6.25.2008

Apple 2.0: Android vs. iPhone: ‘This is where the pain happens’

In the spirit of fairness, wanted to post a response to the Wired article that I shared, entitled Google's Open Source Android Phone Will Free the Wireless Web. This one comes from the Apple2.0 blog, written by Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt.

The debate is really heating up over which platform will win the hearts and minds of mobile users and developers. Feel free to chime in by commenting here!

A snippet:

"Google’s plan may yet work. But for Wired, the timing of Roth’s piece could hardly be worse. Not only did it arrive in the middle Apple’s carefully orchestrated drumroll for the July 11 iPhone 3G launch, but it landed just as the Wall Street Journal was reporting that Google’s plans have hit two serious roadblocks.

The first roadblock is the carriers. As Roth reports, Google was already having trouble getting the mobile phone operators to play along. The country’s two biggest — Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T), with a combined market share of 54% — passed...So Google went with the third and fourth best, T-Mobile (DT) and Sprint Nextel (S). Now the Journal reports that T-Mobile won’t have any Android phones ready before the fourth quarter and has been sucking up so much of Google’s time with its demands that Sprint won’t have anything this year at all....

...Even more critical, if Google hopes to build a vibrant software platform, are the snarls developers are running into. As the Journal reports:

...“Some developers say it is easier to work with Apple’s programming tools than Google’s because of the familiarity with the company’s Macintosh operating system."


Read the full article, Android vs. iPhone: ‘This is where the pain happens’, here.

Thanks to Justin McCarthy for bringing this article to my attention.

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