Posts tagged Google

Apple has just held a conference call to talk about financial results. This time Steve Jobs decided to talk a bit about Apple’s competition and ‘open’ vs ‘closed’.

RIM

First of all, he mentions RIM, and that Apple has known passed them. Steve doesn’t see RIM catching up with Apple in the future, mainly because of the App Store.

Android

Then he mentions Android. Steve thinks it’s fragmented because of all the different phones, compared to the iPhone where all phones are the same.

“Google love to characterize Android as open, and iOS and iPhone as closed. We find this a bit disingenous and clouding the real difference between are two approaches. The first thing most of us think about, when we hear the word “open”, is Windows, which is available on a variety of devices. Unlike Windows, hovever, where most PCs have the same interfaces and run the same apps, Android is very fragmented.

Many Android OEMs, including the two largest HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The users are left to figure it all out. Compare this with iPhone where all handsets work the same.

I think he’s totally right. The reason I think the iPhone is the best phone right now, is because there’s only one. I don’t like the fact, that I’ll have to choose between hundreds of Androids phones, just to get one that’s already old tommorrow. I wrote a post about this half a year ago. You can find it here.

Open vs closed

After some more iPhone vs Android talk, he goes into a open vs closed talk:

“You know, even if Google were right, and the real issue is closed versus open, it is worthwhile to remember that open systems don’t always win. … (Some Microsoft and Google talk) … In reality, we think the open vs closed argument is just a smoke screen trying to hide the real issue, which is what’s best for the customer – fragmented vs integrated. We think Android is very, very fragmented, and becoming more fragmented by the day. And as you know, Apple strives for the integrated model, so that the user isn’t forced to be the systems integrator. We see tremendous value at having Apple, rather than our users, be the systems integrator. We think this is a huge strength of our approach compared to Google’s, when selling the users, who want their devices to just work, we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time.

And we also think our developers can be more innovative if they can target a singular platform, rather than a hundred variants. They can put their time into innovative new features, rather than testing on hundreds of handsets. So we are very committed to the integrated approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as ‘closed’. And we are confident that it will trump over Google’s fragmented approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as ‘open’”.

It’s hard for me to comment on that, I think. I don’t like when something is too closed, but I don’t like something either that just doesn’t work, so both ‘open’ and ‘closed’ has their own advantages. And I think the same thing about ‘fragmented’ vs ‘integrated’.

7-inch tablets

He also talks about why the iPad is better than 7-inch tablets because, according to him, a 7-inch screen just isn’t big enough. He says:

“It’s meaningless unless your tablet also include sand paper, so that your user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size.”

I think he might be right about that. I don’t like all the new huge phones myself, because they’re just to big to carry around. I remember people thought the iPhone was big, when it came out, but now phones are getting way bigger.

You can find the conference call on Apple’s website. Engadget has also been kind enough to put the part with Steve Jobs up here. They also have a post of their own here about this subject.