16 ms·

Why I Hate Android

345 points by johns 15y ago

maxklein 15y ago
This argument is pointless, because it's about only the U.S, which is a small proportion of phones used in the world. The rest of the world does not have the insane carrier monopolies and unusual pricing structures that are prevalent in the U.S. For the rest of the world, phones sell on the merits of their software and hardware - and that's what android should be measured on. And when it comes to that, android is winning.
- sherwin 15y ago
  To be fair, MG does concede that Android as a product has gotten much better in recent years: """ So that, ladies and gentleman, is why I hate Android. It has nothing to do with the actual product (which continues to improve every year and is quite good now). It has to do with a promise that was broken and swept under the rug. """ Though I agree that his art.icle only really applies to the US.
- lostsock 15y ago
  Came here to say exactly this. OP doesn't hate Android, he hates the mobile landscape in the US. I live in Australia with a fully unlocked Android handset. I pay $16 / month for my no contract dumb pipe and that's that. Android has nothing to do with the issue that the OP hates...
  - 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
    I live in Australia too. Carriers are still able to have their way to some small extent. I was regularly inquiring about android handsets for the last couple years. There were still carrier exclusives (for x number of months), and no one would sell me a high-endish, unlocked handset (e.g. Galaxy S). The easiest way to get an unlocked Android handset is buy it online (be careful you get correct handset variant). If manufacturers weren't capitulating to carrier demands silly things like this would not happen. If you want an unlocked iPhone you go to an Apple store and just say so and it works on all carriers.
    - etherael 15y ago
      There's no such thing as an unlocked iphone. I get what you mean, carrier unlocked, but the implication you can get one that is unlocked in the same way as an android phone can be unlocked is not true. And you're right, even in Australia if you absolutely positively insist on dealing with the carriers at retail, they will try to screw you almost as hard as the people in the US get screwed. You don't have to put up with it though, just buy online.
  - drats 15y ago
    Exactly the same where I am. I have vanilla ICS on a Nexus S with a pre-pay that I can leave for a better deal at any time. This guy's article is totally off looked at from a global perspective. The billions rising out of poverty into the global middle class will never be able to afford an iPhone, Android is going to totally dominate in these markets. That's multiples of the US population. Apple has no hope at all in clawing that back.
    - unicornporn 15y ago
      Same in Sweden. And I too have vanilla ICS on a Nexus S.
    - reidmain 15y ago
      Why won't they be able to afford an iPhone? Are you are implying that they can afford an Android phone because they will be $0 if you sign a contract? iPhones have this option nowadays as well. What makes an Android phone easier to get a hold of compared to a iPhone? Both phones are $500+ if you get them standalone.
      - andrewpi 15y ago
        Actually one can get off-contract Android phones for as cheap as $99, or maybe even cheaper. They aren't top of the line devices, but they work. The only time an iPhone is that cheap is with a carrier subsidy.
        reidmain 15y ago
        ah OK if we're talking about phones that don't compare to the iPhone then yeah Android has a lot of options. You referenced Nexus S with ICS so I thought we were comparing that to the iPhone.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- Niksko 15y ago
  I came here just to say this. Why do people in the US continue to ignore the rest of the world? Only in the US does this carrier branded phone bullshit occur. I live in Australia and I'm quite content with my unlocked Galaxy Nexus on my $40 Amaysim plan. Sure, it would be awesome to have paid $99 for my Galaxy Nexus and have the rest of the $700 I actually spent on it subsidised by Google, but that's the way it is at the moment. If anything you should hate your own stupid US carriers.
  - StavrosK 15y ago
    I'm not entirely clear on how it works in Australia, but in Greece you can either pay the full amount and get an unlocked phone, or get a carrier subsidy with contracts. The amount of the subsidy depends on the plan you choose, with higher-costing plans getting higher subsidies. For example, a two-year, 50 EUR/month plan gets you a free iPhone 4S or the equivalent android phone, if I remember correctly. Also, not a single phone, at any price range or contract status, is locked. Carriers don't care about locking the phones, you've got a contract with them and you're probably going to get a new phone at the end of it anyway.
    - mgkimsal 15y ago
      I'd love that in the US. Here, you can get a phone unlocked (in most cases) for a higher fee, but the plan rates don't change. You can get an iphone for $800, unlocked, but it will still only work on AT&T in the US, and you still pay $50+/month. Or you can get one for $200 if you commit to $50/month for 2 years. No monthly price diff. :/
      - StavrosK 15y ago
        Ouch. Over here, if you don't want the phone subsidy (maybe you like your current phone), a certain amount is deducted from your monthly payments (so you still get the money back).
      - CountSessine 15y ago
        Same in Canada, but substitute $50 for $80 (and our dollars are at parity with yours), and subatitute 2 years for 3 years.
- Hari_Seldon 15y ago
  It's pretty much the same here in the UK, carriers tend to dictate conditions which the manufacturers must adhere to, except for Apple of course.
  - estel 15y ago
    I don't think that that's accurate. There's far more flexibility and choice in the UK carrier market than the US. It's pretty identical to the rest of Europe.
lawdawg 15y ago
it amazes me that anyone listens or cares what MG has to say. His posts are full of factual inaccuracies and personal opinions stated as fact.
- joshes 15y ago
  Which of his statements do you find to be factually inaccurate?
  - windexh8er 15y ago
    The ones that are his opinions - which is the majority of it.
    - adambyrtek 15y ago
      Do you seriously claim that he is not allowed to post his own opinions on his personal blog?
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  What's the difference between a personal opinion and a personal opinion stated as fact? It seems like a cheap critic technique to take discredit someone's opinion by claiming they "state it as a fact" when nobody ever writes "IMO" before or after everything we say. His posts are full of [..] personal opinions stated as fact I claim this is your opinion stated as a fact, therefore meaningless and I can dismiss it.
- lawdawg 15y ago
  ah, this is just icing on the cake: https://twitter.com/#!/ckindel/status/156623373168943105 https://twitter.com/#!/ckindel/status/156623373168943105 what a clown.
sunils34 15y ago
exactly 'why i hate mg siegler'
limeblack 15y ago
The title feels like link bait. "Why I Hate Android" 2nd paragraph in, "Believe it or not, I actually don’t hate Android."
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Two sentences later, "What I hate is what Android has become." Not linkbait, just clarifying that he doesn't hate the OS, he hates what Google has done with it. I'm by no means an MG Siegler fan, and I think he's being facetious here, but there is a legitimate point to be made that Google's capitulation to the carriers has come at the expense of their vision for Android and its users.
  - dannyr 15y ago
    What do you think is Google's vision for Android? Android is in the hands of hundreds of millions of people. It is the cheapest smartphone that even people from Africa can afford to buy an Android phone sans contract. Google made a lot of compromises but I believe the original vision will still be achieved which is to bring computing to the masses.
    - Samuel_Michon 15y ago
      "Google made a lot of compromises but I believe the original vision will still be achieved which is to bring computing to the masses." Isn't Google's vision to bring ads to the masses? Getting everyone to use smartphones is a way to accomplish that. Android Market has the highest proportion of ad-supported apps (70%) of all the major platforms, and most of the ads are served by Google.
loso 15y ago
A bigger question arises. Since we now know that his Android feelings comes from hatred of Google and their policies, how do we trust his opinion on the actual devices? I guess him not being a full time staffer at techcrunch anymore helps with that. But what about past reviews from when he was?
- Cadsby 15y ago
  "Trust" doesn't, and should never, enter into the equation in matters such as these.
windexh8er 15y ago
"""Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. We’re still thanking them for it!""" Really? Apple has put control back into the hands of consumers? Ahhh, yes - the fog is lifting now. Apple locked themselves into the worst carrier in the US which, in turn, locked their customers into bad service for a good phone. Oh, oh and wait - there's more. Apple has done the industry a fantastic favor by fueling the tipping point of the intellectual property patent war that's been oh so rightly just for the good of all humans. Yes, yes - I see the point of this article now. Because I was told to. But in all reality - Google took the shot, Apple never wanted to share the ball in the first place. Chew on that hate MG.
- cstejerean 15y ago
  Worst carrier? By what metric? Data started to degrade on AT&T mostly because the suddenly popularity of smart phones people actually wanted to use for music, video, web. I was on AT&T before the iPhone was announced after switching between T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. Also, I believe Apple talked to Verizon first about the iPhone but they wouldn't play ball.
  - ryanpers 15y ago
    Having used Tmobile for years, AT&T is NOT the worst carrier. Even here in SF, AT&T is better than tmobile in terms of indoor data delivery.
    - windexh8er 15y ago
      If you had better visibility in the transport and spectrum viability for capacity and future upgrades you might think otherwise. Again, just a comment based on perception than "actuality".
  - windexh8er 15y ago
untog 15y ago
One of his major issues seems to be Google not coming through on the topic of net neutrality, and that his overall opinion of Android is coloured by this. But an honest genuine question (I don't know the answer)- what did Apple do to further net neutrality? It seems like MG expected a lot of Google, and Google let him down. But what did he expect of Apple, and did they deliver? Because last time I looked Apple were championing all the wrong things.
- ubernostrum 15y ago
  I think it's extremely unhelpful, in these discussions, to resort to "well Apple does bad things too, so how can you prefer Apple?" Ultimately I think the point the article's getting at here is that Apple's at least been relatively honest in their marketing; they never delivered an open stack based around principles of software freedom, but they also never promised us they would. Google did promise that; they promised it seven ways to Sunday, and then failed to deliver in a variety of ways, not all of which can be attributed to innocent mistakes. So the criticism of Google is not rooted in "this other platform is more open". The criticism of Google is rooted in "gathering this huge following by loudly trumpeting principles you won't follow" is rank hypocrisy.
  - ekianjo 15y ago
    So, to use a metaphor. Let's say you have two people: - one criminal who steals most of the time to earn a living but does not claim to do otherwise. - one person with high moral standards, who, once in his life, resorts to stealing because he had to in a set of specific circumstances. ...it is ok to prefer the criminal just on the ground that he is faithful to himself rather than the person with high moral standards, because that one failed to keep to their ideals ? That's a extremely contrived sense of reality. Sorry, but even if Google do compromise in many ways lately, they are STILL more of a champion of Net Neutrality than Apple has ever been.
    - ubernostrum 15y ago
      That's a extremely contrived sense of reality. That's an extremely contrived metaphor that doesn't really fit the situation at all, and doesn't help attempts to discuss it.
drivebyacct2 15y ago
"I hate Android because Google doesn't market/sell it how I like" ? He objects for seemingly, what, "moral" reasons? Yet he merely argues that Apple is "more open" via a closed ecosystem because of the power the carriers currently wield? His post chronicles the truths of this situation. Google tried to sell their phones directly, that failed miserably because Americans refuse to understand how contracts work and buy unsubsidized phones. So, they tried something else. I'm happily running a custom rom on an `oem unlock`ed phone as I speak. It doesn't bother me that my friend bought a locked Android phone, he's perfectly happy too. I don't understand this post. Did he expect Google to give up or fail for ideological reasons? The way he hyped this on Twitter and his last post at TC, I wonder if he is just a troll anymore. And an implication that Google is going to... do what exactly, in the patent war? Somehow they're siding with the carriers and they're worse than Apple or Microsoft in the use of their patents. I honestly don't understand what is being alleged or suggested by that paragraph. So, Google compromises with Verizon = "[Android being open] nuclear bullshit.", that's what this boils down to, right?
nextparadigms 15y ago
I thought he hated his commenters for their bile comments. Then why is he writing bile posts himself?
Kylekramer 15y ago
So, Google had a pipe dream about turning carriers into dumb pipes, and had to face reality when the carriers wouldn't let them. Therefore, MG hates Android. I just don't know what MG wanted to Google to do. We all have our own ideas about how the world should be. The options for Google seem to be a hardline tactic to get exactly what they envisioned and subsequently have a dead on arrival Android OS, or work within the system. Apple had a similar grand ambition when the iPhone first launched with no carrier subsidy. They backed off when it didn't work, so why doesn't MG hate the iPhone? I agree with MG that the iPhone wrestled power from the carriers. I just disagree that gave it to us (other than indirectly). The article relies on a viewing of carriers as absolute evil and Apple/2007 Google as beams of pure good and light. I don't. There are shades of grey everywhere. iPhone brought a great OS with no crapware, a decent update schedule, and a handy app/media store where Apple gets a say in and a cut of everything, with one hardware option. Android brought you an OS that runs on multiple devices with a relatively open ecosystem, with the drawbacks of a less smooth experience and allowing carriers/OEMs monkey around with Android. Carriers have their own set of priorities that also have a bunch of pros and cons. Don't get me started on the logical hoops MG must jump through to view a compromise on a policy proposal for net neutrality as the ultimate betrayal while a device that requires the manufacturer to approve all software that runs on it is A-OK.
- emehrkay 15y ago
  > Don't get me started on the logical hoops MG must jump through to view a compromise on a policy proposal for net neutrality as the ultimate betrayal while a device that the manufacturer must approve all software that runs on it is A-OK. I see this as two different things. Google buddying up with Verizon to change net neutrality in the mobile space has an impact on everyone while Apple preventing software from running on their devices only affects Apple users.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    I really don't get HOW and WHY people want government regulations, the same government that is pushing for SOPA. Government regulations of the market are only useful in one case only: to prevent abuses from established monopolies. However, wireless Internet is not monopolized. And you should checkout the competition in Europe. It's absolutely crazy. Google buddying up with Verizon to change net neutrality in the mobile space ... Actually they haven't "changed" anything. They just left things as they were before. The Internet is not were it is today because the government told ISPs how they should operate. Customers did.
ekianjo 15y ago
Interesting how someone who despises Google for not being a champion of Net Neutrality prefer Apple with its uber closed and "WE have to approve what you do with your phone" ecosystem. Android has done much more than Apple to open up the mobile space for developpers, let alone users who do not have to rely on a unique and official "Appstore". One can prefer Apple products for a number of reasons, but taking the angle of "net neutrality" to justify one's position is hardly understandable in this case.
plugger 15y ago
> "All of this backstory knowledge fuels my rage. When I see Google talk about how “open” the platform is, setting it up as the foil to the “closed” (and framed as “evil”) iPhone, I want to scream and rip someone’s head off. It’s not only the most extreme example of being disingenuous that I can ever recall seeing. It’s nuclear bullshit." Maybe that talk is in relation to Android being open code whereas iOS is closed and encumbered with horrible shit (iTunes, App Store)? The iPhone is an incredibly "closed" device unless you jailbreak it. That's not nuclear bullshit, that's the fucking truth. >"Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. We’re still thanking them for it!" Thinking the majority of consumers care about Net Neutrality or carrier issues is hilarious. The only time they care about the carrier is when they have issues with said carrier. And as mentioned above, what has Apple really done to "wrestle control" from carriers? This article reads like it was written by a butthurt 15 year old.
zeppelin_7 15y ago
I hope he knows that Android is sold world over, including countries where there is no concept of subsidy. Also I hope he knows Android is being used for many more things than just elitist phones.
Slimy 15y ago
Summary: MG says he doesn't give Android a fair chance when he compares it to the iPhone not because he loves Apple but because he hates Google.
tariqk 15y ago
I saw this on my feed, opened the tab on the background, saw it was from MG Siegler, closed the tab. I don't deny he doesn't have some genuine insight. I just find that the amount of work I have to do to sift past his bias is so draining that I prefer to outsource it to people who _can_ tolerate his... foibles (read: bullshit).
Apocryphon 15y ago
I'm really hoping that webOS becomes a viable alternative. Come on, HP, roll out a generous license and promise to support the project already!
runn1ng 15y ago
>Instead of going to the store of a single carrier and having a dozen shitty phones shoved in your face by salespeople that made commission, you’d be in total control of the process. The end result of consumers getting to choose their carriers (and phones and plans) was clear: major competition and subsequently a rush of better deals from said carriers to ensure customer activation and retention. >Or, you could buy whatever phone you wanted unlocked. Eventually, pay-as-you-go SIM cards would pop up in the U.S. as a result. Well, I hate to break it to the author, but in Europe (at least, here in Central Europe), that is pretty much the standard and possible with both Android and iPhones (and Window 7 phones). You can buy the locked subsidised phones here, and actually, more people are doing it now than in the past, but the most are still unlocked. The fact that it doesn't work in US has more in common that customers don't want that, not the carriers. With the pricey smartphones, actually, more people here in Europe are buying subsidised phones than with the cheap dumbphones of the past. I just thought it's worth mentioning.
- ghshephard 15y ago
  MG Siegler (and many of us who travel) are well aware that in Europe, there is a lot more freedom regarding carriers and pay-as-you-go SIM cards. He explicitly added the "in the US" to make that clear. I assure you that most of us realize that the $199 iPhone we are getting with a 2 Year $70/month contract locked to AT&T is really a $1879 contract value.
  - Mavrik 15y ago
    And yet.. He still hates "Android" instead of US carriers and non-existing regulation.
  - darkane 15y ago
    Perhaps "most of" the tech enthusiasts. The average person has no idea.
- cstejerean 15y ago
  It's starting to work in the US as well. You can now buy a full price unlocked iPhone directly from Apple and prepaid plans are starting to get better.
vacri 15y ago
Low contrast text is a pain to read, and if I'm already annoyed at how you've presented your rant, I'm less likely to be swayed by your arguments, regardless of merit.
lucisferre 15y ago
Really? I was completely expecting this to be a tear down of Androids horrible UX. Color me surprised.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  Look at a v4 device. They've come a long way from Android 1.0.
  - lucisferre 15y ago
    That's what I'm hoping to find when it's available for my phone, honestly unlike the other response suggests (and two unwarranted fan boy downvotes) I can safely say unfamiliarity has nothing to do with it. 2.x is terrible when pitted against even the 4.x iOS.
- cbs 15y ago
  Oh come on. I'm getting really sick of hearing about this. The problem win android ux is (and this also applies to gripes with ios ux for people coming the other direction) your own infamiliarity with it and a few pet issues that are largely inconsequential.
  - kevinh 15y ago
    The problem with the Android devices that I've used* is that they just feel cheap. When scrolling does not occur smoothly, that's a serious UX issue. *I haven't had the opportunity to use ICS yet.
    - cbs 15y ago
      When scrolling does not occur smoothly, that's a serious UX issue. For certain definitions of serious, where serious means "the most serious issue in a list containing completely inconsequential items", yes. Its a pet issue for people exaggerate or look over as needed to support their already held beliefs. I use both ios and android every day, of all the legitimate gripes there exist about android, the scroll stutter is not one. I use my devices to get things done, the only usecase where the menu thing even presents itself is when I'm stoned as hell and just playing with slowly pushing things around on the screen, otherwise I've already scrolled to where I wanted and move on without slowing down to lament the fact the thing that worked perfectly didn't look pretty enough.
pratster 15y ago
Sometimes folks need to realize that there are parts of the World that aren't the US http://shawndrape.tumblr.com/post/15606937775/why-i-hate-android http://shawndrape.tumblr.com/post/15606937775/why-i-hate-and...
- vetler 15y ago
  Same here in Norway, although I believe carriers have control similar to the US in larger European countries such as UK and Germany, at least.
  - ifearthenight 15y ago
    Carriers (operators to us non-Americans) do actually have a similar control in all of Europé, including the Nordics, as well as in Asia and Oceania. While as a consumer you may have seemingly more open options for pre-paid etc, for a handset manufacturer you cannot shift significant volumes without subsidies and POS space in operator stores. A lot of people cannot afford a handset at retail price and that is what keeps the power with the operators despite having some of the most horrendous customer service of any industry.
    - Eeko 15y ago
      All I see is the 99e chinese android-sets on the shelf (free if you take a contract) and 15e/month unlimited data-plans (without a speed cap. Practically offering 1mbps to 6mbps depending on area.) If you want to talk, one can get a flatrate for that too. (actually not flatrate, but a price cap of 1e/24h, so monthly bill won't exceed 30e). They might have shitloads of control, but I'm not complaining.
muro 15y ago
> What no one knew at the time, and I only heard months later, was Google’s original vision for the Nexus One. Google intended to sell it for $99 without a contract and unlocked. Yes, a $99 unlocked phone, subsidized by Google ads. haha... that's a good one.
- muro 15y ago
  Can anyone really think that a phone that sells for more than 500 without subsidy can be sold for 99 with ads making up for the difference?
trimbo 15y ago
If you hate what Google did with Android, then fork it and make a company that does with it what you believe is right.
- alperakgun 15y ago
  The whole idea of open source is here in trimbo's comment. Android does not empower even Google to a total control; anybody forks (Amazon, Nook) does what they want. iOS can't do this.
idspispopd 15y ago
I'd be appreciative to read a more informative and well-formed counter-argument instead of pages of thinly veiled attacks on the author. I for one recognise that they're all the 'devil'. It's about time we stopped pretending that these companies are trying to do us a favour. They don't report favours and hugs in their quarterly earnings results.
iscrewyou 15y ago
The fact that he's saying that apple tried to put carriers afterwards and lookout for consumers first is total bull. ATT iPhone exclusivity. His whole essay is invalid. Apple tried to control everything. That's the truth. Google interfered and shit hit the fan. This guy just likes apple and hates android. Like a true apple fanboy.
- diminish 15y ago
  Thanks, AT&T was exactly the point in my mind; and this exclusivity. Apple doomed its US users to one carrier without any choice for years.
schammy 15y ago
> What I hate is what Android has become. What I hate is what Apple has become, and this is the reason I will never own another iPhone. It's a fantastic phone and changed everything in the mobile landscape, but Apple has become an extremely evil company with their ridiculous success and I won't support that. MG can dislike Google for similar reasons. That's fine. The difference is he transfers that hate to Android. I don't hate the iPhone, I just hate Apple. And I don't really buy his reasoning anyways. He has written hundreds of articles about how bad Android is. If the real reason for him hating Android was because of Google's net neutrality cave-in, he would have mentioned it by now. Like a hundred times (he likes to repeat himself). I feel like now that Android has finally grown into a mature and robust OS (it was definitely a bit janky prior to 2.3), he doesn't have any justifiable reason to hate it anymore, so he's grasping at straws. It just seems silly.
bookwormAT 15y ago
M.G. Siegler wants to get rid of the different mafia syndicates that make his life miserable. His solution is to give all the power to a single syndicate that will rule us all. Who has the absolute control in the Android ecosystem? My cell carrier has certainly not. Google cannot even stop me from installing the Amazon market app. The device manufactuers may seem very powerful: They make and service both the hardware and the (Android-based) operating system. But even the manufactuer does not control the system more than any of the other parties. They need Google's services, they need the carriers, and they need us. The user. We can decide if we want to buy our devices from Verizon or from Samsung or from Google. But most important, we can choose what software we install on the device. Never before had so many users that much power over their mobile experience. The user rules the desktop PC, and now, thanks to Android, he get's to rule the mobile PC as well. We're not there, but we're getting there. M.G. Siegler wants to replace the control of many software providers with the control of a single one. This is short sighted. Android gave us a democracy instead: It's sometimes slow to get something done, because every decision has to be fought over with the different partie's interest. But we, the users, can vote. And we have rights.
zak_mc_kracken 15y ago
MG Siegler vastly overestimates the importance of the Droid deal with Verizon. There are hundreds of Android devices running on dozens of carriers around the world. The Verizon deal is completely inconsequential.
zak_mc_kracken 15y ago
> But I cannot respect their decision to continue to work on this platform that perpetuates our imprisonment. This sentence about Android coming from an iPhone enthusiast is priceless.
jsnell 15y ago
> Google’s original vision for the Nexus One. Google intended to sell it for $99 without a contract and unlocked. Right... Nobody in their right mind should be able to believe that Google planned to sell hardware at a loss of hundreds of dollars, in order to gain a user worth a couple of dollars a year, for a couple of years. But not only does Siegler appear to believe this, but he considers the non-appearance of that phone as a betrayal.
fauigerzigerk 15y ago
I know a prison when I see it. Paying carriers a little more than if they had been turned into dumb pipes is not prison. Having my content restricted to Apple's disneyfied subset of the world is as close as any prison metaphor gets to the real thing.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  Oh please, let's not get out of hand. If Apple is a prison it's the most liberal open prison in the history of the justice system. It may be constrained but it's hardly four to a cell and making sure you don't drop the soap in the showers.
  - fauigerzigerk 15y ago
    I guess you're also unhappy about the "jailbreaking" metaphor then, or about "opiate for the masses". I was just responding to this phrase from the article: "But I cannot respect their decision to continue to work on this platform that perpetuates our imprisonment"
    - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
      To be honest (and this isn't aimed at you), I'm just bored of tediously overstated metaphor across the board when it comes to the Googe / Apple discussions. I think it does nothing for useful debate and just flames the tribalism and I think that there are genuinely interesting things to discuss that are being obscured. That and wanting to make the soap in the showers gag. But as I say, not specifically aimed at you, I'm just getting increasingly anti-metaphor in what should be factual discussions between technical people.
      - fauigerzigerk 15y ago
        I can see where you're coming from, but meta discussions about the use of metaphors aren't going help. As I see it, you have obscured my actual point by starting a debate about the wording. Apple's narrow minded content restrictions are a real and serious limitation of what I can do professionally as a developer. Carriers overcharging for some services is not, so the choice is very clear to me and it's the choice between less freedom and more freedom. I do not insist on using the "prison" metaphor for that and I didn't invent it either. I merely responded to someone who did use it and he even criticised people for continuing to work on Android. If that is not over the top I don't know what is.
VolatileVoid 15y ago
I seriously dislike vitriol like this in general. It makes it sound like Apple was entirely benevolent in wanting to wrest control from the carriers but Apple, like any other corporation, wants to make money. There is no altruism in business - it's dollars all the way down. And Apple, in bending carriers to their will, did not give control back to the end user, but rather back to Apple. You see the "evil" behind Android because you WANT to. I see the evil behind iOS because I WANT to. The truth is, they're equally evil - which is to say, they are the yangless yings.
- diminish 15y ago
  Exactly the same idea as my comment about emotions (which is downvoted). A deep emotional connection to a company makes us see all of they do as right (Apple, 30% cut, weird app store policies, SOPA support etc).
Tichy 15y ago
He seems to confuse several things. What has the openness of Android to do with whatever deals Google strikes with some random carriers? They are completely separate things. Also wondering what Apple's stance on net neutrality is - I suppose they support it, as long as all content passes through the iCloud with a fee attached first.
kalleboo 15y ago
Isn't he wrong though? What first offended me so much about the original iPhone was just how restricted it was at the behest of AT&T. I can take my Android phone on any carrier and use tethering. I take my iPhone, and it randomly disables tethering depending on the carrier. Apple have also disabled downloads of apps and podcasts over 20 MB on the behest of a single carrier with a poor network (AT&T), applying the restriction to all phones, worldwide. My carrier doesn't care if I happen to download a 100 MB file, why would Apple ever want to restrict that? Google only lets carriers screw with the phones the carriers themselves sell. Which IMHO is the prerogative of the carrier. If people don't want crapware, they don't buy phones from your carrier! Apple lets carriers screw with the feature set of all iPhones, regardless of where you bought it.
- alperakgun 15y ago
  Exactly my situation; I use my Android in 2 countries and I can change carriers, country and language. I always avoid crapware loaded by carriers.
- gizzlon 15y ago
  "Apple have also disabled downloads of apps and podcasts over 20 MB on the behest of a single carrier with a poor network (AT&T), applying the restriction to all phones, worldwide" That's horrible.. is it true? Can anyone confirm this?
  - fceccon 15y ago
    Yes, I just tried to download a 34MB game over 3G and this was the result http://cl.ly/3W3M1g2q1J0B3T2K143d http://cl.ly/3W3M1g2q1J0B3T2K143d
    - p3rs3us 15y ago
      You got to be kidding me! :O Really you can't download anything over 20mb! I can run a torrent and download anything i like on my android!
      - 15y ago
andersh 15y ago
Matt Siegler: his wanky, self-applied moniker made me curious enough to find out his actual name.
- timrichard 15y ago
  Oh, it doesn't stand for Mini Gruber? :-)
skrebbel 15y ago
Can someone explain this article to me? If I understood it well, the author hates Android because Google made some deal with an American carrier. I don't exactly understand what deal that really is, he seems to imply that we all know that. I'm in Europe, where Google made no deals with carriers that I know of, but I'm genuinely interested: should I care? Should I hate Android for the same reason, whatever that may be? I mean, right now the closedness of Apple products is the only thing keeps me away from Apple. Am I being an ignorant hypocrite?
- manmal 15y ago
  That's exactly what I was thinking - when I saw the headline, I thought this would be another "Android lags, Android's UX sucks" post.. instead, it's some abstract rant about net neutrality and openness - I say, let the users decide.
ifearthenight 15y ago
It's well past time for widespread usage of programmable SIM cards.
kibaekr 15y ago
If anything, I think the US carriers should be blamed for the imprisonment of mobile technology. It doesn't matter how advanced the Android OS becomes if the hardware on the market can't handle it. Consumers are locked up for 2 years with outdated devices, and the OS developers need to intentionally lag themselves to suit the entire market. I understand that the carriers are only doing their job, but I feel like a new system needs to take place - maybe sign a 3 year contract, but allow updates each year with discounts. I don't exactly know what other ramifications such a system may cause, but I for one would love it. I don't see myself changing carriers unless something major happens, so I would be happy to sign for a longer "enslavement" for the tradeoff of being able to update my phone more regularly.
51Cards 15y ago
Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Don't think i agree here. Apple wrestled control from the carriers to put it in their own hands, not consumers. Just as any other profit oriented company would like to do... but it was no altruistic move. In fact you went from several carriers having to compete to one company calling the shots for the majority of the mobile market for awhile. Android has realistically been one of the few things that has kept the mobile market from being a monopoly (which would have been far worse than it was ).
- seqastian 15y ago
  He also makes the point that Apple is a retail store where you are the customer and Google is building a advertising platform where you are the number in a spreadsheet of a guy who sells ad space.
  - betterth 15y ago
    It's a fair point. Android isn't free. Sooner or later people will realize that they're the product. Google is building/has an amazing database of your life, your browsing habits, your app habits, your emails, your calendar, all of it hooked up to your phone when you first turn it on. They make literally billions helping advertisers find you. Apple makes billions selling hardware. Honestly, I prefer the demon I know. I have no idea what Google is doing and is capable of, and what decisions they will make in the future with my data to protect their advertising revenue. With Apple it's simple. They want me to buy another device, and they're willing to make a good enough device to convince me to upgrade.
    - gergles 15y ago
      If you don't like what Google is doing with Android, install a custom ROM. You can recompile it and strip out any code that you don't approve of. Try doing that on your iPhone.
cturner 15y ago
There's a gap in his flow, at the beginning of the point where he goes off the rails. "To be clear: Net Neutrality was thrown out in the wireless space because Google sided with Verizon’s ridiculous and horribly conflicted stance on the matter." There is a strong and viable position that net neutrality is bad policy. In NN government declares winners and sandboxes areas where innovation is allowed. You might not agree, but that's besides the point I'm seeking to make. What's important is this: opposition to net neutrality is often falsely characterised, as here, as a pure corporate marketdroid position. It's not - it's a position with a firm idealogical basis that you may happen to disagree with. The writer here borders on conspiracy mode here, "The open spectrum enemy, turned Net Neutrality enemy, became Google’s bedmate thanks to a business deal. Straight up. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." The available evidence doesn't support that conclusion. It might be true, but the writer should hold his emotions back for things where the facts support a conclusion. > But I cannot respect their decision to continue > to work on this platform that perpetuates our > imprisonment. It's not good for anyone to have too much power. I don't want to live in a world where carriers dominate, but neither where a Microsoft or Apple can dominate through control of the software stack. We've only just emerged from a situation of Windows being all-powerful - by some interpretations it still is. Android is a great countermove to Apple's play to dominate the next twenty years. Even if there are some tradeoffs it's good for our freedom. Think church and state.
RexRollman 15y ago
"Apple, for all the shit they get for being closed and evil, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers." What Apple did was to gain control for themselves; not the user. You need look no farther than Apple's opposition to the DMCA exception for smart phone jailbreaking to see what they think of user control.
felixfurtak 15y ago
can you really not purchase a pay as you go SIM card in the US? I've successfully bought these in many countries around the world (UK, Australia, New Zealand, pretty much anywhere in Europe, Thailand, Malaysia, etc.) When visiting a foreign country I usually buy a local SIM as a matter of course in order to avoid excessive roaming charges. Surely this is also possible in the USA?
- apress 15y ago
  You most certainly can buy a pay-as-you-go SIM in the US. See http://amzn.to/wKySJq http://amzn.to/wKySJq for example. The issue is complicated here however by the CDMA/GSM split, incompatible signal bands used by different carriers and not-truly-unlocked unlocked phones. Something like a million people in the US bought full-priced, unlocked iPhones to use on the lower cost T-Mobile netowkr but they don't get 3G bands. See http://blog.t-mobile.com/2011/09/26/about-the-iphone-a-letter-to-t-mobile-customers/ http://blog.t-mobile.com/2011/09/26/about-the-iphone-a-lette...
  - felixfurtak 15y ago
    Sounds like the US cell phone carriers need a bit more regulation to me, together with a bit more sharing of frequency allocation. I really don't think this is the fault of Android. For example, in the UK I think pretty much all 3G carriers run within a common 2100MHz band.
stitchy 15y ago
I've always wondered why +MG Siegler disliked Android so much. After reading this article, I find his arguments to be less than compelling. He equates Android's failed dream of turning carriers into dumb data pipes, with the worst sort of insidious backstabbing. I'll admit that I was angry when Google sided with Verizon on axing Wireless Net Neutrality, but it wasn't going to happen any other way. Does he honestly think that Google was the deciding factor for the FCC? Does he think that the FCC was going to say no to Verizon, but since Google said that it was OK, they decided to skip on Wireless Net Neutrality? I'm not defending Google's decision, but I'm confident that Apple and Microsoft would have done the same thing if they were in the same position. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous. Also, what does Android being open source have anything to do with his argument? He sneers at Android calling itself open. Why? Sure, Google made a bad decision by supporting Verizon's take on Net Neutrality, but how does that make their source code less open for modification? It may mean that we can't treat carriers as dumb data pipes, but that fact makes Android less open?
- technoslut 15y ago
  >Does he honestly think that Google was the deciding factor for the FCC? Does he think that the FCC was going to say no to Verizon, but since Google said that it was OK, they decided to skip on Wireless Net Neutrality? Genachowski used Android as part of the reason for killing net neutrality. Genachowski: "We recognize that there have been meaningful recent moves toward openness, including the introduction of open operating systems like Android" http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/21/fcc.says.android.makes.lightened.rules.ok/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/21/fcc.says.andro...
  - stitchy 15y ago
    Fair enough. I still think that the FCC would have sided with Verizon even if Google hadn't.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
Apple, for all the shit they get for being "closed" and "evil", has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. /s/consumers/Apple/
etherael 15y ago
I must say, after a whirlwind career of bashing android for all the wrong reasons it seems like the cognitive dissonance has reached a point where even his bullshit excuses were not acceptable to his internal meter anymore and this just comes across as a "Why I'm Still Right About Android" post. The article even goes to great lengths to point out the responsible party for the situation with the mobile market in the US, and then fails to make the obvious leap and blame them instead choosing to blame google. The average american consumer is who to blame for the shitty situation the US market is in, and frankly that's a kind of poetic justice.
mcantelon 15y ago
Funny that Seigler neglects to mention what Apple did in the great net neutrality fight: nothing.
- betterth 15y ago
  You can't let someone down if you don't build them up. Google fought for years on net neutrality. And they caved completely on it to make Android popular. Apple didn't help but they didn't say they would. You're welcome to criticize Apple's inaction but that's very different than spending years promising to the world and fighting for a cause, only to do a total 180 and sell out what you claimed were your core values for the sake of market share.
  - mcantelon 15y ago
    I judge companies more by what they do than what they say. Yes Google said things that let folks down: absolutely. But Apple is actually doing things that poison the technological ecosystem: its zealous patent-wielding and its changing people $99/year to develop software for their own hardware. So in the realm of technology, who to hate more seems an easy choice. Seigler's focus is pretty narrow. That being said, Google may end up being a greater historic villain given where it has positions itself in terms of access to our personal information and its legal obligation to divulge that to the state.
dgrant 15y ago
"But in the case of Android, 'open' has been hijacked and wildly contorted so as to mask the shady side of what’s really been going on." I hate when people bitch that Android isn't open. I guess it depends on your definition of "open" but whatever way you look at it, Android is the most open in my opinion because it's the only smartphone platform I know of where you can build your own modified ROM or kernel and replace the one on your phone with it. So maybe it's not perfectly open but it's the most open and I like that about it. Edit: as someone else here has mentioned, we have Android on hundreds of different phones, as well as Nook and GoogleTV devices. That's not something you see with BlackberryOS or iOS.
muyuu 15y ago
This is exactly why I buy all my phones SIM-free, unlocked. Carriers ought to be treated as dumb pipes. People who speak a lot on the phone would have to pay a big premium for this, but if you don't talk much on the phone, PAYG data plans in the UK have really cheap, sufficient broadband. I reckon here in the UK people do unlock their phones a lot and this keep the market very competitive. It's not just carriers that dislike competition. Makers also want to artificially "differentiate" their phones. (Translate: try their best to lock you up). This is all fair and part of the game. It's users who can make the market more competitive by favouring less crapified phones and doing it clearly, or doing their best to strip their phones of crap.
angryasian 15y ago
this is neither manufacturers fault, and the blame lies strictly in the consumer. Change comes from where the money is spent. Instead of upgrading to the latest hardware , getting stuck in 2 year contracts and giving carriers passive income, for all those minutes, data, and text you don't use. Consumers do need to go with phones that work for them and prepaid. Once carriers don't have this hold any more they will have to compete on features and price. This is the real path to change.
sathishmanohar 15y ago
Hmmmm its interesting, when iPhone 4 was slammed for signal death grip issues, MG argued, people use phones as computers nowadays, so voice/carriers are not important. Now, He hates android, because carriers are screwing android ecosystem. I sense a contradiction here.
laconian 15y ago
All emotion and no logic in that post. MG, enjoy your slide into irrelevancy. The torrent of negative rhetoric will only get you so far in journalism. Eh, who am I kidding? It's made Rupert Murdoch rich!
Som 15y ago
This article in not about Android, yes Google lost battle. Hope they win war.
signalsignal 15y ago
I don't seem to understand the author's intent in the realm of entrepreneurship. Is this an business related article or is it an editorial?

345 points by johns 15y ago

This argument is pointless, because it's about only the U.S, which is a small proportion of phones used in the world. The rest of the world does not have the insane carrier monopolies and unusual pricing structures that are prevalent in the U.S. For the rest of the world, phones sell on the merits of their software and hardware - and that's what android should be measured on. And when it comes to that, android is winning.

sherwin 15y ago
To be fair, MG does concede that Android as a product has gotten much better in recent years: """ So that, ladies and gentleman, is why I hate Android. It has nothing to do with the actual product (which continues to improve every year and is quite good now). It has to do with a promise that was broken and swept under the rug. """ Though I agree that his art.icle only really applies to the US.
lostsock 15y ago
Came here to say exactly this. OP doesn't hate Android, he hates the mobile landscape in the US. I live in Australia with a fully unlocked Android handset. I pay $16 / month for my no contract dumb pipe and that's that. Android has nothing to do with the issue that the OP hates...
- 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
  I live in Australia too. Carriers are still able to have their way to some small extent. I was regularly inquiring about android handsets for the last couple years. There were still carrier exclusives (for x number of months), and no one would sell me a high-endish, unlocked handset (e.g. Galaxy S). The easiest way to get an unlocked Android handset is buy it online (be careful you get correct handset variant). If manufacturers weren't capitulating to carrier demands silly things like this would not happen. If you want an unlocked iPhone you go to an Apple store and just say so and it works on all carriers.
  - etherael 15y ago
    There's no such thing as an unlocked iphone. I get what you mean, carrier unlocked, but the implication you can get one that is unlocked in the same way as an android phone can be unlocked is not true. And you're right, even in Australia if you absolutely positively insist on dealing with the carriers at retail, they will try to screw you almost as hard as the people in the US get screwed. You don't have to put up with it though, just buy online.
- drats 15y ago
  Exactly the same where I am. I have vanilla ICS on a Nexus S with a pre-pay that I can leave for a better deal at any time. This guy's article is totally off looked at from a global perspective. The billions rising out of poverty into the global middle class will never be able to afford an iPhone, Android is going to totally dominate in these markets. That's multiples of the US population. Apple has no hope at all in clawing that back.
  - unicornporn 15y ago
    Same in Sweden. And I too have vanilla ICS on a Nexus S.
  - reidmain 15y ago
    Why won't they be able to afford an iPhone? Are you are implying that they can afford an Android phone because they will be $0 if you sign a contract? iPhones have this option nowadays as well. What makes an Android phone easier to get a hold of compared to a iPhone? Both phones are $500+ if you get them standalone.
    - andrewpi 15y ago
      Actually one can get off-contract Android phones for as cheap as $99, or maybe even cheaper. They aren't top of the line devices, but they work. The only time an iPhone is that cheap is with a carrier subsidy.
      - reidmain 15y ago
        ah OK if we're talking about phones that don't compare to the iPhone then yeah Android has a lot of options. You referenced Nexus S with ICS so I thought we were comparing that to the iPhone.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
Niksko 15y ago
I came here just to say this. Why do people in the US continue to ignore the rest of the world? Only in the US does this carrier branded phone bullshit occur. I live in Australia and I'm quite content with my unlocked Galaxy Nexus on my $40 Amaysim plan. Sure, it would be awesome to have paid $99 for my Galaxy Nexus and have the rest of the $700 I actually spent on it subsidised by Google, but that's the way it is at the moment. If anything you should hate your own stupid US carriers.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  I'm not entirely clear on how it works in Australia, but in Greece you can either pay the full amount and get an unlocked phone, or get a carrier subsidy with contracts. The amount of the subsidy depends on the plan you choose, with higher-costing plans getting higher subsidies. For example, a two-year, 50 EUR/month plan gets you a free iPhone 4S or the equivalent android phone, if I remember correctly. Also, not a single phone, at any price range or contract status, is locked. Carriers don't care about locking the phones, you've got a contract with them and you're probably going to get a new phone at the end of it anyway.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    I'd love that in the US. Here, you can get a phone unlocked (in most cases) for a higher fee, but the plan rates don't change. You can get an iphone for $800, unlocked, but it will still only work on AT&T in the US, and you still pay $50+/month. Or you can get one for $200 if you commit to $50/month for 2 years. No monthly price diff. :/
    - StavrosK 15y ago
      Ouch. Over here, if you don't want the phone subsidy (maybe you like your current phone), a certain amount is deducted from your monthly payments (so you still get the money back).
    - CountSessine 15y ago
      Same in Canada, but substitute $50 for $80 (and our dollars are at parity with yours), and subatitute 2 years for 3 years.
Hari_Seldon 15y ago
It's pretty much the same here in the UK, carriers tend to dictate conditions which the manufacturers must adhere to, except for Apple of course.
- estel 15y ago
  I don't think that that's accurate. There's far more flexibility and choice in the UK carrier market than the US. It's pretty identical to the rest of Europe.

lawdawg 15y ago

it amazes me that anyone listens or cares what MG has to say. His posts are full of factual inaccuracies and personal opinions stated as fact.

joshes 15y ago
Which of his statements do you find to be factually inaccurate?
- windexh8er 15y ago
  The ones that are his opinions - which is the majority of it.
  - adambyrtek 15y ago
    Do you seriously claim that he is not allowed to post his own opinions on his personal blog?
jodrellblank 15y ago
What's the difference between a personal opinion and a personal opinion stated as fact? It seems like a cheap critic technique to take discredit someone's opinion by claiming they "state it as a fact" when nobody ever writes "IMO" before or after everything we say. His posts are full of [..] personal opinions stated as fact I claim this is your opinion stated as a fact, therefore meaningless and I can dismiss it.
lawdawg 15y ago
ah, this is just icing on the cake: https://twitter.com/#!/ckindel/status/156623373168943105 https://twitter.com/#!/ckindel/status/156623373168943105 what a clown.

sunils34 15y ago

exactly 'why i hate mg siegler'

limeblack 15y ago

The title feels like link bait. "Why I Hate Android" 2nd paragraph in, "Believe it or not, I actually don’t hate Android."

redthrowaway 15y ago
Two sentences later, "What I hate is what Android has become." Not linkbait, just clarifying that he doesn't hate the OS, he hates what Google has done with it. I'm by no means an MG Siegler fan, and I think he's being facetious here, but there is a legitimate point to be made that Google's capitulation to the carriers has come at the expense of their vision for Android and its users.
- dannyr 15y ago
  What do you think is Google's vision for Android? Android is in the hands of hundreds of millions of people. It is the cheapest smartphone that even people from Africa can afford to buy an Android phone sans contract. Google made a lot of compromises but I believe the original vision will still be achieved which is to bring computing to the masses.
  - Samuel_Michon 15y ago
    "Google made a lot of compromises but I believe the original vision will still be achieved which is to bring computing to the masses." Isn't Google's vision to bring ads to the masses? Getting everyone to use smartphones is a way to accomplish that. Android Market has the highest proportion of ad-supported apps (70%) of all the major platforms, and most of the ads are served by Google.

loso 15y ago

A bigger question arises. Since we now know that his Android feelings comes from hatred of Google and their policies, how do we trust his opinion on the actual devices? I guess him not being a full time staffer at techcrunch anymore helps with that. But what about past reviews from when he was?

Cadsby 15y ago
"Trust" doesn't, and should never, enter into the equation in matters such as these.

windexh8er 15y ago

"""Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. We’re still thanking them for it!""" Really? Apple has put control back into the hands of consumers? Ahhh, yes - the fog is lifting now. Apple locked themselves into the worst carrier in the US which, in turn, locked their customers into bad service for a good phone. Oh, oh and wait - there's more. Apple has done the industry a fantastic favor by fueling the tipping point of the intellectual property patent war that's been oh so rightly just for the good of all humans. Yes, yes - I see the point of this article now. Because I was told to. But in all reality - Google took the shot, Apple never wanted to share the ball in the first place. Chew on that hate MG.

cstejerean 15y ago
Worst carrier? By what metric? Data started to degrade on AT&T mostly because the suddenly popularity of smart phones people actually wanted to use for music, video, web. I was on AT&T before the iPhone was announced after switching between T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. Also, I believe Apple talked to Verizon first about the iPhone but they wouldn't play ball.
- ryanpers 15y ago
  Having used Tmobile for years, AT&T is NOT the worst carrier. Even here in SF, AT&T is better than tmobile in terms of indoor data delivery.
  - windexh8er 15y ago
    If you had better visibility in the transport and spectrum viability for capacity and future upgrades you might think otherwise. Again, just a comment based on perception than "actuality".
- windexh8er 15y ago

untog 15y ago

One of his major issues seems to be Google not coming through on the topic of net neutrality, and that his overall opinion of Android is coloured by this. But an honest genuine question (I don't know the answer)- what did Apple do to further net neutrality? It seems like MG expected a lot of Google, and Google let him down. But what did he expect of Apple, and did they deliver? Because last time I looked Apple were championing all the wrong things.

ubernostrum 15y ago
I think it's extremely unhelpful, in these discussions, to resort to "well Apple does bad things too, so how can you prefer Apple?" Ultimately I think the point the article's getting at here is that Apple's at least been relatively honest in their marketing; they never delivered an open stack based around principles of software freedom, but they also never promised us they would. Google did promise that; they promised it seven ways to Sunday, and then failed to deliver in a variety of ways, not all of which can be attributed to innocent mistakes. So the criticism of Google is not rooted in "this other platform is more open". The criticism of Google is rooted in "gathering this huge following by loudly trumpeting principles you won't follow" is rank hypocrisy.
- ekianjo 15y ago
  So, to use a metaphor. Let's say you have two people: - one criminal who steals most of the time to earn a living but does not claim to do otherwise. - one person with high moral standards, who, once in his life, resorts to stealing because he had to in a set of specific circumstances. ...it is ok to prefer the criminal just on the ground that he is faithful to himself rather than the person with high moral standards, because that one failed to keep to their ideals ? That's a extremely contrived sense of reality. Sorry, but even if Google do compromise in many ways lately, they are STILL more of a champion of Net Neutrality than Apple has ever been.
  - ubernostrum 15y ago
    That's a extremely contrived sense of reality. That's an extremely contrived metaphor that doesn't really fit the situation at all, and doesn't help attempts to discuss it.

drivebyacct2 15y ago

"I hate Android because Google doesn't market/sell it how I like" ? He objects for seemingly, what, "moral" reasons? Yet he merely argues that Apple is "more open" via a closed ecosystem because of the power the carriers currently wield? His post chronicles the truths of this situation. Google tried to sell their phones directly, that failed miserably because Americans refuse to understand how contracts work and buy unsubsidized phones. So, they tried something else. I'm happily running a custom rom on an `oem unlock`ed phone as I speak. It doesn't bother me that my friend bought a locked Android phone, he's perfectly happy too. I don't understand this post. Did he expect Google to give up or fail for ideological reasons? The way he hyped this on Twitter and his last post at TC, I wonder if he is just a troll anymore. And an implication that Google is going to... do what exactly, in the patent war? Somehow they're siding with the carriers and they're worse than Apple or Microsoft in the use of their patents. I honestly don't understand what is being alleged or suggested by that paragraph. So, Google compromises with Verizon = "[Android being open] nuclear bullshit.", that's what this boils down to, right?

nextparadigms 15y ago

I thought he hated his commenters for their bile comments. Then why is he writing bile posts himself?

Kylekramer 15y ago

So, Google had a pipe dream about turning carriers into dumb pipes, and had to face reality when the carriers wouldn't let them. Therefore, MG hates Android. I just don't know what MG wanted to Google to do. We all have our own ideas about how the world should be. The options for Google seem to be a hardline tactic to get exactly what they envisioned and subsequently have a dead on arrival Android OS, or work within the system. Apple had a similar grand ambition when the iPhone first launched with no carrier subsidy. They backed off when it didn't work, so why doesn't MG hate the iPhone? I agree with MG that the iPhone wrestled power from the carriers. I just disagree that gave it to us (other than indirectly). The article relies on a viewing of carriers as absolute evil and Apple/2007 Google as beams of pure good and light. I don't. There are shades of grey everywhere. iPhone brought a great OS with no crapware, a decent update schedule, and a handy app/media store where Apple gets a say in and a cut of everything, with one hardware option. Android brought you an OS that runs on multiple devices with a relatively open ecosystem, with the drawbacks of a less smooth experience and allowing carriers/OEMs monkey around with Android. Carriers have their own set of priorities that also have a bunch of pros and cons. Don't get me started on the logical hoops MG must jump through to view a compromise on a policy proposal for net neutrality as the ultimate betrayal while a device that requires the manufacturer to approve all software that runs on it is A-OK.

emehrkay 15y ago
> Don't get me started on the logical hoops MG must jump through to view a compromise on a policy proposal for net neutrality as the ultimate betrayal while a device that the manufacturer must approve all software that runs on it is A-OK. I see this as two different things. Google buddying up with Verizon to change net neutrality in the mobile space has an impact on everyone while Apple preventing software from running on their devices only affects Apple users.
- bad_user 15y ago
  I really don't get HOW and WHY people want government regulations, the same government that is pushing for SOPA. Government regulations of the market are only useful in one case only: to prevent abuses from established monopolies. However, wireless Internet is not monopolized. And you should checkout the competition in Europe. It's absolutely crazy. Google buddying up with Verizon to change net neutrality in the mobile space ... Actually they haven't "changed" anything. They just left things as they were before. The Internet is not were it is today because the government told ISPs how they should operate. Customers did.

ekianjo 15y ago

Interesting how someone who despises Google for not being a champion of Net Neutrality prefer Apple with its uber closed and "WE have to approve what you do with your phone" ecosystem. Android has done much more than Apple to open up the mobile space for developpers, let alone users who do not have to rely on a unique and official "Appstore". One can prefer Apple products for a number of reasons, but taking the angle of "net neutrality" to justify one's position is hardly understandable in this case.

plugger 15y ago

> "All of this backstory knowledge fuels my rage. When I see Google talk about how “open” the platform is, setting it up as the foil to the “closed” (and framed as “evil”) iPhone, I want to scream and rip someone’s head off. It’s not only the most extreme example of being disingenuous that I can ever recall seeing. It’s nuclear bullshit." Maybe that talk is in relation to Android being open code whereas iOS is closed and encumbered with horrible shit (iTunes, App Store)? The iPhone is an incredibly "closed" device unless you jailbreak it. That's not nuclear bullshit, that's the fucking truth. >"Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. We’re still thanking them for it!" Thinking the majority of consumers care about Net Neutrality or carrier issues is hilarious. The only time they care about the carrier is when they have issues with said carrier. And as mentioned above, what has Apple really done to "wrestle control" from carriers? This article reads like it was written by a butthurt 15 year old.

zeppelin_7 15y ago

I hope he knows that Android is sold world over, including countries where there is no concept of subsidy. Also I hope he knows Android is being used for many more things than just elitist phones.

Slimy 15y ago

Summary: MG says he doesn't give Android a fair chance when he compares it to the iPhone not because he loves Apple but because he hates Google.

tariqk 15y ago

I saw this on my feed, opened the tab on the background, saw it was from MG Siegler, closed the tab. I don't deny he doesn't have some genuine insight. I just find that the amount of work I have to do to sift past his bias is so draining that I prefer to outsource it to people who _can_ tolerate his... foibles (read: bullshit).

Apocryphon 15y ago

I'm really hoping that webOS becomes a viable alternative. Come on, HP, roll out a generous license and promise to support the project already!

runn1ng 15y ago

>Instead of going to the store of a single carrier and having a dozen shitty phones shoved in your face by salespeople that made commission, you’d be in total control of the process. The end result of consumers getting to choose their carriers (and phones and plans) was clear: major competition and subsequently a rush of better deals from said carriers to ensure customer activation and retention. >Or, you could buy whatever phone you wanted unlocked. Eventually, pay-as-you-go SIM cards would pop up in the U.S. as a result. Well, I hate to break it to the author, but in Europe (at least, here in Central Europe), that is pretty much the standard and possible with both Android and iPhones (and Window 7 phones). You can buy the locked subsidised phones here, and actually, more people are doing it now than in the past, but the most are still unlocked. The fact that it doesn't work in US has more in common that customers don't want that, not the carriers. With the pricey smartphones, actually, more people here in Europe are buying subsidised phones than with the cheap dumbphones of the past. I just thought it's worth mentioning.

ghshephard 15y ago
MG Siegler (and many of us who travel) are well aware that in Europe, there is a lot more freedom regarding carriers and pay-as-you-go SIM cards. He explicitly added the "in the US" to make that clear. I assure you that most of us realize that the $199 iPhone we are getting with a 2 Year $70/month contract locked to AT&T is really a $1879 contract value.
- Mavrik 15y ago
  And yet.. He still hates "Android" instead of US carriers and non-existing regulation.
- darkane 15y ago
  Perhaps "most of" the tech enthusiasts. The average person has no idea.
cstejerean 15y ago
It's starting to work in the US as well. You can now buy a full price unlocked iPhone directly from Apple and prepaid plans are starting to get better.

vacri 15y ago

Low contrast text is a pain to read, and if I'm already annoyed at how you've presented your rant, I'm less likely to be swayed by your arguments, regardless of merit.

lucisferre 15y ago

Really? I was completely expecting this to be a tear down of Androids horrible UX. Color me surprised.

Karunamon 15y ago
Look at a v4 device. They've come a long way from Android 1.0.
- lucisferre 15y ago
  That's what I'm hoping to find when it's available for my phone, honestly unlike the other response suggests (and two unwarranted fan boy downvotes) I can safely say unfamiliarity has nothing to do with it. 2.x is terrible when pitted against even the 4.x iOS.
cbs 15y ago
Oh come on. I'm getting really sick of hearing about this. The problem win android ux is (and this also applies to gripes with ios ux for people coming the other direction) your own infamiliarity with it and a few pet issues that are largely inconsequential.
- kevinh 15y ago
  The problem with the Android devices that I've used* is that they just feel cheap. When scrolling does not occur smoothly, that's a serious UX issue. *I haven't had the opportunity to use ICS yet.
  - cbs 15y ago
    When scrolling does not occur smoothly, that's a serious UX issue. For certain definitions of serious, where serious means "the most serious issue in a list containing completely inconsequential items", yes. Its a pet issue for people exaggerate or look over as needed to support their already held beliefs. I use both ios and android every day, of all the legitimate gripes there exist about android, the scroll stutter is not one. I use my devices to get things done, the only usecase where the menu thing even presents itself is when I'm stoned as hell and just playing with slowly pushing things around on the screen, otherwise I've already scrolled to where I wanted and move on without slowing down to lament the fact the thing that worked perfectly didn't look pretty enough.

pratster 15y ago

Sometimes folks need to realize that there are parts of the World that aren't the US http://shawndrape.tumblr.com/post/15606937775/why-i-hate-android http://shawndrape.tumblr.com/post/15606937775/why-i-hate-and...

vetler 15y ago
Same here in Norway, although I believe carriers have control similar to the US in larger European countries such as UK and Germany, at least.
- ifearthenight 15y ago
  Carriers (operators to us non-Americans) do actually have a similar control in all of Europé, including the Nordics, as well as in Asia and Oceania. While as a consumer you may have seemingly more open options for pre-paid etc, for a handset manufacturer you cannot shift significant volumes without subsidies and POS space in operator stores. A lot of people cannot afford a handset at retail price and that is what keeps the power with the operators despite having some of the most horrendous customer service of any industry.
  - Eeko 15y ago
    All I see is the 99e chinese android-sets on the shelf (free if you take a contract) and 15e/month unlimited data-plans (without a speed cap. Practically offering 1mbps to 6mbps depending on area.) If you want to talk, one can get a flatrate for that too. (actually not flatrate, but a price cap of 1e/24h, so monthly bill won't exceed 30e). They might have shitloads of control, but I'm not complaining.

muro 15y ago

> What no one knew at the time, and I only heard months later, was Google’s original vision for the Nexus One. Google intended to sell it for $99 without a contract and unlocked. Yes, a $99 unlocked phone, subsidized by Google ads. haha... that's a good one.

muro 15y ago
Can anyone really think that a phone that sells for more than 500 without subsidy can be sold for 99 with ads making up for the difference?

trimbo 15y ago

If you hate what Google did with Android, then fork it and make a company that does with it what you believe is right.

alperakgun 15y ago
The whole idea of open source is here in trimbo's comment. Android does not empower even Google to a total control; anybody forks (Amazon, Nook) does what they want. iOS can't do this.

idspispopd 15y ago

I'd be appreciative to read a more informative and well-formed counter-argument instead of pages of thinly veiled attacks on the author. I for one recognise that they're all the 'devil'. It's about time we stopped pretending that these companies are trying to do us a favour. They don't report favours and hugs in their quarterly earnings results.

iscrewyou 15y ago

The fact that he's saying that apple tried to put carriers afterwards and lookout for consumers first is total bull. ATT iPhone exclusivity. His whole essay is invalid. Apple tried to control everything. That's the truth. Google interfered and shit hit the fan. This guy just likes apple and hates android. Like a true apple fanboy.

diminish 15y ago
Thanks, AT&T was exactly the point in my mind; and this exclusivity. Apple doomed its US users to one carrier without any choice for years.

schammy 15y ago

> What I hate is what Android has become. What I hate is what Apple has become, and this is the reason I will never own another iPhone. It's a fantastic phone and changed everything in the mobile landscape, but Apple has become an extremely evil company with their ridiculous success and I won't support that. MG can dislike Google for similar reasons. That's fine. The difference is he transfers that hate to Android. I don't hate the iPhone, I just hate Apple. And I don't really buy his reasoning anyways. He has written hundreds of articles about how bad Android is. If the real reason for him hating Android was because of Google's net neutrality cave-in, he would have mentioned it by now. Like a hundred times (he likes to repeat himself). I feel like now that Android has finally grown into a mature and robust OS (it was definitely a bit janky prior to 2.3), he doesn't have any justifiable reason to hate it anymore, so he's grasping at straws. It just seems silly.

bookwormAT 15y ago

M.G. Siegler wants to get rid of the different mafia syndicates that make his life miserable. His solution is to give all the power to a single syndicate that will rule us all. Who has the absolute control in the Android ecosystem? My cell carrier has certainly not. Google cannot even stop me from installing the Amazon market app. The device manufactuers may seem very powerful: They make and service both the hardware and the (Android-based) operating system. But even the manufactuer does not control the system more than any of the other parties. They need Google's services, they need the carriers, and they need us. The user. We can decide if we want to buy our devices from Verizon or from Samsung or from Google. But most important, we can choose what software we install on the device. Never before had so many users that much power over their mobile experience. The user rules the desktop PC, and now, thanks to Android, he get's to rule the mobile PC as well. We're not there, but we're getting there. M.G. Siegler wants to replace the control of many software providers with the control of a single one. This is short sighted. Android gave us a democracy instead: It's sometimes slow to get something done, because every decision has to be fought over with the different partie's interest. But we, the users, can vote. And we have rights.

zak_mc_kracken 15y ago

MG Siegler vastly overestimates the importance of the Droid deal with Verizon. There are hundreds of Android devices running on dozens of carriers around the world. The Verizon deal is completely inconsequential.

zak_mc_kracken 15y ago

> But I cannot respect their decision to continue to work on this platform that perpetuates our imprisonment. This sentence about Android coming from an iPhone enthusiast is priceless.

jsnell 15y ago

> Google’s original vision for the Nexus One. Google intended to sell it for $99 without a contract and unlocked. Right... Nobody in their right mind should be able to believe that Google planned to sell hardware at a loss of hundreds of dollars, in order to gain a user worth a couple of dollars a year, for a couple of years. But not only does Siegler appear to believe this, but he considers the non-appearance of that phone as a betrayal.

fauigerzigerk 15y ago

I know a prison when I see it. Paying carriers a little more than if they had been turned into dumb pipes is not prison. Having my content restricted to Apple's disneyfied subset of the world is as close as any prison metaphor gets to the real thing.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
Oh please, let's not get out of hand. If Apple is a prison it's the most liberal open prison in the history of the justice system. It may be constrained but it's hardly four to a cell and making sure you don't drop the soap in the showers.
- fauigerzigerk 15y ago
  I guess you're also unhappy about the "jailbreaking" metaphor then, or about "opiate for the masses". I was just responding to this phrase from the article: "But I cannot respect their decision to continue to work on this platform that perpetuates our imprisonment"
  - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
    To be honest (and this isn't aimed at you), I'm just bored of tediously overstated metaphor across the board when it comes to the Googe / Apple discussions. I think it does nothing for useful debate and just flames the tribalism and I think that there are genuinely interesting things to discuss that are being obscured. That and wanting to make the soap in the showers gag. But as I say, not specifically aimed at you, I'm just getting increasingly anti-metaphor in what should be factual discussions between technical people.
    - fauigerzigerk 15y ago
      I can see where you're coming from, but meta discussions about the use of metaphors aren't going help. As I see it, you have obscured my actual point by starting a debate about the wording. Apple's narrow minded content restrictions are a real and serious limitation of what I can do professionally as a developer. Carriers overcharging for some services is not, so the choice is very clear to me and it's the choice between less freedom and more freedom. I do not insist on using the "prison" metaphor for that and I didn't invent it either. I merely responded to someone who did use it and he even criticised people for continuing to work on Android. If that is not over the top I don't know what is.

VolatileVoid 15y ago

I seriously dislike vitriol like this in general. It makes it sound like Apple was entirely benevolent in wanting to wrest control from the carriers but Apple, like any other corporation, wants to make money. There is no altruism in business - it's dollars all the way down. And Apple, in bending carriers to their will, did not give control back to the end user, but rather back to Apple. You see the "evil" behind Android because you WANT to. I see the evil behind iOS because I WANT to. The truth is, they're equally evil - which is to say, they are the yangless yings.

diminish 15y ago
Exactly the same idea as my comment about emotions (which is downvoted). A deep emotional connection to a company makes us see all of they do as right (Apple, 30% cut, weird app store policies, SOPA support etc).

Tichy 15y ago

He seems to confuse several things. What has the openness of Android to do with whatever deals Google strikes with some random carriers? They are completely separate things. Also wondering what Apple's stance on net neutrality is - I suppose they support it, as long as all content passes through the iCloud with a fee attached first.

kalleboo 15y ago

Isn't he wrong though? What first offended me so much about the original iPhone was just how restricted it was at the behest of AT&T. I can take my Android phone on any carrier and use tethering. I take my iPhone, and it randomly disables tethering depending on the carrier. Apple have also disabled downloads of apps and podcasts over 20 MB on the behest of a single carrier with a poor network (AT&T), applying the restriction to all phones, worldwide. My carrier doesn't care if I happen to download a 100 MB file, why would Apple ever want to restrict that? Google only lets carriers screw with the phones the carriers themselves sell. Which IMHO is the prerogative of the carrier. If people don't want crapware, they don't buy phones from your carrier! Apple lets carriers screw with the feature set of all iPhones, regardless of where you bought it.

alperakgun 15y ago
Exactly my situation; I use my Android in 2 countries and I can change carriers, country and language. I always avoid crapware loaded by carriers.
gizzlon 15y ago
"Apple have also disabled downloads of apps and podcasts over 20 MB on the behest of a single carrier with a poor network (AT&T), applying the restriction to all phones, worldwide" That's horrible.. is it true? Can anyone confirm this?
- fceccon 15y ago
  Yes, I just tried to download a 34MB game over 3G and this was the result http://cl.ly/3W3M1g2q1J0B3T2K143d http://cl.ly/3W3M1g2q1J0B3T2K143d
  - p3rs3us 15y ago
    You got to be kidding me! :O Really you can't download anything over 20mb! I can run a torrent and download anything i like on my android!
    - 15y ago

andersh 15y ago

Matt Siegler: his wanky, self-applied moniker made me curious enough to find out his actual name.

timrichard 15y ago
Oh, it doesn't stand for Mini Gruber? :-)

skrebbel 15y ago

Can someone explain this article to me? If I understood it well, the author hates Android because Google made some deal with an American carrier. I don't exactly understand what deal that really is, he seems to imply that we all know that. I'm in Europe, where Google made no deals with carriers that I know of, but I'm genuinely interested: should I care? Should I hate Android for the same reason, whatever that may be? I mean, right now the closedness of Apple products is the only thing keeps me away from Apple. Am I being an ignorant hypocrite?

manmal 15y ago
That's exactly what I was thinking - when I saw the headline, I thought this would be another "Android lags, Android's UX sucks" post.. instead, it's some abstract rant about net neutrality and openness - I say, let the users decide.

ifearthenight 15y ago

It's well past time for widespread usage of programmable SIM cards.

kibaekr 15y ago

If anything, I think the US carriers should be blamed for the imprisonment of mobile technology. It doesn't matter how advanced the Android OS becomes if the hardware on the market can't handle it. Consumers are locked up for 2 years with outdated devices, and the OS developers need to intentionally lag themselves to suit the entire market. I understand that the carriers are only doing their job, but I feel like a new system needs to take place - maybe sign a 3 year contract, but allow updates each year with discounts. I don't exactly know what other ramifications such a system may cause, but I for one would love it. I don't see myself changing carriers unless something major happens, so I would be happy to sign for a longer "enslavement" for the tradeoff of being able to update my phone more regularly.

51Cards 15y ago

Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Don't think i agree here. Apple wrestled control from the carriers to put it in their own hands, not consumers. Just as any other profit oriented company would like to do... but it was no altruistic move. In fact you went from several carriers having to compete to one company calling the shots for the majority of the mobile market for awhile. Android has realistically been one of the few things that has kept the mobile market from being a monopoly (which would have been far worse than it was ).

seqastian 15y ago
He also makes the point that Apple is a retail store where you are the customer and Google is building a advertising platform where you are the number in a spreadsheet of a guy who sells ad space.
- betterth 15y ago
  It's a fair point. Android isn't free. Sooner or later people will realize that they're the product. Google is building/has an amazing database of your life, your browsing habits, your app habits, your emails, your calendar, all of it hooked up to your phone when you first turn it on. They make literally billions helping advertisers find you. Apple makes billions selling hardware. Honestly, I prefer the demon I know. I have no idea what Google is doing and is capable of, and what decisions they will make in the future with my data to protect their advertising revenue. With Apple it's simple. They want me to buy another device, and they're willing to make a good enough device to convince me to upgrade.
  - gergles 15y ago
    If you don't like what Google is doing with Android, install a custom ROM. You can recompile it and strip out any code that you don't approve of. Try doing that on your iPhone.

cturner 15y ago

There's a gap in his flow, at the beginning of the point where he goes off the rails. "To be clear: Net Neutrality was thrown out in the wireless space because Google sided with Verizon’s ridiculous and horribly conflicted stance on the matter." There is a strong and viable position that net neutrality is bad policy. In NN government declares winners and sandboxes areas where innovation is allowed. You might not agree, but that's besides the point I'm seeking to make. What's important is this: opposition to net neutrality is often falsely characterised, as here, as a pure corporate marketdroid position. It's not - it's a position with a firm idealogical basis that you may happen to disagree with. The writer here borders on conspiracy mode here, "The open spectrum enemy, turned Net Neutrality enemy, became Google’s bedmate thanks to a business deal. Straight up. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." The available evidence doesn't support that conclusion. It might be true, but the writer should hold his emotions back for things where the facts support a conclusion. > But I cannot respect their decision to continue > to work on this platform that perpetuates our > imprisonment. It's not good for anyone to have too much power. I don't want to live in a world where carriers dominate, but neither where a Microsoft or Apple can dominate through control of the software stack. We've only just emerged from a situation of Windows being all-powerful - by some interpretations it still is. Android is a great countermove to Apple's play to dominate the next twenty years. Even if there are some tradeoffs it's good for our freedom. Think church and state.

RexRollman 15y ago

"Apple, for all the shit they get for being closed and evil, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers." What Apple did was to gain control for themselves; not the user. You need look no farther than Apple's opposition to the DMCA exception for smart phone jailbreaking to see what they think of user control.

felixfurtak 15y ago

can you really not purchase a pay as you go SIM card in the US? I've successfully bought these in many countries around the world (UK, Australia, New Zealand, pretty much anywhere in Europe, Thailand, Malaysia, etc.) When visiting a foreign country I usually buy a local SIM as a matter of course in order to avoid excessive roaming charges. Surely this is also possible in the USA?

apress 15y ago
You most certainly can buy a pay-as-you-go SIM in the US. See http://amzn.to/wKySJq http://amzn.to/wKySJq for example. The issue is complicated here however by the CDMA/GSM split, incompatible signal bands used by different carriers and not-truly-unlocked unlocked phones. Something like a million people in the US bought full-priced, unlocked iPhones to use on the lower cost T-Mobile netowkr but they don't get 3G bands. See http://blog.t-mobile.com/2011/09/26/about-the-iphone-a-letter-to-t-mobile-customers/ http://blog.t-mobile.com/2011/09/26/about-the-iphone-a-lette...
- felixfurtak 15y ago
  Sounds like the US cell phone carriers need a bit more regulation to me, together with a bit more sharing of frequency allocation. I really don't think this is the fault of Android. For example, in the UK I think pretty much all 3G carriers run within a common 2100MHz band.

stitchy 15y ago

I've always wondered why +MG Siegler disliked Android so much. After reading this article, I find his arguments to be less than compelling. He equates Android's failed dream of turning carriers into dumb data pipes, with the worst sort of insidious backstabbing. I'll admit that I was angry when Google sided with Verizon on axing Wireless Net Neutrality, but it wasn't going to happen any other way. Does he honestly think that Google was the deciding factor for the FCC? Does he think that the FCC was going to say no to Verizon, but since Google said that it was OK, they decided to skip on Wireless Net Neutrality? I'm not defending Google's decision, but I'm confident that Apple and Microsoft would have done the same thing if they were in the same position. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous. Also, what does Android being open source have anything to do with his argument? He sneers at Android calling itself open. Why? Sure, Google made a bad decision by supporting Verizon's take on Net Neutrality, but how does that make their source code less open for modification? It may mean that we can't treat carriers as dumb data pipes, but that fact makes Android less open?

technoslut 15y ago
>Does he honestly think that Google was the deciding factor for the FCC? Does he think that the FCC was going to say no to Verizon, but since Google said that it was OK, they decided to skip on Wireless Net Neutrality? Genachowski used Android as part of the reason for killing net neutrality. Genachowski: "We recognize that there have been meaningful recent moves toward openness, including the introduction of open operating systems like Android" http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/21/fcc.says.android.makes.lightened.rules.ok/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/21/fcc.says.andro...
- stitchy 15y ago
  Fair enough. I still think that the FCC would have sided with Verizon even if Google hadn't.

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

Apple, for all the shit they get for being "closed" and "evil", has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. /s/consumers/Apple/

etherael 15y ago

I must say, after a whirlwind career of bashing android for all the wrong reasons it seems like the cognitive dissonance has reached a point where even his bullshit excuses were not acceptable to his internal meter anymore and this just comes across as a "Why I'm Still Right About Android" post. The article even goes to great lengths to point out the responsible party for the situation with the mobile market in the US, and then fails to make the obvious leap and blame them instead choosing to blame google. The average american consumer is who to blame for the shitty situation the US market is in, and frankly that's a kind of poetic justice.

mcantelon 15y ago

Funny that Seigler neglects to mention what Apple did in the great net neutrality fight: nothing.

betterth 15y ago
You can't let someone down if you don't build them up. Google fought for years on net neutrality. And they caved completely on it to make Android popular. Apple didn't help but they didn't say they would. You're welcome to criticize Apple's inaction but that's very different than spending years promising to the world and fighting for a cause, only to do a total 180 and sell out what you claimed were your core values for the sake of market share.
- mcantelon 15y ago
  I judge companies more by what they do than what they say. Yes Google said things that let folks down: absolutely. But Apple is actually doing things that poison the technological ecosystem: its zealous patent-wielding and its changing people $99/year to develop software for their own hardware. So in the realm of technology, who to hate more seems an easy choice. Seigler's focus is pretty narrow. That being said, Google may end up being a greater historic villain given where it has positions itself in terms of access to our personal information and its legal obligation to divulge that to the state.

dgrant 15y ago

"But in the case of Android, 'open' has been hijacked and wildly contorted so as to mask the shady side of what’s really been going on." I hate when people bitch that Android isn't open. I guess it depends on your definition of "open" but whatever way you look at it, Android is the most open in my opinion because it's the only smartphone platform I know of where you can build your own modified ROM or kernel and replace the one on your phone with it. So maybe it's not perfectly open but it's the most open and I like that about it. Edit: as someone else here has mentioned, we have Android on hundreds of different phones, as well as Nook and GoogleTV devices. That's not something you see with BlackberryOS or iOS.

muyuu 15y ago

This is exactly why I buy all my phones SIM-free, unlocked. Carriers ought to be treated as dumb pipes. People who speak a lot on the phone would have to pay a big premium for this, but if you don't talk much on the phone, PAYG data plans in the UK have really cheap, sufficient broadband. I reckon here in the UK people do unlock their phones a lot and this keep the market very competitive. It's not just carriers that dislike competition. Makers also want to artificially "differentiate" their phones. (Translate: try their best to lock you up). This is all fair and part of the game. It's users who can make the market more competitive by favouring less crapified phones and doing it clearly, or doing their best to strip their phones of crap.

angryasian 15y ago

this is neither manufacturers fault, and the blame lies strictly in the consumer. Change comes from where the money is spent. Instead of upgrading to the latest hardware , getting stuck in 2 year contracts and giving carriers passive income, for all those minutes, data, and text you don't use. Consumers do need to go with phones that work for them and prepaid. Once carriers don't have this hold any more they will have to compete on features and price. This is the real path to change.

sathishmanohar 15y ago

Hmmmm its interesting, when iPhone 4 was slammed for signal death grip issues, MG argued, people use phones as computers nowadays, so voice/carriers are not important. Now, He hates android, because carriers are screwing android ecosystem. I sense a contradiction here.

laconian 15y ago

All emotion and no logic in that post. MG, enjoy your slide into irrelevancy. The torrent of negative rhetoric will only get you so far in journalism. Eh, who am I kidding? It's made Rupert Murdoch rich!

Som 15y ago

This article in not about Android, yes Google lost battle. Hope they win war.

signalsignal 15y ago

I don't seem to understand the author's intent in the realm of entrepreneurship. Is this an business related article or is it an editorial?