9 ms·

Google Blindness

90 points by mh_ 13y ago

Fuzzwah 13y ago
So you've got to choose one and he's chosen apple. The previous article chose google. I've chosen google but what would make an interesting article for me is one which explained whether iOS or android was better if / when I want to cut myself off from either apple or google's online services and replace them with self hosted email / calendar / etc.
- veemjeem 13y ago
  I think one of the core differences according to his article is that the "data" for google calendar/contacts/etc are only stored on the cloud. You don't have physical copies of these on your desktop. Apple's products have historically been on the desktop so your calendar & contacts would mostly reside on your home computer and the only thing you would lack is the cloud syncing if apple were to go kaput.
  - bdcravens 13y ago
    Yes, the data is on your computer. I use Google for calendar, email, and contacts. Guess what? That data is also on my desktop if cloud syncing goes kaput. If you only use your phone and your cloud service of choice (whether Google or iCloud), then yes, you're in a world of hurt, but the scenario you described is pretty common amongst Google users as well.
- madoublet 13y ago
  I would argue that you do not have to choose one. In fact, it is probably better if you don't.
  - Fuzzwah 13y ago
    My 1st line was a poorly worded TL;DR of the article. I agree with your point.
  - greedo 13y ago
    And that's the point Marco makes; that relying solely on one vendor (Apple/Google/Facebook/Twitter/MS) is foolish.
- sveme 13y ago
  That's not what the article says. Rather, keep away from ecosystems at all. If a company tries to bind you to its ecosystem, stay away, as you are bound to be the one suffering from it in the long run. It's a shame that the internet seems to be on day four of groundhog day, seeing the same story played out over and over. 1. a dominating ecosystem or a couple of ecosystems exist (e.g., AOL in the early days) 2. increased lock-in makes people yearn for alternatives 3. open alternatives spring up, gain momentum and overcome the dominating ecosystem 4. the previous alternative is now successful and starts to diversify its offerings 5. with increasing adoption and an increased market share, the company tries to connect services, for the convenience of its users (that's what they say) or for increased lock-in (that's what they don't say) 6. over time, now this former upstart becomes the dominant ecosystem, increasingly removing the openness from its services and connecting its offerings so that you don't have to leave them ever (we are back at 1.) 7. users start to feel the pain of being locked-in and yearn for open alternatives... The only way to break this cycle is by actively pursuing alternatives, by diversifying its providers and by making a conscious decision to forgo immediate convenience gains by using the same provider for different services.
- npsimons 13y ago
  An answer in one link: http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/
DannoHung 13y ago
Considering the shitfits people were going into over Reader being eliminated, you'd think people would be a little more cautious about giving Google the keys to the kingdom on things as crucial as calendaring, contacts, and mail. Which is why the original article was a pretty good summation for me of why I'm not going to go Android any time soon, personally.
- Kylekramer 13y ago
  I think the Reader shutdown is actually an example of why I am fine going into the Google ecosystem. Marco talks a lot about lockdown, but I haven't experienced it. Reader's shutdown was pretty abrupt, but I am happily using The Old Reader (minus the shutdown scare and less than stellar uptime) the same way I used Google Reader. Sure, I'd prefer Reader to still be around, but overall the transition was easy and pain free. I trust if the same thing were to happen to Gmail, Calendar, or Contacts I would have the same experience. And meanwhile, being in the Google ecosystem while it still runs makes my day to day life much better. The only product that would concern me is Voice, and even then I believe a suitable replacement would pop up and Google would provide a relatively easy transition.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  None of the services you listed at Google are going to cause me problems to pull my data out if I need to move somewhere else on short notice.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jljljl 13y ago
  It was so, so easy to move on from Reader, which is why I think the shutdown was not such a big deal. Google gave months of advance warning, and made it easy to export your feeds and data in a cross platform, open format. The fact that their API was open for other clients to use meant there was already an (admittedly limited) ecosystem of feed-reader UI apps that could pick up where they left off, such as Feedly and TheOldReader. You lost a good product when Reader shut down, but you didn't lose the kingdom by any means
anxious 13y ago
Seems the author is suffering from fanboyism induced blindness. The main points made about Android that make it great have little to do with Google: the ability to set default apps, intent sharing between apps, notifications, customised launchers, etc. Also in the referenced post the Android user describes rolling his own solutions with Bittorrent Sync: http://paulstamatiou.com/android-is-better http://paulstamatiou.com/android-is-better Somehow OP glossed all over that and shifted the discussion to a troll baiting exercise. The truth is that whether you're wed to Google's services or to Apple's you're make certain tradeoffs, but one key difference remains is that you can be a Google user on the iPhone which puts them ahead in my opinion. Also I don't buy the disingenuous argument that since Apple is less adequate at services they are somehow better at privacy - more data makes better apps.
bdcravens 13y ago
Keep in mind that many iOS users are as tied to the Google ecosystem. My email, calendar, and contacts are all Google-synced. Most decent calendar apps tend to use Google as well; ditto for mail apps like Mailbox. Many of the Google apps (like Maps) make it too easy to login, which the features it adds.
- ajross 13y ago
  Exactly. I think there's a good article to be written about cloud-lock-in and its effect on mobile OS choice. But this isn't it. This is just Marco "whining respectfully" about why his opinion is different because he objects "to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data". Paul's original article, frankly, was just clear advocacy of the form "I tried this and liked it and you should too!", and I can't see how Marco adds anything that wasn't clear from the original. Really, yawn. I'm personally very much in the Android camp (though not a big cloud user -- I like the photo backups and bookmark synching, but don't use gmail or Google Now much at all), and found Paul's "Android is better" to be a refreshing confirmation that as the market matures and stabilizes iOS users are finally looking at alternatives. But clearly not all of them agree; I don't think I needed to read Marco's blog post to know that.
- jonknee 13y ago
  Apple's policy of only supporting iOS definitely makes Google's popularity on iOS interesting. If the APIs open up a bit more it will be even more interesting--I would love to be able and never see Safari again.
product50 13y ago
Again these are his personal views as well (similar to Paul's). I think if you take a cross section of all the smartphone users though, there will be a lot many who use Google's services vs. Apple's. So not sure what Marco would suggest to those - should they give Android a try based on Paul's article then? Though I am an Android user, I think this debate is broader than whether you use Google services or not.
hawleyal 13y ago
Same coin, different side.
casca 13y ago
We're currently in the stage of the Internet where we can choose our feudal masters[1]. Want Google? Fine. Prefer Apple. No problem. Microsoft? Why not. For me, the issue is that people are becoming more entrenched as time progresses. The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay $8/year for your own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems you choose today. Yet if the technological elite (as represented by HN) is unwilling to do this, what chance do the rest have? [2] [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537383
- bdcravens 13y ago
  Indeed. If Google and Dropbox stopped working, a ton of apps on my phone would be broken or significantly impaired.
- josh2600 13y ago
  Your comment could have a few names changed and apply equally well to the Lycos and Yahoo web portals of the early Internet. The Tech elite have the same chance as the rest of us. We're all humans, vulnerable to loneliness, envy and every other mortal sin. The pain of switching is not technical, but social and political. It is a deeply political and social decision to disconnect from our social fabric and not one that even the most ostracized members of society make in haste. I just think you're ignoring the real costs in favor of the monetary concerns.
  - casca 13y ago
    Very much agreed. My point is more that the cost to prepare to switch is very low. We have a high degree of certainty that email will be used for the foreseeable future so why not make the addressing movable? How can we make the preparation for flexibility become a pure technical problem and not a social one?
    - josh2600 13y ago
      "He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." — Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
seiji 13y ago
A lot of people are Children of The Church of Google. They're happy with a 100% data tithing to Google. That's Google's entire business: get data from users then make money from it for the furtherment of Google itself, not the users. A lot of people are Children of The Church of Apple. They're happy with letting Apple carry buckets of data across devices, but the buckets of data remain in the person's control. That's Apple's entire business model: help people do what they need to do and don't encroach into lives needlessly.
- jfb 13y ago
  I don't like Google, and don't use their services, but it's in no way that straightforward. Pretty much the entirety of the marginal utility of Google's technology relies on the data their users share with them. It's a symbiotic relationship, not a purely parasitic one.
  - seiji 13y ago
    You give them data, they get billions of dollars. But hey, you can get your voicemails transcribed for free from their neglected voip service and, like, email for free. email for free with circles. So, it's a wash?
- Oletros 13y ago
  I didn't knew that Apple has closed iAds
antitrust 13y ago
> I object to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data, I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one company in one account... He makes a good point. Absolute power gets abused absolutely. Unless the person to whom the power is handed is some kind of Zen master, it's likely they'll use that power for personal agenda. The groups they like will become elites. The ones they don't will get lined up against walls and shot. That's just how it is. Even though Google says, "Don't be evil," they aren't Zen masters.
- CodeCube 13y ago
  > "... they aren't Zen masters" Well, not all of them, at least :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fcqrNO7so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fcqrNO7so
  - NotOscarWilde 13y ago
    He doesn't sound like a Zen master to me either. I know it's probably hard to distinguish between Buddhist sects but "success and happiness" (the subtitle of the book that is promoted in the video) are not terms Zen Buddhism deals with usually. Normal Buddhism does deal with these extensively, Four Noble Truths are all about suffering. But Zen Buddhism tends to dismiss these concepts as unimportant. They may be true, they may not be true, but while you're looking for happiness and success, Zen offers nothing. Mindfulness meditation is rather cool, as is general Buddhism. I'm just trying to distinguish a bit here.
eltondegeneres 13y ago
Calling someone "blind" for being obtuse or oblivious doesn't really seem like the best word choice.
varelse 13y ago
GMail and Google Maps were my go to apps on Android for years (since 2009 in fact). They both suck now. Combine that with the brick-like interactivity of my less than 2 year-old Galaxy Nexus and I'm abandoning Android for iOS as soon as my contract expires despite the fact I actually prefer a lot of Android's look and feel. To be fair, my Nexus 7 hasn't quite given up the ghost yet, but now that its successor has been released, I'm counting the days until it too becomes as responsive as Karen Ann Quinlan. And that's a shame because Android's interface has really come a long way in that time. Paul Stamatiou's article showcases some really cool design advances that have happened since Android 4.0. For me it all comes down to Google seeming to not care one bit about anything except the latest and greatest devices. Yes I know that Android 4.3 is supposed to address that - good luck shipping that one out to all the major carriers. In closing, the same brickification that hit my Galaxy Nexus this year happened to my original droid in 2011 - fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...
- firekesti 13y ago
  You can put the factory image for 4.3 on your own Galaxy Nexus – I was having the same problems, running LagFix every night, and 4.3 cleared 100% of that away. The same problem (same cause, same fix) exists on the Nexus 7. Good luck!
- smokinjoe 13y ago
  Apple has the same issues where they slowly taper off the iOS versions that an aging iPhone can run. What about the updated GMail and GMaps don't you like? The user experience has been beefed up significantly - going between user accounts and organizing mail in GMail has never been easier. The Google Maps interface is really pleasant to use and doesn't clutter up the screen when all you want to do is view the area. Obviously those are two quick personal observations, but I'm very curious as to what recent features may have introduced friction to long-time users.
- raphaelsaunier 13y ago
  Could you elaborate on the 'brickification' of your Galaxy Nexus? I've owned a Galaxy Nexus pretty much since it came out and, I have to say, it is as good as the day it came out. Also – and I don't mean to sound like a fanboy – I personally think that Google Maps and Gmail even better than they were two years ago. At which point did they start to suck in your opinion?
acqq 13y ago
One point I'd like to see discussed is written by Bruce Schneier, it made me look at the subject a bit differently than before: If the National Security Agency required us to notify it whenever we made a new friend, the nation would rebel. Yet we notify Facebook. If the Federal Bureau of Investigation demanded copies of all our conversations and correspondence, it would be laughed at. Yet we provide copies of our e-mail to Google, Microsoft or whoever our mail host is; we provide copies of our text messages to Verizon, AT&T and Sprint; and we provide copies of other conversations to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever other site is hosting them. The primary business model of the Internet is built on mass surveillance http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/the_publicpriva_1.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/the_publicpriv... Google's primary business is surveillance of their users. Selling the results to their customers, advertisers.
- jmduke 13y ago
  I get clear utility out of letting Facebook know who my friends are. I see no clear utility out of letting the NSA know who my friends are.
  - acqq 13y ago
    The Government would say: NSA protects you from the terrorists, there's your clear utility. But there are enough other threads to discuss NSA. I'm interested in Google here. What are our limits feeding it? Are we really aware of what we are doing, in the name of convenience?
  - seiji 13y ago
    You get utility in exchange for giving them utility^2. Is it worth giving someone $100 if they turn around and turn it into $10,000 when you get nothing in return? (Note: we're not designed to think on such expansive macro-connected scales, so nobody (except weirdos) cares to stop enabling such broken behaviors.)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- 13y ago
jmduke 13y ago
So I think there are two points that Paul makes: hardware and services. On the hardware front: I don't really buy the notion that Android hardware is up to par with Apple. I realize this is an inherently subjective argument: I've played with my friends' Android phones and I just don't like the way they look or feel compared to the iPhone. On the services front: I think the argument that "Google is an advertising company and that makes them an inherently worse ecosystem" is weak, but I absolutely agree that we're past the point of "this is the best solution for everyone." Personally -- I don't use any Apple services besides, well, the App Store, despite relying on them 100% for the hardware side (iPad + MBA + iPhone). And I don't use Google to the extent Paul does: I use GMail, Search, and Chrome. This has the advantage of portability: I don't have to tie myself to a given ecosystem because I'm stuck there. I tie myself to whatever makes my life the easiest.
- greedo 13y ago
  It'd be interesting to conduct a blind test, where all the logos/branding were removed from the devices.
  - 67726e 13y ago
    I don't know about you, but the device itself is branding. If I pick up an iPhone, I know pretty much immediately that I'm holding an iPhone based on the layout of the buttons, especially the "God" button. Similarly I would never mistake my Nexus 4 for an iPhone 5.
  - jjindev 13y ago
    It would be interesting to live in a world where you couldn't show off your logo at ... I was about to say "Starbucks" but I should say ... the coffee shop. This isn't to indict any particular brand, but when a brand is strong enough consumers of that brand use it to self-brand themselves. They wear the halo effect. And as I read Paul's essay I get some undercurrent that he's "hey, it's ok" to self-brand differently.
- jinzo 13y ago
  > On the hardware front: I don't really buy the notion that Android hardware is up to par with Apple. I realize this is an inherently subjective argument: I've played with my friends' Android phones and I just don't like the way they look or feel compared to the iPhone. It's not totally related to this discussion, and I'm not picking on you - but I had to mention this: I have a friend that bought himself a MacBook Pro (for around 2200€) and then went on to observe how this laptop is far better than any previous he owned, and how it's better than what his colleagues ad friends own. I agreed with him, and then told him that most of them paid way less than 1000€ for their laptop, and probably noone paid even close to what he paid (alas. there are not a lot of MacBooks around here), ofcourse a MacBook is way better than a 600€ HP laptop. People forget that, most of the Android devices (analog to laptops) are actually cheaper than a iPhone.
donniezazen 13y ago
The better question the Android community should be asking itself is why it hasn't attracted or developed great writers and evangelists as well as Apple has. Android has much more global impact than iPhone will ever have [1]. A huge chunk of people in developing countries earn less-per-month than the cost of an iPhone. So who cares if some yeppie evangelist is not using it. People are going to be coming online for the first time. There’s this vibrant community of young app developers growing in Kenya and Nigeria. - Jimmy Wales. Macro goes on at length on privacy without realizing that there is no way to tell if iPhone is not sending each bit of data back to government or any other organization for that matter. Open Source nature of Android, AOSP, makes it the most viable option in today's surveillance state. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-are-disrupting-africa-much-faster-than-you-think-says-wikipedias-jimmy-wales/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-are-...
- patrix99 13y ago
  Think Marco was talking about privacy in terms of using your data to sell to advertisers. In today's surveillance state, if it exists to the extent we think it does, whatever you do that remains constant so can't be used in comparison.
bluthru 13y ago
We're still doing this in 2013?
yevy 13y ago
I would wager that the reason Marco (and many other mobile entrepreneurs) gravitate to iOS boils down to one line in his post that he doesn't feel the need to defend: "We can make a living developing for it." Android has (roughly) 4X market share but just 1/3 of the revenue compared to iOS. When the per user revenue gap closes, Marco's preference may change.
- krazyfrog 13y ago
  He already has a version of Instapaper for Android, so he clearly has no problem making money off the platform, whatever little it may be in comparison to iOS.
  - workbench 13y ago
    He's also gone into great detail on his blog about how unsuccessful that has been and if he worked on the port himself (outside company volunteered to work on it) he wouldn't have been able to go fulltime like iOS allowed.
danso 13y ago
I don't get the point or impetus for the OP. Is it supposed to be a warning that one should never put all of their information-eggs in one basket? Or that Google is going to be the worser basket of the two? The latter question of course is just a fanboy debate, and the former question elicits a "no-duh". But to boil it down to just Google vs. Apple misses the bigger picture: to spread our eggs across different baskets raises new issues of security and convenience, which are always going to be tradeoffs. For example, if you're paranoid that either Apple or Google is going to shut off access to your contacts and calendar, is the solution to spread your information across both? If so, how do you keep the two in sync (let's assume that at some point in the future, there was no first party support of syncing services)? Or let's say you want to use another calendar/contacts app completely. Then you rely on a third-party service, which raises the issue of 1. How long will that service stay in business? 2. Can you trust it with your data? 3. Do you have to learn another interface? With the adoption of either iOS/Android, I think customers have shown that they do not want to live a splintered digital life. They want a future posited by sci-fi shows, where "things just work." It's not Apple vs Google, it's convenience vs. personal responsibility/maintenance.
johnward 13y ago
Can someone explain to me why Marco Arment's opinion is so important? I mean it even seems like he doesn't understand why. What makes him so popular?
- bane 13y ago
  He consistently writes positively about and supports Apple and consistently poo poos Android. It doesn't hurt that many sites that favor Android in such a consistent and highly biased way are instakilled when submitted here. He's not quite the shill that Gruber is, but it all adds up that he's popular on HN.
  - clarky07 13y ago
    Speaking of instakilled, this went from #1 to #41 in a matter of minutes.
    - npsimons 13y ago
      Get back to me when you can explain why the "Android is Better" link was on the page for practically a split second the other day, despite people commenting on it after it disappeared off the front page. There's far too much fanboyism going on here, on both sides.
daurnimator 13y ago
Why has it been painted as a dichotomy of Apple vs Google? In my experience, you want apple software/service, you have to go apple hardware; and essentially vice-versa. (Correct me if I'm wrong!) But if you go with Android (or other OSes) you can choose whatever "cloud" services you want. Just cause Paul used Google with his android phone doesn't mean you have to.
runjake 13y ago
Marco's article is so poorly-written, so poorly thought-out, I don't know where to begin. It's really more an article about hating Google as a whole. Google blindness? Or blind hatred for Apple's competitors? Some gems, though: I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one company in one account that sometimes gets disabled permanently with no warning, no recourse, and no support. And Apple's services aren't less proprietary? Apple doesn't tie everything to one Apple ID? Google has pretty poor support, but I've never heard of anyone having their account (unreasonably) permanently disabled. The Google search he links to is some useless Google search on "google account locked". Here's the equivalent Apple ID search: https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+account+locked https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+account+locked 26.7 million results. Here's another: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+id+disabled https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+i... Over 29 million results. I could go on a side-discussion about the number of Google users vs Apple users and then compare percentages and Google results and point out that there seem to be more issues with Apple IDs than Google IDs per capita, but why bother? What does it mean? People using both ecosystems get their accounts locked up for some reason or another. If Apple somehow irrevocably locks out my Apple ID, which I’ve never heard of happening, it would be inconvenient. My contacts and calendar would temporarily stop syncing during the 20 minutes it would take to create a new account and point my devices to it. The biggest problem would be losing my app and media purchases, although I wouldn’t lose any local copies of anything* I've never heard of someone having their Google account irrevocably locked out, either. and there’s a phone number I can call to convince a human to give me a transfer or credit. Yeah, there's a number you can call for the Play Store for this purpose as well. I wish it were at the bottom of every page, but it's buried underneath a Help menu. That said, Apple's support is truly industry-leading and far better than what Google's got going. It's still not as bad or hopeless as Marco attempts to portray, though. It’s important to maintain diversity of services. And you can do this with Android. You don't need to use any Google services. Sure it'll badger you at first, but no more than an Apple iOS device will. In fact, I'd say that Android is better at maintaining diversity of services. You can install an account for a wide variety of providers in the Settings app, whereas Apple forces you to stick with whatever they choose for you (Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, etc). Occasionally, they might remove a provider for you. It’s foolish for people on either side to ignore the other or the middle, because despite what it sometimes looks like to geeks like us, we’re not everyone. Not even close. Even within our world, we can’t agree on much. Is this self-deprecation on Marco's part? like Paul says he does This snippet appears repeatedly in Marco's article and strikes me as a passive-aggressive snub. The leading Apple pundits (Gruber, Marco, Dalrymple) are getting more and more hateful towards Apple's competitors and I think this betrays an underlying belief that Apple's glory days are (sadly) waning. It screams desperation. Maybe this Ellison guy is right. I'm not a particularly big fan of Google or Apple or Microsoft, and I despise Facebook. But I still use all of their tech daily, but I'm sure as hell not going to cheer lead for any of them. Edit: Fixed broken copy-pasted links, thanks anonymoushn.
beat 13y ago
What about the personal cost of platform switching? I went to the iPhone when version 2 hit the market and it was clearly going to survive as a product. I hate switching technologies, with all the cost and frustration it involves. I've been able to have a single, constantly evolving configuration through four different phones now (five soon, once I can jump from my 4S to a 5S). It's always backed up. It's survived the physical destruction of a phone. It does everything I require of it, most of that very well. So to get a user like me to switch platforms - it's a huge personal expense, not just of money, but of time and intellectual bandwidth. I don't need a device that's just arguably better, or a little better... I'd need a game-changer of a device to switch, something that does basically everything I do on my iPhone more efficiently, faster, better, cheaper. I don't see that. I'll probably stay on iPhone unless Apple really screws up.
gcb0 13y ago
I usually disagree with marco posts here and i'm 99% sure he get's paid by apple :) but this point is pertinent and i'm looking for alternatives for gmail and maps and voice and failing.
- caryhartline 13y ago
  How do we know you're not being paid by Google or Microsoft? I guess they might cut you off for that comment.
thrownaway2424 13y ago
It doesn't seem very hard to believe that someone uses an iPhone but doesn't use iTunes to manage music. iTunes is next to useless if your music doesn't fit on your device. A service (such as Google Play Music All Access [worst product name ever]) makes more sense if you're always connected.
- nimh 13y ago
  Apple has had iTunes Match since 2011 for music that doesn't fit on your device.
  - thrownaway2424 13y ago
    Sure, for a fee. Google Music is free for the first bazillion bytes (20k songs or something).
    - workbench 13y ago
      How long till it has adverts seen as every listen will cost google something. I'd rather pay
xradionut 13y ago
Marco so conveniently forgot the whole debacle of Apple's developer resources and sites being down for almost two weeks.
- nimh 13y ago
  Which is completely irrelevant in a discussion about the iPhone from a user's perspective.
  - xradionut 13y ago
    The original poster is a developer. A developer for Apple platforms. Chances are this affected him and if not, it did affected his peers. Yet he never mentions the massively embarrassing outage...
    - workbench 13y ago
      He does in his podcast and on Twitter
Oletros 13y ago
Marco Arment saying that other people has a "narrow tech-world view" is highly ironic
oscargrouch 13y ago
after reading both perspectives you learn that: * you are locked in, no matter if you prefer android or ios * choose you poison? come on, it took years and a lot of effort to take us all out of the nightmare of the windows ecosystem lock in.. so we can fall out in the same trap all over again? and while this is a natural behavior of apple that we should be all expecting, i expected more from google.. because nowadays google is looking like a schizophrenic, working for the web and open ecosystems, creating a lot of awesome opensource projects with one hand, and creating more and more closed ecosystem that try to lock people and developers in.. google looks like dr jekyll and mr hyde.. i hope the open google, the google with the hacker culture, that the "Dr Jekyll" google wins in the end.. but nowadays it looks that google is more in a love affair with its mr hyde side.. i hope it gets cured preety soon and come back to its hacker spirit roots.. with no traps in their products.. apple will just loose more and more market share, because its acting like if it was the 90´s.. and we see now with microsoft that this way of doing things its a thing of the past.. so it will fall by its own steps.. but google with a candy in one hand, and a knife in the other hidden on the back.. thats a behaviour that should be feared..
- workbench 13y ago
  You don't really get a choice about lock in, however you do get to choose if you want your actions, searches, communications and location harvested to build an advertising profile or not.
tptacek 13y ago
Not that any other forum would do a better job of carefully and intelligently discussing the differences between Apple and Google and iOS and Android, but just so you know: HN is terrible at these kinds of discussions. Maybe we should cultivate them so 'pg and his minions can come up with clever statistical tests for bad comments using these stupid OS-war slapfights as a corpus. Meanwhile, to everyone else on the thread: GUESS WHAT? You're never going to resolve this issue. None of your comments are convincing anyone of anything. They're generating head-nodding from people who already agree with you, and rageposts from people who don't. It has ever been thus, since the moment where someone wrote a second text editor in the history of text editors, and it will always be thus. At least you're part of a noble, silly-looking tradition.
taylodl 13y ago
The most fundamental difference between Google & Apple? With Google you're the product. With Apple you're the customer. It's a subtle, but important, difference. Other than that both are for-profit companies seeking to lock you into their ecosystems as much as they can. And in order to do that they need to compete for customers - who are varied and have different needs and expectations. Some will choose Android, others will choose iOS. Meanwhile the earth will keep turning.
Gromble 13y ago
Have any of you people done a single important thing today, or is arguing about what some guy on the internet said about [corporation] so vital that you couldn't ignore the Call to Troll?
fanbo 13y ago
In summary: Some unknown guy wants to be the Marco Arment of the Android world; He writes a highly polarized blog post and Marco falls for it and validates him. Paul Stamatiou and Marco Arment are now the leading representatives in the Android vs iOS fanboi war. Congratulations to both.
DroboHobo 13y ago
Steve Jobs hated Android so much that he created Marco and Gruber to make sure his crusade is continued even after his death. They don't really exist, it's all written by the Apple puppet master.
bitsoda 13y ago
Hey guys, use whatever products and services work best for you. There's no need to pledge allegiance to any company, nor is there a need to tear down somebody else for having an opinion.
jimsilverman 13y ago
"I object to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data, I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one company in one account that sometimes gets disabled permanently with no warning, no recourse, and no support." that's one horrific run-on sentence. it's both grammatically flawed and descriptive solely of the platform the author is attempting to defend. i can no longer tell if this guy's serious or just trolling.

90 points by mh_ 13y ago

So you've got to choose one and he's chosen apple. The previous article chose google. I've chosen google but what would make an interesting article for me is one which explained whether iOS or android was better if / when I want to cut myself off from either apple or google's online services and replace them with self hosted email / calendar / etc.

veemjeem 13y ago
I think one of the core differences according to his article is that the "data" for google calendar/contacts/etc are only stored on the cloud. You don't have physical copies of these on your desktop. Apple's products have historically been on the desktop so your calendar & contacts would mostly reside on your home computer and the only thing you would lack is the cloud syncing if apple were to go kaput.
- bdcravens 13y ago
  Yes, the data is on your computer. I use Google for calendar, email, and contacts. Guess what? That data is also on my desktop if cloud syncing goes kaput. If you only use your phone and your cloud service of choice (whether Google or iCloud), then yes, you're in a world of hurt, but the scenario you described is pretty common amongst Google users as well.
madoublet 13y ago
I would argue that you do not have to choose one. In fact, it is probably better if you don't.
- Fuzzwah 13y ago
  My 1st line was a poorly worded TL;DR of the article. I agree with your point.
- greedo 13y ago
  And that's the point Marco makes; that relying solely on one vendor (Apple/Google/Facebook/Twitter/MS) is foolish.
sveme 13y ago
That's not what the article says. Rather, keep away from ecosystems at all. If a company tries to bind you to its ecosystem, stay away, as you are bound to be the one suffering from it in the long run. It's a shame that the internet seems to be on day four of groundhog day, seeing the same story played out over and over. 1. a dominating ecosystem or a couple of ecosystems exist (e.g., AOL in the early days) 2. increased lock-in makes people yearn for alternatives 3. open alternatives spring up, gain momentum and overcome the dominating ecosystem 4. the previous alternative is now successful and starts to diversify its offerings 5. with increasing adoption and an increased market share, the company tries to connect services, for the convenience of its users (that's what they say) or for increased lock-in (that's what they don't say) 6. over time, now this former upstart becomes the dominant ecosystem, increasingly removing the openness from its services and connecting its offerings so that you don't have to leave them ever (we are back at 1.) 7. users start to feel the pain of being locked-in and yearn for open alternatives... The only way to break this cycle is by actively pursuing alternatives, by diversifying its providers and by making a conscious decision to forgo immediate convenience gains by using the same provider for different services.
npsimons 13y ago
An answer in one link: http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/

DannoHung 13y ago

Considering the shitfits people were going into over Reader being eliminated, you'd think people would be a little more cautious about giving Google the keys to the kingdom on things as crucial as calendaring, contacts, and mail. Which is why the original article was a pretty good summation for me of why I'm not going to go Android any time soon, personally.

Kylekramer 13y ago
I think the Reader shutdown is actually an example of why I am fine going into the Google ecosystem. Marco talks a lot about lockdown, but I haven't experienced it. Reader's shutdown was pretty abrupt, but I am happily using The Old Reader (minus the shutdown scare and less than stellar uptime) the same way I used Google Reader. Sure, I'd prefer Reader to still be around, but overall the transition was easy and pain free. I trust if the same thing were to happen to Gmail, Calendar, or Contacts I would have the same experience. And meanwhile, being in the Google ecosystem while it still runs makes my day to day life much better. The only product that would concern me is Voice, and even then I believe a suitable replacement would pop up and Google would provide a relatively easy transition.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
None of the services you listed at Google are going to cause me problems to pull my data out if I need to move somewhere else on short notice.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jljljl 13y ago
It was so, so easy to move on from Reader, which is why I think the shutdown was not such a big deal. Google gave months of advance warning, and made it easy to export your feeds and data in a cross platform, open format. The fact that their API was open for other clients to use meant there was already an (admittedly limited) ecosystem of feed-reader UI apps that could pick up where they left off, such as Feedly and TheOldReader. You lost a good product when Reader shut down, but you didn't lose the kingdom by any means

anxious 13y ago

Seems the author is suffering from fanboyism induced blindness. The main points made about Android that make it great have little to do with Google: the ability to set default apps, intent sharing between apps, notifications, customised launchers, etc. Also in the referenced post the Android user describes rolling his own solutions with Bittorrent Sync: http://paulstamatiou.com/android-is-better http://paulstamatiou.com/android-is-better Somehow OP glossed all over that and shifted the discussion to a troll baiting exercise. The truth is that whether you're wed to Google's services or to Apple's you're make certain tradeoffs, but one key difference remains is that you can be a Google user on the iPhone which puts them ahead in my opinion. Also I don't buy the disingenuous argument that since Apple is less adequate at services they are somehow better at privacy - more data makes better apps.

bdcravens 13y ago

Keep in mind that many iOS users are as tied to the Google ecosystem. My email, calendar, and contacts are all Google-synced. Most decent calendar apps tend to use Google as well; ditto for mail apps like Mailbox. Many of the Google apps (like Maps) make it too easy to login, which the features it adds.

ajross 13y ago
Exactly. I think there's a good article to be written about cloud-lock-in and its effect on mobile OS choice. But this isn't it. This is just Marco "whining respectfully" about why his opinion is different because he objects "to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data". Paul's original article, frankly, was just clear advocacy of the form "I tried this and liked it and you should too!", and I can't see how Marco adds anything that wasn't clear from the original. Really, yawn. I'm personally very much in the Android camp (though not a big cloud user -- I like the photo backups and bookmark synching, but don't use gmail or Google Now much at all), and found Paul's "Android is better" to be a refreshing confirmation that as the market matures and stabilizes iOS users are finally looking at alternatives. But clearly not all of them agree; I don't think I needed to read Marco's blog post to know that.
jonknee 13y ago
Apple's policy of only supporting iOS definitely makes Google's popularity on iOS interesting. If the APIs open up a bit more it will be even more interesting--I would love to be able and never see Safari again.

product50 13y ago

Again these are his personal views as well (similar to Paul's). I think if you take a cross section of all the smartphone users though, there will be a lot many who use Google's services vs. Apple's. So not sure what Marco would suggest to those - should they give Android a try based on Paul's article then? Though I am an Android user, I think this debate is broader than whether you use Google services or not.

hawleyal 13y ago

Same coin, different side.

casca 13y ago

We're currently in the stage of the Internet where we can choose our feudal masters[1]. Want Google? Fine. Prefer Apple. No problem. Microsoft? Why not. For me, the issue is that people are becoming more entrenched as time progresses. The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay $8/year for your own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems you choose today. Yet if the technological elite (as represented by HN) is unwilling to do this, what chance do the rest have? [2] [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537383

bdcravens 13y ago
Indeed. If Google and Dropbox stopped working, a ton of apps on my phone would be broken or significantly impaired.
josh2600 13y ago
Your comment could have a few names changed and apply equally well to the Lycos and Yahoo web portals of the early Internet. The Tech elite have the same chance as the rest of us. We're all humans, vulnerable to loneliness, envy and every other mortal sin. The pain of switching is not technical, but social and political. It is a deeply political and social decision to disconnect from our social fabric and not one that even the most ostracized members of society make in haste. I just think you're ignoring the real costs in favor of the monetary concerns.
- casca 13y ago
  Very much agreed. My point is more that the cost to prepare to switch is very low. We have a high degree of certainty that email will be used for the foreseeable future so why not make the addressing movable? How can we make the preparation for flexibility become a pure technical problem and not a social one?
  - josh2600 13y ago
    "He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." — Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

seiji 13y ago

A lot of people are Children of The Church of Google. They're happy with a 100% data tithing to Google. That's Google's entire business: get data from users then make money from it for the furtherment of Google itself, not the users. A lot of people are Children of The Church of Apple. They're happy with letting Apple carry buckets of data across devices, but the buckets of data remain in the person's control. That's Apple's entire business model: help people do what they need to do and don't encroach into lives needlessly.

jfb 13y ago
I don't like Google, and don't use their services, but it's in no way that straightforward. Pretty much the entirety of the marginal utility of Google's technology relies on the data their users share with them. It's a symbiotic relationship, not a purely parasitic one.
- seiji 13y ago
  You give them data, they get billions of dollars. But hey, you can get your voicemails transcribed for free from their neglected voip service and, like, email for free. email for free with circles. So, it's a wash?
Oletros 13y ago
I didn't knew that Apple has closed iAds

antitrust 13y ago

> I object to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data, I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one company in one account... He makes a good point. Absolute power gets abused absolutely. Unless the person to whom the power is handed is some kind of Zen master, it's likely they'll use that power for personal agenda. The groups they like will become elites. The ones they don't will get lined up against walls and shot. That's just how it is. Even though Google says, "Don't be evil," they aren't Zen masters.

CodeCube 13y ago
> "... they aren't Zen masters" Well, not all of them, at least :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fcqrNO7so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fcqrNO7so
- NotOscarWilde 13y ago
  He doesn't sound like a Zen master to me either. I know it's probably hard to distinguish between Buddhist sects but "success and happiness" (the subtitle of the book that is promoted in the video) are not terms Zen Buddhism deals with usually. Normal Buddhism does deal with these extensively, Four Noble Truths are all about suffering. But Zen Buddhism tends to dismiss these concepts as unimportant. They may be true, they may not be true, but while you're looking for happiness and success, Zen offers nothing. Mindfulness meditation is rather cool, as is general Buddhism. I'm just trying to distinguish a bit here.

eltondegeneres 13y ago

Calling someone "blind" for being obtuse or oblivious doesn't really seem like the best word choice.

varelse 13y ago

GMail and Google Maps were my go to apps on Android for years (since 2009 in fact). They both suck now. Combine that with the brick-like interactivity of my less than 2 year-old Galaxy Nexus and I'm abandoning Android for iOS as soon as my contract expires despite the fact I actually prefer a lot of Android's look and feel. To be fair, my Nexus 7 hasn't quite given up the ghost yet, but now that its successor has been released, I'm counting the days until it too becomes as responsive as Karen Ann Quinlan. And that's a shame because Android's interface has really come a long way in that time. Paul Stamatiou's article showcases some really cool design advances that have happened since Android 4.0. For me it all comes down to Google seeming to not care one bit about anything except the latest and greatest devices. Yes I know that Android 4.3 is supposed to address that - good luck shipping that one out to all the major carriers. In closing, the same brickification that hit my Galaxy Nexus this year happened to my original droid in 2011 - fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...

firekesti 13y ago
You can put the factory image for 4.3 on your own Galaxy Nexus – I was having the same problems, running LagFix every night, and 4.3 cleared 100% of that away. The same problem (same cause, same fix) exists on the Nexus 7. Good luck!
smokinjoe 13y ago
Apple has the same issues where they slowly taper off the iOS versions that an aging iPhone can run. What about the updated GMail and GMaps don't you like? The user experience has been beefed up significantly - going between user accounts and organizing mail in GMail has never been easier. The Google Maps interface is really pleasant to use and doesn't clutter up the screen when all you want to do is view the area. Obviously those are two quick personal observations, but I'm very curious as to what recent features may have introduced friction to long-time users.
raphaelsaunier 13y ago
Could you elaborate on the 'brickification' of your Galaxy Nexus? I've owned a Galaxy Nexus pretty much since it came out and, I have to say, it is as good as the day it came out. Also – and I don't mean to sound like a fanboy – I personally think that Google Maps and Gmail even better than they were two years ago. At which point did they start to suck in your opinion?

acqq 13y ago

One point I'd like to see discussed is written by Bruce Schneier, it made me look at the subject a bit differently than before: If the National Security Agency required us to notify it whenever we made a new friend, the nation would rebel. Yet we notify Facebook. If the Federal Bureau of Investigation demanded copies of all our conversations and correspondence, it would be laughed at. Yet we provide copies of our e-mail to Google, Microsoft or whoever our mail host is; we provide copies of our text messages to Verizon, AT&T and Sprint; and we provide copies of other conversations to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever other site is hosting them. The primary business model of the Internet is built on mass surveillance http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/the_publicpriva_1.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/the_publicpriv... Google's primary business is surveillance of their users. Selling the results to their customers, advertisers.

jmduke 13y ago
I get clear utility out of letting Facebook know who my friends are. I see no clear utility out of letting the NSA know who my friends are.
- acqq 13y ago
  The Government would say: NSA protects you from the terrorists, there's your clear utility. But there are enough other threads to discuss NSA. I'm interested in Google here. What are our limits feeding it? Are we really aware of what we are doing, in the name of convenience?
- seiji 13y ago
  You get utility in exchange for giving them utility^2. Is it worth giving someone $100 if they turn around and turn it into $10,000 when you get nothing in return? (Note: we're not designed to think on such expansive macro-connected scales, so nobody (except weirdos) cares to stop enabling such broken behaviors.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
13y ago

jmduke 13y ago

So I think there are two points that Paul makes: hardware and services. On the hardware front: I don't really buy the notion that Android hardware is up to par with Apple. I realize this is an inherently subjective argument: I've played with my friends' Android phones and I just don't like the way they look or feel compared to the iPhone. On the services front: I think the argument that "Google is an advertising company and that makes them an inherently worse ecosystem" is weak, but I absolutely agree that we're past the point of "this is the best solution for everyone." Personally -- I don't use any Apple services besides, well, the App Store, despite relying on them 100% for the hardware side (iPad + MBA + iPhone). And I don't use Google to the extent Paul does: I use GMail, Search, and Chrome. This has the advantage of portability: I don't have to tie myself to a given ecosystem because I'm stuck there. I tie myself to whatever makes my life the easiest.

greedo 13y ago
It'd be interesting to conduct a blind test, where all the logos/branding were removed from the devices.
- 67726e 13y ago
  I don't know about you, but the device itself is branding. If I pick up an iPhone, I know pretty much immediately that I'm holding an iPhone based on the layout of the buttons, especially the "God" button. Similarly I would never mistake my Nexus 4 for an iPhone 5.
- jjindev 13y ago
  It would be interesting to live in a world where you couldn't show off your logo at ... I was about to say "Starbucks" but I should say ... the coffee shop. This isn't to indict any particular brand, but when a brand is strong enough consumers of that brand use it to self-brand themselves. They wear the halo effect. And as I read Paul's essay I get some undercurrent that he's "hey, it's ok" to self-brand differently.
jinzo 13y ago
> On the hardware front: I don't really buy the notion that Android hardware is up to par with Apple. I realize this is an inherently subjective argument: I've played with my friends' Android phones and I just don't like the way they look or feel compared to the iPhone. It's not totally related to this discussion, and I'm not picking on you - but I had to mention this: I have a friend that bought himself a MacBook Pro (for around 2200€) and then went on to observe how this laptop is far better than any previous he owned, and how it's better than what his colleagues ad friends own. I agreed with him, and then told him that most of them paid way less than 1000€ for their laptop, and probably noone paid even close to what he paid (alas. there are not a lot of MacBooks around here), ofcourse a MacBook is way better than a 600€ HP laptop. People forget that, most of the Android devices (analog to laptops) are actually cheaper than a iPhone.

donniezazen 13y ago

The better question the Android community should be asking itself is why it hasn't attracted or developed great writers and evangelists as well as Apple has. Android has much more global impact than iPhone will ever have [1]. A huge chunk of people in developing countries earn less-per-month than the cost of an iPhone. So who cares if some yeppie evangelist is not using it. People are going to be coming online for the first time. There’s this vibrant community of young app developers growing in Kenya and Nigeria. - Jimmy Wales. Macro goes on at length on privacy without realizing that there is no way to tell if iPhone is not sending each bit of data back to government or any other organization for that matter. Open Source nature of Android, AOSP, makes it the most viable option in today's surveillance state. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-are-disrupting-africa-much-faster-than-you-think-says-wikipedias-jimmy-wales/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-are-...

patrix99 13y ago
Think Marco was talking about privacy in terms of using your data to sell to advertisers. In today's surveillance state, if it exists to the extent we think it does, whatever you do that remains constant so can't be used in comparison.

bluthru 13y ago

We're still doing this in 2013?

yevy 13y ago

I would wager that the reason Marco (and many other mobile entrepreneurs) gravitate to iOS boils down to one line in his post that he doesn't feel the need to defend: "We can make a living developing for it." Android has (roughly) 4X market share but just 1/3 of the revenue compared to iOS. When the per user revenue gap closes, Marco's preference may change.

krazyfrog 13y ago
He already has a version of Instapaper for Android, so he clearly has no problem making money off the platform, whatever little it may be in comparison to iOS.
- workbench 13y ago
  He's also gone into great detail on his blog about how unsuccessful that has been and if he worked on the port himself (outside company volunteered to work on it) he wouldn't have been able to go fulltime like iOS allowed.

danso 13y ago

I don't get the point or impetus for the OP. Is it supposed to be a warning that one should never put all of their information-eggs in one basket? Or that Google is going to be the worser basket of the two? The latter question of course is just a fanboy debate, and the former question elicits a "no-duh". But to boil it down to just Google vs. Apple misses the bigger picture: to spread our eggs across different baskets raises new issues of security and convenience, which are always going to be tradeoffs. For example, if you're paranoid that either Apple or Google is going to shut off access to your contacts and calendar, is the solution to spread your information across both? If so, how do you keep the two in sync (let's assume that at some point in the future, there was no first party support of syncing services)? Or let's say you want to use another calendar/contacts app completely. Then you rely on a third-party service, which raises the issue of 1. How long will that service stay in business? 2. Can you trust it with your data? 3. Do you have to learn another interface? With the adoption of either iOS/Android, I think customers have shown that they do not want to live a splintered digital life. They want a future posited by sci-fi shows, where "things just work." It's not Apple vs Google, it's convenience vs. personal responsibility/maintenance.

johnward 13y ago

Can someone explain to me why Marco Arment's opinion is so important? I mean it even seems like he doesn't understand why. What makes him so popular?

bane 13y ago
He consistently writes positively about and supports Apple and consistently poo poos Android. It doesn't hurt that many sites that favor Android in such a consistent and highly biased way are instakilled when submitted here. He's not quite the shill that Gruber is, but it all adds up that he's popular on HN.
- clarky07 13y ago
  Speaking of instakilled, this went from #1 to #41 in a matter of minutes.
  - npsimons 13y ago
    Get back to me when you can explain why the "Android is Better" link was on the page for practically a split second the other day, despite people commenting on it after it disappeared off the front page. There's far too much fanboyism going on here, on both sides.

daurnimator 13y ago

Why has it been painted as a dichotomy of Apple vs Google? In my experience, you want apple software/service, you have to go apple hardware; and essentially vice-versa. (Correct me if I'm wrong!) But if you go with Android (or other OSes) you can choose whatever "cloud" services you want. Just cause Paul used Google with his android phone doesn't mean you have to.

runjake 13y ago

Marco's article is so poorly-written, so poorly thought-out, I don't know where to begin. It's really more an article about hating Google as a whole. Google blindness? Or blind hatred for Apple's competitors? Some gems, though: I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one company in one account that sometimes gets disabled permanently with no warning, no recourse, and no support. And Apple's services aren't less proprietary? Apple doesn't tie everything to one Apple ID? Google has pretty poor support, but I've never heard of anyone having their account (unreasonably) permanently disabled. The Google search he links to is some useless Google search on "google account locked". Here's the equivalent Apple ID search: https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+account+locked https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+account+locked 26.7 million results. Here's another: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+id+disabled https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+i... Over 29 million results. I could go on a side-discussion about the number of Google users vs Apple users and then compare percentages and Google results and point out that there seem to be more issues with Apple IDs than Google IDs per capita, but why bother? What does it mean? People using both ecosystems get their accounts locked up for some reason or another. If Apple somehow irrevocably locks out my Apple ID, which I’ve never heard of happening, it would be inconvenient. My contacts and calendar would temporarily stop syncing during the 20 minutes it would take to create a new account and point my devices to it. The biggest problem would be losing my app and media purchases, although I wouldn’t lose any local copies of anything* I've never heard of someone having their Google account irrevocably locked out, either. and there’s a phone number I can call to convince a human to give me a transfer or credit. Yeah, there's a number you can call for the Play Store for this purpose as well. I wish it were at the bottom of every page, but it's buried underneath a Help menu. That said, Apple's support is truly industry-leading and far better than what Google's got going. It's still not as bad or hopeless as Marco attempts to portray, though. It’s important to maintain diversity of services. And you can do this with Android. You don't need to use any Google services. Sure it'll badger you at first, but no more than an Apple iOS device will. In fact, I'd say that Android is better at maintaining diversity of services. You can install an account for a wide variety of providers in the Settings app, whereas Apple forces you to stick with whatever they choose for you (Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, etc). Occasionally, they might remove a provider for you. It’s foolish for people on either side to ignore the other or the middle, because despite what it sometimes looks like to geeks like us, we’re not everyone. Not even close. Even within our world, we can’t agree on much. Is this self-deprecation on Marco's part? like Paul says he does This snippet appears repeatedly in Marco's article and strikes me as a passive-aggressive snub. The leading Apple pundits (Gruber, Marco, Dalrymple) are getting more and more hateful towards Apple's competitors and I think this betrays an underlying belief that Apple's glory days are (sadly) waning. It screams desperation. Maybe this Ellison guy is right. I'm not a particularly big fan of Google or Apple or Microsoft, and I despise Facebook. But I still use all of their tech daily, but I'm sure as hell not going to cheer lead for any of them. Edit: Fixed broken copy-pasted links, thanks anonymoushn.

beat 13y ago

What about the personal cost of platform switching? I went to the iPhone when version 2 hit the market and it was clearly going to survive as a product. I hate switching technologies, with all the cost and frustration it involves. I've been able to have a single, constantly evolving configuration through four different phones now (five soon, once I can jump from my 4S to a 5S). It's always backed up. It's survived the physical destruction of a phone. It does everything I require of it, most of that very well. So to get a user like me to switch platforms - it's a huge personal expense, not just of money, but of time and intellectual bandwidth. I don't need a device that's just arguably better, or a little better... I'd need a game-changer of a device to switch, something that does basically everything I do on my iPhone more efficiently, faster, better, cheaper. I don't see that. I'll probably stay on iPhone unless Apple really screws up.

gcb0 13y ago

I usually disagree with marco posts here and i'm 99% sure he get's paid by apple :) but this point is pertinent and i'm looking for alternatives for gmail and maps and voice and failing.

caryhartline 13y ago
How do we know you're not being paid by Google or Microsoft? I guess they might cut you off for that comment.

thrownaway2424 13y ago

It doesn't seem very hard to believe that someone uses an iPhone but doesn't use iTunes to manage music. iTunes is next to useless if your music doesn't fit on your device. A service (such as Google Play Music All Access [worst product name ever]) makes more sense if you're always connected.

nimh 13y ago
Apple has had iTunes Match since 2011 for music that doesn't fit on your device.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  Sure, for a fee. Google Music is free for the first bazillion bytes (20k songs or something).
  - workbench 13y ago
    How long till it has adverts seen as every listen will cost google something. I'd rather pay

xradionut 13y ago

Marco so conveniently forgot the whole debacle of Apple's developer resources and sites being down for almost two weeks.

nimh 13y ago
Which is completely irrelevant in a discussion about the iPhone from a user's perspective.
- xradionut 13y ago
  The original poster is a developer. A developer for Apple platforms. Chances are this affected him and if not, it did affected his peers. Yet he never mentions the massively embarrassing outage...
  - workbench 13y ago
    He does in his podcast and on Twitter

Oletros 13y ago

Marco Arment saying that other people has a "narrow tech-world view" is highly ironic

oscargrouch 13y ago

after reading both perspectives you learn that: * you are locked in, no matter if you prefer android or ios * choose you poison? come on, it took years and a lot of effort to take us all out of the nightmare of the windows ecosystem lock in.. so we can fall out in the same trap all over again? and while this is a natural behavior of apple that we should be all expecting, i expected more from google.. because nowadays google is looking like a schizophrenic, working for the web and open ecosystems, creating a lot of awesome opensource projects with one hand, and creating more and more closed ecosystem that try to lock people and developers in.. google looks like dr jekyll and mr hyde.. i hope the open google, the google with the hacker culture, that the "Dr Jekyll" google wins in the end.. but nowadays it looks that google is more in a love affair with its mr hyde side.. i hope it gets cured preety soon and come back to its hacker spirit roots.. with no traps in their products.. apple will just loose more and more market share, because its acting like if it was the 90´s.. and we see now with microsoft that this way of doing things its a thing of the past.. so it will fall by its own steps.. but google with a candy in one hand, and a knife in the other hidden on the back.. thats a behaviour that should be feared..

workbench 13y ago
You don't really get a choice about lock in, however you do get to choose if you want your actions, searches, communications and location harvested to build an advertising profile or not.

tptacek 13y ago

Not that any other forum would do a better job of carefully and intelligently discussing the differences between Apple and Google and iOS and Android, but just so you know: HN is terrible at these kinds of discussions. Maybe we should cultivate them so 'pg and his minions can come up with clever statistical tests for bad comments using these stupid OS-war slapfights as a corpus. Meanwhile, to everyone else on the thread: GUESS WHAT? You're never going to resolve this issue. None of your comments are convincing anyone of anything. They're generating head-nodding from people who already agree with you, and rageposts from people who don't. It has ever been thus, since the moment where someone wrote a second text editor in the history of text editors, and it will always be thus. At least you're part of a noble, silly-looking tradition.

taylodl 13y ago

The most fundamental difference between Google & Apple? With Google you're the product. With Apple you're the customer. It's a subtle, but important, difference. Other than that both are for-profit companies seeking to lock you into their ecosystems as much as they can. And in order to do that they need to compete for customers - who are varied and have different needs and expectations. Some will choose Android, others will choose iOS. Meanwhile the earth will keep turning.

Gromble 13y ago

Have any of you people done a single important thing today, or is arguing about what some guy on the internet said about [corporation] so vital that you couldn't ignore the Call to Troll?

fanbo 13y ago

In summary: Some unknown guy wants to be the Marco Arment of the Android world; He writes a highly polarized blog post and Marco falls for it and validates him. Paul Stamatiou and Marco Arment are now the leading representatives in the Android vs iOS fanboi war. Congratulations to both.

DroboHobo 13y ago

Steve Jobs hated Android so much that he created Marco and Gruber to make sure his crusade is continued even after his death. They don't really exist, it's all written by the Apple puppet master.

bitsoda 13y ago

Hey guys, use whatever products and services work best for you. There's no need to pledge allegiance to any company, nor is there a need to tear down somebody else for having an opinion.

jimsilverman 13y ago

"I object to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data, I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one company in one account that sometimes gets disabled permanently with no warning, no recourse, and no support." that's one horrific run-on sentence. it's both grammatically flawed and descriptive solely of the platform the author is attempting to defend. i can no longer tell if this guy's serious or just trolling.