Folks: I’ve drafted a new section, /wireless, covering all things mobile, especially smartphones and tablet computers. I make a prediction about whether iPhone or Android will dominate, wonder why the iPad is so popular, and review the Motorola Droid 2 and Samsung Epic 4G.
Since there does not seem to be any danger of an innovation in desktop computing, I will be adding to this new section of my core site regularly. Comments/corrections are appreciated.
Some comments on your iPhone/Android piece.
“Also, a company that wants to produce and distribute its own applications internally can do that privately on the Android, but not with the iPhone, which would require the company to get permission from Apple to put its products in the App Store and then have the company’s propriety software available to all iPhone users worldwide.”
There is indeed an enterprise distribution program available which lets companies distribute internally to as many phones as they need to, without publishing in the store: http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/enterprise/
As well as a configuration utility for over the air installation of configuration profiles (Email/VPN/WiFi/Certificates config) http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/
I would imagine iOS is way ahead of Android on enterprise deployment tools. (I assume because they have been in the market longer)
Also, your comment:
“In Android’s favor is that application development can be taught in universities. iPhone application development requires that every student purchase a Macintosh computer, something very few people can afford.”
While it’s obviously not necessary for every student to purchase a Mac (I assume you spent a lot of time in a lab in front of a university owned terminal?), you are ignoring the fact that Mac use at the university level is way up.
One advantage of the iPhone that you missed… It doesn’t sound an e-mail alert while you’re recording a video 😉
Matt: Thanks for the links. I’ll add them to the article once other folks’ comments are received.
As far as teaching iOS development in a university goes… A university-owned terminal? Schools are getting away from “computer labs” and, in any case, all of MIT’s “Athena classrooms” have Linux-based machines. Mac use is “way up”? How does that help a teacher? The school can’t offer a course and say “If your rich daddy didn’t buy you a Mac, a BMW, and some designer clothes, you’re excluded from this class.” (When we taught http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/three-day-rdbms/ in January, the students who were full-time university students at MIT and Harvard brought a mixture of Linux and Windows laptops to the class. Exactly 0% had Macintosh, so usage would have to go up quite a bit to reach the 100%. required)
Phil,
I believe it is possible for a developer to locally put an application they are developing onto their iphone. I believe you’re allowed to do this on some number of devices without having to go through the App Store.
Also, I’d like to editorialize a bit on the content. You sound a bit curmudgeonly, but not in the good way that is usually evoked on this blog. Much of the content sounds more like you have an axe to grind with the Apple fankids than a reasoned critique of the technology.
For what it’s worth, I think you’re really missing the point with much of it, as well. People pay for interface and experience. Why would a consumer care that their developer had to learn objective C? Why would they care about open source? They want a good experience, and if you’ve used an Android phone and an iPhone, you’ll notice that Apple does a very good job with interface design. I think which is better is certainly open to interpretation, but if you’re going to write meaningfully on which CONSUMER device is better, you need to do so from the perspective of consumers, not developers. Moreover, coming up with corner cases of old people using apps isn’t really relevant to the vast majority of people who use tablets, or who read your work, for that matter.
I don’t have a tablet, but I’d like to get one. Since you clearly are flumoxed by their popularity, maybe I can help you a bit here. The immediacy of interface on a tablet is very appealing. Most importantly, windows are gone, the worst invention ever in the history of computers. Why would I want to limit what I see to some arbitrary subset of the screen for a given application? Why would I want to spend time organizing these little windows? I’m smart enough to remember what else I’ve got going on my computer, and if I need a reminder, a simple list will do. The tablet is a simple, satisfying interface for many tasks, and feels less like using a computer and more like using a different specialized device created by each app you run. In a sense, on a tablet the app becomes the device, and the tablet is more and more of an underlying substrate. This is far from the case with a desktop OS, which is always making itself known in intrusive and unproductive ways.
Joanthan: The iPhone may be better for consumers at the moment, just as Macintosh advocates argue that the Mac OS is better for consumers than Windows. But if Android is already outselling iPhone by a considerable margin and is heading for a 10:1 sales ratio, it won’t be long before the most desired applications are available for Android first and then eventually as iPhone ports. (This will be especially true if advertising support becomes common for applications, rather than phone owner purchases.)
I lived through this with the Macintosh in the 1980s. In fact I was a Mac developer back then! There were a lot of good applications that were Mac-only, e.g., Adobe Photoshop. Maybe eventually they got around to doing a Windows port. Once Windows achieved a certain market share, the interesting new applications came out for Windows first, Mac second. Then the application developers didn’t even bother with a Mac port.
So for anyone who likes typing on the touchscreen keyboard, I wouldn’t discourage them from buying an iPhone now to use now. But I think the iPhone will fade to insignificance by 2015.
The Android OS may start appearing in a number of embedded devices, but I think you wildly wrong about Android vs iPhone in the smartphone market. Three reasons:
1) Apps. There are already significantly more apps for iOS than Android. Any rational developer will build for iOS first then Android next, for the very reasons you cite. First, there is the potential for actual revenue on iOS (whereas on Android the expectation is that apps are free). Second, there is a larger installed base. It’s also easier to develop on iOS due less device choice and QA issues. If you want aviation apps now, which device would you buy?
2) iTunes. Since Apple makes profit on music, video, apps, and books, they can drop the handset price to zero and still make money. This isn’t possible for vendors, such as Motorola, HTC, on the other platforms. RIM gives away the 30% margin to the carriers, so still has to make money on the devices. Additionally, rumors are that Apple takes a chunk of the carrier fees as well. They can and will drive the handset pricing down until the competition is eliminated. Don’t believe me? That’s precisely what they did for MP3 players.
3) Margin. Apple owns the chipset and therefore also has a better margin. They are optimizing profitability now, but can kill any other handset maker on cost. It’s in their incentive to create a price war in the future. They are the most profitable handset maker now and there’s nothing on the horizon to change that.
Corrections in http://philip.greenspun.com/wireless/iphone-versus-android
1) $1000 MacBook Pros (with maybe a big existing PC screen) are amply sufficient for iOS development – a $2500 workstation is an exaggeration. Also since all Macs can run Windows (or *nix) in a VM, smart software companies buy Macs for better flexibility. Since MacOS is basically Unix, plenty of tools are readily available.
2) Closed vs open. Old argument that could be rehashed about Microsoft Windows vs. *nix. Openness of the platform does not imply market share whatsoever. See Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice. This isn’t a good argument.
I’m no fanboi. However, Apple has built the superior economic model with cheaper parts, iTunes, and developer economic incentives.
“I believe it is possible for a developer to locally put an application they are developing onto their iphone. I believe you’re allowed to do this on some number of devices without having to go through the App Store.”
This feature is called Ad-hoc Distribution. Once you have paid your $99 and gotten a certificate, you can directly sign apps to your own phone or to specific other people’s phones. No approval process required. You only need approval if your business model requires selling *from* the app store. Selling to just a few people or selling privately within a company are a different problem
(realizing I should have commented here instead of there – feel free to delete my comment there): overall, the “iPhone versus android” piece reads like somebody who hasn’t been paying much attention to the iPhone side of things. Yes, when Apple first allowed app development for iPhone there were a lot of problems. Developers complained about these problems – leading to lots of widely-read apple-bashing articles and blog posts you’ve seen – but when Apple *fixed* the problems this got less publicity; fewer people noticed.
Regarding “It would simply not be practical to teach iPhone application development to a group of high school or college students”, google “college iPhone programming”. There currently exist college courses that teach iPhone development at more colleges than it would be practical to list, so how could this “simply not be practical”?
FWIW, I bought the “TomTom” navigation app for $50 (one-time fee). I didn’t realize until I read your article that there had even *existed* the option to pay $100/year for an iPhone navigation app. Having found out the option exists, I still kind of doubt many people exercise it…
Phil,
Your article is a mix of bashing today’s iPhone users and explaining that in the future Android will be better.
Today: Android phones and iPhones are comparable in price: both are $0-$200 with a $70/month two year contract. Over two years a “free” Android phone may only cost $1680 compared to the iPhone’s $1880. The incremental extra $200 is paid for timely software updates, access to well designed apps, customer service in a local retail store, access to a large accessory market. That’s $200 well spent and is not a fashion statement.
In 5 years: Maybe Android will outsell the iPhone 10:1. Android has a lot going for it as a platform. But why do you assume Apple will make the same mistakes today that they made in the 1980s? Apple paid bitterly for their poor choices and is a dramatically different company today.
I agree that it would not be practical to teach iPhone application development as part of a three-day course on RDBMS development. But it is no more difficult to learn than any other similar platform. Objective-C is just C plus Smalltalk.
As it happens, just about everyone knows Java now. But it’s not that long ago that nobody knew Java and everybody knew C++.
Now if someone came out with a phone that you program in JavaScript, that would be the end of iPhone, Android AND Blackberry.
Jeremiah: Thanks for the feedback on Android and iPhone being “comparable in price”. I added an explicit mention of Virgin Wireless to the article to put numbers on it ($300/year with no contract for Android/Virgin; about $1200/year for iPhone/AT&T or iPhone/Verizon). Your point about customer service in a local retail store is a good one. Certainly my local T-Mobile store would not be a great place to go to find a “genius” (see http://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2010/08/19/the-american-worker-and-geography/ ).
Mark: I did not mean to imply that Objective-C was harder to learn than Java. My point was that learning Objective-C was harder than learning nothing. Nearly all young programmers already know Java, so they don’t have to learn a new language in order to program for Android. (Though of course they have to learn some new libraries, which is painful indeed.)
Separately, I agree with you that it is absurd that the only way to build apps is by using tools very similar to what are used to build full-fledged Windows desktop applications.
For mobile development, you might want to take a look at Appcelerator’s Titanium Mobile product:http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile-application-development/
Basically using their javascript API bindings to the underlying platforms, you can write an application once and deploy to any mobile device which has those bindings. So far this includes iOS, Android, and soon Blackberry. Yes, Write Once Run Anywhere has been reborn.
I think your take is a typical engineer’s reaction to Apple and especially the iPad. Engineers have an affinity for technology, are curious about how things work, and value the openness and technology focus of Android. But most people are not engineers, are either indifferent to or afraid of technology, and don’t want to know how things work. The genius of Apple lies in its use technology only in the service of creating a great user experience, and never for its own sake.
Corrections on the article: I have never paid for a GPS app on my iPhone, the free NavFree app works fine for me. I have a BlackBerry for work but can type much faster on my iPhone; I use my iPhone for writing on my morning train commutes and have written about 30,000 words so far. You don’t need to submit your app to the app store in order to use it on your own phone, though you do need a dev key. You can develop on a Mac Mini, which is hardly big bucks.
The future of Android? Horace Dediu at Asymco points out that Android is being taken up by phone manufacturers who do not have their own OS and who have seen their profits decimated by Apple and RIM, ie the “biggest losers”. They’re throwing in their lot with Google because they are desperate. Google is happy to give them Android for free to get more ad impressions, but they are essentially ceding control over the software core of their offering to an advertising company. Who knows what Google might decide to do in the future? Apple is the most vertically integrated company in the space, with complete control from hardware (including the processor) to software to retail. Even Nokia has given up its OS aspirations with Windows Phone 7. I’m having a hard time seeing how Apple is doing things wrong.
A Mac mini is “hardly big bucks”? It is bigger than $0, which is what you have to spend to develop on Android, assuming that you already have a computer of some sort.
The iPhone is a “great user experience”? Is there any evidence that a naive user handed a $100/month iPhone will find it easier to use than if handed a $25/month Virgin Wireless Android phone? Apple ads claim that the Mac is easier to use than Windows, but my observations of Mac users is that they are easily as clueless as Windows users about organizing and finding files, whether or not a process is running, etc. Where is the study that shows users can accomplish tasks faster or more easily on the phone that costs 4X as much?
On the subject of big bucks,
How cheap can you get an Android device? I refuse to add $20 to my family’s monthly bills so I can browse the web from my car, so subsidized phones are probably out.
You’re apparently comparing the *cheapest plan available* for (a few) android phones to a premium “unlimited voice” iPhone plan.
Currently the cheapest iPhone plan with AT&T is $55/month; the cheapest Verizon plan is $60/month. That Verizon plan has unlimited data and 50% more voice minutes (450 versus 300) than the Virgin plan so it’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s *much* more comparable than the $99 “unlimited everything” plan.
http://buyiphone.apple.com/ipa_preauth/content/catalog/att/
http://buyiphone.apple.com/ipa_preauth/content/catalog/verizon_US/
Glen: I followed the link to the Verizon page and can’t figure out how you came up with $60/month. I saw $40/month for the 450 minutes of voice and $30/month for unlimited data or $70/month total (plus taxes that will probably add at least another $10). On the AT&T site, I didn’t see anything at all comparable to the $25/month Virgin Wireless plan for unlimited text, email, data, and web. It looks like you would spend $85/month for your AT&T iPhone and still not have unlimited data. Plus you’d have to pay another $10/month for text messages. So it would be $95/month and possibly more if you were a heavy data user (and what’s the point of having a smartphone if you’re not going to be a heavy data user?).
Don’t forget that the AT&T or Verizon iPhone user is locked in for two years. The Virgin Wireless customer can stop paying at any time.
None of this is a competitive disadvantage for the iPhone, assuming the purpose of the device is conspicuous consumption. When trying to impress someone at Starbucks (actually just being in a Starbucks is impressive; it shows you can afford $5 for a cup of coffee!), it is much better to display an iPhone and communicate “I can afford $100/month” than to display a Virgin Wireless Android and communicate “I have a real keyboard and spend $25/month”.
Phil,
After reading here about the low cost Virgin Mobile network I decided to try them out. My LG Optimus V is a very capable phone, purchased for $125 at Target. It’s fast, has most of the apps I wanted, and the notifications and widgets make it easier to get the information I want and stop using the phone quickly. The $25 monthly service plan seems to good to be true, but so far I have coverage everywhere that my AT&T iPhone had coverage.
Last night I ported my old number to Google Voice and deactivate my iPhone and AT&T contract. It’s very nice that I didn’t have to port my number to Virgin Mobile — the Android phone has a built in setting to transparently make all calls through Google Voice — Apple never would have allowed this. My iPhone should sell for at least $300 on eBay.
There are lots of drawbacks, but none will convince me to pay $75/month for my AT&T contract again. The best part was buying a phone in a retail store. Before the Android I tried out a Blackberry from Virgin Mobile — but it sucked. Target took the phone back in about 5 minutes with no complaints and no restocking fee. Took the new Android phone home and activated it on the internet — no activation fee and I didn’t have to sit around in a phone store for 45 minutes while they ran a credit check and moved the phone over.
Downsides: The new Android phone gets worse battery life, doesn’t charge a quickly and charges poorly over USB and is horrible for playing or syncing music.