9 ms·

IPhone vs Android? No. We're fighting the wrong fight

366 points by turoczy 16y ago

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
Why are we paying for voice/text/data when it is essentially all just data? We should just be paying for data plans. It shouldn't cost extra to tether either.
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  Surely what you mean is the only additional cost for tethering should be the additional data you use as a result? It's not unreasonable for the carriers to charge those who use their networks more extra. It's all data but the differences between top end and bottom end users is massive.
  - lotusleaf1987 16y ago
    If you're paying for a data plan it shouldn't matter how you use the data. Especially if they are charging you for a set amount say 5GB, what does it matter if that data is coming from tethering or streaming Netflix on an iPhone?
    - thenduks 16y ago
      The problem is that while they're happy to sell you 5GB, they will do pretty much anything and everything they can to make sure you don't actually use 5GB.
      - orangecat 16y ago
        Walmart of all entities may be disrupting this dysfunctional market: http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/09/14/introducing-walmarts-new-no-contract-family-wireless-plan/ http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/09/14/introducing-walmarts-.... $40 per GB which sounds expensive, except that it doesn't expire. If like most people you use a few hundred MB or less per month, that's a great deal. It looks like it's only available on their crappy phones for now, but hopefully the idea of paying only for data that you actually use will spread.
  - MartinCron 16y ago
    This is what annoys me so much about AT&T and their data plans that don't allow tethering without an additional fee. You should either restrict what I can do (e.g. no tethering on basic "unlimited" plans... I understand that) or meter what I use and charge appropriately. Doing both just seems greedy and wrong.
- drpancake 16y ago
  A mobile telco's entire business model only works because of this distinction. Infrastructure and licenses are expensive. It costs a lot more to shift data than you might imagine. (I work for a very large global telco)
  - artsrc 16y ago
    Surely if you work for a large global telco you understand that bureaucracy and empire building cost a lot. In many markets payback time for mobile infrastructure is a few years. If no-one bid high prices for licenses, then they would be cheap. It is surely the expectation that consumers will over pay that creates the problem.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
extension 16y ago
A new 3G carrier, Videotron, just launched in Quebec and I was surprised to see that they offer the Nexus One: http://www.videotron.com/mobile/service/mobile/appareils/details.do@lang=ENGLISH&noAppareil=1012&init=true.html http://www.videotron.com/mobile/service/mobile/appareils/det... I'm not sure how much they've modded it though, or if it can be as easily unlocked/rooted as one bought straight from Google.
lzw 16y ago
This article highlights why I'm a fan of apple more than google. Apple is going to exert the power to control the carriers. Apple is about the only company that can, or will, exert this kind of power. I hope google changes, and starts getting control over os installation.... But I can't see that happening. In this case, the openness of android works against google. As an app developer, I'm keen to put products out for android, but the combination of fragmentation and very slow adoption of latest releases by the android mass market are two of the biggest hurdles. Apples market has little fragmentation and high hardware consistency. But I digress. Without google imposing some licensing terms, android users are always going to have a poor os upgrade experience, it seems. And I thin android is at risk of carriers introducing bloatware that you cannot uninstall.
- doki_pen 16y ago
  I think the balance for Google is whether they fight Apple, or the carriers. Fighting the carriers will fight themselves out of existence. If they cater to the carriers, they can kill the iPhone. That doesn't mean I like it. Just as locking down devices and forcing apps through the App Store, although beneficial to Apple, doesn't make it good for consumers. Ultimately, I want an open phone that works on the carrier of my choice. I just don't know if that formula could ever win.
  - lzw 16y ago
    Think about your assertion that the appstore isn't good for consumers. Do you really believe that? Consumers are not hackers. Consumers do not really understand technology that well. The appstore provides a safe buying experience for consumers, and now, rather than the app marketplace being infintesimal, it is massive and growing quickly. Apple lit a powderkeg there. How is this not good for consumers? Imagine if Apple had not provided any protections? You'd have malicious apps all over the place, and constant stories about how bad and dangerous iPhone apps are, and a lot less consumers using apps. I don't really buy that the iPhone is closed. Any app I can think of that is not evil, Apple will approve for sale on the store. If I want something that doesn't make sense to sell, then I compile it myself and sign it myself with the developer certificate. The random consumer is not going to be even installing XCode, let alone figuring out how to build even open-source software. So, the $99/year for the keys to sign apps is not really a big deal to me.
amirmc 16y ago
It seems that only Apple is left trying to maintain control over the device/experience/software. This is a shame since with some decent competition (read: Google), the grip of the carriers could have been loosened further. Jobs deserves credit for convincing the carriers to relinquish some control (despite the fact we might not like who he made those deals with). It would be tragic if things went back to the way they were before.
slantyyz 16y ago
The carriers annoy me orders of magnitude more than even the worst iPhone or Android troll could.
- lzw 16y ago
  Back in the 1990s, Apple, as prescient as always, proposed to the FCC that certain spectrum be set aside for "wireless internet use". This spectrum would have been open to anybody, and would have allowed anybody, using spread spectrum to operate a data network, nationwide. The reason we're in the spot we're in, and the carriers have so much control, is that the FCC issued only three licenses for each goegraphic area in the spectrum auctions. This limits competition and ensures a near monopoly pricing power for the big three carriers. Subsequent changes have loosened this a little bit, but not a lot. The real problem here is the idea that spectrum can be "owned" and that our government gets to dictate (based on bribes- which is what spectrum "Sales" are really) who gets to "own" the spectrum. Apple tried, and I believe google tried recently, to create unowned spectrum. Spread spectrum technology lets people share space-- hell Wifi works on the same frequency as microwave ovens, and still manages to work when the microwave is running. I cant think of a harsher environment than that! So long as government has a ruthless grip on spectrum, and forces us to deal with the three headed monopoly, there is a limit to how much freedom of choice we can have.
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    As a Canadian, I'm still jealous of the wireless options you guys have. Sure, we can have an iPhone on all major carriers, and we can tether too, but I still feel like the rates and plans you guys get are more competitive than ours.
egb 16y ago
It's tempting to envision a world where phones are like PCs, that you'd just pick one out from Fry's and then install any apps you want (after choosing an app store that you liked) and then hooking up to some voice/text/data plan that you liked, and competition makes all the players work hard for your business... But I think the paradox of choice kicks in, somewhat, in that users really like the iPhone world's somewhat-curated experience, and that you get a base set of well-built apps that are provided by Apple for the basics (phone, texting, web, email) and they form the core of your mobile usage until you start adding in your own apps. Having said that, I'd love to be able to pick a carrier for my iPhone, but I don't want the fractured environment/ecosystem of Android.
- knowledgesale 16y ago
  The system you described is implemented in parts of Europe, specifically in Eastern Europe - the cell phone and voice/data plan markets are separated completely. As a result, the prices are very low and the network coverage is much better than in the North America.
  - egb 16y ago
    Will we ever see a separated appstore ecosystem anywhere?
    - knowledgesale 16y ago
      Behold. It's called PC+Windows+Stem
      - egb 16y ago
        I meant for phones :-)
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  The scenario you describe - where you just pick a phone like a PC - is what the carriers are trying to avoid. That turns them into a commodity, a bunch of wires. They'll obviously fight that to the death, hence the customising of phones, the exclusive models, the provision of non-transferable services, handset subsidies and doing everything they can to prevent the average user seeing the alternatives. The problem is that so long as they keep doing handset subsidies, they'll likely keep winning. I know someone who has just bought a Dell Streak on a two year contract. He got it free but over time he's going to pay more for it than he would for an iPad. Now he's a smart guy - if he's not thinking in those terms you can bet the average consumer isn't. Basically the networks are providing cheap credit to tie people in to overpriced telecoms services and the consumers love it because it means that for $50 a month (which you can afford) you can have a $600 phone (which you can't, at least not easily).
NumberFiveAlive 16y ago
This has certainly been my experience with my Verizon DroidX. Fantastic hardware, and I love Android, but it came loaded up with crapware I can't uninstall. A Blockbuster App!? Hell, why not put AOL on it while we're at it.
moultano 16y ago
It's pretty comical that half of the responses in this thread are trying to place the blame on either Apple or Google.
- lzw 16y ago
  I don't see it as the same as Apple vs. Google. Apple and Google both have to fight the carriers and they have positions with different strengths and weaknesses. I think both want to break the carriers power and end up with open networks, but their strategies are very different.
tyng 16y ago
Android - good deeds fell in the wrong hands, nuff said. Welcome to Corporate America
orangecat 16y ago
This is war. And this war will go nothing like Apple v. Microsoft. This is about who controls the experience Quite disturbing that "the user" is not one of the plausible answers.
- eogas 16y ago
  To say it's disturbing is a bit of a stretch. "Disappointing" is what I would call it.
- cheesey 16y ago
  In most wars, it's the people who don't have power that suffer.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    But they do have power: buying power. Maybe one could somehow give them the information they require. Of course the operators have done a good job obfuscating the information. Maybe some people don't want to be helped, either.
biafra 16y ago
To me all those problems with carriers dictating anything looks like a US-only problem. You can fix this! Just buy more unlocked phones. Since 1994 I never bought a net locked phone. Subsidizing does not have to be linked to a net lock. Subsidizing was never (AFAIR) linked to a net lock in Germany. The iPhone was a first for us (here in Europe). From here it looks like the iPhone brought this consumer-unfriendly practice to us. Thank goodness no Android phone is net locked here in Germany at least no net locked only.
- Tuna-Fish 16y ago
  I would also like to point out, that the reason for this is that Nokia has been fighting carriers from since they started making phones, up to and including lobbying for legislation that banned network-locked cell phones in many countries. Why do you thing they never made much headway in the USA? Because Verizon and AT&T spent more money greasing the congress, and Nokia didn't want to give up.
  - evgen 16y ago
    Nokia never made much headway in the USA because all of their good models were GSM phones -- in the US that meant t-mobile or AT&T -- and back before the iPhone appeared most US cell phone users were on CDMA networks (Verizon and Sprint.) Nokia decided to roll their own CDMA chip instead of paying off Qualcomm (big mistake) and ended up with a weak presence in the CDMA market. Nokia screwed the pooch all on their own when it came to fumbling the US market.
- lzw 16y ago
  It is worth noting that in every region where Apple does not have carrier exclusivity, they sell unlocked phones. So the locking is an exclusivity / subsidy component. It seems clear to me, by studying Apple's patents, that they originally wanted the phone to be unlocked and on every carrier, they even tried to end the subsidy system by selling the iPhone direct....
  - drpancake 16y ago
bryanlarsen 16y ago
In my opinion, Apple & the carriers are on the same side of this fight. Who controls your phone? The user or some big corporation? The difference between Apple & the carriers is that Apple is far more competent in its control, carefully avoiding short term gains at the expense of long term gains. Locking crappy adware apps into your phones is an obvious long term mistake that Apple would never make. Being more competent, Apple is much more dangerous.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Android is only free of carrier abuse if you're geeky enough. However, Apple is only free of carrier abuse if you're affluent enough. The average joe is getting shafted either way. (Though, to continue the class theme, note how offended people are that it's NASCAR apps that they can't uninstall, as opposed to the stock market apps they can't uninstall from Apple). Remember when Sony charged more to remove the junk they themselves put on their machines? The subsidies earned by these bits of software lowered the price for those who would struggle to afford them otherwise and for the geeks who repave as an automatic response, similar to how people spending at the overpriced hotel minibar reduce the room prices for everyone else. If this is actually considered important for folk in the US, then they're going to have to stop the Apple fanboys in the media using it as a stick to beat Google with and face up to the reality that Apple has failed to change the carrier business model too, just as Google's Nexus One failed. I seem to recall that just like the Nexus One, the iPhone was supposed to be sold direct to consumers at the full unsubsidized price.
- orangecat 16y ago
  I seem to recall that just like the Nexus One, the iPhone was supposed to be sold direct to consumers at the full unsubsidized price. Excellent point. It was sold unsubsidized initially, but people were apoplectic about spending $600 for a phone. Apple quickly realized that joining the subsidy model was better than fighting it, so they announced the price "cut" on the 3G model and got glowing press, while hardly anyone noticed that with the monthly rate increase customers would be paying more over two years. Apple has far better taste than the carriers, to be sure. But both agree that you should not have control over "your" hardware.
  - kylec 16y ago
    It may have been unsubsidized, but it was still locked to AT&T and only available with a 2-year contract with an ETF. It was basically the cost of an unsubsidized without any of the benefit.
- Terretta 16y ago
  > Android is only free of carrier abuse if you're geeky enough. However, Apple is only free of carrier abuse if you're affluent enough. Not sure about that dichotomy: unsubsidized, both cost roughly the same, and for both, root/jailbreaks are free.
PedroCandeias 16y ago
Yesterday I gave a friend's Galaxy S a spin and was mighty impressed. It's light as a feather, the screen is gorgeous and it's an order of magnitude more responsive than my old iphone 3G. I was all set to buy an iphone4, but samsung's device game me pause. So I asked about the apps. What good stuff was there on the Android Market? "Well", he started, "there really isn't one, because the carrier doesn't allow it. I just get the apps my carrier lists on its website". I think that's preposterous, so as impressed as I am with the Galaxy S, I'm afraid I'll be sticking with Apple's product (I live in Portugal... experience will probably vary from carrier to carrier and country to country).
- presty 16y ago
  That's very strange (the carrier not allowing access to the market). I've never heard of such a thing in any of the Portuguese carriers (TMN/Vodafone/Optimus). Are your sure that's the problem? Also, It's pretty easy to install apps through the .apks and unofficial markets. Aptoide is an alternative to the Official Android Market.
- auxbuss 16y ago
  Blocking the Market is something Google really should put a stop to. I've never seen this, though, myself. Then again, buy unlocked and it's not a problem Still, if you you liked the phone, then get one via another carrier.
  - PedroCandeias 16y ago
    Yeah, I'm going to compare the two more thoroughly before I buy. Right now I'm leaning towards the iphone4 but that's just because of the apps. Hardware-wise, from what I've seen, they're about in the same league.
- illumin8 16y ago
  Keep in mind you're comparing a brand new, state of the art Android phone with a 2 year old iPhone. Technology has improved quite a bit on both platforms. You should probably check out an iPhone 4 and compare it with the Galaxy S instead of the iPhone 3G.
nanairo 16y ago
I agree with the main arguments. Although as others pointed out this is mostly an american problem (though it still occurs abroad, but less so). But I find this argument naive: "But this pipe dream is being crushed quickly. The carriers, after giving up ground initially, are fighting back. They are using Android’s openness against the company." The point is: if Google hadn't done that, the carriers may very well not have supported it. Let's remember that although now we consider Android a strong contender, at the time Android was neither that strong, nor the only contender. I'd be ready to bet that other carriers supported Android as much to hurt Apple as because they knew they could control it. Personally I'd go as far as to say that Google developed Android the way they did fully aware that this could happen: the bottom line is that Google doesn't make money from Android, and as nobody holds the market in the palm of their hand Google is happy... even though it may mean basically subsidising other companies fight against Apple (at the time).
- illumin8 16y ago
  > The point is: if Google hadn't done that, the carriers may very well not have supported it. I don't buy this argument. This is one of those slippery slope arguments that are used to justify everything. Let's say you're a Cisco and you want to sell routers and network gear to the Chinese. You can either give their government back doors to spy on traffic and make it easy for them, guaranteeing the business will go to you, or you can take the moral high ground and refuse to build these features into your products. Too often big companies like Cisco, Google, and Microsoft take the approach that money trumps all morality concerns, and we end up with a big brother police state enabled by the very technology companies that were supposed to save us from this future. Google should do what Apple did and stick to their guns - refuse to let carriers mess with Android.
  - wvenable 16y ago
    The first Android phones were nothing compared to the iPhone. Giving everything (including revenues) to the carriers and manufacturers is exactly why Android exists now. Google could have stuck to their guns, but the situation would be unchanged.
protomyth 16y ago
Given Google's approach to Android, it looks like carriers are going to treat Android phones as feature phones and not smart phones. This might be ok for the user, but it certainly is looking like it will hurt developers and power users. The continued existence of non-commodity broadband providers is going to be a pain for everything on top of the stack.
cies 16y ago
Clearly the carriers should be regulated. In the Netherlands they are and we have the cheapest rates (between our narrow borders, outside the borders they screw us double). For instancen we can keep our number when switching carriers or unlock phones after the contract's finished. I'd say regulations are needed in order to keep the market from degrading into customer-slavery. :)
- mseebach 16y ago
  Keep in mind that regulation that forces carriers to be open will entrench the incumbents (that will do absolutely nothing in favour of customers when not a gunpoint) at the cost of new offerings that makes a play to disrupt the market. The time when regulators gets their eyes open to this problem, is about the same time that regular customers do the same and get ready to leave the incumbents. Best case, you've regulation that says the carriers are supposed to do something they were already going to do, worst case you stripped a potentially disruptive play of it's advantage.
  - pmb 16y ago
    Your model of how the world works seems contradictory to the parent's model. In order to decide which model works better in the real world, we can see which more accurately reflects things today. Netherlands: cheapest rates, entrenched incumbents, good service, unlocked phones, number portability US: more expensive, entrenched incumbents, middling service, locked phones, number portability Parent's model more closely matches reality! We have a winner! This particular market has never been free in the way you seem to think, and the "disruption" you are hypothesizing has some extremely high barriers to entry (first rollout a national infrastructure, second ...), which have prevented it from occurring at all.
    - mseebach 16y ago
      The reason local rates in Europe are so low is not regulation of the rates, it's regulation of the carriers, forcing them to open up the networks they build subsidized to competitors basically at cost, in part through mobile virtual network operator agreements. This removes the barrier to entry, I think in Denmark starting a MVNO takes a deposit on the scale of $8-10.000. This is also reflected in the outrageous prices for roaming - this market is not opened up. I suspect the case in the US is that the carriers aren't forced to open up in the same way. But, the essence of my disagreement with the GPs post is the idea that entering a two-year contract to get a subsidized phone is "customer-slavery", "clearly" in need of regulation. Just get an unlocked phone and a monthly/pay-go plan. (Putting an APR on the contract I could get behind, though). I've done that, and with my actual usage pattern it's significantly cheaper over two years (actually, I've been upgrading more like every year for a while), because I also don't need the big plan I'm forced into when buying subsidized. I haven't done the math counting in interest on buying the phone, but I'd be surprised if it didn't still come out cheaper.
RexRollman 16y ago
I am not a fan of the iPhone because of its dependency on iTunes. iTunes is an overweight bloated piece of junk and I won't go back to Windows just to run it. I am not a fan of Android because each individual maker gets to decide if you can have an update or not. That would be like buying a Dell PC and then having to go through Dell, not Microsoft, for Windows Updates. So for now, I will keep going with my non-smart phone. At least until things change.
- matwood 16y ago
  "I am not a fan of the iPhone because of its dependency on iTunes. iTunes is an overweight bloated piece of junk and I won't go back to Windows just to run it." You do know they will activate for you in the store and then only time you ever have to use iTunes again is when an update comes out? Now, this means your phone will not get backed up, but if you set Google up as an Exchange server all your emails, contacts, and calendar items are stored on the cloud anyway.
  - hasenj 16y ago
    You're wrong. You still need iTunes to put music on your phone
    - matwood 16y ago
      On linux you have http://www.libimobiledevice.org/ http://www.libimobiledevice.org/ which worked until the most recent update to iOS4. I'm going to assume they'll get it working again shortly. Doubletwist also syncs music on the iPhone. Then you can always download music directly onto the phone or use any of the streaming apps.
ergo98 16y ago
Apple has a lot of very positive points going for it (moreso with their recent changes to be less aggressive towards developers), however many of these pro-iPhone pieces (make no mistake, that is what this submission is, with such a distorted view of the world) could be mechanically written by simply parsing the dominant talking points and mashing them together into some sort of superficial slurry that passes a cursory scan test, but falls apart when you actually look at it with any detail. EDIT: For those without any sense of informational discretion, let me extract the pertinent pieces- -Apple made an exclusive deal with AT&T. Meaning they bound themselves to a carrier to a much greater degree than historically normal. -Facetime doesn't work over anything but WiFi -- this is not a technical limitation. Tethering doesn't work without a tethering plan, after finally, grudgingly, being rolled out. Google Voice was strongly believed to be blocked (along with similar apps) because AT&T vetoed it. -Apple's original resistance to the whole concept of apps was sold on the idea that apps would go crazy and destroy the network. This, again, was bowing to AT&T. -Apple absolutely and completely controls everything you install on your device. Comments about AT&T not allowing side-loading seem extraordinary when the champion example is Apple, which simply bars that universally. At least consumers can choose to buy a different Android device, perhaps on another carrier. That option isn't avialable for iOS. -The fact that the Skype example keeps getting brought up points to the extraordinary shallowness of this argument. Skype got paid money by Verizon, presumably, to provide software for its handsets. This is software business-as-usual as long as time. This has nothing to do with Android, and that it keeps getting conflating as some counter example of openness is pure stupidity. -The installation of Bing on some Verizon phones is exactly what the Android ecosystem allows. In fact Gruber some time back sarcastically (as such is the level of his wit) opined that maybe Android would get Bing given its "openness" (the point clearly being that of course it never would), yet here it is. That's the point. Consumers can choose to go elsewhere. Microsoft can completely coopt Android for their own purposes if they want, and that is how it is supposed to work. Android is built on the assumption of competitive forces. Verizon's heavy-handedness on the Galaxy S will lose them customers. Many of the comments in this discussion point to the extraordinary ignorance there is about the pre-iPhone world. Way prior to the iPhone I worked at a business where we distributed Windows Mobile applications: We required no blessing or grant from Microsoft, and on the handset we had pretty much universal control. Apple's recent moves have made them decidedly less evil, but these current pro-Apple talking points are outrageous, and quite simply deceptively ignorant. The core problem is that people still have a mentality that handsets should be from $49-$199, which means that you're going in with the carrier on your device. Of course most carriers let you bring your own device (if this isn't legally mandated, it nonetheless remains the practice), giving you an actual claim to own the device.
guelo 16y ago
My question is who won this battle when Verizon and Apple negotiated the iphone coming out next year. I'm guessing Verizon wasn't able to get any crapware on there beyond Apple's standard crap, but you never know, Apple really wanted to expand beyond AT&T. As far as Android, I get the sense that Google is not happy with this situation and they do have one big stick they can use, access to Android Market. I'd also like to remind the ridiculous Google haters that it was Google that fought the FCC and the carriers to get open access rules added to the bandwidth auctioned off in 2008, those rules should loosen at least what Verizon does in the future.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  >I'd also like to remind the ridiculous Google haters Ugh, people who don't fall in love with the same things you do aren't necessarily haters.
ankimal 16y ago
".. reducing them to what they should be: regulated pipe providers just like your gas and electric company." I come from India, the second largest mobile market in the world. (Its a complete mystery why we got 3G just a few months back, but atleast we re getting there). The key in India is that the providers are just that, regulated pipe providers and one only pays for service. I m free to go buy whichever phone I want and do whatever the hell I want with it. I dont have to be in "contract" and I dont have to keep going near windows to make phone calls.
dikbrouwer 16y ago
Let's not forget that this is all fairly US-centric; In Europe the handset manufacturers are more powerful. As a consumer, you select a device first and add-on the network operator after. That's 180 off from what's going on the in US. However, it hasn't created the device innovation that we see now in the US with Google and Apple weighing in...
- aphexairlines 16y ago
  Can you install whichever OS you like in European handsets?
jackvalentine 16y ago
Something else to question: is the GSM/CDMA split partially to blame here for intensive carrier lock-ins? I like to follow the US carrier market, but from the perspective that in my own country the last CDMA network was shut down in 2008. Here I can choose to buy a carrier branded phone with a subsidy, or as many people do - just buy a phone outright and pay month-to-month swapping carriers as simply as swapping the SIM card.
known 16y ago
iPhone is a Gadget. Android is an Operating system. Why are we comparing them?

366 points by turoczy 16y ago

lotusleaf1987 16y ago

Why are we paying for voice/text/data when it is essentially all just data? We should just be paying for data plans. It shouldn't cost extra to tether either.

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
Surely what you mean is the only additional cost for tethering should be the additional data you use as a result? It's not unreasonable for the carriers to charge those who use their networks more extra. It's all data but the differences between top end and bottom end users is massive.
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  If you're paying for a data plan it shouldn't matter how you use the data. Especially if they are charging you for a set amount say 5GB, what does it matter if that data is coming from tethering or streaming Netflix on an iPhone?
  - thenduks 16y ago
    The problem is that while they're happy to sell you 5GB, they will do pretty much anything and everything they can to make sure you don't actually use 5GB.
    - orangecat 16y ago
      Walmart of all entities may be disrupting this dysfunctional market: http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/09/14/introducing-walmarts-new-no-contract-family-wireless-plan/ http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/09/14/introducing-walmarts-.... $40 per GB which sounds expensive, except that it doesn't expire. If like most people you use a few hundred MB or less per month, that's a great deal. It looks like it's only available on their crappy phones for now, but hopefully the idea of paying only for data that you actually use will spread.
- MartinCron 16y ago
  This is what annoys me so much about AT&T and their data plans that don't allow tethering without an additional fee. You should either restrict what I can do (e.g. no tethering on basic "unlimited" plans... I understand that) or meter what I use and charge appropriately. Doing both just seems greedy and wrong.
drpancake 16y ago
A mobile telco's entire business model only works because of this distinction. Infrastructure and licenses are expensive. It costs a lot more to shift data than you might imagine. (I work for a very large global telco)
- artsrc 16y ago
  Surely if you work for a large global telco you understand that bureaucracy and empire building cost a lot. In many markets payback time for mobile infrastructure is a few years. If no-one bid high prices for licenses, then they would be cheap. It is surely the expectation that consumers will over pay that creates the problem.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

extension 16y ago

A new 3G carrier, Videotron, just launched in Quebec and I was surprised to see that they offer the Nexus One: http://www.videotron.com/mobile/service/mobile/appareils/details.do@lang=ENGLISH&noAppareil=1012&init=true.html http://www.videotron.com/mobile/service/mobile/appareils/det... I'm not sure how much they've modded it though, or if it can be as easily unlocked/rooted as one bought straight from Google.

lzw 16y ago

This article highlights why I'm a fan of apple more than google. Apple is going to exert the power to control the carriers. Apple is about the only company that can, or will, exert this kind of power. I hope google changes, and starts getting control over os installation.... But I can't see that happening. In this case, the openness of android works against google. As an app developer, I'm keen to put products out for android, but the combination of fragmentation and very slow adoption of latest releases by the android mass market are two of the biggest hurdles. Apples market has little fragmentation and high hardware consistency. But I digress. Without google imposing some licensing terms, android users are always going to have a poor os upgrade experience, it seems. And I thin android is at risk of carriers introducing bloatware that you cannot uninstall.

doki_pen 16y ago
I think the balance for Google is whether they fight Apple, or the carriers. Fighting the carriers will fight themselves out of existence. If they cater to the carriers, they can kill the iPhone. That doesn't mean I like it. Just as locking down devices and forcing apps through the App Store, although beneficial to Apple, doesn't make it good for consumers. Ultimately, I want an open phone that works on the carrier of my choice. I just don't know if that formula could ever win.
- lzw 16y ago
  Think about your assertion that the appstore isn't good for consumers. Do you really believe that? Consumers are not hackers. Consumers do not really understand technology that well. The appstore provides a safe buying experience for consumers, and now, rather than the app marketplace being infintesimal, it is massive and growing quickly. Apple lit a powderkeg there. How is this not good for consumers? Imagine if Apple had not provided any protections? You'd have malicious apps all over the place, and constant stories about how bad and dangerous iPhone apps are, and a lot less consumers using apps. I don't really buy that the iPhone is closed. Any app I can think of that is not evil, Apple will approve for sale on the store. If I want something that doesn't make sense to sell, then I compile it myself and sign it myself with the developer certificate. The random consumer is not going to be even installing XCode, let alone figuring out how to build even open-source software. So, the $99/year for the keys to sign apps is not really a big deal to me.

amirmc 16y ago

It seems that only Apple is left trying to maintain control over the device/experience/software. This is a shame since with some decent competition (read: Google), the grip of the carriers could have been loosened further. Jobs deserves credit for convincing the carriers to relinquish some control (despite the fact we might not like who he made those deals with). It would be tragic if things went back to the way they were before.

slantyyz 16y ago

The carriers annoy me orders of magnitude more than even the worst iPhone or Android troll could.

lzw 16y ago
Back in the 1990s, Apple, as prescient as always, proposed to the FCC that certain spectrum be set aside for "wireless internet use". This spectrum would have been open to anybody, and would have allowed anybody, using spread spectrum to operate a data network, nationwide. The reason we're in the spot we're in, and the carriers have so much control, is that the FCC issued only three licenses for each goegraphic area in the spectrum auctions. This limits competition and ensures a near monopoly pricing power for the big three carriers. Subsequent changes have loosened this a little bit, but not a lot. The real problem here is the idea that spectrum can be "owned" and that our government gets to dictate (based on bribes- which is what spectrum "Sales" are really) who gets to "own" the spectrum. Apple tried, and I believe google tried recently, to create unowned spectrum. Spread spectrum technology lets people share space-- hell Wifi works on the same frequency as microwave ovens, and still manages to work when the microwave is running. I cant think of a harsher environment than that! So long as government has a ruthless grip on spectrum, and forces us to deal with the three headed monopoly, there is a limit to how much freedom of choice we can have.
- slantyyz 16y ago
  As a Canadian, I'm still jealous of the wireless options you guys have. Sure, we can have an iPhone on all major carriers, and we can tether too, but I still feel like the rates and plans you guys get are more competitive than ours.

egb 16y ago

It's tempting to envision a world where phones are like PCs, that you'd just pick one out from Fry's and then install any apps you want (after choosing an app store that you liked) and then hooking up to some voice/text/data plan that you liked, and competition makes all the players work hard for your business... But I think the paradox of choice kicks in, somewhat, in that users really like the iPhone world's somewhat-curated experience, and that you get a base set of well-built apps that are provided by Apple for the basics (phone, texting, web, email) and they form the core of your mobile usage until you start adding in your own apps. Having said that, I'd love to be able to pick a carrier for my iPhone, but I don't want the fractured environment/ecosystem of Android.

knowledgesale 16y ago
The system you described is implemented in parts of Europe, specifically in Eastern Europe - the cell phone and voice/data plan markets are separated completely. As a result, the prices are very low and the network coverage is much better than in the North America.
- egb 16y ago
  Will we ever see a separated appstore ecosystem anywhere?
  - knowledgesale 16y ago
    Behold. It's called PC+Windows+Stem
    - egb 16y ago
      I meant for phones :-)
Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
The scenario you describe - where you just pick a phone like a PC - is what the carriers are trying to avoid. That turns them into a commodity, a bunch of wires. They'll obviously fight that to the death, hence the customising of phones, the exclusive models, the provision of non-transferable services, handset subsidies and doing everything they can to prevent the average user seeing the alternatives. The problem is that so long as they keep doing handset subsidies, they'll likely keep winning. I know someone who has just bought a Dell Streak on a two year contract. He got it free but over time he's going to pay more for it than he would for an iPad. Now he's a smart guy - if he's not thinking in those terms you can bet the average consumer isn't. Basically the networks are providing cheap credit to tie people in to overpriced telecoms services and the consumers love it because it means that for $50 a month (which you can afford) you can have a $600 phone (which you can't, at least not easily).

NumberFiveAlive 16y ago

This has certainly been my experience with my Verizon DroidX. Fantastic hardware, and I love Android, but it came loaded up with crapware I can't uninstall. A Blockbuster App!? Hell, why not put AOL on it while we're at it.

moultano 16y ago

It's pretty comical that half of the responses in this thread are trying to place the blame on either Apple or Google.

lzw 16y ago
I don't see it as the same as Apple vs. Google. Apple and Google both have to fight the carriers and they have positions with different strengths and weaknesses. I think both want to break the carriers power and end up with open networks, but their strategies are very different.

tyng 16y ago

Android - good deeds fell in the wrong hands, nuff said. Welcome to Corporate America

orangecat 16y ago

This is war. And this war will go nothing like Apple v. Microsoft. This is about who controls the experience Quite disturbing that "the user" is not one of the plausible answers.

eogas 16y ago
To say it's disturbing is a bit of a stretch. "Disappointing" is what I would call it.
cheesey 16y ago
In most wars, it's the people who don't have power that suffer.
- Tichy 16y ago
  But they do have power: buying power. Maybe one could somehow give them the information they require. Of course the operators have done a good job obfuscating the information. Maybe some people don't want to be helped, either.

biafra 16y ago

To me all those problems with carriers dictating anything looks like a US-only problem. You can fix this! Just buy more unlocked phones. Since 1994 I never bought a net locked phone. Subsidizing does not have to be linked to a net lock. Subsidizing was never (AFAIR) linked to a net lock in Germany. The iPhone was a first for us (here in Europe). From here it looks like the iPhone brought this consumer-unfriendly practice to us. Thank goodness no Android phone is net locked here in Germany at least no net locked only.

Tuna-Fish 16y ago
I would also like to point out, that the reason for this is that Nokia has been fighting carriers from since they started making phones, up to and including lobbying for legislation that banned network-locked cell phones in many countries. Why do you thing they never made much headway in the USA? Because Verizon and AT&T spent more money greasing the congress, and Nokia didn't want to give up.
- evgen 16y ago
  Nokia never made much headway in the USA because all of their good models were GSM phones -- in the US that meant t-mobile or AT&T -- and back before the iPhone appeared most US cell phone users were on CDMA networks (Verizon and Sprint.) Nokia decided to roll their own CDMA chip instead of paying off Qualcomm (big mistake) and ended up with a weak presence in the CDMA market. Nokia screwed the pooch all on their own when it came to fumbling the US market.
lzw 16y ago
It is worth noting that in every region where Apple does not have carrier exclusivity, they sell unlocked phones. So the locking is an exclusivity / subsidy component. It seems clear to me, by studying Apple's patents, that they originally wanted the phone to be unlocked and on every carrier, they even tried to end the subsidy system by selling the iPhone direct....
- drpancake 16y ago

bryanlarsen 16y ago

In my opinion, Apple & the carriers are on the same side of this fight. Who controls your phone? The user or some big corporation? The difference between Apple & the carriers is that Apple is far more competent in its control, carefully avoiding short term gains at the expense of long term gains. Locking crappy adware apps into your phones is an obvious long term mistake that Apple would never make. Being more competent, Apple is much more dangerous.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Android is only free of carrier abuse if you're geeky enough. However, Apple is only free of carrier abuse if you're affluent enough. The average joe is getting shafted either way. (Though, to continue the class theme, note how offended people are that it's NASCAR apps that they can't uninstall, as opposed to the stock market apps they can't uninstall from Apple). Remember when Sony charged more to remove the junk they themselves put on their machines? The subsidies earned by these bits of software lowered the price for those who would struggle to afford them otherwise and for the geeks who repave as an automatic response, similar to how people spending at the overpriced hotel minibar reduce the room prices for everyone else. If this is actually considered important for folk in the US, then they're going to have to stop the Apple fanboys in the media using it as a stick to beat Google with and face up to the reality that Apple has failed to change the carrier business model too, just as Google's Nexus One failed. I seem to recall that just like the Nexus One, the iPhone was supposed to be sold direct to consumers at the full unsubsidized price.

orangecat 16y ago
I seem to recall that just like the Nexus One, the iPhone was supposed to be sold direct to consumers at the full unsubsidized price. Excellent point. It was sold unsubsidized initially, but people were apoplectic about spending $600 for a phone. Apple quickly realized that joining the subsidy model was better than fighting it, so they announced the price "cut" on the 3G model and got glowing press, while hardly anyone noticed that with the monthly rate increase customers would be paying more over two years. Apple has far better taste than the carriers, to be sure. But both agree that you should not have control over "your" hardware.
- kylec 16y ago
  It may have been unsubsidized, but it was still locked to AT&T and only available with a 2-year contract with an ETF. It was basically the cost of an unsubsidized without any of the benefit.
Terretta 16y ago
> Android is only free of carrier abuse if you're geeky enough. However, Apple is only free of carrier abuse if you're affluent enough. Not sure about that dichotomy: unsubsidized, both cost roughly the same, and for both, root/jailbreaks are free.

PedroCandeias 16y ago

Yesterday I gave a friend's Galaxy S a spin and was mighty impressed. It's light as a feather, the screen is gorgeous and it's an order of magnitude more responsive than my old iphone 3G. I was all set to buy an iphone4, but samsung's device game me pause. So I asked about the apps. What good stuff was there on the Android Market? "Well", he started, "there really isn't one, because the carrier doesn't allow it. I just get the apps my carrier lists on its website". I think that's preposterous, so as impressed as I am with the Galaxy S, I'm afraid I'll be sticking with Apple's product (I live in Portugal... experience will probably vary from carrier to carrier and country to country).

presty 16y ago
That's very strange (the carrier not allowing access to the market). I've never heard of such a thing in any of the Portuguese carriers (TMN/Vodafone/Optimus). Are your sure that's the problem? Also, It's pretty easy to install apps through the .apks and unofficial markets. Aptoide is an alternative to the Official Android Market.
auxbuss 16y ago
Blocking the Market is something Google really should put a stop to. I've never seen this, though, myself. Then again, buy unlocked and it's not a problem Still, if you you liked the phone, then get one via another carrier.
- PedroCandeias 16y ago
  Yeah, I'm going to compare the two more thoroughly before I buy. Right now I'm leaning towards the iphone4 but that's just because of the apps. Hardware-wise, from what I've seen, they're about in the same league.
illumin8 16y ago
Keep in mind you're comparing a brand new, state of the art Android phone with a 2 year old iPhone. Technology has improved quite a bit on both platforms. You should probably check out an iPhone 4 and compare it with the Galaxy S instead of the iPhone 3G.

nanairo 16y ago

I agree with the main arguments. Although as others pointed out this is mostly an american problem (though it still occurs abroad, but less so). But I find this argument naive: "But this pipe dream is being crushed quickly. The carriers, after giving up ground initially, are fighting back. They are using Android’s openness against the company." The point is: if Google hadn't done that, the carriers may very well not have supported it. Let's remember that although now we consider Android a strong contender, at the time Android was neither that strong, nor the only contender. I'd be ready to bet that other carriers supported Android as much to hurt Apple as because they knew they could control it. Personally I'd go as far as to say that Google developed Android the way they did fully aware that this could happen: the bottom line is that Google doesn't make money from Android, and as nobody holds the market in the palm of their hand Google is happy... even though it may mean basically subsidising other companies fight against Apple (at the time).

illumin8 16y ago
> The point is: if Google hadn't done that, the carriers may very well not have supported it. I don't buy this argument. This is one of those slippery slope arguments that are used to justify everything. Let's say you're a Cisco and you want to sell routers and network gear to the Chinese. You can either give their government back doors to spy on traffic and make it easy for them, guaranteeing the business will go to you, or you can take the moral high ground and refuse to build these features into your products. Too often big companies like Cisco, Google, and Microsoft take the approach that money trumps all morality concerns, and we end up with a big brother police state enabled by the very technology companies that were supposed to save us from this future. Google should do what Apple did and stick to their guns - refuse to let carriers mess with Android.
- wvenable 16y ago
  The first Android phones were nothing compared to the iPhone. Giving everything (including revenues) to the carriers and manufacturers is exactly why Android exists now. Google could have stuck to their guns, but the situation would be unchanged.

protomyth 16y ago

Given Google's approach to Android, it looks like carriers are going to treat Android phones as feature phones and not smart phones. This might be ok for the user, but it certainly is looking like it will hurt developers and power users. The continued existence of non-commodity broadband providers is going to be a pain for everything on top of the stack.

cies 16y ago

Clearly the carriers should be regulated. In the Netherlands they are and we have the cheapest rates (between our narrow borders, outside the borders they screw us double). For instancen we can keep our number when switching carriers or unlock phones after the contract's finished. I'd say regulations are needed in order to keep the market from degrading into customer-slavery. :)

mseebach 16y ago
Keep in mind that regulation that forces carriers to be open will entrench the incumbents (that will do absolutely nothing in favour of customers when not a gunpoint) at the cost of new offerings that makes a play to disrupt the market. The time when regulators gets their eyes open to this problem, is about the same time that regular customers do the same and get ready to leave the incumbents. Best case, you've regulation that says the carriers are supposed to do something they were already going to do, worst case you stripped a potentially disruptive play of it's advantage.
- pmb 16y ago
  Your model of how the world works seems contradictory to the parent's model. In order to decide which model works better in the real world, we can see which more accurately reflects things today. Netherlands: cheapest rates, entrenched incumbents, good service, unlocked phones, number portability US: more expensive, entrenched incumbents, middling service, locked phones, number portability Parent's model more closely matches reality! We have a winner! This particular market has never been free in the way you seem to think, and the "disruption" you are hypothesizing has some extremely high barriers to entry (first rollout a national infrastructure, second ...), which have prevented it from occurring at all.
  - mseebach 16y ago
    The reason local rates in Europe are so low is not regulation of the rates, it's regulation of the carriers, forcing them to open up the networks they build subsidized to competitors basically at cost, in part through mobile virtual network operator agreements. This removes the barrier to entry, I think in Denmark starting a MVNO takes a deposit on the scale of $8-10.000. This is also reflected in the outrageous prices for roaming - this market is not opened up. I suspect the case in the US is that the carriers aren't forced to open up in the same way. But, the essence of my disagreement with the GPs post is the idea that entering a two-year contract to get a subsidized phone is "customer-slavery", "clearly" in need of regulation. Just get an unlocked phone and a monthly/pay-go plan. (Putting an APR on the contract I could get behind, though). I've done that, and with my actual usage pattern it's significantly cheaper over two years (actually, I've been upgrading more like every year for a while), because I also don't need the big plan I'm forced into when buying subsidized. I haven't done the math counting in interest on buying the phone, but I'd be surprised if it didn't still come out cheaper.

RexRollman 16y ago

I am not a fan of the iPhone because of its dependency on iTunes. iTunes is an overweight bloated piece of junk and I won't go back to Windows just to run it. I am not a fan of Android because each individual maker gets to decide if you can have an update or not. That would be like buying a Dell PC and then having to go through Dell, not Microsoft, for Windows Updates. So for now, I will keep going with my non-smart phone. At least until things change.

matwood 16y ago
"I am not a fan of the iPhone because of its dependency on iTunes. iTunes is an overweight bloated piece of junk and I won't go back to Windows just to run it." You do know they will activate for you in the store and then only time you ever have to use iTunes again is when an update comes out? Now, this means your phone will not get backed up, but if you set Google up as an Exchange server all your emails, contacts, and calendar items are stored on the cloud anyway.
- hasenj 16y ago
  You're wrong. You still need iTunes to put music on your phone
  - matwood 16y ago
    On linux you have http://www.libimobiledevice.org/ http://www.libimobiledevice.org/ which worked until the most recent update to iOS4. I'm going to assume they'll get it working again shortly. Doubletwist also syncs music on the iPhone. Then you can always download music directly onto the phone or use any of the streaming apps.

ergo98 16y ago

Apple has a lot of very positive points going for it (moreso with their recent changes to be less aggressive towards developers), however many of these pro-iPhone pieces (make no mistake, that is what this submission is, with such a distorted view of the world) could be mechanically written by simply parsing the dominant talking points and mashing them together into some sort of superficial slurry that passes a cursory scan test, but falls apart when you actually look at it with any detail. EDIT: For those without any sense of informational discretion, let me extract the pertinent pieces- -Apple made an exclusive deal with AT&T. Meaning they bound themselves to a carrier to a much greater degree than historically normal. -Facetime doesn't work over anything but WiFi -- this is not a technical limitation. Tethering doesn't work without a tethering plan, after finally, grudgingly, being rolled out. Google Voice was strongly believed to be blocked (along with similar apps) because AT&T vetoed it. -Apple's original resistance to the whole concept of apps was sold on the idea that apps would go crazy and destroy the network. This, again, was bowing to AT&T. -Apple absolutely and completely controls everything you install on your device. Comments about AT&T not allowing side-loading seem extraordinary when the champion example is Apple, which simply bars that universally. At least consumers can choose to buy a different Android device, perhaps on another carrier. That option isn't avialable for iOS. -The fact that the Skype example keeps getting brought up points to the extraordinary shallowness of this argument. Skype got paid money by Verizon, presumably, to provide software for its handsets. This is software business-as-usual as long as time. This has nothing to do with Android, and that it keeps getting conflating as some counter example of openness is pure stupidity. -The installation of Bing on some Verizon phones is exactly what the Android ecosystem allows. In fact Gruber some time back sarcastically (as such is the level of his wit) opined that maybe Android would get Bing given its "openness" (the point clearly being that of course it never would), yet here it is. That's the point. Consumers can choose to go elsewhere. Microsoft can completely coopt Android for their own purposes if they want, and that is how it is supposed to work. Android is built on the assumption of competitive forces. Verizon's heavy-handedness on the Galaxy S will lose them customers. Many of the comments in this discussion point to the extraordinary ignorance there is about the pre-iPhone world. Way prior to the iPhone I worked at a business where we distributed Windows Mobile applications: We required no blessing or grant from Microsoft, and on the handset we had pretty much universal control. Apple's recent moves have made them decidedly less evil, but these current pro-Apple talking points are outrageous, and quite simply deceptively ignorant. The core problem is that people still have a mentality that handsets should be from $49-$199, which means that you're going in with the carrier on your device. Of course most carriers let you bring your own device (if this isn't legally mandated, it nonetheless remains the practice), giving you an actual claim to own the device.

guelo 16y ago

My question is who won this battle when Verizon and Apple negotiated the iphone coming out next year. I'm guessing Verizon wasn't able to get any crapware on there beyond Apple's standard crap, but you never know, Apple really wanted to expand beyond AT&T. As far as Android, I get the sense that Google is not happy with this situation and they do have one big stick they can use, access to Android Market. I'd also like to remind the ridiculous Google haters that it was Google that fought the FCC and the carriers to get open access rules added to the bandwidth auctioned off in 2008, those rules should loosen at least what Verizon does in the future.

loewenskind 16y ago
>I'd also like to remind the ridiculous Google haters Ugh, people who don't fall in love with the same things you do aren't necessarily haters.

ankimal 16y ago

".. reducing them to what they should be: regulated pipe providers just like your gas and electric company." I come from India, the second largest mobile market in the world. (Its a complete mystery why we got 3G just a few months back, but atleast we re getting there). The key in India is that the providers are just that, regulated pipe providers and one only pays for service. I m free to go buy whichever phone I want and do whatever the hell I want with it. I dont have to be in "contract" and I dont have to keep going near windows to make phone calls.

dikbrouwer 16y ago

Let's not forget that this is all fairly US-centric; In Europe the handset manufacturers are more powerful. As a consumer, you select a device first and add-on the network operator after. That's 180 off from what's going on the in US. However, it hasn't created the device innovation that we see now in the US with Google and Apple weighing in...

aphexairlines 16y ago
Can you install whichever OS you like in European handsets?

jackvalentine 16y ago

Something else to question: is the GSM/CDMA split partially to blame here for intensive carrier lock-ins? I like to follow the US carrier market, but from the perspective that in my own country the last CDMA network was shut down in 2008. Here I can choose to buy a carrier branded phone with a subsidy, or as many people do - just buy a phone outright and pay month-to-month swapping carriers as simply as swapping the SIM card.

known 16y ago

iPhone is a Gadget. Android is an Operating system. Why are we comparing them?