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The problem I have with this article is the premise that if an app either started or is just also on iOS, somehow that invalidates its presence on Android. The

The problem I have with this article is the premise that if an app either started or is just also on iOS, somehow that invalidates its presence on Android. The iPhone had a huge lead in time and customer base. Any mobile app developer who calls themselves a mobile app developer is at least going to think about an iPhone app. Of course nearly every Android app is going to have an iOS equivalent. Saying an app needs to be exclusive is a weird statement that is designed to slag Android. Same thing for not counting Google apps/apps that do things iOS can't do. The real question I have is "What thing do you want to do on your phone that Android can't?" Also, citing a crap TechCrunch article as fact because it was written by the guy behind a site named AndroidApps? You are better than that, Gruber.

throwaway111222 16y ago
He's not better than that. You have to remember, he caters to an Apple audience. Because of this, when he is critical of Apple, his tone is soft and non-threatening so as to not offend his audience. When he is critical of his competitors, he often takes a hard, holier-than-thou tone in his posts to enforce his audience's affinity for Apple. In other words, his blog is highly polarizing by design. This isn't a bad thing, every product needs their evangelists, but we must not confuse evangelism with journalism (not saying you did that, but I mean in general).
brownleej 16y ago
I think Gruber's underlying point is that exclusive apps are one of the things that helps a platform maintain success, because they are a barrier to exit. You ask, "What thing do you want to do on your phone that Android can't?" This is a perfectly fair question. I think the response from the Apple camp would be that it is the wrong question. The question they're more interested in is how things are done, not what features are available. This is why they focus so much on design, polish, and experience, and less on providing the widest possible functionality. Along the same lines, notice that Gruber criticizes several Android apps for being knock-offs of iPhone apps, or for having relatively poor quality compared to their iPhone counterparts. I think this shows that his focus is on the how rather than the what, and that his discussion of exclusive apps has less to do with functionality, and more to do with how sticky the platform is. Neither side is necessarily right or wrong, but it's important to recognize that they are asking fundamentally different questions.
sofal 16y ago
The real question I have is "What thing do you want to do on your phone that Android can't?" Anything involving low latency audio. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434

throwaway111222 16y ago

He's not better than that. You have to remember, he caters to an Apple audience. Because of this, when he is critical of Apple, his tone is soft and non-threatening so as to not offend his audience. When he is critical of his competitors, he often takes a hard, holier-than-thou tone in his posts to enforce his audience's affinity for Apple. In other words, his blog is highly polarizing by design. This isn't a bad thing, every product needs their evangelists, but we must not confuse evangelism with journalism (not saying you did that, but I mean in general).

brownleej 16y ago

I think Gruber's underlying point is that exclusive apps are one of the things that helps a platform maintain success, because they are a barrier to exit. You ask, "What thing do you want to do on your phone that Android can't?" This is a perfectly fair question. I think the response from the Apple camp would be that it is the wrong question. The question they're more interested in is how things are done, not what features are available. This is why they focus so much on design, polish, and experience, and less on providing the widest possible functionality. Along the same lines, notice that Gruber criticizes several Android apps for being knock-offs of iPhone apps, or for having relatively poor quality compared to their iPhone counterparts. I think this shows that his focus is on the how rather than the what, and that his discussion of exclusive apps has less to do with functionality, and more to do with how sticky the platform is. Neither side is necessarily right or wrong, but it's important to recognize that they are asking fundamentally different questions.

sofal 16y ago

The real question I have is "What thing do you want to do on your phone that Android can't?" Anything involving low latency audio. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434