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posted by n1 on Tuesday August 05 2014, @01:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the most-smartphones-are-dumb dept.

Android has slipped past Apple's iOS to become the top mobile operating system for the first time, in terms of online usage. Figures from Net Marketshare show that devices powered by Android were detected browsing the web more than iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch devices running iOS throughout July 2014.

Android usage grew from 43.75 per cent in June to 44.62 per cent in July, while iOS usage dipped from 45.61 per cent 44.19 per cent. Coming in a third place after iOS and Android is Java ME, which provided 4.19 per cent of mobile and tablet web access in July, followed by Nokia's Symbian mobile operating system, which brought in a tiny 2.57 per cent. Microsoft Windows Phone 8 operating system managed just 1.87 per cent, with BlackBerry next up at 1.21 per cent and Amazon's Kindle Fire OS taking a 0.64 per cent slice.

Android runs on 85 per cent of handsets sold compared with iOS just 11.9 per cent.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by skater on Tuesday August 05 2014, @01:22PM

    by skater (4342) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @01:22PM (#77584) Journal

    Lots of people seem to love it, but having had both an Android phone (Samsung S3) and a couple iPhones (a 3GS before the S3, and an employer-issued 5S), I'm ready to go back to iPhone for my personal phone. My S3's battery life is terrible, even after replacing my battery, as compared to my wife's iPhone 5, which she purchased at the same time I got my S3. I have various other problems with it - I'm seriously considering writing an article or something comparing the two, which I feel I can do well since I have ample, current experience with both of them. Android does a few things better than iOS, but for me those don't offset the battery life issue and the bugs I've had with it.

    • (Score: 2) by githaron on Tuesday August 05 2014, @01:50PM

      by githaron (581) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @01:50PM (#77591)

      The S3 is kind of old at this point. You might want to try a current generation device before giving up on Android. I got a HTC One M8 recently and have been amazed at how long the battery lasts even with regular use. Also, it sound like even more power improvements are coming soon. With the replacement of the Dalvik VM with ART in the upcoming Android release, you should see increased battery life since the apps are compiled once and saved rather than compiled during runtime.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by BasilBrush on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:04PM

        by BasilBrush (3994) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:04PM (#77615)

        The S3 is kind of old at this point. You might want to try a current generation device before giving up on Android.

        I've been hearing this about Linux products since the mid 90s. Sure, version X had problems, but just look at version X+1. And if that's no good, X+2 will be.

        Android won't catch up to iOS on battery life because the developers made a different tradeoff. iOS initially had no background apps, then in later versions limited apps severely as to the time and possible activities which they can do in the background. Android instead went down the route of allowing background apps to keep on normal processing in the background, though perhaps at a lower priority. This fundamental difference means that 3rd party apps can drain the battery on Android and not iOS. No tinkering about with compilers is going to change that.

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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @04:54PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @04:54PM (#77653)

          Changing the Android runtime won't do anything for the issue you highlighted, but I believe Google are making other changes to the OS for "Android L" along the lines of managing when background tasks wake up that will help with battery life. If you are interested a Google search for "Android L battery use improvements" brought up several articles on the subject.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday August 05 2014, @05:38PM

          by frojack (1554) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @05:38PM (#77676) Journal

          Some android devices exceed the best IOS phones with the same size battery.
          Great stride have been made in this area, both in power management as well as forcing background apps to STFU an use Google's single socket notification system.

          My M8 easily gets two days of normal usage.

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          • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:27PM

            by BasilBrush (3994) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:27PM (#78147)

            Some android devices exceed the best IOS phones with the same size battery.

            That's completely untrue for the reason I already stated.

            My M8 easily gets two days of normal usage.

            The M8 has slightly better battery life than the iPhone 5S. In this test 15 minutes longer of playing video - 7:45 vs 7:30
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJbrMj11pnQ [youtube.com]

            BUT the battery size is NOT the same. The M8 is a significantly bigger phone in all dimensions, which is mostly battery. And you can see that in the specs: The M8 is 2,600 mAh and the iPhone S5 is 1560 mAh. A 66% bigger battery for only an extra 15 minutes battery life. That illustrates the better battery efficiency of iOS nicely.

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            • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 07 2014, @12:28AM

              by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 07 2014, @12:28AM (#78263) Journal

              no it doesn't.

              All it says is I have a bigger screen.

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              • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Thursday August 07 2014, @02:28PM

                by BasilBrush (3994) on Thursday August 07 2014, @02:28PM (#78416)

                For sure the larger screen will probably take more power. But >50% more power for the whole device taken by a slightly bigger screen? Nope.

                The fact is that iOS was created with power management a top priority. Android wasn't.

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        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by skater on Tuesday August 05 2014, @08:10PM

          by skater (4342) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @08:10PM (#77738) Journal

          No, I'm not spending several hundred dollars on another Android phone and risking two more years of frustration. The S3 should be directly comparable to the iPhone 5, since they were released near the same time. I've gotten to do a side-by-side comparison (my wife and I work in the same building and carpool together and eat lunch together, so it really is probably the best long-term real-world comparison you could hope for), and frankly, Android fell short.

          I've had many issues with my S3, from getting music on to it (I haven't checked lately, but as of a few months ago the driver for Mac STILL wasn't working for me), to it doing random things like occasionally removing apps from the menus when they're updated, for no reason I can discern (in fact, the OS just updated over the weekend and - ha ha - the Google Search bar widget disappeared from the menus - it's still on the phone, though). Or how neither of our cars' radios recognize the phone when it's plugged in to them (one is a stock Honda radio, the other is a new aftermarket Pioneer) - yeah, this is because MTP is great or whatever and my radios don't support it, but in the end it means that my phone doesn't do something I thought I'd be able to do with it. The battery life issue is only my biggest complaint; I have many more.

          I really don't care that they made a different architectural decision - I care that, when I need my phone, it's not dead! I use Llama, and it really isn't helping much, if any. My Android phone is on the charger as I type this, despite being fully charged overnight.

          I use Linux at home and love it. Slackware, in fact, though I just switched my desktop machine to Kubuntu over the weekend. I wanted to like Android. And it does have some nice features - I miss Android's "back" button on my iOS devices, and widgets, done correctly (i.e., without killing battery life), are very cool (as it stands, I use only three, none of which automatically update, because I'm afraid of battery life issues) and something I can't believe iOS hasn't yet copied. When we first got the phones, Android's method of making it easy to turn off Wifi and Bluetooth was great, which iOS has now copied.

        • (Score: 2) by cykros on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:19PM

          by cykros (989) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:19PM (#77811)

          iOS initially had no background apps, then in later versions limited apps severely as to the time and possible activities which they can do in the background. Android instead went down the route of allowing background apps to keep on normal processing in the background, though perhaps at a lower priority. This fundamental difference means that 3rd party apps can drain the battery on Android and not iOS.

          Sounds like the entirely reasonable tradeoff that'll keep me in the Android world. If third party apps are draining your battery, you've got a pretty simple solution if battery life is your concern: uninstall the apps.

          In any case, while I'm not sure of any other devices offering this feature, the HTC One M8 has a pretty nifty Extreme Power Saver feature that can be turned on, turning your smartphone down to the functionality of a mid-90s brick phone, with even better battery life (reasonably up to about a week and a half on a single charge). While it won't do much to help you when you're actively draining the hell out of your battery (such as by playing Ingress...), it will ensure your device isn't draining in your pocket while you're doing nothing at all (without leaving you off the grid in terms of phone and SMS).

          Until I see a phone that can have the gps, bluetooth, data, and the display turned up and on all at once for 8+ hours, I can't say I'll be impressed by much of any device's internal battery life anyway. The external battery I carry leaves me covered until then, and freeing me up to focus on more important things (like being able to install apps that the device manufacturer hasn't explicitly screened and approved).

          • (Score: 1) by skater on Wednesday August 06 2014, @11:32AM

            by skater (4342) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @11:32AM (#77979) Journal

            Sounds like the entirely reasonable tradeoff that'll keep me in the Android world. If third party apps are draining your battery, you've got a pretty simple solution if battery life is your concern: uninstall the apps.

            Except for one problem: Which app is doing it? It's usually difficult to tell.

            Also, I have some apps that I use rarely but don't want to delete because I do occasionally use them (for example, Pandora). But they are constantly running a process in the background. What does that process do? Why is it running? Why does it need to be running when I'm not using Pandora? How do I know it's not constantly scanning my address book, schedule, and websites I visit and sending updates back to Pandora for some reason? And why would only the Android version of Pandora need to do this? iOS gives users far better control of apps and their permissions.

          • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:31PM

            by BasilBrush (3994) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:31PM (#78150)

            Sounds like the entirely reasonable tradeoff that'll keep me in the Android world. If third party apps are draining your battery, you've got a pretty simple solution if battery life is your concern: uninstall the apps.

            So you then have a more useful phone in the iPhone that still has all those 3rd party apps. And you haven't fixed the problem as the iPhone still has longer life for a given battery size than Android.
            http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=3231&cid=77676 [soylentnews.org]

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    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:28PM (#77602)
      So.. you're panning the OS based mostly on a hardware issue?
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by BasilBrush on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:59PM

        by BasilBrush (3994) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:59PM (#77638)

        Battery life is just as much as software issue as a hardware issue.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:32PM (#77604)

      Get an S4 or S5. The S4 active rocks. Can play games for 5 hours every day :)

      • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:06AM

        by cykros (989) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:06AM (#77825)

        If iOS takes the stance that China does with the Great Firewall to censor content, Samsung takes the stance that the US does with monitoring [replicant.us] everything they can.

        Outside of that, I won't say I have much complaint about Samsung devices in my experience (and to be fair, the S4 and S5 are not listed as being affected by this particular backdoor...if that's enough for you to trust them, so be it). But if a company can't resist the urge to spy on its customers, maybe it'd be best if its customers resisted the urge to buy its products in the name of defending against surreptitious surveillance. The overt surveillance being performed by apps (as stated in the permissions you grant when you install...assuming your carrier didn't force them onto your device without asking) is bad enough in the smartphone world if you ask me, but then, at least you can exercise the choice to decide whether or not an app is worth it. If they're not telling you, then it's simply an attack, pure and simple.

        All that said, this may be a matter of academics, as ultimately, trusting any of these devices for anything all that sensitive is probably not a good idea. I'll still be actively distrusting those that earn it, however.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by MrGuy on Tuesday August 05 2014, @01:54PM

    by MrGuy (1007) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @01:54PM (#77592)

    Way back when, at the dawn of the 1980's, there were really only two names in the microcomputer (single-user computing) market - Apple, and IBM. This is back in the Apple I/Apple II days (even before the Mac), and the IBM PC (prior to the XT and AT lines).

    Apple was the big name in the space early - they saw the market and were established before anyone else took single-user computing seriously. Their stack was "all Apple, all the time." Apple software running on Apple hardware.

    When IBM entered the market, they made two crucial decisions. First, they used off-the-shelf components, not proprietary hardware. Second, they allowed Microsoft (from whom they licensed the PC-DOS operating system) to market a fully compatible OS (MS-DOS) that could run the same software on non-IBM software.

    We all know how this turned out. Those two decisions caused a massive boom in personal computing. The decision to use open hardware opened the door for incredible personalization in hardware and created a massive industry that lasted 2 decades. And the decision to have an OS that could run on competitor's hardware created a massive software ecosystem around the PC (instead of the Mac), and made Microsoft the most dominant OS company on the planet, a title they're only now starting to relinquish. Meanwhile, Apple's all-Apple, all-the-time approach caused their niche to steadily erode to the point they almost went out of business (recent Jobs-lead resurgance notwithstanding).

    Apple's lived this narrative before. It ended badly the first time. I'm a little puzzled they're letting it play out the same way again.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:52PM (#77607)

      Just had to correct your history a bit: IBM did not purposefully allow Microsoft to license MS DOS to PC compatibles from competing PC vendors. No, no. IBM, in designing the PC, used off the shelf hardware to quickly slap together a system to sell, not to promote an open hardware platform. Every IBM PC came with a chip called the BIOS which the DOS had to call to make the PC do its thing. IBM thought nobody could copy their BIOS--this would be IBM's "lock" on the PC. Turns out another company didn't have to copy it, they got around that by doing a "clean room", *independent* implementation of the BIOS code, copying only the *API* from IBM's BIOS. IBM took the other PC maker to court over this, and the other PC maker WON. That is the only reason the PC revolution came about. If this case were being tried today, with our current IP laws and legal outlook, it might never have happened.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by MrGuy on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:05PM

        by MrGuy (1007) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:05PM (#77616)

        Thanks, and good context. It's been awhile.

        Regardless of how it came about (either deliberately on IBM's part of enforced on them by others), I think the analysis stands. One platform (the Mac) was single-vendor, integrated stack, and proprietary, and the other platform (the PC) was open and usable by all players. Regardless of IBM's intent, the lesson is that the cross-vendor, accessible platform dominated.

        No analogy is perfect, and maybe the smartphone business is different from the microcomputer business. But there are an awful lot of parallels, and the outcome that "the more open platform won" is a lesson that Apple seems bound and determined not to learn.

        • (Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday August 05 2014, @05:42PM

          by Tramii (920) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @05:42PM (#77677)

          You raise a valid point that IBM PC clones sold a lot more than Macs.

          HOWEVER, companies care about profit not popularity. Which company ultimately made more money off of selling their products? IBM or Apple? In the same way, even if Android devices outnumber iOS devices 100-to-1, it's still possible that Google will make less money off of Android than Apple will make from iOS. Apple can enjoy higher margins and doesn't have to sacrifice it's profits competing with clones.

          You might claim the PC beat the Mac, but I would claim Apple beat IBM.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Tuesday August 05 2014, @06:00PM

            by MrGuy (1007) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @06:00PM (#77687)

            No. I claim MICROSOFT beat Apple. Handily. For decades. With an inferior product.

            The ecosystem that matters is iOS vs. Android, not the particular hardware manufacturer. Which platform will attract the most innovative and productive developers? Probably the most popular one. Third party developers want the biggest market share possible.

            By restricting themselves to a single manufacturer (themselves), Apple is guaranteeing themselves a small share of the mobile OS market. I'd wager heavily this means the next set of "most innovative advances" in mobile will pass them by as the "next big thing" keeps being built on Android. It's EXACTLY what happened in the desktop space. Android will defeat iOS by simple numbers.

            Simply put, Apple should license iOS to other manufacturers.

            • (Score: 2) by strattitarius on Tuesday August 05 2014, @07:26PM

              by strattitarius (3191) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @07:26PM (#77718) Journal
              Spot on. GP's claims that Apple beat IBM miss the point as you said. To add to your point, Apple did not have this "we are not the biggest, but it is okay because we dont compromise and retain our margins" back in the mid 80's. That line of thinking was a direct result of the failure to win the market.

              I will add one more point. A point which I think has as much to do with the market share as anything else. Apple won't make a low-end product. It's been said time and time before, but if they would just come out with a cheaper price point, they would sell more. Many times this argument can be spun to be by choice, but that almost seems silly. The line of reasoning I have heard is "Would you want Lexus to sell cheaper cars just to get market share? Then it wouldn't be a status symbol." And that is why they own Toyota. Audi = VW = BMW (seriously, my bimmer has more audi parts than bmw). You don't dilute your brand, you spin-off.

              The fact is that Apple hasn't ever been very good at business. Making good, pretty, usable products? Yes. Business? No.
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              • (Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday August 05 2014, @08:11PM

                by Tramii (920) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @08:11PM (#77740)

                > The fact is that Apple hasn't ever been very good at business.

                I think our definitions of being "good at business" are quite different. I would claim quite the opposite.

                • (Score: 2) by strattitarius on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:38PM

                  by strattitarius (3191) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:38PM (#77764) Journal
                  From 1980 to June 1999 their stock didn't increase at all. They had a minor bump in 2000 but returned to previous levels. It was not until the introduction of the iPod and iPhone that their stock made significant gains.

                  For that to be true of the company that was at the forefront of the PC industry shows they were not able to capitalize on their position or strengths. Last few years have been good for them, no doubt. Still, if I was starting a business I wouldn't take the Apple execs of the 80's and 90's.
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                  • (Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:40PM

                    by Tramii (920) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:40PM (#77818)

                    > Still, if I was starting a business I wouldn't take the Apple execs of the 80's and 90's.

                    Agreed

                    > The fact is that Apple hasn't ever been very good at business.

                    It's the "ever" part that I have a huge problem with. Apple tops the list of most valuable brands (http://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/ [forbes.com]). You have to admit, they are doing *something* right.

                    • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:42AM

                      by cykros (989) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:42AM (#77836)

                      They absolutely are doing something right, when it comes to business. It just has precious little to do with producing devices for nerds that like to tinker, modify, and generally control their computer devices, and more to do with marketing to the masses who want their computer to be another appliance like their toaster, that they don't have to think about.

                      That people will no doubt rush to point out to me how many developers swear by their Apple products doesn't in any way sway my view here. It's entirely possible to write code to your heart's content on a system that keeps you from changing it, and ultimately, it's still just an appliance. Just a bit more complex an appliance than the toaster. And they didn't have this class of people in their market to begin with until they compromised a little on their business model in the first place until admitting that their system was rotten, and replacing it with BSD at the core, producing (perhaps for the first time) a Unix system that "just works".

                      Just works is great for a lot of people. My mom uses an iPhone, and knowing how she is with any kind of technology (as well as how little she really does with the iPhone as it is), I make no attempts to sway her decision on the matter. Likewise, the developer who just doesn't have the time to custom configure their system, and doesn't want to have to, generally is someone I'll admit has a valid reason for their choice. Anyone thinking it doesn't come at the cost of alienating people who'd rather the choice to opt in to that kind of hand holding rather than having it come along as mandatory with purchase is fooling themselves.

                      Would it REALLY be that hard for Apple to just leave it open as an option, disclaimers and all? When I rooted my Nexus 7 2013 model, Google made sure to throw all sorts of warnings letting me know that I was essentially waiving their services as protector of my device. They likewise give those warnings when you install apps from sources other than the Google Play store. But when you acknowledge those warnings, they get out of the way. If Apple did an about face on their hardline stance here, I can't say I'd have much left to argue about. I WANTED to like them when OS X came out. They just seem pretty determined to chase me and those who use their computers like me away from their customer base. And with that attitude, I'm happy to oblige.

            • (Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday August 05 2014, @08:08PM

              by Tramii (920) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @08:08PM (#77736)

              Ok, well now we are jumping around a bit. First we were talking about selling computers. Now we are talking about selling OSes and software. Two very different markets.

              So Windows beat Mac OS. Yup, I'll give you that. But really, Apple has never seen Mac OS as a money maker. It's always been something they used to sell more hardware. So really, the comparison between Microsoft and Apple isn't fair. One is primarily a software company and one is primarily a hardware company. Certainly Microsoft does make *some* hardware and Apple does make some software, but they really aren't direct competitors.

              How exactly would it benefit Apple to license iOS to other people? Suddenly you'd have a bunch of iPod/iPhone/iPad clones out there. And I'm sure they would make way less when someone bought a iPad clone vs buying a real iPad. It's ok that "Apple is guaranteeing themselves a small share of the mobile OS market". They are instead guaranteeing themselves high profits and that's what really matters to a public traded corporation. As I said before, being popular is cool, but making maximum revenue is the *real* goal.

              • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:58AM

                by cykros (989) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:58AM (#77843)

                I can see where your argument appears valid. What I'm less sure of, though, is whether the majority of their profits come in from device sales as opposed to marketplace purchases (at least in the case of iOS). I suspect that if they managed to find companies that were as meticulate as they are about making sure the hardware works smoothly with the OS, they would indeed see greater returns from the App Store.

                The issue is, they've never been using the OS to sell the hardware. They've been using the fact that the OS and the hardware are designed with each other in mind to ensure that things work smoothly with no surprises to sell products. While Linux is perhaps more known for it (thanks to the significantly lower market share), it's not all that uncommon on Windows either to run into issues with incompatible hardware for the version of the OS you happen to be using. Or hardware that may work, but not quite as well, or require alternate configuration. When was the last time you heard someone say "I've spent hours tracking down the driver for for my macbook pro"? You haven't. THAT is what Apple doesn't want to give up in their brand, and is why you'd be foolish to hold your breath for non-Apple devices running a licensed out version of an Apple OS.

                The only way I see this dynamic changing is if their market share indeed sinks low enough brought on by incompatibilities with the dominant OS (or the open standards shared by a group of dominant OS's) in a given market that people see as too critical to overlook. If Microsoft Office, for example, were not available for Mac OS, and a compatible application suite weren't able to patch the functionality hole, I in no way believe they'd hold even the market share they do today. Perhaps it's lucky for them that Office existed for Mac OS before Windows existed, and that Microsoft has never viewed them so much as a threat (at least in the desktop world) as "those guys who let us point out we're not actually a monopoly". Depending on who produces what software that becomes essentially required for functionality in vast swaths of the world (be it educational or professional), their insistence on staying off in their own private little garden may not turn out to go over quite as smoothly. How many people have we all come across who've said "I'd switch to Linux if only it didn't mean giving up Microsoft Office"?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by BasilBrush on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:27PM

      by BasilBrush (3994) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:27PM (#77623)

      The decision to use open hardware opened the door for incredible personalization in hardware and created a massive industry that lasted 2 decades.

      Absolute nonsense. The IBM PC compatible won the desktop computer format war, but there were plenty of other personalizable alternatives right through he 1980s. The time was simply right for the technology, and if the PC hadn't won out, something else, probably technically better, would have*. The massive industry would exist regardless.

      You believe Apple went wrong, but actually they are one of the few computer manufacturers that survived from that period. Notably IBM didn't - as a personal computer manufacturer at least. And neither did the vast majority of companies that manufactured PC clones. And we're seeing that all over again - six months ago the news was that Apple and Samsung between them made 109% of the profit in mobile. In other words all the other manufacturers (mostly Android) were making a cumulative loss of 9%. Today we're getting news that Samsung themselves are suffering a set back to much cheaper Chinese manufacturers.

      Just as the commoditzation of PCs killed most of the manufacturers that went into it, the commoditization of phones is killing most of the manufacturers that have gone into that. Meanwhile Apple carries on regardless, not always with the biggest market share, but always remembering what none of the others seen to - that you have to retain your profit margins, and commoditization doesn't allow you to.

      (* For those who didn't live it, it's hard to understand how technically backward the PCs were in the 80s, compared to the competition. And they were not cheap either. IBM initially succeeded on their brand name and the negative assertion that "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." The clones succeeded based on software compatibility with that established platform. But technically they were all awful until well into the 90s.)

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    • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:19AM

      by cykros (989) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:19AM (#77828)

      Just to play devil's advocate, it is worth mentioning that when Apple suddenly came back from the brink of death, it had precious little to do with how much they decided to open things up and change their ways, and quite a bit more to do with the fact that they simply put together a product that was actually worth using for a lot more people than any of the garbage they churned out during the late 90s was. Remembering back to the announcement that OS X was to be essentially BSD with the MacOS interface thrown on top of it, there was a LOT of Apple-fever running through groups that previously had zero interest in Apple anything.

      That it managed to stick despite not having a compiler (and requiring registration and a MASSIVE download of Xcode to get one), along with replacing a lot of the entirely reasonable Unix utilities with essentially gui-only options (if you haven't tried to do user management via terminal on OS X, I strongly advise you to keep it that way) left it feeling about as much like Unix to me as Android feels like GNU/Linux. But, that's another matter. At the end of the day, you can generally do on OS X what you can do on other *nix systems, with more or less legwork depending on the task, whereas with Mac OS 10, you were left with a system that had nothing close to the application support that Windows has, and frankly, wasn't even attractive when compared with Linux (which, in 2002 or so, says quite a bit about how sorry the state of MacOS was). Moving away from the desktop equivalent of Windows RT was what saved Apple, not opening things up.

      That they DIDN'T open things up at about this time, however, may have had a lot to do with why their surge of success was as limited in scope as it was. But, Apple aims to produce products that the average person can use, without having to know much of anything. That they thus place themselves as what amounts to the sysadmin for everyone one of the devices they make and sell follows along in service to that goal. It just simultaneously leaves them a bit unpalatable for those of us who prefer to own the devices we buy.

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:44AM

      by Bot (3902) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:44AM (#77838) Journal
      > Apple software running on Apple hardware. Apple was an open ecosystem, by today standards. Where did third party cards for graphics, sound, ADDA conversion get first? And AFAIK no need to get permission from apple, especially as the platform was documented. Could you boot to other operating systems? Of course, just get CP/M on a floppy. Other dev environments? sure, ucsd pascal, forth, logo... The PC came later and eat Apple's lunch because the apple II wasn't as powerful, and performance/capacity meant a lot more in those times.
      --
      Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:00PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:00PM (#77594)

    "Amazon's Kindle Fire OS" is just a themed wrapper around android.

    It would be like not counting moto X users as android, for the pure hell of it.

    Something I never fail to be amazed at is how the ios and android markets are so different they nearly border on not being directly comparable despite both being hand held devices. Like comparing commercial truck sales to RV sales, and claiming they both have wheels so the comparisons somehow mean "something".

    Android always outsells IOS by a large margin. But IOS users upgrade as a group the day after a new phone is released while android users run their old phones into the ground, so the IOS users are 99% on the current OS release while android is all over the map going back to pre-gingerbread releases. Although there's immensely more android devices out in the wild, until now more traffic came from the small number of IOS users. Manufacturers and carriers make sure android devices never get more than one or at most two software upgrades if at all possible to maximize their sales commissions and max out contract lifetimes, its a software release driven sales model, whereas IOS is hardware release driven (as far as I know)

    My kids have school issues ipads, and being an all android house, I have trouble using them. Not being literate devices, being 100% GUI, its very hard to talk about how to use them and not very intuitive either. Having only one button is very confusing as a UI.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by hojo on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:05PM

    by hojo (4254) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:05PM (#77595)

    I've used Apple and Android and prefer Android for a few simple reasons:

    --Cyanogenmod on my Android got rid of all the Samsung, HTC, or other horseshit the manufacturer or cell provider tried to shoehorn on
    --I put on a giant honking battery on my Android Galaxy S3 (and now S4) which gives a few days of regular use between charges. No exaggeration, this is THE KILLER APP. It's not software, it's a long running power source. I got a Zerolemon battery off Amazon for about $35
    --I dropped in a 32 GB sdcard, then a 64 GB one after I found myself storing more movies than expected. I might even go for one of the 128 GB card (about $115 now). You just can't do that with an iPhone, period
    --A big screen makes ereader use, movie watching in bed, web browsing, photo viewing, and even typing with that gesture/swype/dragging scheme so much better

    The actual use of the apps, browser, widgets, etc? Essentially equal in my experience.

    Truly, though, the 3 day battery is the real irreplaceable thing. I won't ever go with a phone that doesn't have one available.

    • (Score: 2) by GlennC on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:00PM

      by GlennC (3656) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:00PM (#77611)

      Thanks for the tip about the Zerolemon battery. I have a rooted S3, and the battery is the one thing I was looking for.

      --
      Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by BasilBrush on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:34PM

      by BasilBrush (3994) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:34PM (#77628)

      Summary: Android phones are awful out of the box, but because they are customisable you could make one into something you wanted.

      I can understand that. But it's not the reason for Android's success. Most people want a good experience out of the box and don't want to take the time, effort and extra money to make a frankenstein machine themselves. The reason a lot of Androids are sold is because they are cheap.

      --
      Hurrah! Quoting works now!
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday August 05 2014, @04:17PM

        by Vanderhoth (61) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @04:17PM (#77642)

        Ah... No, out of the box Android phones are fine, there are quite a few options and Android phones vary considerably, but you also have the ability to customize and add to them if you don't like something or to get them to meet a specific need. Vs. the one model, one size fits all iPhone. The experience is highly subjective, I'd say *not* being able to customize the iPhone or being locked to the Apple app store would make it an awful out of the box. Pay $500+ for a product then be told what you're allowed to do with it and/or have to go though great pains to make it useful, no thanks, not for me.

        Don't get me wrong here, I don't have anything against iPhones or Apple in general, I just take issue with saying because something *can* be customized that means it's no good out of the box and anything running the same OS is also bad. By that reasoning you're saying all PCs, including Macs, are crap because some of them run windows 8.

        --
        "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
        • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:07PM

          by BasilBrush (3994) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:07PM (#78133)

          I just take issue with saying because something *can* be customized that means it's no good out of the box

          Why take issue with something I didn't say? It was the Android owner himself that used the word horseshit, and pointed out the poor battery life.

          and anything running the same OS is also bad

          He's writing about the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4, the range which always seem to be put forward as the amongst the best examples of Android phones. The cheap noname Chinese phones that most people end up with are going to be much worse.

          --
          Hurrah! Quoting works now!
    • (Score: 1) by black_trout on Tuesday August 05 2014, @06:34PM

      by black_trout (4601) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @06:34PM (#77694)

      To expand on your idea of battery life as a killer app:

      I got my LG G2 the day it was released because of its advertised battery life. While the poorly designed and quirky stock SW leave a little to be desired, I have never been happier with a phone. When this puppy finally dies out, I will choose my next phone by comparing secondary features (screen, SW, audio dac, physical design, etc) between the top battery performers available.

      While multi-day up time is very useful the several times a year I go on a bender for the entire weekend, I get much more value day-to-day knowing that I can run whatever apps I want 24/7 without worrying about running out of juice.

      • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:10AM

        by cykros (989) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:10AM (#77845)

        Not to say that phone isn't great on battery life, but if you think you can run whatever apps you want 24/7 without running out of juice, you clearly haven't played Ingress. By about 5 hours of continuous playtime in, there's not a device out there that'll be doing any more than running on fumes without either an alternative battery installed or an external power bank (usually a clear sign someone is playing Ingress).

        Which reminds me, now that there's finally an iOS version out, I'd be curious to see how they stack up battery wise. I can't really think of a better benchmarking app to check with...

    • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:01AM

      by cykros (989) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:01AM (#77844)

      Thanks for the reminder that iOS devices still don't have an SD slot. I can't believe their customer base has actually put up with this for so long...that I've tolerated it at all on the Nexus 7 had a lot to do with the $200 price tag, as well as some of the other fairly unique features (such as USB-OTG and being able to be essentially turned into a Pwnpad). Is there at least a decent app for iOS for sshfs? There (sadly) isn't for Android (upon realizing my tablet didn't have a microSD slot, you can bet your ass I spent a good deal of time looking).

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @02:14PM (#77598)

    "Everything we see has some hidden message. A lot of awful messages are coming in under the radar - subliminal consumer messages, all kinds of politically incorrect messages..." - Harold Ramis

    "RFID in School Shirts must be trial run"

    The trial runs began a LONG time ago!

    We're way past that process.

    Now we're in the portion of the game where they will try and BRAINWASH us into accepting these things because not everyone BROADCASTS themselves on and offline, so RFID tracking will NEED to be EVERYWHERE, eventually.

    RFID is employed in MANY areas of society. RFID is used to TRACK their livestock (humans) in:

    * 1. A lot of BANK's ATM & DEBIT cards (easily cloned and tracked)
    * 2. Subway, rail, bus, other mass transit passes (all of your daily
    activities, where you go, are being recorded in many ways)
    * 3. A lot of RETAIL stores' goods
    * 4. Corporate slaves (in badges, tags, etc)

    and many more ways!

    Search the web about RFID and look at the pictures of various RFID devices, they're not all the same in form or function! When you see how tiny some of them are, you'll be amazed! Search for GPS tracking and devices, too along with the more obscured:

    - FM Fingerprinting &
    - Writeprint
    - Stylometry

    tracking methods! Let's not forget the LIQUIDS at their disposal which can be sprayed on you and/or your devices/clothing and TRACKED, similar to STASI methods of tracking their livestock (humans).

    Visit David Icke's and Prison Planet's discussion forums and READ the threads about RFID and electronic tagging, PARTICIPATE in discussions. SHARE what you know with others!

    These TRACKING technologies, on and off the net are being THROWN at us by the MEDIA, just as cigarettes and alcohol have and continue to be, though the former less than they used to. The effort to get you to join FACEBOOK and TWITTER, for example, is EVERYWHERE.

    Maybe, you think, you'll join FACEBOOK or TWITTER with an innocent reason, in part perhaps because your family, friends, business parters, college ties want or need you. Then it'll start with one photo of yourself or you in a group, then another, then another, and pretty soon you are telling STRANGERS as far away as NIGERIA with scammers reading and archiving your PERSONAL LIFE and many of these CRIMINALS have the MEANS and MOTIVES to use it how they please.

    One family was astonished to discover a photo of theirs was being used in an ADVERTISEMENT (on one of those BILLBOARDS you pass by on the road) in ANOTHER COUNTRY! There are other stories. I've witnessed people posting their photo in social networking sites, only to have others who dis/like them COPY the photo and use it for THEIR photo! It's a complete mess.

    The whole GAME stretches much farther than the simple RFID device(s), but how far are you willing to READ about these types of instrusive technologies? If you've heard, Wikileaks exposed corporations selling SPYWARE in software and hardware form to GOVERNMENTS!

    You have to wonder, "Will my anti-malware program actually DISCOVER government controlled malware? Or has it been WHITELISTED? or obscured to the point where it cannot be detected? Does it carve a nest for itself in your hardware devices' FIRMWARE, what about your BIOS?

    Has your graphics card been poisoned, too?" No anti virus programs scan your FIRMWARE on your devices, especially not your ROUTERS which often contain commercially rubber stamped approval of BACKDOORS for certain organizations which hackers may be exploiting right now! Search on the web for CISCO routers and BACKDOORS. That is one of many examples.

    Some struggle for privacy, some argue about it, some take preventitive measures, but those who are wise know:

    Privacy is DEAD. You've just never seen the tombstone.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:03PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:03PM (#77614)

    Android looks unstoppable now. It's gone from an also-ran attempt to clone the iPhone to a major platform of its own. As an Android programmer, I always love it when I use my precognitive abilities to pick the right technology to specialize in.

    Okay, I'll fess up. I didn't even want to be an Android programmer. My boss wanted a mobile app developed many years ago, back when having an iPhone still meant something. I only knew Java, so I whipped up an Android proof-of-concept. Poor guy, an Android app wasn't what he wanted, but getting approval to spend on Apple development wasn't easy. The project was canceled. Then people found out I knew Android, and I've been doing it ever since.

    Android is occupying a middle niche, between iOS and the also-ran mobile OSes (Blackberry, Windows Phone, Tizen, FireFoxOS, etc). What I'm seeing is a big weakness in Android, because Google is moving more and more of the good functionality into Google Play which manufacturers have to pay to license for their devices. Not many want to go it alone like Amazon does (and Barnes and Noble did) without Google, because hardware manufacturers don't want to maintain their own Android distro. (Given B&N's dismal track record of bugs that never got fixed in their original Android fork, who can blame them?) So there's a lot of interest by manufacturers in anything that isn't Google, such as FireFoxOS.

    Amazon's Kindle platforms are struggling without Google Play because, from a developer's perspective, creating a version with their map APIs is a pain and their approval process is whimsical and erratic enough to drive you nuts. I guess Amazon does not care, since they want the Kindle to be a publishing platform with DRM and don't care about apps, but lack of app support doomed the Nook.

    Right now, Android is at the point where it's not iOS first and Android maybe second or third or some time when we get around to it or maybe we won't bother. And the days of just forcing an iOS app design onto Android are fading a little. I see iOS and Android as fairly equal now in mindshare.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:10PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:10PM (#77617)

      Okay, I'll fess up. I didn't even want to be an Android programmer.

      I really wanted to be ... a lumberjack! Leaping from tree to tree, as I float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia!

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by mrider on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:23PM

        by mrider (3252) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @03:23PM (#77622)

        Careful, we know where that song ends... :)

        --

        Doctor: "Do you hear voices?"

        Me: "Only when my bluetooth is charged."

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday August 05 2014, @05:47PM

      by frojack (1554) on Tuesday August 05 2014, @05:47PM (#77679) Journal

      Android is occupying a middle niche, between iOS and the also-ran mobile OSes (Blackberry, Windows Phone, Tizen,

      Well to be fair, both TFS and TFA are simply measures of website access, not actual usage.

      Android has been outselling Apple for a long time. Middle niche? I think not. Blackberry is dead, Tizen is a boogie man, and Windows Phone is selling like last weeks fish. If anything is occupying a niche its IOS.

      It was often said (screamed from the roof tops, actually) that IOS used the web more than Android users, but simple mathematics suggests that was strictly due to the historical installed base of IOS devices.

      In all comparisons of an equal number of ios and android devices there was very little difference in web access traffic.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:17AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:17AM (#77848)

        Thanks for pointing this out. I thought I had fallen into a timewarp seeing this headline, as last I knew, Android pretty significantly dominated in the smartphone/tablet market.

        And of course, without your fine comment, I'd never have realized why this was so odd, because...well...you're supposed to READ TFS/TFA?

    • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:15AM

      by cykros (989) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:15AM (#77846)

      You couldn't install Google Play on the Nook tablets? Funny... While I'd never considered the idea of either a Kindle or Nook tablet (the allure of ebook readers is that the battery life is measured in WEEKS, not hours...which isn't true of tablets), I have a rooted Nook SimpleTouch (the original model, which wasn't actually advertised to be Android at all, but was under the hood). And yea, you guessed it... Google Play :-).

      • (Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday August 06 2014, @11:13AM

        by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Wednesday August 06 2014, @11:13AM (#77975)

        Yes and no - the original Nook with its Android 2 fork probably could run Google Play, but the target audience was people who wanted a safe rubber room (a "curated" app store) with carefully selected apps. These are not the people who wanted to install a Google Play APK. And if you were writing for the Nook, you had to get into their curated app store to reach your audience. These are not tech-savvy people, or they wouldn't have bought a Nook.

        The happiest day of my life was when the Nook capitulated and switched to Google Play. My app triggered a platform bug in their Android fork and every ... time ... I ... submitted ... it ... I had to go through the same rejection process, open a support ticket, explain it was their bug, and ... then they accepted it silently without any explanation. That got old.

        --
        (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)