It all started with Apple/TechCrunch blogger M.G. Siegler making a huge fuss over something he didn’t understand, and while that in and of itself isn’t particularly interesting, one of the outcomes of this little internet drama is a comment on Google+ (the tenth one) that so perfectly encapsulates just how important Android is for the world that I felt the need to share it with you. It’s the holiday season after all.
As some of you may recall, way back in the day, Steve Jobs said Google’s use of the word “open” was disingenuous, and that Google’s use of the term in relation to Android was just smokes and mirrors. While the dripping, almost gelatinous irony of Steve Jobs accusing another company of abusing a term for marketing purposes certainly wasn’t lost on me, I personally wasn’t particularly happy with the lack of a public source code release for Honeycomb either; in the end, however, it didn’t change anything about the openness of Android – technically speaking, that is. No licenses were violated, and all the source code that had to be released was properly released (all GPL code, for instance, was readily available).
Still, Andy Rubin, Google’s Android chief, felt the need to address Steve Jobs’ comments, and opened a Twitter account. His first tweet gave the definition of open – a definition as rock-solid now as it was back then. As most of us will realise, this is the sequence of commands that downloads and compiles the Android source code.
the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”
A few days ago, Rubin posted a tweet about how on December 24 and 25, 3.7 million Android devices were activated. A pretty impressive number, especially since unlike, say, Apple’s numbers, this covers devices actually bought and activated by customers, but excludes devices which aren’t Android certified, like the Kindle Fire or many Chinese products running Android derivatives (Apple’s numbers, on the other hand, only cover shipped devices – not sold devices, like many erroneously believe. Apple uses “sold” rather… Disingenuously by redefining “shipped” to “sold” in its SEC filings).
In any case, Siegler noticed that Rubin’s first tweet had been deleted – conspiracy! Proof Android isn’t open! Man the trebuchets! “Where did the initial tweet go? Who knows. But it sure looks like he deleted it. Deleted it in an ‘open’ way, I’m sure,” Siegler writes, “Luckily for us all, I saved Rubin’s real first tweet from October 19, 2010.” Can you imagine if he hadn’t saved it for us all? What a relief!
There’s no conspiracy here, of course. The simple fact of the matter is that the instructions for downloading and building Android which were given in Rubin’s first tweet were outdated. After the kernel.org root server was compromised, many code repositories, including Android’s, were moved away from kernel.org. In other words, Rubin’s commands simply don’t work any more, and as such, the tweet was deleted. Again, the irony of Siegler making a fuss about this isn’t lost on me.
In case you were wondering, the new definition of open:
$ repo init -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-4.0.3_r1
All this is remarkably uninteresting, but there’s one upside to all this. In a comment posted on Google+ (the tenth one; how do you link to Google+ comments?), Clinton DeWitt explains the importance of open source in mobile, and the effect Android will have (and already is having) on the mobile industry in places other than the rich west. For the first time, a smartphone operating system is going to impact more than rich people in the US and Europe, and that is pretty darn revolutionary.
“I believe what Android is accomplishing is truly revolutionary. Mobile is the way that billions of people will one day access the Internet. And through that access, we will soon start to narrow the massive knowledge gap that currently divides the richest from the poorest populations,” DeWitt explains, “That there’s now an eminently capable open source mobile operating system, one that is free to use and free to fork, means that the knowledge advantage can be better and more evenly distributed across the planet than ever before.”
“For some pundits, it’s all about which companies are building the fanciest and most feature-rich handheld computers. Which, if we’re being honest about it, are devices for those that already have everything. When you’re at the top, it’s great to see the tech giants going head-to-head and competing for our dollars like this. Having a few dollars, I benefit from that, too,” he adds, “And yet in spite of that, I’m even more excited about seeing a $25 mobile device that has access to a killer web browser and endless mobile apps, and watching that device appear in the hands of a billion school children over the next 10 years.”
The iPhone is heralded as the most revolutionary mobile phone in human history, but the cold and harsh truth is that for all the cheering and punditry, the iPhone’s impact on the world is negligible. Sure, it had a huge impact on the smartphone market in rich countries – but it didn’t have such an impact on the world.
For all the bad jokes directed at the company during its trying times, Nokia is the technology company that truly changed the world. Nokia put a mobile phone within every person’s reach. Even people in some of the poorest places on earth were given the ability to communicate wirelessly, thanks to Nokia making the mobile phone affordable to everyone. Personally, I see this as one of the greatest achievements of the technology world, but sadly, it’s often overlooked because “ooh Apple has pinch-to-zoom!!!1!”
What Nokia did for the mobile phone, Android is doing for the smartphone. It’s not Apple that’s going to put a smartphone in every corner of the globe – it’s not Microsoft; heck, not even Google, but Android. In ten to fifteen years’ time, we will look back and regard Android as the technology that enabled even the poorest people in this world to have access to the web (and thus, knowledge), just like we regard Nokia as the company that put the mobile phone in every corner of the globe.
Of all the features, of all the first world problem whining, of all the lawsuits, of all the lacking updates, of all the antennagates, of all the pentile matrix nonsense, of all the large displays, of all the design patents, of all the everything – that is what makes Android revolutionary.
And that’s worth ten billion bullshit bounce-back scrolling software patents.
Uh.
Android’s barely evolutionary.
Android’s barely open source.
If you were a dev, and you’d have checked out the code you’d know. I ran my own AOSP, thank you very much. Half of it uses binaries for the stock phone(s) because unless you’re going to reverse engineer for a year or two there’s no other way.
First of all, it’s not always open. It’s open, sometimes, as history proved. Plus, updates arrive in packs, not gradually, because it’s development model is closed.
And when it is opened, it’s missing all the important stuff – of course -.
You may wonder why huge teams like CyanogenMod struggles to port Android 4 to many devices?
Well, guess what! That’s because the code to support the devices is NEVER there. The drivers are always user space closed source, and the API breaks with Android upgrades.
They also break with standard APIs (alsa, etc) more often than not *on purpose*.
The RIL (radio interface layer, mind you) is generally closed sourced as well.
So it Android as a whole open? Absolutely not.
Is Android technically superior to anything else that has existed so far? Nope. Different? Nope.
Even the libc implementation is crippled on Android.
Shall I go on? Android support of security updates is non-existant. Many devices ship with working exploits, right now.
And no, iOS ain’t really better (but they do have proper updates).
For that matter, despite some mobile OSes being more open, I don’t see any right now that is decent in all areas.
Gotta love it when techies miss the main point.
+1.
The point is that “Android is so cool it’s what history books will remember, as being the open source OS that changed things”
Well, as pointed out, it’s not actually open. Plus, if anything, it’s Linux which made the difference.
Finally, it’s just marketing bs obviously. Just like iOS fans would claim iOS changed the face of the mobile (and thus the mobile web) and will make it into history books.
Heck. Freaking fanboi world.
What makes it into history books is the winner, no matter how, no matter why. The winner is the biggest seller. And that’s Android.
That’s still not revolutionary.
Nope.
Closer, but still not quite there.
Edited 2011-12-29 17:58 UTC
I think the whole point was that Android will make the most impact in everyday people’s lives, because it will be available to them at a low cost and high quality.
Just like windows put PC’s at everyone’s desktop, Android will put pocket-able computer phones in everyone’s pocket.
The effect of everyone having a computer in their pocket will be revolutionary. Not necissiarily the UI, the design, the code, the “openness”, the patents, the what-ever geeks argue about these days. The effect on people having such technology in their hands.
That is what Thom is referring to. But, instead you responded with a bunch of technical and geeky oriented retorts, completely unrelated to article.
I think his point was that Android isn’t “open”, which the article starts out commenting on.
Then there’s the comment about sales numbers, first pointing out how Google is excluding non-certified devices (which Apple doesn’t have an issue of to begin with), and then: “(Apple’s numbers, on the other hand, only cover shipped devices – not sold devices, like many erroneously believe. Apple uses “sold” rather… Disingenuously by redefining “shipped” to “sold” in its SEC filings)”
That’s fine, but thanks to the optimized manufacturing and delivery pipeline, for Apple – unlike the other vendors – that’s generally a pretty close reflection of what has been sold. So “Disingenuous” is just trying to come up with a bad spin on something for editorial reasons.
Rubin’s tweet getting pulled is actually revisionist – I’m fairly certain that putting out updated instructions doesn’t require removing old tweets. It was a significant post in the tech community and could have stayed put.
The point that Android can have a larger impact on people because it will be more affordable (in the sense of being able to buy worse hardware for less money) is valid – Windows had a larger impact on those users (directly) than the Mac ever did. However, making that claim totally ignores that Apple demonstrated how to actually make these usable devices (or, in the old Windows case, how to make a non-CLI interface for end users), which Google then copied… So essentially, it’s still the Apple concept of how a touch screen device should work that is revolutionizing those people’s phones, whether you want to admit it or not.
Maybe Google can be portrayed as Robin Hood – stealing from the rich, giving to the poor – but certainly not as an innovator. And Google’s motives – delivering more ads – certainly doesn’t seem like truly wanting to give to the poor, more likely just to take their eyeballs.
The history books are full of losers who’s ideas won in the end.
Note that you didn’t actually refute any arguments or even explain what the main point is supposed to be.
This article comes off like a cheerleading essay for Linux-loving techies on OSAlert. That’s obvious the moment it tries to dismiss the massive sea change of the iPhone, which practically kicked off the current smartphone industry and set the paradigm that Android has followed ever since. Thom Holwerda has something of a reputation for these kinds of crowd-pleasing posts.
Thom’s central point, if I’ve understood him correctly, is an analogy: Nokia is to the global spread of dumbphones and cellular telecommunications what Android is to the global spread of smartphones and the (mobile) Internet. The Android revolution is not its development or business model per se but rather a broader social revolution where even dalits in Mumbai have the sum of human knowledge in their hands. To that effect, the iPhone has made very little inroads into third-world markets whereas Thom is implying/saying that Android has (or more generally, non-first world markets).
Personally, I disagree that the iPhone is less revolutionary because I think that the revolution in rich markets was of supreme importance, but that doesn’t take away from Thom’s main point. What might detract from Thom’s point on the other hand is if market stats show that Android has not in fact made significant inroads into poorer markets, but I don’t know the issue well enough to evaluate that claim.
I just get annoyed when people don’t spend the time to read an article properly and instead insist on bringing their own experience to bear regardless of whether their experience is relevant whatsoever. Happens way too often on this site.
Edited 2011-12-29 18:36 UTC
I don’t know much either, but my cousin came from india a few days ago, and he said that android is very popular there. He said they have iphones too, but they are extremely expensive, which is why android is so popular.
e
And that bias is one of the reasons why this site isn’t that interesting anymore.
Edited 2012-01-01 03:32 UTC
You have a bias, I have a bias, Thom has a bias, everyone who has any kind of a view at all necessarily has a bias.
This is a discussion site. Discussion of views on Operating System News is exactly what this site is all about. I don’t know what else you could have expected.
So, what exact bias is it best to have? In my view, then only reasonable bias is one which reflects the best interests of the majority of people. Ordinary people.
Here is an interesting presentation on the topic, espousing the interests of ordinary people:
https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcript.md
The Coming War on General Computation
Cory Doctorow
Presented at 28C3
“Freedom in the future will require us to have the capacity to monitor our devices and set meaningful policy on them, to examine and terminate the processes that run on them, to maintain them as honest servants to our will, and not as traitors and spies working for criminals, thugs, and control freaks.”
OSAlert editorial policy increasingly reflects this particular “bias” towards the interests of ordinary people (who are computer users). I very much welcome this.
So, Tomcat, what particular interest does your bias represent?
Edited 2012-01-01 04:01 UTC
Welcome to the ARM world. This is precisely why ARM devices taking over x86 would basically mean doomsday for alternative OS developers.
Not really? Alt OS seem to be largely developed on emulators, anyway; what hardware is actually popular, at the time of development (and not a decade earlier, in chipsets for PII) seems largely irrelevant already.
And once something would get enough of a following so that running it on current hw will matter, the community could perhaps just as well order something to their liking.
Android is revolutionary, on many levels. I have a huge disgust for Apple, their products and their ways of dealing with competition. I am upfront with that.
But all this story was about was to explain how Nokia helped third world countries get cell phones, and how the Android platform is doing the same for smart phones.
Thankfully for Android, and Google, they have created an open platform to do this. You say it is not “open”, and you are correct. There are many companies, not Google, that will not allow Google to open source some of the drivers, code and other pieces of Android.
Is that the fault of Google? If so, then the explain why? I just read a message from one of Google’s top Android developers, and he explains alot in a little space.
Android is revolutionary, and it is surpassing Apple at every turn. Apple is now the platform that is playing catch up with Android. Look at the newly created “Face Unlock” patent that Apple applied for.
Instead of looking for ways to pick apart a story, read it first. This was an awesome story, and one I enjoyed reading, as well as posting to my Facebook and G+ Account.
I think you’re a bit confused. Apple did not apply for a “face unlock” feature. Face unlocking is stupid as you can easily trick it with a picture. Apple did apply for a “face personalisation” feature, an entirely different thing.
Like someone else mentioned it’s not an unlock feature.
The news you read is about a patent granted to Apple, it was submitted in 2010. Like other companies Apple patents stuff that may or may not ever be a feature in a product.
And IIRC the Android face unlock feature didn’t work on stage, but does off stage when someone dangles a picture in front of it. So I guess it’s one of those fun-to-show-off features, but not a very useful one.
Why would it be up to google to get you device drivers for every possible device? It doesnt make sense that the code to each device’s drivers would be in the repository for the android code because that code isnt google’s. They dont make the devices, they make the OS. It would be up to the likes of motorola, htc, etc. to get you the drivers for their devices.
Android is more of an open business model than it is an open source project.
Google is the newly rising Microsoft, and Android is its platform.
If there was a revolution, it was certainly not started by Android, but Android is becoming the pronounced evolutionary platform of mobile computing due to an Open business model.
Exactly. Google’s main intent for mobile is to protect their own ad revenue streams. They do that by reducing the business value of systems that sit in between them and the consumer to zero, so that competition is stifled.
One needs to question themselves if its in the best interest of the consumer that an advertizing company builds all your digital devices.
Good point about Google and Ad Revenues.
Android is a platform to saturate a market with ‘Google’ just as Google has saturated the Web Search Market.
I personally do not mind as long as the consumer feels they are receiving positive value for services/hardware paid, in exchange for added metrics to Google.
If people really want to champion an Open Mobile platform, why not WebOS?
Yes, instead we should trust Apple, the company that’s desperately trying to become “Big Content 2.0”.
Why should we trust any corporations agenda as being altruistic, or in each individual consumers best interests?
Write just one article about Android, Windows Phone, or some other mobile OS without slamming Apple every other sentence.
For example, this particular story about Android’s potential in low-cost devices is a good, positive one and has nothing whatsoever to do with Apple. So how many sideswipes at Apple did Thom feel were necessary? 6.
I guess writers write for their audience, which on this site consists mostly of Google fanboys. Slamming Apple, no matter how wrong or far fetched your arguments are will win you points.
But I don’t think even Thom can change history, the iPhone is a significant event. Android is too (to a lesser extend), but it is still trying to reach the level of the iPhone/iOS combination.
Google fanboys???
Yup. Why is it so far fetched that every platform has it’s irrational fans?
I’ve been around for a while, and there are fans of every platform out there with their blinkers on so tight they can’t see that every platform has strengths and weaknesses. Whether it’s Android, iOS, Windows Phone, WebOS, or the full range of desktop OSs.
Then there are those that have an irrational hatred for a given platform. It used to be that was Windows.. Remember the windoze, winblows, window$ days? Now that has died down somewhat, so there is a new crop of people that hate Apple no matter what they do, or hate Google no matter what they do (yes, I’ve encountered those too).
As a platform yes, I have met some Android fanboys. Though I have never come across a person defending Google with religious zeal. Even the people that really like there products seem to keep a wary eye on them.
Never met anyone who defends Android with a zealous passion?
Just stick around this site for a few days, you’ll meet a lot of them…
I’ve noticed that Thom cannot write an article without slamming Apple too, have done for a while. It could be a patent dispute between MS and some company that makes Android devices, yet Apple is the central culprit.
Please understand, I’m not defending Apple here, just saying I’ve noticed Thom is just a tad “one eyed”.
“But Thom had an iPhone and now has an iPad”, so he can’t “hate” Apple stuff. Well, Elton John married a woman at one point too.
Look, maybe Thom is just passionate about Apple and it’s never ending fight against Android, but I would ask in 2012 that he tones it down just a tad. We are not all anti Apple, anti Google or even anti MS. As I’ve said many times, these are all companies, and companies are not our friends, they just sell stuff to us.
I mean, how can a company that litters the internet with billboard signs be our friend and the champion against which we should all stand behind.
If you need a religion, then fair enough, but don’t stand behind a company.
I don’t mind being educated about certain aspects of what Apple, Google, MS or the open source crowd do, far from it. But stop this anti-company when you “don’t” know all the facts (no one does).
I would ask that the facts be presented, then we in the comments section and go to town and abuse them and make them fit our version of events
I despise anyone who abuses the patent system. Both Apple and Microsoft have been on my hit list this past year – it’s just that Apple is even more aggressive than Microsoft in its practices, so yeah, they get the treatment more often. On top of that, nobody is cheering Microsoft’s patent abuse, while there are several high-profile bloggers cheering Apple’s immoral behaviour.
People need to learn that not everyone identifies with a company. I can separate products from the company, and that’s why I have such a wide variety of them – I prefer Windows 7, like my iPad, and like my Galaxy SII – while at the same time, condeming companies for doing stupid things. I honestly can’t help it that Apple is doing more stupid things than others.
I’m not going to overlook these things just because some readers can’t accept that Apple is currently doing a lot of stupid things.
There is no way to use the patent system without abusing it. The system is completely broken and just acts as a tax on the whole tech industry, contributing negative value and only benefitting the lawyers. A patent is a 20 year government enforced monopoly on a technology. That’s just a bad idea. Something much milder that slows down too-direct copying would be much better. Or maybe just make patents last 1 year, to give innovators a small head start and limit the damage of bad patents.
Edited 2011-12-29 22:01 UTC
What I meant was that though I do know people who are zealous about Android, I no non who are zealous about the company Google as a whole.
I am *not* Google’s friend, but I’m curious about this one. We all agree that advertising is clunky, but do you have another solution for funding Web content in mind ? This is a debate that I’m seriously interested in, not a trap question.
Edited 2011-12-29 23:56 UTC
Neolander,
“I am *not* Google’s friend, but I’m curious about this one. We all agree that advertising is clunky, but do you have another solution for funding Web content in mind ? This is a debate that I’m seriously interested in, not a trap question.”
I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that. Advertising has become too obnoxious, and yet publishers haven’t found a good alternative to my knowledge.
I was interested to read the link you had posted about a video game package being sold without a specific price. I am curious how well that model works with web content. I know some sites use a “donate” button, but I don’t know how well they work.
Part of the problem is the difficulty (or expense) of making micro-payments. Paying a couple cents per article wouldn’t stretch anyone’s wallets, but the damned credit card companies impose such ridiculous fees that the whole model breaks down. I blame them completely for the lack of micro-payment services.
“I was interested to read the link you had posted about a video game package being sold without a specific price.”
Are you referring to the humble indie bundle?
http://www.humblebundle.com/
I know there are some other projects like this out there. Can’t recall which, but I’ve seen one where you pay your desired amount for the product/service, and then adjust some sliders, deciding how much goes to the devs and how much goes to other parties (like charity or server hosting, for example).
True, I was mixing up Android/Google.
Fandroids? Borg?
Now isn’t THAT the apologist-kettle calling the fanboy-pot black!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M
…and? That’s amusing and all, but it really adds nothing to your earlier attempt to label Thom as a fanboy – if anything, it looks like an attempt to backpedal by making your accusation general instead of specific.
As a self-described “Apple fanatic” ( http://www.osnews.com/thread?499454 ), it’s really no surprise that you make the self-serving assumption that any critic of Apple must be a Google fanboy. Throw in a healthy dash of that other common apologist trait (confirmation bias, so you can conveniently ignore all of the times Thom has written critically of Google), that’s just as plausible as your claim.
I wrote writers write for their audience, I did not label Thom as a Google fanboy in the comment made earlier in this thread.
I agree with others who thought the slams against Apple got in the way of the main point, which was an excellent one. I think the revolution actually had two parts, though. The first was Apple’s introduction of a good touch device with a good touch UI. The second was the response of the mobile industry, which has resulted in a lot of phones that are similar to the iPhone. But more importantly, as Thom points out, part of this response has been to democratize (and improve on) these ideas and make them available to the world in cheap phones.
I wonder, though. If Google hadn’t democratized Apple’s approach, probably the open source community would have. Would this have been better or worse?
Edited 2011-12-29 21:59 UTC
Would this have been better or worse?
I’d say worse. I’m a huge believer in FOSS, but some things work less optimal in the bazaar. Google is a driving force in the direction of Android. While handset makers are adding some extra chrome here and there, Android basically is Android, no matter what device it runs on. Even the heavily modified MIUI is recognizable as Android to someone versed in the platform.
If the FOSS communities would’ve had to provide the democratized Phone OS, we’d have had 350 different implementations, all with different quirks and large incompatibilities. As for the “Universal App Shop” concept, never would have happened. Every respin of a FOSS Phone OS would have had its own incomplete repository.
Nope, FOSS doesn’t have enough momentum to take off. As I can see, for now, it’s just a niche market. You can get it on development board like pandaboard, beagleboard, etc, but not on maintream gadget/board.
So, yeah. The good part of Android is it became the take off ground for FOSS, so (hoping so) that the open source community can seize the chance and.. ‘take off’.
And why do people make such rigid distinction, anyway. Android is part of open source community – sure, maybe some crucial part of it is not developed in very open fashion (still largely released as such though), but many/most parts of it are; it would seem to me that’s pretty much (also) what open licenses intended.
Anyway, in that regard it did largely too off already (routers, browsers…)
Edited 2012-01-05 23:13 UTC
Android doesn’t have open development, and is barely open source (as was said before). It originated with proprietary values in mind, which affects it up to present date. What I hope for, is truly open mobile OS taking some hold in the market share.
While the Android code dumps do annoy me,for all practical purposes plenty of development can happen on released versions of android (see Cyanogenmod). Also lots of lower end devices or developers with fewer resources benefit from existing architecture ports that do not exist on the bleeding edge releases.
RIP Maemo
Long live Mer and Nemo:
http://merproject.org
http://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Nemo
I also hope Plasma Active + Mer will get hold on tablets:
http://dot.kde.org/2011/11/30/plasma-active-archos-g9-tablet
Long live my N9~!! R.I.P Nokia
Seriously, I’m waiting for the day you can buy any mobile phone (I refuse to use the word ‘smartphone’) and install one from a variety of true open source ‘distros’ on it, just like how we improve Thinkpads with Linux and purify MacBooks with FreeBSD.
I don’t like “smartphone” term either, so I prefer just to use plain handset [computer]. So far ironically, even though it’s RIP Nokia, only Nokia devices (N9x) allow such kind of ease of installation for open systems
Edited 2011-12-29 22:37 UTC
Yeah, I just use “phone” (well, in my language the word has a form closely following “telephone” – point is, it’s the absolute top word for overall class of devices), it’s what they are. Artificial distinctions will only get blurred over time – maybe except for sort of purpose-specific devices: inexpensive (aka… disposable?), long-battery, rugged. Heck, landlines should largely disappear, anyway.
THERE IS THE ONE TRUE WAY … Must be open source!!
be quiet … you are ruining the rhetoric!
The definition of Open*
“$ repo init -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-4.0.1_r1″
* As long as you design and build your own hardware. Otherwise, you have to put up with locked bootloaders, bloatware and other crap because manufacturers and carriers are free to do whatever the heck they want to the device and then lock the user out of it without any remorse.
Edited 2011-12-29 17:58 UTC
You know this is exactly what Thom is getting at. ANY electronic manufacturer can produce a low cost (or high cost) phone that has full internet connectivity and the ability to load additional programs.
The impact on the WORLD will be huge. Remember the majority of the people in the WORLD do not live in already developed nations. The developing world has already skipped land lines, nearly all telecommunications infrastructure is wireless. It is this impact that Thom is talking about. Not can I build my own phone in my shed on a breadboard (btw I think you could with Android).
My HD2 and Fire want to have a talk with you.
The iPhone is heralded as the most revolutionary mobile phone in human history, but the cold and harsh truth is that for all the cheering and punditry, the iPhone’s impact on the world is negligible.
This is ridiculous. The iPhone is the top-selling handset and practically set the paradigm that the majority of Android smartphones follow, both hardware-wise and software-wise. This isn’t about operating system wars; it’s just a historical data point.
Android fanboys are becoming even more obnoxious than Apple fanboys when it comes to cheerleading, especially because they pretend that they’re freedom fighters in a revolutionary war.
Way to take out the context of that quote.
Nothing was taken out of context. To pretend that the iPhone wasn’t a huge catalyst is just silly.
I never said that it wasn’t a catalyst. Read more carefully.
We’re at an impasse and will just have to disagree, as to me this is a pretty clear dismissal of the impact the iPhone has had. The iPhone’s success, and its huge influence on the industry, obviously impacts the rest of the world and not just “rich countries,” even if only for the fact that other smartphones mimic it.
Apple revolutionizes again!
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/12/apple-envisions…
Oh wait, that feature is already in Android 4.0
Oh wait it doesn’t work in Android properly. LOL!
You can say that about a number of Android’s features.
Its the same argument over Macs vs PC’s. Mac’s brought an obscure technology to the fore front and to the wealthy, PC’s with windows brought a version of that to the masses.
I’d still argue that Windows had a more revolutionary effect on how people live their lives than Mac OS X.
If you want to argue, your argument has to be confined to what field we are talking about revolutionizing: the technology world, or just simply people’s lives. Because I think you have an obvious argument that the Iphone was revolutionary for the industry and with out that their wouldn’t be the opportunity for Android to blossom. But the actual effect on people’s ( And I mean humanity, not just you, or the people you know) lives? Android without a debate.
1.) If the instructions were outdated, why didn’t Andy just post updated instructions rather than permanently deleting the post?
2.) You’re just repeating Google employee DeWitt Clinton’s Google+ post.
As others have said here. I want to see a “poor” person take Android and use it without having to buy a device and still spend money.
Last I looked the 3GS which is better then any low cost Android phone was free with a contract. The companies (At least in the US, can’t speak for the world) that have the most easy access to “poor” people, sell their crappy Android phones for sky high prices ($150 minimum) Like Boost mobile, Metro PCS and Cricket.
In reality the only thing that is revolutionary is that Google is the only company other then Red Hat who figured out how to monetize Linux.
Oh yeah and here we are again blowing off Apple like having the CEO of Google on Apples board didn’t shape the direction they took at all. Or that giving Android away is any different then giving away Gmail.
But hey OSAlert got a lot of hits today. LOL!
Boost, Metro, and Cricket sell their devices at retail price, with no contract.
iPhone 3GS is subsidized by a contract. ATT also has a $375 early termination fee.
Boost and Metro also have much, much cheaper service, while offering unlimited usage.
It’s like saying a Kia is more expensive than a BMW (Dammit. I hate car analogies) because BMW gives you free annual maintenance and what not for 5 years while Kia doesn’t.
In a way that is right. But what is more hard. Big upfront cost or a little higher monthly cost. Boost is cheap IF you barely use it, same with Metro. But the most you use it the more it costs.
Please I don’t know where you would find a subsidized Kia or BMW. LOL! No way you can get one for free. LOL!
Well, With Metro, everything is unlimited, but since they don’t allow roaming, if you’re out of their limited coverage area you’re SOL.
For alot of people, the larger upfront cost is easier than higher monthly service. You might get a bonus, or a tax refund, or some other small windfall, but the $40/month extra that verizon/att charges (for limited usage. Overages are a bitch) can be significant for some people, especially when your bill could vary significantly due to overages and other random reasons.
And, as for my analogy, The car in this case is the service, while *ahem* annual service is the phone. With the BMW, the service is subsidized by the cost of the car. Yes, back asswards, and not 100% complete, but car analogies suck in general.
You must not be familiar with their plans. I’m not sure about Metro, but I use Boost’s unlimited plan and it’s $35/mo. for unlimited everything after 18 months (starts out at $50/mo.) I think for Android it’s $40 (starts out at $55/mo.) </unintentional_plug>
There’s also that Republic Wireless I keep hearing about…hmm…
Republic looks interesting. I would love to see how they work. You are mostly on WiFi using them. Strange but interesting.
Doesn’t Boost offer unlimited everything for $50/month?
That’s called “buying” a car on credit or on leasing, you lolhead. Most new cars seem to be financed like that.
The specific legal frameworks etc. might differ, but it’s essentially the same thing as with subsidised phones – you pay virtually nothing at the beginning, in exchange for the obligation of making monthly payments; what virtually always ends up more expensive in the long run (and without the chance of immediate withdrawal, of changing the carrier at will – say, for a one with a better deal / driving competition)
What you generally seem to show in the sub-thread, the initial portrayal of the dilemma, is how you’re totally disconnected with the world at large, perceiving it via the situation in you highly atypical place.
Most of the world actually owns their mobiles, is on prepaid – evidently, people without much of “disposable” income, who must value money much more, treat is as a more optimal way (BTW, curiously in the background of “it’s their fault!” blame-games during recent financial meltdown, there’s how US society is generally at the forefront in rates if living on a credit and insolvency due to it)
Discussing in context the practice widespread in relatively few, all so called “first world” (apparently it doesn’t translate to thoughtfulness etc.) countries, of heavily subsidized phones and “pact with the devil” deals, is absurd.
”
Last I looked the 3GS which is better then any low cost Android phone was free with a contract. The companies (At least in the US, can’t speak for the world) that have the most easy access to “poor” people, sell their crappy Android phones for sky high prices ($150 minimum) Like Boost mobile, Metro PCS and Cricket. ”
The american telecom market is completely fucked up, that’s what you’re seeing. High communication prices permit the carriers to ‘subsidise’ their iphones and ‘give them away for free’. In Belgium, one can buy an android phone for 150^a‘not, compared to a more than a full 300^a‘not for the iphone 3GS (taxes included for both phones).
To you it might look expensive, but considering that you can have a good data/telephony plan for 15^a‘not/month, the total cost over two years is less. Not to mention, you can buy yourself a new phone when it suits you (each 3-4 years), not when it suits your carrier (the phone is being paid for in that american 2 year plan remember).
It’s still not the 25$ phones some people are wishing for (nokia still rules in that departement), but it’s a heck of a lot closer than anything apple sells.
I have a cheap Android 2.3 smartphone, the Huawei U8510 IDEOS X3
http://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_u8510_ideos_x3-3840.php
It cost me $99AUD outright, the only restriction is that it is locked to Vodafone. I expect to keep it for, say, three years.
I am not a heavy user of mobile phones. I use the phone pre-paid for up to a year at a time. The minimum amaont of credit I can have is $30 AUD.
This Vodafone deal lets me have a relatively full-featured (but underpowered) smartphone for three years at an all-up cost of under $200.
Try beating that with anything “iDevice”-ish.
Edited 2011-12-30 01:36 UTC
That $99 Huawei also has very similar hardware to the $449 iPhone 3GS – same CPU speed, same RAM, same screen resolution.
Edited 2011-12-31 08:53 UTC
In Australia an iPhone 3GS 8GB costs $449 unlocked.
I can get at least 20 different (often far better) unlocked Android models for (far) less money. The cheapest unlocked Android phone is the $78 Huawei X1.
Most of the WORLD and especially the developing world use Pre-Paid mobile phones not contract tied post paid.
What most people here are doing is thinking that North America and Europe is the world. Wake up please… for the sake of us all.
“Free with a contract” ? Yes, of course… What kind of contract, exactly ? How much does it cost a month ?
Don’t believe that carriers can make hundreds of euros magically disappear. Phones cost money, even if they cost carriers a tiny bit less because they buy in bulk. “Smartphone” contracts costing ^a‘not40 a month is what makes iPhones and other Nexuses *seem* so cheap. They aren’t.
(Disclaimer : I buy my phones unlocked, with the cheapest available contract that fits my needs.)
Edited 2011-12-29 23:59 UTC
Weren’t these sort of articles coming out 2001-2004 when Linux was supposed to take over the desktop?
I agree with a lot of the author says, but he importantly neglects to mention that Android is derivative of iPhone. The iPhone was revolutionary because of all the innovations it packaged into one device: the phone, the gestures, the gyro, wifi, game platform, yadi yada. Prior to iPhone, the state-of-the-art was the Treo or Sony/Ericsson 900 (blech). Android copied a lot of the iphone features, and democratized them. Good for them, but hard to say where we would be w/o the iPhone innovation.
The iPhone is derivative of every phone that came before it and incorporated no actually new technolgies so that would then mean it’s not revolutionary.
In a copyright sense, which is where the word “derivative” is important, Android is most definitely NOT a derivative of the iPhone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
“In United States copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major, copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work (the underlying work).”
So, according to the correct legal definition, in order to be a derived work of iOS, Android would have to include some major element of iOS which was copyrighted.
Android actually includes not one single line of iOS copyrighted source code. Therefore, Android is simply NOT derivative of iOS.
So go suck a lemon.
Edited 2011-12-30 01:23 UTC
Also Thom while saying that world and his wife will have cheap internet possibly at their finger tips, forgets that many countries have quite strict controls over their internet.
Also say they got cheap and free internet, who is doing the development?
It is all good as well people having access to information … but who is providing it. Western companies or their own Governments?
Edited 2011-12-29 19:42 UTC
Well, as long as they don’t live in the U.S chances are they’ll be ok in that respect. The majority of the countries on this planet don’t have strict controls.
Neither. It’s provided by the carriers in those countries.
LOLWUT!
USA and Europe have pretty much unrestricted internet access, I love your First World Problems.
I know Gambia has strict control on internet access.
So while they have cheap internet devices they don’t have freedom of information.
The information is still being provided by Western Companies. The web servers are still owned by western companies.
I think it’s called sarcasm. I guess you didn’t detect that sicne I didnt put any smileys in there.
FYI, I live in the 3rd world and have done so for more than 10 years.
Congratulations on giving one example. Guess why I said “majority” and not “all”?
Uhm, no. This may come as a surpise to you but most people prefer their information in their native language and they read local news and that information is almost certainly not provided by western countries.
Sure, many hosting providers are western but there are also many that are not. This is especially true in South America.
Why does it matter if it is “provided by” a western country anyway?
Edited 2011-12-31 00:56 UTC
Maybe I don’t detect your sarcasm because I think you are a bit of a nitwit.
Anyway. The whole Android/Linux over throwing corrupt regimes is a load of rubbish, especially in places where just getting clean water is struggle … but we will just give them android phones and that will just fix everything.
You can^aEURTMt write an Android is changing the world…without pissing off some iphone fans.
The iphone is a good phone. Apple makes good products.
US iphone users though have to understand apple’s products is inaccessible to 99% of the world.
Even if you are of the opinion, (false or not) that the iphone is a superior device. You got to appreciate the importance of Android.
My problem with this article is not the positive parts about Android. I use an iPhone but I love that Android exists and can see myself using an Android phone at some point. And I think it’s awesome that cheap Android devices are making it to poorer countries and are letting more people have access to the power of smartphones than ever before. The linked article is absolutely right that Apple has no market there and likely never will (is it a surprise that Apple doesn’t target the low end?).
What annoys me is that by framing every article as a war, it degrades the value of the article and the comments. Have a look at this thread, most of the comments are pointless “no the iPhone is better”, “no android is better”. Instead it could have been an interesting discussion of the spread of smartphones to more of the population and what that means for people’s freedom or ability to better their situation. Nope, instead we get the endless flamewars that we’ve always had.
OSAlert editors can change that by not stoking the fire every time something is posted about one platform or another. They chose to fan the flames instead, and the site is worse off for it.
Edited 2011-12-29 20:25 UTC
Well, perhaps these comments are supposed to be the fireworks to end 2011 and we’ll see a little more quality in 2012.
Maybe I’m getting old, but the 8 and 16 bits flame wars had much more class, respect and were very informational. IIRC they didn’t even involve car analogies.
But it is a war.
These aren’t the genteel days of BBS maintainers and garage-soldered PCB’s. The popo will bust your door down if you get caught with a missing smartphone prototype. The reporting fits the business climate.
Now whether by being appropriate for the business climate the reporting manages to cater to business interests–and whether that’s a desirable thing–is a different question…
This is the equivalent of saying Lexington & Concord and the ensuing Battle of Bunker Hill were not revolutionary because there were fewer casualties than the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse.
Edited 2011-12-29 20:15 UTC
So it appears what is really going on in many forums across the web the past few weeks is google evangelists telling a story about how Android being “open” is better for the world and humanity. The use of the “poor” in developing countries is often seen in this context as anecdotal evidence for how Android should be applauded.
I’d wager what is underlying this, apart from sentimental holiday gushing, is that Oracle v Google is due for settlement or judgement Real Soon Now (TM) and it is going to end with Google having to pay some damages and acquire a license for Rubin’s hijinx and we are now seeing the first few shots of a PR war about how paying evil corporations license fees for an “open” source OS is depriving poor starving African children of smartphones in order to put a significant cost on the Oracle brand for the revenue. But only time will tell I suppose.
Lolwut?
Thinking about this more, I wonder if this is a real issue. When the OLPC (one laptop per child) project was deciding on its OS, Apple offered to let them use OSX for free (they turned them down). Presumably a low-cost mobile project could get the same deal with iOS.
Edited 2011-12-29 22:17 UTC
Awesome article, I totally agree with you
One of these might work in some browsers:
https://plus.google.com/117377434815709898403/posts/c5Zhg1S6e9N#z12s…
https://plus.google.com/117377434815709898403/posts/c5Zhg1S6e9N#z12s…
Although probably not.
It was in the source… somewhere
I have no idea why Google makes this complicated.
Don’t get me wrong, I very much like Android, openness and the idea of helping the poor by all means available, including information technology.
But does anyone really think poor countries are poor just because they don’t have smartphones where they can surf the web and look up how to become rich?
Rich countries became rich with pen and paper, chalk and cupboard. They did because enough people in those countries had the right ideas and attitude, with which they built for themselves the right kind of society and government. New information technologies can help spread good ideas, but also bad ones.
There are lots of good reasons to like Android and open source in general, no need to make it all about the poor, no need for Google to compete with Mother Teresa.
I understand where you are coming from, but there is a whole continuum wealth in countries all over the world. In some places, they want for food or pen and paper as you say. In some places, the availability of a relatively cheap and open mobile device will absolutely be a game changer.
So what you’re saying is that as long as there is at minimum:
*Reliable Excess Power
*Cellular network infrastructure and/or wireless network infrastructure.
*Income to pay for above services.
Android is revolutionary.
What other caveats must be met to jump on this revolution?
The power use by phones is negligible – a few milliwatts.
The infrastructure is relatively cheap to build.
The cost of mobile phone services in the developing world is typically extremely cheap – less than 1 cent per minute for prepaid phones.
Countries don’t become rich because the people have the “right ideas and attitudes”. They become rich by having access to trade and outside technology, abundant supplies of natural resources, good transport etc (big rivers, suitable ports etc).
America originally became rich by stealing land and using slaves to grow cotton and tobacco.
Argentina went from rich to poor because it was excluded from the European beef trade by the Common Market in the 1950s.
Blaming other countries, claiming that rich countries are rich because they are more evil, is part of the kind of wrong ideas which keep countries poor. Some of the worst human rights violations happened and still happen every day in poor countries. Slavery is still a reality in many dirt-poor countries, and it does no good to their economies. Natural resources are relevant, but not decisive. Most of the richest countries sell technology and services, and they buy raw materials from less wealthy countries. Japan did not became rich by exporting meat.
When you say “outside technology” you mean Western technology. Backwards countries win nothing from having access to each other’s inexistent technologies. The question is, how was this technology developed in the first place, and how it is maintained.
Everyone wants to be rich and powerful. The first step is to leave the sour grapes mentality behind.
I don’t know about you, but I spent the first 13 years of my life in Argentina and I think it’s a textbook example of what I’m saying. Argentina became rich by having a constitution and a government inspired by those of America. Then it lost its track and it has been in decadence since before JD Peron, but paticularly afterwards, with thieving military juntas sending public debt through the roof, opposed by Marxist youths and guerrillers. Meat agreements played no role in that.
Americans used West African slaves because they were resistant to malaria which was rife in the US South. The North didn’t use slaves because they didn’t have malaria and free men were cheaper to employ than slaves. It had nothing to do with morality or justice.
With very few exceptions the countries that now rely on technology and services were already affluent from agriculture
Japan has an enormous advantage because it perfectly located on the northern edge of the Pacific and has many excellent natural ports. This means it can easily trade with other countries at very low cost.
Landlocked mountainous countries like Afghanistan find it almost impossible to trade because transport costs are extremely high.
The Western countries originally obtained nearly all their technology from China (paper, porcelain, printing, banknotes, tobacco, firearms), India (mathematics and astronomy) and the Middle East (algebra, cryptology, alchemy, navigation, irrigation, windmills, waterwheels). It wasn’t until about 1750-1800 that Western technology finally surpassed that of China.
During WW2 Argentina was unable to trade with Europe. Post WW2 the beef trade never fully resumed because of European protectionism. This led to a nearly complete collapse of the economy. The Person regime and the later military junta was the result of economic collapse not the original cause.
That may or may not be true, but in any case it has nothing to do with my point. Slavery and other human rights violations cannot explain economic success. Poor countries did and do far worse, and they stay poor.
Because they used technology to improve agriculture. Also, because foreign trade was less relevant then than now, and countries were supposed to grow their own food. But many countries with plenty of natural resources are extremely poor, many contries became rich without natural resources, and many countries stay rich even if they stopped exploiting their own natural resources.
Landlocked Switzerland is among the richest countries on Earth. Being landlock is a handicap for any country, but it can’t explain extreme poverty.
Foreign trade has no special power to enrich a country, beyond the obvious effect of having a bigger market. There’s no reason to think a country with millions of inhabitants and a reasonable amount of land would become dirt-poor just because of some obstacles to foreign trade.
By the way, Afghanistan has quite a lot of mining resources, which are now starting to be expoloited by Chinese and other foreign companies. Its poverty is caused by the prolonged lack of a peaceful, stable and business-friendly government.
Tobacco is from the Americas, not from China. Maybe you mean opium. In any case, not something to celebrate.
The rest of those technological precedents had very little economic impact before the Europeans came up with crucial improvements. The Chinese invented the printing press, but Gutenberg’s system (including the hand mould) was far more practical. They invented gunpowder, but not corning, which made gunpowder far more reliable, not to speak of improvements such as the percusion cap and smokeless gunpowder. Western alchemy developed independently of the Chinese variety, and anyway it was more of a distraction than a useful guide for the development of actual chemistry.
Nearly all technology which has played a major role in the wealth and power of nations was created after the scientific revolution (16th and 17th centuries), and virtually all of it in the West. More details in Charles Murray’s “Human Accomplishment”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Accomplishment
From the Wikipedia article:
Argentina has a long history of military coups, which started long before it became a poor country. By the way, I don’t know why you insist on pointing out trade restrictions during WWII, when it’s common knowledge that, if anything, Argentina took huge profits from trade to Europe during that period. It was only after WWII that Argentina had a downturn in its exports to Europe, because it was not included in the Marshall plan. But that’s just a missed opportunity for improved trade conditions, nothing like a trade embargo. Argentina was not forbidden to trade with Europe, or with the Soviet Union for that matter. It was the business-unfriendly (and downright totalitarian) policies of Peron and others which destroyed the nation’s wealth.
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina#Modern_history
I don’t think anybody expects miracles / promises golden mountains, but the discussed piece should bring some improvement.
Just like “plain” mobile phones already do (at the least – economic benefits of people not being so much at the mercy of ~traders higher up in the chain, when they can have for the first time distant contact with prices; social of keeping desired ties with relatives & their events without the time waster of a group of people who actually walked from village to village, to disseminate news about births, funerals, etc.; or medical, you can guess this one)
And sure, it might help also some bad ideas – but it’s about balance in the end, and I believe it’s on the good side by now.
Communication and integration is crucial – that’s what the EU is really about …come on, over half a century without war between countries involved in European structures – almost unreal, unthinkable, the whole history of Christian Europe is that of virtually constant conflict.
(OK, there was Algeria… sort of a French Civil war, technically an integral part of France IIRC; but technically also not Europe, and really more a sad remnant of colonialism)
BTW colonialism and such, don’t forget to mention ‘bad’ “right ideas and attitude” thanks to which the presently rich countries are also prosperous… it’s in large part a self-perpetuating circle, even an avalanche of sorts – once you’re ahead in some key areas it results in you making easier strives forward; even blocking others if, say, resources (their trade usually involves a very long-term deals …even under a thread of wars in historically recent time) and brain drain (natural, to “better” places) are involved.
Furthermore, the line dividing our world doesn’t really go “prosperous vs. poor” (aka “starving” according in the view of many, it seems) – there are many places where basic needs are OK, but which could really benefit from much more affordable information technologies.
Edited 2012-01-06 00:19 UTC
MG Siegler is just an irrational Apple fanboi who pounces on every opportunity to deride/deprecate Google and its initiatives. It’s amazing that such stupid motor mouths like MG are given so much attention in the ‘knowledgeable’ West.
Ignorance is bliss?
How does a smart phone close the knowledge gap exactly? The only thing that “closes the knowledge gap” is having the determination to close it your damned self. Let me guess, one smart phone per child?
This has to be the longest running gag ever, this misguided notion that Linux, Android & Co. will do away with poverty and hardship everywhere. This is, of course, only possible by redefining the divide between rich and poor. It’s now only a digital divide that has to be overcome. But how exactly overcoming this digital divide will affect the reality poor and underprivileged people live in, is conveniently left unexplained by guys like DeWitt Clinton.
The fact that poverty is rising in developed countries, too, where — Android devices or not — even poor people can in practice access information in public places such as libraries, is also conveniently ignored. How can that be that they remain poor, even though they are able to gain knowledge?
Could it possibly be that other factors are somehow playing a part? No! Monocausal reasoning wins.
Such utopianist fantasies really distort reality in an unprecedented way, it’s almost worse than Marx.
It doesn’t matter if they starve… as long as they have a cheap smartphone.
Not sure I’d like to have something like a cell phone if I’m in a situation where everybody around me is poor and starving. If people in the modern world get robbed for an (1 iPhone I don’t want to know what they’ll do in a less civilized country.
1: http://www.digisecrets.com/apple/android-and-blackberry-owners-insu…
It’s way worse than that… This “for the good of poor countries” argument is so air headed. Clean drinking water, nourishment, better medicine and education and the political stability that follows from these are more pressing matters in these countries than the lack of smartphones or other gadgets.
Hence why I’m donating real money to causes that actually try to achieve these goals, rather than advocating tech toys under the banner of the good of mankind.
The problem in many poor countries is that they are not poor at all. War, corruption, dictatorship makes things nasty for the people.
For example there is a lot of food in Africa, the problem is the logistics. Just try getting food from A to B while dogging rebels, gangs and corrupt officials.
Perhaps Google maps on a cheap android phone will help finding an alternate route, but I doubt it will solve war or corruption.
When there is safety and no more or much less corruption no doubt easy and cheap Internet access can contribute in education.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow‘s_hierarchy_of_needs
But we’ve had this before with the Linux movement. Someone makes up an idea and it becomes a dogma. These ideas often don’t take in account reality and other factors. People who make up these ideas often have no clue what people want and people need. Steve did and became rich selling expensive and restrictive stuff (as some people here claim).
I think its a much broader problem than just the logistical part. Its also to the large extent the proper sociocultural glue which has dissolved after so many years of wars and instability. For western people, this is so pervasive in our lifes that they seem a given. But for people having sat out the terror during most of their lives, barely clinging onto life itself, its a long way to a well educated and properly organized society. Thats why I like initiatives like Neil Turok’s AIMS a lot more. They’re trying to tackle the problem at the core, and that is helping these nations by providing education to individuals who can make a difference in their own countries.
Edited 2011-12-31 11:53 UTC
I guess it has to begin somewhere and it probably won’t be one quick fix, but perhaps many small ones.
And we can all think and talk about it, but I don’t think we can imagine how it’s like to be in that position and what other pitfalls and problems are about.
So all in all I think it’s rather naive to think that cheap Android powered phones will solve anything.
But hey, here in The Netherlands we recently had a big charity event for mothers in poor countries in which almost 7 million euro was collected and I just heard we spend 67 million on fireworks!
Smartphones are incredibly useful in poor countries. A district nurse can take a photo of a rash and send it to a city based doctor for diagnosis. A farmer can look up a website to find information on suitable crops. A fisherman can check the price of fish to decide whether to go out fishing. A woman can check whether a certain item is available in the neighbouring town before making a two hour bus trip.
I lived in a remote part of Mexico and was able to see, as internet arrived in the area, the benefits gained by those with the ability to access and use computers and the internet vs. those that could/would not. It meant better jobs and more food on the table. I’m not saying every one will have this experience, but Android is yet another lower-cost way to access information and as such will put that power in the hands of many more people. Is it the ultimate? Probably not, but it is the best option out there right now.
The rapes and the genocide will stop because of smartphones.</sarcasm>
Edited 2011-12-30 10:51 UTC
you know, Microsoft take credits for putting Computer on every desktop.
it is certainly good thing, to put computer on everybody desktop, but bad thing (or: very ugly) is that you have position to put computer on every desktop and you put third rated piece of crap!
that’s problem.
tell me Thom now… Now we have two contenders for dominant mobile OS:
– Microsoft Windows Phone 7
– Google Android
you write over and over that WP7 is superior to Android and yet, second rated will dominated
…sad? …history repeating?
(disclaimer: judging to this 30 years+ of Microsoft crapware *I* am pretty sure that Android path is superior – main problem with Android is that software developers are spoiled and more Microsoft-like* – they do not pay attention to details; honor to minority!)
*explanation directly from Bill Gates mouth: http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html#exec
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/01/if-android-is-so-hot-why-has…
Well, nothing really new, but still interesting to see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aHo2vwvNBM
… that I keep on reading OSAlert.
Keep on, Mr. Holwerda.