Steve Jobs Lashes Out At Android 864
Ponca City writes "Steve Jobs doesn't usually make a guest appearance on Apple's post-earnings conference calls with analysts, but this time he made an exception, attacking Google for marketing its operating system as 'open' versus Apple's 'closed' iOS. 'Google loves to characterize Android as "open" and iOS and iPhone as "closed." We find this a bit disingenuous, and clouding the real difference between our two approaches,' said Jobs. 'Android is very fragmented. Many Android [manufacturers], including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user's left to figure it out. Compare this to iPhone, where every handset works the same.' Jobs stated that the real debate is between 'fragmented versus integrated' and which is better for the consumer. 'When selling to users who want their devices to just work, we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time. And we also think our developers can be more innovative if they can target a singular platform rather than a hundred variants.' Jobs also criticized the Android Marketplace, pointing out that there are at least three other app stores being launched by vendors, causing confusion for users and work for developers. 'This is gonna be a mess for both users and developers,' Jobs said. 'Contrast this with Apple's integrated App Store, which offers users the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone.'"
Dear Steve (Score:1, Interesting)
Not everyone wants what you like, some of us can make our own minds up based on our needs and preferences. Ever heard of slide out keyboards?
This all seems very familiar.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't this the same "Cathedral vs. the Bazaar" argument?
Re:Choice is good for consumers (Score:3, Interesting)
fragmented? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, right. iOS is about as fragmented as Android is. And the people I've talked to with iPhones older than version 4 are having real troubled with the latest version of iOS on their iPhone 3* phones - majorly slow is what I've heard.
While there is _some_ truth to Android not being as open as Google would lay claim to, it's certainly more open than iOS is, and when it comes t getting an app out, Android is the platform benchmark for letting anyone release an app. Apple's a joke in this area. I don't know how app distribution works on Blackberry/Windows Phone platforms, though.
You can not only release your own app on your own website, you can actually open your own Android app MARKETPLACE. Sorry, but that's a level of openness Apple can't and won't compete with.
Re:No, they don't. (Score:3, Interesting)
I can see the source code for Android
I'm a big FOSS fan (typing this on an Ubuntu box) but the whole "I can see the source" thing rings hollow for me.
Every day people use things they don't have the source to. From the firmware in the alarm clock that wakes them up to the BIOS in their computers to the code running the microwave oven. The TV cable box firmware (heck, the TV itself!), alarm system firmware, automobile computer firmware, etc.
Yeah, it's nice to have the code, but I don't base decisions solely on that. If I did, the house would be pretty empty.
Re:Creator and Overseer of Android Responds (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be meaningful if I could put that into a usable device without voiding all of my carrier user agreements.
"Somewhere out there is a magical open android!"
"If it's not on my phone I don't care."
Re:Choice is good for consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
Yea, people fail to recognize that they're both great systems.
Interesting observation. Read stuff from a bunch of iPhone fans and it pretty much uniformly toots Apple's horn. Read from stuff from the Android fans and you'll see they're much more likely to be bashing Apple rather than raving about the good stuff within Android.
Re:Creator and Overseer of Android Responds (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with this as it relates to the market is that a vanishingly small percentage of the population would even know what cd means, much less make. These markets serve people that want to get stuff done (email, phone, text, post to websites/blogs/etc...) and are not remotely interested in using the device to geek out on it. They use the devices that allow them to do what they want while staying out of the way. My principle complaint of the Android devices when I had one was that a simple OS update meant reinstalling all of my apps! Why in the world would someone allow that to be shipped? I swore off Android at that point, but may look at it again some time in the future.
For now, iOS lets me do what I need to do without getting in the way or making me find the right libraries or compile anything. When I spend time compiling software for the iOS, I want it to do something new and perhaps make some money while doing it.
I have an HTC Evo since the day it was released. Since then, I've been through a few minor updates and a major release (Froyo). I have never had to reinstall apps and I've never had to worry about libraries or compiling anything at all. For that matter, I've never known anyone to have to compile anything for Android with the exception of a developer I know.
So, I don't know what phone or Android version you're running, but it can't be anything recent. I think your issues could be compared with someone bashing Ubuntu because way back when they ran Linux, they had to compile everything from source.
As for Apple, I have two iPod Touch units, one 3rd Gen and one 4th Gen. I've had to reinstall different software apps several times and had some just stop working after a time (don't know if an update caused the problems). Of course, when something stops working on the iPod/Phone, there's really nothing you can do except uninstall and reinstall and see if that fixes your issue. Other than that, well, just uninstall and hope you can get your money back if it's an app you paid for. Those issues were with the 3rd Gen. I can't really speak for the 4th Gen as it only worked for a couple of days before I had to send it back to Apple. Apple service was great, but I shouldn't of had to send the damn thing back in the first place. I didn't have to pay any money for the repair, but it did cost me several hours trying to figure out what was wrong + a trip to the UPS store to have it shipped back to Apple.
Oh, and don't even get me started on iTunes...
Re:Just work (Score:2, Interesting)
Going on half the time, it doesn't.
Whether this is ATT's fault or Apple's I don't know, but it sure does seem like Steve has a good bit more of that great integration work of his left to do, I mean, I get the value to Apple of preemptive dissing on the competition, but I'd still like to hear what Apple's plan is to make my iPhone "just work."
Re:They are for two different people (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Open? People break both open. (Score:4, Interesting)
By your 1% definition, even gNewSense wouldn't be open if you put it in front of my grandmother.
Re:Creator and Overseer of Android Responds (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, you've misread who it's "open" for..
BSD/Apache style licenses intend to provide "openness" for developers and hardware makers.
GPL(especially v3) intends to provide openness for the end user.
Both are valid, but different. Android is mostly Apache 2.0 licensed, and that decision and thinking show through the Android ecosystem.
Steve says "Don't Panic!" (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Open? People break both open. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Next up: straightjackets vs. utility belts (Score:5, Interesting)
Both sides (as well as Windows and MacOS desktops) need to learn that it is not acceptable to lock me out of my own device.... under any circumstance.
It is not acceptable to encrypt any communication in a way that *** I *** as the owner of the device am refused from seeing what is sent. In other words, my device shall not be used to keep me out of the loop. Trust is between me and my device and me and any company I choose to deal with. Not between the company and my device.
Re:Tweetdeck's reply? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, and Steve Jobs mentioned that as the only example of how fragmentation is an issue for development.
Very funny because the report he referred to was actually a praise to Android.
Big fail there. I would like to know if he said that due to ignorance or if he was just that bad at lying.
I think the difference is... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the real difference is "just work" vs "just work the way I want it to". There is certainly a market for "just work". There are enough people willing to conform their work habits to a device's paradigm to make a device manufacturer a very good living. Apple was successful at this, Microsoft less so, because Apple has an interface that's useful and intuitive and people enjoyed using the device. And Windows Mobile... well, that's a different article.
Jobs seems to have drawn the wrong conclusion from this -- that the primary success of the iphone is because every device works the same. The obvious argument to this is that I don't use every device, I only use the device I own, and it works the same every day. The real success of the iphone is that it provides a better experience. And it truly does. I'm surprised that Jobs appears to have forgotten this.
Android also provides a better experience, with the added wrinkle that you can choose the experience you want by choosing a different device and/or customizing the device you have. To people who want to bend a device to their workflow, instead of bending their workflow to a device, this has considerable appeal.
I think what Apple is missing out on is the customizable aspect of personal devices. And before you say it, this is not a nerd only thing. My 16 year old daughter reports that android is becoming more popular with her circle of friends partly because they *are* different (or can be made different) instead of everything having the exact same device with the exact same interface running the exact same apps. (Daughter turned down the iPhone for a Galaxy S and hasn't touched her iPod Touch since she got it.)
Jobs can continue to rant about conformity, fanbois and people who genuinely want a device that "just works" will continue to buy his devices, and he'll do really well. For the rest of us, there's Android.
But.... Listening to Jobs rave about everyone using exactly the same device, I can't help but flash back to that original Mac commercial in 1984. Walt Kelly was right.
Re:Good problems to have... (Score:2, Interesting)
PCs are, for the most part, just hardware fragmented. The OS of the standard PC tends to be a fairly standardized version of Windows.
Android platform is seeing a much faster and much heavier fragmentation than the Windows Desktop has ever seen. If it keeps going this way much further, in 2 years people may as well forget about making Android Software and focus on making "HTC Incredible" software or "Evo" software, etc etc.
Re:God, Just Shut The Fuck Up (Score:1, Interesting)
Can't install it on most of the actual hardware out there because they won't run your unsigned OS image.
You can shut the fuck up now, dimwit.
Re:Dear Steve, (Score:3, Interesting)
> funny that my at&t android will only install items from the marketplace and not
> 'any app i choose' - i read a forum that said i needed to root the device to remove that restriction.
You need to read different forums. Go to Settings, then Applications, and check the setting that says "Allow install of non-Market applications". Done. No root necessary.
Re:Next up: straightjackets vs. utility belts (Score:2, Interesting)
I hear it's so much better when someone else adjusts all the straps for you.
Like HTC or LG? Verizon?
With Android, it's "open" unless you want to include Google's full Android functionality, then there are some artificial technical requirements. But even so, you can still customize it quite a bit, with "you" being the hardware manufacturer. Finally, you take it to the carrier who locks it down some more. I'm not saying this to knock Android itself, just the notion that it's some sort of Freedom system like Linux is. It's similar, and the end products are a bit more open than iOS, but they are nothing like what people like to pretend.
As for iOS's "straightjacket", that implies extremely limited freedom. It takes an exceptionally warped sense of reality to think of iOS like a straightjacket. iOS has, and continues to, outsell Android. Consumers aren't forced to do this by monopoly, nor do they do so out of convenience or cost (like the inevitable McDonald's comparison), they do this because they specifically choose to. People don't generally choose things that are so severely limiting like straightjackets, so something's definitely off in your analogy.
There's no doubt that Android is more open than iOS. What is in doubt is the extremes being portrayed, and more to the point, how much that difference matters to the common consumer. The answer so far is quite clear.
Re:And that, kids is what we call... (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a better term for it; the non sequitur. The last haven for politicians and snake oil salesmen. When honed to perfection, the listener never even realizes he's no longer listening to an answer.
"I believe we should remove all references to Christianity from our government."
"Well, you must hate Jesus!"
"I disagree with this war."
"You're either a coward or a traitor!"
Re:Creator and Overseer of Android Responds (Score:4, Interesting)
What good is open if it's just a line of bash(1)? Software openness is supposed to benefit everyone, not just the companies that sell you their paint-by-numbers no-source-available iterations of it. It's not like any of these products are any cheaper to the end user because the OS is open, or the choice in applications isn't really all that better because it's open. And you're really evading the main point, that this is an OS for the exploitation of vast untapped smartphone markets. People want mobile internet, and Android is happy to give it to them on the carrier's terms. Apple at least had the good sense to see the cellular networks as adversaries, and to prevent their interference in the transaction between the hardware vendor and the end user. But Android is obsequious to their will -- the OHA is little more than a proxy for cellular network providers and commodity handset manufacturers.
This is the pursuit of "open software" as a marketing bullet-point, and not as a thoroughgoing commitment to the freedom of users to do "what they want" with "their phone." Rubin's tweet really encapsulates Google's attitude toward openness. What he left out was:
Typical elite geek attitude that only people who know how to hack are entitled to the fullest benefits of computing.
Re:Open? People break both open. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good problems to have... (Score:3, Interesting)
Android only has one problem - Google doesn't make a phone.
If Google actually made and sold a reasonably competitive phone then they could point to it and say "hey, here's the hardware that runs the software. You can do whatever you want with it." That's open.
What they really have is some software that is technically open, but there's no hardware to run it on. Which makes Android phones about as open as a router that runs Linux and distributes the code but doesn't give you any way to install your changes.
Re:Creator and Overseer of Android Responds (Score:4, Interesting)
Only on droid 2, droid 1 you just flash a rom that is already rooted on to the phone.
Oh, well, that totally invalidates his point about the droid 2...
Besides, given the Droid 2 is locked down, I think it safe to say that's what Motorola intended from the get-go. They just happened to fail with the Droid 1.
Mr. Gates, I Sincerely Apologize (Score:2, Interesting)
OK, I was a Mac developer for ten years or so and I completely bought into the "Microsoft is Evil" bandwagon. But I have to say, boy was I ever wrong. First, companies like Blackwell and Haliburton showed us what evil really is. Then Mr. Jobs shows us that while Apple was a great and brilliant underdog, they are absolutely atrocious market leaders.
As much as I loathed Microsoft, they always competed on pure technical innovation, not on lawyers. First Apple sued Microsoft and now they are suing HTC. The patents are questionable and the new lawsuit won't protect iPhones any more than the old one did Macs. But the suit is classic FUD. Accept when Steve says it he is a true believer.
Just to spell it out, Open means you can run Flash on it. Open means you can have a keyboard if you want. Open means you can use a different carrier if you want. Open means you can have tethering and real multitasking if you want. Open means you can compile it yourself.
Remember the old toaster Mac? How can he keep making the same mistakes over and over. No user exapandibility doesn't make a better user experience. No true multi-tasking also doesn't improve the use experience. Being locked into AT&T doesn't improve the user experience. Not being able to use it in South America doesn't improve the user experience.
I'm not too big to admit I was wrong. Mr. Gates, and all of Microsoft, I apologize.
Re:They are for two different people (Score:5, Interesting)
iPhone: My friend did a full reset of his iPhone, it prompted him "Do you want to back up your iPhone?" he did this. While it backed up his settings. It did not back up his Apps nor his thousands of photos from recent holidays. Needless to say he was distraught and a bit like "So tell me about this Android thing?". Apple gets alot right, but gets other things catastrophically wrong.
Frankly I have heard so many stories like this and I've never had a single problem with my Android phones. In situations like this it's saved my bacon by respecting my data, and the completely painless syncing to Google is a delight. Every non-geek I know who's bought an Android is utterly happy.
Re:Open? People break both open. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here are just some off the top of my head:
- Tethering (even on pre-2.2 devices and without rooting)
- replacement keyboards and input methods, including handwriting
- full replacements for built-in apps and dialogs (mail, calendar, camera, image browser, etc.)
- full Google Voice support
- apps that intercept calling (e.g., redirect some/all calls through calling cards or VoIP)
- speech recognition and text-to-speech, fully integrated into the OS
- OS task scheduling and context apps
- file and data sharing between apps, plus end user apps to manage that
- remote phone management
- third party app stores
- synchronization over wifi
- third party music and video stores
- in-device scripting and development
- third party VPN apps
- adult apps
Some iPhone apps try to provide this, but it's pretty much useless. For example, there is a speech recognition app and some handwriting recognition for iPhone, but you can't actually use it to input stuff in other applications.
Re:Good problems to have... (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing you're overlooking is that there is one operating system that binds together all of those 'fragmented' hardware components from multiple manufacturers: Windows, with a consistent user interface.
What we're seeing in the Android space is much more akin to the Linux desktop model: it's all "linux" but it looks and feels different from device to device, because manufacturers insist on rolling their own interfaces (KDE, Gnome, et. al.), and multiple interfaces in the mind of a consumer = "totally different thing." They don't care that it's a Linux kernel, they only know that "the buttons look different."
Re:They are for two different people (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as syncing things like contacts and calendars there is nothing that compares to mobile me. Data on all of my ios devices and macs (I have 5 devices to keep sync - iPhone iPad, home iMac, laptop and work Mac) syncs instantly. No need to even tell it what to do beyond entering my username and password. I've never seen any service/app combination from either Microsoft or Google that comes even close in that arena.
I've never really been interested in storing my documents on a remote webserver so google's apps don't really hold any interest for me.
As far as a holistic ecosystem goes.. Apple has nailed it.
Re:Good problems to have... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, Google tried making a phone and it didn't work out so they went back to supplying software. Bully for Google.
An open operating system isn't open at all if there's nothing to run it on. So the "openness" of Android is just a marketing slogan.
Re:They are for two different people (Score:3, Interesting)
Most cell phone users have a two year contract, meaning they only upgrade their phones every two years. I had a T-Mobile G1 and less than a year after its introduction it was obsolete for anyone but the hackers because even though the phone COULD run higher versions of this "open" Android, it was abandoned because frankly no one makes any money in free upgrades.
I've really only seen like, 1 or 2 Android handsets have more than one point release upgrade and with the rate of Android releases that's just asinine. Apple supported their original phone in OS updates for 3 years and it can still run the latest applications.
As a consumer, you know, the people who actually have the money, I won't buy another Android phone because A) I don't like to have to jump through hoops to get root on my phone (with iPhones it's a simple, automated process) and B) I'd like updates for a phone that can support them to actually be delivered upon instead of constantly buying a new piece of hardware.
Jobs is babbling. (Score:0, Interesting)