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John Gruber: I'll Tell You What's Fair

160 points by dave1619 16y ago

drivebyacct 16y ago
Apple locking Google out is the same thing as Android competing with iOS. Yup. What's new? One side is competing with the other. The other side is locking them out of the platform on an application (Google Voice) and an advertising level. What if Google said they weren't going to allow Apple apps on Android or allow iAds on Android (not that I think either would ever happen in a million years). I simply can't fathom the double think that Gruber uses to excuse Apple's actions while pointing fingers at Google.
- nooneelse 16y ago
  > I simply can't fathom the double think that Gruber uses to excuse Apple's actions while pointing fingers at Google. I wonder what it must be like living with the knowledge that your ongoing fame is so dependent on friendly leaks and peaks from a patron known for ire-based reversals of largesse. His career keeps him prone to something like Stockholm syndrome. At this point, how many months or years away from this dependency would he need, before we could start trusting that he is giving us independent opinions that are truly from him; not things that are, as likely as not, what he needs to believe.
  - rortian 16y ago
    Well said. I think the biggest break he's ever had was Steve Job's endorsing one of Gruber's posts as Apple reasoning.
  - commandar 16y ago
    > I wonder what it must be like living with the knowledge that your ongoing fame is so dependent on friendly leaks and peaks from a patron known for ire-based reversals of largesse. His career keeps him prone to something like Stockholm syndrome. Just as an example: I think a lot of people forget that a couple of years ago, Apple was very friendly with Gizmodo. That started to sour when Gizmodo ran some pieces speculating on Jobs' health, and has only deteriorated since - Gizmodo was cut out of prelaunch iPad access entirely and we all know the iPhone 4 saga by now. Apple is very comfortable with being the ones to taketh away.
OoTheNigerian 16y ago
John Gruber's arguments are painfully weak. "It’s not that Google changed course and got into the phone business, period. It’s that they got into the iPhone’s segment of the phone business. This is what Android looked like in 2007. Here’s an actual hardware prototype from then. It didn’t look anything like an iPhone, nor like anything Apple would ever be interested in making. It looked like a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone — hardware keyboards and non-touch screens" His highly flawed assumptions are 1. That the hardware was the competition. 2. Google bought a software company to compete in hardware 3. HTC was not making touch screen phones before. 4. If you see a successful trend you stick to something unsuccessful in order not to compete. He goes on to say "I don’t believe Apple would have unveiled iAds. Maybe I’m wrong, and Apple would have done it anyway, because it always comes down to money, and there’s soon going to be an awful lot of money in mobile advertising." sigh! He speaks about the absence of comments on his blog. I think he can do whatever he wants regarding that. What surprises me is the amusing weakness of his arguments. This is the first time I have actually read a full blog post of his (I mainly see bits of his writing in rebuttals) and I go away wondering how he has been made into a thought leader of some sort.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > 1. That the hardware was the competition. Apple is a hardware company, that's what they see and compete on. > 2. Google bought a software company to compete in hardware 3. HTC was not making touch screen phones before. hardware and software go hand in hand. Google implemented a touchscreen core since the first public Android release and their base design (the N1) is fully touch-oriented. They clearly set up the Android platform aiming at the segment the iPhone also occupies, putting the platforms head to head. I don't see how you an claim otherwise.
  - nooneelse 16y ago
    Google made an OS that can support dozens of different hardware user interface variations. It is the phone makers that keep tailoring it along the lines of making it touchscreen-centric. Any one of the handset makers could come out with a keyboard-centric design at any time. The OS is rather agnostic on this.
lionhearted 16y ago
I like John Gruber, and I upvoted this article, but this point: > Look at those 2007 Android designs compared to the original 2007 iPhone. Now compare a 2010 Android design to a current iPhone. Don’t tell me Google’s mobile strategy hasn’t changed. I mean, he's totally right. It did change. But it wasn't to knock off Apple, it's because Google is building what consumers want and demand now. Apple can say, "We pioneered that!" That's true. But they can't say, "We pioneered that - how dare they!" Because that's misplaced. Consumer preference has shifted, and yes, that's due in large part because of Apple's actions. But Apple gets into trouble when they start thinking, "People want iPhones and these jerks are copying our iPhone" - because consumers don't necessarily want iPhones. They want well-designed devices which are fun and intuitive to use. Apple helped reveal that path, but they don't exactly get to plant a flag in the ground and say that's theirs now, forever, and how dare anyone else build well-designed devices with intuitive touchscreen interfaces. Any other company I'd shrug at the misplaced righteous indignation, but Apple really should know better, since they got into this with Microsoft over "look and feel" last decade over GUI. The reaction was the same, "How dare Microsoft try to give people Apple-like stuff!" But that's wrong. Microsoft gave people what they wanted, which was pretty and and more intuitive navigation. It's like - when you introduce a new general standard, you can't really own it. It's out there. You get a massive head start, but then people will start using that standard and innovating on it. Traditionally what companies with the head start do is cut prices to lock in market share and make it impossible for people to compete, but Apple runs on crazy margins, so they refuse to do this, get angry at whoever is making something that fills similar needs for a lower price than them, and then lose their market. And now they're doing it again.
- joshsharp 16y ago
  I came here to post exactly the same sentiment. Claiming Android could've competed against Blackberry instead is disingenuous - why would Google set themselves up to challenge a second-rate user experience when it could aim to be the best?
  - archon810 16y ago
    At this same exact moment, in an alternate universe, Gruber is making the exact same point about Android going after Blackberry instead of Apple, and poor Blackberry because Android intruded on their business so unexpectedly. Give me a break, John.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Gruber thinks competing with the iPhone is "a dick move"? That seems an odd opinion, yet boldly stated as if it was normal. And in particular by using large capacitive touchscreens with soft keyboards? That's just the way the world was going, you'd be as right to argue that they shouldn't use Wi-Fi or USB or Windowed UI or mice because Apple did them first. (edit: just to be clear, I'm aware that Apple did none of these things first, but popularised and/or polished them to greater or lesser extents)
- alxp 16y ago
  >Gruber thinks competing with the iPhone is "a dick move"? That seems an odd opinion, yet boldly stated as if it was normal. Well they entered the phone business licensing their software for zero dollars. It's a fairly common thing that software companies do - Sun dumped a ton of money into OpenOffice just to be a pain in the ass to Microsoft, Microsoft keeps trying to do search and maps for god knows what reason when it isn't making them money. If the software industry were more mature they wouldn't rise to the press's baiting about "killing" each other and just put resources into their core products and make those great.
  - philk 16y ago
    So you're saying if it were a more mature industry then companies would just stick to their defined roles and not compete with each other as much? As a customer I'm glad it's not a mature industry then.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    > Sun dumped a ton of money into OpenOffice just to be a pain in the ass to Microsoft No, that was a defensive move to prevent Microsoft from completely taking over the software industry which would've made them irrelevant. You also forgot about Java, which original was targeted at consumers as a way to have multi-platform apps that will make the OS irrelevant.
rodh257 16y ago
“We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business." They aren't selling the operating system are they? therefore really the business is advertising, as it has always been with Google, and Apple has just entered that business.
- ugh 16y ago
  That’s distinction is not really all that important in this context. Google wants to shape the future of the mobile web in order to sell ads – but in that process they could easily crush Apple. That’s why Apple fights back.
shib71 16y ago
Normally I just ignore the articles that don't interest me - I assume they're for someone else. But I'm beginning to find these blog-war posts tiresome. There is no new information, no novel insight. Just he said, she said. Is this really the kind of content the HN community is looking for?
- robotron 16y ago
  Not I.
- krolley 16y ago
  I read Daring Fireball quite often, and I must say that I am surprised to see this kind of 'retort' post on DF. It seems out of character.
  - chc 16y ago
    Gruber has been that way recently. My impression is that he realizes Apple are being dicks lately and feels like he has to crank up the volume on his apologia to compensate for the additional ill will generated, and it's made him more combative.
- matrix 16y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly. I come here for information, and noise like this stuff dilutes HN's value just as surely as any non-hacker content like political articles, "8 Beautiful Pictures of Slugs", or "VB 101". PG: any chance we could have a temporary (or permanent) ban on John Gruber posts?
  - plinkplonk 16y ago
    "PG: any chance we could have a temporary (or permanent) ban on John Gruber posts?" +1. Banning Apple speculation/interpretation/fanboi/defense posts in general would be great.
  - WiseWeasel 16y ago
    This is why stories need a down-vote mechanism.
Tichy 16y ago
So Google is evil because they added a touch screen to their phones? Only Apple has the right to make phones without keyboards?
- ugh 16y ago
  Sorry, but where does Gruber say that they are evil? All he says is that they started competing with Apple in a – uhm, to quote him – dickish way and that therefore, it is perfectly alright when Apple then also competes dickishly. He does not claim that being a dick when competing is wrong or evil. To quote him: “It wasn’t unfair for Google to decide to compete directly against and copy ideas from the iPhone. That’s competition. It may be angering to Apple, but it’s not out of bounds.”
  - Tichy 16y ago
    Ah, I stopped reading before that line. But then, I guess I don't see the whole point of the discussion.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
csallen 16y ago
> It didn’t look anything like an iPhone, nor like anything Apple would ever be interested in making. It looked like a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone — hardware keyboards and non-touch screens. ... What’s goofy is the idea that Google would do this — to aggressively change Android from a BlackBerry/Windows Mobile competitor into an iPhone competitor... He's dividing phones into two categories here: BlackBerry/Windows Mobile-like phones and iPhone-like phones. This is a very questionable standpoint. It's like dividing tablets into Windows-like tablets and iPad-like tablets, and claiming that they're two separate markets. On the contrary, tech hardware is constantly evolving. What's possible in 2010 wasn't possible in 2005, and what was possible in 2005 wasn't possible in 1995. In the past, it made sense to go with the benefits of a physical keyboard at the expense of screen real estate. Today, phones are extremely powerful, their screens run at high resolutions, carriers are more liberal, and mobile app developers abound. Google isn't switching markets to suddenly start competing with the iPhone; they're just keeping up with the times. Saying that Google should have "kept Android targeted at BlackBerry" is like saying the US should have focused on producing spears and arrows during the nuclear arms race.
- allenp 16y ago
  I took this to mean that Google switched their target demographic from corporate to consumer and that Gruber thinks the consumer market segment is Apple's turf. I don't think his argument is about technology at all - more about money and Google actively attacking Apple's income stream (instead of RIM's).
- sprout 16y ago
  It still makes sense to go with a physical keyboard if you're strapped for cash. Touchscreens big enough and responsive enough to handle a soft keyboard do not run cheap.
  - msg 16y ago
    Or if you need the precision and speed that a physical keyboard provides (until Swype or something changes the game).
  - 16y ago
betageek 16y ago
I think this misses a big point about the issue - Apple's "App" strategy is changing the way people access information from using web browsers towards using tightly controlled proprietary Apple approved apps (iTunes was just the start.) Google are in the information access business and are moving to protect that business because the iOS ecology threatens it's dominance. The hardware issue is a red herring, it's all about who controls the information<->user interface.
philk 16y ago
So we have an blog post that spends the first 700 words saying "Google started it" and then the latter 700 justifying why there aren't comments. I'm not sure how this is interesting. Companies compete, and that's a good thing. Rambling about who started what is irrelevant.
- mortenjorck 16y ago
  You know, Gruber has implied that he's an HN reader in the past... I think his blog does have a comments section; it just has an orange stripe at the top.
robryan 16y ago
I doubt it's a bad move with android as John says it may be. They could have avoided the phone market, let Apple progress with less competition and stayed close partners. Then Apple would have had all the power and could pretty much create their own ad platform at their choosing. Kinda like how Zynga is at the mercy of Facebook despite making them profitable through there heavy advertising on the platform.
confuzatron 16y ago
John Gruber totally rips off Steve Jobs' LaF, but that's okay because he's not competing with Jobs. Seriously though, it's interesting how people tend to come to emulate their role models in this way. You can see the Jobsian 'tone' used by a lot of people who agree with him. It's a very 'no bullshit', 'here's the bottom line' style that can sound dismissive and, dare I say it, a little arrogant.
- noibl 16y ago
  Even the way he describes his site design in comparison to others' sounds like he sees himself as the Apple of punditry: 'I don’t care what’s out of place. I care about what’s best.' 'My goal is for not a single wasted word to appear anywhere on any page of the site.' And the best bit: '...demands from entitled people who see that I’ve built something very nice that draws much attention, and who believe they have a right to share in it. They don’t.'
halo 16y ago
There's a big difference between competing with another business in a market on a level playing field (e.g. Android vs iPhone) and essentially deciding to ban another company in a sector from competing with you (e.g. Admob vs iAd). I think the prior is fair game, whereas the latter is anticompetitive (even as retribution for daring to compete on a level playing field).
bad_user 16y ago
People forget that devices like the iPaq with Microsoft's Pocket PC on them had touch-screens long before both the iPhone and Android. Those people at Google are dicks for competing. It's like they are operating in capitalism or something. But what I really hate is hypocrisy. Everyone understood why Google did it without blog-posts from self-proclaimed spokesmen. In the case of Apple though, things aren't so clear ... and I would bet that Apple would've gotten into the advertising business anyway. They just picked a fight ... and you don't need brains to figure out why. Look around ... picking a fight is good marketing.
- bruceboughton 16y ago
  Apple didn't invent touchscreens. What they did was master the use of touchsreens in mobile computing devices. Apple are masters of quality of execution. That's what matters in making a device as successful as the iPhone and iPad, not whether you personally invented a particular component. Ferrari didn't invent the car...
  - bad_user 16y ago
    That wasn't my argument ... I don't see customers blaming Lamborghini (a tractor manufacturer) for getting in Ferrari's turf. Neither of them invented the car, so why should anyone have any opinion? I also couldn't see Ferrari entering the tractor manufacturing business, but if it did happen it would have happened only because tractor manufacturing was a very lucrative market, picking a fight with Lamborghini being only about marketing. Also what really matters is ... why the fuck do people waist time on such arguments and why am I not working instead of arguing with you?
    - recoiledsnake 16y ago
      The difference is that Apple is banning Admob(bought by Google) from the iPhone apps just because it's owned by Google. The TOS state that no other company that develops a mobile OS can sell ads based on analytics. That's like Ferrari banning GPSes made by Lamborghini from being used in Ferrari cars just because they are made by another car manufacturer.
noibl 16y ago
Gruber says nobody is arguing that there's a “How dare Google compete with Apple?” sentiment. That Apple merely took the gloves off and started taking the fight more seriously. But aggrieved sentiment is written all over Steve Jobs's reaction to Android. 'They want to kill the iPhone' -- remember that little gem? How did he know this? Because Android-based products were looking more and more like iPhones. But the reason for the convergent evolution of the two platforms is quite obvious: it's a winning design. It's a ridiculous justification for preemptive retaliation, on par with 'Saddam tried to kill my daddy'. The reason Google decided to get involved in smartphones is the same reason Apple did: the internet. Before the current sheer-slab-of-touchscreen became the recognised form-factor of an internet-friendly phone, we waited years and years for Nokia, SE and Motorola and crucially, the carriers, to give us a device that could freely access the services and content that we knew were all around us. What did we get? Push email. The pressure was building and by 2005 the industry was ripe for disruption. Apple's prestige, combined with the exclusive AT&T deal, was what forced the carriers to abandon their walled-garden ideal and take the internet seriously. The iPhone was an offer they couldn't refuse. Google could not have done that. The problem is that having freed us from the carriers' walled gardens, Apple now wants to take their place. I think Jobs was being just a little disingenuous when he said Google wants to kill the iPhone. What he could have more honestly and accurately said is that Google wants to kill the iPhone OS's chance of achieving a monopoly position. Why do they want that? For the same reason they got into smartphone design: the internet.
- papachito 16y ago
  > on par with 'Saddam tried to kill my daddy'. Brilliant comparison.
rythie 16y ago
Google made a smart phone OS based on desktop OS, so did Apple. They were both aimed at the do anything smartphone market. Blackberry and Windows Mobile were in that market already. It doesn't really matter what the early Android prototypes looked like, since Google doesn't do that bit, the free market does.
s1rech 16y ago
I think people are not making enough fun of the "be a man, allow comments" claim.
zmmmmm 16y ago
The most interesting thing about all this is simply how personally Jobs and Gruber both seem to have taken the competition from Google. They genuinely seem to feel enormously betrayed by it. What this tells me is that both of them are now starting to acknowledge internally that Android really is an enormous threat to the iPhone and it is so in ways that they simply can't compete with. Google is putting out an operating system that is nearly as good as Apple's, runs on any hardware that anyone wants it to and is completely free. Apple can't hurt Google by undermining it profits because it doesn't make the hardware and it gives the software away. It really seems like an unfair fight. But what I think really hurts is Google invalidates Apple's core thesis, that control, power and lockdown are necessary for a consumer friendly operating system. Right as Apple is trying to justify not including Flash by saying it can't work properly on phones, Google is there adding it into Android and making them look like fools. Incidentally Gruber seems to be conveniently overlooking a lot of history here. Hostilities really started when Apple banned Google Voice from the iPhone. Prior to that things were pretty friendly, but after that Google realized it couldn't afford to play friendly with Apple - so they enabled multitouch in Android and things went downhill from there. Although it's a completely pointless and silly game to play if you really follow it back I think there is a very good argument that Apple started this whole falling out.
- Robin_Message 16y ago
  If you think back 25 years, Jobs has been here before with Microsoft, and it nearly killed his company. After all, Microsoft started out selling software, including on the Mac, and did a good job of it, and got what Apple was doing! And then they made their own platform, and the rest, as they say, is history. I'd say there is a clear parallel here, and consciously or subconsciously, that is why it is war -- because it was war last time, and they almost lost.
  - cheald 16y ago
    I think there's a very strong argument to be made that Windows nearly killed Apple because Jobs made the same mistakes he is making today with the iPhone platform. Microsoft actively courted hardware manufacturers of all shapes and sizes. Apple sued anyone who tried to produce compatible hardware without their blessing. Microsoft actively courted developers, by providing them with a strong toolchain and turning them loose on the platform. Apple sacrificed developers on the altar of user experience. It's not much different today. Android is "fragmented" across who-knows how many different hardware sets, which has the dual result of making the platform less consistent for the benefit of letting consumers pick the hardware that does what they want at a price point they are comfortable with. Android favors developers almost to a fault; Apple's abuse of developers in order to preserve the user experience is legendary. If history is any indicator, Jobs should be very afraid. Apple has a tremendous first-mover advantage, and there is one very key difference in that they have the larger software base at the moment, but with the speed at which the Android platform is evolving and growing, it isn't difficult at all to imagine that Apple could find the iPhone eating dust in a few short quarters.
tzury 16y ago
Give me a break! From my point of view - a man who might write mobile app someday - all these fuss and arguments are totally wasted energy and karmatically ugly. Apple is running their monarchy, and I should choose, as it becomes relevant, whether to set up an embassy at that territory or not (in a form of app at appstore). If the business interests would justify it, I'll be in, if not, out, simple dimple. Why do we have to read about all these emotions and fights every single day, why? Isn't coding/hacking itself dramatic enough that we have to bring in strange boosters?
joubert 16y ago
What people in this thread seem to ignore is John's argument is that Google made a dick move in the context of the two companies having shared a tight buddy buddy relationship and a mutually beneficial strategy. that is why it was a backstabbing and is generating the retaliation.
Greyface 16y ago
Actually that's still bullshit from Gruber. Google may have made a touchscreen OS but they still deferred to Apple in many ways, most notably by not including 'pinch to zoom' and other UI that Apple claimed was theirs alone. Google stood by and watched as Palm jumped into direct competition with Apple and included that, lawsuits be dammed. Apple broke the peace when they rejected Google Voice from the AppStore last summer (and retroactively removed and banned all the third party Google Voice clients already sold through the store). That was the first dickish shot of war--an act of unfair competition by Apple and AT&T--not this iAds business or Google making a phone OS
cubicle67 16y ago
How about we just add another link at the top of the HN page, just to the right of Submit, that contains an rss feed of daringfireball?
- seabee 16y ago
  Only if you believe DN links are less worthy of front-page status than anything else on the homepage.
SandB0x 16y ago
He sounds like GLaDOS from Portal, when she realises you've broken free and are now a genuine threat. It was a fun test, and we're all impressed at how much you won. The test is over. Come back This is your fault. It didn't have to be like this. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Portal_(game) http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Portal_(game)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
napierzaza 16y ago
I dislike Gruber more than I did because he's one of those guys who ascribes a huge corporation emotions. Eric Schmidt left the Apple board because if they are competing it would be a conflict of interest and a legal problem between the companies and their investors. Get over it, these are business decisions. Gruber has been saying what he thinks Apple might like to hear for a while. Too bad Apple is a huge company and not a teenage girl
Batsu 16y ago
Nothing like a post on Daring Fireball to keep the iPhone/Android loyalty war on the front page of HN. Does any of this really matter?
mcav 16y ago
The part about comments? Right on. Don't let the abscess of humanity troll against everything they dislike on your own website. Anyone who thinks you must have comments to be legitimate is under a false sense of entitlement. Seriously. Just write. Comments in general are a distraction to productivity; comments on blogs are no exception.
- shadowsun7 16y ago
  With one caveat: blogs with the stated intention of creating community/being a community gathering point has to have comments. I run a blog that helps independent writers publish their work online. I tried Gruber's advice, once - and it backfired, badly. So, in a nutshell: soapboxes are good, but not when you want to create community.
  - leviathant 16y ago
    Comments on a blog do not a community make. I run a news site about a band, and I've never allowed comments. However, the site is closely affiliated with an entirely separate message board, which our staff are regular contributors to. I see it in kind of the same way Gruber sees it, but without nearly as much hubris and ego. To me, it's my website, and I prefer it to be an editorial publication. I select who writes for the site, because I want a higher quality end result. That said, some sites benefit from public comment. I remember being ticked off when News.com got bought out by CNet because they eventually turned off comments, and often times the comments helped balance out the ridiculous spin in the articles posted to the site.
    - shadowsun7 16y ago
      > Comments on a blog do not a community make. Agreed. Perhaps a better generalizing statement to make would be: community cannot exist where there is no channel for user feedback. You have a forum, I have comments. Both are mediums for reader expression.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  It depends on your writing style: some people naturally write in ways that encourage good discussion about the topic. Write in a tone and on subjects that encourage good discussion rather than polemic arguments, and moderate the comments that are crap. Suddenly, abusive comments aren't as much of an issue. Look at Hacker News. Generally, it avoids subjects that lead to ugly flamewars (save this Apple/Google spat generally turning ugly), and discussion here is generally of decent quality. Comments can be a distraction, but they can also be a source of good material and feedback. I read a number of blogs that have had excellent posts that began in the comments on another article but blossomed into full fledged posts in themselves. As for Gruber's site, I agree that his adding comments would be a bad idea. He writes about a highly polarizing subject in a manner that can seem condescending and arrogant. I don't think he's going to get good discussion, at least not on the recent articles he writes.
sshconnection 16y ago
DARING FIREBALL : STEVE JOBS :: FOX NEWS : SARAH PALIN
Jun8 16y ago
It's wrong to start Apple's foray into mobile with the iPhone. They partnered with Motorola on a phone before that and have absorbed a lot of knowledge.
mbrubeck 16y ago
So Apple stops playing nice with Google because Android is competing in the same playing field as iOS... Then I guess it's kind of insulting to Microsoft's mobile division that Apple is now playing nice with Bing. :)
falien 16y ago
Google's initial efforts were directed very much at RIM. RIM's guiding strategy never had anything to do with form factor. It was always to provide the killer experience for email, with special attention to corporate email. Android took a shot at RIM by focusing on gmail integration and a great email experience (including frequent polling to get the same effect as push email) to the detriment of other areas of the user experience. It didn't have a focus on corporate, but they also knew that more and more people were using traditionally personal email services for business purposes (and they did know immediately that it was necessary and were working on exchange support). While they still had room to improve the email experience, they provided what many considered the best mobile email experience from the G1 onward. They then continued to improve everything else in the direction of the industry bests, which yes included UI inspiration from iphone. Also, the idea that early hardware used for developing software is any indication of the ultimate direction is ridiculous. Touch interface is one of the last things you're going to tack onto an operating system. Even if it is a core part of your user interface, you need to get all the underlying parts you never want the user to know about working first, and that is just alot easier with hard interfaces.
alexandros 16y ago
By the same token, apple entered the cut-n-paste enabled, multi-tasking smartphone market. There is a word for slicing and dicing definitions until they come out just right for your predetermined conclusion: Casuistry. It is usually seen in religious debates, although we may not be very far from one with this article.
tel 16y ago
I don't get why he attached his "comments off" opinions at the end of this piece, but I feel like Gruber's opinion there is just as interesting as the first half the piece. It's been a long standing opinion of his, sure, but he got down and stated it clearly in this post.
cageface 16y ago
Gruber gets it exactly backwards here. Google is pushing Android exactly because it needs to mitigate the impact of moves like Apple's iAds. Google goal is protecting its search business from a potentially hostile monopoly, not killing Apple's phone business. Would it be smart of Google to sit on the sidelines while Apple becomes totally dominant in the mobile computing market and to trust Apple to leave all the money it could then make from advertising on the table? It's interesting how profoundly the backgrounds of the company founders affect corporate strategy. Steve is fundamentally a salesman and thinks in terms of products. Google's heads are engineers and think first about platforms and protocols. Last time these two philosophies clashed Apple leaped out ahead but eventually lost to a cheaper, commodifiable platform. I expect this time will be no different.
jtbigwoo 16y ago
> My goal is for not a single wasted word to appear anywhere on any page of the site. This is the funniest sentence in the history of the web.
- Psyonic 16y ago
  Gruber at his best!
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
You all are being too emotional about this. Corporations don't act that way. You eat my lunch, I eat yours, and kick you in the balls.
yanw 16y ago
Google being influenced by the iPhone and developing Android accordingly into a very viable contender is fair play, they provide competition which is good for consumers but for Apple to basically lock them out of iPhone app advertising eliminating competition from a big player is bad for consumers/developers.
robak 16y ago
Steve Jobs just seems to hate when he looses an occasion to have another enemy in the industry...
doron 16y ago
From the end user perspective (at least this end user) The competition to widen access to ads and and further to create rich ads is something i hope both companies will not see much success in. At present, Browsing via mobile is relatively slow, if you dont have unlimited data plans, then it follows that you will pay for Ad traffic, rich media ad traffic will make this problem worse. The killer feature for me is no advertising, and I am willing to pay for apps to avoid them, An adblocker on the native phone browser is a killer feature for me. One that at least in theory is easier to get on the android platform then on the iphone.
drivebyacct 16y ago
This article is easily defeated by a simple observation. Locking out a competitor from your platform is hardly competition. Maybe "artificial competition". Stealing/copying/borrowing features is the age old cycle of innovation and competition in the tech industry. Pointing fingers about stealing ideas is ridiculously silly, no wonder Gruber is wasting his precious word count on it. But to defend Apple's draconian policies as good in the eyes of competition is simply too much for me to hear without the bullshit-ometer going off.

160 points by dave1619 16y ago

Apple locking Google out is the same thing as Android competing with iOS. Yup. What's new? One side is competing with the other. The other side is locking them out of the platform on an application (Google Voice) and an advertising level. What if Google said they weren't going to allow Apple apps on Android or allow iAds on Android (not that I think either would ever happen in a million years). I simply can't fathom the double think that Gruber uses to excuse Apple's actions while pointing fingers at Google.

nooneelse 16y ago
> I simply can't fathom the double think that Gruber uses to excuse Apple's actions while pointing fingers at Google. I wonder what it must be like living with the knowledge that your ongoing fame is so dependent on friendly leaks and peaks from a patron known for ire-based reversals of largesse. His career keeps him prone to something like Stockholm syndrome. At this point, how many months or years away from this dependency would he need, before we could start trusting that he is giving us independent opinions that are truly from him; not things that are, as likely as not, what he needs to believe.
- rortian 16y ago
  Well said. I think the biggest break he's ever had was Steve Job's endorsing one of Gruber's posts as Apple reasoning.
- commandar 16y ago
  > I wonder what it must be like living with the knowledge that your ongoing fame is so dependent on friendly leaks and peaks from a patron known for ire-based reversals of largesse. His career keeps him prone to something like Stockholm syndrome. Just as an example: I think a lot of people forget that a couple of years ago, Apple was very friendly with Gizmodo. That started to sour when Gizmodo ran some pieces speculating on Jobs' health, and has only deteriorated since - Gizmodo was cut out of prelaunch iPad access entirely and we all know the iPhone 4 saga by now. Apple is very comfortable with being the ones to taketh away.

OoTheNigerian 16y ago

John Gruber's arguments are painfully weak. "It’s not that Google changed course and got into the phone business, period. It’s that they got into the iPhone’s segment of the phone business. This is what Android looked like in 2007. Here’s an actual hardware prototype from then. It didn’t look anything like an iPhone, nor like anything Apple would ever be interested in making. It looked like a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone — hardware keyboards and non-touch screens" His highly flawed assumptions are 1. That the hardware was the competition. 2. Google bought a software company to compete in hardware 3. HTC was not making touch screen phones before. 4. If you see a successful trend you stick to something unsuccessful in order not to compete. He goes on to say "I don’t believe Apple would have unveiled iAds. Maybe I’m wrong, and Apple would have done it anyway, because it always comes down to money, and there’s soon going to be an awful lot of money in mobile advertising." sigh! He speaks about the absence of comments on his blog. I think he can do whatever he wants regarding that. What surprises me is the amusing weakness of his arguments. This is the first time I have actually read a full blog post of his (I mainly see bits of his writing in rebuttals) and I go away wondering how he has been made into a thought leader of some sort.

masklinn 16y ago
> 1. That the hardware was the competition. Apple is a hardware company, that's what they see and compete on. > 2. Google bought a software company to compete in hardware 3. HTC was not making touch screen phones before. hardware and software go hand in hand. Google implemented a touchscreen core since the first public Android release and their base design (the N1) is fully touch-oriented. They clearly set up the Android platform aiming at the segment the iPhone also occupies, putting the platforms head to head. I don't see how you an claim otherwise.
- nooneelse 16y ago
  Google made an OS that can support dozens of different hardware user interface variations. It is the phone makers that keep tailoring it along the lines of making it touchscreen-centric. Any one of the handset makers could come out with a keyboard-centric design at any time. The OS is rather agnostic on this.

lionhearted 16y ago

I like John Gruber, and I upvoted this article, but this point: > Look at those 2007 Android designs compared to the original 2007 iPhone. Now compare a 2010 Android design to a current iPhone. Don’t tell me Google’s mobile strategy hasn’t changed. I mean, he's totally right. It did change. But it wasn't to knock off Apple, it's because Google is building what consumers want and demand now. Apple can say, "We pioneered that!" That's true. But they can't say, "We pioneered that - how dare they!" Because that's misplaced. Consumer preference has shifted, and yes, that's due in large part because of Apple's actions. But Apple gets into trouble when they start thinking, "People want iPhones and these jerks are copying our iPhone" - because consumers don't necessarily want iPhones. They want well-designed devices which are fun and intuitive to use. Apple helped reveal that path, but they don't exactly get to plant a flag in the ground and say that's theirs now, forever, and how dare anyone else build well-designed devices with intuitive touchscreen interfaces. Any other company I'd shrug at the misplaced righteous indignation, but Apple really should know better, since they got into this with Microsoft over "look and feel" last decade over GUI. The reaction was the same, "How dare Microsoft try to give people Apple-like stuff!" But that's wrong. Microsoft gave people what they wanted, which was pretty and and more intuitive navigation. It's like - when you introduce a new general standard, you can't really own it. It's out there. You get a massive head start, but then people will start using that standard and innovating on it. Traditionally what companies with the head start do is cut prices to lock in market share and make it impossible for people to compete, but Apple runs on crazy margins, so they refuse to do this, get angry at whoever is making something that fills similar needs for a lower price than them, and then lose their market. And now they're doing it again.

joshsharp 16y ago
I came here to post exactly the same sentiment. Claiming Android could've competed against Blackberry instead is disingenuous - why would Google set themselves up to challenge a second-rate user experience when it could aim to be the best?
- archon810 16y ago
  At this same exact moment, in an alternate universe, Gruber is making the exact same point about Android going after Blackberry instead of Apple, and poor Blackberry because Android intruded on their business so unexpectedly. Give me a break, John.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Gruber thinks competing with the iPhone is "a dick move"? That seems an odd opinion, yet boldly stated as if it was normal. And in particular by using large capacitive touchscreens with soft keyboards? That's just the way the world was going, you'd be as right to argue that they shouldn't use Wi-Fi or USB or Windowed UI or mice because Apple did them first. (edit: just to be clear, I'm aware that Apple did none of these things first, but popularised and/or polished them to greater or lesser extents)

alxp 16y ago
>Gruber thinks competing with the iPhone is "a dick move"? That seems an odd opinion, yet boldly stated as if it was normal. Well they entered the phone business licensing their software for zero dollars. It's a fairly common thing that software companies do - Sun dumped a ton of money into OpenOffice just to be a pain in the ass to Microsoft, Microsoft keeps trying to do search and maps for god knows what reason when it isn't making them money. If the software industry were more mature they wouldn't rise to the press's baiting about "killing" each other and just put resources into their core products and make those great.
- philk 16y ago
  So you're saying if it were a more mature industry then companies would just stick to their defined roles and not compete with each other as much? As a customer I'm glad it's not a mature industry then.
- bad_user 16y ago
  > Sun dumped a ton of money into OpenOffice just to be a pain in the ass to Microsoft No, that was a defensive move to prevent Microsoft from completely taking over the software industry which would've made them irrelevant. You also forgot about Java, which original was targeted at consumers as a way to have multi-platform apps that will make the OS irrelevant.

rodh257 16y ago

“We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business." They aren't selling the operating system are they? therefore really the business is advertising, as it has always been with Google, and Apple has just entered that business.

ugh 16y ago
That’s distinction is not really all that important in this context. Google wants to shape the future of the mobile web in order to sell ads – but in that process they could easily crush Apple. That’s why Apple fights back.

shib71 16y ago

Normally I just ignore the articles that don't interest me - I assume they're for someone else. But I'm beginning to find these blog-war posts tiresome. There is no new information, no novel insight. Just he said, she said. Is this really the kind of content the HN community is looking for?

robotron 16y ago
Not I.
krolley 16y ago
I read Daring Fireball quite often, and I must say that I am surprised to see this kind of 'retort' post on DF. It seems out of character.
- chc 16y ago
  Gruber has been that way recently. My impression is that he realizes Apple are being dicks lately and feels like he has to crank up the volume on his apologia to compensate for the additional ill will generated, and it's made him more combative.
matrix 16y ago
I agree wholeheartedly. I come here for information, and noise like this stuff dilutes HN's value just as surely as any non-hacker content like political articles, "8 Beautiful Pictures of Slugs", or "VB 101". PG: any chance we could have a temporary (or permanent) ban on John Gruber posts?
- plinkplonk 16y ago
  "PG: any chance we could have a temporary (or permanent) ban on John Gruber posts?" +1. Banning Apple speculation/interpretation/fanboi/defense posts in general would be great.
- WiseWeasel 16y ago
  This is why stories need a down-vote mechanism.

Tichy 16y ago

So Google is evil because they added a touch screen to their phones? Only Apple has the right to make phones without keyboards?

ugh 16y ago
Sorry, but where does Gruber say that they are evil? All he says is that they started competing with Apple in a – uhm, to quote him – dickish way and that therefore, it is perfectly alright when Apple then also competes dickishly. He does not claim that being a dick when competing is wrong or evil. To quote him: “It wasn’t unfair for Google to decide to compete directly against and copy ideas from the iPhone. That’s competition. It may be angering to Apple, but it’s not out of bounds.”
- Tichy 16y ago
  Ah, I stopped reading before that line. But then, I guess I don't see the whole point of the discussion.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

csallen 16y ago

> It didn’t look anything like an iPhone, nor like anything Apple would ever be interested in making. It looked like a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone — hardware keyboards and non-touch screens. ... What’s goofy is the idea that Google would do this — to aggressively change Android from a BlackBerry/Windows Mobile competitor into an iPhone competitor... He's dividing phones into two categories here: BlackBerry/Windows Mobile-like phones and iPhone-like phones. This is a very questionable standpoint. It's like dividing tablets into Windows-like tablets and iPad-like tablets, and claiming that they're two separate markets. On the contrary, tech hardware is constantly evolving. What's possible in 2010 wasn't possible in 2005, and what was possible in 2005 wasn't possible in 1995. In the past, it made sense to go with the benefits of a physical keyboard at the expense of screen real estate. Today, phones are extremely powerful, their screens run at high resolutions, carriers are more liberal, and mobile app developers abound. Google isn't switching markets to suddenly start competing with the iPhone; they're just keeping up with the times. Saying that Google should have "kept Android targeted at BlackBerry" is like saying the US should have focused on producing spears and arrows during the nuclear arms race.

allenp 16y ago
I took this to mean that Google switched their target demographic from corporate to consumer and that Gruber thinks the consumer market segment is Apple's turf. I don't think his argument is about technology at all - more about money and Google actively attacking Apple's income stream (instead of RIM's).
sprout 16y ago
It still makes sense to go with a physical keyboard if you're strapped for cash. Touchscreens big enough and responsive enough to handle a soft keyboard do not run cheap.
- msg 16y ago
  Or if you need the precision and speed that a physical keyboard provides (until Swype or something changes the game).
- 16y ago

betageek 16y ago

I think this misses a big point about the issue - Apple's "App" strategy is changing the way people access information from using web browsers towards using tightly controlled proprietary Apple approved apps (iTunes was just the start.) Google are in the information access business and are moving to protect that business because the iOS ecology threatens it's dominance. The hardware issue is a red herring, it's all about who controls the information<->user interface.

philk 16y ago

So we have an blog post that spends the first 700 words saying "Google started it" and then the latter 700 justifying why there aren't comments. I'm not sure how this is interesting. Companies compete, and that's a good thing. Rambling about who started what is irrelevant.

mortenjorck 16y ago
You know, Gruber has implied that he's an HN reader in the past... I think his blog does have a comments section; it just has an orange stripe at the top.

robryan 16y ago

I doubt it's a bad move with android as John says it may be. They could have avoided the phone market, let Apple progress with less competition and stayed close partners. Then Apple would have had all the power and could pretty much create their own ad platform at their choosing. Kinda like how Zynga is at the mercy of Facebook despite making them profitable through there heavy advertising on the platform.

confuzatron 16y ago

John Gruber totally rips off Steve Jobs' LaF, but that's okay because he's not competing with Jobs. Seriously though, it's interesting how people tend to come to emulate their role models in this way. You can see the Jobsian 'tone' used by a lot of people who agree with him. It's a very 'no bullshit', 'here's the bottom line' style that can sound dismissive and, dare I say it, a little arrogant.

noibl 16y ago
Even the way he describes his site design in comparison to others' sounds like he sees himself as the Apple of punditry: 'I don’t care what’s out of place. I care about what’s best.' 'My goal is for not a single wasted word to appear anywhere on any page of the site.' And the best bit: '...demands from entitled people who see that I’ve built something very nice that draws much attention, and who believe they have a right to share in it. They don’t.'

halo 16y ago

There's a big difference between competing with another business in a market on a level playing field (e.g. Android vs iPhone) and essentially deciding to ban another company in a sector from competing with you (e.g. Admob vs iAd). I think the prior is fair game, whereas the latter is anticompetitive (even as retribution for daring to compete on a level playing field).

bad_user 16y ago

People forget that devices like the iPaq with Microsoft's Pocket PC on them had touch-screens long before both the iPhone and Android. Those people at Google are dicks for competing. It's like they are operating in capitalism or something. But what I really hate is hypocrisy. Everyone understood why Google did it without blog-posts from self-proclaimed spokesmen. In the case of Apple though, things aren't so clear ... and I would bet that Apple would've gotten into the advertising business anyway. They just picked a fight ... and you don't need brains to figure out why. Look around ... picking a fight is good marketing.

bruceboughton 16y ago
Apple didn't invent touchscreens. What they did was master the use of touchsreens in mobile computing devices. Apple are masters of quality of execution. That's what matters in making a device as successful as the iPhone and iPad, not whether you personally invented a particular component. Ferrari didn't invent the car...
- bad_user 16y ago
  That wasn't my argument ... I don't see customers blaming Lamborghini (a tractor manufacturer) for getting in Ferrari's turf. Neither of them invented the car, so why should anyone have any opinion? I also couldn't see Ferrari entering the tractor manufacturing business, but if it did happen it would have happened only because tractor manufacturing was a very lucrative market, picking a fight with Lamborghini being only about marketing. Also what really matters is ... why the fuck do people waist time on such arguments and why am I not working instead of arguing with you?
  - recoiledsnake 16y ago
    The difference is that Apple is banning Admob(bought by Google) from the iPhone apps just because it's owned by Google. The TOS state that no other company that develops a mobile OS can sell ads based on analytics. That's like Ferrari banning GPSes made by Lamborghini from being used in Ferrari cars just because they are made by another car manufacturer.

noibl 16y ago

Gruber says nobody is arguing that there's a “How dare Google compete with Apple?” sentiment. That Apple merely took the gloves off and started taking the fight more seriously. But aggrieved sentiment is written all over Steve Jobs's reaction to Android. 'They want to kill the iPhone' -- remember that little gem? How did he know this? Because Android-based products were looking more and more like iPhones. But the reason for the convergent evolution of the two platforms is quite obvious: it's a winning design. It's a ridiculous justification for preemptive retaliation, on par with 'Saddam tried to kill my daddy'. The reason Google decided to get involved in smartphones is the same reason Apple did: the internet. Before the current sheer-slab-of-touchscreen became the recognised form-factor of an internet-friendly phone, we waited years and years for Nokia, SE and Motorola and crucially, the carriers, to give us a device that could freely access the services and content that we knew were all around us. What did we get? Push email. The pressure was building and by 2005 the industry was ripe for disruption. Apple's prestige, combined with the exclusive AT&T deal, was what forced the carriers to abandon their walled-garden ideal and take the internet seriously. The iPhone was an offer they couldn't refuse. Google could not have done that. The problem is that having freed us from the carriers' walled gardens, Apple now wants to take their place. I think Jobs was being just a little disingenuous when he said Google wants to kill the iPhone. What he could have more honestly and accurately said is that Google wants to kill the iPhone OS's chance of achieving a monopoly position. Why do they want that? For the same reason they got into smartphone design: the internet.

papachito 16y ago
> on par with 'Saddam tried to kill my daddy'. Brilliant comparison.

rythie 16y ago

Google made a smart phone OS based on desktop OS, so did Apple. They were both aimed at the do anything smartphone market. Blackberry and Windows Mobile were in that market already. It doesn't really matter what the early Android prototypes looked like, since Google doesn't do that bit, the free market does.

s1rech 16y ago

I think people are not making enough fun of the "be a man, allow comments" claim.

zmmmmm 16y ago

The most interesting thing about all this is simply how personally Jobs and Gruber both seem to have taken the competition from Google. They genuinely seem to feel enormously betrayed by it. What this tells me is that both of them are now starting to acknowledge internally that Android really is an enormous threat to the iPhone and it is so in ways that they simply can't compete with. Google is putting out an operating system that is nearly as good as Apple's, runs on any hardware that anyone wants it to and is completely free. Apple can't hurt Google by undermining it profits because it doesn't make the hardware and it gives the software away. It really seems like an unfair fight. But what I think really hurts is Google invalidates Apple's core thesis, that control, power and lockdown are necessary for a consumer friendly operating system. Right as Apple is trying to justify not including Flash by saying it can't work properly on phones, Google is there adding it into Android and making them look like fools. Incidentally Gruber seems to be conveniently overlooking a lot of history here. Hostilities really started when Apple banned Google Voice from the iPhone. Prior to that things were pretty friendly, but after that Google realized it couldn't afford to play friendly with Apple - so they enabled multitouch in Android and things went downhill from there. Although it's a completely pointless and silly game to play if you really follow it back I think there is a very good argument that Apple started this whole falling out.

Robin_Message 16y ago
If you think back 25 years, Jobs has been here before with Microsoft, and it nearly killed his company. After all, Microsoft started out selling software, including on the Mac, and did a good job of it, and got what Apple was doing! And then they made their own platform, and the rest, as they say, is history. I'd say there is a clear parallel here, and consciously or subconsciously, that is why it is war -- because it was war last time, and they almost lost.
- cheald 16y ago
  I think there's a very strong argument to be made that Windows nearly killed Apple because Jobs made the same mistakes he is making today with the iPhone platform. Microsoft actively courted hardware manufacturers of all shapes and sizes. Apple sued anyone who tried to produce compatible hardware without their blessing. Microsoft actively courted developers, by providing them with a strong toolchain and turning them loose on the platform. Apple sacrificed developers on the altar of user experience. It's not much different today. Android is "fragmented" across who-knows how many different hardware sets, which has the dual result of making the platform less consistent for the benefit of letting consumers pick the hardware that does what they want at a price point they are comfortable with. Android favors developers almost to a fault; Apple's abuse of developers in order to preserve the user experience is legendary. If history is any indicator, Jobs should be very afraid. Apple has a tremendous first-mover advantage, and there is one very key difference in that they have the larger software base at the moment, but with the speed at which the Android platform is evolving and growing, it isn't difficult at all to imagine that Apple could find the iPhone eating dust in a few short quarters.

tzury 16y ago

Give me a break! From my point of view - a man who might write mobile app someday - all these fuss and arguments are totally wasted energy and karmatically ugly. Apple is running their monarchy, and I should choose, as it becomes relevant, whether to set up an embassy at that territory or not (in a form of app at appstore). If the business interests would justify it, I'll be in, if not, out, simple dimple. Why do we have to read about all these emotions and fights every single day, why? Isn't coding/hacking itself dramatic enough that we have to bring in strange boosters?

joubert 16y ago

What people in this thread seem to ignore is John's argument is that Google made a dick move in the context of the two companies having shared a tight buddy buddy relationship and a mutually beneficial strategy. that is why it was a backstabbing and is generating the retaliation.

Greyface 16y ago

Actually that's still bullshit from Gruber. Google may have made a touchscreen OS but they still deferred to Apple in many ways, most notably by not including 'pinch to zoom' and other UI that Apple claimed was theirs alone. Google stood by and watched as Palm jumped into direct competition with Apple and included that, lawsuits be dammed. Apple broke the peace when they rejected Google Voice from the AppStore last summer (and retroactively removed and banned all the third party Google Voice clients already sold through the store). That was the first dickish shot of war--an act of unfair competition by Apple and AT&T--not this iAds business or Google making a phone OS

cubicle67 16y ago

How about we just add another link at the top of the HN page, just to the right of Submit, that contains an rss feed of daringfireball?

seabee 16y ago
Only if you believe DN links are less worthy of front-page status than anything else on the homepage.

SandB0x 16y ago

He sounds like GLaDOS from Portal, when she realises you've broken free and are now a genuine threat. It was a fun test, and we're all impressed at how much you won. The test is over. Come back This is your fault. It didn't have to be like this. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Portal_(game) http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Portal_(game)

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

napierzaza 16y ago

I dislike Gruber more than I did because he's one of those guys who ascribes a huge corporation emotions. Eric Schmidt left the Apple board because if they are competing it would be a conflict of interest and a legal problem between the companies and their investors. Get over it, these are business decisions. Gruber has been saying what he thinks Apple might like to hear for a while. Too bad Apple is a huge company and not a teenage girl

Batsu 16y ago

Nothing like a post on Daring Fireball to keep the iPhone/Android loyalty war on the front page of HN. Does any of this really matter?

mcav 16y ago

The part about comments? Right on. Don't let the abscess of humanity troll against everything they dislike on your own website. Anyone who thinks you must have comments to be legitimate is under a false sense of entitlement. Seriously. Just write. Comments in general are a distraction to productivity; comments on blogs are no exception.

shadowsun7 16y ago
With one caveat: blogs with the stated intention of creating community/being a community gathering point has to have comments. I run a blog that helps independent writers publish their work online. I tried Gruber's advice, once - and it backfired, badly. So, in a nutshell: soapboxes are good, but not when you want to create community.
- leviathant 16y ago
  Comments on a blog do not a community make. I run a news site about a band, and I've never allowed comments. However, the site is closely affiliated with an entirely separate message board, which our staff are regular contributors to. I see it in kind of the same way Gruber sees it, but without nearly as much hubris and ego. To me, it's my website, and I prefer it to be an editorial publication. I select who writes for the site, because I want a higher quality end result. That said, some sites benefit from public comment. I remember being ticked off when News.com got bought out by CNet because they eventually turned off comments, and often times the comments helped balance out the ridiculous spin in the articles posted to the site.
  - shadowsun7 16y ago
    > Comments on a blog do not a community make. Agreed. Perhaps a better generalizing statement to make would be: community cannot exist where there is no channel for user feedback. You have a forum, I have comments. Both are mediums for reader expression.
jokermatt999 16y ago
It depends on your writing style: some people naturally write in ways that encourage good discussion about the topic. Write in a tone and on subjects that encourage good discussion rather than polemic arguments, and moderate the comments that are crap. Suddenly, abusive comments aren't as much of an issue. Look at Hacker News. Generally, it avoids subjects that lead to ugly flamewars (save this Apple/Google spat generally turning ugly), and discussion here is generally of decent quality. Comments can be a distraction, but they can also be a source of good material and feedback. I read a number of blogs that have had excellent posts that began in the comments on another article but blossomed into full fledged posts in themselves. As for Gruber's site, I agree that his adding comments would be a bad idea. He writes about a highly polarizing subject in a manner that can seem condescending and arrogant. I don't think he's going to get good discussion, at least not on the recent articles he writes.

sshconnection 16y ago

DARING FIREBALL : STEVE JOBS :: FOX NEWS : SARAH PALIN

Jun8 16y ago

It's wrong to start Apple's foray into mobile with the iPhone. They partnered with Motorola on a phone before that and have absorbed a lot of knowledge.

mbrubeck 16y ago

So Apple stops playing nice with Google because Android is competing in the same playing field as iOS... Then I guess it's kind of insulting to Microsoft's mobile division that Apple is now playing nice with Bing. :)

falien 16y ago

Google's initial efforts were directed very much at RIM. RIM's guiding strategy never had anything to do with form factor. It was always to provide the killer experience for email, with special attention to corporate email. Android took a shot at RIM by focusing on gmail integration and a great email experience (including frequent polling to get the same effect as push email) to the detriment of other areas of the user experience. It didn't have a focus on corporate, but they also knew that more and more people were using traditionally personal email services for business purposes (and they did know immediately that it was necessary and were working on exchange support). While they still had room to improve the email experience, they provided what many considered the best mobile email experience from the G1 onward. They then continued to improve everything else in the direction of the industry bests, which yes included UI inspiration from iphone. Also, the idea that early hardware used for developing software is any indication of the ultimate direction is ridiculous. Touch interface is one of the last things you're going to tack onto an operating system. Even if it is a core part of your user interface, you need to get all the underlying parts you never want the user to know about working first, and that is just alot easier with hard interfaces.

alexandros 16y ago

By the same token, apple entered the cut-n-paste enabled, multi-tasking smartphone market. There is a word for slicing and dicing definitions until they come out just right for your predetermined conclusion: Casuistry. It is usually seen in religious debates, although we may not be very far from one with this article.

tel 16y ago

I don't get why he attached his "comments off" opinions at the end of this piece, but I feel like Gruber's opinion there is just as interesting as the first half the piece. It's been a long standing opinion of his, sure, but he got down and stated it clearly in this post.

cageface 16y ago

Gruber gets it exactly backwards here. Google is pushing Android exactly because it needs to mitigate the impact of moves like Apple's iAds. Google goal is protecting its search business from a potentially hostile monopoly, not killing Apple's phone business. Would it be smart of Google to sit on the sidelines while Apple becomes totally dominant in the mobile computing market and to trust Apple to leave all the money it could then make from advertising on the table? It's interesting how profoundly the backgrounds of the company founders affect corporate strategy. Steve is fundamentally a salesman and thinks in terms of products. Google's heads are engineers and think first about platforms and protocols. Last time these two philosophies clashed Apple leaped out ahead but eventually lost to a cheaper, commodifiable platform. I expect this time will be no different.

jtbigwoo 16y ago

> My goal is for not a single wasted word to appear anywhere on any page of the site. This is the funniest sentence in the history of the web.

Psyonic 16y ago
Gruber at his best!

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

You all are being too emotional about this. Corporations don't act that way. You eat my lunch, I eat yours, and kick you in the balls.

yanw 16y ago

Google being influenced by the iPhone and developing Android accordingly into a very viable contender is fair play, they provide competition which is good for consumers but for Apple to basically lock them out of iPhone app advertising eliminating competition from a big player is bad for consumers/developers.

robak 16y ago

Steve Jobs just seems to hate when he looses an occasion to have another enemy in the industry...

doron 16y ago

From the end user perspective (at least this end user) The competition to widen access to ads and and further to create rich ads is something i hope both companies will not see much success in. At present, Browsing via mobile is relatively slow, if you dont have unlimited data plans, then it follows that you will pay for Ad traffic, rich media ad traffic will make this problem worse. The killer feature for me is no advertising, and I am willing to pay for apps to avoid them, An adblocker on the native phone browser is a killer feature for me. One that at least in theory is easier to get on the android platform then on the iphone.

drivebyacct 16y ago

This article is easily defeated by a simple observation. Locking out a competitor from your platform is hardly competition. Maybe "artificial competition". Stealing/copying/borrowing features is the age old cycle of innovation and competition in the tech industry. Pointing fingers about stealing ideas is ridiculously silly, no wonder Gruber is wasting his precious word count on it. But to defend Apple's draconian policies as good in the eyes of competition is simply too much for me to hear without the bullshit-ometer going off.