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Will the iphone kill Android?

There is too much complaining about the android OS compared to iPhone on forums. The Android has many more carriers to deal with at this point, unlike the iPhone with just ATT. Of course you will have some SW update delays with different carriers. They each have their own type of sw, proprietary apps, and many have different signal types to deal with. The iPhone has it quite easy right now with only 1 carrier. We will see how that changes when they are released from those shackles. I imagine we will see quite the same type of situation, possibly worse without the open source.

Think about the hardware diffs, the different UI's, and different carriers for a second and you will realize that Android is handling all this quite well. They also have several different manufacturers making there devices, which they have to compensate for. Last time I checked, iPhone had one.

So before you start bashing the Android phones, consider that Apple took the easy route so far, and Android decided to share the love. I will wait for their updates since IMO they have a superior product.
 
mbell75 said:
Lets face it, Android is a mess right now. Google seemingly has no control over which phones get what update. You have year old G1s running 1.6 while a 3 month old phone like the Hero and 2 month old phone like the Moment are still running 1.5, it makes no sense at all. Carriers and manufacturers are skipping updates like 1.6 and 2.0 and promising 2.1 updates while leaving their customers on outdated software.

With Apple and AT&T's contract ending this summer and with it being hinted the iphone will make its way too all the major carriers, this could mean the death of Android. The new iphone will almost certainly do alot more than even 2.1 can dream of and with how badly Google, manufacturers and carriers are failing with Android updates, I wouldnt be surprised to see a TON of Android users jump off the bandwagon and get an iphone. I know I sure will if this keeps up and I have only been an Android user for a few weeks.
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Nope. Still plenty of people out there who wouldn't touch Apple products or the iPhone with a 10 foot pole regardless of carrier.
 
Really, Apple will kill Android HUH. The Android OS has so many things that surpass anything Apple has put out. Apple has a 3 year head start. Apple knew they did not have to make a great product because no one could compete with their sub par phones. Now that Android is out I really think Apple should be scared.

Apple will never, and i mean EVER give the users the kinda control that Android Users have with their phones. When I buy my phone, ITS MINE. With Apple you are more or less renting the device. They don't want you to have an APP, Flick one switch and its gone.

Look how many devs have left the Iphone behind.

Now look at Google. They allow us so much freedom.

I dont think its goin to kill Android, but I do believe the weak who wish to follow Apple will leave the Android platform. Do we care. NO.

If you like to have power over your phone. ANDROID all the way baby.

If you wanna follow like sheep. Go back to Apple.

So please, take your Apple this Apple that threads elsewhere. If you think the Iphone is so great, buy one and join their forums. When you bitching and complaining because you are so locked down with your phone, I will be sure to post screens shots of my Emulators, Custom Roms installed in under 5 minutes, and all the things i can customize on my phone.

Keep your drone phones. They all look the same, all feel the same, because they are all the same.

:)
 
These discussions are all pretty irrelevant in my opinion, because if Android is heading towards its deathbed or not, it will happen regardless of what any of us think or say.

I am a new Droid owner coming over from the Palm Pre on Sprint, and I made my decision clearly based upon my preferences. When I had family members who are big Apple fans try and persuade me to not chose an Android phone, I went based on my own judgment. The iPhone never really appealed to me, which is why I got a Palm Pre instead and now chose a Droid over it.

The Android OS gives me customization out of the box and plenty of things to play around with, and I don't need to hack my phone to get these things. However, the device/software fragmentation is definitely an issue for concern and it could play a large role in Android's "death." Although I am perfectly fine with 2.0.1 and can patiently wait for Droid's 2.1 update, it still ticks me off that in such a short period of time, Google released a better phone that has the newest and best improvements on the OS. Now everyone that doesn't own a N1 has to sit around and wait till it's decided that the other devices can receive the update? I know that I can root my phone and get all of the 2.1 features on it as well, but that completely goes against why I bought an Android phone in the first place. If I wanted to go around hacking my phone to get cool features on it, I could've just as easily done that with an iPhone 3GS.

Personal preferences aside, the truth is that both consumers and developers will eventually grow tired of having different software versions spread out across the different phones. There are already developers starting to drop their focus on Android due to Google not really giving devs an incentive to continue making apps for them. What is the benefit that they are getting from creating apps on the OS, that it's so great because it is open source and highly customizable? This is a business and everyone is looking to make a profit. If people aren't supporting the developers and buying the apps, then they are going to move to where they will get that support and profit, which currently is with the iPhone App Store.

Remember that while some of us Android owners, such as myself, use our heads to make informed decisions based on what we want and look for; a large majority of the population rely on other people to make these decisions for them. Hence, Apple products are largely mainstream and hype driven devices that many chose for their simplicity... and maybe partly because someone told them to.
 
Miga said:
Really, Apple will kill Android HUH. The Android OS has so many things that surpass anything Apple has put out. Apple has a 3 year head start. Apple knew they did not have to make a great product because no one could compete with their sub par phones. Now that Android is out I really think Apple should be scared.

Apple will never, and i mean EVER give the users the kinda control that Android Users have with their phones. When I buy my phone, ITS MINE. With Apple you are more or less renting the device. They don't want you to have an APP, Flick one switch and its gone.

Look how many devs have left the Iphone behind.

Now look at Google. They allow us so much freedom.

I dont think its goin to kill Android, but I do believe the weak who wish to follow Apple will leave the Android platform. Do we care. NO.

If you like to have power over your phone. ANDROID all the way baby.

If you wanna follow like sheep. Go back to Apple.

So please, take your Apple this Apple that threads elsewhere. If you think the Iphone is so great, buy one and join their forums. When you bitching and complaining because you are so locked down with your phone, I will be sure to post screens shots of my Emulators, Custom Roms installed in under 5 minutes, and all the things i can customize on my phone.

Keep your drone phones. They all look the same, all feel the same, because they are all the same.

:)
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Ok, so tell me , how do i update my software to 2.1 from 1.5 on my htc hero? If my carrier decides they do not want the hassle or expense of porting and testing OS updates for all the various handsets, well, me , the consumer is screwed out of 600.00 for an out of the box outdated software level.

I asked my carrier today where they are headed with android, and they seem already tired of the headaches of the unlevel software releases. There are waiting lines of 2 hours, sometimes more at our stores for help, questions, and problems with these phones and software. I called Google today, for the first time in my life, it was pitiful. Horrific excuse for a company , they have no clue about customer service, at all. They will not talk to anyone on the phone for any reason, ie, the market place, tech support, customer service issues, refunds, billing problems, software or hardware issues, none, nothing , nada, zilch, zero, zippo. They answer the phones just to tell people they do not help their customers over the phone. WTF???!!!!!???

Carriers are not wanting to be in the software biz, and with android they will have to be. They will be porting and testing non stop from here on out and it will be way too costly. they won't even confirm how long they will persue os upgrades for the handsets, like the hero, and we do not even have 2.1, we are on 1.5 for god sakes. These issues along with limited sized apps, which cut down on size and quality of apps, will be the death of Android for all but the geeks who like to put their star trek wallpaper on their phone or that hot babe from the internet they will never ever see in real life.

I am sorry, its not the fact that apple has any headstart, its that Google never really started at all. Android, all the potential, but no direction, confusion, chaos and amateurish start into a fast paced high powered world.
google needs to stick to search engines and maps. BTW, i do have the HTC hero, used to have and sorely miss my Iphone. lord do i miss my iphone.
 
bizarrogreg said:
There is too much complaining about the android OS compared to iPhone on forums. The Android has many more carriers to deal with at this point, unlike the iPhone with just ATT. Of course you will have some SW update delays with different carriers. They each have their own type of sw, proprietary apps, and many have different signal types to deal with. The iPhone has it quite easy right now with only 1 carrier. We will see how that changes when they are released from those shackles. I imagine we will see quite the same type of situation, possibly worse without the open source.

Think about the hardware diffs, the different UI's, and different carriers for a second and you will realize that Android is handling all this quite well. They also have several different manufacturers making there devices, which they have to compensate for. Last time I checked, iPhone had one.

So before you start bashing the Android phones, consider that Apple took the easy route so far, and Android decided to share the love. I will wait for their updates since IMO they have a superior product.
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What to do when a carrier gets tired of the time cost and expense of updating handsets, my carrier is already expressing doubt about this, as they will be selling 600.00 phones with no chance to upgrade the OS, and they realize now, it aint gonna fly in the smartphone market now. apple has set the bar. They do not want to be software developers, believe you me, it's not who they are or what they do. Apple will not be letting carriers put crapware on their handsets, no matter what networks they sell their phones on, so those issues will be irrelevant. The radio freq's and such can be dealt with far easier than you think. With apple going to dual core chips, multi tasking etc etc, as well as wallpaper and themes in the near future, most of what android touts as better will be moot.

So for now, you can have your hello kitty themes and such, but then eventually Android will be relegated to the Geeks, and they can customize to their hearts content. then they can sit in their lairs and mumble, take that Apple..
 
I'm a former Iphone user. I'm also a Heavy Business user. I could not customize my Iphone like I can my DROID. I can do a hell of a lot more with my droid than an Iphone. I love the customization. The updates are not a big concern. I just want something that works when it get rolled out. Also with AT&T I don't miss the 3-5 dropped calls a day i was getting with my iphone. I've been on VZW since December & have not a dropped call yet. Like MIGA said "FREEDOM". LONG LIVE THE DROID.:)
 
Well considering that that Apple is banning the mentioning of Android in their app store like a bunch of Tyrants. I think Apple is more fearful of the droids killing off their precious iphone. All an iphone is a "smart" phone for dumb people, just like their computer's. There is no customization to it, and pretty much from a distant all iphones look and operate the same. It's one way or no way, click the app store, search the app you want, download it and it goes on your screen. Okay there is two ways and some customization but the other way is considering breaking it.
 
Your thread title seems like you are comparing Android as if it's a specific phone? Android isn't a specific phone. It's an OS. Bottomline....Iphone will never die and neither will Android. The two OS's are the present and future. Android sales will eventually surpass the Iphone only because their are so many manufacturers building phones with the Android OS and it's not limited to a specific carrier. Unless, Apple decides to sell their OS for the use of other manufacturers then it's inevitable that Android will surpass the Iphone in sales. I'm not sure when but it'll happen if things stay the same. I think you should change your title to "Will the Iphone kill Blackberry". Because that's more of a closer comparison.
 
I think that the iPhone has more to worry about than the android platform has. Im an Apple fan, currently owning a MacBook, but I didn't get one because they're hugely expensive and don't tick all my boxes.

The iPhone has done well because there was little competition until recently. I see a marketplace that will see a battle between Apple and Android much the same as the Windows vs Apple fight over a share of the home computer market. The traditional manufacturers may suffer over time - SE have already started going downhill fast and are now starting to look at Android as a way of getting some customers back.

So no - I don't think the iPhone will kill Android.
 
NDES said:
I am a new Droid owner coming over from the Palm Pre on Sprint, and I made my decision clearly based upon my preferences. When I had family members who are big Apple fans try and persuade me to not chose an Android phone, I went based on my own judgment. The iPhone never really appealed to me, which is why I got a Palm Pre instead and now chose a Droid over it.
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I would be interested to know your comparison of pre to droid. I really wanted a pre, but they were not coming fast to Verizon so I did not hold out.

There are a lot of things from my Treo 700p that I really miss, like a decent calendar app and a decent to-do list and a decent keyboard. But the droid has advantages too (screen, wifi, browser/web experience).

But for the basic stuff I need to work like a champ (email, calendar, to-do) the droid comes up lacking.
 
The Apple and Android systems are going to provide each other with lots of healthy competition for years. I think that competition will kill off some of the also-rans, though ... almost certainly Palm, and maybe Win mobile after that.
 
mikey said:
I see a marketplace that will see a battle between Apple and Android much the same as the Windows vs Apple fight over a share of the home computer market. The traditional manufacturers may suffer over time - SE have already started going downhill fast and are now starting to look at Android as a way of getting some customers back.
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You brought up a good point here between the Windows vs. Apple fights that we've seen for quite a long time. However therein also lies a problem, because it would seem that Google/Android has a similar approach to things (mainly software) as MSoft. It all goes back to the main population of consumers and the whole "app defines the phone" issues. MAC OSX started to become extremely popular after their integration of Intel processors on their machines. Quite simply, macs are simple to use and idiot-proof computers that don't have all the headaches of a windows machine. Can't run a Windows program or a PC game on the OS? No problem, use a virtual machine software like VMWare or Boot Camp into Windows and you'll be all set.

The iPhone brings a similar level of simplicity and dumbed-down features that have made Apple popular once again. I personally, and I'm sure most of us Android owners, love the fact that we can highly customize our phones without having to jailbreak/root them. However, there are plenty of iPhone users out there who don't care for or want to be able to customize their phones; they just want the phone to do the simple functions and provide them with an overly abundant amount of "apps."

Before I turn this into a wall of text, I personally like the Android OS far better than the iPhone OS, but it doesn't mean that I don't see the defects. To be honest, there are a lot of apps/games that I see on the iPhone which I could definitely use on my Droid.
 
SpecialEd said:
I would be interested to know your comparison of pre to droid. I really wanted a pre, but they were not coming fast to Verizon so I did not hold out.

There are a lot of things from my Treo 700p that I really miss, like a decent calendar app and a decent to-do list and a decent keyboard. But the droid has advantages too (screen, wifi, browser/web experience).

But for the basic stuff I need to work like a champ (email, calendar, to-do) the droid comes up lacking.
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Well Ed, I'll give you my honest review based upon Sprint's version of the Pre. To kick things off, I believe that webOS had a lot of potential and it was very well done as well. With that being said though, there were very little improvements made on the OS other than your typical fixes and updates, but it was nothing near the level of evolution that Android has gone through.

The default SMS messenger and email application were a bit better than the stock android ones, but it's nothing that I couldn't rapidly adjust to. The keyboard had a slight learning curve, but it wasn't all that bad to us. Your typical BB keyboards are still a bit better designed than the Pre's overall, and to be frank, you're probably going to have the same learning curve on the Droid's virtual AND physical keys.

My main issue with webOS was its lack of apps and the quality of them. With my short time on the Droid, I've already found plenty of apps that I found to be better designed than the ones on my Pre.

The screen could be a bit bigger but it's no huge drawback for the phone. Now, the multi-tasking cards feature is the main thing that I must mention as a weakness on Sprint's version of the Pre, as I have not tried the Pre Plus and its faster processor. The cards feature was definitely a nice implementation, but the phone would get far too laggy if you opened up any more than two or maybe three apps at a time. Thus, I rarely ever opened more than one app at a time and hardly found use for the feature. I guess that about wraps up my little review for you.

Hope you find it to be helpfuL!
 
The iPhone has as much chance of killing off Android as OS X has of killing Linux. It can't and won't, because the continued existence of both Linux and Android doesn't depend upon having a formal corporate sponsor to authorize its continued existence.

If Apple were torn apart by some freak lawsuit tomorrow that bankrupted the company and scattered its key IP in the hands of owners determined to kill it, the iPhone wouldn't just vanish from stores... it would rapidly become unusable by anyone who didn't jailbreak it. Sure, it could live on as pirated roms hacked or running on future hardware under emulators, but it's more likely that its key non-Apple supporters would just move to some other platform, and bring what they thought was worthwhile about iPhone to it.

On the other hand, Android won't "kill" iPhone either, any more than Windows or Linux has killed OS X. Apple products are a small (but immensely profitable) niche market, and people who buy them interpret that minority status as proof that they're members of an exclusive, elite group.

As far as I'm concerned, the phone market is likely to end up with 2.5 to 3 platforms, just like PCs (but slightly different details):

* A Linux-based Phone OS that will probably be Android, or at least heavily dominated by it. Right now, I'd predict that Palm will end up in a position somewhere between that of Sega/Atari and Mandriva -- a major commercial publisher of Android apps, possibly with a premium commercial version of Android to call its own. Possibly an OEM-branded "Pre Experience" with its own unique look and feel.

* An Apple-owned OS whose niche consists of people who have more money than technical inclination.

* An "Enterprise"-oriented OS. If I had to place bets, I'd predict this as the future marriage of Windows Mobile with Blackberry.

Truth be told, I don't see a huge near-future market for Enterprise Android. Partly, because its core developers aren't interested in features considered non-negotiable by the Enterprise market... more importantly, because most of the features demanded by Enterprise customers actively go against the best interests of technically-savvy users who like hacking their own phones... and that group is fairly dominant within the Android community. If you don't believe me, check out the "Android Security" mailing list. It's almost hard to tell who's being serious, and who's being a devil's advocate or using irony... you have the "Enterprise" camp demanding extreme security features that aren't even viable with PCs, and the "everyone else" camp basically telling them to chill (or go to hell). They argue, and half the time aren't even arguing about the same thing. ;-)

In theory, Apple could be enterprise-friendly, but at the end of the day, Microsoft basically owns the Enterprise market. If they buy Blackberry, move it to Windows Mobile, make Enterprise Management easy for Enterprise Admins running Windows servers, and just throw a cookie at iPhone to keep the Justice Department pacified, Enterprise Apple will be exactly where it is today -- occasionally grudgingly tolerated for users who are sufficiently powerful or important to tell Enterprise Device Management to **** off, but always marginalized.

Personally, I think that 3 years from now, the phone market will be like the PC market. Apple will sell its exclusive phones in exclusive stores, and will make 20% of the phone market's money by selling handsets to 5% of its users. The remainder will be divided between Android and Windows Mobile, but the exact breakdown will be largely irrelevant because by then, Windows Mobile will be a retail product that can be purchased by end users and installed by them directly, regardless of whether the phone was purchased with Android or an older version of Windows Mobile. And any phone bought with Windows Mobile will be reflashable with Android (as long as someone can find drivers for its hardware).

At first, it will be Chinese phones that trickle into the US and end up having proper hardware drivers for both operating systems. Then the floodgates will trickle open as people figure out that HTC & Motorola phones share most of their hardware with those Chinese phones. Those drivers will become the phone equivalent of PC "OEM drivers". Samsung will be a harder nut to crack, because they're kind of like IBM was with Thinkpads in the mid-90s... large enough that they literally ARE the OEM, and will sell hardware with parts that literally aren't used by anyone else (think: Thinkpad's late-90s modem+audio hardware).

In any case, none of the big three are going to kill each other off. At the end of the day, there are basically three broad sub-markets with some degree of overlap, but each has a core group of supporters/stakeholders who'd be extremely unhappy in the other two camps, and will almost certainly be able to keep their chosen platform viable, regardless of what platform their parents (or kids, or boss) might prefer instead. For every disillusioned Android owner who runs to the greener fields of Apple or Microsoft, there will be just as many frustrated iPhone users chafing against Apple's restrictions who jump to the open application environments of Android and Windows Mobile, and just as many frustrated Windows Mobile users who envy the overall stability and user experience of the iPhone or easier tweakability of Android (so they can personally live their dream of trying to fix core OS functionalities that annoy them). And for that matter, probably a big group of users chained to Enterprise-jailed Windows Mobile phones running Android under VMware, or running an Enterprise-jailed copy of Windows Mobile on an iPhone running Apple's equivalent of VMware.
 
Apple...new...yeah right. I guess people don't remember the little lawsuit that was settled out of court about Apple misappropriating code from another company that was the core of Apples "new, revolutionary" touch screen interface!

Apple is falling behind, quickly, look at the iPad for proof. I would much rather have a netbook or a tablet pc than that overpriced, oversized iTouch. What makes you think they have anything spectacular planned for the iPhone when they can't even break new ground with this?
 
NDES said:
Well Ed, I'll give you my honest review based upon Sprint's version of the Pre. To kick things off, I believe that webOS had a lot of potential and it was very well done as well. With that being said though, there were very little improvements made on the OS other than your typical fixes and updates, but it was nothing near the level of evolution that Android has gone through.

<snip>

Hope you find it to be helpfuL!
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Thanks!

I saw one and realized the keyboard was not great, so nothing to hold out for. You make me feel that I made the right call, even though droid keyboard is weak too.

On topic, is there any reason you can't undermine the iphone by making a emulator like wine for android? I hate the way they try to control everything. I want to be able to right and middle click, by golly!
 
lekky said:
There are plenty of crap apps for sure, but how many of the Apple stores apps are crap.

There are more than enough great apps on the android market right now, and is improving all the time.
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And unlike the Apple store, Android market has a 24-hour moneyback return policy if the app really IS crap. This alone will drive quality for Android apps. Devs have a real financial incentive to create quality and keep it updated, and the frequency of updates is a testament to that.
 
This has been addressed already, but ill paraphrase my answer anyway. Bbrosen, how is your mytouch underpowered while is has VERY SIMILIAR specs to your beloved iphone 3gs. The moment, droid, nexus one all have better specs than 3gs. Also, iphone did not innovate anything. They never had to make anyone play catch up. For christ sake the first one didn't even have a 3g radio. Sad. Really. Pathetic actually. No mms? Hell my sanyo katana dlx flip phone ran circles around the first iphone. It had apps, 3g sppeeds, mms, everything the iphone didn't! Sad. Also other pda's, winmo, symbian blackberry, the iphone did nothing, and does nothing they can't do, but the otherplatforms can do things iphone can't do. Who's playing catch up? The iphone is simply a fad, fueled by the success of the ipod, and that trendy cool inage. Guess what happens to trendy products? Oh yeah, they DIE. That's why the real competition isn't sweating apple, and why they don't throw crybaby fits like steve jobs. Steve jobs knows his days are numbered, again, and apple will once again fade into the background.
 
SamuraiBigEd said:
Apple...new...yeah right. I guess people don't remember the little lawsuit that was settled out of court about Apple misappropriating code from another company that was the core of Apples "new, revolutionary" touch screen interface!

Apple is falling behind, quickly, look at the iPad for proof. I would much rather have a netbook or a tablet pc than that overpriced, oversized iTouch. What makes you think they have anything spectacular planned for the iPhone when they can't even break new ground with this?
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@SamuraiBigEd; especially they been out for almost 4 years.:confused:
 
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