10 ms·

It's Not Just Apple vs Android

67 points by andycroll 14y ago

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
Feels a little bit as if it should be filed under "yes but obvious". When you can find large groups of people who will tell you how much they love their Android phone and other large groups of people who tell you how much they love their iPhone, it should be obvious that this isn't a one size fits all situation. The one thing he doesn't say (possibly because it's also obvious) is that whatever side you're on, you should probably celebrate the situation as the many and varied levels of competitions that exist are driving innovation and we're all benefiting from that.
- andycroll 14y ago
  True, but there are equally large groups of people who 'hate' the 'opposition' blindly. The majority of the analysis seems to reflect this less enlightened viewpoint.
- widdershins 14y ago
  Obvious to some of us, perhaps, but fanboy wars continue to rage in tech news comments, so there are still many who aren't getting the message.
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    I used to be a bit like that around 15 years ago, then I learned to appreciate technology for what it is, regardless who does it.
belorn 14y ago
While its indeed not an zero-sum game where we have a clear good guy and a clear bad guy, there are some clear good outcomes. Lets call them mini-victories. The patent fight is one of them. Rounded corners, button less interface, menu areas outside the screen. All those are of practical purpose and should never have been allowed to be design patented. Same goes for basic iconic figures for applications, a table view interface, slide to unlock and any "natural" gestures. Then there are FRAND patents, where a clear model for deciding prices would help in making the market more predictable for new ventures. If we look at DRM, lockdown and DMCA, we also have a mini-victory that we need to fight over. Here we have a moral argument that the device owner should be in control and not Apple, Google or Samsung. Consumers need to get a win here. I could mention that some actors in all this are behaving worse than others, and if one had to pick one evil over the others then I know where I would lean. But that is just a secondary issue in all this. Primarily, consumers and new actors on the phone market need to win. Those are the true "good guys" in the fight.
wuest 14y ago
> Nokia (with Microsoft) make beautiful hardware and Windows Phone is lush, but for some reason is not getting the market love its quality deserves. Two points here: First, it pains me to see MS lumped with Nokia. I'll be clinging to my N9 for a very long time yet (and probably only move on when Ubuntu or Firefox phones are compelling). I miss Maemo/MeeGo. Second, the reason which MS doesn't get the love which its quality deserves (let's accept that it deserves a lot of love for the sake of this argument) is that Microsoft owns Skype. Telcos aren't huge fans of Skype, as a rule--it doesn't quite jive with their values. For Windows Phone, which integrates Skype by default, to really take off in the marketplace, we need to see the founding of a telco which doesn't do anything BUT data as their subscription model. With no voice fees to compete with Skype's inclusion on the phone, there will be no reason for telcos to marginalize the platform.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  >For Windows Phone, which integrates Skype by default, to really take off in the marketplace... If only this were true! I can't install Skype on my new Nokia 920 (maybe they'll give us the tomtom version eventually?). But Skype isn't really a good deal for anything but international calls....I'm guessing you are in Europe.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  Yes, but you can easily install Skype on the other platforms as well. Which any savvy customer will do anyway. Plus Skype is not the only game in town, there are other apps offering VoIP services.
- simonh 14y ago
  Was there any evidence at all that before they bought Skype MS had a snowball's chance in hell in the handset game?
  - wuest 14y ago
    I don't think so, personally. Skype just adds yet another factor to work against them.
- 14y ago
gonvaled 14y ago
Sure there is no good-guy and bad-guy here. But there is a better guy, and a worse guy, and that largely depends on what you value most. For me, the tactics of Apple using legal methods to try to squash competition are a huge red flag, because I happen to think that the consumer is going to pay for that. You can think that Apple defending its rights is going to benefit the consumer long-term by allowing Apple to provide innovation. But my viewpoint is that Apple can not compete anymore, and is resorting to legal tactics to fight competition. And that (if they had won) they would have a lock-in in a growing and very important market segment (high end smartphones). Luckily the "good guys" have largely won. It is just a matter of point of view.
- simonh 14y ago
  > For me, the tactics of Apple using legal methods to try to squash competition are a huge red flag, because I happen to think that the consumer is going to pay for that. Because nobody ever heard of a mobile phone company suing the competition to limit their ability to compete before right? I mean before Apple V Samsung it was unheard of. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003456/Nokia-finally-claims-multi-million-dollar-victory-Apple-breaching-46-patents.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003456/Nokia... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8460899.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8460899.stm http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-motorola-android-patent-lawsuit http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-m... I do agree with you that competition benefits the consumer. A vibrant Android ecosystem is in the interests of iPhone users like me. But the Apple lawsuit was never going to stop anyone else making modern smartphones. That's not what it was about, which is why despite a (currently) $0.5Bn settlement in their favour Apple hansn't gone on to sue anyone else. Apple were very clear about the reasons why they sued Samsung and their objectives, and their behaviour has been consistent with that.
  - gonvaled 14y ago
    Sure, but those are not design-related patents, or natural-gesture patents, or for that matter designs based on principles being part of human society for centuries ("slide to unlock" anyone?) "Nokia finally claims multi-million dollar victory over Apple for breaching up to 46 patents" "Camera maker Kodak has said it will sue Apple and Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the iPhone and Blackberry, over technology used in their handsets." I do not condone those actions. I just think that Apple is here the "worse-guy", opening a very smelly can of worms just because of animosity towards Android (http://9to5mac.com/2013/01/17/google-ceo-larry-page-on-steve-jobs-thermonuclear-war-how-well-is-that-working-for-them http://9to5mac.com/2013/01/17/google-ceo-larry-page-on-steve...) And yes, Microsoft is an even worse bad-guy (but largely irrelevant in the smartphone sector), that is why I have not (directly) spent a penny on their products in over 15 years.
pm_ingram 14y ago
While I can see the argument here (and yes, it's valid), how is it any different from them promoting either Android or Apple, where with just a few taps you can download Skype? Same scenario really - just slightly less convenient.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  What happens if a telco doesn't want Skype in the version of the Apple App Store or Google Play Store their customers see? It's simple and straightforward. They make a phone call and it's done. Maybe some grumbling if the other store doesn't have the same restriction. Now what happens if they want to call Microsoft about Skype in the Windows Phone store? I don't know, but I do know that the conversation wouldn't be straightforward or simple.
cooldeal 14y ago
From Gruber's article: >By profit share, on the other hand, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley, last year Apple took 69 percent of the handset industry’s profits; Samsung took 34. For just the last quarter, the numbers were 72 percent for Apple, 29 for Samsung. You will note that both the annual and quarterly numbers total more than 100 percent; that is because all other handset makers, combined, are losing money >That’s a statement of fact, in a Reuters news (not opinion) story, about a company with 70 percent (and judging by last quarter, growing) of the industry’s profits I would love to see such a narrative written about Microsoft's server platform. How much profit does Windows Server take in the server OS market? How much IIS take in the web server market? What about ASP.NET vs. Java, Ruby or whatever? Or Visual Studio vs. Eclipse and the rest in the IDE market? They're beating free(as in beer) tools and making a huge profits. Their revenue from the Server & Tools division is about 20 billion a year. If iOS is beating Android, why can't Windows Server be considered beating Linux by the same metric?
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  Because both Samsung and Apple are hardware companies making a physical product with a price from which they aim to make profit for their shareholders. Essentially they have the similar aims therefore using that aim as a measure seems reasonable. Linux and Windows and those involved in producing and marketing them on the other hand have different aims and different business models. The reason it's not right to say MS "wins" in the server market based on profit is that Linux isn't trying to compete on profit, it has other aims (which are as varied as those who develop and promote it). If he'd said Apple and Google it might have been a fair comparison, but while their execution is different (and while in some ways they complete quite indirectly and it's not a zero sum game, even without the other competitors) Samsung and Apple do have broadly similar goals.
- zachrose 14y ago
  The comparison is an interesting one. I guess the differences are that A) Apple and Samsung are both classic for-profit firms and B) they're shipping hardware.
- lovemenot 14y ago
fixedd 14y ago
Is he calling "Nexus" a Samsung brand?
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  In the same way that Droid is a Motorola brand. Officially, Droid is a Verizon brand, and Nexus is a Google brand, but other companies make the phones. In the case of Nexus, half of the models were made by Samsung.
antidaily 14y ago
Am I the only one who would love to own an iPhone and an Android and use both? I wish that was easier to pull off.
gulbrandr 14y ago
Please! Saying "Apple vs Android" is nonsense, you are comparing two things that are completly different! It's either "iOS vs Android" or "Apple vs Google".
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  While that's usually true, in this case it should be "Apple vs every company involved with Android (plus Nokia)". That's not as catchy, though.
  - gulbrandr 14y ago
    I understand that. It's just that I hear so many people making the confusion and it irritates me.
hbharadwaj 14y ago
I don't think that's necessarily the conversation telcos are having regarding Skype, Facetime, etc. Skype probably is hated because of bandwidth issues but that is not the reason for the hate. Look, Telco love for Android is around the fact that Android handsets are virtually under their control. They can do with it as they please - bloatware, ads, etc., Android also filled the lower end market with cheaper phones retaining the same functionality while Apple only caters to certain segments. Telcos don't love iOS. iOS is popular with customers and iOS sells. Hence, Telcos are left with no choice but to support Apple and show their love for Apple. Microsoft on the other hand is treated like a step child essentially because they want to go with the Apple way in not letting Telcos control their handsets while not having the customer love as of now. The only single reason why MS is still in the game is because Nokia stepped in to save their butts with beautiful hardware. Yes, it's a chicken and egg issue for MS as of now but I think if they hang in there, they will eventually start getting respectable number of apps and succeed as a platform. Not to mention, Nokia releasing cheap phones as well.
TheAnimus 14y ago
What he and the Gruber peice he references (did he seriously say Gruber isn't an Apple Cheerleader?!) fail to mention is trend. The trend is your friend, one of the first things anyone who's suffered a trader learns. It's not a case of how high or low something is, but where it is going to be relative to it's current place. Press and Markets get this (the former to a lesser extent true) but the fear is that Apple have had their Halcyon days. Originally Apple didn't need to worry about such issues as apps, they had the first phone device with a web browser that people really spoke about liking. Heck they didn't even have GPS dispite most feature phones in the UK having it with maps. A lot of analyists are asking, rightly so, why is Apple able to keep making such money, now the market is cramped. Want a better camera, buy the 920, want a better screen? Buy the HTC, want a larger phone, buy the S4, want a smaller phone buy the. Hell I don't even know, but you get where I'm going with this. The brand of the iPhone people fear to be falling. In the old days of Windows 3.1 domination, the software took months to years to write. Most of them now adays have little if anything more than weeks of platform specific code. The alternate marketplace is huge, due to the size of the global market place. Hell a friend was just telling me how he thinks he'll make a profit porting to the new blackberry, despite it having very low uptake here in London. These notions lend people to conclude that what is currently happening with Apple might not be sustainable. Gruber has been consistently wrong the last few months (in fact he is always as he predicts little but Apple growth) with regards to the decrease in share price and failure to develop new market share. tldr; It might not be Apple vs Google. But neither are expanding their userbase rapidily, without encrouging on the other.
- josh2600 14y ago
  It is the ecosystem that Apple sells, not the hardware. People buy Apple because they know the handset will be supported for a specific period of time, that every developer wants to sell on iOS and works hard to be there, and that they can walk into an Apple store and get support any day they want. For the hacker, most of these things are irrelevant, but for Joe-Schmo who wants to put minimal effort forward when managing their digital life, the iPhone is the pinnacle of abstraction. Apple makes money because they sell the promise of a long, comfortable relationship and they fulfill it time and again. Even with Samsung, will I be able to update my s4 beyond Jellybean? The answer is a firm "maybe", but I know 100% that my iPhone will get updates for years. That's why Apple makes money, because they sell peace of mind.

67 points by andycroll 14y ago

Feels a little bit as if it should be filed under "yes but obvious". When you can find large groups of people who will tell you how much they love their Android phone and other large groups of people who tell you how much they love their iPhone, it should be obvious that this isn't a one size fits all situation. The one thing he doesn't say (possibly because it's also obvious) is that whatever side you're on, you should probably celebrate the situation as the many and varied levels of competitions that exist are driving innovation and we're all benefiting from that.

andycroll 14y ago
True, but there are equally large groups of people who 'hate' the 'opposition' blindly. The majority of the analysis seems to reflect this less enlightened viewpoint.
widdershins 14y ago
Obvious to some of us, perhaps, but fanboy wars continue to rage in tech news comments, so there are still many who aren't getting the message.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  I used to be a bit like that around 15 years ago, then I learned to appreciate technology for what it is, regardless who does it.

belorn 14y ago

While its indeed not an zero-sum game where we have a clear good guy and a clear bad guy, there are some clear good outcomes. Lets call them mini-victories. The patent fight is one of them. Rounded corners, button less interface, menu areas outside the screen. All those are of practical purpose and should never have been allowed to be design patented. Same goes for basic iconic figures for applications, a table view interface, slide to unlock and any "natural" gestures. Then there are FRAND patents, where a clear model for deciding prices would help in making the market more predictable for new ventures. If we look at DRM, lockdown and DMCA, we also have a mini-victory that we need to fight over. Here we have a moral argument that the device owner should be in control and not Apple, Google or Samsung. Consumers need to get a win here. I could mention that some actors in all this are behaving worse than others, and if one had to pick one evil over the others then I know where I would lean. But that is just a secondary issue in all this. Primarily, consumers and new actors on the phone market need to win. Those are the true "good guys" in the fight.

wuest 14y ago

> Nokia (with Microsoft) make beautiful hardware and Windows Phone is lush, but for some reason is not getting the market love its quality deserves. Two points here: First, it pains me to see MS lumped with Nokia. I'll be clinging to my N9 for a very long time yet (and probably only move on when Ubuntu or Firefox phones are compelling). I miss Maemo/MeeGo. Second, the reason which MS doesn't get the love which its quality deserves (let's accept that it deserves a lot of love for the sake of this argument) is that Microsoft owns Skype. Telcos aren't huge fans of Skype, as a rule--it doesn't quite jive with their values. For Windows Phone, which integrates Skype by default, to really take off in the marketplace, we need to see the founding of a telco which doesn't do anything BUT data as their subscription model. With no voice fees to compete with Skype's inclusion on the phone, there will be no reason for telcos to marginalize the platform.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
>For Windows Phone, which integrates Skype by default, to really take off in the marketplace... If only this were true! I can't install Skype on my new Nokia 920 (maybe they'll give us the tomtom version eventually?). But Skype isn't really a good deal for anything but international calls....I'm guessing you are in Europe.
pjmlp 14y ago
Yes, but you can easily install Skype on the other platforms as well. Which any savvy customer will do anyway. Plus Skype is not the only game in town, there are other apps offering VoIP services.
simonh 14y ago
Was there any evidence at all that before they bought Skype MS had a snowball's chance in hell in the handset game?
- wuest 14y ago
  I don't think so, personally. Skype just adds yet another factor to work against them.
14y ago

gonvaled 14y ago

Sure there is no good-guy and bad-guy here. But there is a better guy, and a worse guy, and that largely depends on what you value most. For me, the tactics of Apple using legal methods to try to squash competition are a huge red flag, because I happen to think that the consumer is going to pay for that. You can think that Apple defending its rights is going to benefit the consumer long-term by allowing Apple to provide innovation. But my viewpoint is that Apple can not compete anymore, and is resorting to legal tactics to fight competition. And that (if they had won) they would have a lock-in in a growing and very important market segment (high end smartphones). Luckily the "good guys" have largely won. It is just a matter of point of view.

simonh 14y ago
> For me, the tactics of Apple using legal methods to try to squash competition are a huge red flag, because I happen to think that the consumer is going to pay for that. Because nobody ever heard of a mobile phone company suing the competition to limit their ability to compete before right? I mean before Apple V Samsung it was unheard of. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003456/Nokia-finally-claims-multi-million-dollar-victory-Apple-breaching-46-patents.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003456/Nokia... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8460899.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8460899.stm http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-motorola-android-patent-lawsuit http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-m... I do agree with you that competition benefits the consumer. A vibrant Android ecosystem is in the interests of iPhone users like me. But the Apple lawsuit was never going to stop anyone else making modern smartphones. That's not what it was about, which is why despite a (currently) $0.5Bn settlement in their favour Apple hansn't gone on to sue anyone else. Apple were very clear about the reasons why they sued Samsung and their objectives, and their behaviour has been consistent with that.
- gonvaled 14y ago
  Sure, but those are not design-related patents, or natural-gesture patents, or for that matter designs based on principles being part of human society for centuries ("slide to unlock" anyone?) "Nokia finally claims multi-million dollar victory over Apple for breaching up to 46 patents" "Camera maker Kodak has said it will sue Apple and Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the iPhone and Blackberry, over technology used in their handsets." I do not condone those actions. I just think that Apple is here the "worse-guy", opening a very smelly can of worms just because of animosity towards Android (http://9to5mac.com/2013/01/17/google-ceo-larry-page-on-steve-jobs-thermonuclear-war-how-well-is-that-working-for-them http://9to5mac.com/2013/01/17/google-ceo-larry-page-on-steve...) And yes, Microsoft is an even worse bad-guy (but largely irrelevant in the smartphone sector), that is why I have not (directly) spent a penny on their products in over 15 years.

pm_ingram 14y ago

While I can see the argument here (and yes, it's valid), how is it any different from them promoting either Android or Apple, where with just a few taps you can download Skype? Same scenario really - just slightly less convenient.

fpgeek 14y ago
What happens if a telco doesn't want Skype in the version of the Apple App Store or Google Play Store their customers see? It's simple and straightforward. They make a phone call and it's done. Maybe some grumbling if the other store doesn't have the same restriction. Now what happens if they want to call Microsoft about Skype in the Windows Phone store? I don't know, but I do know that the conversation wouldn't be straightforward or simple.

cooldeal 14y ago

From Gruber's article: >By profit share, on the other hand, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley, last year Apple took 69 percent of the handset industry’s profits; Samsung took 34. For just the last quarter, the numbers were 72 percent for Apple, 29 for Samsung. You will note that both the annual and quarterly numbers total more than 100 percent; that is because all other handset makers, combined, are losing money >That’s a statement of fact, in a Reuters news (not opinion) story, about a company with 70 percent (and judging by last quarter, growing) of the industry’s profits I would love to see such a narrative written about Microsoft's server platform. How much profit does Windows Server take in the server OS market? How much IIS take in the web server market? What about ASP.NET vs. Java, Ruby or whatever? Or Visual Studio vs. Eclipse and the rest in the IDE market? They're beating free(as in beer) tools and making a huge profits. Their revenue from the Server & Tools division is about 20 billion a year. If iOS is beating Android, why can't Windows Server be considered beating Linux by the same metric?

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
Because both Samsung and Apple are hardware companies making a physical product with a price from which they aim to make profit for their shareholders. Essentially they have the similar aims therefore using that aim as a measure seems reasonable. Linux and Windows and those involved in producing and marketing them on the other hand have different aims and different business models. The reason it's not right to say MS "wins" in the server market based on profit is that Linux isn't trying to compete on profit, it has other aims (which are as varied as those who develop and promote it). If he'd said Apple and Google it might have been a fair comparison, but while their execution is different (and while in some ways they complete quite indirectly and it's not a zero sum game, even without the other competitors) Samsung and Apple do have broadly similar goals.
zachrose 14y ago
The comparison is an interesting one. I guess the differences are that A) Apple and Samsung are both classic for-profit firms and B) they're shipping hardware.
lovemenot 14y ago

fixedd 14y ago

Is he calling "Nexus" a Samsung brand?

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
In the same way that Droid is a Motorola brand. Officially, Droid is a Verizon brand, and Nexus is a Google brand, but other companies make the phones. In the case of Nexus, half of the models were made by Samsung.

antidaily 14y ago

Am I the only one who would love to own an iPhone and an Android and use both? I wish that was easier to pull off.

gulbrandr 14y ago

Please! Saying "Apple vs Android" is nonsense, you are comparing two things that are completly different! It's either "iOS vs Android" or "Apple vs Google".

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
While that's usually true, in this case it should be "Apple vs every company involved with Android (plus Nokia)". That's not as catchy, though.
- gulbrandr 14y ago
  I understand that. It's just that I hear so many people making the confusion and it irritates me.

hbharadwaj 14y ago

I don't think that's necessarily the conversation telcos are having regarding Skype, Facetime, etc. Skype probably is hated because of bandwidth issues but that is not the reason for the hate. Look, Telco love for Android is around the fact that Android handsets are virtually under their control. They can do with it as they please - bloatware, ads, etc., Android also filled the lower end market with cheaper phones retaining the same functionality while Apple only caters to certain segments. Telcos don't love iOS. iOS is popular with customers and iOS sells. Hence, Telcos are left with no choice but to support Apple and show their love for Apple. Microsoft on the other hand is treated like a step child essentially because they want to go with the Apple way in not letting Telcos control their handsets while not having the customer love as of now. The only single reason why MS is still in the game is because Nokia stepped in to save their butts with beautiful hardware. Yes, it's a chicken and egg issue for MS as of now but I think if they hang in there, they will eventually start getting respectable number of apps and succeed as a platform. Not to mention, Nokia releasing cheap phones as well.

TheAnimus 14y ago

What he and the Gruber peice he references (did he seriously say Gruber isn't an Apple Cheerleader?!) fail to mention is trend. The trend is your friend, one of the first things anyone who's suffered a trader learns. It's not a case of how high or low something is, but where it is going to be relative to it's current place. Press and Markets get this (the former to a lesser extent true) but the fear is that Apple have had their Halcyon days. Originally Apple didn't need to worry about such issues as apps, they had the first phone device with a web browser that people really spoke about liking. Heck they didn't even have GPS dispite most feature phones in the UK having it with maps. A lot of analyists are asking, rightly so, why is Apple able to keep making such money, now the market is cramped. Want a better camera, buy the 920, want a better screen? Buy the HTC, want a larger phone, buy the S4, want a smaller phone buy the. Hell I don't even know, but you get where I'm going with this. The brand of the iPhone people fear to be falling. In the old days of Windows 3.1 domination, the software took months to years to write. Most of them now adays have little if anything more than weeks of platform specific code. The alternate marketplace is huge, due to the size of the global market place. Hell a friend was just telling me how he thinks he'll make a profit porting to the new blackberry, despite it having very low uptake here in London. These notions lend people to conclude that what is currently happening with Apple might not be sustainable. Gruber has been consistently wrong the last few months (in fact he is always as he predicts little but Apple growth) with regards to the decrease in share price and failure to develop new market share. tldr; It might not be Apple vs Google. But neither are expanding their userbase rapidily, without encrouging on the other.

josh2600 14y ago
It is the ecosystem that Apple sells, not the hardware. People buy Apple because they know the handset will be supported for a specific period of time, that every developer wants to sell on iOS and works hard to be there, and that they can walk into an Apple store and get support any day they want. For the hacker, most of these things are irrelevant, but for Joe-Schmo who wants to put minimal effort forward when managing their digital life, the iPhone is the pinnacle of abstraction. Apple makes money because they sell the promise of a long, comfortable relationship and they fulfill it time and again. Even with Samsung, will I be able to update my s4 beyond Jellybean? The answer is a firm "maybe", but I know 100% that my iPhone will get updates for years. That's why Apple makes money, because they sell peace of mind.