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Android has the appearance of an open platform that could accommodate alternate app stores, and so the court comes by with an order to allow alternate app store

Android has the appearance of an open platform that could accommodate alternate app stores, and so the court comes by with an order to allow alternate app stores. IOS never had the appearance of an open platform, so the court does not have the opportunity to do the same thing. What's the lesson for future leaders in tech companies?

ethbr1 2y ago
Absent first mover advantage with the iPhone, it's extremely difficult to see Apple ending up where it is, with a closed ecosystem.
- orourke 2y ago
  I’ve been working with React Native and Flutter and every time I have to interact directly with iOS/Android, I find that Android is much easier to work with and feels much better designed from a software/api/config perspective. Where Apple wins, however, imho is in hardware. The iPhone is a masterpiece and users can tell, even ~16 years in. I feel that when Apple finally chokes on hardware, or some player in the Android spaces releases something incredible, the game will change quickly.
  - fennecbutt 2y ago
    60hz lmao
  - can16358p 2y ago
    Interesting, I have the exact opposite: I'm also a React Native developer and it's _always_ Android that creates all sorts of problems when developing where iOS is just fine. And it's not me: many devs in my team (and all the teams that I've also worked in the past) think the same way. Though I'd agree with provisioning+codesigning can be a mess with iOS.
    - telgareith 2y ago
      I think that this boils down to people wanting a handheld computer that sometimes can make phone calls (android), or a phone that can do other stuff (apple). Just compare how android and iOS handle backgrounding.
      - acdha 2y ago
        I think that comparison would need some support. It is exceedingly rare that I hear any normal person mention doing something on Android that they couldn’t do on iOS, and the number of enthusiasts isn’t enough to drive a market that large.
      - Aerroon 2y ago
        Can I easily put a compiler on either platform? My understanding is that you can't, which makes both platforms kind of bad.
        viraptor 2y ago
        You can easily put compilers on Android. Put the whole system on it if you want https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tech.ula https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tech.ula
        Aerroon 2y ago
        Huh! I really was under the impression that you couldn't. It's been many years since I last checked though. Thank you very much for correcting me!
        can16358p 2y ago
        It depends on the intended use case: compiling source code isn't the intended use case of neither of those platforms. It doesn't make them "bad".
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - rickdeckard 2y ago
    As of today, there is no player in the Smartphone space who has even remotely the amount of secured income to come up with a similarly volume-scaled device, and there is little incentive for anyone to enter this space. A new entrant would be unable to secure the investment, because even if he would produce the exact same piece of hardware with the same quality, the carrier distribution channels, the brand-image and (walled garden) ecosystem of Apple will prevent users to even notice and adopt the product, and the press would jump onto it and rip it to pieces. So how would this normally work? --> You disrupt the market by doing something particularly good, while being average in other areas, succeed, then iterate. But this doesn't work in the Smartphone space as: 1.) iOS users are unlikely to leave their ecosystem because they can't take _anything_ with them 2.) the Google ecosystem leaves little room to disrupt and secure return-of-investment, and 3.) for Android you need to (re)build your own ecosystem to _match_ Google/Apple from the start. That's why it's not a competitive market anymore, and needs to be (wait for it:) regulated to restore an even competition field for Hardware, Applications and Services. But yeah...not a popular opinion here, I know...
    - rblatz 2y ago
      What would I take with me? My photos and email will move just fine. The last app I bought was a while ago, and it was an app to block Google AMP. I’m honestly not sure I use any other paid apps.
      - rickdeckard 2y ago
        So no Apps. Also no iTunes, Apple Music, Apple Messages, Apple Pay, Apple Fitness, any kind of native Mac integration (Safari Bookmark sharing, Shared Bluetooth devices, clipboard sharing, Continuity Camera, AirPlay,...)? No Apple Wireless charger, Apple Watch, Airpods, Apple-specific Accessories, Apple App-based carkeys or Apple CarPlay? That's quite rare.
        jamestown44 2y ago
        As an experiment I recently switched from iPhone (last 10 years?) to Android. It's been a little painful but: - nearly all apps support Android as well. The ones I used (navionics, banking apps, WhatsApp) you just log in on Android, no cost involved. - most Apple first party apps have a Google equivalent (google wallet, google keep notes, google messaging etc.) that is very similar - my AirPods work equally well with android
  - rTX5CMRXIfFG 2y ago
    It’s highly unlikely for Apple to choke on hardware given their cash. And as someone who’s done native for both, Android’s native SDK is a mess that even Android devs actually hate it. Meanwhile, iOS’ SDK is incredibly exhaustive and coherent. I don’t know what your basis is for “better designed software”, but being able to fork a desktop OS from 20 years prior, make it into a mobile OS, then to a tablet OS, then to a watch and a headset OS, and then have billions of users on it all and make a trillion-dollar company out of it⸺does that not sound like good engineering to you? All while the competition can hardly build anything that actually lasts.
    - friendzis 2y ago
      Apple is, apparently, good at marketing
    - talldayo 2y ago
      > being able to fork a desktop OS from 20 years prior, make it into a mobile OS, then to a tablet OS, then to a watch and a headset OS, and then have billions of users on it all and make a trillion-dollar company out of it⸺does that not sound like good engineering to you? Microsoft and Google basically did the same thing, and in neither case it's really a testament to how "good" their respective software is engineered. If the amount of driver cruft on MacOS is anything to go by, the engineering underneath iOS and WatchOS is probably a fucking nightmare in most respects.
    - fidotron 2y ago
      People round here hate this, but it's true. I used to be "the Android guy" at a big games publisher. In my time the billing component had to be rewritten three times solely because of Google changes. The Apple one was written once and left alone. We can't even discuss why those Google changes happened because doing so would get you shot, or worse. The tech direction that was going on at Apple was enormously better than other companies. It does feel like they've gone off the rails a bit, but things like Swift are underappreciated entirely because they're so successful, just with the wrong sort of developer.
      - 2y ago
  - dep_b 2y ago
    A Flutter developer only sees the shitty parts of iOS and Android anyway. I imagine as a dumb carrier for Flutter Android is nicer.
- eru 2y ago
  Only: the iPhone did not have first mover advantages. There were plenty of mobile phones out there before that could download and run apps, and Apple didn't even have their famous app store at the beginning of the iPhone, either.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Apps weren't the iPhone's first mover advantage. It was a quality data plan, browser, and hardware to support them.
    - eru 2y ago
      Apple doesn't even have any data plans, do they? I mean Google sometimes plays at being an ISP with projects like Loon or Google Fibre, but Apple has never done that?
      - unplug8224 2y ago
        The original iPhone was sold exclusively with an AT&T bundled plan in the US
        eru 2y ago
        OK. Was the data plan exclusive to the iPhone? (Or was it just the iPhone being exclusive to the data plan.)
        ethbr1 2y ago
        It was exclusive to the iPhone, in that the iPhone + ATT plan was the only unlimited data plan you could get at release on a non-carrier controlled general purpose smartphone. Which is to say, not one that locked away features and functionality (ringtones! games!) to create additional revenue channels for carriers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but per memory Jobs used iPhone exclusivity to crack carrier "Our pipes" models open.
- jychang 2y ago
  Apple isn't usually the first mover, though. It's not like the Mac was the first desktop computer, or the iPhone was the first smartphone, or the Apple Watch was the first smartwatch. Apple usually ends up with their market position whether or not they're the first mover.
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  this sounds close to: gosh, if they hadn't basically created the market for phones like this it's hard to see how they would be dominating the market for phones like this, given their behavior. because that's what first mover advantage is in this case. They created a market, in hardware - that's pretty difficult. regarding other posts saying Apple wasn't first mover in smartphones: Hey, I remember what those old things looked like. There was such a qualitative difference between the iPhone and its competitors at the time that it seemed like a whole new category of product.
  - moomin 2y ago
    I owned one. I barely used the keyboard. I barely used the internet connectivity. I even sat out the first iPhone. But I went into a store and tried one out and I knew I was getting the 3G when it came out. Phones may have had those features before, but they were strictly checkbox exercises. The iPhone was revolutionary.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      The 3G was really the game changer. I held on to my Treo until then.
- r00fus 2y ago
  There were smartphones before the iPhone. I'm not sure you can label Apple's position as "first mover advantage". They got where they did by leapfrogging the competition, dominating the supply chain, having incredible customer trust/service (with a sprinkle of Jobs' magic), thus reframing the entire category of smartphone. It's unclear if anyone has delivered all these together. Google has dominated all other players at the OS level.
- hotstickyballs 2y ago
  They also built both the hardware as well as the OS. Google has never been able to do that for a new product line.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
RandomThoughts3 2y ago
> What's the lesson for future leaders in tech companies? The US judicial system makes as much sense as their tax code?

ethbr1 2y ago

Absent first mover advantage with the iPhone, it's extremely difficult to see Apple ending up where it is, with a closed ecosystem.

orourke 2y ago
I’ve been working with React Native and Flutter and every time I have to interact directly with iOS/Android, I find that Android is much easier to work with and feels much better designed from a software/api/config perspective. Where Apple wins, however, imho is in hardware. The iPhone is a masterpiece and users can tell, even ~16 years in. I feel that when Apple finally chokes on hardware, or some player in the Android spaces releases something incredible, the game will change quickly.
- fennecbutt 2y ago
  60hz lmao
- can16358p 2y ago
  Interesting, I have the exact opposite: I'm also a React Native developer and it's _always_ Android that creates all sorts of problems when developing where iOS is just fine. And it's not me: many devs in my team (and all the teams that I've also worked in the past) think the same way. Though I'd agree with provisioning+codesigning can be a mess with iOS.
  - telgareith 2y ago
    I think that this boils down to people wanting a handheld computer that sometimes can make phone calls (android), or a phone that can do other stuff (apple). Just compare how android and iOS handle backgrounding.
    - acdha 2y ago
      I think that comparison would need some support. It is exceedingly rare that I hear any normal person mention doing something on Android that they couldn’t do on iOS, and the number of enthusiasts isn’t enough to drive a market that large.
    - Aerroon 2y ago
      Can I easily put a compiler on either platform? My understanding is that you can't, which makes both platforms kind of bad.
      - viraptor 2y ago
        You can easily put compilers on Android. Put the whole system on it if you want https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tech.ula https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tech.ula
        Aerroon 2y ago
        Huh! I really was under the impression that you couldn't. It's been many years since I last checked though. Thank you very much for correcting me!
      - can16358p 2y ago
        It depends on the intended use case: compiling source code isn't the intended use case of neither of those platforms. It doesn't make them "bad".
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- rickdeckard 2y ago
  As of today, there is no player in the Smartphone space who has even remotely the amount of secured income to come up with a similarly volume-scaled device, and there is little incentive for anyone to enter this space. A new entrant would be unable to secure the investment, because even if he would produce the exact same piece of hardware with the same quality, the carrier distribution channels, the brand-image and (walled garden) ecosystem of Apple will prevent users to even notice and adopt the product, and the press would jump onto it and rip it to pieces. So how would this normally work? --> You disrupt the market by doing something particularly good, while being average in other areas, succeed, then iterate. But this doesn't work in the Smartphone space as: 1.) iOS users are unlikely to leave their ecosystem because they can't take _anything_ with them 2.) the Google ecosystem leaves little room to disrupt and secure return-of-investment, and 3.) for Android you need to (re)build your own ecosystem to _match_ Google/Apple from the start. That's why it's not a competitive market anymore, and needs to be (wait for it:) regulated to restore an even competition field for Hardware, Applications and Services. But yeah...not a popular opinion here, I know...
  - rblatz 2y ago
    What would I take with me? My photos and email will move just fine. The last app I bought was a while ago, and it was an app to block Google AMP. I’m honestly not sure I use any other paid apps.
    - rickdeckard 2y ago
      So no Apps. Also no iTunes, Apple Music, Apple Messages, Apple Pay, Apple Fitness, any kind of native Mac integration (Safari Bookmark sharing, Shared Bluetooth devices, clipboard sharing, Continuity Camera, AirPlay,...)? No Apple Wireless charger, Apple Watch, Airpods, Apple-specific Accessories, Apple App-based carkeys or Apple CarPlay? That's quite rare.
      - jamestown44 2y ago
        As an experiment I recently switched from iPhone (last 10 years?) to Android. It's been a little painful but: - nearly all apps support Android as well. The ones I used (navionics, banking apps, WhatsApp) you just log in on Android, no cost involved. - most Apple first party apps have a Google equivalent (google wallet, google keep notes, google messaging etc.) that is very similar - my AirPods work equally well with android
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 2y ago
  It’s highly unlikely for Apple to choke on hardware given their cash. And as someone who’s done native for both, Android’s native SDK is a mess that even Android devs actually hate it. Meanwhile, iOS’ SDK is incredibly exhaustive and coherent. I don’t know what your basis is for “better designed software”, but being able to fork a desktop OS from 20 years prior, make it into a mobile OS, then to a tablet OS, then to a watch and a headset OS, and then have billions of users on it all and make a trillion-dollar company out of it⸺does that not sound like good engineering to you? All while the competition can hardly build anything that actually lasts.
  - friendzis 2y ago
    Apple is, apparently, good at marketing
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > being able to fork a desktop OS from 20 years prior, make it into a mobile OS, then to a tablet OS, then to a watch and a headset OS, and then have billions of users on it all and make a trillion-dollar company out of it⸺does that not sound like good engineering to you? Microsoft and Google basically did the same thing, and in neither case it's really a testament to how "good" their respective software is engineered. If the amount of driver cruft on MacOS is anything to go by, the engineering underneath iOS and WatchOS is probably a fucking nightmare in most respects.
  - fidotron 2y ago
    People round here hate this, but it's true. I used to be "the Android guy" at a big games publisher. In my time the billing component had to be rewritten three times solely because of Google changes. The Apple one was written once and left alone. We can't even discuss why those Google changes happened because doing so would get you shot, or worse. The tech direction that was going on at Apple was enormously better than other companies. It does feel like they've gone off the rails a bit, but things like Swift are underappreciated entirely because they're so successful, just with the wrong sort of developer.
    - 2y ago
- dep_b 2y ago
  A Flutter developer only sees the shitty parts of iOS and Android anyway. I imagine as a dumb carrier for Flutter Android is nicer.
eru 2y ago
Only: the iPhone did not have first mover advantages. There were plenty of mobile phones out there before that could download and run apps, and Apple didn't even have their famous app store at the beginning of the iPhone, either.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Apps weren't the iPhone's first mover advantage. It was a quality data plan, browser, and hardware to support them.
  - eru 2y ago
    Apple doesn't even have any data plans, do they? I mean Google sometimes plays at being an ISP with projects like Loon or Google Fibre, but Apple has never done that?
    - unplug8224 2y ago
      The original iPhone was sold exclusively with an AT&T bundled plan in the US
      - eru 2y ago
        OK. Was the data plan exclusive to the iPhone? (Or was it just the iPhone being exclusive to the data plan.)
        ethbr1 2y ago
        It was exclusive to the iPhone, in that the iPhone + ATT plan was the only unlimited data plan you could get at release on a non-carrier controlled general purpose smartphone. Which is to say, not one that locked away features and functionality (ringtones! games!) to create additional revenue channels for carriers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but per memory Jobs used iPhone exclusivity to crack carrier "Our pipes" models open.
jychang 2y ago
Apple isn't usually the first mover, though. It's not like the Mac was the first desktop computer, or the iPhone was the first smartphone, or the Apple Watch was the first smartwatch. Apple usually ends up with their market position whether or not they're the first mover.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
this sounds close to: gosh, if they hadn't basically created the market for phones like this it's hard to see how they would be dominating the market for phones like this, given their behavior. because that's what first mover advantage is in this case. They created a market, in hardware - that's pretty difficult. regarding other posts saying Apple wasn't first mover in smartphones: Hey, I remember what those old things looked like. There was such a qualitative difference between the iPhone and its competitors at the time that it seemed like a whole new category of product.
- moomin 2y ago
  I owned one. I barely used the keyboard. I barely used the internet connectivity. I even sat out the first iPhone. But I went into a store and tried one out and I knew I was getting the 3G when it came out. Phones may have had those features before, but they were strictly checkbox exercises. The iPhone was revolutionary.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    The 3G was really the game changer. I held on to my Treo until then.
r00fus 2y ago
There were smartphones before the iPhone. I'm not sure you can label Apple's position as "first mover advantage". They got where they did by leapfrogging the competition, dominating the supply chain, having incredible customer trust/service (with a sprinkle of Jobs' magic), thus reframing the entire category of smartphone. It's unclear if anyone has delivered all these together. Google has dominated all other players at the OS level.
hotstickyballs 2y ago
They also built both the hardware as well as the OS. Google has never been able to do that for a new product line.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

RandomThoughts3 2y ago

> What's the lesson for future leaders in tech companies? The US judicial system makes as much sense as their tax code?