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This is what I love about Apple. They gave the carriers a big middle finger when it comes to the usual bullshit of bloatware, sticking their logos on things or

This is what I love about Apple. They gave the carriers a big middle finger when it comes to the usual bullshit of bloatware, sticking their logos on things or getting in the middle of updates. That’s because they cared about the end user experience. Google was happy to just grab market share at the expense of the users by allowing carriers to continue with their usual shenanigans. For this reason Apple will have my eternal gratitude, because I remember what a shitshow smartphones (and deploying apps for them) was before Apple flexed their muscles on this.

michaelcampbell 7y ago
> That’s because they cared about the end user experience. I'm sure 100% of any revenue going to Apple and not shared with anyone had nothing to do with that.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  It may have, but I doubt it was the primary motivation. Steve Jobs famously cared a lot about user experience, security and reliability. Remember that Apple under his leadership took a firm stance and loudly and publicly refused to allow Flash on its devices, despite the fact that many websites back then relied on Flash.
  - z3t4 7y ago
    Apple also planned to sandbox all apps. But developers wanted bare metal performance.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Sandboxes apps has to do with the permissions not having “metal performance”. iOS apps compile down to ARM native code. Unlike most Android apps that run on top of a VM.
  - avtar 7y ago
    > Steve Jobs famously cared a lot about user experience, security and reliability. Remember that Apple under his leadership took a firm stance and loudly and publicly refused to allow Flash on its devices, despite the fact that many websites back then relied on Flash. A less generous take on that would be that he/Apple also wanted to push their app store. At the time Flash was popular for publishing apps and games on the web. Yes their decision helped move everyone away from Flash but it also meant they would be getting their 30% cut from iOS apps. Edit: I stand corrected. "While originally developing iPhone prior to its unveiling in 2007, Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs did not intend to let third-party developers build native apps for iOS, instead directing them to make web applications for the Safari web browser." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS)#iOS_SDK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS)#iOS_SDK
    - Despegar 7y ago
      This is like saying that Apple can't collect 30% if you make your app in React Native rather than a purely native iOS app. It doesn't matter what technology you use, they're going to get 30% because they control the store.
    - ninkendo 7y ago
      The original iPhone didn't even have an app store...
    - scarface74 7y ago
      You mean the same Flash that Adobe said they could have gotten to work on the original iPhone - with 128MB of RAM and a 400Mhz processor but barely worked on Android with minimum requirements of a 1Ghz processor and 1GB of RAM?
      - avtar 7y ago
        I wasn't claiming Flash was ideal in any sense -- just that it was popular back then.
    - neotek 7y ago
      >A less generous take on that would be that he/Apple also wanted to push their app store. The App Store didn't exist at that time.
  - weaksauce 7y ago
    the anti-flash stance was mainly there because of the abysmal performance a flash app would have on the device and the device's battery life.
    - enraged_camel 7y ago
      Hence, user experience!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
codedokode 7y ago
But Apple software is proprietary, not friendly to open soure developers and you never know what that software is doing. Maybe they are streaming your data directly to "cloud" operated by NSA. Or iPhone doesn't upload anything to cloud?
- w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
  Most of the function users care about in their phone, if not implemented by third party, are proprietary apps from google. Without the app store and the google ecosystem, android experience is poor at best.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    The Google ecosystem can drown in bleach for all I care. F-Droid is not bad at all. Downloading apps from the Google store is an awful experience because on that store it's the norm for damn near every application to spy on you to the fullest extent possible. On f-droid, applications the typical application is a good citizen. It's a lower stress experience and a better appstore than either Google or Apple, unless you desire specific closed source software in which case it's no longer an option. Try this: On Google's Appstore, find a flashlight app that doesn't upload your contacts. Now on F-droid, try to find one that does. This is not an easy challenge!
    - wildduck 7y ago
      Or we can also try this: https://www.replicant.us https://www.replicant.us
    - rtrr_eter 7y ago
      I am amazed even on hn, too many people compare privacy / security properties of android to iOS w/o knowing about f-droid & degoogling.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  All of the data collection functionality in Google Apps is closed source too.
davidw 7y ago
Having a closed ecosystem has costs too, though, especially in terms of user freedom and choice.
navigatesol 7y ago
>They gave the carriers a big middle finger when it comes to the usual bullshit of bloatware, sticking their logos on things or getting in the middle of updates Except, of course, the bloatware of their own making. Here's a novel idea: you, yourself can give the middle finger to the carriers and buy an unlocked phone from a provider that delivers timely updates to Android...just like Apple. >For this reason Apple will have my eternal gratitude I'll take freedom of choice, thanks.
- codebje 7y ago
  I buy unlocked Nexus devices to avoid mftr and carrier bloatware and update delays. Never again for a Samsung device, they churn through models absurdly quickly, delay updates for months, and shovel tons of crap on.
  - navigatesol 7y ago
    >I buy unlocked Nexus devices to avoid mftr and carrier bloatware and update delays. Exactly. There is a whole series of phones offering bloat-less Android, from a variety of manufacturers: https://www.android.com/one/ https://www.android.com/one/
rtrr_eter 7y ago
Yet another apple shill. All they care is making money by hyping their second-class tech to tech-illiterate rich fellows..
azernik 7y ago
Don't make this about moral superiority of Apple over Google. Apple did it because they could, because when the iPhone came out it owned the smartphone market; any carrier that didn't play ball would be frozen out (as T-Mobile was initially - AT&T's exclusivity on the iPhone really helped their market share among high-end consumers). Google did not have that luxury.
- filmgirlcw 7y ago
  That’s not an accurate representation of what happened. When Apple/Steve Jobs went into negotiations with Verizon and AT&T (then known as Cingular), it didn’t have any leverage. In fact, Verizon wouldn’t sign the deal in part because of the control Steve Jobs wanted over the devices. AT&T agreed to get the exclusive. BlackBerry was King when the iPhone launched and BlackBerry bent over backwards to do whatever the carrier wanted (the book Losing the Signal has great details on this). Google could have depended on similar provisions with Verizon when the Droid launched in 2009 or with T-Mobile when the G1 launched in 2008. Both carriers wanted an iPhone killer. But Google didn’t do that. It did force Verizon not to put Bing as the default search engine on some of Verizon’s Android phones (like the Droid series), despite an early 2009 agreement Verizon made to make Bing its default search engine — and it also negotiated to NOT force consumers to pay for Android apps using the carrier stores (something many carriers had required for previous non-Apple App Stores), once paid apps launched. But it didn’t negotiate the update bit, even though the company had the leverage to do it. I can only speculate the reasons why, but based on the number of books I’ve read, people I’ve talked to, and and other information, it strikes me that Google decided it was more advantageous to let any phone maker or carrier adopt its OS to gain marketshare, rather than worrying about device fragmentation or security update issues. And that strategy worked beautifully and Android took over the world. The problem is getting carriers or device makers to update, especially when many have spent lots of time customizing Android as a way of differentiating themselves. But it’s unfair to claim Google didn’t have the opportunity to make the deal Apple did. Google just didn’t want to do that and wasn’t willing to walk away from a partnership to have that level of control.
  - davidgl 7y ago

michaelcampbell 7y ago

> That’s because they cared about the end user experience. I'm sure 100% of any revenue going to Apple and not shared with anyone had nothing to do with that.

enraged_camel 7y ago
It may have, but I doubt it was the primary motivation. Steve Jobs famously cared a lot about user experience, security and reliability. Remember that Apple under his leadership took a firm stance and loudly and publicly refused to allow Flash on its devices, despite the fact that many websites back then relied on Flash.
- z3t4 7y ago
  Apple also planned to sandbox all apps. But developers wanted bare metal performance.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Sandboxes apps has to do with the permissions not having “metal performance”. iOS apps compile down to ARM native code. Unlike most Android apps that run on top of a VM.
- avtar 7y ago
  > Steve Jobs famously cared a lot about user experience, security and reliability. Remember that Apple under his leadership took a firm stance and loudly and publicly refused to allow Flash on its devices, despite the fact that many websites back then relied on Flash. A less generous take on that would be that he/Apple also wanted to push their app store. At the time Flash was popular for publishing apps and games on the web. Yes their decision helped move everyone away from Flash but it also meant they would be getting their 30% cut from iOS apps. Edit: I stand corrected. "While originally developing iPhone prior to its unveiling in 2007, Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs did not intend to let third-party developers build native apps for iOS, instead directing them to make web applications for the Safari web browser." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS)#iOS_SDK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS)#iOS_SDK
  - Despegar 7y ago
    This is like saying that Apple can't collect 30% if you make your app in React Native rather than a purely native iOS app. It doesn't matter what technology you use, they're going to get 30% because they control the store.
  - ninkendo 7y ago
    The original iPhone didn't even have an app store...
  - scarface74 7y ago
    You mean the same Flash that Adobe said they could have gotten to work on the original iPhone - with 128MB of RAM and a 400Mhz processor but barely worked on Android with minimum requirements of a 1Ghz processor and 1GB of RAM?
    - avtar 7y ago
      I wasn't claiming Flash was ideal in any sense -- just that it was popular back then.
  - neotek 7y ago
    >A less generous take on that would be that he/Apple also wanted to push their app store. The App Store didn't exist at that time.
- weaksauce 7y ago
  the anti-flash stance was mainly there because of the abysmal performance a flash app would have on the device and the device's battery life.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    Hence, user experience!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

codedokode 7y ago

But Apple software is proprietary, not friendly to open soure developers and you never know what that software is doing. Maybe they are streaming your data directly to "cloud" operated by NSA. Or iPhone doesn't upload anything to cloud?

w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
Most of the function users care about in their phone, if not implemented by third party, are proprietary apps from google. Without the app store and the google ecosystem, android experience is poor at best.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  The Google ecosystem can drown in bleach for all I care. F-Droid is not bad at all. Downloading apps from the Google store is an awful experience because on that store it's the norm for damn near every application to spy on you to the fullest extent possible. On f-droid, applications the typical application is a good citizen. It's a lower stress experience and a better appstore than either Google or Apple, unless you desire specific closed source software in which case it's no longer an option. Try this: On Google's Appstore, find a flashlight app that doesn't upload your contacts. Now on F-droid, try to find one that does. This is not an easy challenge!
  - wildduck 7y ago
    Or we can also try this: https://www.replicant.us https://www.replicant.us
  - rtrr_eter 7y ago
    I am amazed even on hn, too many people compare privacy / security properties of android to iOS w/o knowing about f-droid & degoogling.
throwaway2048 7y ago
All of the data collection functionality in Google Apps is closed source too.

davidw 7y ago

Having a closed ecosystem has costs too, though, especially in terms of user freedom and choice.

navigatesol 7y ago

>They gave the carriers a big middle finger when it comes to the usual bullshit of bloatware, sticking their logos on things or getting in the middle of updates Except, of course, the bloatware of their own making. Here's a novel idea: you, yourself can give the middle finger to the carriers and buy an unlocked phone from a provider that delivers timely updates to Android...just like Apple. >For this reason Apple will have my eternal gratitude I'll take freedom of choice, thanks.

codebje 7y ago
I buy unlocked Nexus devices to avoid mftr and carrier bloatware and update delays. Never again for a Samsung device, they churn through models absurdly quickly, delay updates for months, and shovel tons of crap on.
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >I buy unlocked Nexus devices to avoid mftr and carrier bloatware and update delays. Exactly. There is a whole series of phones offering bloat-less Android, from a variety of manufacturers: https://www.android.com/one/ https://www.android.com/one/

rtrr_eter 7y ago

Yet another apple shill. All they care is making money by hyping their second-class tech to tech-illiterate rich fellows..

azernik 7y ago

Don't make this about moral superiority of Apple over Google. Apple did it because they could, because when the iPhone came out it owned the smartphone market; any carrier that didn't play ball would be frozen out (as T-Mobile was initially - AT&T's exclusivity on the iPhone really helped their market share among high-end consumers). Google did not have that luxury.

filmgirlcw 7y ago
That’s not an accurate representation of what happened. When Apple/Steve Jobs went into negotiations with Verizon and AT&T (then known as Cingular), it didn’t have any leverage. In fact, Verizon wouldn’t sign the deal in part because of the control Steve Jobs wanted over the devices. AT&T agreed to get the exclusive. BlackBerry was King when the iPhone launched and BlackBerry bent over backwards to do whatever the carrier wanted (the book Losing the Signal has great details on this). Google could have depended on similar provisions with Verizon when the Droid launched in 2009 or with T-Mobile when the G1 launched in 2008. Both carriers wanted an iPhone killer. But Google didn’t do that. It did force Verizon not to put Bing as the default search engine on some of Verizon’s Android phones (like the Droid series), despite an early 2009 agreement Verizon made to make Bing its default search engine — and it also negotiated to NOT force consumers to pay for Android apps using the carrier stores (something many carriers had required for previous non-Apple App Stores), once paid apps launched. But it didn’t negotiate the update bit, even though the company had the leverage to do it. I can only speculate the reasons why, but based on the number of books I’ve read, people I’ve talked to, and and other information, it strikes me that Google decided it was more advantageous to let any phone maker or carrier adopt its OS to gain marketshare, rather than worrying about device fragmentation or security update issues. And that strategy worked beautifully and Android took over the world. The problem is getting carriers or device makers to update, especially when many have spent lots of time customizing Android as a way of differentiating themselves. But it’s unfair to claim Google didn’t have the opportunity to make the deal Apple did. Google just didn’t want to do that and wasn’t willing to walk away from a partnership to have that level of control.
- davidgl 7y ago