10 ms·

The difference between iPhone + Android: Great since day one

85 points by thesethings 16y ago

nexneo 16y ago
pace of development and somewhat closed development make android different then desktop Linux. iPhone's big plus is providing value for long period of time. Still today original iPhone is useful device and except 3d games most of new apps can be used too. Which is great in fast changing market.
biafra 16y ago
The OS needs to be updated over the air Not true. I did all my updates with my computer.
axod 16y ago
Apple is great on day one since it doesn't actually have many features. I'm loving my Nexus One here, which has just been updated to 2.2 :) Different ringtones (Anything you like) for sms/email/facebook, tethering, portable hotspot! Flash? Simply in a different league than iPhone. The early Android hardware sucked, but the N1 is pretty solid. >> The Android ecosystem doesn’t seem capable of producing devices that are great on day one. Yet Apple consistently pulls it off. IDK, I've heard some things about the iPhone 4... I had an iPhone for 3 years or so. It was a great device for what it did, but the whole hassle of having to use iTunes. No removable storage. Can't just stuff mp3's on it and use as ringtones. Can't just copy photos off it unless you go through the right software. It's just a PITA. Not to mention the mass of features that are just lacking on the iPhone but you take for granted on Android.
- cageface 16y ago
  I had an iPhone for 3 years or so. It was a great device for what it did, but the whole hassle of having to use iTunes. No removable storage. Can't just stuff mp3's on it and use as ringtones. Can't just copy photos off it unless you go through the right software. It's just a PITA. Not to mention the mass of features that are just lacking on the iPhone but you take for granted on Android. Exactly. Mobile doesn't mean you can copy your stuff onto something portable. It means you've got a window to your stuff in your pocket. Google's information-centric approach makes a lot more sense than Apple's device-centric approach.
  - axod 16y ago
    Yup. And over the air updates are obviously a good idea. I plug my Nexus One into my computer when I want to, not when it needs to be plugged in (Unlike the iPhone). It stands up as a device on its own.
    - nailer 16y ago
      That's what's holding me off on an iPad. Why buy a computer that needs to be plugged into another computer?
  - megablast 16y ago
    Makes a lot more sense to everybody, except for the majority of people who still don't quite understand what a folder is. I agree, I like copying over mp3s and photos, finding out what folder they need to go in, if they have filename restrictions, that sort of thing. I have done that for a long time. I understand that, and find it easy. What I have a problem with is people who think that everybody wants it that way. Do you not understand that the majority are not like us, do not understand computers, need point and click interfaces? Why does this always come up?
    - cageface 16y ago
      The only things I have to manually copy over to my Droid are music and video. Everything else (photos, contacts, email, docs) is just cached transparently from the cloud. This seems a lot simpler and more user-friendly to me than forcing a user to physically attach to a computer and worry about duplicates, overwrites, stale files etc. Isn't the whole idea to stop forcing users to think about files? The only reason I have to manually copy music and video is bandwidth so it's likely that at some point in the near future those will also be handled for me.
      - rogermugs 16y ago
        Linux fans always say it’s “getting better”, and there’s always a major distribution update a few months away that’s about to be awesome. But it never is
- jodrellblank 16y ago
  Can't just copy photos off it unless you go through the right software. Plug it in to a windows pc, it appears as a read only drive with your pictures / videos on it for 'just' copying off.
  - axod 16y ago
    * I don't have windows * Read only? lame Having a microSD card, and being able to mount it r/w mass storage from anything, is pretty nice. It's irritating that Apple don't recognize things like that.
    - vetinari 16y ago
      It actually uses PTP protocol for transferring photos. Once upon time I was trying to get data out of iPhone, that was paired to iTunes on a harddrive that went into the big bucket in the sky. To my surprise, connecting it to the Ubuntu box allowed me to copy out all the data I cared for, without any wonky iTunes. But I agree with you, having microSD or at least USB mass storage is much better.
- patrickk 16y ago
  iTunes...ok it can be a right pain. No removable storage - not an issue for me. My brother has often misplaced his microSD card for his Samsung phone though, so I'm not sure if this is something I'd like. MP3s: http://www.ehow.com/how_2111958_convert-itunes-mp-mp.html http://www.ehow.com/how_2111958_convert-itunes-mp-mp.html Copying photos: http://www.macroplant.com/index.php http://www.macroplant.com/index.php (granted, this feature should be there by default) The iPhone is a great phone once you jailbreak & unlock it, IMO ;-) EDIT: Great smartphone comparison chart: http://lifehacker.com/5575317/smartphone-comparison-chart-dishes-the-dirt-on-smartphone-specs http://lifehacker.com/5575317/smartphone-comparison-chart-di...
  - nailer 16y ago
    I jailbroke, unlocked, had bugs, heard about an update, waited for a new jailbreak to be announced, updated the OS in the hope they'd fix it, jailbroke again, unlocked again. Personally it was a stupid thing to do, and I wish I never bothered buying the iPhone. I now have an HTC Desire.
  - axod 16y ago
    Maybe so. I don't want to jailbreak a phone, don't want to have to install things to be able to work with it. I just want the thing to work properly :)
contextfree 16y ago
Desktop Linux has been getting better each year, though (at least on average). If it still hasn't crossed the threshold of being good enough for the mainstream, it's because their standards have also been increasing.
- btmorex 16y ago
  I think that's true, but also Linux on the desktop is the best system for some people right now (me for example). Even if money were no object, like if someone said you can have any Apple system you want, I'd still pick a normal PC with Linux on it. I've always thought the whole "year of the linux desktop" was a meme mostly kept alive by people who never have and would never use Linux anyway. People who actually use Linux don't think it's going to suddenly take over. On the other hand, most think it is actually a good system today.
- bad_user 16y ago
  This is the first year I've installed a Linux distribution that just worked on my laptop (a Dell Inspiron). Graphics, sound, built-in wireless, usb 3G modem, built-in webcam ... all of them worked out of the box. The experience is great, although I'm still not recommending it to non-technical users ... once the Linux desktop is good enough, you still have the problem of apps running on top, and unfortunately the environment is not really friendly to proprietary software.
- instcode 16y ago
  Yes, if something is great since day one, it probably stays away from the improving motivation. If you are willing to pay a price for what is being offered, you will get more pleased when it gets better and costs you nothing...
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  Desktop Linux _is_ the best system around. It's not about quality. People don't care about technical excellence, they care about _doing things_. And for now, Windows offers the easiest way of doing things, because everything works on it because a manufacturer will never release something that doesn't work on the general swath of Windows computers. Pretty much the entire appeal of Mac is a) no viruses/spyware (because nobody writes viruses or spyware for Mac because its userbase is too insignificant to target) and b) big icons and prettier colors, making it "easier" to use. Windows is an institution. It doesn't just give way once something becomes objectively superior; many systems have been superior to the their Microsoft contemporary and Windows didn't magically crumble. It's about installed base.
iamdave 16y ago
I've always admired some of the things marco writes about, this is not one of them. While article is a depressingly one-sided article (marco's prerogative, totally fine with me), he misses a very big point, that for the sake of full disclosure should at least be expounded upon beyond a dry-wit analogy to Desktop Linux. Android and iOS are moving in two different directions, and have benefits for two different crowds. While they both enjoy their share of people who play by the party lines, and will gladly pull out their iPhone or Android Phone the minute the opportunity to use an application presents itself, it doesn't stray away from the fact that the two platforms should not be compared to one another. Where the iPhone shines in brilliance, quality, and polish, Android reigns supreme when it comes down to making the phone do what you want to the core. That is not, however in the least bit to say that hacking the Android platform is inherent to its very existence. I'm not going to beat the "one is open the other is not" horse, because it's already dead, but it's very hard to ignore the obvious that Android is a pragmatic platform that prides itself on the berth of UX centric platform evolution where the iPhone gives users features, and expects them to work with those features withdrawn from the scope of downloading Apps.
- xenomachina 16y ago
  Speaking of having benefits for different crowds: when he mentioned the "why-is-this-here moments" his inability to understand that different people like different things became pretty clear. Why is it so hard to believe that some people may actually want a physical keyboard? Yes, it typically makes the phone bulkier and/or uglier, but for some people the extra utility it provides is worth it. Apple's approach has often been "we'll tell you what's good for you". That's how we got iMacs only available in Steve Jobs's favorite shade of blue (later more colors were added) the green "resize this window to Apple approved dimensions" button in Mac OS X, and now the one-size-fits-all iPhone.
  - Legion 16y ago
    Yeah, when he listed the physical keyboard as a "why is this here" example, I knew the guy had nothing to say that was of any value to me. I certainly have no problem with people liking the Apple Way (typing this on a 13" MBP, charging my iPad in the other room), but I find it endlessly annoying when someone feels incredulous that someone else might want something outside the strictly-defined Apple bounds.
lut4rp 16y ago
I strongly believe that desktop Linux is just waiting for a paid, commercially supported variant that comes with limited, supported hardware options. That is, like Apple. Vertical integration.
- bad_user 16y ago
  OS X is different ... it is based on Darwin, which is a kernel inheriting parts from BSD ... but Apple fully controls its development and Darwin maintains binary compatibility. Also when they released OS X, they also distributed it with a compatibility layer for older OS 9 apps, and they also shipped the Carbon APIs for legacy code. Unfortunately the Linux kernel itself breaks binary compatibility quite often, so you can't distribute binary blobs if you want to keep up-to-date (and you want that, since newer kernel versions have more hardware drivers). Linux distributions in general have a bad history on maintaining backwards-compatibility. And without third-party proprietary applications being distributed for this "commercially supported" OS, it's not going to make any inroads.
  - vetinari 16y ago
    Mac OS breaks compatibility too, so there is nothing that could be better than on Linux side. Actually, if you really care, you can still run a.out and glibc5 ELF userland binaries on Linux. On the other side, any m68k or ppc for classic apps are no-go on OSX, as well as some ppc-for-osx. Also for third party drivers, you need version for specific OSX point release, they are not generally very compatible. There are also entire classes of hardware that are unusable on OSX, period. (I remember wasting particularly lot of time on trying to get IrDA run on OSX with a little bit more than just IRCOMM. On Linux, it worked out of the box.)
- zmmmmm 16y ago
  It will probably never happen. Linux committed suicide by making the ideological decision to have an unstable ABI for the kernel, making it all but impossible for a 3rd party to ship binary drivers that work across multiple versions of the kernel. Microsoft could barely sustain this even across major revisions of their OS (see massive hostility to Vista because they broke the driver model). But linux does it with every point release of the kernel.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
diziet 16y ago
I don't think android is like the desktop linux situation. My mom & dad are happily using android phones, paying for all these wonderful apps and enjoying the phone. They would not really have the same experience with any linux installation.
xcombinator 16y ago
Linux is getting better each year, Android is getting better each year. But MS is getting better each year too, like Apple. The main difference is that MS and Apple improve he overall user experience while Linux and Android center themselves on geeks. Witch is great, for geeks, but not as good for other people. On Linux I can easily record any sound-video a program plays-displays , I can't do it on windows or Mac because of DRM. It's great for me, normal people don't care. People care about being able to easily classify their weeding photos using face recognition tech like iphoto does. Linux could do it in complex( and more powerful) ways that my mom can't use.
- megablast 16y ago
  Sorry, you say MS is getting better? No. I would gladly go back to Windows XP over 7. The only thing I like about 7 is the taskbar, everything else just gets in the way or annoys me. Why MS feel like shuffling around everything in the control panel every release I will never understand.
Greyface 16y ago
It depends on what criteria is used to judge greatness of course. By my evaluation, the iPhone's notifications and multitasking UI have been horrible since day one. That hasn't stopped Apple from oveloading push and local notifications with third-party multitasking, all without much change to the fundamental problems, making the experience worse over time. Marco's focus on the simple and shiny, at the expense of the functional and robust, indicates that we have different standards for greatness.
drivebyacct 16y ago
Why does this get on HN? It's one of three canned Android/iPhone articles. Yes, Android is free and the UI/UX has suffered at the hands of Google's engineers and rapid development. We get it. I'll just be laughing when this argument sounds silly in 6 months after Gingerbread.
barrkel 16y ago
The iPhone was a poor device on day one. Limited to a poor carrier, it was a poor phone, with only a handful of built-in apps, no GPS, etc. The Nexus One was a quite a nice device from day one, and in my opinion better than the iPhone 3GS. But this is apples to oranges. The way a device is from day one is less relevant when the race is long. What was important in competing with Apple's first move was being first to a viable second place, which then iterates rapidly in a "aim, fire, ready" style. If Google had waited until they had a perfect second place, they'd still be starting with a tiny marketshare (hence lack of apps etc.), and perhaps Palm wouldn't have failed as it did. But Google didn't wait, and they're solidly in second place, and gaining.
- cmelbye 16y ago
  Why would you even compare the Nexus One to the first generation iPhone? That's like saying "The first computer in existence sucked, my Mac Pro is way better."
  - axod 16y ago
    I went from iPhone 3G to Nexus One and it was a massive step up. From what I've seen the Nexus One is still far superior in functionality to the iPhone 4.
    - thrillho 16y ago
      In what ways?
      - axod 16y ago
        It's about 100 little things... I can take a photo/video and share it via email/youtube/facebook etc. I can use any mp3 as a ringtone I can have different ringtones for different things - sms/email/facebook The browsers handling of windows is better - js doesn't stop running on background windows. The level of detail in things like settings - battery usage is awesome. The other day my battery ran out in an hour, and I checked and found it was the facebook app using it all. Tethering / wifi hotspot is awesome - I'll be using it when I'm on holiday. Also syncing with contacts / calendars is great. Maybe you can do that on the iPhone easy enough, but it didn't seem like it. Now my wife just adds things to our shared calendar and it shows up on my phone. As with everything though it's probably best to just try one for a week and see if you prefer it. I sold my iPhone 3G after I'd tried android for a day.
amix 16y ago
It's a bad call to compare to Desktop Linux. A better comparison is looking at "iOS vs. Android" as "Mac OS vs. Windows" - - The strategy for iOS is very similar to the strategy of Mac OS and the strategy of Android is similar to the strategy of Windows. Longer down the road I think Android will have a much larger market share (just like Windows) - - while iOS will provide a better and more streamlined experience (just like Mac OS).
martythemaniak 16y ago
You know why people make stuff like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg Because you can't just get an Android phone and use it and be happy with it. There's always some hipster or yuppie or desperate-to-be-cool nerd that'll start going on and on and on about how amazingly great their iPhone is, was and always will be and how they have taste which you, as a non-Jobs product buyer, obviously don't. A lot of people like me switched from the iPhone to Android because we like it better, get over it. Also, there'll be more people that like and use Android than iOS, get over that as well. And since we're reaching for snarky old jokes (ie desktop linux), how about this one: What can Android users do that iPhone users can't? Shut the fuck up.
- judofyr 16y ago
  Well, to be fair, the same guy also make stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAOtC9QfXac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAOtC9QfXac
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    But why would you post it twice ? Also, I've yet to meet my first 'Android fanboy', but I've met plenty of Iphone fanboys in real life. I'm sure they exist but either not around here or they're not as much 'in your face' about it.
    - danudey 16y ago
      I've never met any Android fanboys yet either, but then I've never really met someone with an Android phone that liked it. I've met a lot of people who've switched to Android (mostly by buying the Nexus One) and sold it within a week to go back to their iPhones though. I've met a few people who bought non-Nexus-One phones but didn't like them and wanted to switch. It seems like in Vancouver, everyone either has a feature phone, a Blackberry, or an iPhone, except that one kid I saw on the bus with a Palm Pre.
- rue 16y ago
  > Because you can't just get an Android phone and use it and be happy with it. There's always some hipster or yuppie or desperate-to-be-cool nerd that'll start going on and on and on about how amazingly great their iPhone is, was and always will be and how they have taste which you, as a non-Jobs product buyer, obviously don't. This should only be a problem if your happiness completely depends on seeking validation from others.
irrelative 16y ago
The hatred of linux on the desktop is terribly cliche, especially on a site targeted towards hackers. Linux on my desktop is the greatest development environment I've ever used, having played extensively with OSX and Windows as well. I can easily install new libraries and "apt-get source" allows me to tinker with existing software easily and immediately build and execute the results. All of the development environment is thoroughly documented. But now, some influential people start saying how much better their version is. Specifically their closed, sealed-off, experience-driven version. Arguing "ease of use" and "shiny end user experience" rings really hollow to me. I use vim -- think I care about easy to use or shiny user experiences? -- and I use it because it's a powerful tool for its job. I just don't get it when hackers start telling other hackers that they should use a more restrictive environment because it'll make them feel better or is easier to use. Instead, ask yourself: is it the most powerful tool for the job? So sure, tell your parents and siblings to buy an iPhone. Hell, use your iPhone for anything you can -- it's a fantastic device. But stop telling future developers that it's worth giving up control for rounded corners and subtle shadows. And stop comparing its competition negatively to an environment that I, and others, find superior to any other.
- cmelbye 16y ago
  You completely missed the point of this article, which I find odd because the author clearly explained why he compared Android with desktop Linux. By "Linux on the desktop", he means Linux on regular Joe's desktop, not the hacker's desktop. The author agrees with you that Linux is made for people like you that want/need the extra control, etc, whatever. This is not what the majority are looking for in a desktop distribution.
  - sprout 16y ago
    The only reason I don't recommend desktop Linux to people is that explaining ubuntu-restricted-extras to them is too much work. Other than that it 'just works' out of the box and anyone who is currently using Windows XP should upgrade.
    - neilc 16y ago
jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Re: the iphone and android points, i completely agree. Android will get there in time and it's a great alternative (before android it was BBos or symbian, yuck). As far as linux desktop goes, it's more of an OEM problem. Ubuntu is getting really close to being consumer friendly. Even if it WERE 110% consumer friendly, there isn't even one OEM who produces a great linux machine. I'm not talking Dell loading it on one random machine or other guys like system76. Someone needs to step up and be the "apple of ubuntu/linux" (don't charge the high high premium though).
jsz0 16y ago
The Linux on the desktop comparison feels right to me for a variety of reasons but there are two important differences that create a more level playing field: 1) Android comes preinstalled on the devices 2) People don't expect 10-15 years of legacy compatibility from SmartPhones. When you erase those two barriers there's a lot more room for choice.
man1sh 16y ago
Just because iPhone doesn't have a physical keyboard - doesn't make physical keyboards evil. Similar logic for trackball. I have tried using physical keyboard on Blackberry and I felt pretty comfortable. I bet other manufacturers would come out with better physical keyboards. My flatmate has a Thinkpad with a trackball. Initially it was pretty tough to control it. Trackball and physical keyboard isn't bad just because I think it's bad. So much from a Tumblr lead dev! I expected better.
- vetinari 16y ago
  The red thing on Thinkpads is called trackpoint (or clit, for simplicity). Trackballs are entirely different animals, it is a ball that you move (if you remember old ball mouses, it is basically ball mouse turned on its back, with bigger ball). This post was brought to you by Thinkpad, with trackpoint as a sole pointing device ;).
artiom 16y ago
I'm happy with my x10 mini from day 1.
wildjim 16y ago
Apple fanboi.
stcredzero 16y ago
I need more data. What else was, "Great since day one?" In particular, is there anything that's not Apple that fits this? Toyota and Honda, maybe? My Sennheiser wireless mics? The PS2? I'm looking around my apartment and I'm having a hard time finding non-Apple stuff that fits that description. My Gerber Suspension pocket tool fits the bill, I think. The Logitech VX Revolution mouse does as well. I think about half of the "Great since day one" stuff is made by Apple! Most everything else required tinkering. The BenQ 520MP projector just worked and was great. Ah, my old GE 2 alarm AM/FM clock radio. That thing was cheap as hell, it's as solidly built as something can be from plastic, and it just works great. Oh, and of course, my Nintendo DS! My apartment is full of stuff that takes tinkering!
nir 16y ago
Seems to me Android is "Linux on the desktop". It's a user facing Linux-derived operating system, and seems well on track to become the most widely used OS in a few years. Pure desktop Linux never took off, for various reasons (at least some of them non-software related at all). It doesn't matter, the desktop is no longer the main way we use an OS.
Androsynth 16y ago
The problem with Apple is that if you use an iPhone, you are a smarmy cunt; if you don't use one, your a hater and a conformist.
kenjackson 16y ago
While the article is correct that the iPhone was good on day one (not sure I'd say great) and Android was seriously lacking. I think it's fair to say now that Android and iPhone are running neck and neck. iPhone 4 leapfrogged Android, but note, they actually had to leapfrog Android. The new Android devices (EVO and Samsung Galaxy in particular) are just as good, if not better in some respects than the iPhone. Froyo as an OS is better and worse than iOS4. And from what I've heard about Gingerbread,I think Android will again take a lead against the iPhone. I think the real difference between Android and Apple is that Apple is good at finding a market and coming out with a compelling product. That's in their DNA. But what is also in their DNA is their ability to lose that market due to slow innovation after day one. The only real exception here is the iPod. And they won that battle on fashion as much as technology and UX. If I were Apple I'd be really worried about Android. I think it's conceivable that iPhone sales could plummet in a given year. I plan on getting a Galaxy phone as my next one.
- flyosity 16y ago
  Something isn't "just as good" if it can run down a full battery in one hour simply by using a built-in feature, aka, WiFi sharing.
NickPollard 16y ago
I disagree with his assertion that 'great since day one' is unequivocally better than the other - if I can get something earlier, but it's a little rougher around the edges, that's often better - particularly since having something out in the wild where people use it early means you can get good feedback to help you improve the product and avoid horrible untested issues slipping through (a certain antennae issue springs to mind). Other than that though, his use of 'copy and paste' as an example is something that really depends on perspective. He argues that 'copy and paste' is a single isolated feature, and that Apple waited until they could make it great since day one. However, if you looked at 'copy and paste' as merely an element of a larger system, then launching that system without one of it's key features makes it not so 'great since day one'.
stretchwithme 16y ago
I haven't bought either Android or Iphone. I lean towards Android when I think about how cool it is to modify the OS to make it do cool things. But when I think about what product I would recommend to family, I have to recommend the iPhone over Android. They don't care if its open. They care that someone is ultimately responsible for making sure that its going to work now and that it has a future. The choices they need to make when they buy an Apple product are few and clear. When I've had problems with an Apple product, Apple Care takes care it. If there were an Android store, it would be on the back of a semi and would move to a different mall parking lot each week.
tomjen3 16y ago
That is a retarded argument, and I expect better from marco. It should be obvious that shipping with a broken copy-past is miles better than shipping with none at all. The iPhone wasn't good, because it only shipped with great features - it was medicore, because it shipped without many of the features (flash, copy-past, the ability to run multiple programs at the same time) that are needed. It is much like homework - if you give a great title and fantastic abstract, but zero content you should not get an A.
- LukasMathis 16y ago
  >"It should be obvious that shipping with a broken copy-past is miles better than shipping with none at all." The problem with shipping broken features is that there is no pressure to fix them. It's much easier to add new features than to fix existing features. Every time there's an update to Android, there's a huge list of neat new things in that release. On the other hand, I've never seen a list of things that didn't work quite well in earlier versions or were a bit janky or a bit confusing or inconsistent or user-unfriendly or complicated, but are now fixed. Google tries to improve Android by constantly adding new stuff. That's exciting to people like us, but it will never turn Android into something that is as consistent and polished as iOS. The things that bothered me in Android 1.6 are still mostly there in 2.2.
Zak 16y ago
lots of why-is-this-here moments (the Droid’s keyboard, the Nexus One’s trackball) I see this sort of thing from reviews a lot. The Droid's keyboard is there because there are customers who want it. There are plenty of Android phones without them as well. It's perfectly reasonable that some people want a smaller and more sturdy phone, but I won't buy a smartphone without a real keyboard. The trackball is good for positioning the cursor when editing text. It's faster than arrow keys and much more precise than the touch screen. I am disappointed that they are rapidly disappearing, sometimes replaced by an optical trackpad. Android is about power and choice. The iPhone is about a great implementation of a specific vision. Both are doing very well in the marketplace. The idea that one is wrong and the other right is almost certainly mistaken.
- cheald 16y ago
  The trackball doubles as a handy-dandy notification light, too.
  - rogermugs 16y ago
    and triples as an annoying useless trackball
mhd 16y ago
I wonder whether Marco used OS X 10.0 (or 10.1)…
Tichy 16y ago
Please go away
zmmmmm 16y ago
It is silly to try and frame a comparison between iPhone and Android in 1-dimension. We could equally write an article criticizing the App Store and say the difference is about freedom of expression. Or about quality of apps. Or about power and flexibility. Or availability of media. Or hardware. Or half a dozen other things. Guess what folks, there are many various differences! Personally I choose Android because I value the various dimensions on which it scores highly over those where the iPhone scores highly. But don't try and pretend there is only one dimension to this.
siglesias 16y ago
Perhaps a longer blog post needs to be dedicated to this, but I feel like much of the debate between iOS and Android focuses on the "fundamental differences" between Apple's particular approach (or call it philosophy) to mobile computing, and Google's. This might be a bit controversial, but I find it NOT an open and shut case that an "open, customizable" platform is an advantage. Throughout history we've been struggling with the Google/iOS problem, but the debate took on different forms: totalitarian versus democratic government, planned economy versus "free" economy, big government versus small government. The question is: should certain kinds of decisions affecting a state be centralized or dispersed? In theory, dispersed power (among citizens, or users) should win the day, IF NOT for inevitable market inefficiencies (information asymmetries, NOISE, emotional human irrationality) and malicious private agents who prey on the uninformed. There is an argument to be made that computing platforms fall under this debate. I would argue that Google's open platform also makes it vulnerable to far too many exploits: viruses, buggy, crashing, battery-draining software, and adware that might indiscriminately display pornography. All for certain powers of customizability that I (and many others) find trivial. Like choosing system fonts and having video wallpaper. If everybody in the world had the means to discriminate between spam software and non, then I would think that a system under which anybody could post software targeting any part of the system would be an excellent thing. But they can't. WE, as hackers can. Maybe. But for a majority of the people, they must enter into a "social contract" with a curator wherein decisions of quality and security are made for them in exchange for a price premium equal to or less than the value of time saved in "not worrying" about malicious code. Beautifully, this space is evolving to a cycle of two year hardware refreshes (less than that for hardcore users), and these serve as market voting mechanisms for the job or efficacy of the curator (in this case, Apple and Google). In the United States (which some would argue is the apotheosis of enlightenment thinking of the government problem) we have deferred legislative power to a body that we pay to do the thinking for us. We cycle through this body periodically democratically (as we can in mobile). We certainly don't have time to ponder over the minutiae of certain articles of legislation. In the same way, I would argue, I don't have time to discriminate between one piece of software for compatibility, reliability, security and quality, and another making nearly identical claims to functionality. Maybe you do, and that's why you choose Android. Meanwhile, I'll trade certain features for peace of mind.
beej71 16y ago
I have a macbook pro and an iPhone and neither has been great since day one. How do you explain that?
- zygen 16y ago
  Well, that's just like... your opinion, man.
bradendouglass 16y ago
Sorry but the comment thread started with: "The hatred of linux on the desktop is terribly cliche..." has nothing to do with the actual content in question. Warning for all the HN Noobs. Comments beware!
cjensenius 16y ago
Another sucker on the Apple teet
thewileyone 16y ago
I can agree that Apple does great things from Day One like the Macintosh and the iPhone. But Apple also has a tendency to be complacent and allow the competition to catch up. That's what's going to happen with the iPhone and Android, like it did with the Macintosh and Windows. Great at Day One or not, the customer will eventually select freedom of choice and this is where Apple will lose.
cjensenius 16y ago
How can you claim to create the worlds best devices, yet cannot pull off copy/paste. Its not exactly the traveling salesman problem...
shimi 16y ago
A friend of mine lend me is iPod Touch. To get it working with Wifi or connect it to iTunes running on windows is a very painful process. I didn't had these problems (No need using the iTunes in the first place)with the G1, Motorola Droid, even my old N95. So what is so great?
- danudey 16y ago
  I've never had issues getting iPod Touches or iPhones working on WiFi; likewise, connecting to iTunes has always been straightforward. What sort of issues were you having?
ergo98 16y ago
Someone is channeling their inner-John Gruber, apparently. The original iPhone had a mediocre display, a forgettable design, zero apps (and, contrary to the revisionism that is now the rage, had zero plans on every having apps at inception. Apple and AT&T saw apps as a unnecessary risk, and web apps were the only solution), a terrible back-facing camera (and no front facing camera, which in those early days was considered an egregious oversight), and it was strangely 2G in a world that had already moved to 3G. It succeeded because it was Apple. To say that it was "Great since day one" should embarrass the speaker, and if Nokia, or Motorola, or anyone else released that phone it would have been panned. The latest iPhone needs to be cocooned inside a case lest you shatter the good-looking-but-bad-engineering glass back or touch the untouchable antenna. Great since day one? It has a video chat application that inexplicably only works between iPhone 4 users on WiFi, which to most other companies wouldn't even classify as "beta". Great since day one? It has a notification system that is horribly crippled by the most generous evaluation. Great since day one? The iPhone is a gorgeous, gorgeous phone. It is the new trendsetter. It is not without many flaws however, though it sits in that remarkable favored area where flaws are glossed over. Indeed, it's telling that Apple's flaws only become obvious to the faithful once the replacement is available. Suddenly, you'll note, every Apple-head is talking about how the iPhone 3GS is dated, feels plasticy and cheap, etc (Hey, I was saying that since it came out, but of course as the deliverance from Apple it was impossible that could be true, until the next deliverance). These sorts of cult-religious screeds are an embarrassment to technology. I mentioned Gruber earlier because this Marco guy is stealing his schtick.
- ergo98 16y ago
  Oh, add that iOS 4 cribs Android multitasking almost directly. And when it borrows from Android's notification system, replacing the terrible system it has now (they're already hiring in this space), at release people like Gruber and Marco will say "See, this is what makes Apple great: It's great since day one!" When you can look at the world like that, defining "day one" to be when the product is no longer second-rate, it's easy to say that. Android is "great since day one", so long as you ignore everything prior to 2.2.
- thm76 16y ago
  I think what Apple is doing usually, and I think that's one of the points Marco is making in the article, is that they only add features when they can get them working very well. They didn't have a use for a front facing camera, or could make it easy enough to use, so they didn't include one. Now they have one because they were finally able to implement video chat in an easy to use way (Face Time). They didn't have copy and paste until they figured out how to make it as elegant and easy to use as it is. They didn't include 3G in the original iPhone because it would have affected battery life too much. They only introduced the SDK once the API was in a usable state and they got the necessary documentation and infrastructure in place to support 3rd party developers. Face Time currently only works on WiFi, but from what I read about it it actually works for Joe Average. On other phones you have to be a geek to figure out which software to install and how to set it up. For some people it is certainly valuable to have barely working bleeding edge features on the phone, but for the 99% of users out there who're not interested in tinkering with their phone Apple's approach makes a lot more sense, IMO.
billmcneale 16y ago
TLDR: Marco is not a big fan of choice in the market place.
billmcneale 16y ago
I imagine a world where everybody would be forced to use a Newton, an Apple TV, a Mighty Mouse and an Apple keyboard... Apple makes great phones and great computers but saying that everything they create is great from day one has gone too far on the fanboy dark side.
jscore 16y ago
I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means or measure, but I can't help but agree with this post. I had the original iPhone and every feature just worked from day one; I didn't need any updates or anything. And yes, I could live without cut and paste. I now have Nexus One, and although I love and do not plan on going back to an iPhone at any point, I still think the iPhone is just a more complete, more polished phone. It's a perfect mass market device because 99% of the consumers do not care about tweaking their device or changing ROMs. I had Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron, but I have gotten my MBP back from a friend. MBP is better. Things work together better, and I don't need to tweak a million things or change themes. I just want to do my work.
periferral 16y ago
can we get by a week in HN without fanboy posts?
- periferral 16y ago
  to clarify some misconceptions of this post 1. great since day 1. Well no copy and paste for 2 years? and great since day 1. Contradictory? 2. Hold Different? Great since day 1? 3. Needs iTunes desktop software. 4. No external storage options. 5. No background (until pseudo support in os4, clearly not day 1) 6. no open app store. the list is never ending really. i sure hope the poster realizes despite these significant shortcomings, he thinks the iphone is great since day 1
cookiecaper 16y ago
I totally despise this article. It contradicts open-source philosophy completely. It falsely and stupidly implicates Linux. It compares two very different kinds of things. And I know lots of people who thought their Android phone was great on day one -- including myself. So what's the deal here? This is frustrating, horrible low-brow fanboyism
papertiger 16y ago
To each their own. "Great" is subjective.

85 points by thesethings 16y ago

pace of development and somewhat closed development make android different then desktop Linux. iPhone's big plus is providing value for long period of time. Still today original iPhone is useful device and except 3d games most of new apps can be used too. Which is great in fast changing market.

biafra 16y ago

The OS needs to be updated over the air Not true. I did all my updates with my computer.

axod 16y ago

Apple is great on day one since it doesn't actually have many features. I'm loving my Nexus One here, which has just been updated to 2.2 :) Different ringtones (Anything you like) for sms/email/facebook, tethering, portable hotspot! Flash? Simply in a different league than iPhone. The early Android hardware sucked, but the N1 is pretty solid. >> The Android ecosystem doesn’t seem capable of producing devices that are great on day one. Yet Apple consistently pulls it off. IDK, I've heard some things about the iPhone 4... I had an iPhone for 3 years or so. It was a great device for what it did, but the whole hassle of having to use iTunes. No removable storage. Can't just stuff mp3's on it and use as ringtones. Can't just copy photos off it unless you go through the right software. It's just a PITA. Not to mention the mass of features that are just lacking on the iPhone but you take for granted on Android.

cageface 16y ago
I had an iPhone for 3 years or so. It was a great device for what it did, but the whole hassle of having to use iTunes. No removable storage. Can't just stuff mp3's on it and use as ringtones. Can't just copy photos off it unless you go through the right software. It's just a PITA. Not to mention the mass of features that are just lacking on the iPhone but you take for granted on Android. Exactly. Mobile doesn't mean you can copy your stuff onto something portable. It means you've got a window to your stuff in your pocket. Google's information-centric approach makes a lot more sense than Apple's device-centric approach.
- axod 16y ago
  Yup. And over the air updates are obviously a good idea. I plug my Nexus One into my computer when I want to, not when it needs to be plugged in (Unlike the iPhone). It stands up as a device on its own.
  - nailer 16y ago
    That's what's holding me off on an iPad. Why buy a computer that needs to be plugged into another computer?
- megablast 16y ago
  Makes a lot more sense to everybody, except for the majority of people who still don't quite understand what a folder is. I agree, I like copying over mp3s and photos, finding out what folder they need to go in, if they have filename restrictions, that sort of thing. I have done that for a long time. I understand that, and find it easy. What I have a problem with is people who think that everybody wants it that way. Do you not understand that the majority are not like us, do not understand computers, need point and click interfaces? Why does this always come up?
  - cageface 16y ago
    The only things I have to manually copy over to my Droid are music and video. Everything else (photos, contacts, email, docs) is just cached transparently from the cloud. This seems a lot simpler and more user-friendly to me than forcing a user to physically attach to a computer and worry about duplicates, overwrites, stale files etc. Isn't the whole idea to stop forcing users to think about files? The only reason I have to manually copy music and video is bandwidth so it's likely that at some point in the near future those will also be handled for me.
    - rogermugs 16y ago
      Linux fans always say it’s “getting better”, and there’s always a major distribution update a few months away that’s about to be awesome. But it never is
jodrellblank 16y ago
Can't just copy photos off it unless you go through the right software. Plug it in to a windows pc, it appears as a read only drive with your pictures / videos on it for 'just' copying off.
- axod 16y ago
  * I don't have windows * Read only? lame Having a microSD card, and being able to mount it r/w mass storage from anything, is pretty nice. It's irritating that Apple don't recognize things like that.
  - vetinari 16y ago
    It actually uses PTP protocol for transferring photos. Once upon time I was trying to get data out of iPhone, that was paired to iTunes on a harddrive that went into the big bucket in the sky. To my surprise, connecting it to the Ubuntu box allowed me to copy out all the data I cared for, without any wonky iTunes. But I agree with you, having microSD or at least USB mass storage is much better.
patrickk 16y ago
iTunes...ok it can be a right pain. No removable storage - not an issue for me. My brother has often misplaced his microSD card for his Samsung phone though, so I'm not sure if this is something I'd like. MP3s: http://www.ehow.com/how_2111958_convert-itunes-mp-mp.html http://www.ehow.com/how_2111958_convert-itunes-mp-mp.html Copying photos: http://www.macroplant.com/index.php http://www.macroplant.com/index.php (granted, this feature should be there by default) The iPhone is a great phone once you jailbreak & unlock it, IMO ;-) EDIT: Great smartphone comparison chart: http://lifehacker.com/5575317/smartphone-comparison-chart-dishes-the-dirt-on-smartphone-specs http://lifehacker.com/5575317/smartphone-comparison-chart-di...
- nailer 16y ago
  I jailbroke, unlocked, had bugs, heard about an update, waited for a new jailbreak to be announced, updated the OS in the hope they'd fix it, jailbroke again, unlocked again. Personally it was a stupid thing to do, and I wish I never bothered buying the iPhone. I now have an HTC Desire.
- axod 16y ago
  Maybe so. I don't want to jailbreak a phone, don't want to have to install things to be able to work with it. I just want the thing to work properly :)

contextfree 16y ago

Desktop Linux has been getting better each year, though (at least on average). If it still hasn't crossed the threshold of being good enough for the mainstream, it's because their standards have also been increasing.

btmorex 16y ago
I think that's true, but also Linux on the desktop is the best system for some people right now (me for example). Even if money were no object, like if someone said you can have any Apple system you want, I'd still pick a normal PC with Linux on it. I've always thought the whole "year of the linux desktop" was a meme mostly kept alive by people who never have and would never use Linux anyway. People who actually use Linux don't think it's going to suddenly take over. On the other hand, most think it is actually a good system today.
bad_user 16y ago
This is the first year I've installed a Linux distribution that just worked on my laptop (a Dell Inspiron). Graphics, sound, built-in wireless, usb 3G modem, built-in webcam ... all of them worked out of the box. The experience is great, although I'm still not recommending it to non-technical users ... once the Linux desktop is good enough, you still have the problem of apps running on top, and unfortunately the environment is not really friendly to proprietary software.
instcode 16y ago
Yes, if something is great since day one, it probably stays away from the improving motivation. If you are willing to pay a price for what is being offered, you will get more pleased when it gets better and costs you nothing...
cookiecaper 16y ago
Desktop Linux _is_ the best system around. It's not about quality. People don't care about technical excellence, they care about _doing things_. And for now, Windows offers the easiest way of doing things, because everything works on it because a manufacturer will never release something that doesn't work on the general swath of Windows computers. Pretty much the entire appeal of Mac is a) no viruses/spyware (because nobody writes viruses or spyware for Mac because its userbase is too insignificant to target) and b) big icons and prettier colors, making it "easier" to use. Windows is an institution. It doesn't just give way once something becomes objectively superior; many systems have been superior to the their Microsoft contemporary and Windows didn't magically crumble. It's about installed base.

iamdave 16y ago

I've always admired some of the things marco writes about, this is not one of them. While article is a depressingly one-sided article (marco's prerogative, totally fine with me), he misses a very big point, that for the sake of full disclosure should at least be expounded upon beyond a dry-wit analogy to Desktop Linux. Android and iOS are moving in two different directions, and have benefits for two different crowds. While they both enjoy their share of people who play by the party lines, and will gladly pull out their iPhone or Android Phone the minute the opportunity to use an application presents itself, it doesn't stray away from the fact that the two platforms should not be compared to one another. Where the iPhone shines in brilliance, quality, and polish, Android reigns supreme when it comes down to making the phone do what you want to the core. That is not, however in the least bit to say that hacking the Android platform is inherent to its very existence. I'm not going to beat the "one is open the other is not" horse, because it's already dead, but it's very hard to ignore the obvious that Android is a pragmatic platform that prides itself on the berth of UX centric platform evolution where the iPhone gives users features, and expects them to work with those features withdrawn from the scope of downloading Apps.

xenomachina 16y ago
Speaking of having benefits for different crowds: when he mentioned the "why-is-this-here moments" his inability to understand that different people like different things became pretty clear. Why is it so hard to believe that some people may actually want a physical keyboard? Yes, it typically makes the phone bulkier and/or uglier, but for some people the extra utility it provides is worth it. Apple's approach has often been "we'll tell you what's good for you". That's how we got iMacs only available in Steve Jobs's favorite shade of blue (later more colors were added) the green "resize this window to Apple approved dimensions" button in Mac OS X, and now the one-size-fits-all iPhone.
- Legion 16y ago
  Yeah, when he listed the physical keyboard as a "why is this here" example, I knew the guy had nothing to say that was of any value to me. I certainly have no problem with people liking the Apple Way (typing this on a 13" MBP, charging my iPad in the other room), but I find it endlessly annoying when someone feels incredulous that someone else might want something outside the strictly-defined Apple bounds.

lut4rp 16y ago

I strongly believe that desktop Linux is just waiting for a paid, commercially supported variant that comes with limited, supported hardware options. That is, like Apple. Vertical integration.

bad_user 16y ago
OS X is different ... it is based on Darwin, which is a kernel inheriting parts from BSD ... but Apple fully controls its development and Darwin maintains binary compatibility. Also when they released OS X, they also distributed it with a compatibility layer for older OS 9 apps, and they also shipped the Carbon APIs for legacy code. Unfortunately the Linux kernel itself breaks binary compatibility quite often, so you can't distribute binary blobs if you want to keep up-to-date (and you want that, since newer kernel versions have more hardware drivers). Linux distributions in general have a bad history on maintaining backwards-compatibility. And without third-party proprietary applications being distributed for this "commercially supported" OS, it's not going to make any inroads.
- vetinari 16y ago
  Mac OS breaks compatibility too, so there is nothing that could be better than on Linux side. Actually, if you really care, you can still run a.out and glibc5 ELF userland binaries on Linux. On the other side, any m68k or ppc for classic apps are no-go on OSX, as well as some ppc-for-osx. Also for third party drivers, you need version for specific OSX point release, they are not generally very compatible. There are also entire classes of hardware that are unusable on OSX, period. (I remember wasting particularly lot of time on trying to get IrDA run on OSX with a little bit more than just IRCOMM. On Linux, it worked out of the box.)
zmmmmm 16y ago
It will probably never happen. Linux committed suicide by making the ideological decision to have an unstable ABI for the kernel, making it all but impossible for a 3rd party to ship binary drivers that work across multiple versions of the kernel. Microsoft could barely sustain this even across major revisions of their OS (see massive hostility to Vista because they broke the driver model). But linux does it with every point release of the kernel.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

diziet 16y ago

I don't think android is like the desktop linux situation. My mom & dad are happily using android phones, paying for all these wonderful apps and enjoying the phone. They would not really have the same experience with any linux installation.

xcombinator 16y ago

Linux is getting better each year, Android is getting better each year. But MS is getting better each year too, like Apple. The main difference is that MS and Apple improve he overall user experience while Linux and Android center themselves on geeks. Witch is great, for geeks, but not as good for other people. On Linux I can easily record any sound-video a program plays-displays , I can't do it on windows or Mac because of DRM. It's great for me, normal people don't care. People care about being able to easily classify their weeding photos using face recognition tech like iphoto does. Linux could do it in complex( and more powerful) ways that my mom can't use.

megablast 16y ago
Sorry, you say MS is getting better? No. I would gladly go back to Windows XP over 7. The only thing I like about 7 is the taskbar, everything else just gets in the way or annoys me. Why MS feel like shuffling around everything in the control panel every release I will never understand.

Greyface 16y ago

It depends on what criteria is used to judge greatness of course. By my evaluation, the iPhone's notifications and multitasking UI have been horrible since day one. That hasn't stopped Apple from oveloading push and local notifications with third-party multitasking, all without much change to the fundamental problems, making the experience worse over time. Marco's focus on the simple and shiny, at the expense of the functional and robust, indicates that we have different standards for greatness.

drivebyacct 16y ago

Why does this get on HN? It's one of three canned Android/iPhone articles. Yes, Android is free and the UI/UX has suffered at the hands of Google's engineers and rapid development. We get it. I'll just be laughing when this argument sounds silly in 6 months after Gingerbread.

barrkel 16y ago

The iPhone was a poor device on day one. Limited to a poor carrier, it was a poor phone, with only a handful of built-in apps, no GPS, etc. The Nexus One was a quite a nice device from day one, and in my opinion better than the iPhone 3GS. But this is apples to oranges. The way a device is from day one is less relevant when the race is long. What was important in competing with Apple's first move was being first to a viable second place, which then iterates rapidly in a "aim, fire, ready" style. If Google had waited until they had a perfect second place, they'd still be starting with a tiny marketshare (hence lack of apps etc.), and perhaps Palm wouldn't have failed as it did. But Google didn't wait, and they're solidly in second place, and gaining.

cmelbye 16y ago
Why would you even compare the Nexus One to the first generation iPhone? That's like saying "The first computer in existence sucked, my Mac Pro is way better."
- axod 16y ago
  I went from iPhone 3G to Nexus One and it was a massive step up. From what I've seen the Nexus One is still far superior in functionality to the iPhone 4.
  - thrillho 16y ago
    In what ways?
    - axod 16y ago
      It's about 100 little things... I can take a photo/video and share it via email/youtube/facebook etc. I can use any mp3 as a ringtone I can have different ringtones for different things - sms/email/facebook The browsers handling of windows is better - js doesn't stop running on background windows. The level of detail in things like settings - battery usage is awesome. The other day my battery ran out in an hour, and I checked and found it was the facebook app using it all. Tethering / wifi hotspot is awesome - I'll be using it when I'm on holiday. Also syncing with contacts / calendars is great. Maybe you can do that on the iPhone easy enough, but it didn't seem like it. Now my wife just adds things to our shared calendar and it shows up on my phone. As with everything though it's probably best to just try one for a week and see if you prefer it. I sold my iPhone 3G after I'd tried android for a day.

amix 16y ago

It's a bad call to compare to Desktop Linux. A better comparison is looking at "iOS vs. Android" as "Mac OS vs. Windows" - - The strategy for iOS is very similar to the strategy of Mac OS and the strategy of Android is similar to the strategy of Windows. Longer down the road I think Android will have a much larger market share (just like Windows) - - while iOS will provide a better and more streamlined experience (just like Mac OS).

martythemaniak 16y ago

You know why people make stuff like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg Because you can't just get an Android phone and use it and be happy with it. There's always some hipster or yuppie or desperate-to-be-cool nerd that'll start going on and on and on about how amazingly great their iPhone is, was and always will be and how they have taste which you, as a non-Jobs product buyer, obviously don't. A lot of people like me switched from the iPhone to Android because we like it better, get over it. Also, there'll be more people that like and use Android than iOS, get over that as well. And since we're reaching for snarky old jokes (ie desktop linux), how about this one: What can Android users do that iPhone users can't? Shut the fuck up.

judofyr 16y ago
Well, to be fair, the same guy also make stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAOtC9QfXac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAOtC9QfXac
- jacquesm 16y ago
  But why would you post it twice ? Also, I've yet to meet my first 'Android fanboy', but I've met plenty of Iphone fanboys in real life. I'm sure they exist but either not around here or they're not as much 'in your face' about it.
  - danudey 16y ago
    I've never met any Android fanboys yet either, but then I've never really met someone with an Android phone that liked it. I've met a lot of people who've switched to Android (mostly by buying the Nexus One) and sold it within a week to go back to their iPhones though. I've met a few people who bought non-Nexus-One phones but didn't like them and wanted to switch. It seems like in Vancouver, everyone either has a feature phone, a Blackberry, or an iPhone, except that one kid I saw on the bus with a Palm Pre.
rue 16y ago
> Because you can't just get an Android phone and use it and be happy with it. There's always some hipster or yuppie or desperate-to-be-cool nerd that'll start going on and on and on about how amazingly great their iPhone is, was and always will be and how they have taste which you, as a non-Jobs product buyer, obviously don't. This should only be a problem if your happiness completely depends on seeking validation from others.

irrelative 16y ago

The hatred of linux on the desktop is terribly cliche, especially on a site targeted towards hackers. Linux on my desktop is the greatest development environment I've ever used, having played extensively with OSX and Windows as well. I can easily install new libraries and "apt-get source" allows me to tinker with existing software easily and immediately build and execute the results. All of the development environment is thoroughly documented. But now, some influential people start saying how much better their version is. Specifically their closed, sealed-off, experience-driven version. Arguing "ease of use" and "shiny end user experience" rings really hollow to me. I use vim -- think I care about easy to use or shiny user experiences? -- and I use it because it's a powerful tool for its job. I just don't get it when hackers start telling other hackers that they should use a more restrictive environment because it'll make them feel better or is easier to use. Instead, ask yourself: is it the most powerful tool for the job? So sure, tell your parents and siblings to buy an iPhone. Hell, use your iPhone for anything you can -- it's a fantastic device. But stop telling future developers that it's worth giving up control for rounded corners and subtle shadows. And stop comparing its competition negatively to an environment that I, and others, find superior to any other.

cmelbye 16y ago
You completely missed the point of this article, which I find odd because the author clearly explained why he compared Android with desktop Linux. By "Linux on the desktop", he means Linux on regular Joe's desktop, not the hacker's desktop. The author agrees with you that Linux is made for people like you that want/need the extra control, etc, whatever. This is not what the majority are looking for in a desktop distribution.
- sprout 16y ago
  The only reason I don't recommend desktop Linux to people is that explaining ubuntu-restricted-extras to them is too much work. Other than that it 'just works' out of the box and anyone who is currently using Windows XP should upgrade.
  - neilc 16y ago

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago

Re: the iphone and android points, i completely agree. Android will get there in time and it's a great alternative (before android it was BBos or symbian, yuck). As far as linux desktop goes, it's more of an OEM problem. Ubuntu is getting really close to being consumer friendly. Even if it WERE 110% consumer friendly, there isn't even one OEM who produces a great linux machine. I'm not talking Dell loading it on one random machine or other guys like system76. Someone needs to step up and be the "apple of ubuntu/linux" (don't charge the high high premium though).

jsz0 16y ago

The Linux on the desktop comparison feels right to me for a variety of reasons but there are two important differences that create a more level playing field: 1) Android comes preinstalled on the devices 2) People don't expect 10-15 years of legacy compatibility from SmartPhones. When you erase those two barriers there's a lot more room for choice.

man1sh 16y ago

Just because iPhone doesn't have a physical keyboard - doesn't make physical keyboards evil. Similar logic for trackball. I have tried using physical keyboard on Blackberry and I felt pretty comfortable. I bet other manufacturers would come out with better physical keyboards. My flatmate has a Thinkpad with a trackball. Initially it was pretty tough to control it. Trackball and physical keyboard isn't bad just because I think it's bad. So much from a Tumblr lead dev! I expected better.

vetinari 16y ago
The red thing on Thinkpads is called trackpoint (or clit, for simplicity). Trackballs are entirely different animals, it is a ball that you move (if you remember old ball mouses, it is basically ball mouse turned on its back, with bigger ball). This post was brought to you by Thinkpad, with trackpoint as a sole pointing device ;).

artiom 16y ago

I'm happy with my x10 mini from day 1.

wildjim 16y ago

Apple fanboi.

stcredzero 16y ago

I need more data. What else was, "Great since day one?" In particular, is there anything that's not Apple that fits this? Toyota and Honda, maybe? My Sennheiser wireless mics? The PS2? I'm looking around my apartment and I'm having a hard time finding non-Apple stuff that fits that description. My Gerber Suspension pocket tool fits the bill, I think. The Logitech VX Revolution mouse does as well. I think about half of the "Great since day one" stuff is made by Apple! Most everything else required tinkering. The BenQ 520MP projector just worked and was great. Ah, my old GE 2 alarm AM/FM clock radio. That thing was cheap as hell, it's as solidly built as something can be from plastic, and it just works great. Oh, and of course, my Nintendo DS! My apartment is full of stuff that takes tinkering!

nir 16y ago

Seems to me Android is "Linux on the desktop". It's a user facing Linux-derived operating system, and seems well on track to become the most widely used OS in a few years. Pure desktop Linux never took off, for various reasons (at least some of them non-software related at all). It doesn't matter, the desktop is no longer the main way we use an OS.

Androsynth 16y ago

The problem with Apple is that if you use an iPhone, you are a smarmy cunt; if you don't use one, your a hater and a conformist.

kenjackson 16y ago

While the article is correct that the iPhone was good on day one (not sure I'd say great) and Android was seriously lacking. I think it's fair to say now that Android and iPhone are running neck and neck. iPhone 4 leapfrogged Android, but note, they actually had to leapfrog Android. The new Android devices (EVO and Samsung Galaxy in particular) are just as good, if not better in some respects than the iPhone. Froyo as an OS is better and worse than iOS4. And from what I've heard about Gingerbread,I think Android will again take a lead against the iPhone. I think the real difference between Android and Apple is that Apple is good at finding a market and coming out with a compelling product. That's in their DNA. But what is also in their DNA is their ability to lose that market due to slow innovation after day one. The only real exception here is the iPod. And they won that battle on fashion as much as technology and UX. If I were Apple I'd be really worried about Android. I think it's conceivable that iPhone sales could plummet in a given year. I plan on getting a Galaxy phone as my next one.

flyosity 16y ago
Something isn't "just as good" if it can run down a full battery in one hour simply by using a built-in feature, aka, WiFi sharing.

NickPollard 16y ago

I disagree with his assertion that 'great since day one' is unequivocally better than the other - if I can get something earlier, but it's a little rougher around the edges, that's often better - particularly since having something out in the wild where people use it early means you can get good feedback to help you improve the product and avoid horrible untested issues slipping through (a certain antennae issue springs to mind). Other than that though, his use of 'copy and paste' as an example is something that really depends on perspective. He argues that 'copy and paste' is a single isolated feature, and that Apple waited until they could make it great since day one. However, if you looked at 'copy and paste' as merely an element of a larger system, then launching that system without one of it's key features makes it not so 'great since day one'.

stretchwithme 16y ago

I haven't bought either Android or Iphone. I lean towards Android when I think about how cool it is to modify the OS to make it do cool things. But when I think about what product I would recommend to family, I have to recommend the iPhone over Android. They don't care if its open. They care that someone is ultimately responsible for making sure that its going to work now and that it has a future. The choices they need to make when they buy an Apple product are few and clear. When I've had problems with an Apple product, Apple Care takes care it. If there were an Android store, it would be on the back of a semi and would move to a different mall parking lot each week.

tomjen3 16y ago

That is a retarded argument, and I expect better from marco. It should be obvious that shipping with a broken copy-past is miles better than shipping with none at all. The iPhone wasn't good, because it only shipped with great features - it was medicore, because it shipped without many of the features (flash, copy-past, the ability to run multiple programs at the same time) that are needed. It is much like homework - if you give a great title and fantastic abstract, but zero content you should not get an A.

LukasMathis 16y ago
>"It should be obvious that shipping with a broken copy-past is miles better than shipping with none at all." The problem with shipping broken features is that there is no pressure to fix them. It's much easier to add new features than to fix existing features. Every time there's an update to Android, there's a huge list of neat new things in that release. On the other hand, I've never seen a list of things that didn't work quite well in earlier versions or were a bit janky or a bit confusing or inconsistent or user-unfriendly or complicated, but are now fixed. Google tries to improve Android by constantly adding new stuff. That's exciting to people like us, but it will never turn Android into something that is as consistent and polished as iOS. The things that bothered me in Android 1.6 are still mostly there in 2.2.

Zak 16y ago

lots of why-is-this-here moments (the Droid’s keyboard, the Nexus One’s trackball) I see this sort of thing from reviews a lot. The Droid's keyboard is there because there are customers who want it. There are plenty of Android phones without them as well. It's perfectly reasonable that some people want a smaller and more sturdy phone, but I won't buy a smartphone without a real keyboard. The trackball is good for positioning the cursor when editing text. It's faster than arrow keys and much more precise than the touch screen. I am disappointed that they are rapidly disappearing, sometimes replaced by an optical trackpad. Android is about power and choice. The iPhone is about a great implementation of a specific vision. Both are doing very well in the marketplace. The idea that one is wrong and the other right is almost certainly mistaken.

cheald 16y ago
The trackball doubles as a handy-dandy notification light, too.
- rogermugs 16y ago
  and triples as an annoying useless trackball

mhd 16y ago

I wonder whether Marco used OS X 10.0 (or 10.1)…

Tichy 16y ago

Please go away

zmmmmm 16y ago

It is silly to try and frame a comparison between iPhone and Android in 1-dimension. We could equally write an article criticizing the App Store and say the difference is about freedom of expression. Or about quality of apps. Or about power and flexibility. Or availability of media. Or hardware. Or half a dozen other things. Guess what folks, there are many various differences! Personally I choose Android because I value the various dimensions on which it scores highly over those where the iPhone scores highly. But don't try and pretend there is only one dimension to this.

siglesias 16y ago

Perhaps a longer blog post needs to be dedicated to this, but I feel like much of the debate between iOS and Android focuses on the "fundamental differences" between Apple's particular approach (or call it philosophy) to mobile computing, and Google's. This might be a bit controversial, but I find it NOT an open and shut case that an "open, customizable" platform is an advantage. Throughout history we've been struggling with the Google/iOS problem, but the debate took on different forms: totalitarian versus democratic government, planned economy versus "free" economy, big government versus small government. The question is: should certain kinds of decisions affecting a state be centralized or dispersed? In theory, dispersed power (among citizens, or users) should win the day, IF NOT for inevitable market inefficiencies (information asymmetries, NOISE, emotional human irrationality) and malicious private agents who prey on the uninformed. There is an argument to be made that computing platforms fall under this debate. I would argue that Google's open platform also makes it vulnerable to far too many exploits: viruses, buggy, crashing, battery-draining software, and adware that might indiscriminately display pornography. All for certain powers of customizability that I (and many others) find trivial. Like choosing system fonts and having video wallpaper. If everybody in the world had the means to discriminate between spam software and non, then I would think that a system under which anybody could post software targeting any part of the system would be an excellent thing. But they can't. WE, as hackers can. Maybe. But for a majority of the people, they must enter into a "social contract" with a curator wherein decisions of quality and security are made for them in exchange for a price premium equal to or less than the value of time saved in "not worrying" about malicious code. Beautifully, this space is evolving to a cycle of two year hardware refreshes (less than that for hardcore users), and these serve as market voting mechanisms for the job or efficacy of the curator (in this case, Apple and Google). In the United States (which some would argue is the apotheosis of enlightenment thinking of the government problem) we have deferred legislative power to a body that we pay to do the thinking for us. We cycle through this body periodically democratically (as we can in mobile). We certainly don't have time to ponder over the minutiae of certain articles of legislation. In the same way, I would argue, I don't have time to discriminate between one piece of software for compatibility, reliability, security and quality, and another making nearly identical claims to functionality. Maybe you do, and that's why you choose Android. Meanwhile, I'll trade certain features for peace of mind.

beej71 16y ago

I have a macbook pro and an iPhone and neither has been great since day one. How do you explain that?

zygen 16y ago
Well, that's just like... your opinion, man.

bradendouglass 16y ago

Sorry but the comment thread started with: "The hatred of linux on the desktop is terribly cliche..." has nothing to do with the actual content in question. Warning for all the HN Noobs. Comments beware!

cjensenius 16y ago

Another sucker on the Apple teet

thewileyone 16y ago

I can agree that Apple does great things from Day One like the Macintosh and the iPhone. But Apple also has a tendency to be complacent and allow the competition to catch up. That's what's going to happen with the iPhone and Android, like it did with the Macintosh and Windows. Great at Day One or not, the customer will eventually select freedom of choice and this is where Apple will lose.

cjensenius 16y ago

How can you claim to create the worlds best devices, yet cannot pull off copy/paste. Its not exactly the traveling salesman problem...

shimi 16y ago

A friend of mine lend me is iPod Touch. To get it working with Wifi or connect it to iTunes running on windows is a very painful process. I didn't had these problems (No need using the iTunes in the first place)with the G1, Motorola Droid, even my old N95. So what is so great?

danudey 16y ago
I've never had issues getting iPod Touches or iPhones working on WiFi; likewise, connecting to iTunes has always been straightforward. What sort of issues were you having?

ergo98 16y ago

Someone is channeling their inner-John Gruber, apparently. The original iPhone had a mediocre display, a forgettable design, zero apps (and, contrary to the revisionism that is now the rage, had zero plans on every having apps at inception. Apple and AT&T saw apps as a unnecessary risk, and web apps were the only solution), a terrible back-facing camera (and no front facing camera, which in those early days was considered an egregious oversight), and it was strangely 2G in a world that had already moved to 3G. It succeeded because it was Apple. To say that it was "Great since day one" should embarrass the speaker, and if Nokia, or Motorola, or anyone else released that phone it would have been panned. The latest iPhone needs to be cocooned inside a case lest you shatter the good-looking-but-bad-engineering glass back or touch the untouchable antenna. Great since day one? It has a video chat application that inexplicably only works between iPhone 4 users on WiFi, which to most other companies wouldn't even classify as "beta". Great since day one? It has a notification system that is horribly crippled by the most generous evaluation. Great since day one? The iPhone is a gorgeous, gorgeous phone. It is the new trendsetter. It is not without many flaws however, though it sits in that remarkable favored area where flaws are glossed over. Indeed, it's telling that Apple's flaws only become obvious to the faithful once the replacement is available. Suddenly, you'll note, every Apple-head is talking about how the iPhone 3GS is dated, feels plasticy and cheap, etc (Hey, I was saying that since it came out, but of course as the deliverance from Apple it was impossible that could be true, until the next deliverance). These sorts of cult-religious screeds are an embarrassment to technology. I mentioned Gruber earlier because this Marco guy is stealing his schtick.

ergo98 16y ago
Oh, add that iOS 4 cribs Android multitasking almost directly. And when it borrows from Android's notification system, replacing the terrible system it has now (they're already hiring in this space), at release people like Gruber and Marco will say "See, this is what makes Apple great: It's great since day one!" When you can look at the world like that, defining "day one" to be when the product is no longer second-rate, it's easy to say that. Android is "great since day one", so long as you ignore everything prior to 2.2.
thm76 16y ago
I think what Apple is doing usually, and I think that's one of the points Marco is making in the article, is that they only add features when they can get them working very well. They didn't have a use for a front facing camera, or could make it easy enough to use, so they didn't include one. Now they have one because they were finally able to implement video chat in an easy to use way (Face Time). They didn't have copy and paste until they figured out how to make it as elegant and easy to use as it is. They didn't include 3G in the original iPhone because it would have affected battery life too much. They only introduced the SDK once the API was in a usable state and they got the necessary documentation and infrastructure in place to support 3rd party developers. Face Time currently only works on WiFi, but from what I read about it it actually works for Joe Average. On other phones you have to be a geek to figure out which software to install and how to set it up. For some people it is certainly valuable to have barely working bleeding edge features on the phone, but for the 99% of users out there who're not interested in tinkering with their phone Apple's approach makes a lot more sense, IMO.

billmcneale 16y ago

TLDR: Marco is not a big fan of choice in the market place.

billmcneale 16y ago

I imagine a world where everybody would be forced to use a Newton, an Apple TV, a Mighty Mouse and an Apple keyboard... Apple makes great phones and great computers but saying that everything they create is great from day one has gone too far on the fanboy dark side.

jscore 16y ago

I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means or measure, but I can't help but agree with this post. I had the original iPhone and every feature just worked from day one; I didn't need any updates or anything. And yes, I could live without cut and paste. I now have Nexus One, and although I love and do not plan on going back to an iPhone at any point, I still think the iPhone is just a more complete, more polished phone. It's a perfect mass market device because 99% of the consumers do not care about tweaking their device or changing ROMs. I had Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron, but I have gotten my MBP back from a friend. MBP is better. Things work together better, and I don't need to tweak a million things or change themes. I just want to do my work.

periferral 16y ago

can we get by a week in HN without fanboy posts?

periferral 16y ago
to clarify some misconceptions of this post 1. great since day 1. Well no copy and paste for 2 years? and great since day 1. Contradictory? 2. Hold Different? Great since day 1? 3. Needs iTunes desktop software. 4. No external storage options. 5. No background (until pseudo support in os4, clearly not day 1) 6. no open app store. the list is never ending really. i sure hope the poster realizes despite these significant shortcomings, he thinks the iphone is great since day 1

cookiecaper 16y ago

I totally despise this article. It contradicts open-source philosophy completely. It falsely and stupidly implicates Linux. It compares two very different kinds of things. And I know lots of people who thought their Android phone was great on day one -- including myself. So what's the deal here? This is frustrating, horrible low-brow fanboyism

papertiger 16y ago

To each their own. "Great" is subjective.