It has been fun to read the analysis and articles written on this. There are very clearly two schools of thought on the merger, and I have to wonder if the apple/android fandom is driving the two different storylines. Either the article takes at face value the statements by all the android handset manufacturer CEOs, that this is a good thing for android to protect it from the over-reach of apple (Android-supporting writer/editor), or that it could cause discord in the ranks of the other handset manufacturers and could hurt Google (apple-supporting writer/editor). I have to say, I was fairly neutral about Apple until the whole patent lawsuit business started. Yesterday's release of the doctored photo of Galaxy Tab just may have been the last straw for me ever considering an Apple product. How dare they. But then I had a very comforting thought. Steve Jobs has been an oracle for Apple, putting them into products which made them a killing, the guy is a genius, and has a great vision of the future. So what does he see now that is causing him to guide Apple toward relentless patent trolling (thanks tehsusenoh!)? They can't compete, they are losing, and are gonna lose. The problem isn't that Android stole Apple's ideas, it is that they have improved on them, and Apple's business model won't allow them to keep up. They are about to be relegated to second fiddle, just like they are with Microsoft in the PC arena. And they know it.
A very well thought out analysis.
My loss of love for all things Apple came when Apple began their business model - in that all things upgrade came from them, no ifs, ands, nor buts. And
that, my friends, was a very very long time ago.
TBH, one of the reasons that they were so good at video editing and such back in the day was simply b/c the machines were all SCSI based - a very rare thing for end-user desktop PCs running Windows.
They did a lot of good things, and yes, Jobs always seems to know which way the wind is blowing, but their restrictive atmosphere which is only just now opening up has kept me turned off of their OSs and products.
They never cease to do things that piss me off, either - remember with QT 7.x (7.1.2 or so, IIRC) for Windows? You
could not download it without iTunes unless you went through an additional 4 clicks to find the almost hidden download link for QuickTime. When the iPhone was first lauded in pictures and such in Jan 2007 at the press conference, I was thinking kinda neat - until I realized that you had to have iTunes to update it. I will never,
never, NEVER install iTunes on my Windows-based machines.
EVER. Besides Windows ME, I can't think of a more buggier POS (piece of Software, although the other interpretation fits just as well) I've ever had to deal with on Windows.
One thought I have is that if the Google purchase of Motorola Mobility is approved, it should help toward leveling the playing field that is Google vs. Apple. It wouldn't make it level, but it would help it in trending towards being level. Specifically in the patent area. Google is such a young company relative to Apple, as well as relative to Microsoft, and they are far, far behind in existing patents. If you include the time before Motorola was split into two separate companies, Motorola (Mobility) is older than Apple and Microsoft combined, and along with that comes a whole slew of patents.
Good analysis, to a point - Apple went patent trolling when IP was the in thing. A lot of Moto's patents were honest patents, not for trolling, and thus not developed / acquired specifically for the purpose of trolling. I'm guessing that though there are a lot of them, those dealing specifically with smartphones are few and far between their other ones.
While I'm happy along w/everybody else that Google will have new tools to defend itself (and its OEMs / developers / users) from patent attacks, I don't like the idea of any supplier competing with its own customers. It remains to be seen how independent the Moto Mobility division will remain. If Samsung / HTC / LG perceive favoritism, they may decide to shift focus away from Android. Even if you're a Moto fan (which I largely am), that can't be good for Android's future competitiveness with respect to new features, reliability, and especially pricing.
While this may be true, this could also be a (psychologically reversed) argument
in favor of defragmenting the current status of Android being as fragmented as many in the industry like to claim.
Think about it - iPhone is developed by a single company, both hardware and software. Why not make GOOG + MOTO become
the direct competitor for Apple?
