11 ms·

What Makes Android Revolutionary

246 points by thomholwerda 15y ago

happyman 15y ago
Very much true.
- happyman 15y ago
  I'm from one of the poorest countries. I could buy my first smart-phone because of the availability of cheaper Android phones. I'm bit of geek because of the openness of Android, at least I'm aware of what software runs inside my phone. I expressed my true sentiments and my post was down voted. What a irony!
  - GFischer 15y ago
    I didn't downvote you, but I might imagine it's because your post didn't contribute to the conversation. From the Hacker News welcome: http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html "The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments. Thoughtful in both senses: both civil and substantial. The test for substance is a lot like it is for links. Does your comment teach us anything?" I'm also from a poor country, and an Android phone was my first true smarthphone (this Christmas :) ).
jballanc 15y ago
It is interesting to note that the term "Open Source" was coined as a counterpart/in opposition to "Free Software" by those who were interested in sharing code but who did not ascribe to some of the more extreme aspects of Stallman's philosophy. It is interesting, because really, what has Android being "Open Source" really done? Are customers less beholden to telecoms for their devices? Have prices dropped or competition increased? What percent of Android device owners have compiled their own kernel? Have read the Android source? > In ten to fifteen years' time, we will look back and regard Android as the technology that enabled even the poorest people in this world to have access to the web (and thus, knowledge), just like we regard Nokia as the company that put the mobile phone in every corner of the globe. ...and just like we regard Microsoft as the company that put computers into every home.
- clintonb11 15y ago
  I think prices are lower than they would have been without android. Without debating the openness of the software, Android still gave phone manufacturers a huge code base for their smart phones that they would have had to develop otherwise, and their software probably wouldn't have been as good. Just look at the selection of "free" smart phones from T-mobile: http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/?shape=smp http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/?shape=smp I doubt the diversity and quality of those phones would have been possible without Android.
  - jballanc 15y ago
    The cost of a Windows license was never a material factor in the cost of a computer. Windows just happened to work on the widest range of hardware, much like Android. Being "open" has little to nothing to do with that. What I find lacking in all of this Android chest-bumping is the recognition of what made it possible for so many smart phones to be priced reasonably: the decreasing price of flash storage. If we're going to point to anything as the cause for smart phone ubiquity, shouldn't we consider what Apple has done to drive down the price of flash?
    - clintonb11 15y ago
      The difference in this case is that Android can be customized and tailored however a carrier or manufacturer wants, because the source code is in fact available. Windows never allowed for that.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    You can thank Microsoft for making them slightly more expensive than they should've been, though, with their "patent licenses".
  - lftl 15y ago
    I think the biggest thing Google brought to table isn't necessarily the code for the OS, but a platform with momentum that others could easily tap into. I'm sure Huawei could have developed their own mobile OS platform, but convincing a ton of developers to develop for it would have been hard.
Yhippa 15y ago
I think the iPhone set the bar for user experience and helped pull everybody out of the dark ages of jamming scaled-down desktop experiences on a tiny screen. I really agree with the post though. One day enough people with time on their hands will be able to adapt Android to all sorts of cheap hardware which might scale greatly for the developing world.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  Android is already scaling for the developing world. See the Kenyan Android phone: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/37877/ http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/37877/
AlisdairO 15y ago
I think the wrangling over Apple's sold/shipped devices is a little over the top - unlike some of the unreliable figures released for adroid tablets, for example, I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that Apple doesn't sell the large majority of the devices it ships.
- shadowfiend 15y ago
  Yeah, with shipping estimates of 1-2 weeks on the Apple Store, it looks like Apple is still selling more or less every iPhone it makes at the moment. A nitpick, of course, but the soreness doesn't help the rest of the argument, which is a good argument to make.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
drivebyacct2 15y ago
I can already see how much of this thread is going to play out. Before we get into a fight about whether Android is "open" enough or not, can we defer to the thread about Macro's post? There have already been dozens of comments about the subject today.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Wow. Scumbag HN, downvotes comment asking to refer to discussion that occurred minutes before. Repeats discussion that occurred minutes before. I guess I don't mind if this gets downvotes, the dozen or two comments in the middle of this are more or less copy and pasted from the discussion that occurred earlier today.
  - dasil003 15y ago
    Downvoted for being a whiny douche, not for referring to previous discussion.
    - drivebyacct2 15y ago
      "whiny douche"? Well, that pretty much put the nail in the coffin. Guess the other reply today about proggit compared to here was probably right. Tis a shame. Sorry the "post by Marco" wasn't relevant enough when it was sitting right next to this link, said "marco.com" and had hundreds of comments. Dasil003, you're really going to call me a douche when you were even commenting in that thread? Sorry, I'm not going to resort to calling you a name.
Ihavenoname 15y ago
You can talk up your favorite team, principle or country without a point by point attack on your rivals. Apple has had some great successes and failures that open source can learn from and can stand on their shoulders to make an even better product. Characterizing Apple and Jobs as some one dimensional boogy man doent really contribute to growth. No need for flame ware rehash. tl;dr Dont waste your time on this article.
- shadowfiend 15y ago
  But the article has a perfectly good point to make. That it's couched in the usual rivalry terms is unfortunate, but hey, that's the way of the world. It's legitimate to say that Android will be the driving force for commoditizing smartphones, however. iOS will not be that force, and I think that's fine. That has never been Apple's goal, and it shows. It's like saying Mercedes won't drive commoditization of the latest feature in their car (e.g., HUDs or auto-parallel-parking). No, that'll be a smaller company. Mercedes is in charge of being up front putting it in to begin with for the people willing to pay more to get it. Once it's become cheaper, Ford can then integrate it in their upper lines, and then their mid-levels, and then it becomes a standard feature for pretty much all cars. Similarly, Apple basically rewrote the book on smartphone UIs. There is very little you can say to truly countermand that. They may not be the 100% originators of all of the ideas, but the iPhone was the first phone of its kind. Android followed along, and started out expensive, then got cheaper, and now they're moving towards ultra-cheap smartphones running Android. Same evolution. The products have different purposes and different targets, that's all. The only reason I bring this up is that I really don't often see flamewars between Mercedes drivers and Ford drivers. I suppose this might be because car companies differentiate tiers by brand, while in the case of Android, there are both high-end and low-end Android phones that are marketed under the exact same name, and these will obviously provide a different experience.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > It's legitimate to say that Android will be the driving force for commoditizing smartphones, however. iOS will not be that force, and I think that's fine. I'm not sure about that, cheaper iPhones have been available with every new release, last year european operators already offered 0€ iPhones with 2 years contracts, and the 3GS has gotten one more year lease on life being advertised as a $99 phone in the US. edit: -1 without any discussion because I point out iphones are available "for free", which seriously sounds like commoditization? That's an interesting HN dynamic.
richardburton 15y ago
For the first time, a smartphone operating system is going to impact more than rich people in the US and Europe, and that is pretty darn revolutionary. Simply and powerfully put. As third-world countries come online they are going to be starting and staying with the mobile web. You can already see this at work in a number of African countries where mobile payments have proliferated and matured at an astonishing rate. That is just an early signal of the tectonic shift occurring.
- phaus 15y ago
  I just hope that the poor of the world don't end up with a $180 phone bill like I have to deal with in order to have mobile web access. Sadly, in some countries that would be almost 6 months' income.
  - mike-cardwell 15y ago
    Here in the UK, my mobile phone bill is £3.33/month and I get 500MB of data with that. EDIT: I do this by using T-Mobile PAYG and buying their 6 month Internet booster for £20, twice a year. I've managed to convince all my regular contacts to use Kik Messenger instead of SMS, so I don't have to pay for SMS. I very rarely make phone calls, but I have VOIP with localphone.com when I have to.
    - shimon_e 15y ago
      If you are in the UK, I would recommend to check out ovh.co.uk 's voip package. Should work out a lot better than localphone.com I'm a localphone customer here as I am not in the UK. :/
      - mike-cardwell 15y ago
        Just checked out ovh. Looks good, but because of ovh's 99p/month charge, it still works out cheaper to use localphone unless you make at least a couple of hours of calls per month.
cbs 15y ago
This is an interesting take on the long view of the smartphone market. I think the linked google plus comment is more insightful than the article itself, if you skipped it the first time go back and give it a read. Apple is building a luxury device. Google is turning what was once luxury into a commodity. It makes sense too. The difference in revenue streams boils down to, Apple makes cash from the upgrade train, Google makes cash when people use the web. Getting the web in everyones hands is a plus for google, but a huge plus for humankind. I'm glad that their interests so closely line up with the big picture in this situation. Not specific to phones, I just love it when things get commoditized. It means that the next round of new and exciting things built upon it can finally gain some steam.
bluekeybox 15y ago
Another troll/crowd-pleasing post from Thom Holwerda.
snowwrestler 15y ago
"I'm even more excited about seeing a $25 mobile device that has access to a killer web browser and endless mobile apps, and watching that device appear in the hands of a billion school children over the next 10 years." I would be excited to see that too. Can anyone point me towards such a device? "What Nokia did for the mobile phone, Android is doing for the smartphone." I don't see how, because Nokia is a hardware manufacturer who actually makes phones, and Android is just an operating system. It seems to me the hard part of getting to the $25 unlocked price point is the hardware, not the OS. Android is not even the only open-source phone operating system--how about Meego, created by (aptly) Nokia, and hosted by the nonprofit Linux Foundation? Android is a cool product, but I have a hard time swallowing the self-congratulatory posturing. So far Android has not done a single thing for the 3rd world poor. As far as I can tell, so far all it has done is provided the skeleton for a bunch of proprietary implementations by first-world hardware manufacturers and mobile operators.
moocow01 15y ago
"The iPhone is heralded as the most revolutionary mobile phone in human history, but the cold and harsh truth is that for all the cheering and punditry, the iPhone's impact on the world is negligible." Don't care for Android vs. iPhone arguments but lets at least admit that iPhone was a significant catalyst that moved forward the smartphone movement initially at the least. Androids would probably still exist if Apple never put out the iPhone but the iPhone has certainly been one of the biggest influences on Android's development not to mention the entire mobile industry. In that regard I see the author's statement as pretty narrow. Its like saying Unix had no impact on computing because Microsoft had the lion's share.
- mwk 15y ago
  The Unix Windows analogy was the first thing I thought of when i read that quote. also, the author's definition of revolutionary seems to oscillate between impact on the world and the impact on the industry.
  - mirzmaster 15y ago
    I don't think the Unix-Windows analogy is very apt, actually, as both have been revolutionary in different ways (by any measure). *nix has gone on to power much of the software on which the Internet runs. Windows powers much of the software user's directly interact with. By comparison, Apple/iOS and Android are competing more directly. The author of the article is arguing that more revolutionary than being the first (or even the best) at something is subsequently making that innovation accessible to as many people as possible. This is something both Unix and Windows have achieved, Android is trying to achieve, but I'm not sure Apple is even interested in. Perhaps a more apt analogy would be the invention of the automobile vs. the assembly line. True, the automobile was a genuine innovation, but the assembly line put the automobile within reach of everyone. With this view in mind, it's okay that Apple wants to focus on pushing the envelope in what its car can do. Likewise, it's okay that Google wants to focus on making those or similar innovations accessible to as many as possible.
- jeffjose 15y ago
  This. This was the only thing in that article that I felt was wrong. Credit where credit is due. Steve showed us what was capable with a smartphone. iPhone would be remembered for that, just that.
listening 15y ago
Why couldn't they have used the Inferno OS for their VM? Code reuse at Google is huge. So what were their reasons for not choosing it? Apologies if this has been asked and answered.
- masklinn 15y ago
  1. Google did not build Android from scratch, Google bought the company which created Android, and built it to a releasable platform from there. 2. Inferno has nothing to do with Google, the only (remote) link is that Inferno is that Ken Thompson worked on its predecessor (Plan9). I'm not even sure Thompson worked on Inferno itself. 3. I've never seen any claim that Google uses Inferno anywhere. So a better question would be: what makes you bring up Inferno in a place where it has no reason whatsoever to be?
  - listening 15y ago
    Apologies. s/Android/Dalvik Google had a choice of which virtual machine to use on Android. They went with a modified Dalvik. Could they have chosen Inferno? If they looked at it and decided against it, what were the reasons?
Apocryphon 15y ago
Maybe webOS will have its chance to play the same role. Android is getting hit hard by the patent wars. webOS is soon to be open, has a strong community of tinkerers already, and to develop for it all you need to know are HTML/CSS/JS - much like developing for the mobile web. If HP plays their cards right, and Android as a platform is enervated enough by the companies that have an interest in it muddling it up with suits and countersuits, perhaps webOS will get its chance to shine.
Senthee 15y ago
It is one of the best futuristic statements about Android and I certainly agree and I am seeing that happen in Second and Third world.
awolf 15y ago
For the author revolutionary seems to mean "reaches the most people". My definition is closer to "radically new or innovative". The iPhone drastically redefined the smartphone market including the competitors that followed it. Hard for me to swallow that its effect on the world has been negligible.
- thomholwerda 15y ago
  [author here] Nope. It doesn't mean "reaches the most people". It means "has the most impact on the world". I think that Android will be the technology that allows people in poorer places of the world to have the internet - and thus, knowledge, and thus, power - in their pocket. That is going to change the world in a significant way. Even something as simple as this: the internet may have information on the best way to treat sick cattle, or how to best treat certain crops. Heck, in more developed areas, it may cut the reaction time of aid services drastically. (you already see this happening in Kenya, as linked in the article: http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/16/80-android-phone-sells-like-hotcakes-in-kenya-the-world-next/ http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/16/80-android-phone-sells-... ).
  - MaysonL 15y ago
    And given that Android is copying the iPhone experience, much of Android's impact is attributable to Apple. If you don't think Android is copying, take a look at pre-iPhone Android prototypes.
    - untog 15y ago
      But in the context of what the OP is saying, what does that matter? The point is that an open source Android will be available to many, many more people worldwide than the iPhone ever will. Where their UI inspiration came from isn't really all that relevant.
      - megablast 15y ago
        "... will be ..." Really? I guess we can wait and see, or we can already start attributing accolades to Android that have not happened yet. I still see people bringing up Xerox Parc all the time with respect to the GUI, so maybe where UI inspiration comes from is relevant?
desireco42 15y ago
Nothing... I have android phone.
bonch 15y ago
I'm afraid the article is far too partisan to take seriously. I realize that's Thom Holwerda's usual schtick, but the idea that Android is a world revolution while the iPhone has had negligible impact is silly.
aforty 15y ago
Sure, Rubin's definition of open ("mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make") would still apply today without the iPhone but let's be real: Android, without the iPhone, would at best be a Blackberry clone. One could argue the market would have ignored it because it would have offered very little new. It had wide adoption among hardware manufacturers were desperate because they needed to compete against the iPhone. Would the same have been true if they were still competing against Blackberry, a Blackberry clone and whatever Microsoft would eventually come out with? Android is what it is today because of Apple and the iPhone.
Eeko 15y ago
Smartphone-proliferation requires a strong network capable of moving bytes in much larger scale than currently feasible or economical in most 3rd world networks. Hell, many 1st world countries struggle with growing data. The OS of the phone is much irrelevant (Windows, linux, meego, webos etc. are "cheap and good enough" if you really have the demand of billion such devices. Having open source OS helps, but I'd say it's more about who can sell the network cheap enough to suit the smartphones.
deleted 15y ago
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notatoad 15y ago
can we please stop responding to MG Seigler? I don't read his blog so i don't know if he actually does post intelligent thought sometimes, but every single thing the blogs have picked up from him is pure fanboy trollbait.
- guywithabike 15y ago
  If you don't read his blog, why do you feel qualified to comment on the content of his blog?
  - code_duck 15y ago
    Probably because he is a one purpose writer, setting out to 'support Apple in every way, always', similar to John Gruber. I like Apple too, but the way these two always conclude that Apple is right in whatever they did, and anything Apple does is better than any other company, isn't very interesting to read.
- sbuk 15y ago
  This article is in reference to a previous boosting by M G Seigler, not one by Seigler himself and this article is as much "pure fanboy trollbait" as anything published by Seigler.
deleted 15y ago
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eigenvector 15y ago
People keep fixating on the fact that Android is not Free Software. It doesn't matter. Android is giving us the option to use an open source OS on arbitrary commoditized hardware without paying any license fees or asking anyone for permission. The Android OS can and has been ported to all manner of devices without any first-party support. When the only other comparably advanced mobile OS is totally proprietary AND only available on proprietary hardware made by the OS manufacturer, the existence of Android is a massive leap forward for openness and choice. iOS is great, I love it. But it will be forever locked to Apple's hardware, and you will only ever have access to that technology in the forms that make good business sense for Apple. That is not true of Android.
atirip 15y ago
"I'm even more excited about seeing a $25 mobile device that has access to a killer web browser and endless mobile apps, and watching that device appear in the hands of a billion school children over the next 10 years." All those billion kids who did got Android or Blackberry instead of iPhone for Christmas are currently crying over Twitter about how they hate their parents...
adpowers 15y ago
My major take away from the MG Sieler post was that Rubin deleted a tweeted, which makes it look like he's trying to hide something, regardless of the true reason for deleting it. Why does he need to delete a tweet that whose commands no longer work? A tweet is a point in time snapshot that represents a thought or opinion at a certain point in time. They aren't wikis that need to be constantly updated and maintained. If someone tried the command and it didn't work, they could always search for the up to date instructions. I'm not sure how this became a platform flame war.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Still, MG clearly overreacted, which makes him look rather foolish right now. It just shows how biased he is against Android and Google, that he will make a big problem out of nothing, which is actually very much like he's doing his reviews. Downplays Android advantages, and makes a big deal of some of the disadvantages.
runjake 15y ago
I disagree with most of the article, but the one point I'll make regard his comments about the iPhone being for rich people/countries. First, I have to assume he's talking about contract prices, because the cheapest Android devices are a little under $250 off-contract, which is cost-prohibitive for "non-rich"countries. So, how is this valid, when I can get an iPhone 3GS for free (on contract) and an iPhone 4 for $99? This is on close price parity with Android devices -- from the free/cheap prepaid LG Optimus Android devices to the Galaxy Nexus. Edit: If you're going to downvote this into oblivion, at least do me the favor of explaining where my thinking is incorrect?
- webwright 15y ago
  You can get an iPhone "free" because your monthly mobile bill is $60-$100/month. Apple is still selling the 3GS for a pretty penny to your mobile provider, who is effectively renting it to you for a tidy profit. Do you think there are similarly "free" iPhones in Africa? China? Apple is pretty famous for it's appetite for big profit margins (~42% gross margins). It's competing with an operation system that requires no licensing cost (other than Microsoft's patent tax) and hardware manufacturers who are used to razor thin profit margins. Android is competing effectively in the "rich country" smartphone market. But it's positively massacring Apple in the rest of the world. Of course, all the while, Apple will take the lion's share of the profit. It remains to be seen if it's short-sighted to let Android run away with the market-share prize.
  - GFischer 15y ago
    There probably are "free" iPhones in China, with similar contracts - but cell phones in the developed world tend to be prepaid, not contracts (78% worldwide) www.trustvesta.com/press/prepaid_telcel_2010_EN.aspx. I know there are "free" iPhones here in Uruguay, but very few can afford the contracts.
- dannyr 15y ago
  You disagree based on your knowledge of the US market? How about the rest of the world? Sorry but this is a US-centric world view. The US cellphone market is very different from the rest of the world. The author is not assuming contract prices. You are. In developing countries, at least 80% of cellphone users are prepaid. In Africa, you can get an Android phone for $80, without contract. And as time passes, they will get cheaper. http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/93176-cheap-android-phone-leads-the-app-charge-in-africa http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/93176-cheap-android-phone-...
battaile 15y ago
I'm not seeing why this is rated so highly, its just some android blogger making snarky comments about an iOS blogger and reposting a bunch of hyperbole from a google+ comment.
rd108 15y ago
Thank you for cutting through the bullshit. Especially in developing (not fully industrialized) economies, the power of the web on everyone's phone will change our world.
da_n 15y ago
I was unfortunate enough to own one of the first Android devices, the HTC Magic (aka MyTouch3G). This was prior to, and also one of the first victims of, Android fragmentation. The process of discovering who was responsible for updates was the least open and opaque process I could have imagined. I had to resort to seeking out the information from other users on the Vodafone forum to discover that basically, no one actually cared. I had already bought the device so HTC had their money and didn't care, I was signed up to a 2 year contract so Vodafone had their money and didn't care, and Google got to license the phone as a Google Experience one, selling their app suite as well as me using their services. Google maybe cared a little, but they do not provide support or after care really unless talking to a perl script counts as support. The underlying OS might be revolutionary in some ways, but the update process (at least the one sanctioned by Google) is so far away from revolutionary I find it hard to fathom the Android Reality Distortion Field I sometimes hear about this. It sucks. It gives the user next to no after care, it is all about the upfront purchase to the handset maker, the vampire like carrier fees, and the services provided by Google including all the advertising on the devices. I think people are evangelising this beyond what is rational.
- mtts 15y ago
  Ah, but if I'm a poor(ish) African villager, what's important to me is not updating my phone to the latest and greatest Android version, but the fact that I could buy a cheap smartphone to begin with.
  - da_n 15y ago
    Ah, so you are a poor African villager then? It's good to have you weigh-in on the discussion. We here in the first world are mostly ignorant and think that people in the third world only expect shitty technology with no updates.
- GlennS 15y ago
  I still own an HTC Magic. Vodafone did eventually get updated versions of Android pushed through. Unfortunately the truth is that the HTC Magic's hardware isn't good enough to run them. Mine runs extremely sluggishly since the update. Not sure if there's any particular lesson here beyond 'early adopters get burned'.
denzil_correa 15y ago
Also the fact that they steal.
peterwwillis 15y ago
Re-edit: I am annoyed that this device is so buggy, and am getting rid of it. Google, please provide better testing for your revolutionary devices so I don't have to suffer through endless crashing and freezing up of stock apps. I would agree with the whole "This is the new S60" idea, except I don't remember S60 ever being as fragmented and broken as Android is. Also S60 always had priority on the phone and lock functions so even if an app was having problems I could still receive a phone call - please implement this, Android team.
- stanleydrew 15y ago
  Seems more like a problem with the maps application and not android in general dont you think? In any case this comment isn't at all relevant to the content of the post.
cageface 15y ago
Here in Vietnam where the yearly average income is still under $2000 USD everybody wants an iPhone. Perfectly capable Android phones are widely available but the iPhone is the public status signal everybody is chasing. Maybe this is a cultural thing but if people in other developing countries are similarly willing to buy such an extravagantly expensive device just to keep up with the Joneses next door the value proposition of cheaper Android phones may not be so strong. By all accounts Apple still has a lot of room to cut prices but stay in the black too.
- dasil003 15y ago
  I think this says more about branding and sociology than actual value proposition.
  - cageface 15y ago
    That's my point exactly. Even in poor countries branding may trump economy and undercut Android's price advantage.
buff-a 15y ago
the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make" >make install. oh.
albb0920 15y ago
I'm wondering why all the credits goes to iPhone/Android rather than Windows Mobile(Pocket PC) which is a great mobile os in it's time.
x3c 15y ago
What I very much appreciate is that the article, rightly, gives credit to Nokia for proliferation of mobiles in developing world. I'm from India and I still remember my first phone was Nokia 3310 in 2002. I'm sure Nokia did it for the profit but that doesn't change the fact that I became loyal to nokia for making quality product and helping me better my life. The same thing will happen to android, I hope. Nokia provided excellent hardware for me and Android will provide excellent software for the younger generation of India, Africa etc. And that is the point of the post. Sure, Apple provided a huge boost to smartphones and industry will be indebted to Apple. But, as I'm indebted to Nokia not the company that boosted the mobile phones, future generations will be indebted to Android and not to Apple that boosted the smartphone market.
fleitz 15y ago
I still don't see what makes it revolutionary, I'm not sure what price point an android capable handset adresses that a 3GS doesn't. There is honestly very little difference on pricing, if you can afford a droid you can afford a 3GS or 4. It's a few percent difference not a an order of magnitude. Beating a competitors price by a few dollars is hardly what I'd call a revolution. iOS is just as accessible to starving African children as android. What matters far more than a few dollars for a phone is the kleptocratic governance in those countries. A real revolution would be governance open to doing business and enriching the populace.

246 points by thomholwerda 15y ago

happyman 15y ago

Very much true.

happyman 15y ago
I'm from one of the poorest countries. I could buy my first smart-phone because of the availability of cheaper Android phones. I'm bit of geek because of the openness of Android, at least I'm aware of what software runs inside my phone. I expressed my true sentiments and my post was down voted. What a irony!
- GFischer 15y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but I might imagine it's because your post didn't contribute to the conversation. From the Hacker News welcome: http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html "The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments. Thoughtful in both senses: both civil and substantial. The test for substance is a lot like it is for links. Does your comment teach us anything?" I'm also from a poor country, and an Android phone was my first true smarthphone (this Christmas :) ).

jballanc 15y ago

It is interesting to note that the term "Open Source" was coined as a counterpart/in opposition to "Free Software" by those who were interested in sharing code but who did not ascribe to some of the more extreme aspects of Stallman's philosophy. It is interesting, because really, what has Android being "Open Source" really done? Are customers less beholden to telecoms for their devices? Have prices dropped or competition increased? What percent of Android device owners have compiled their own kernel? Have read the Android source? > In ten to fifteen years' time, we will look back and regard Android as the technology that enabled even the poorest people in this world to have access to the web (and thus, knowledge), just like we regard Nokia as the company that put the mobile phone in every corner of the globe. ...and just like we regard Microsoft as the company that put computers into every home.

clintonb11 15y ago
I think prices are lower than they would have been without android. Without debating the openness of the software, Android still gave phone manufacturers a huge code base for their smart phones that they would have had to develop otherwise, and their software probably wouldn't have been as good. Just look at the selection of "free" smart phones from T-mobile: http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/?shape=smp http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/?shape=smp I doubt the diversity and quality of those phones would have been possible without Android.
- jballanc 15y ago
  The cost of a Windows license was never a material factor in the cost of a computer. Windows just happened to work on the widest range of hardware, much like Android. Being "open" has little to nothing to do with that. What I find lacking in all of this Android chest-bumping is the recognition of what made it possible for so many smart phones to be priced reasonably: the decreasing price of flash storage. If we're going to point to anything as the cause for smart phone ubiquity, shouldn't we consider what Apple has done to drive down the price of flash?
  - clintonb11 15y ago
    The difference in this case is that Android can be customized and tailored however a carrier or manufacturer wants, because the source code is in fact available. Windows never allowed for that.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  You can thank Microsoft for making them slightly more expensive than they should've been, though, with their "patent licenses".
- lftl 15y ago
  I think the biggest thing Google brought to table isn't necessarily the code for the OS, but a platform with momentum that others could easily tap into. I'm sure Huawei could have developed their own mobile OS platform, but convincing a ton of developers to develop for it would have been hard.

Yhippa 15y ago

I think the iPhone set the bar for user experience and helped pull everybody out of the dark ages of jamming scaled-down desktop experiences on a tiny screen. I really agree with the post though. One day enough people with time on their hands will be able to adapt Android to all sorts of cheap hardware which might scale greatly for the developing world.

fpgeek 15y ago
Android is already scaling for the developing world. See the Kenyan Android phone: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/37877/ http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/37877/

AlisdairO 15y ago

I think the wrangling over Apple's sold/shipped devices is a little over the top - unlike some of the unreliable figures released for adroid tablets, for example, I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that Apple doesn't sell the large majority of the devices it ships.

shadowfiend 15y ago
Yeah, with shipping estimates of 1-2 weeks on the Apple Store, it looks like Apple is still selling more or less every iPhone it makes at the moment. A nitpick, of course, but the soreness doesn't help the rest of the argument, which is a good argument to make.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

drivebyacct2 15y ago

I can already see how much of this thread is going to play out. Before we get into a fight about whether Android is "open" enough or not, can we defer to the thread about Macro's post? There have already been dozens of comments about the subject today.

drivebyacct2 15y ago
Wow. Scumbag HN, downvotes comment asking to refer to discussion that occurred minutes before. Repeats discussion that occurred minutes before. I guess I don't mind if this gets downvotes, the dozen or two comments in the middle of this are more or less copy and pasted from the discussion that occurred earlier today.
- dasil003 15y ago
  Downvoted for being a whiny douche, not for referring to previous discussion.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    "whiny douche"? Well, that pretty much put the nail in the coffin. Guess the other reply today about proggit compared to here was probably right. Tis a shame. Sorry the "post by Marco" wasn't relevant enough when it was sitting right next to this link, said "marco.com" and had hundreds of comments. Dasil003, you're really going to call me a douche when you were even commenting in that thread? Sorry, I'm not going to resort to calling you a name.

Ihavenoname 15y ago

You can talk up your favorite team, principle or country without a point by point attack on your rivals. Apple has had some great successes and failures that open source can learn from and can stand on their shoulders to make an even better product. Characterizing Apple and Jobs as some one dimensional boogy man doent really contribute to growth. No need for flame ware rehash. tl;dr Dont waste your time on this article.

shadowfiend 15y ago
But the article has a perfectly good point to make. That it's couched in the usual rivalry terms is unfortunate, but hey, that's the way of the world. It's legitimate to say that Android will be the driving force for commoditizing smartphones, however. iOS will not be that force, and I think that's fine. That has never been Apple's goal, and it shows. It's like saying Mercedes won't drive commoditization of the latest feature in their car (e.g., HUDs or auto-parallel-parking). No, that'll be a smaller company. Mercedes is in charge of being up front putting it in to begin with for the people willing to pay more to get it. Once it's become cheaper, Ford can then integrate it in their upper lines, and then their mid-levels, and then it becomes a standard feature for pretty much all cars. Similarly, Apple basically rewrote the book on smartphone UIs. There is very little you can say to truly countermand that. They may not be the 100% originators of all of the ideas, but the iPhone was the first phone of its kind. Android followed along, and started out expensive, then got cheaper, and now they're moving towards ultra-cheap smartphones running Android. Same evolution. The products have different purposes and different targets, that's all. The only reason I bring this up is that I really don't often see flamewars between Mercedes drivers and Ford drivers. I suppose this might be because car companies differentiate tiers by brand, while in the case of Android, there are both high-end and low-end Android phones that are marketed under the exact same name, and these will obviously provide a different experience.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > It's legitimate to say that Android will be the driving force for commoditizing smartphones, however. iOS will not be that force, and I think that's fine. I'm not sure about that, cheaper iPhones have been available with every new release, last year european operators already offered 0€ iPhones with 2 years contracts, and the 3GS has gotten one more year lease on life being advertised as a $99 phone in the US. edit: -1 without any discussion because I point out iphones are available "for free", which seriously sounds like commoditization? That's an interesting HN dynamic.

richardburton 15y ago

For the first time, a smartphone operating system is going to impact more than rich people in the US and Europe, and that is pretty darn revolutionary. Simply and powerfully put. As third-world countries come online they are going to be starting and staying with the mobile web. You can already see this at work in a number of African countries where mobile payments have proliferated and matured at an astonishing rate. That is just an early signal of the tectonic shift occurring.

phaus 15y ago
I just hope that the poor of the world don't end up with a $180 phone bill like I have to deal with in order to have mobile web access. Sadly, in some countries that would be almost 6 months' income.
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  Here in the UK, my mobile phone bill is £3.33/month and I get 500MB of data with that. EDIT: I do this by using T-Mobile PAYG and buying their 6 month Internet booster for £20, twice a year. I've managed to convince all my regular contacts to use Kik Messenger instead of SMS, so I don't have to pay for SMS. I very rarely make phone calls, but I have VOIP with localphone.com when I have to.
  - shimon_e 15y ago
    If you are in the UK, I would recommend to check out ovh.co.uk 's voip package. Should work out a lot better than localphone.com I'm a localphone customer here as I am not in the UK. :/
    - mike-cardwell 15y ago
      Just checked out ovh. Looks good, but because of ovh's 99p/month charge, it still works out cheaper to use localphone unless you make at least a couple of hours of calls per month.

cbs 15y ago

This is an interesting take on the long view of the smartphone market. I think the linked google plus comment is more insightful than the article itself, if you skipped it the first time go back and give it a read. Apple is building a luxury device. Google is turning what was once luxury into a commodity. It makes sense too. The difference in revenue streams boils down to, Apple makes cash from the upgrade train, Google makes cash when people use the web. Getting the web in everyones hands is a plus for google, but a huge plus for humankind. I'm glad that their interests so closely line up with the big picture in this situation. Not specific to phones, I just love it when things get commoditized. It means that the next round of new and exciting things built upon it can finally gain some steam.

bluekeybox 15y ago

Another troll/crowd-pleasing post from Thom Holwerda.

snowwrestler 15y ago

"I'm even more excited about seeing a $25 mobile device that has access to a killer web browser and endless mobile apps, and watching that device appear in the hands of a billion school children over the next 10 years." I would be excited to see that too. Can anyone point me towards such a device? "What Nokia did for the mobile phone, Android is doing for the smartphone." I don't see how, because Nokia is a hardware manufacturer who actually makes phones, and Android is just an operating system. It seems to me the hard part of getting to the $25 unlocked price point is the hardware, not the OS. Android is not even the only open-source phone operating system--how about Meego, created by (aptly) Nokia, and hosted by the nonprofit Linux Foundation? Android is a cool product, but I have a hard time swallowing the self-congratulatory posturing. So far Android has not done a single thing for the 3rd world poor. As far as I can tell, so far all it has done is provided the skeleton for a bunch of proprietary implementations by first-world hardware manufacturers and mobile operators.

moocow01 15y ago

"The iPhone is heralded as the most revolutionary mobile phone in human history, but the cold and harsh truth is that for all the cheering and punditry, the iPhone's impact on the world is negligible." Don't care for Android vs. iPhone arguments but lets at least admit that iPhone was a significant catalyst that moved forward the smartphone movement initially at the least. Androids would probably still exist if Apple never put out the iPhone but the iPhone has certainly been one of the biggest influences on Android's development not to mention the entire mobile industry. In that regard I see the author's statement as pretty narrow. Its like saying Unix had no impact on computing because Microsoft had the lion's share.

mwk 15y ago
The Unix Windows analogy was the first thing I thought of when i read that quote. also, the author's definition of revolutionary seems to oscillate between impact on the world and the impact on the industry.
- mirzmaster 15y ago
  I don't think the Unix-Windows analogy is very apt, actually, as both have been revolutionary in different ways (by any measure). *nix has gone on to power much of the software on which the Internet runs. Windows powers much of the software user's directly interact with. By comparison, Apple/iOS and Android are competing more directly. The author of the article is arguing that more revolutionary than being the first (or even the best) at something is subsequently making that innovation accessible to as many people as possible. This is something both Unix and Windows have achieved, Android is trying to achieve, but I'm not sure Apple is even interested in. Perhaps a more apt analogy would be the invention of the automobile vs. the assembly line. True, the automobile was a genuine innovation, but the assembly line put the automobile within reach of everyone. With this view in mind, it's okay that Apple wants to focus on pushing the envelope in what its car can do. Likewise, it's okay that Google wants to focus on making those or similar innovations accessible to as many as possible.
jeffjose 15y ago
This. This was the only thing in that article that I felt was wrong. Credit where credit is due. Steve showed us what was capable with a smartphone. iPhone would be remembered for that, just that.

listening 15y ago

Why couldn't they have used the Inferno OS for their VM? Code reuse at Google is huge. So what were their reasons for not choosing it? Apologies if this has been asked and answered.

masklinn 15y ago
1. Google did not build Android from scratch, Google bought the company which created Android, and built it to a releasable platform from there. 2. Inferno has nothing to do with Google, the only (remote) link is that Inferno is that Ken Thompson worked on its predecessor (Plan9). I'm not even sure Thompson worked on Inferno itself. 3. I've never seen any claim that Google uses Inferno anywhere. So a better question would be: what makes you bring up Inferno in a place where it has no reason whatsoever to be?
- listening 15y ago
  Apologies. s/Android/Dalvik Google had a choice of which virtual machine to use on Android. They went with a modified Dalvik. Could they have chosen Inferno? If they looked at it and decided against it, what were the reasons?

Apocryphon 15y ago

Maybe webOS will have its chance to play the same role. Android is getting hit hard by the patent wars. webOS is soon to be open, has a strong community of tinkerers already, and to develop for it all you need to know are HTML/CSS/JS - much like developing for the mobile web. If HP plays their cards right, and Android as a platform is enervated enough by the companies that have an interest in it muddling it up with suits and countersuits, perhaps webOS will get its chance to shine.

Senthee 15y ago

It is one of the best futuristic statements about Android and I certainly agree and I am seeing that happen in Second and Third world.

awolf 15y ago

For the author revolutionary seems to mean "reaches the most people". My definition is closer to "radically new or innovative". The iPhone drastically redefined the smartphone market including the competitors that followed it. Hard for me to swallow that its effect on the world has been negligible.

thomholwerda 15y ago
[author here] Nope. It doesn't mean "reaches the most people". It means "has the most impact on the world". I think that Android will be the technology that allows people in poorer places of the world to have the internet - and thus, knowledge, and thus, power - in their pocket. That is going to change the world in a significant way. Even something as simple as this: the internet may have information on the best way to treat sick cattle, or how to best treat certain crops. Heck, in more developed areas, it may cut the reaction time of aid services drastically. (you already see this happening in Kenya, as linked in the article: http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/16/80-android-phone-sells-like-hotcakes-in-kenya-the-world-next/ http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/16/80-android-phone-sells-... ).
- MaysonL 15y ago
  And given that Android is copying the iPhone experience, much of Android's impact is attributable to Apple. If you don't think Android is copying, take a look at pre-iPhone Android prototypes.
  - untog 15y ago
    But in the context of what the OP is saying, what does that matter? The point is that an open source Android will be available to many, many more people worldwide than the iPhone ever will. Where their UI inspiration came from isn't really all that relevant.
    - megablast 15y ago
      "... will be ..." Really? I guess we can wait and see, or we can already start attributing accolades to Android that have not happened yet. I still see people bringing up Xerox Parc all the time with respect to the GUI, so maybe where UI inspiration comes from is relevant?

desireco42 15y ago

Nothing... I have android phone.

bonch 15y ago

I'm afraid the article is far too partisan to take seriously. I realize that's Thom Holwerda's usual schtick, but the idea that Android is a world revolution while the iPhone has had negligible impact is silly.

aforty 15y ago

Sure, Rubin's definition of open ("mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make") would still apply today without the iPhone but let's be real: Android, without the iPhone, would at best be a Blackberry clone. One could argue the market would have ignored it because it would have offered very little new. It had wide adoption among hardware manufacturers were desperate because they needed to compete against the iPhone. Would the same have been true if they were still competing against Blackberry, a Blackberry clone and whatever Microsoft would eventually come out with? Android is what it is today because of Apple and the iPhone.

Eeko 15y ago

Smartphone-proliferation requires a strong network capable of moving bytes in much larger scale than currently feasible or economical in most 3rd world networks. Hell, many 1st world countries struggle with growing data. The OS of the phone is much irrelevant (Windows, linux, meego, webos etc. are "cheap and good enough" if you really have the demand of billion such devices. Having open source OS helps, but I'd say it's more about who can sell the network cheap enough to suit the smartphones.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

notatoad 15y ago

can we please stop responding to MG Seigler? I don't read his blog so i don't know if he actually does post intelligent thought sometimes, but every single thing the blogs have picked up from him is pure fanboy trollbait.

guywithabike 15y ago
If you don't read his blog, why do you feel qualified to comment on the content of his blog?
- code_duck 15y ago
  Probably because he is a one purpose writer, setting out to 'support Apple in every way, always', similar to John Gruber. I like Apple too, but the way these two always conclude that Apple is right in whatever they did, and anything Apple does is better than any other company, isn't very interesting to read.
sbuk 15y ago
This article is in reference to a previous boosting by M G Seigler, not one by Seigler himself and this article is as much "pure fanboy trollbait" as anything published by Seigler.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

eigenvector 15y ago

People keep fixating on the fact that Android is not Free Software. It doesn't matter. Android is giving us the option to use an open source OS on arbitrary commoditized hardware without paying any license fees or asking anyone for permission. The Android OS can and has been ported to all manner of devices without any first-party support. When the only other comparably advanced mobile OS is totally proprietary AND only available on proprietary hardware made by the OS manufacturer, the existence of Android is a massive leap forward for openness and choice. iOS is great, I love it. But it will be forever locked to Apple's hardware, and you will only ever have access to that technology in the forms that make good business sense for Apple. That is not true of Android.

atirip 15y ago

"I'm even more excited about seeing a $25 mobile device that has access to a killer web browser and endless mobile apps, and watching that device appear in the hands of a billion school children over the next 10 years." All those billion kids who did got Android or Blackberry instead of iPhone for Christmas are currently crying over Twitter about how they hate their parents...

adpowers 15y ago

My major take away from the MG Sieler post was that Rubin deleted a tweeted, which makes it look like he's trying to hide something, regardless of the true reason for deleting it. Why does he need to delete a tweet that whose commands no longer work? A tweet is a point in time snapshot that represents a thought or opinion at a certain point in time. They aren't wikis that need to be constantly updated and maintained. If someone tried the command and it didn't work, they could always search for the up to date instructions. I'm not sure how this became a platform flame war.

nextparadigms 15y ago
Still, MG clearly overreacted, which makes him look rather foolish right now. It just shows how biased he is against Android and Google, that he will make a big problem out of nothing, which is actually very much like he's doing his reviews. Downplays Android advantages, and makes a big deal of some of the disadvantages.

runjake 15y ago

I disagree with most of the article, but the one point I'll make regard his comments about the iPhone being for rich people/countries. First, I have to assume he's talking about contract prices, because the cheapest Android devices are a little under $250 off-contract, which is cost-prohibitive for "non-rich"countries. So, how is this valid, when I can get an iPhone 3GS for free (on contract) and an iPhone 4 for $99? This is on close price parity with Android devices -- from the free/cheap prepaid LG Optimus Android devices to the Galaxy Nexus. Edit: If you're going to downvote this into oblivion, at least do me the favor of explaining where my thinking is incorrect?

webwright 15y ago
You can get an iPhone "free" because your monthly mobile bill is $60-$100/month. Apple is still selling the 3GS for a pretty penny to your mobile provider, who is effectively renting it to you for a tidy profit. Do you think there are similarly "free" iPhones in Africa? China? Apple is pretty famous for it's appetite for big profit margins (~42% gross margins). It's competing with an operation system that requires no licensing cost (other than Microsoft's patent tax) and hardware manufacturers who are used to razor thin profit margins. Android is competing effectively in the "rich country" smartphone market. But it's positively massacring Apple in the rest of the world. Of course, all the while, Apple will take the lion's share of the profit. It remains to be seen if it's short-sighted to let Android run away with the market-share prize.
- GFischer 15y ago
  There probably are "free" iPhones in China, with similar contracts - but cell phones in the developed world tend to be prepaid, not contracts (78% worldwide) www.trustvesta.com/press/prepaid_telcel_2010_EN.aspx. I know there are "free" iPhones here in Uruguay, but very few can afford the contracts.
dannyr 15y ago
You disagree based on your knowledge of the US market? How about the rest of the world? Sorry but this is a US-centric world view. The US cellphone market is very different from the rest of the world. The author is not assuming contract prices. You are. In developing countries, at least 80% of cellphone users are prepaid. In Africa, you can get an Android phone for $80, without contract. And as time passes, they will get cheaper. http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/93176-cheap-android-phone-leads-the-app-charge-in-africa http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/93176-cheap-android-phone-...

battaile 15y ago

I'm not seeing why this is rated so highly, its just some android blogger making snarky comments about an iOS blogger and reposting a bunch of hyperbole from a google+ comment.

rd108 15y ago

Thank you for cutting through the bullshit. Especially in developing (not fully industrialized) economies, the power of the web on everyone's phone will change our world.

da_n 15y ago

I was unfortunate enough to own one of the first Android devices, the HTC Magic (aka MyTouch3G). This was prior to, and also one of the first victims of, Android fragmentation. The process of discovering who was responsible for updates was the least open and opaque process I could have imagined. I had to resort to seeking out the information from other users on the Vodafone forum to discover that basically, no one actually cared. I had already bought the device so HTC had their money and didn't care, I was signed up to a 2 year contract so Vodafone had their money and didn't care, and Google got to license the phone as a Google Experience one, selling their app suite as well as me using their services. Google maybe cared a little, but they do not provide support or after care really unless talking to a perl script counts as support. The underlying OS might be revolutionary in some ways, but the update process (at least the one sanctioned by Google) is so far away from revolutionary I find it hard to fathom the Android Reality Distortion Field I sometimes hear about this. It sucks. It gives the user next to no after care, it is all about the upfront purchase to the handset maker, the vampire like carrier fees, and the services provided by Google including all the advertising on the devices. I think people are evangelising this beyond what is rational.

mtts 15y ago
Ah, but if I'm a poor(ish) African villager, what's important to me is not updating my phone to the latest and greatest Android version, but the fact that I could buy a cheap smartphone to begin with.
- da_n 15y ago
  Ah, so you are a poor African villager then? It's good to have you weigh-in on the discussion. We here in the first world are mostly ignorant and think that people in the third world only expect shitty technology with no updates.
GlennS 15y ago
I still own an HTC Magic. Vodafone did eventually get updated versions of Android pushed through. Unfortunately the truth is that the HTC Magic's hardware isn't good enough to run them. Mine runs extremely sluggishly since the update. Not sure if there's any particular lesson here beyond 'early adopters get burned'.

denzil_correa 15y ago

Also the fact that they steal.

peterwwillis 15y ago

Re-edit: I am annoyed that this device is so buggy, and am getting rid of it. Google, please provide better testing for your revolutionary devices so I don't have to suffer through endless crashing and freezing up of stock apps. I would agree with the whole "This is the new S60" idea, except I don't remember S60 ever being as fragmented and broken as Android is. Also S60 always had priority on the phone and lock functions so even if an app was having problems I could still receive a phone call - please implement this, Android team.

stanleydrew 15y ago
Seems more like a problem with the maps application and not android in general dont you think? In any case this comment isn't at all relevant to the content of the post.

cageface 15y ago

Here in Vietnam where the yearly average income is still under $2000 USD everybody wants an iPhone. Perfectly capable Android phones are widely available but the iPhone is the public status signal everybody is chasing. Maybe this is a cultural thing but if people in other developing countries are similarly willing to buy such an extravagantly expensive device just to keep up with the Joneses next door the value proposition of cheaper Android phones may not be so strong. By all accounts Apple still has a lot of room to cut prices but stay in the black too.

dasil003 15y ago
I think this says more about branding and sociology than actual value proposition.
- cageface 15y ago
  That's my point exactly. Even in poor countries branding may trump economy and undercut Android's price advantage.

buff-a 15y ago

the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make" >make install. oh.

albb0920 15y ago

I'm wondering why all the credits goes to iPhone/Android rather than Windows Mobile(Pocket PC) which is a great mobile os in it's time.

x3c 15y ago

What I very much appreciate is that the article, rightly, gives credit to Nokia for proliferation of mobiles in developing world. I'm from India and I still remember my first phone was Nokia 3310 in 2002. I'm sure Nokia did it for the profit but that doesn't change the fact that I became loyal to nokia for making quality product and helping me better my life. The same thing will happen to android, I hope. Nokia provided excellent hardware for me and Android will provide excellent software for the younger generation of India, Africa etc. And that is the point of the post. Sure, Apple provided a huge boost to smartphones and industry will be indebted to Apple. But, as I'm indebted to Nokia not the company that boosted the mobile phones, future generations will be indebted to Android and not to Apple that boosted the smartphone market.

fleitz 15y ago

I still don't see what makes it revolutionary, I'm not sure what price point an android capable handset adresses that a 3GS doesn't. There is honestly very little difference on pricing, if you can afford a droid you can afford a 3GS or 4. It's a few percent difference not a an order of magnitude. Beating a competitors price by a few dollars is hardly what I'd call a revolution. iOS is just as accessible to starving African children as android. What matters far more than a few dollars for a phone is the kleptocratic governance in those countries. A real revolution would be governance open to doing business and enriching the populace.