12 ms·
"Without Linux there would be no Android and Apple would by now own 95% of the smartphone market(1). " You cant conclude that at all. The manufacturers would h
by alan_cx 13y ago
"Without Linux there would be no Android and Apple would by now own 95% of the smartphone market(1). "
You cant conclude that at all. The manufacturers would have had to do something else, and they obviously would have, as in many cases, they were. Android/Linux was an easy, convenient, perhaps even lazy, ship to jump to.
Which also means that one could make a case that the presence of Linux for Android use has distracted from innovation and competition.
- simonh 13y agoBecause hardware manufacturers can conjure mature software platforms out of their arse at will. Or something. This is what so many people missed about iOS when it first came out. Building a software platform is a Hard Problem. The other phone manufacturers didn't come out with relevant, equivalently capable competitors to the iPhone in 2008 because it was physically impossible for anyone do so, even for a platform company with deep pockets like Microsoft, in that time frame. Even Android took years to redevelop so it could get even close. There was nothing lazy about adopting Android, the handset manufacturers had no other viable choice. The advantage Apple had opened up was wide enough that even WebOS, which was arguably even closer to catching up than Android, failed because it didn't have the same level of long term investment and support from an experienced software company that Google gave to Android. It ran out of time and money, when we're talking about more than just a few years and hundreds of millions of dollars.
- codex 13y agoWithout Linux, Android would have used something else; likely BSD. iOS is a variant of BSD as well, albeit with a different kernel core.