Woz he talking about? Apple co-founder wants iPhones to run Android Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has infuriated fanbois everywhere after suggesting the fruity firm should start building Android iPhones. The corpulent Cupertinian said said he owned all three colours of the iPhone 5S, but would rather the fruity firm jettisoned iOS in favour of the other operating system. Fanbois lambasted …
Actually, I could see the market. As much as I hate to say it (I hate Apple stuff) they do seem to make nicer feeling stuff than Samsung. I hold a Samsung phone in my hand and it feels like I'm holding a lump of plastic, not a premium device. The reason I wouldn't have an iPhone is I don't like the walled garden it locks you into. If I could get an Android powered one that didn't need iTunes, I'd be very tempted.
"So don't buy a Sammy. If you're after premium feel phone running Android, why not the HTC One?"
Unfortuately HTC one failed to include microsd, which lost a sale from me, shame as its a nice phone...
Sony lost out because the screen was terrible when I tried it...
Samsung was the only fast phone that had micro sd, a clear screen and a replaceable battery...
"If you're after premium feel phone running Android, why not the HTC One?"
Because HTC is stupid. Their whole "frontside speaker" ad campaign showed they really have no idea what they're doing. The speaker goes on the back lower corner of the phone, because your hand is there holding the phone. The cupped shape of your hand amplifies the acoustics and directs it toward your face.
At some point Samsung will probably make a metal/glass phone, but they're more concerned with durability right now. Their phones don't shatter when dropped like an iPhone and metal shows oil and scratches more.
OK, let's say there are a lot of people like you who would buy an Apple phone for the hardware/design, if you could run Android on it instead of iOS. Are there people who are your opposite - those who make that choice now, and only buy Apple for the hardware, but wish they could be running Android?
If there are, iOS will lose sales due to this new product. If the new product has lower margins, they'll also lose profit. There need to be more of you than there are your opposite, and you have to be willing to pay a fairly hefty price (i.e. it isn't going to be sold at Moto X prices, Apple has never competed on price)
Seems rather risky to me, the upside is limited unless there are millions of people like you, and it risks making iOS developers a bit nervous about the future of iOS - they'd be worried "what if half of all iPhone customers switched to the Android iPhone?"
Contra to popular opinion, there is already a version of Andriod that works on the Iphone. Although it is still in early stages of development, you can put Android on your Iphone. When this Android version is cleaned up a bit, it will be very competitive operating system alternative for the Iphone
I can't imagine there are more than a handful of people who really want to run Android on an iPhone. Maybe it would be sort of useful on a 3gs that is no longer getting updates, but who is going to buy a 5S and want to run Android on it - in 32 bit and probably giving up access to the fingerprint scanner since Android won't have drivers for the specific hardware that the 5S includes.
There are probably more Android owners who wish they could run iOS - I'm thinking of those who want a bigger phone but can't get it from Apple so they switched to Android for that reason, but who may go back to iOS if Apple actually does release a bigger iPhone someday...
" Woz championed putting iTunes on Windows "
Windows Itues was released in 2003. Woz stopped working for Apple in 1987. Woz might have publicly suggested this, but he was no position to champion it per se.
The real reason was more likely that Apple realised that without a Windows Itunes, the ipod and the itunes store would never amount to anything.
I get your feelings, and agree. But I have said this before:
Think about it. Say MS decided to start a GNU/Linux distro, which meant that they would also contribute to the coding base; they do have some talented coders...
They would have enough of the desktop clout that would start hardware manufacturers to create drivers that were Linux compatible, resulting in less faffing on installs.
Businesses that are stuck on the Windows bandwagon would start looking at Linux as a viable alternative (It currently is anyway, just that that iTrolls of the world tend to do what they do best...) increasing the footprint.
There would be a knock on effect of increasing the amount of commercial software on Linux - not saying this is a good or bad thing, just saying that this *would* affect take up.
Now, I appreciate that dark side of all this regarding MS history on trying to railroad markets, but it would open a market to them similar to how Redhat works, and it would start to reduce the pain of the (effectively) closed garden that Windows really is. It would also push MS to produce decent code, as they have to compete on the OS side with others creating a distro, they would also have to ensure people choose theirs for quality reasons. Well, that and the support they could offer their client base.
As much as I would hate, HATE, *H*A*T*E* to even consider that Office would appear on Linux, I can see sound reasons, from an objective viewpoint, that states this should be on the table for them at least.
Fortunately, the people at the MS helm are fscking (or should that be chkdsking?) idiots so this is very unlikely. However, at the current rate, MS are carrying on in a tech ecosystem that will just continue to make them more and more irrelevant.
"Say MS decided to start a GNU/Linux distro"
Now why would they want to do that? Where's the money? Why would they want to be forced to compete when they have a market leading product that has no competition?
I know it is nice to fanticise about what might be in a "suppose we all got paid but didn't have to work" sort of way, but the reality is that currently there is absolutely nothing appealing about this idea from a MS perspective.
In the future things might change. Perhaps it gets to the position where the desktop OS revenue falls away and we get MS Office underr Linux, or as a MS distro. But given MS's current market share that's still a long way off.
Is the point going completely over your head. The ecosystem is what keeps people buying Apple kit, it's not just about selling phones now it's about continuing to sell them in the future.
There's an old adage: people don't buy hardware, they buy software. The hardware is just something to run it on. This is why Apple's attempts at licensing MacOS were a disaster, they were competing on price for something that users don't really care about ("this one runs the same software, but is cheaper? I'll have that then").
"There's an old adage: people don't buy hardware, they buy software. The hardware is just something to run it on."
Uh, what?
The average Apple user couldn't tell you what "iOS" was. If you ask them what they run on their iPhone, they get confused. Just like how Motorola users don't know what the difference is between DROID and Android.
But they do know about apps, they have lots of those, and they know they won't work on Android (and may not have equivalents).
What iPhone users want and understand is to be able to access the combination of apps, music, services etc that iOS gives them. That's the meaning of an ecosystem, the whole infrastructure that has grown up about the system. Windows wasn't a good operating system, but the software that users wanted was available on it so people bought Windows machines, and the cycle repeated. It's also the reason that Microsoft take (or took) such pains to ensure that old software still runs on newer versions of Windows (lest users ask themselves what other alternatives exist since they have to replace their software anyway).
Woz reveals the truth of the emperor's new clothes. He has a point - Apple is a brand, a fashion item. It matters not a jot to most iPhone owners what OS it uses.
Skin it to look like iOS and make it compatible with iTunes and 99% of owners wouldn't notice the difference.
Macs can run Windows these days and the sky didn't fall when that happened.
This is akin to BMW going front wheel drive for some models. Shocking for the purists but makes sense economically as the buyers of those models don't give a toss.
Think you would find it's actually the other way around. iPhone uses 'use' their devices (as had been shown many times by the web usage and other metrics) - most Android phones are just full (touch)screen 'phones' (i.e. phone + SMS). So it's most Android users that would not notice the difference.
Your example is a bit like sticking a BMW badge on a [insert low end car make] and expecting BMW makers not to notice the difference.
I don't think he does have a point: Apple has almost no expertise in being just one of many suppliers of anything. Everything Apple knows — and knows how to sell — is about tight vertical integration, with Apple being behind every part of the widget. Macs ship with OS X. iPhones ship with iOS. iPods link only to iTunes. Etc.
So while Apple would have some advantages in trying to sell an Android phone over Samsung, HTC, etc (for emphasis: _some_ benefits, i.e. they'd likely capture _some_ of the market) it'd be a riskier proposition that continuing as they are now, with no obvious benefit even if they prevail.
I therefore don't think it's correct for Apple to start selling Android mobiles. It'd be great for us, the market, but that's neither here nor there.
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iOS is the jewel in the crown - the hardware is looks good but often has flaws and quickly looks awful after a few knocks. iOS, iCloud, iTunes and the app store aren't great but they usually do the job. Android has the similar but they are a lot better and cheaper. Running Android would make the phone like a high end HTC - well built but essentially the same.
FTFY
"iOS, iCloud, iTunes and the app store aren't great but they usually do the job."
They are the reason I don't buy an iPhone, not the reason to buy...
If iTunes was optional, great but its not..
With Android I have a choice of app stores, I can choose many ways to buy apps, and many ways to use my phone... in fact I would like less google integration on my phone...
You can dash out and buy an iPhone then... If you had bothered to look rather than just posting with prejudice you'd know that you can run an iPhone or iPad as a stand alone device, put your apps on, back up to the cloud etc etc with no need for a computer running iTunes...
There you are, fixed it for you :-)
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