Complaining about _Dogfight_

[walkitout]

I'm halfway through it, and the author is pretty committed to the idea that iOS vs. Droid is a platform war, and that Jobs is all lined up to lose the second of these in his life.

"The number of people worldwide switching from cell phones to smartphones in the coming years was going to be so enormous that he [Rubin then at Google] just needed to focus on that group -- not necessarily on iPhone customers -- to get a dominant smartphone market share. It seemed unfathomable that Jobs would lose two battles the same way a generation apart."

I recognize that Google/Android/Rubin has had a high degree of commitment to the handsets-sold metric right from the beginning. But I also know that I've seen a whole lot of people buy Droid phones, tablets, etc. including things like the Fire. And a non-trivial number of those people bought a later device over on the iOS side of things, when they realized that they were really frustrated by all the apps that weren't available on Droid (yet) -- or not on their device, anyway.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/aug/15/android-v-ios-apps-apple-google

I don't expect things to stay this way forever, and it's just possible that someday, iOS will be a has been, backwater app universe and smartphone choice. But it's almost 2014, and iOS owners are still spending a lot more money buying apps, and within apps, than Droid owners. Which presumably counts for _something_.

Comments

I love my Android phone...

[amy m yasuda (from livejournal.com)]

And I'm kinda jonesin' for the watch to go with it(I know it's hokey but I WANT one anyway!)- and the tablet, too. Granted, Dean works at Google and we get stuff for free (like my sweet phone that I adore and switched to from a perfectly functional iPhone). Personally, I just don't see why it has to be an either/or situation. Since I do alot of photography work, I'm planning to upgrade to the Retina Macbook Pro when it comes out and am thinking it'd be nice to get a matching iPad for controlling my camera during shooting. One thing I am not so keen on is the lack of portability in some areas of the Apple universe.. but it isn't like they are the only ones trying to limit content to their platform(see the new You Tube comment structure being relegated to ONLY g+ users).

Re: I love my Android phone...

[walkitout]

I in no way meant to suggest that everyone is frustrated by the Droid experience. I'm merely saying that as long as people are saying that there are apps available on iOS before Droid (or ever) (and that that is frustrating to them), then it doesn't make much sense to suggest that Jobs failed to learn the lesson of cultivating 3rd party app developers/development.

I don't participate in the comments universe over on YouTube, however, I will note that the places where I _do_ read and/or participate in comments threads are increasingly places which are requiring a higher degree of identification (consistent online persona over time, type of thing, or e-mail confirmation or whatever). g+ seems like a way to implement this; I guess time will tell whether it was a terrible choice or something else.

I, too, want a SmartWatch! What kind of features are you hoping for, and am I correct in concluding you assume it will be mostly an accessory to the phone, not a standalone device? I want NFC payment via a watch or watch-like device, as an accessory to a phone. Not sure how much I care about having a secure element; I'm still experimenting with stuff like the Starbucks and DD apps and if that works out okay (like, if a card gets emptied by someone else, what is the recourse process; how bad is it if someone hacks their customer account database, etc.), I might not care too much about having a secure element, if all those stored value cards could be represented in the phone and/or watch and, in the event of compromise on my end or theirs, it could be Made Right in a fairly straightforward way.

Re: I love my Android phone...

[amy m yasuda (from livejournal.com)]

I think it would be sweet if a watch could do pretty much everything my phone could. I have been using Starbucks app linked to my gold card and auto-refilling for quite a while now(a year I think?). It is very handy and no problems as yet. Having it on a watch would be even handier. What I would really like to see is my Lexus keyed in to my watch. It already opens when I approach with the key in my purse but how cool to not even need a key! I'd be pretty happy if I could get a Nike+ app on it. :)

As far as I can tell, there is a glut of apps so I'm not sure what people want that they can't get on either platform. I do think there is a perception of iOS exclusivity but I have no idea how true that is as I've found work-arounds for everything I need that I found difficult- mostly not being able to play Amazon content on my Apple TV which is easily remedied with an app downloaded to my iPod which serves as a remote. I imagine this would also work on an iPad as it also works from my MacBook Pro. Anyhow, that's about Amazon and not Apple.. so. (If everyone could just get along!)

Really, though.. that's why we don't use TiVo anymore. I loved my TiVo. But it just doesn't work for us since we don't have cable anymore and just use the internet for tv and movies. Some Amazon content is not TiVo compatible and that is frustrating. Also, we don't need a DVR now that we use the internet- we're paying for commercial-free content, on-demand that is often available just hours after it airs live. All our years of watching TiVo'd shows primed us for waiting to watch so we could ff through commercials.

BTW- Starbucks is pretty good about Making it Right from what I can tell from experiences I read online... that is completely anecdotal however.

Re: I love my Android phone...

[walkitout]

Replacing metal keys with something on a phone or watch would be fantastic. Hopefully that'll happen before I'm old enough for aging fine motor problems to combine with my pre-existing fine motor issues to make getting into the house other than through the garage Really Really Tricky.

Regarding what people want that they cannot get outside the iOS universe, SnailBob could presumably be played as a Flash game on droid, but the native app is I believe still only iOS, and most of the Toca Boca catalog. Those are the ones that I've run across in the last month or so. I usually notice this when talking to other parents about Good Apps for Kids [on the spectrum] [of a certain age]. I'll rave about something, they'll try to get it on their phone, it won't work, and then we'll figure out why.

Were you currently watching any network TV shows when you made the decision to switch from cable programming provision to internet provision? For really weird, path dependent reasons, I'm watching more network TV now than I think I ever have before; I could definitely buy it all via Amazon or iOS or whatever, or just put up with a 24 hour-1 week delay and watch it for free streaming from the network website, but there is a convenience factor. And we aren't watching anything like House of Cards, which would push us in the other direction.

I should probably go run the numbers for what it would cost to buy all the shows I watch, vs. picking them up on cable + TiVo. I'd have to account for the fact that I wind up buying some episodes of The Mentalist because the TiVo chops it wrong post-football game that runs long -- that's inconvenient, annoying and costs money, if I don't want to wait a week to pick it up streaming.

ETA: Whoops -- looks like SnailBob has a native app on Google Play. I see an update date of Oct 1 on one of them, and Nov on some of the others. I probably last looked for it in September?

Re: I love my Android phone...

[amy m yasuda (from livejournal.com)]

They do have digital and biometric door locks(you can find them on Amazon). I'm waiting for the technology to improve. The locks on my Lexus are RFID and I believe they can be broken into using a computer so I am assuming that there exists a way to utilize that to code a key into a phone/watch/tablet.

We were watching quite a few shows but I was often frustrated by missing shows due to programming timing/issues and still was purchasing DVD sets of non-network shows. Also, even though you can link TiVos via wireless, at the time, it was still sort of slow and lugubrious the transfer content from the living room to the bedroom or family room. For our family, that turns out to be an issue as different people watch things in different places. With internet/streaming content, it isn't like we have only one access point.

Okay, I understand better about the apps. I am sometimes frustrated by the numbers of apps available and the crappy quality control. I know the way it is set up invites everyone and their dog to develop crappy apps but it still seems like there should be some quality control. Its getting to be like Amazon with the whole self-publishing revolution which, I believe, has been a detriment to the literary world. I liked the fact that books were edited by educated people and not just a crappy spellchecker(and there were still alot of crappy books being published).

Re: I love my Android phone...

[walkitout]

We have the TiVos linked, but I rarely use that linkage. We have Apple TV set up for both big TVs so the kids can watch any of their iOS stuff in either location, and there's a Roku box on the old smaller TV in the hall, which rarely if ever gets used, but there's a bunch of stuff they could watch that way, too. Currently, it is hooked up to the (used) SmartCycle (our old SmartCycle broke in a not-very-fixable way).

Do you read any self-pub stuff? I rarely do, and pretty much only when a reviewer I really trust (and usually not on Amazon) says glowing happy things. I don't see how self-pubbing has any real impact on anything outside of self-pubbing, beyond a lot of people deciding not to even attempt mainstream publishing directly, but rather go via self-pub and switch later if they hit it monster big outta the park. I've hit so much ridiculous copy-editing (see my Higgie/Higgins complaint with a Roxane St Clair novel a few days ago) in mainstream paper and e-publishing that there's very little point in complaining about self-pubbing being worse. I do read Lindsay Buroker, and I've never had any issue with the editing/copy-editing of those books (okay, I thought the sword throwing stuff in book 1 was silly, but I've read worse from DAW).

I've looked at those locks on Amazon, and I have been a bit concerned about the quality descriptions reviewers have given. If you are waiting, then I'll wait, probably longer. ;-)