.

The battery life is a lot better than my old Windows Mobile phone, but I have not gotten anywhere near running low yet, so I can't really comment. My impression is that heavy use does not really run the battery down that quickly.

Performance really depends on what you have in the background. K9 totally kills it for me, because my IMAP server sucks. Google Sky Map and the Market sometimes lag for me. Google Reader can also be very slow. Otherwise, everything is good. I have a task manager installed, but since I stopped using K9, I have not needed it.

It is not a flawless experience, of course, but so much works incredibly well that I don't really care. Google does care about the details (changing colors, syncing contacts), and the third-party apps are really cool. (I forgot to mention Locale above; it's awesome! I never forget to turn my ringer on at home.)

jfno672• 17 years ago

I have the HTC ion, which is I think the same as the myTouch. Performance is similar to what I was getting on my iPhone 3G doing mostly web, emails, messages and phone functions. My battery life is shorter than on my iPhone though, I pretty much have to charge it every night. If I don't then I'll have to keep the usage to a minimum the next day.

So battery is not as good, but the notifications are always timely, since they work in background and latitude keeps my position updated, those are probably the culprit for shorter battery life.

nailer7• 17 years ago

Battery life on HTC Hero is about the same as a first gen iPhone: one day with my usage (heavy web browsing and games).

jacobian3• 17 years ago

Since you've got no problems with Android, maybe you can solve mine:

- Why does the phone crash when I try to pair with my bluetooth headset?

- Why do all eleventy-billion of my contacts show up in the dialer instead of the relatively small handful who've got phone numbers?

- Why the *@#$% doesn't this thing have a proper headphone jack?

- How do I sync music between my computer and my G1?

- How about podcasts?

- How do I play videos on this thing?

- When I mark a contact as a "favorite", how do I change which phone number gets dialed from the favorite screen?

- Why don't I get autocompletion when I use the hardware keyboard?

- Why does the system freeze for about a second when I rotate it?

- Why do about 25% of the apps I have not work with the soft keyboard?

- Why do another 25% not work in horizontal mode?

- Where's the PDF reader?

- Why can't I read Google documents on this thing?

Shall I continue?

boucher• 17 years ago

to be fair, the iPhone is at the same place or worse on several of these issues.

mr_justin• 17 years ago

Some of the issues you are complaining about can be cured with a setting (syncing contacts). Some should not be features of an open handset using non-proprietary technology (syncing music), some are legitimate bugs though not everybody has them (crash when pairing) and some are just rants.

mcantelon2• 17 years ago

That's quite a list. I'm with you on the annoyance with apps that don't work with the soft keyboard, but that's due to developer lag.

I had no trouble finding a video app in the app store that worked fine.

A good PDF viewer is RepliGo Reader. It's $8 US, but no available in some Android Markets (such as Canada).

jrockway12• 17 years ago

Dunno.

I get Google Docs just fine. Google for "Google Docs", tap the first result, and there they all are.

I sync my music with a Perl script that looks at my xmms2 playlist and copies the music in there to the phone. (Not possible with the iPhone, BTW.)

What you consider major flaws are things I have never had a problem with. I do have a few contacts with no phone numbers, but I can also tap them to chat with them via GTalk. (A green light appears next to their name when they are online. Cool!)

Nothing is perfect, nor will it ever be. With the iPhone, you are stuck with whatever Apple says you are stuck with. With Android, you are stuck with whatever you decide not to write.

BTW, one complaint: I wish I had the Kindle app for this phone.

Some other things:

The iPhone is just as bad with respect to proprietary connectors. If you don't have an Offical Apple Cable, you can't even charge your phone. With the HTC devices, you just plug in a standard mini-USB cable. Tradeoff.

litewulf• 17 years ago

For the second one, go to your contacts list, hit menu and select groups. There is an option to limit to contacts with phone numbers. I have no idea why that isn't the default.

Videos, there is an application called "Video Player" that actually, well, plays videos.

nuclear_eclipse• 17 years ago

- Why do all eleventy-billion of my contacts show up in the dialer instead of the relatively small handful who've got phone numbers?

Because the Dialer app is listing all of your contacts, because it serves as both the Dialer and the Contacts app all rolled into one.

- Why the @#$% doesn't this thing have a proper headphone jack?

Yell at HTC, not Android.

- How do I sync music between my computer and my G1?

Plug the included USB cable into your PC. Android will pop up a notification allowing you to choose if you want to mount the internal SD card as a drive on the host machine. Use Finder/Nautilus/Explorer to copy music to the drive, or Google for the proper file that tells the PC that your G1's SD card is actually a music device so that your music apps will sync with it.

Arguably, the G1 should do this for you, but what if you put your camera's SD card into the G1? It wouldn't know the difference, but you wouldn't want it to label the SD card as a music player without you asking it to...

- How about podcasts?

Get a podcast app, or see above?

- How do I play videos on this thing?

Use the included YouTube app, or download a file-manager app (I recommend the Linda File Manager) and click on the video from the file manager. Yes, Android should include this type of app out of the box.

- When I mark a contact as a "favorite", how do I change which phone number gets dialed from the favorite screen?

Open the contact, long-press on the desired number, and select Make Default Number.

- Why don't I get autocompletion when I use the hardware keyboard?

Because, arguably, most people using a real keyboard don't generally need/want auto-completion? Also because with the physical keyboard, there's no keyboard "app" being used in the first place, which is what provides the auto-completion you speak of.

- Why does the system freeze for about a second when I rotate it?

Because of the way Android handles apps. When the screen rotates, Android sends the "Stop" signal to the current activity, resets the framebuffer, and then sends the "restart" signal to the activity, more-or-less forcing the activity to save and load its state and rebuild the UI. This allows Android and the application to pick up new resources or new UI layouts based on the new conditions of the phone (new resolution, keyboard availability, etc). See my previous comment on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699223

- Why do about 25% of the apps I have not work with the soft keyboard?

Most likely because developers did some funky business under the expectation that the user would be using Android 1.0 and/or the G1's hardware keyboard. Please yell at developers to update their applications.

- Why do another 25% not work in horizontal mode?

Once again, developers can specify that applications only run in certain orientations, which can be useful in certain apps (eg, Solitaire really can't play well in portrait mode). Yell at the developers to knock it off if you disagree.

- Where's the PDF reader?

I believe there's one on the Market.

- Why can't I read Google documents on this thing?

I'm not sure why Google overlooked a native app for Docs, but they worked relatively well through the browser, last time I tried. There are also several "Office" apps on the Market, if you're interested...

Shall I continue?

I'd be happy to answer, refute, or agree with more complaints if you can keep them civil.

nwatson• 17 years ago

don't know about your other issues, but I love DoggCatcher (see Android Market) for podcasts. I'm in no way affiliated with the developer. Downloads programs in the background ... when I want news/interviews/talk-show I have plenty.

I used the phone for talk, lots of web browsing, podcasts, and music, mostly. The music transfer is lacking ... I just do file copies. YouTube works fine, haven' tried transferring videos.

albemuth2• 17 years ago

>>- Why do all eleventy-billion of my contacts show up in the dialer instead of the relatively small handful who've got phone numbers?

Contacts -> Menu -> Display Group -> Contacts with phone numbers

jsz02• 17 years ago

Engadget is reporting the G1, due to internal flash limitations, may be stuck at version 1.5 forever. Really horrible situation for such a young platform to already be having these issues.

BillGoatse2• 17 years ago

I'm guessing you're on the G1?

I picked up an HTC Hero (More or less the G3, but I don't think out in the US yet) yesterday. The way it's going, I think I may love this phone more than my child.

Most of your problems are gone with this generation. It even has a standard headphone jack.

Android is catching up, fast.

al3x2• 17 years ago

As the author of that "especially ignorant" quote, I'll try to explain what I meant.

When talking about Linux on the desktop, I'm not talking about the kernel, per se. Mostly, I'm talking about the user experience as informed by GNOME, KDE, and other Linux/Unix desktop environments, which have not been particular successes; Android's UX is a bit like GNOME on a phone, even if it doesn't use GTK widgets. This is to say that most of the applications are pale copies of standard applications on other mobile platforms, and that the UX is generally clunky.

When it does come to the kernel, I'm mostly talking about the difficulty of having an operating system that's designed to support a large variety of hardware. Perhaps I've gotten lemons, but the Android phones I've used seem to have a tentative relationship with their network interfaces.

I would actually welcome a platform that isn't an iPhone clone; that's why I got interested in Android in the first place. Android doesn't need to behave exactly like an iPhone to be a success in my book. It just needs to adhere to the same general level of quality control: things look good, they work right, the interface is intuitive, the hardware is speedy, third-party apps work 90% of the time. I don't care if the interface metaphors or hardware form factor is completely different. It just needs to not suck.

UpFromTheGut• 17 years ago

From a business perspective, making a Porsche-caliber android phone doesn't make too much sense for Google. As far as I know, their business objectives include

1) getting as many possible people online with their cellphones searching the web & clicking ads,

2) stealing Windows Mobile market share,

3) and selling android apps to as many people as possible.

And I believe, in that order.

Besides, I like being able to replace batteries, sim cards, and sd cards on my g1.

edit:formatting/typo

Ras_3• 17 years ago

I think that Windows Mobile is effectively in the deadpool.

With Microsoft signing a deal with Nokia to include Office into Nokia phones, and Nokia's announcement to ditch Symbian in favor of Maemo there's no room for somewhat outdated Windows Mobile.

Android, Apple, Maemo... there's already too many smart phone platforms to develop for. Since MS dropped the ball with their Mobile OS, They might try to adapt their strategy by partnering with Nokia and getting exclusive rights for some software groups (pre-installs) or some other deals. Most likely exclusive search engine deal.

randallsquared• 17 years ago

Er, when the G1 came out, it was already ahead of the iPhone for many purposes: copy/paste, background apps, real keyboard. The newest iPhones have one and a half of those (push notifications being worth some fraction of real background apps), and if they came out with an iPhone with a hardware keyboard, I'd consider buying one.

In the meantime, though, I'm waiting for the Motorola Sholes. :) I just hope they don't mess that up.

BRadmin• 17 years ago

"There are no tales of rejected Android apps because there are no rejected Android apps."

I wonder if all of these mini-controversies actually help Apple and the iPhone. It's another headline, another conversation piece, and like Gruber says, most / many people aren't all that unhappy with the App Store. The only reason they're stories and relevant in the first place is because of the iPhone's insane popularity -- the App Store rejection articles seem to further promote such instead of actually hurting it.

ruslan2• 17 years ago

I guess the only reason why ppl think "iPhone is cool" is just because of slick multi-touch GUI, there's nothing else superior in iPhone per se. I have been programming for both platforms for quite a while and, you know, I find Android's Java less evil than all that iPhone's Obj-C stuff randomly mixed with tons of C wrappers (CoreFoundation) for regular POSIX. I find Android SDK more advanced because, 1) less code does more, 2) it's pretty standard Java whereas iPhone/MacOS is a mind explosive mix of C, C++ and bogus ObjC, c) testing/debugging cycle for Android is significantly shorter and d) Android app deployment is almost instant.

Is there any reason why some vendor cannot implement same multi-touch input on their hardware ? Is it strictly patented ?

dkokelley2• 17 years ago

The G1's hardware does support multi-touch, but Apple requested that it be disabled. http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/02/09/apple-asked-google...

The Palm Pre supports and uses multi-touch in the same manner as the iPhone.

It would seem that multi-touch isn't Apple's sole intellectual property, though they have IMO implemented it the best.

ruslan2• 17 years ago

It's so frustrating when progress gets stuck against someone's greed. I think Google should make Android open source so everyone could commit their code to support features despite the will of Apple or mobile carriers. And this will also invite smaller vendors to use and populate Android.

inklesspen• 17 years ago

I've heard that Pre's implementation of multi-touch is the source of one of the legal battles between Apple and Palm.

unalone11• 17 years ago

I guess the only reason why ppl think "iPhone is cool" is just because of slick multi-touch GUI, there's nothing else superior in iPhone per se.

Slick is superior. Having a phone that looks snappy and feels responsive is superior. It's not superior in a benchmark sense, perhaps, but nobody gives a fuck about benchmarks.

cpr2• 17 years ago

Why do you say "mind explosive mix"--it's just Objective-C++ (yes, which includes C and C++ by definition--not a mix), which I find mind-explodingly good for what it is. (Being a grizzled old hacker with Smalltalk & Lisp roots way back.)

The Cocoa Touch libraries are excellent, as far as they go, drawing on a couple of decades of experience with Smalltalk-style UI code (NeXT and Cocoa); and, you're free to innovate on your own UI as far as you want to take it. Nothing in the way.

The OpenGL implementation (hardware itself & the software interface) is excellent, and just got much better with the 3GS.

Seems like they're moving from strength to strength, and I'm pretty cynical about these things.

acg• 17 years ago

Google were always going to have a tough act to follow. What Apple have pulled off with their platform is nothing short of amazing: but they have used technology they had, and adapted. Google is inventing a lot of the stack, and aren't rolling out on a single device.

forkqueue• 17 years ago

And the manufacturer to do this? Nokia.

Frankly, if the N97 only ran Android and had a better touch screen it'd do most of what this article recommends.

Ras_3• 17 years ago

Nokia is committed to Maemo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maemo_(operating_system)

Here's the announcement: http://www.ftd.de/technik/it_telekommunikation/:Strategiewen...

pavlov• 17 years ago

It's not an "announcement". Quite the opposite: Nokia has explicitly denied FTD's report that they would be abandoning Symbian. However, phones equipped with Maemo 5 are definitely coming to the high end of Nokia's range. (Symbian's strength is that it works with substantially cheaper hardware than any of the competing smartphone OSs, which is great for Nokia, as they are particularly strong globally at the lower end of the market and in emerging markets.)

The important point is that Nokia is adopting the Qt toolkit across the range. Both Symbian and Maemo will have Qt at the top of the stack by 2011. At that point, the underlying operating system won't be particularly relevant to application developers anymore: C++ software written to Qt (with the upcoming Orbit touch UI framework) will be just a recompile away from being ported to Symbian.

patrickas• 17 years ago

Nokia is actually committed to Symbian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian

They denied the "announcement" made in that article: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090812-702406.html?mg=...

alain94040• 17 years ago

Here at FairSoftware, we are watching closely which platform developers are most interested in, and iPhone is almost 10X ahead of Android.

I have been thinking for a year that Android would catch up, but I still don't see real signs.

jamesbritt• 17 years ago

"Here at FairSoftware, we are watching closely which platform developers are most interested in, and iPhone is almost 10X ahead of Android."

Why do you think that is? The sense I get from people interested in iPhone dev is that they think they'll make good coin from their apps.

cpr2• 17 years ago

Well, in our case (indie iPhone developer), I wouldn't touch the combinatorial explosion of testing on random hardware with random features with a 1000' pole.

Also, I hate Java--though it has GC, it's still basically a static language, and horribly verbose to boot.

gsiener• 17 years ago

Is no one trying to get Android working on an iPhone? Surprised I haven't heard anything about that yet.

c00p3r• 17 years ago

Just wait while it will be relatively easy to replace WM on devices like this - http://www.htc.com/www/product/touchpro2/specification.html - like the process of downloading and installing (replacing windows) linux in 90's.

davidw• 17 years ago

I think going head to head with Apple on the high end is a mistake. Google just isn't geared up to ever produce stuff that's quite as beautiful as what Apple consistently manages.

On the other hand, there's a ton of space below that, and a ton of space to make Apple clamber ever higher up the value chain in order to capture the margins they want, keeping them out of the mainstream market.

The Android Opportunity

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