8 ms·

I think you're wrong about the write-once run-anywhere software ecosystem that Windows had to deal with. There was an incredible proliferation of different hard

by apu 16y ago

I think you're wrong about the write-once run-anywhere software ecosystem that Windows had to deal with. There was an incredible proliferation of different hardware -- including drivers etc. -- and it was mostly up to Microsoft to make sure that the OS continued to work flawlessly (or at least at whatever level of semi-stability it managed to attain) across all of these different configurations. This is an enormous responsibility that Apple has never had to deal with -- there's a difference of at least 3 if not 4-5 orders of magnitude in the number of different types of hardware platforms that each company had to deal with. Android has a few dozen phones to support. And yes, the "metaphor" is slightly different across phones, but it's nothing like having to deal with every random piece of hardware that every company puts out.

lukifer 16y ago
> it was mostly up to Microsoft to make sure that the OS continued to work flawlessly I would say that's the difference: Microsoft abstracted most of the differences through their APIs. Android obviously handles some of these issues, but devs have to pay far more attention to degrading gracefully on different screen sizes, lack of multitouch, lack of hardware keyboard, etc. Of course, web devs have had to play a similar game with the various browsers for a decade and a half, so it isn't necessarily a show-stopper for the ecosystem.
redrobot5050 16y ago
>This is an enormous responsibility that Apple has never had to deal with -- there's a difference of at least 3 if not 4-5 orders of magnitude in the number of different types of hardware platforms that each company had to deal with. Apple is supporting two gens of hardware. The iPhone OS will support the iPhone 3GS, the latest iPod Touch, the next-gen iPhone (as of now, unreleased) and the iPad. Android has 19+ phone configurations (not counting carrier specific nuances in the firmwares) to support. I think its interesting that Mr. Lyons is "blown away" by Android features that will be coming to his iPhone in 30-60 days, with the exception of teathering (which isn't Apple's fault, but AT&T's). Also, people hate to hear this, but a jailbroken iPhone provides a much better experience and much more competitive than Androids.
- studer 16y ago
  > Also, people hate to hear this, but a jailbroken iPhone provides a much better experience and much more competitive than Androids. That's your opinion, not a fact. There's no reason to hate you for your opinions, unless you somehow imply that your opinion is somehow more relevant than my opinion (hint: it's not).
  - redrobot5050 16y ago
    No, it is fact. Let me rephrase: A jailbroken iPhone provides a much better experience (than a regular iPhone) and is much more competitive with Android. Look at the features Android offers that Apple doesn't...widgets? Jailbreak. Multi-tasking? Jailbreak. Themes? Jailbreak? Customizable lock screen? Jailbreak? Multiple ways of loading apps? Jailbreak. Do you have to pay for some of those features? Yes. Does the marginal utility of any of those features lead to a truly "must-have" experience for the average consumer? Not in the slightest.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Also, people hate to hear this, but a jailbroken iPhone provides a much better experience and much more competitive than Androids. And according to Jobs, the jailbroken iPhone even includes free room and board for a few years.
  - lukifer 16y ago
    Can you back this up? I've never seen anything beyond voiding warranties.
    - jrockway 16y ago
      http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking...
      - redrobot5050 16y ago
Retric 16y ago
I think you over estimate the number of types of harware each platform had to deal with. PS: Orders of magnitude 3 = 1,000, 4 = 10,000, 5 = 100,000. Now if you ment 3-5x the number of platforms but 1000x is way to high.
- sophacles 16y ago
  That depends on how platform gets defined. At the OS layer, a reasonable argument could be made for (cpu, northbridge, southbridge). Of course the whole northbridge thing can actually not include usb support, or disk io support, which can then throw more multipliers in there based on chip... Sure there are standards to describe hardware interactions, but any reasonably experience sysadmin will tell you horror stories of when they found a weird issue with chipset X not following the standard just right, and needing a special case driver that no longer worked with the OS of choice. This means there are combinatorial multipliers on a per device basis (or some percentage thereof...)
  - Retric 16y ago
    Drivers sit outside the OS and the BIOS get you to the point where you can install drivers so at the OS level it's really just a question of # of BIOS's per instruction set * number of CPU cores. PS: Consider when you need to install a RAID driver before installing the OS.

by apu 16y ago

lukifer 16y ago

> it was mostly up to Microsoft to make sure that the OS continued to work flawlessly I would say that's the difference: Microsoft abstracted most of the differences through their APIs. Android obviously handles some of these issues, but devs have to pay far more attention to degrading gracefully on different screen sizes, lack of multitouch, lack of hardware keyboard, etc. Of course, web devs have had to play a similar game with the various browsers for a decade and a half, so it isn't necessarily a show-stopper for the ecosystem.

redrobot5050 16y ago

>This is an enormous responsibility that Apple has never had to deal with -- there's a difference of at least 3 if not 4-5 orders of magnitude in the number of different types of hardware platforms that each company had to deal with. Apple is supporting two gens of hardware. The iPhone OS will support the iPhone 3GS, the latest iPod Touch, the next-gen iPhone (as of now, unreleased) and the iPad. Android has 19+ phone configurations (not counting carrier specific nuances in the firmwares) to support. I think its interesting that Mr. Lyons is "blown away" by Android features that will be coming to his iPhone in 30-60 days, with the exception of teathering (which isn't Apple's fault, but AT&T's). Also, people hate to hear this, but a jailbroken iPhone provides a much better experience and much more competitive than Androids.

studer 16y ago
> Also, people hate to hear this, but a jailbroken iPhone provides a much better experience and much more competitive than Androids. That's your opinion, not a fact. There's no reason to hate you for your opinions, unless you somehow imply that your opinion is somehow more relevant than my opinion (hint: it's not).
- redrobot5050 16y ago
  No, it is fact. Let me rephrase: A jailbroken iPhone provides a much better experience (than a regular iPhone) and is much more competitive with Android. Look at the features Android offers that Apple doesn't...widgets? Jailbreak. Multi-tasking? Jailbreak. Themes? Jailbreak? Customizable lock screen? Jailbreak? Multiple ways of loading apps? Jailbreak. Do you have to pay for some of those features? Yes. Does the marginal utility of any of those features lead to a truly "must-have" experience for the average consumer? Not in the slightest.
jrockway 16y ago
Also, people hate to hear this, but a jailbroken iPhone provides a much better experience and much more competitive than Androids. And according to Jobs, the jailbroken iPhone even includes free room and board for a few years.
- lukifer 16y ago
  Can you back this up? I've never seen anything beyond voiding warranties.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking...
    - redrobot5050 16y ago

Retric 16y ago

I think you over estimate the number of types of harware each platform had to deal with. PS: Orders of magnitude 3 = 1,000, 4 = 10,000, 5 = 100,000. Now if you ment 3-5x the number of platforms but 1000x is way to high.

sophacles 16y ago
That depends on how platform gets defined. At the OS layer, a reasonable argument could be made for (cpu, northbridge, southbridge). Of course the whole northbridge thing can actually not include usb support, or disk io support, which can then throw more multipliers in there based on chip... Sure there are standards to describe hardware interactions, but any reasonably experience sysadmin will tell you horror stories of when they found a weird issue with chipset X not following the standard just right, and needing a special case driver that no longer worked with the OS of choice. This means there are combinatorial multipliers on a per device basis (or some percentage thereof...)
- Retric 16y ago
  Drivers sit outside the OS and the BIOS get you to the point where you can install drivers so at the OS level it's really just a question of # of BIOS's per instruction set * number of CPU cores. PS: Consider when you need to install a RAID driver before installing the OS.