A gentleman by the name of Shelly Palmer wrote a piece for today’s Huffington Post entitled Of iPhones and Androids. He makes many claims with nary a shred of evidence — no links, no citations, nada. This should cause any reader to dismiss him outright. In the off chance that some people read his piece and come across this one, though, let me correct some of his whoppers:
They developed the system with the idea of giving it away to manufacturers in return for allowing Google to place ads inside android mobile programs.
He, of course, offers no proof of this claim. And, in fact, if Android is released as open source — as has been announced — it would be impossible for Google to enforce an ads-for-Android exchange program with manufacturers. The manufacturers could simply rip out the Google ad bits. I have no doubt that Google hopes to deliver ads to mobile devices, but I see no evidence that it is a requirement for handset manufacturers to use Android.
So, why hasn’t anyone jumped on the model?
The Open Handset Alliance has dozens of members, including device manufacturers, carriers, and potential application publishers. So, if this question were asked in a year, and many OHA members had done nothing with Android, and few outside of OHA were bothering, it would be a very valid question.
Certainly if Google could find a carrier willing to sell an Android phone at retail, someone would agree to manufacture it.
T-Mobile has publicly stated they will be shipping an Android phone in 2008 Q4.
Without a walled garden, there is no incentive for any carrier to market the device.
Which is why nobody sells Windows Mobile, Symbian, or any other device that lacks a “walled garden”.
Oh, no, wait. Millions of those devices have sold.
So, if millions of those were sold and continue to sell, it’s reasonable to assume “walled garden”-ness is not going to be a barrier for Android.
How would you debug open source applications across carriers?
The same way you debug non-open source applications across carriers. Is this a trick question?
With the downward price pressure on pure bits, where could an Android manufacturer or carrier value-add and charge more?
The same way they “value-add and charge more” on Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, and other devices that they sell today. Is this another trick question?
I’ve heard that over 20,000 developers submitted their applications for inclusion in the Apple 3G iPhone store and only 4,000 were accepted. Is there an application in there that will benefit you? Of course there is. Will you buy a 3G iPhone to get that benefit? Apple is counting on it.
There have been similar numbers of applications available for Windows Mobile and PalmOS for ages. It’s unclear why the iPhone having this many applications is somehow different…and, in particular, different than Android, should it achieve the same number. With ~1,700 entrants in the Android Developer Competition, they’re off to a decent start, considering there’s no hardware yet.
This is not to say the iPhone is toast and Android r00lz or anything. I suspect both, and Windows Mobile, will have their share of the market over the long term. I just wish the “journalists” who report on these things actually, y’know, do a little research and include that research in their pieces.
