Apple and Google (Android)...
... And how they should just get into bed with each other already and do what each is good at, and how I know how to solve all their problems.
I am now deliberately installing Bonjour on everything networked that I can, because it is far superior technology to any other supposed ZeroConfig Network software out there.
I'll say one thing for Apple, they can just make shit work. Now if only they would see the writing on the wall and ditch iOS as a propiority OS and just install Android on the iPhone with a highly customised overly (Like HTC's Sense UI, or Samsung's Touchwiz) with support for their own Appstore, suite of apple life products, and codecs (or hell even a virtual machine) to play back all that DRM protected goodness that I won't touch with a 10-foot barge poll).
Android is going to be the standard, everyone knows that, there's 7 billion consumers in the world and most of them can't afford a $6-700 iPhone, and those that can't don't want option two to be, buying last year's model, or the year before, second hand. Especially when you know that when you're buying a 2 year old iPhone, that's it for iOS updates, it's had it's lifecycle and it won't get the next OS. Apple can't afford to tarnish its brand by releasing mid-rage and low-end products (even if they supposedly attempted to do that with the 5c, but that was really just an exercise to pass larger savings onto to carriers who felt liked they been bilked by Apple (which they totally had) and most of the world needs mid-range and low-end hardware, especially the developing world, which is where the largest new consumer-base for smartphones is, a computer you can fit in your pocket as powerful as a desktop was 10 years ago, that has internet access without a landline or cable package and generally continues to work for some time during a blackout.
So smartphones are going to be huge, and convergence and standardisation needs to happen, bot RIM and Microsoft are trying to solve the problem by including Android virtual machine into their OSes, and maybe that'll work, but the hardware restrictions that apple insist on would never allow such a device to run on iOS, it would have to be jailbroken lol.
So IMO far better business proposition if the transform the iOS platform into a highly customised Android Rom (Just like when they jumped from PowerPC based OS9, to Unix Based X86 OSX), capable of also running proprietary previous iOS incarnation software, and continued to just market themselves as the Rolex of smartphones.
The marketing line is simple, everyone's running android, it just makes interoperability simpler, as well as app development. But if you've got money and you want to show it off, or is you just want the best damned hardware money can buy, then you can buy apple, and know that that choice doesn't commit you to playing in the highly restricted apple sandbox.
Yes Google have a fragmentation propblem but they're working on it (the recent influx of affordable midrange phones running the latest(ish) OS helps), they need to rework their licence agreements with manufacturers to require X years software update support, and an option to opt out of the and an option to opt out of the prepackaged POS *cough samsung touchwiz cough* and just install your own thing entirely without completely voiding your warranty, after all, who cares which rom you were running, if your inbuilt LiPo explodes, or half your flash memory just suddenly corrupts for no reason. I've noticed more companies starting to do this in various guises voluntarily at least, giving you the option to unlock the bootloader in exchange for giving up portions of your warranty.
Seems to me though that the way google should deal with this, and it should also help the fragmentation problem is if the split android into 2 parts, a basic bootstrapping OS with a nice GUI (y'know like BIOS - not to reinvent the wheel) that deals with each specific device's hardware, and loads the drivers into modules accessible to the linux kernel, and is responsible for things like the radios, basebands and such. That only updates officially or with a warranty void. And then a second stage loader to boot Android proper on to, no longer trying to talk directly to native hardware for each damn device, but instead a familiar intermediary that translates instructions to the drivers. This would drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to get each new iteration of Android OS out on each device (since a specific kernel and drivers wouldn't have to be built by either a manufacturer who long ago abandoned their UberPhone 4 in favour of the UberPhone 6, or hardworking engineers in the custom rom community, who frequently have to backwards engineer everything because all the drivers are proprietary.
And this would then put Google in Microsoft land, where each new iteration of your software, or minor patch to it, isn't required to be coded to specific hardware, just as long as it can meet the bare minimums, and will perform better on better hardware.
I am now deliberately installing Bonjour on everything networked that I can, because it is far superior technology to any other supposed ZeroConfig Network software out there.
I'll say one thing for Apple, they can just make shit work. Now if only they would see the writing on the wall and ditch iOS as a propiority OS and just install Android on the iPhone with a highly customised overly (Like HTC's Sense UI, or Samsung's Touchwiz) with support for their own Appstore, suite of apple life products, and codecs (or hell even a virtual machine) to play back all that DRM protected goodness that I won't touch with a 10-foot barge poll).
Android is going to be the standard, everyone knows that, there's 7 billion consumers in the world and most of them can't afford a $6-700 iPhone, and those that can't don't want option two to be, buying last year's model, or the year before, second hand. Especially when you know that when you're buying a 2 year old iPhone, that's it for iOS updates, it's had it's lifecycle and it won't get the next OS. Apple can't afford to tarnish its brand by releasing mid-rage and low-end products (even if they supposedly attempted to do that with the 5c, but that was really just an exercise to pass larger savings onto to carriers who felt liked they been bilked by Apple (which they totally had) and most of the world needs mid-range and low-end hardware, especially the developing world, which is where the largest new consumer-base for smartphones is, a computer you can fit in your pocket as powerful as a desktop was 10 years ago, that has internet access without a landline or cable package and generally continues to work for some time during a blackout.
So smartphones are going to be huge, and convergence and standardisation needs to happen, bot RIM and Microsoft are trying to solve the problem by including Android virtual machine into their OSes, and maybe that'll work, but the hardware restrictions that apple insist on would never allow such a device to run on iOS, it would have to be jailbroken lol.
So IMO far better business proposition if the transform the iOS platform into a highly customised Android Rom (Just like when they jumped from PowerPC based OS9, to Unix Based X86 OSX), capable of also running proprietary previous iOS incarnation software, and continued to just market themselves as the Rolex of smartphones.
The marketing line is simple, everyone's running android, it just makes interoperability simpler, as well as app development. But if you've got money and you want to show it off, or is you just want the best damned hardware money can buy, then you can buy apple, and know that that choice doesn't commit you to playing in the highly restricted apple sandbox.
Yes Google have a fragmentation propblem but they're working on it (the recent influx of affordable midrange phones running the latest(ish) OS helps), they need to rework their licence agreements with manufacturers to require X years software update support, and an option to opt out of the and an option to opt out of the prepackaged POS *cough samsung touchwiz cough* and just install your own thing entirely without completely voiding your warranty, after all, who cares which rom you were running, if your inbuilt LiPo explodes, or half your flash memory just suddenly corrupts for no reason. I've noticed more companies starting to do this in various guises voluntarily at least, giving you the option to unlock the bootloader in exchange for giving up portions of your warranty.
Seems to me though that the way google should deal with this, and it should also help the fragmentation problem is if the split android into 2 parts, a basic bootstrapping OS with a nice GUI (y'know like BIOS - not to reinvent the wheel) that deals with each specific device's hardware, and loads the drivers into modules accessible to the linux kernel, and is responsible for things like the radios, basebands and such. That only updates officially or with a warranty void. And then a second stage loader to boot Android proper on to, no longer trying to talk directly to native hardware for each damn device, but instead a familiar intermediary that translates instructions to the drivers. This would drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to get each new iteration of Android OS out on each device (since a specific kernel and drivers wouldn't have to be built by either a manufacturer who long ago abandoned their UberPhone 4 in favour of the UberPhone 6, or hardworking engineers in the custom rom community, who frequently have to backwards engineer everything because all the drivers are proprietary.
And this would then put Google in Microsoft land, where each new iteration of your software, or minor patch to it, isn't required to be coded to specific hardware, just as long as it can meet the bare minimums, and will perform better on better hardware.
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