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It's easy to look at this cynically but it's not unreasonable to change the conversation. Google's exploitation of "open" has been disingenuous at best. When yo

It's easy to look at this cynically but it's not unreasonable to change the conversation. Google's exploitation of "open" has been disingenuous at best. When you try to square their high ideals against reality, you end up in an uncomfortable spot. The fact is, Android's openness does not make it to the end user. Its openness is exploited for the benefit of the carriers to load branded crapware onto the device, disable specific features and other nonsense. Don't like this? Too bad. Android's openness isn't for you, now that carriers and manufacturers are getting wise to your hackery tricks. They're going to make it as hard as possible to root your Android phone. So you'd better get used to that awesome Blockbuster app. In the end, iOS and Android devices are on even footing in terms of big companies trying to control the final experience. Which leaves us with one thing: motivations. Carrier motivations are to fuck you out of as much money as humanly possible in the short term. In the past that meant disabling device features to force you into their ecosystem – I'm sure this will continue one way or another. They'll load branded garbage onto your device. They'll put specific marketplaces on your device, and maybe even remove Google's if they want to. Their manufacturing partners will happily conspire with them on this, including the firmware fuse that prevents rooting your device so you can make it somewhat clean again. Apple is no less ruthless with its control, but it exercises it for a different purpose: To deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible. (edit: and so, Apple's play is the converse: to maximize your cheerful purchases of Apple gear in the long term – thanks, matwood) If you're a carrier, Android's openness makes it much more valuable than iOS in the short term. In that, Google's piety will ring true. If you're an end user, the net gain of that openness is zero, and at times it's even a loss. I trust Apple infinitely more than I trust the carriers to make something I'll enjoy using. And that's the key to understand. With Apple, what I buy will always be clean. I'll always instantly understand the tradeoffs. With Android, it's going to be a gamble. How hard has my carrier boned this device? I'll have to research if I'm a nerd or be surprised if I'm everyone else. And there goes the power of Android as a brand. Android is no longer Google. Android is the carriers. When was the last time you heard someone write those guys a love letter?

zmmmmm 16y ago
> If you're an end user, the net gain of that openness is zero, and at times it's even a loss I have about 15 home screen widgets, an alternative dialer, alternative browser and a bunch of other programs that would never be allowed on iOS that beg to differ.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  I mean, to each his own – but having three steering wheels in my car wouldn't be sufficient incentive to drive something that blasted "SPRINT!" at me every time I opened the door. Pick the platform you like, by all means, but what you mentioned is more about design decisions than true "openness."
- lzw 16y ago
  For the masses, who buy everything thru the appstore, Apple controls the experience. But this does not make iOS "closed". You can get whatever widgets you want built using web technologies, and they run like apps. And if you're a developer, you can put whatever programs you want on your device. Since all the open advocates should be advocating open source as well, why complain about iOS? IF you want to put open source software on your device, you can just compile it. Apple gives you the development tools for free (the core of which is itself open source) and charges $99 for handling the certificates an authentication for apps. But you can put any app you want on your iPhone if you're a developer. IF you're a consumer, you're not capable of compiling apps for your android phone either anyway. (For some values of "developer" here I'm including enthusiasts who may not really be able to program but are find with compiling code.)
  - zmmmmm 16y ago
    > You can get whatever widgets you want built using web technologies, and they run like apps You must not know what a widget actually is. Unless there's been some startling update to iOS what you are referring to is nothing like an Android widget.
- ladon86 16y ago
  I have an alternative dialler and an Opera browser on my iphone which I downloaded from the App Store. Quite a few rules have changed on iOS, so both the examples you gave are allowed and available.
sjs382 16y ago
"The fact is, Android's openness does not make it to the end user." Android's openness has made it to those who want the openness. The fact that my phone OS is open is the thing I care about. (I'm running SkyRaider 3.3 on my HTC Incredible on Verizon.)
- andreyf 16y ago
  Even ignoring that 99.9% of users don't know the meaning of "open source", I'll believe Android is truly open in the FSF sense I care about when RMS uses one. Until then, I have trouble as seeing it as much more than rhetoric. Sure, you can compile and put your own OS on your phone, but I don't know of anyone who's actually done it (and nodata points out in an uncle to this post that you can't actually do it on some of the popular phones). I do know a lot more people that have extended both iOS and Android using the developer API's, so all the evidence I see is that even technical users don't care about RMS's "freedoms", except the one to extend the software running on their devices, and the market response indicates all many care about the "integrated system" Steve wants to focus on, even when AT&T service sucks ass (just today, I got two voicemails without the phone ringing (granted, this is in NYC)). (disclaimer: everything stated is my own opinion, not representative of employers past or present, etc.)
  - adbge 16y ago
    > I'll believe Android is truly open in the FSF sense I care about when RMS uses one. I don't think you appreciate how restrictive that is. The only example of open hardware is the Yeelong, since that's what Stallman uses. The only open source distro is gNewsense, etc.
  - guelo 16y ago
    Look up Cyanogenmod.
  - biafra 16y ago
    So Linux is not considered open anymore because you cannot install your own modified version on your Tivo?
- 16y ago
andreyf 16y ago
Bingo. While analyzing the sales call from a perspective of rhetoric is fair, and the analysis is valid, there is something to be said about how good the perspective models are at creating something users want. Just as in science, Aristotelian physicists looked at as a heavy rock on a string struggling to fall where Newtonian physicists see a pendulum, Apple seems to be have years of evidence that striving for an "integrated approach" is simply a better model for making good consumer devices.
nodata 16y ago
I'm not sure Android can ever be truly open. As far as I know (please correct me if I am wrong) the firmware that Motorola or HTC (or whoever) ships works around bugs that the vanilla Android does not address (e.g. the Motorola Droid camera). So even if I bypass the carrier and install vanilla Android myself, I might not get a fully functional phone. So I install the firmware directly from the manufacturer, and here the problem is that the updates take months to arrive, or never arrive at all- the hardware manufacturer wants me to upgrade to a new phone. To make it worse, these updates are also security updates, not just feature upgrades.
- dman 16y ago
  How is this different than the linux kernel for regular PC's. Theres hardware shortcomings in abundance that are worked around. If the process was truly open, a reputable tree would emerge with said workarounds. The mobile market is nowhere near as fragmented as the PC + peripherals market and yet open software works pretty reliably on the PC.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - sovande 16y ago
    Linux on the desktop is dead. Didn't you get the memo? http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/1312214/Desktop-Linux-Is-Dead http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/1312214/Desktop-Lin... And it's dead exactly because of fragmentation. I don't think Android will fare any better.
    - nodata 16y ago
      I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. If you're not, fragmentation (Gnome versus KDE, i.e. competition), is precisely what drives desktop Linux (see HN comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746192 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746192)
      - 16y ago
guelo 16y ago
The openness reaches the consumer via competition. There will be many Android offerings from many manufacturers with a thousand different configurations and offered by all the carriers. HTC vs Motorola vs Samsung vs LG, Tmobile vs ATT vs Sprint vs Verizon, all trying to outdo each other. The winner is the consumer, even the Apple consumer because the competition will keep Jobs raving mad and working hard.
- brianpan 16y ago
  By this reasoning, Android being open is not an advantage. I gain just as much buying an iPhone. I think this is an interesting shift of the debate- does open really matter? Or more specifically, who does open benefit and who cares about open?
- silvestrov 16y ago
  Lookup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly There are very few carriers in the US and they all have the same motivation for locking the phones. The number of phone models don't matter. Heck, why is there so little competition between ISPs and carriers in the US? Cheap 100 Mbit internet connection, anyone?
- irons 16y ago
  If you want to make the claim that the carriers are likely to duke it out and deliver any net value to the end-user, you're going to have to make a much stronger case than handwaving about competition. We're already talking about wireless carriers, so the subject of market failure shouldn't be alien to your frame of reference. The only material improvement I see in the last five years is the market power that Apple has managed to steal from them, which it's put to mostly-good use. Until Google is willing to start throwing its weight around with the user experience, Android represents no net gain to my thinking. But Google can't even enforce minimal backward compatibility or timely updates to its hardware partners, and is now running actively in reverse, painting a smiley-face on the carriers' opening up their own balkanized app stores. How does that serve Android developers or users?
  - 16y ago
matwood 16y ago
You make a lot of great points. If we are to believe the rumors that Apple offered the first iPhone to VZW, but refused to let VZW screw it up it adds to your point about the carriers being the real problem. I have to wonder if that is still a sticking point and one of the reasons that VZW has yet to get the iPhone. Apple is no less ruthless with its control, but it exercises it for a different purpose: To deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible. While this is true, never forget that Apples end goal is also to make money. What Apple has figured out though is that by making great products that for the most part work, people will buy and buy and buy. It's almost like the carriers have decided that they suck and will always suck so their goal is to milk every customer as quickly as possible before they leave. Apples goal seems to be to get a customer for life, and they do a pretty good job at accomplishing just that.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  > Apples end goal is also to make money. What Apple has figured out though is that by making great products that for the most part work, people will buy and buy and buy Definitely true. My preference for Apple comes from exactly this fact. They take the long view for making money. Making money by making things people love is something that's a fine deal for me – everyone gets a great value. Apple turns down many short term opportunities to goose their revenues because they refuse to ship something they can't be proud of. Carriers take the short term view, at the expense of their product and their users. This is so frustrating to me.
- grinich 16y ago
  >> While this is true, never forget that Apples end goal is also to make money. But they don't design products to make money. That's what separates them from other companies. They design products that people will love. Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products. We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence we'll make some money. But we're really clear about what our goals are.* Jonathan Ive Senior VP Industrial Design, Apple In my experience, this view is shared by all the execs at Apple. * quote via http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/07/jonathan_ive_th.html http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/07/j...)
larsu 16y ago
The amount of crippling done by the carriers is not Android's fault nor is it in any way advantaged by Android being open. The same crapware has been on Symbian and other (closed) mobile operating systems for a long time. Apple is the only manufacturer that was able to convince carriers to sell their phones without any of that garbage. I don't know what is stopping HTC/Motorala/Samsung from trying to enforce similar conditions for its Android-based devices. I guess the carriers simply have too much control over what gets into the market and refuse to sell anything that they aren't allowed to tamper with. However, I agree with you that the Android brand will suffer very badly from this.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  " I don't know what is stopping HTC/Motorala/Samsung from trying to enforce similar conditions for its Android-based devices." If say HTC tried to enforce such conditions, they'd have little leverage because their devices are practically Android-running commodities. If HTC threatened to walk away from a carrier, it likely wouldn't hurt the carrier that much. Since Apple's the only iOS device vendor, they have a bit more leverage over carriers.
  - larsu 16y ago
    They certainly would have leverage if they built a phone people really want. This is exactly how Apple gained that leverage. Alternatively, they could team up with the other manufacturers and boycott carriers which refuse to sell their phones as-is. But they simply don't seem to care about their end-users as much as the carriers (and neither does Google apparently). edit: spelling.
    - jonhendry 16y ago
      "They certainly would have leverage if they built a phone people really want." There's that, but it won't be too long before someone else releases The Hot New Android Phone. (Which might not live up to the hype, but it'll take the spotlight off the unavailable phone for a while.) "This is exactly how Apple gained that leverage." See above. The only company releasing Hot New Apple Phones is Apple.
mike-cardwell 16y ago
I keep hearing about the "branded crapware" that comes with lots of Android phones. I've had a G1 since they first came out, it didn't have anything like that on it, and I haven't upgraded yet. I know this does happen though, but I'm not sure to what extent? What proportion of new Android phones have this? 90%? 5%?
- daten 16y ago
  A few weeks ago I bought an "Epic 4G" phone from Sprint. This is one of the Samsung Galaxy S variants. It has a custom GUI called "TouchWiz" made to look more like the iphone and is loaded with Sprint applications including a game demo, nascar related and football related applications that are installed as "system applications" and cannot be removed by the user. It also has a Sprint replacement for the wifi hotspot tethering so the user is required to pay $30/mo for that feature that is normally native to Android even when they're already paying for an unlimited data plan. It has sprint logos and music that plays on startup and shutdown that cannot be removed without rooting the phone. A recent update added a media portal where the user can purchase movies and tv shows from Sprint partners. Also a "system app" that cannot be uninstalled.
  - mike-cardwell 16y ago
    That really sucks. But my question was, is your experience typical of most Android users, or a minority?
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      Out of what I've seen so far, most. I personally have a Nexus One, but my girlfriend's Cliq XT has all kinds of bullshit installed. It has yet to get 2.2, as far as I know, so we'll see if she still gets tethering...
      - mike-cardwell 16y ago
        I wonder if this is just a more common phenomenon in the US than the rest of the World. I've met a few people with Android phones in the UK and none of them have had anything like this. There was a case earlier this year where Vodafone issued an update which added some crap like this to peoples phones, but enough people complained that they removed it in their next update which upgraded people to Froyo: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/12/desire_android/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/12/desire_android/ Maybe people in the US just don't complain enough ;)
iampims 16y ago
One fact I'll give to Google about being open, is the applications marketplace. You can install any app you fancy. The Appstore is a different story. But so far, I haven't found any compelling reason to give up on the integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible provided by Apple.
- vaporstun 16y ago
  True that you can install any app you want with Android, but on many devices, the Android Market is simply not available. It depends on the device and whether or not they've gotten the blessing from Google. So yes, they are open in that you can sideload apps, but the failure to have the Market on all of their devices is another side effect of this fragmentation. At least with Apple, you know there will be an Appstore on which you can get apps on every device they sell.
thwarted 16y ago
Apple is no less ruthless with its control, but it exercises it for a different purpose: To deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible. One doesn't require "ruthless control" to "deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible". Apple could relax its control a little and let people who want to use their hardware for other purposes, and void the warranty, do so easily. This wouldn't take away at all from the experience that Apple wants to provide out of the box. Apple uses ruthless control to control its branding.
- evgen 16y ago
  One doesn't require "ruthless control" to "deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible". Would it be possible for you to provide a counter-example that demonstrates your point? You may have a point, but it seems completely unsupported by available facts and I am hoping there is an example out there of what you think would be the "proper" degree of control to hit those goals.
  - thwarted 16y ago
    What about not having hardware locked down would keep Apple from providing an integrated, user-friendly, clean experience out of the box? I didn't associate "ruthless control" and an "integrated, user-friendly, clean experience", the comment I responded to did. I'll use Apple itself as an example. I can install Linux without issue on my MacBook Pro, and despite that Apple still provides an integrated, user-friendly, clean experience in the use of MacBook Pro. Apple doesn't advertise anything other than their own branding and experience with their laptops and desktops, so their message of integrated, user-friendly, clean experience when using their software on their hardware stands, even though it's not locked down. This is a red herring anyway. I don't believe I'd be able to list anything other than Apple as an example of something integrated, user-friendly, clean experience without someone pointing out that whatever it is isn't as good as a random Apple product and thus doesn't qualify as a counterexample. It's really easy for someone to say "I don't think X provides an experience on par with Apple products, even though it isn't ruthlessly controlled" for any X.
jsankey 16y ago
Although I agree with the general point that Android is not totally open in an absolute sense, I think you too easily ignore the ways in which it is open relative to the iPhone. First and foremost, I don't have to jailbreak my phone to install apps not "approved" by Google/the carrier/whoever. I can download an APK from anywhere. Secondly, the code is open. This does matter in practice, because there are people who can and do take advantage of this to create modified versions (e.g. Cyanogen). If Google decides not to take a particular direction, but enough people want it, it can happen. Thirdly, it's not tied to one hardware manufacturer. Apple may make great hardware, but they attack a certain target market, which not everyone fits into. Finally, although your argument about carriers has some truth, it misses a couple of points. It's not like iPhone users are exempt from all carrier restrictions - why can I tether via my Android phone yet iPhone-owning friends cannot? And there is nothing about Android that forces you to use a certain carrier (ironically, in the US, it's iPhone users that have no choice of carrier). I purchased my phone on T-Mobile in the UK, now I use it on another carrier in Australia, no problem.
- GHFigs 16y ago
  I can download an APK from anywhere. Out of curiosity, do you (or any Android users reading this) find yourself doing this with any frequency?
  - thwarted 16y ago
    I'll often use the barcode reader app to read QR codes for apps, some of which take you to the market page, others are links directly to apk files.
  - jsankey 16y ago
    I have indeed installed apps this way. I admit that most apps I've installed are from the market, although that's missing the point. Frequency doesn't matter as much as the actual ability to make the choice independent of Google (or indeed any single corporation). If you think this doesn't matter in practice, consider Apple vs Google Voice on the iPhone. Apple rejected (or "didn't approve") voice, leaving iPhone users with no way to access it. Users would be better off if Google could have hosted a Google Voice package external to the app market.
dman 16y ago
Agree with you about android's openness not making it to the end user completely. Its not just an issue with android, even linux based devices (like the Creative Zii) do ship with the source for GPL components but omit the tools required to flash a user built image to the device. I think this takes away the freedoms that the GPLv2 intended to deliver to the end user.
- linuxhansl 16y ago
  Agreed too. The Android is not open unless I can easily modify/recompile/deploy code to it. GPLv3 would fix that, incidentally.
etherael 16y ago
Android is no longer Google. Android is the carriers. If you play their ball game and buy subsidised through their retail outlets and thus subject yourself to their twisted rules. That's a far call from the Apple side of the equation where regardless of how you acquire the device, short of exploiting security holes, you play by their rules. I have a Nexus One, I bought it unsubsidised up front, it is a truly open device, I didn't have to hack it to get it this way. The fact that Joe Public can be conned by carrier retail sales to buy a different device and be subjected to a different experience is more his problem than Google's. The "unbreakable tying" between the carriers and Google does not exist.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  That would be a really, really great avenue for The Right Android to flourish. Except that Google discontinued the Nexus One. There just aren't sufficient financial incentives for an unlocked, un-fucked-with Android phone, bundled with rainbows and puppy dogs, to come to market. So if even Google won't stand behind that approach, who will? The fact remains that 99% of Android devices will ship because a carrier decrees it – especially in the United States. Academically, your approach is fine but it doesn't really apply to the reality of how people can actually buy the Android experience.
  - etherael 16y ago
    Even though the Nexus is discontinued, you can still get the same phones the carriers subsidise and rebadge outside their official channels under different labels without their hinderances, this is how it works at the moment where I could go on ebay right now and buy a Samsung Galaxy S unlocked and unsubsidised and have effectively the same thing as I have with the N1. Although you're right about the N1 being discontinued it doesn't make a difference to the ability to acquire an unburdened device through alternate channels to the carriers.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
cookiecaper 16y ago
While you're right that carriers will do everything possible to lock the systems down, there will still be channels to get "clean" phones out of the box; right now, you just need to sign up for the Android Developer program and you can order "developer phones", which are Nexus Ones. That's a tangent to the main point which is that people will still crack the "locked-down" carrier phones and you'll be able to flash over the default image with your own. Once this happens, Android being open makes all the difference. With a jailbroken iPhone you can do a few new things, with a rooted Android you can do whatever you want and it's pretty easy to change things because the source is right there. Drop by xda-developers sometime. There are lots of different kernels out there for Android phones and lots of different ROMs that wouldn't be possible if it weren't for Android's openness. Can you run something like compcache on your iPhone?

zmmmmm 16y ago

> If you're an end user, the net gain of that openness is zero, and at times it's even a loss I have about 15 home screen widgets, an alternative dialer, alternative browser and a bunch of other programs that would never be allowed on iOS that beg to differ.

danilocampos 16y ago
I mean, to each his own – but having three steering wheels in my car wouldn't be sufficient incentive to drive something that blasted "SPRINT!" at me every time I opened the door. Pick the platform you like, by all means, but what you mentioned is more about design decisions than true "openness."
lzw 16y ago
For the masses, who buy everything thru the appstore, Apple controls the experience. But this does not make iOS "closed". You can get whatever widgets you want built using web technologies, and they run like apps. And if you're a developer, you can put whatever programs you want on your device. Since all the open advocates should be advocating open source as well, why complain about iOS? IF you want to put open source software on your device, you can just compile it. Apple gives you the development tools for free (the core of which is itself open source) and charges $99 for handling the certificates an authentication for apps. But you can put any app you want on your iPhone if you're a developer. IF you're a consumer, you're not capable of compiling apps for your android phone either anyway. (For some values of "developer" here I'm including enthusiasts who may not really be able to program but are find with compiling code.)
- zmmmmm 16y ago
  > You can get whatever widgets you want built using web technologies, and they run like apps You must not know what a widget actually is. Unless there's been some startling update to iOS what you are referring to is nothing like an Android widget.
ladon86 16y ago
I have an alternative dialler and an Opera browser on my iphone which I downloaded from the App Store. Quite a few rules have changed on iOS, so both the examples you gave are allowed and available.

sjs382 16y ago

"The fact is, Android's openness does not make it to the end user." Android's openness has made it to those who want the openness. The fact that my phone OS is open is the thing I care about. (I'm running SkyRaider 3.3 on my HTC Incredible on Verizon.)

andreyf 16y ago
Even ignoring that 99.9% of users don't know the meaning of "open source", I'll believe Android is truly open in the FSF sense I care about when RMS uses one. Until then, I have trouble as seeing it as much more than rhetoric. Sure, you can compile and put your own OS on your phone, but I don't know of anyone who's actually done it (and nodata points out in an uncle to this post that you can't actually do it on some of the popular phones). I do know a lot more people that have extended both iOS and Android using the developer API's, so all the evidence I see is that even technical users don't care about RMS's "freedoms", except the one to extend the software running on their devices, and the market response indicates all many care about the "integrated system" Steve wants to focus on, even when AT&T service sucks ass (just today, I got two voicemails without the phone ringing (granted, this is in NYC)). (disclaimer: everything stated is my own opinion, not representative of employers past or present, etc.)
- adbge 16y ago
  > I'll believe Android is truly open in the FSF sense I care about when RMS uses one. I don't think you appreciate how restrictive that is. The only example of open hardware is the Yeelong, since that's what Stallman uses. The only open source distro is gNewsense, etc.
- guelo 16y ago
  Look up Cyanogenmod.
- biafra 16y ago
  So Linux is not considered open anymore because you cannot install your own modified version on your Tivo?
16y ago

andreyf 16y ago

Bingo. While analyzing the sales call from a perspective of rhetoric is fair, and the analysis is valid, there is something to be said about how good the perspective models are at creating something users want. Just as in science, Aristotelian physicists looked at as a heavy rock on a string struggling to fall where Newtonian physicists see a pendulum, Apple seems to be have years of evidence that striving for an "integrated approach" is simply a better model for making good consumer devices.

nodata 16y ago

I'm not sure Android can ever be truly open. As far as I know (please correct me if I am wrong) the firmware that Motorola or HTC (or whoever) ships works around bugs that the vanilla Android does not address (e.g. the Motorola Droid camera). So even if I bypass the carrier and install vanilla Android myself, I might not get a fully functional phone. So I install the firmware directly from the manufacturer, and here the problem is that the updates take months to arrive, or never arrive at all- the hardware manufacturer wants me to upgrade to a new phone. To make it worse, these updates are also security updates, not just feature upgrades.

dman 16y ago
How is this different than the linux kernel for regular PC's. Theres hardware shortcomings in abundance that are worked around. If the process was truly open, a reputable tree would emerge with said workarounds. The mobile market is nowhere near as fragmented as the PC + peripherals market and yet open software works pretty reliably on the PC.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- sovande 16y ago
  Linux on the desktop is dead. Didn't you get the memo? http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/1312214/Desktop-Linux-Is-Dead http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/1312214/Desktop-Lin... And it's dead exactly because of fragmentation. I don't think Android will fare any better.
  - nodata 16y ago
    I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. If you're not, fragmentation (Gnome versus KDE, i.e. competition), is precisely what drives desktop Linux (see HN comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746192 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746192)
    - 16y ago

guelo 16y ago

The openness reaches the consumer via competition. There will be many Android offerings from many manufacturers with a thousand different configurations and offered by all the carriers. HTC vs Motorola vs Samsung vs LG, Tmobile vs ATT vs Sprint vs Verizon, all trying to outdo each other. The winner is the consumer, even the Apple consumer because the competition will keep Jobs raving mad and working hard.

brianpan 16y ago
By this reasoning, Android being open is not an advantage. I gain just as much buying an iPhone. I think this is an interesting shift of the debate- does open really matter? Or more specifically, who does open benefit and who cares about open?
silvestrov 16y ago
Lookup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly There are very few carriers in the US and they all have the same motivation for locking the phones. The number of phone models don't matter. Heck, why is there so little competition between ISPs and carriers in the US? Cheap 100 Mbit internet connection, anyone?
irons 16y ago
If you want to make the claim that the carriers are likely to duke it out and deliver any net value to the end-user, you're going to have to make a much stronger case than handwaving about competition. We're already talking about wireless carriers, so the subject of market failure shouldn't be alien to your frame of reference. The only material improvement I see in the last five years is the market power that Apple has managed to steal from them, which it's put to mostly-good use. Until Google is willing to start throwing its weight around with the user experience, Android represents no net gain to my thinking. But Google can't even enforce minimal backward compatibility or timely updates to its hardware partners, and is now running actively in reverse, painting a smiley-face on the carriers' opening up their own balkanized app stores. How does that serve Android developers or users?
- 16y ago

matwood 16y ago

You make a lot of great points. If we are to believe the rumors that Apple offered the first iPhone to VZW, but refused to let VZW screw it up it adds to your point about the carriers being the real problem. I have to wonder if that is still a sticking point and one of the reasons that VZW has yet to get the iPhone. Apple is no less ruthless with its control, but it exercises it for a different purpose: To deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible. While this is true, never forget that Apples end goal is also to make money. What Apple has figured out though is that by making great products that for the most part work, people will buy and buy and buy. It's almost like the carriers have decided that they suck and will always suck so their goal is to milk every customer as quickly as possible before they leave. Apples goal seems to be to get a customer for life, and they do a pretty good job at accomplishing just that.

danilocampos 16y ago
> Apples end goal is also to make money. What Apple has figured out though is that by making great products that for the most part work, people will buy and buy and buy Definitely true. My preference for Apple comes from exactly this fact. They take the long view for making money. Making money by making things people love is something that's a fine deal for me – everyone gets a great value. Apple turns down many short term opportunities to goose their revenues because they refuse to ship something they can't be proud of. Carriers take the short term view, at the expense of their product and their users. This is so frustrating to me.
grinich 16y ago
>> While this is true, never forget that Apples end goal is also to make money. But they don't design products to make money. That's what separates them from other companies. They design products that people will love. Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products. We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence we'll make some money. But we're really clear about what our goals are.* Jonathan Ive Senior VP Industrial Design, Apple In my experience, this view is shared by all the execs at Apple. * quote via http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/07/jonathan_ive_th.html http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/07/j...)

larsu 16y ago

The amount of crippling done by the carriers is not Android's fault nor is it in any way advantaged by Android being open. The same crapware has been on Symbian and other (closed) mobile operating systems for a long time. Apple is the only manufacturer that was able to convince carriers to sell their phones without any of that garbage. I don't know what is stopping HTC/Motorala/Samsung from trying to enforce similar conditions for its Android-based devices. I guess the carriers simply have too much control over what gets into the market and refuse to sell anything that they aren't allowed to tamper with. However, I agree with you that the Android brand will suffer very badly from this.

jonhendry 16y ago
" I don't know what is stopping HTC/Motorala/Samsung from trying to enforce similar conditions for its Android-based devices." If say HTC tried to enforce such conditions, they'd have little leverage because their devices are practically Android-running commodities. If HTC threatened to walk away from a carrier, it likely wouldn't hurt the carrier that much. Since Apple's the only iOS device vendor, they have a bit more leverage over carriers.
- larsu 16y ago
  They certainly would have leverage if they built a phone people really want. This is exactly how Apple gained that leverage. Alternatively, they could team up with the other manufacturers and boycott carriers which refuse to sell their phones as-is. But they simply don't seem to care about their end-users as much as the carriers (and neither does Google apparently). edit: spelling.
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    "They certainly would have leverage if they built a phone people really want." There's that, but it won't be too long before someone else releases The Hot New Android Phone. (Which might not live up to the hype, but it'll take the spotlight off the unavailable phone for a while.) "This is exactly how Apple gained that leverage." See above. The only company releasing Hot New Apple Phones is Apple.

mike-cardwell 16y ago

I keep hearing about the "branded crapware" that comes with lots of Android phones. I've had a G1 since they first came out, it didn't have anything like that on it, and I haven't upgraded yet. I know this does happen though, but I'm not sure to what extent? What proportion of new Android phones have this? 90%? 5%?

daten 16y ago
A few weeks ago I bought an "Epic 4G" phone from Sprint. This is one of the Samsung Galaxy S variants. It has a custom GUI called "TouchWiz" made to look more like the iphone and is loaded with Sprint applications including a game demo, nascar related and football related applications that are installed as "system applications" and cannot be removed by the user. It also has a Sprint replacement for the wifi hotspot tethering so the user is required to pay $30/mo for that feature that is normally native to Android even when they're already paying for an unlimited data plan. It has sprint logos and music that plays on startup and shutdown that cannot be removed without rooting the phone. A recent update added a media portal where the user can purchase movies and tv shows from Sprint partners. Also a "system app" that cannot be uninstalled.
- mike-cardwell 16y ago
  That really sucks. But my question was, is your experience typical of most Android users, or a minority?
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    Out of what I've seen so far, most. I personally have a Nexus One, but my girlfriend's Cliq XT has all kinds of bullshit installed. It has yet to get 2.2, as far as I know, so we'll see if she still gets tethering...
    - mike-cardwell 16y ago
      I wonder if this is just a more common phenomenon in the US than the rest of the World. I've met a few people with Android phones in the UK and none of them have had anything like this. There was a case earlier this year where Vodafone issued an update which added some crap like this to peoples phones, but enough people complained that they removed it in their next update which upgraded people to Froyo: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/12/desire_android/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/12/desire_android/ Maybe people in the US just don't complain enough ;)

iampims 16y ago

One fact I'll give to Google about being open, is the applications marketplace. You can install any app you fancy. The Appstore is a different story. But so far, I haven't found any compelling reason to give up on the integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible provided by Apple.

vaporstun 16y ago
True that you can install any app you want with Android, but on many devices, the Android Market is simply not available. It depends on the device and whether or not they've gotten the blessing from Google. So yes, they are open in that you can sideload apps, but the failure to have the Market on all of their devices is another side effect of this fragmentation. At least with Apple, you know there will be an Appstore on which you can get apps on every device they sell.

thwarted 16y ago

Apple is no less ruthless with its control, but it exercises it for a different purpose: To deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible. One doesn't require "ruthless control" to "deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible". Apple could relax its control a little and let people who want to use their hardware for other purposes, and void the warranty, do so easily. This wouldn't take away at all from the experience that Apple wants to provide out of the box. Apple uses ruthless control to control its branding.

evgen 16y ago
One doesn't require "ruthless control" to "deliver the most integrated, user-friendly, clean experience possible". Would it be possible for you to provide a counter-example that demonstrates your point? You may have a point, but it seems completely unsupported by available facts and I am hoping there is an example out there of what you think would be the "proper" degree of control to hit those goals.
- thwarted 16y ago
  What about not having hardware locked down would keep Apple from providing an integrated, user-friendly, clean experience out of the box? I didn't associate "ruthless control" and an "integrated, user-friendly, clean experience", the comment I responded to did. I'll use Apple itself as an example. I can install Linux without issue on my MacBook Pro, and despite that Apple still provides an integrated, user-friendly, clean experience in the use of MacBook Pro. Apple doesn't advertise anything other than their own branding and experience with their laptops and desktops, so their message of integrated, user-friendly, clean experience when using their software on their hardware stands, even though it's not locked down. This is a red herring anyway. I don't believe I'd be able to list anything other than Apple as an example of something integrated, user-friendly, clean experience without someone pointing out that whatever it is isn't as good as a random Apple product and thus doesn't qualify as a counterexample. It's really easy for someone to say "I don't think X provides an experience on par with Apple products, even though it isn't ruthlessly controlled" for any X.

jsankey 16y ago

Although I agree with the general point that Android is not totally open in an absolute sense, I think you too easily ignore the ways in which it is open relative to the iPhone. First and foremost, I don't have to jailbreak my phone to install apps not "approved" by Google/the carrier/whoever. I can download an APK from anywhere. Secondly, the code is open. This does matter in practice, because there are people who can and do take advantage of this to create modified versions (e.g. Cyanogen). If Google decides not to take a particular direction, but enough people want it, it can happen. Thirdly, it's not tied to one hardware manufacturer. Apple may make great hardware, but they attack a certain target market, which not everyone fits into. Finally, although your argument about carriers has some truth, it misses a couple of points. It's not like iPhone users are exempt from all carrier restrictions - why can I tether via my Android phone yet iPhone-owning friends cannot? And there is nothing about Android that forces you to use a certain carrier (ironically, in the US, it's iPhone users that have no choice of carrier). I purchased my phone on T-Mobile in the UK, now I use it on another carrier in Australia, no problem.

GHFigs 16y ago
I can download an APK from anywhere. Out of curiosity, do you (or any Android users reading this) find yourself doing this with any frequency?
- thwarted 16y ago
  I'll often use the barcode reader app to read QR codes for apps, some of which take you to the market page, others are links directly to apk files.
- jsankey 16y ago
  I have indeed installed apps this way. I admit that most apps I've installed are from the market, although that's missing the point. Frequency doesn't matter as much as the actual ability to make the choice independent of Google (or indeed any single corporation). If you think this doesn't matter in practice, consider Apple vs Google Voice on the iPhone. Apple rejected (or "didn't approve") voice, leaving iPhone users with no way to access it. Users would be better off if Google could have hosted a Google Voice package external to the app market.

dman 16y ago

Agree with you about android's openness not making it to the end user completely. Its not just an issue with android, even linux based devices (like the Creative Zii) do ship with the source for GPL components but omit the tools required to flash a user built image to the device. I think this takes away the freedoms that the GPLv2 intended to deliver to the end user.

linuxhansl 16y ago
Agreed too. The Android is not open unless I can easily modify/recompile/deploy code to it. GPLv3 would fix that, incidentally.

etherael 16y ago

Android is no longer Google. Android is the carriers. If you play their ball game and buy subsidised through their retail outlets and thus subject yourself to their twisted rules. That's a far call from the Apple side of the equation where regardless of how you acquire the device, short of exploiting security holes, you play by their rules. I have a Nexus One, I bought it unsubsidised up front, it is a truly open device, I didn't have to hack it to get it this way. The fact that Joe Public can be conned by carrier retail sales to buy a different device and be subjected to a different experience is more his problem than Google's. The "unbreakable tying" between the carriers and Google does not exist.

danilocampos 16y ago
That would be a really, really great avenue for The Right Android to flourish. Except that Google discontinued the Nexus One. There just aren't sufficient financial incentives for an unlocked, un-fucked-with Android phone, bundled with rainbows and puppy dogs, to come to market. So if even Google won't stand behind that approach, who will? The fact remains that 99% of Android devices will ship because a carrier decrees it – especially in the United States. Academically, your approach is fine but it doesn't really apply to the reality of how people can actually buy the Android experience.
- etherael 16y ago
  Even though the Nexus is discontinued, you can still get the same phones the carriers subsidise and rebadge outside their official channels under different labels without their hinderances, this is how it works at the moment where I could go on ebay right now and buy a Samsung Galaxy S unlocked and unsubsidised and have effectively the same thing as I have with the N1. Although you're right about the N1 being discontinued it doesn't make a difference to the ability to acquire an unburdened device through alternate channels to the carriers.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

cookiecaper 16y ago

While you're right that carriers will do everything possible to lock the systems down, there will still be channels to get "clean" phones out of the box; right now, you just need to sign up for the Android Developer program and you can order "developer phones", which are Nexus Ones. That's a tangent to the main point which is that people will still crack the "locked-down" carrier phones and you'll be able to flash over the default image with your own. Once this happens, Android being open makes all the difference. With a jailbroken iPhone you can do a few new things, with a rooted Android you can do whatever you want and it's pretty easy to change things because the source is right there. Drop by xda-developers sometime. There are lots of different kernels out there for Android phones and lots of different ROMs that wouldn't be possible if it weren't for Android's openness. Can you run something like compcache on your iPhone?