“As an online discussion about iOS vs. Android grows longer, the probability of someone bringing up this link approaches 1.” The argument goes that before the iPhone, Android looked like a BlackBerry clone, and after the iPhone, it suddenly turned into an iOS clone. While this argument, with its pictures, is snappy and easily digestible, it doesn’t actually seem to be supported by the facts.
To summarise the argument: before the iPhone, Android looked like a BlackBerry clone, and after the iPhone, it looked like an iOS clone. The proof that Android used to look like a BlackBerry clone is a photo of a prototype Android device, sent to Gizmodo by an anonymous source. Gizmodo published this photo December 17, 2007.
This photo is invoked very often in online discussions about iOs vs. Android, a discussion we see popping up more and more due to the various legal battles between Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle and one side, and Google and the various Android device makers on the other. However, I always recalled seeing a video where alongside the BlackBerry-esque prototype, Google also showed off a device with a full touch screen.
As it turns out, my memory isn’t playing tricks on me. We’re talking November 12 2007, and Google released the fist SDK for Android. Other than the keyboard-driven BlackBerry-esque style, the SDK also supported touch screens just fine. And, just as I remembered, Google showed off a reference design with a full touch screen (and, by the looks of it, it’s capacitive) – looking suspiciously similar to the HTC Dream, the first Android device – including gestures and flicks.
Both devices were clearly far from ready; both UIs are very sparse and limited, and seem to lack many of the things we take for granted today. For instance, the browser on the touch screen device doesn’t have pinch-to-zoom, which, reportedly, wasn’t enabled in Android because Apple asked Google not to.
The original video in which the touch screen reference design was showed off:
And here are a few screengrabs (taken by Engadget) from the video:
The interesting thing here is that the release of the SDK with support for touch and large screens, as well as the release of this video and hardware reference design took place one month before the infamous photograph of the BlackBerry-esque device. This means that Google wasn’t working with just one prototype, but several, which really shouldn’t be a surprise at all, if you think about what Google wanted Android to be.
Android was never intended to run on just one form factor. Android runs on everything from candybar touch screen phones to qwerty-phones, and everything in between. Heck, there was a race to get Android running on laptops, and even before Android was well and ready for it, it was dumped on tablets.
In other words, unlike iOS, Android was built to be flexible, and run on many sorts of devices, with different screen sizes and form factors. Hence, it is only natural that during its development, Google used various different form factors to test Android on – the first SDK release, as well as the first promotional videos which coincided with said SDK release demonstrate Android was being prepped to run on several form factors.
Now, does this mean that the iPhone had zero influence on Android’s early development? Of course not. Like the iPhone itself was standing on the shoulders of giants (iPhone to PalmOS: hi daddy!), Android stood on the shoulders of giants as well. However, unlike what has already become an accepted truth for some, the infamous photograph of a prototype Android device was not the prototype Android device. In fact, Google was working on touch screen devices alongside that infamous BlackBerry-like device, and the evidence for that is out there, for everyone to see.
Development on Android started in 2003, while development on the iPhone started in 2005. Since both were developed in roughly the same time frame, it’s not entirely coincidental that there’s resemblance between the two platforms. This actually happens all the time in the technology world, as explained by John Carmack.
“Patents are usually discussed in the context of someone “stealing” an idea from the long suffering lone inventor that devoted his life to creating this one brilliant idea, blah blah blah. But in the majority of cases in software, patents effect independent invention,” Carmack wrote on Slashdot, “Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement.”
To answer the question posed in the headline: yes, a prototype Android device looked like a BlackBerry phone. However, at least one other prototype Android device from the same time frame did not (and it wouldn’t surprise me if Google was testing Android on several more prototypes with different form factors). On top of that, the SDK from that exact same time frame also included support for large touch screens. In other words, the argument is invalid.
Does it really matter?
I think that it does. A proper record of history is important, especially now that a proper record of history can mean the difference between winning a multi-billion Dollar lawsuit, and losing it.
I’m working on a large project about the history of mobile computing, and things like this need to be properly documented. Since I’m working on this anyway, it makes sense for me to drop some aspects of it on OSNews here and there.
Yeah, if Google was working on something similar to iPhone before the iPhone was released that might invalidate one or more of Apple’s patents, I’m sure they need you to point that out for them
I swear, if you cared a little more about actual news and less about patents, this site would be much better.
Not at that level of course, but remember, we pretty much hold mini-trials all over the web almost daily.
“I swear, if you cared a little more about actual news and less about Windows 7, this site would be much better.”
“I swear, if you cared a little more about actual news and less about Ubuntu, this site would be much better.”
I swear, if you cared a little more about actual news and less about Mac OS X, this site would be much better.”
You get the idea
. All of those actually happened, by the way.
As much as I think Thom is a excellent troll and I don’t agree much with some of the shit he says … I do have this to say …
He posts most of the news on this site … and actually makes an effort to you know actually write stuff and do a bit of research … even though I think he is overreaching his expertise. It will look good on CV as well.
If you want something more … I dunno impartial and factual there are sites like kerneltrap that will be more what you want …
Edited 2011-10-26 23:04 UTC
To be honest I think you sound like the troll with shit to say if you’re making this comment in a thread where Thom addresses a popular discussion with evidence to support his argument.
I believe there’s a simple response to this:
Go start your own site which is unbiased, non-patent-related, and “much better”… PLEASE!
Why do you still come here?
If all of those “the desktop is a dying form” doomsayers are right, and all of our computing in the near future will be mobile, on mobile operating systems, then stories on patents, following all of this, is vitally important. Do you want a pocket Microsoft keeping the technology world gridlocked for ten years and hampering innovation? Apple will be that company if we let them get away with it, now.
Edit: By the way, I think Nokia might have more to say about that Android prototype than RIM. It looks an awful lot like an E series, like the E71 or E63.
Edited 2011-10-26 23:46 UTC
Why? The patent situation is going to play out however it’s going to play out, regardless of how much/little Thom rants about it. Whether there’s 1 story about patents on a tech blog or 1,000,000 it’s not going to change a thing. Why? Because the people who read these blogs don’t have enough money to buy governments like the big corporations do. Thus, it doesn’t make a goddamn bit of difference whether I stay informed about patents or not.
Am I saying that people should do nothing about patents if they’re passionate about it? No, I’m saying that whining about them on tech blogs is a complete waste of time, because the people you’re whining to can’t do any more about it than you can. If you really want to do something about the software patent problem, find somebody who has a lot of money and convince them that patents are evil. Either that, or find a stock pile of weapons and go in with guns blazing.
BTW: The desktop isn’t going anywhere. As long as people need to spend hours doing real work, they’ll probably want to do it sitting down. At a desk. With a real keyboard and not a f**king phone. Every time some new whiz-bang technology comes out, ‘analyst’ start predicting the demise of the desktop. It’s rather tiring.
Edited 2011-10-27 00:28 UTC
There’s a simple solution that a lot of people have suggested: If you don’t like the content, don’t read. Like it or not, patent news IS OS News. It’s the news of what we can expect out of next year’s devices, or whether the gadget we’ve had our eyes on will ever make it to shelves.
Edit: I don’t think the desktop is going anywhere, but I do think we’re going to see a dramatic shift toward mobile computing. People will be doing more on the go, and desktops will resemble their mobile counterparts more and more. Look at Windows 8, it’s Windows Phone 7 but bigger, for all we see right now.
Edited 2011-10-27 00:42 UTC
Edit: Nevermind – this is an unproductive thread.
Edited 2011-10-27 01:23 UTC
I am sorry I should have clarified (I just wrote what I thought in the context I was thinking) …
I don’t think it matters when it comes to users when they are choosing what they want.
e.g. I chose Android because it I could easily develop for it with the Kit I already had … Windows Phone 7 wasn’t about and Windows Mobile 6.5 was crap in comparison to Android or iOS.
So I choose Android … because it seemed to fit my interests.
Edited 2011-10-26 23:05 UTC
So, now that the US is moving towards a “first to file” rather than “first to develop” patent system, will this diminish the importance of “Prior Art”?
My understanding is, no.
My understanding is that in a “first to file” system, if there is prior art to the first to file, then NOBODY gets the patent.
Are you going back to the 90’s when the PDA battle pitted Apple’s MessagePad and its Newton OS against Tandy’s Zoomer with the DOS-based GEOS? That predates the current conflict, and even though the Zoomer didn’t sell well and the Newton devices were a modest success, it serves to illustrate how Apple carried the mobile computing competition through to the present.
I think the biggest missing link in your analysis (that you should at least address in whatever final work you’re putting together) is the announcement of the iPhone, 8 months before these demos took place.
So Android development had 8 months to adapt to what Apple put out there. In particular the statement that “Android was never intended to run on just one form-factor”. It’s possible that it was designed to run on Blackberry-esque devices, then had a sudden evolutionary shift when the iPhone came along.
The fact that the iPhone was announced 8 months before the first Android shots emerged makes your final paragraph weak, at best. The diverse Android hardware and SDK could still be a result of the iPhone.
It remains true that the original Android strategy at Google was a defence against the then reasonable view that the there was going to be a likely victory of Windows Mobile in the mobile space. Google could see a shift to internet via mobile devices coming and was worried that if something like the Microsoft OS won in the mobile space it would shut out Google’s revenue earning services. If Microsoft mobile had won the mobile OS war this indeed is what would have happened.
Microsoft’s strategy is to commoditise handset hardware and take the bulk of revenue in the mobile space via OS licence fees exactly as it did in the desktop market. Google decided to outflank Microsoft’s strategy by reducing the value of the mobile OS to zero by developing and giving away for free a competitive mobile OS, the free OS will also commoditise handset hardware and Google can take the bulk of revenue in the mobile space via baked in Google services.
It also remains true that Apple had offered Google a close alliance which included a place on Apple’s board for Google’s CEO, an offer Google seemed to have accepted. We also know that Eric Schmidt as an Apple Board ember would have been privy to early demos of iOS and iPhone months before either were made public.
The balance of evidence is that the original target, and therefore the original design template, for Android was Windows Mobile and RIM and that when iPhone launched and was a big success the focus of the design of Android shifted. Google decided that Apple’s iOS was a bigger threat than Windows/RIM – hence all the silly anti-Apple posturing at the Google iO conference in 2010.
Google decided to break the alliance with Apple and to attack Apple’s revenue base by offering a free alternative. This is Google’s modus operandi, to attack other companies business models by offering free alternatives and to thus ensure Google services remains the ubiquitous top level of services. Google has attacked the business of many, many companies in this way, always with the same aim – to ensure that Google and it’s service layer is everywhere and that there is no major sector of the internet or internet activity which is beyond the reach of Google’s overwatch.
Apple felt betrayed by Google’s actions, a feeling that is not unreasonable under the circumstances.
Android was a huge success in terms of handsets sold but was disappointing in terms of earning revenue for Google via it’s services. Google search on iOS, where for the time being it remains the default search engine, generates two thirds of Googles revenue in mobile. Google’s revenue in mobile remains at a much lower level per device compared to per desktop/laptop. Android has not yet safe guarded Google’s service revenue in the new internet via mobile device paradigm. iOS continues to sell very well across a spread of devices including tablets and iPods.
Apple continues to make the most profit in the mobile arena by far and Apple’s iOS device sales continue to grow very strongly. Android sales in handsets exceed Apple’s in numbers but do not generate big profits for most handset makers. Android in tablets has so far failed to dent the iPads market dominance.
In August 2011 Google bought Motorola mobility. It is not clear what the impact of this purchase will be. There are some strong hints that Google wants to develop very cheap or zero cost feature phones with baked in Google services possible targeted on the developing world.
In September 2011 Amazon announce a new Kindle Fire touch tablet based on a fork of Android and a new browser called Silk. Both exclude Google services.
Meanwhile Google is being sued by Oracle for wilful infringement of patents and copyrights over the use of Java in Android. Oracle appear to have a case that might win with unforeseen but possibly momentous financial and business implications for both Google and Android.
Apple bought the AI system Siri and with it’s release in October 2011 it clearly shows the potential for a new way to search for information that can bypass Google. Siri uses Google for web search but can easily use other search engines. Apple continues to receive a payment from Google to use it’s search engine as the default in iOS but could easily afford and quickly implement a switch to another search engine. Apple has bought several mapping companies and it is presumed will have a new mapping system in place soon that could bypass Google maps. Apple’s app store continues to be a huge success obliging all competing platforms, including Android to host app stores but apps continue to pose a problem for Google as many apps access the internet directly and bypass Google services. Apps are not a natural fit for the Google business model.
The war between Google and Apple has only just begun, will it be like the first world war with a prolonged war of attrition and few clear cut victories as both take large revenues from the mobile arena? Will a third combatant in the shape of Microsoft/Nokia become a major player and if so which platform, Android or iOS, will suffer as result? Will Google’s Android strategy be like Germany’s invasion of France – a successful blitzkrieg leading to total victory with Google securing the bulk of the revenue in new mobile services? Or will Google’s Android strategy be more like Germany’s invasion of Russia, stunning early successes, and then crushed by counterattack with Google being excluded from the bulk of mobile revenues?
The next few years are going to be so very interesting.
Good writeup. I for one wouldn’t mind to see a couple more strong competitors in the market without any handset maker totally dominating. It would ensure innovation keeps flowing in the handset market, and would only benefit the customer.
Debunking BS always matters
A myth just burned away, the truth prevailed!
Honestly, this really doesn’t settle anything. Consider the following:
Even though this video is about a month older than the December 2007 picture that’s making the rounds, the iPhone was announced in January of that year, meaning the touch-screen device could easily have been a response.
Also, it’s striking that for the majority of the demo with the touch-screen device, he’s actually driving it via buttons along the bottom and (I believe) on the side… very much like a Blackberry FWIW. We never see the entire device, so I can say for sure. All of the gestures demonstrated rely on a single touch point, and it appears the home screen is basically the same as the first device, but extended into a portrait layout. We never see multifinger gestures or an on-screen keyboard. Granted, it’s a short demo of a prototype, so maybe I’m nitpicking, but overall it looks very half-baked as a touch-driven interface, which lends further credence to the idea that this functionality was added relatively recently. [Actually, a little research confirms Android OS didn’t officially support multitouch until 2.0… I’d forgotten that.]
Additionally, you need to keep in mind that Google execs knew about the iPhone well before it was publicly announced. There’s no definitive proof (that I know of) that Google got privileged information from Schmidt’s participation on the board–different boards exercise different levels of transparency and Apple is famously secretive. However, IIRC, the iPhone launched with Google search, YouTube, and Google Maps. Maps in particular must have required cooperation with Google’s engineers. I think the reason Jobs became so vindictive is that it felt like the Mac all over again–Microsoft got early access to develop apps ahead of launch.
All in all, it’s an interesting find from a historical perspective, but it’s far from a myth-busting smoking gun.
Oh, God. This is exactly like that. When ever the non Apple device is better, its because it “stole” from Apple. While, as many have pointed out Apple “stole” from others.
Indeed, Jobs has admitted this himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU
It seems a one ways street with Apple; they’re allowed to plagiarise whoever and whenever they like. But if anyone even hints at a similarity to them (such as a tablet shaped like black rectangle), Apple get all pissy.
The hypocrisy is strong in Apple.
Edited 2011-10-27 07:35 UTC
That’s because it’s all Apple have. They got crushed before when the generic PC market completely outstripped them in terms of supply and size so they’ve got two options – accept it or try and desperately limit the size of Android’s supply and market size. Apple can only choose the latter because it’s all they know.
Samsung and their ilk have wet dreams about Apple’s profit margins. Apple is being crushed in the fervent hopes of assorted android fans.
As the size of the market and the hardware supply expands those profit margins quickly crumble. It happened to Apple when the PC crushed them. Obviously Apple are extremely concerned about Android enough.
History is history I’m afraid.
Except, the Mac was not ‘crushed’ by the PC….not even close. And, Apple’s year over year quarterly profits show no signs of crumbling. History is not history unless it is repeated. Apple has, arguably, learned well from its previous mis-steps.
The Mac WAS crushed by the PC. Had it not been for several cash infusions and miracle work by Jobs, Apple would’ve been gone. For all intents and purposes, the Mac was crushed by the PC, and the same is going to happen (in fact, it’s already happening) to iOS. It is as inevitable as the tides rolling in.
We’ll have to wait and see if Apple has learnt from its mistakes. There’s not another Jobs running around to save the company the next time.
They were mainly in trouble because they stopped innovating, and they lost their edge in terms of a better user experience. In the first half of the nineties, compacency got the best of Apple, together with an obsolete assembly process (they were still producing computers in USA and Europe while everybody else was offshoring to Asia, and they had a lot of dead stock sitting around) which was a model which was too expensive.
If it was just a matter of horizontal versus vertical integration, with platforms on many devices winning out, the iPhone wouldn’t have happened in the first place since Windows Phone arrived in the market way before iOS. I think the odds are somewhat different now compared to the eighties because Apple has better protected their intellectual property this time around.
The Mac never had more than about 15-20% market share. What you call ‘miracle work’ is what I call unparalleled management, product design and marketing and the resulting customer satisfaction that resulted in the ‘cash infusions’ and profits that Apple consistently shows these days…..it’s no mystery.
Uhm, no. The cash infusions I’m referring to is the money 3rd parties – most notably, Microsoft – invested in the company right when it was about to go under. This was the miracle work Jobs did.
Apple survived that period not because of great products – they survived because of the cash infusions and Jobs’ work surrounding that. The products didn’t come until later.
Microsoft’s money did not save Apple. Jobs came back, pared down the product mix, brought in the right players and righted the ship. Pls stop with the tribal wisdom.
Revisionist history much?
Apple was nearly bought by IBM. Then they were nearly bought by IBM again. Then, Sun nearly bought Apple – a deal was mere hours away. It was generally accepted at the time that either Apple would be bought up, or they would go bust. The $150 million investment by Microsoft was the turning point – without it, Apple wouldn’t have existed as a separate entity for much longer.
The faithful may not like it, but it’s pretty common knowledge.
The Microsoft stock purchase was as much to settle and prevent additional litigation over their appropriation of Apple’s IP. Besides what I mentioned above, Jobs cleaned out the Board and managed th strategy in minute detail. Yes….for those of us who were hands on with Macs and PCs every day in that era, the recollections are quite clear. The tech environment for Apple today is totally different.
You have that completely backwards. Microsoft invested because without Apple, they would have been no escaping the fact that they were a monopoly and would have been broken up.
Microsoft saved Apple to save themselves.
No doubt that was one factor, but not the whole deal by any stretch
Wow, way to go taking the video out of context; when he refers to stealing he is talking about ‘stealing people’ from other companies. The larger part of the quotation is this: Do you steal the idea or do you steal the person who came up with the idea? It is a variation of do you steal the gold eggs or do you steal the whole goose that lays them? I thought it would have been plainly obvious when he starts to talk about Apple employees and their varied backgrounds ranging from Zoologists through to Artists.
How about spending some time LISTENING to the video instead of jumping all around the room excited because you’ve found a video with an incriminating title but you ignore the content in the actual video.
Edited 2011-10-28 01:34 UTC
I did listen to the video and I can hardly be blamed if the uploader decided to edit it in an incriminating way (ie editing out all context).
Beside, the video is almost unnecessary as Apples track record speaks volumes. They are no more the inventors than Google nor Microsoft, yet somehow they want to be treated differently.
I’ve made a list before about features that appeared on Android before iOS and it’s not a short list. So if one was as religions towards Google as many fanboys are to Apple, one could argue that Apple stole from Google. However anyone sane (ie outside of their respective companies RDF) will simply say “there are just best methods of doing things that all companies would agree on”.
This is the only reason I don’t like Apple – their devices are good, but not pioneering and certainly not worthy of all the bullshit that surrounds them.
Well duh, it’s a prototype
I am pretty sure iPhone’s UI looked half baked at some point. Remember that it took Android aboout a year to reach a mature UI.
Regarding multitouch, it wasn’t there because of Apple. Once the Google-Apple relationship started to get ugly, Google implemented it in Android.
Hey, we’re integrating your stuff into OS X/new shiny app/whatever. And we’re gonna fake user agent strings in case you want to look at the logs.
or
Google Engineers, here’s what we’re working on, sign this NDA and if you speak we’ll sue the crap out of you.
^ Since this didn’t happen I assume Apple built the apps by themselves with some form of help from Google, but without revealing the iPhone to them.
I think you missed the point of the argument. Thom is trying to tell us that Android already had a touch phone in the works before the iPhone demo, however, he has sited no evidence for this. Android was started in 2003, but we don’t know any more than that (well, unless I have missed something, in which case, please let me know (no sarcasm)).
The point is, the state of the “touch” version of Android looked half baked in the demo, like touch was a recent addition to it. There are some touch functions, but nothing like the integration that the iPhone had quite a few months earlier.
I understand (and remember) that Apple asked Google not to add multitouch and some other gestures to the OS, but the one shown in the demo was lacking swipes in obvious areas, such as switching between histories in the browser. If this had been in the works prior to Jan 2011 then I’d suggest Google are rather slow at coding, and we know this isn’t the case.
To me (and many others here) it seems that (note the word “seems” as I have no evidence that the touch version wasn’t started before the iPhone demo) that the touch version of Android was started after the iPhone demo. I’m pretty sure a lot of people messed their pants that day, including Google.
Please know, I love competition and I want Android to be around…
I had a touchscreen device that also had buttons in 2004, you could navigate using either. And no, it was not a Blackberry, it was a Sony running Symbian.
Google was designing a system that flexibly fitted most devices on the market at the time †which included fully touch screen devices.
A) Didn’t your mind protest when you wrote those two statements together?
B) Search, YouTube and Maps have had public APIs for a long time. If needed, Apple could have developed Search, YouTube and Maps in secret. Or at least not say what device those would be used on. In short, it’s not proof of anything.
C) It will still not convince all of the rabid WP7* and iOS fans, so I wouldn’t even bother.
There is no smoking gun on either side. The facts are only these:
– iPhone demonstrated/popularised new interaction/input paradigm for smartphones.
– Android was known to exist since 2005
– Android’s demo devices first appeared later than iPhone, much later.
– Dev devices are rarely what they end up to be.
* – Yes, WP7 fans are hypocritical enough to forget that finger touch orientation was popularised by none-other than the iPhone. But as long as they are Android bashing they don’t care for little things called “facts”.
Please follow these steps to make OSnews better.
1. Find shovel.
2. Dig hole.
3. Insert head.
4. No more stories to read on OSnews that you don’t like.
If you want something more permanent, add step 2.5: Fill hole with water.
EDIT: Nvm, this is an obvious trollbait post with no original content or thought. Don’t want to fall into the trap of responding to it.
Edited 2011-10-27 02:10 UTC
And yet it worked. There you were trolling.
It doesn’t really matter what Apple or Microsoft do, Android is here to stay in one form or another.
So that’s Linux on phones and on servers taking up a big slice of the pie. Doesn’t really worry me how big or how small. Choice is much better than the illusion of it.
Now we’re at the “Windows stole everything from OSx” style argument it’s just getting lame/pathetic.
Would it be radical to say Android has copied both BlackBerry and iPhone?
I think I just assume people copy what works.
No, because today you have to be original. It doesn’t matter if there’s only one way of making touch screen OSes: GUI, swiping and a big screen. People will complain:
YOU COPIED FROM MY FRIEND APPLE WAAAAH!
Never mind my comment, not awake yet.
Edited 2011-10-27 06:20 UTC
As others have pointed out already, the first iPhone was announced in January of that year, a full 10 months AFTER this video was made public. Also, the device really looks like a touch form factor with a Blackberry style OS slapped on top. No pinch and zoom, no sweep to scroll, etc. Nothing really is there that makes a touch interface really usable. The navigation clearly is built for phones with buttons. This clearly proves the touch ideas were developed AFTER the iPhone and since these are so similar than the ones on the iPhone, one just has to conclude that the Android team tooked into the iPhone, and copied it. If this video proves anything, it really shows how uninspired and incapable the Android team really is to come up with an working and innovative user interface of their own.
So nice try at trying to shove us your piece of revisionist history as “Fact”, however, this article is pure fiction.
Edited 2011-10-27 06:37 UTC
So I guess in a software project features are just coming up by magic? Maybe, just maybe, the team wanted to have a set of core functionality in there first and then worry about scrolling and touch-friendly buttons?
I’d also like to know what these similarities are. Everybody’s talking about them, but I don’t hear any specifics.
Edited 2011-10-27 07:56 UTC
The whole product design is the similarity. The form factor, the scrolling, the way it works, …
And don’t even try to start a “but this similar feature were already present in product X or software Y”. This only proves you’re a bozo that hasn’t got the faintest clue about the fundamentals of what product design really is about. Design is not about individual features, its about how these features come together in a great product.
Android is the antithesis of good design. Because its desire to be succesful instead of being a great product, it merely rips off the design and character of other, successful products. First it ripped off the BlackBerry design, and when it was clear that Blackberry was going to be passed by by the iPhone, it adopted the iPhone design.
Android merely morphs into what happens to be “le plat du jour” and effectively doesn’t have a spine or character of its own. This makes it a worthless me-too product, because without a host to feed on, it would never know what it would have to be about. Without other, great products around, Android will just succumb in the same degenerated mess that Windows has become over the years.
I don’t think they really care about Android as an operating system, it’s an revenue stream for their services and ads.
Indeed, thats exactly what it is.
And Apple has iOS as a vehicle for iTunes Store and App Store. What’s the difference? Both companies use them to get money from their users.
There was no app store when the iPhone came out, Steve even opposed the idea of 3rd party apps until he changed his mind when he was convinced Apple could pull it off.
For music I don’t the iPhone matters much. I think people buy more using iTunes on their computer than using their iPone. The iTunes Music Store and millions of iPods was enough to have a revenue stream.
Google saw mobile devices were starting to play a much larger role in people’s lives. They bought Android, stole Java, wanted to imitate BlackBerry, then went for iOS, gave it all away for free to make sure a number of companies would produce handhelds with their OS and made sure they all were tied to Google services.
The strategy is working. Although the Android experience is nowhere as good as iOS it is selling in numbers and getting money and our personal information to Google. The core business of Google isn’t Android, search, Google+ or Google Docs, it’s putting ads on your screen and mining personal information to present ads you are more likely to click on.
That is why all their stuff is free. It’s not where they make their money and by giving stuff away for free they undermine paid services of other companies where these services are their core business.
Edited 2011-10-27 21:11 UTC
You want to know what the saddest thing about Android really is?
Not that its a lousy, me-too product with second-rate design, although this is certain to annoy millions of users daily.
Not that it security strategy sucks harder than any other platform out there, making the situation many times worse than Windows, since you even can’t update your phone conveniently to patch it up against vulnerabilies.
These are, in the grand scheme of things, merely annoying quirks, for which the consumer still has a way out (for the moment).
The saddest thing really is that an American company is ripping off American innovation, effectively nullifying its own countries economic edge in this respective domain. And this is happening in a country that has been suffering from bad economy for years, and has had the highest unemployment rate in decades. It’s insane.
I’m not American, but if I would be, I’d be dead ashamed of Google for what its doing to my fellow country men. Its even no longer about “selling out”, its about throwing other companies valuables around for overseas economies to pick up and run away with. There’s zero pride left.
God the troll is strong in you.
Sometimes it takes a troll to prove a point to a misguided troll.
I don’t like Android, but I don’t think it’s THAT bad. 🙂
I think the problem is that Google sees it as a means to make more money using their core business: ads and personal data mining. Unlike Apple who try to build customer loyalty by making a customer friendly product. So at the basis Android starts of the wrong foot.
But then you have all these companies that install Android on their phones. They too don’t care about customer experience, they care about selling their handset. So they are less “motivated” than Apple to provide updates, as that doesn’t make them any money, selling new handsets does.
The Android idea is pretty good (the idea of an open system, not copying iOS of course), but it has become a bit messy. Google should take the lead and clean the mess, but they don’t seem to care too much about it.
I’m not a big fan of this one platform many device approach. When it comes to the PC space, I’d rather see 5 incompatible platform with each 20% of the market, rather than the one dominant platform which runs on the majority of the devices like we have now. It would be a lot more interesting space for consumers.
When we look at the seventies and the eighties, the PC desktop space was a lot more interesting than it has been for the last two decades. It brougth us things like the Apple II, the Commodore 64, The Amiga, the Mac, … Each of those set a precedent in the market in one way or another, be it in either pricepoint or capabilities. There was a lot of choice for consumers back then, and a lot of companies pushing the technology to the next level.
These days, consumer’s choice is limited. For a regular consumer it either boils down to two things, getting a PC, or getting a Mac. There are enchancements, there are speedbumps, but it doesn’t greatly alter what you do with these systems, nor does it try to be. And some promising stuff pioneered over 30 years still hasen’t happened in the computer space because of it.
Edited 2011-10-28 09:59 UTC
The 80’s was the golden age and a lot more fun. I have a lot of stuff from that time.
I guess with Windows PCs it’s the same scenario I described regarding Android. Vendors don’t care about customers, they put a number of components in a box and sell it. There is nothing special about an HP or Dell PC. Creating your own hardware and software gives a computer an identity, which PCs sadly lack these days.
Last week I managed to get my hands on an Apple eMac. It runs great! Installed an AirPort Extreme card in it, ordered memory for it (to make it run even greater). It’s a fine machine despite its age. A single 1.25 Ghz G4 CPU. It’s probably 7 years old. When people see it they notice it, it makes them wonder about. I doubt any PC does that to anyone.
Indeed, its only when all these components come together, that you have a working product. I think you must have experienced the difference between the two approaches, to really appreciate its added value.
And when you think of it, the computer industry really is a kind of an oddball in this, when compared to other industries. When you look around the house to all our other appliances, nobody really cares about its innards in the same way many do with personal computers. For things like microwaves, fridges, juicers, your car… we tend to look at the whole package, not the components. Who cares about his juicer running a certain platform? Its intent is to squeeze juice, and when it stutters, we think if it as being a lousy product. Who cares about his ability to upgrade his washer to a faster engine at a later period in time? When it breaks down every 5 times we do laundry, we think of it as a lousy product.
When we tend to care about other appliances, we care the most about overall quality, or how much fun we have using them. The amount of fun we have with them tends to be opposite proportional to how easy they are to use. This stems from the fact that the more complex things are, the more we feel intimidated by it, and the less control we have over it.
The reason why you buy Miele appliances or for example the Dyson vacuum cleaner is that they are better crafted and more thought trough than others. This is what allows them to offer a competitive advantage, and opening the door for new, better ways to do things and to advancement in general.
It’s become virtually impossible to do this in the PC space these days. Its totally commoditized. You have a handful of dominant players for each set of components, they try to put it together as cheap as possible, and that’s that. Little thought goes into it. Let’s hope the same thing won’t happen into the smartphone market. this market is living up its eighties now, if Android succeeds to dominate the next decade, we know pretty well where this segment will be going.
Edited 2011-10-28 10:46 UTC
Funny enough a couple of times I saw lists regarding why you should run Linux on your desktop and a few times the reason “your VCR probably runs Linux” came up (or other devices).
This always seemed like a pretty silly reason to install Linux on your PC.
Bullshit. I experienced both (I have had about 7 or 8 Macs since 2004), and both sucked. Macs break down just as often as PCs do. Because, you know, they use the exact same components. At least with a PC you have the option of buying decent components, instead of Apple’s habit of choosing low-quality components and charging the moon for them.
It is an absolute myth that Macs are more resilient of whatever than PCs.
I wasn’t comparing Macs against PCs. I was comparing computers made in the PC space as a whole before and after Windows became dominant, my point being that the industry was a lot more innovative when it wasn’t dominated by a common platform.
Edited 2011-10-28 11:23 UTC
I seem to have no problems with these “low quality” components. Even my retro Macs all work fine.
But I don’t think you can state Apple uses cheap components and charges a lot for them.
When you buy a Mac you buy the complete product. That’s the components, the enclosure, the operating system and the software. For me, perhaps not you, this is money very well spend.
If you’d offer me a Windows PC twice the power for the same money I would decline. Well, I’d probably decline even if you wanted to give it to me for free.
Bullshit. I experienced both (I have had about 7 or 8 Macs since 2004), and both sucked. Macs break down just as often as PCs do. Because, you know, they use the exact same components. At least with a PC you have the option of buying decent components, instead of Apple’s habit of choosing low-quality components and charging the moon for them.
Actually this is irrelevant as all these macs you have bought were 2nd hand.
It is an absolute myth that Macs are more resilient of whatever than PCs.
Actually I am still running on my 2002 Quicksilver. What a machine, it boots in about 5 seconds (granted, I am using universal user) and very fluent under Tiger. I do agree that Flash speed sucks big time on this one. I also have a 2008 MacBook Pro which is by far the best laptop I ever owned (maybe my old IBM Thinkpad was the same quality). The Lenovo Thinkpad I am using right now is going to be replaced (after the mobo and keyboard was changed). My oppinion is that you can keep a Mac longer than other PC (maybe those rugged and cool laptops are a exception but they are very expensive and Linux support on them is not so brilliant)
The difference is Apple doesn’t make their money from services, but from products.
Googles biggest revenue stream is ads. Their software efforts are mainly targeted to securing those revenue streams. One of the main reasons they launched Android was to ensure a revenue stream for mobile ads.
Apple’s main revenue stream is devices. Services like the App Store, iTunes store and iCloud are merely ways to integrate these devices and make them work better so they become more appealing to customer.
So its a very different starting point for both companies and this difference has effects on all the products they release.
So to summarize : If you like a good product, get an iPhone. If you like good ads, get an Android.
Edited 2011-10-28 09:28 UTC
Apple’s main revenue stream is exorbitantly priced devices, vendor lock-in, and forced upgrades. You’re naive if you think Apple has your best interests at heart and not the almighty dollar. It’s a corporation not your girlfriend.
At least they spend time in thinking about what a good device should be about. They spend a lot of time doing that when building a new product. Apple products are not “technology in a box”. Apple products are “tools which happen to be made with technology”. Its another way of looking at technology, and the reason why they are so good in building breaktrough devices. They start with the customer experience, then work their way back to the technology.
Personally I don’t mind paying an extra to have a well thought through solution. Having 200MHz extra or 250GB extra doesn’t mean anything when the end result isn’t thought trough. Most people won’t even max out a computer that’s made 4 years ago.
So even if it is a “worthless me-too”, developers blithely ignore that part. Yes, even those that code for iOS first and then port to Android.
Up until the day where good products like iPhones get pushed out and Apple stops making them, after which Android turns out to be the piece of dung its destined to be, and the whole market collapses because nobody really likes to use these over complicated phones that require headaches like virus scanners and anti malware products to keep them running, and end up being used by that like to tinker with these and the market just turns the way it was before 2007.
Ofcourse, all this will be a huge benefit to all the Android developers out there.
Virus scanner?
There’s enough valid criticism of Android, you know. No need to start lying.
Apple-approved too:
http://www.intego.com/virusbarrierios/
Then I absolutely must reconsider gifting my tech-challenged mom Lenovo’s inexpensive dual-sim Android phone because it is so much more harder and inelegant than the iPhone, and I’ll have to ward it from malware myself because I’m a carefree peruser of apps.
Yeah, Android is empirically inferior to iOS. Forget about the “what works for me” adage.
Android has recently surpassed Windows as being the primary target for malware writers, so yes, you should reconsider.
Links or it didn’t happen.
Android has surpased Windows as a malware target. I’d love to see your source data on that one.
It was on the news not too long ago. Android malware has been spiking for a while now.
One of the main reasons is this : The sorry state of Android updates for devices :
http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visua…
I can agree very much on the manufacturers crippling Android. It’s one of the things that’s kept me away from the platform (c’mon N900.. just a few more years and hopefully a true upgrade from it will turn up).
For me, the Nexus devices come closest just because they are closest to the actual Android distro rather than the manufacturer currupted child fork distros (all claiming to be the parent).
The article was an interesting read but I’m not seeing how it relates to your initial claim in this thread:
“Android has recently surpassed Windows as being the primary target for malware writers, so yes, you should reconsider.”
There was no discussion of malware in the article. This seemed to be the only comparison of Windows vs Android:
”
It seems this is one area the Android/Windows comparison holds up: most app developers will end up targeting an ancient version of the OS in order to maximize market reach.
”
Given that Win7 surpassed WinXP in terms of install base figures, I’m not sure that this is even accurate. Either way though, it focuses on what version of the OS brand name is being targetted by application developers. They are targetting compatability with an older version to sell to the older and newer versions. This is not a discussion or comparison of malware.
For malware, I’d expect to see figures related to malware counts with Android’s malware library exceeding the Windows malware library. I’d expect to see discussion on attacks and rates of success; market share and metrics showing that the a larger Android install base is attracting more malware.
There is defintely malicious code being written to target Android. I just don’t see the ten or twenty reported Android virii/trojans surpassing what a Windows box can potentially face yet.
(Thom has linked the article.. guess it’s over to the next discussion to continue this)
So….. You’re actually arguing that Android is nothing like iOS?
Wow, I never realised what a great Christopher Walken impression Sergey Brin could do.
Edited 2011-10-27 09:01 UTC
I find it strange that Apple supposedly asked Google not to implement pinch and zoom. After all it was not invented by Apple. It was clearly a part of the first Jeff Han multitouch demos.
The idea that Android started out as a Blackberry clone has no really good evidence, it is mostly a question of some interesting speculation. It has a similar architecture (Java-based apps for one), a deep integration with a messaging service that the company tries to sell to enterprises (Blackberry system in general, Google Apps), and the most shown early prototypes were of the Blackberry form-factor. The early SDK was also very weak in both media and graphics, making it seem a fairly poor fit in the iPhone class (in fact, graphics acceleration in the large has only just arrived in ICS). Additionally the early Android sell was very based on being able to run on low-end hardware, a promise that never came to be in the post-iPhone world. This still remains as very strange design decisions in the system, with a custom VM and bytecode obsessing with reducing memory use, and support for only very small heaps in programs, despite the fact that the rich smartphone UI of today will use up vastly more memory in graphics than any saving in bytecode size can hope to offset.
In the end both positions remain based on speculation, the article shows off the Dream and SDK support for it in November 2007, almost year after the iPhone announcement and half a year after the iPhone actually hit the market. Certainly no support for the idea that Google came up with the design independently.
Thanks for putting that together. I find it interesting how OS’s or devices have evolved over time. And, I honestly didn’t know a lot of the items in that story (in which there were other prototypes). Keep them coming.
Actually, iOS is a variant of Mac OSX. That suggests to me that iOS is more flexible than Android — inasmuch as I am unaware of any Android-based desktops or laptops. If such exist, I guess that puts them on par.
The argument that Android is designed to be flexible doesn’t really show in their ability to adapt to different form factors and use cases and prompt quick releases, either. Just look at how long it took them to crank out a version for tablets. And even when they were able to put out 3.0, they still were too embarrased to release the source code.
Without technical details you can’t know.
Android was not meant for tablet/monitor form factor. This isn’t same as high-res phone screen (where everything is upscaled and then looks approximately the same). Difference is, screen is bigger so UI elements, fonts fit better when proportionally smaller vs. screen than on the phone form factor.
ICS claims to solve that issue by automatically adapting application UI to tablet and phone mode. AFAICT, competition doesn’t have similar scheme, either you writer an app for a tablet or a phone. How this new feature of Android will work out in real is another question though.
iOS is derived from Mac OS X in the same way Android is derived from Linux – in other words, they’re not all that similar beyond the core operating system.
I don’t see how your statement disagrees with mine.
That said, my understanding is that Android contains little of GNU/Linux beyond the Linux kernel, with freshly-written services, device drivers, etc. on top of it — much like WebOS. iOS, on the other hand, contains much more of OSX than XNU. I’m not sure of that, though; I’m inferring from what I’ve read.
So far as I know, that is not correct; my understanding was that iOS didn’t share much more with desktop OS X than the kernel, pretty much like Android and Linux. I think Apple originally claimed that they where closely related, but I think they baked off of that pretty quickly. Which kinda makes sense, since I personally doubt that you really could design a userspace that’d work well both on smart phones and desktop systems; the things that make for a good userspace in each case are just too different.
Which on a totally different topic is why I’m extremely dubious of what I’m hearing about Windows 8; I just don’t think the things that make for a good phone userspace make a good desktop userspace or vice-versa.
Edited 2011-10-28 22:43 UTC
Nope, thats wrong.
iOS is a streamlined version of the desktop OSX, the two are very similar up until the UI layer (Cocoa vs Cocoa Touch). Ofcourse, some APIs are device specific, but most of it is the same and in some cases unique APIs introduced to one platform also end up in the next version of ther other.
The big similarity makes it relatively easy to for example port iPad and iOS apps to the Mac and share code between Mac and iOS based projects.
iOS shares more with OSX than Android does with Linux.
For the latter, the situation is a bit more complex, but it boils down the fact that for Apple products, the main difference is the UI layer, where the APIs remain the same or are designed in the same way. For Android, the API’s are mobile specific (The dalvik vm)
Watching the Engadget Show 012 again, and they are discussing a portrait Android device with a keyboard, Josh and co. are asking why hasn’t Android produced a Blackberry alike by now…
Kinda funny if all their early research for a BB clone to not release one for such a time… no?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/30/the-engadget-show-012-omar-khan-…
The orginal Android UI was indeed a Blackberry clone. Ask people who have seen beta versions with their own eyes asshats since you seem to think UI is everything. Although I bet Rubin will go on a NDA rampage and sue anyone who talks about it. It was danced around the valley during pitches in late 2006 early 2007. It had more in common with the Hiptop than anything else because it was essentially Danger minus the DangerOS plus Linux.
Rubin has a long history of this. He helped Apple/then General Magic rip off the metaphor and UI of Microsoft Bob of all things at Magic Cap.
The business model pitch for Android was Red Hat meets Blackberry without a hardware or cell tower revenue stream (sell support and services infrastructure to carriers). The pitch was not very successful because everyone knew full well (except apparently Microsoft) the quality of the software services at Danger (also known as vaporware shit).
This is all primarily because Blackberry was synonymous with success in smartphones at the time. Everyone knew the target. For someone who trumpets bias not overriding common sense you are an utter fail, Holwerda. This is a pretty well-known story.
Also, this is long before Google got involved.
To deny the actual history of the development and its startup pivots amounts to fanboi bullshit trolling. That is the way tech startups generally work. XXX meets YYY and try to out innovate and outperform/disrupt the existing competition on the details. Kinda the point that agile startups are able to pivot much faster than the lumbering “old” giants when the market shifts (see BlackBerry Storm).
I doubt Android didn’t have a touch screen prototype from the very beginning. The concept was explored lots of years before. It was just a matter of it being economically viable. When that was the case, everybody supported it!
This old device had a touch UI.
The Star7 PDA Prototype – 1992
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg8OBYixL0
My phone is a Samsung Moment from 2009, currently running Android 2.1, the last release available for my model phone. My screen doesn’t have multi-touch, which I’d assume is required for pinch-zoom. I can’t even use Android 2.1 to the fullest because it does have features that use multi-touch, but my phone’s touchscreen simply doesn’t incorporate it. I get along just fine with what I have, so why chastise an OS which was still in the early development stages for something that isn’t so commonplace as some may think?
In 2007 almost every mobile manufacturer was looking for the optimal way to navigate a mobile.
Android also was looking for the optimal way for input. I saw about 3 different prototypes phones of android. All with various input methods.
Before the Iphone there where already full touch screen devices like the LG prada.
To prove my point:
My phone at that time had every input method imaginable:
It was the SE P990i: a normal phone keyboard, a scrollwheel, a qwerty keyboard and a (resistive) touch screen. Even the camera was used as a scanner!
Back then everybody had it’s favorite input method, because all where suboptimal. Especially the P990i: most apps required the normal phone keyboard which made it bulky and refused to work with the qwerty or touchscreen!
The Iphone made a huge impact because it proofed you can use a phone with a touchscreen without a pen.
The HTC dream was introduced as an alternate. But many people found it geeky with its sliding keyboard.
Which was suboptimal, because you had to slide.
Manufacturers started using Android because they could mimic the Iphone.
Quake!!! One word ‘nuf said.