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Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

25 replies on 2 pages. Most recent reply: May 10, 2010 4:26 PM by t c

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Bill Venners

Posts: 2284
Nickname: bv
Registered: Jan, 2002

Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 26, 2010 9:36 AM

Reply

Summary
In his first blog post as a Googler, Tim Bray compared the open Android platform (which he'll be focusing on in his new job) with Apple's iPhone.

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In Now a No Evil Zone, Tim Bray announced that he had joined Google as a developer advocate focusing on the Android platform. About the Android, he wrote:

Google needs, and is committed to, Android; it’s not just a hobby.
The Android user experience is very good and, more important, getting better fast.
It’s developer-friendly; the barriers to entry are very low for the several million people on the planet who are comfy with the Java programming language.
The APIs are pretty good in my experience, and even more important, complete. Near as I can tell, there’s nothing interesting the phones can do that’s not exposed through some API or other.
Anyone can build any hardware they want around the Android software; no approval required.
Anyone can sell any program they write via the Android Market; no approval required.
It’s open-source.

By contrast, on the Apple iPhone, he wrote:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient. The big thing about the Web isn’t the technology, it’s that it’s the first-ever platform without a vendor (credit for first pointing this out goes to Dave Winer). From that follows almost everything that matters, and it matters a lot now, to a huge number of people. It’s the only kind of platform I want to help build.

Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other.

I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.

Do you think Apple is wrong? Are there benefits to the consumer of Apple's more controlled approach to the iPhone? Are there downsides to the openness of the Android platform?

Andy Dent

Posts: 165
Nickname: andydent
Registered: Nov, 2005

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 27, 2010 2:44 AM

Reply

I was somewhat stunned by his post because I used to respect Tim Bray as a fairly clear thinker. I don't understand how he gets from Apple locking down apps in the AppStore to accusing them of some non-existent internet restrictions:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what

Apple are selling warm fuzzies. They sell the assurance that your iPhone will be as robust software-wise as the seamless casing is when you drop the hardware on a tile floor.

I will believe that Google's approach has merit when they can demonstrate a significant and sufficiently stable market for Android that it comes even a remote second to the AppStore.

As far as the politics of some of Apple's other content rules go, that's American media and in this sense they are a media company. (Speaking from an Australian perspective ;-)

Jess Holle

Posts: 20
Nickname: jessh
Registered: Jan, 2009

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 27, 2010 5:43 AM

Reply

I think the issue is that the freedom involved here is a "meta" freedom for end-users -- it's one level removed from them. Thus it is hidden from their view when purchasing and using the iPhone.

Apple is killing developer freedom, which limits iPhone customer freedom -- but not directly and thus not obviously enough for iPhone customers to "get it".

From a developer standpoint, I really dislike Apple's whole model. It's the worst of all walled gardens. The phone market has unfortunately involved various ugly forms of this to some degree, but now they're expanding this model to other consumer devices with the iPad.

So what's wrong with a walled garden? Imagine if *all* software was sold only through the hardware vendor's site where they exercise total control. Imagine if that vendor took a 30% cut of all sales. Further imagine that you had to develop your software first and then apply for your software to appear on the site. Finally imagine that your software could be rejected initially or at any later time for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Now imagine making a software business model off of this! This is Apple's new model for the software industry at large. If you don't like it, then vote with your feet both as a customer and developer.

Back to the consumer, they don't see any of this as long as Apple lets a decent app onto their phone in every major niche they care about. If they "Disney-ify" their platform by disallowing niches they don't like most consumers are not going to complain. Even when Apple wantonly cripples their application selection for purely selfish business reasons their customers are silent!

Jess Holle

Posts: 20
Nickname: jessh
Registered: Jan, 2009

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 27, 2010 5:52 AM

Reply

P.S. I was a dyed-in-the-wool Macintosh fan for a decade -- and still really like some of what the current Macintosh is now about (e.g. finally putting a UI that normal people can use and like on top of UNIX -- why can't anyone else do this?). In that arena, however, I think Apple has recently been putting the focus on glitz at the cost of usability. They've also had been inconsistent in their commitment to keeping cross platform developer tooling, e.g. Java, up-to-date on their platform. This last reason is the only reason I personally don't use a Mac today.

In short, I don't simply hate Apple. I hate some things they do -- and their consumer product software development model is top of that list.

robert young

Posts: 361
Nickname: funbunny
Registered: Sep, 2003

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 27, 2010 12:29 PM

Reply

> So what's wrong with a walled garden? Imagine if *all*
> software was sold only through the hardware vendor's site
> where they exercise total control. Imagine if that vendor
> took a 30% cut of all sales. Further imagine that you had
> to develop your software first and then apply for your
> software to appear on the site. Finally imagine that your
> software could be rejected initially or at any later time
> for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Now imagine making a
> software business model off of this! This is Apple's new
> model for the software industry at large.

It ain't new. IBM was run that way until the DoJ (not your Reagan's DoJ, of course) put a stop to it. Well, sort of. The existence of mini-computers, and thence the PC, had as much to do with bringing IBM to heel as the gummint.

Andy Dent

Posts: 165
Nickname: andydent
Registered: Nov, 2005

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 27, 2010 5:54 PM

Reply

>Imagine if that vendor took a 30% cut of all sales.
Hmm, as opposed to the multiple cuts taken when selling through any other channel or the cost of trying to run your own store and the overhead of payment processors.

>imagine that your software could be rejected initially or at any later time
> for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I am an iPhone developer and I have both studied the contract with the SDK and followed the discussions in the iPhoneSB and other forums. I don't think you will find any examples of people who have had their applications refused initially or withdrawn who have not violated the terms and conditions by

- use of private frameworks,

- content which is arguable (a business risk they chose to take),

- direct competition with an Apple product, or

- other practices which violate the terms of the agreement (such as undue burden on the cellular network).

Now let us consider the freedom for developers that has been granted in exchange - we are guaranteed nobody installs software on the phone that runs in the background or replaces the libraries on which we rely.

150,000 applications have already grown in that little garden.

You might want to consider an alternative viewpoint - consumers are voting with their feet because the profession has let them down and this is the first device they think reliably delivers software?

Vincent O'Sullivan

Posts: 724
Nickname: vincent
Registered: Nov, 2002

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 2:20 AM

Reply

> - content which is arguable (a business risk they chose to
> take),

This is the the very core of the argument and the one that appears to be the hardest to get across.

Whilst the restrictions on the freedom of developers to develop what apps they want (and not what Apple permits) is already bad enough; it is the fact that Apple (which is just a business, after all) reserve the right decide what - content - your business can use that is the deeper problem and the one that is most likely to bite back hardest.

Freedom of content is not a business risk, it is freedom of speech.

Jess Holle

Posts: 20
Nickname: jessh
Registered: Jan, 2009

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 6:28 AM

Reply

> It ain't new. IBM was run that way until the DoJ (not
> your Reagan's DoJ, of course) put a stop to it. Well,
> sort of. The existence of mini-computers, and thence the
> PC, had as much to do with bringing IBM to heel as the
> gummint.

It may not be new, but this approach was definitely on the wane (outside of video game consoles), until Apple reinvigorated it.

Jess Holle

Posts: 20
Nickname: jessh
Registered: Jan, 2009

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 6:30 AM

Reply

> >Imagine if that vendor took a 30% cut of all sales.
> Hmm, as opposed to the multiple cuts taken when selling
> through any other channel or the cost of trying to run
> your own store and the overhead of payment processors.

30% is arbitrary, though -- companies like Apple could charge more if all software markets worked this way. The fact is you have no alternative sales/distribution channel to the hardware.

Jess Holle

Posts: 20
Nickname: jessh
Registered: Jan, 2009

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 6:36 AM

Reply

> I am an iPhone developer and I have both studied the
> contract with the SDK and followed the discussions in the
> iPhoneSB and other forums. I don't think you will find any
> examples of people who have had their applications refused
> initially or withdrawn who have not violated the terms and
> conditions by
>
> - use of private frameworks,
>
> - content which is arguable (a business risk they chose to
> take),
>
> - direct competition with an Apple product, or
>
> - other practices which violate the terms of the agreement
> (such as undue burden on the cellular network).

Hmmm....

First, off one should be able to directly compete with Apple's products. Competition is good, lack thereof (even within a single hardware platform) is a problem!

Secondly, Google and other high profile companies have had some rather compelling applications denied -- after the applications were developed. It's clear that even big fish can run afoul of Apple on this -- and no one will even hear about it when Apple tramples on the little fish.

Jess Holle

Posts: 20
Nickname: jessh
Registered: Jan, 2009

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 9:40 AM

Reply

> 150,000 applications have already grown in that little
> garden.
>
> You might want to consider an alternative viewpoint -
> consumers are voting with their feet because the
> profession has let them down and this is the first device
> they think reliably delivers software?

This is the insidious part. As long as Apple is happy with your application being listed on the store and their 30% cut, there's money to be made.

According to the contract, however, they can remove your application at any time and for any reason. So any time they no longer like you or your application, decide to release their own application in a given market space, decide their interests or those of AT&T are threatened by you or your application in any way, etc, they can drop your application. They have total control.

Essentially you're hopping into a jail cell closing the door behind you, giving them the keys, and hoping they keep the accommodations to your liking. Your only alternative if you don't is "exile" -- with a total loss of your application investment -- and Apple can choose this for you at any time.

Elliotte Rusty Harold

Posts: 1573
Nickname: elharo
Registered: Apr, 2003

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 3:08 PM

Reply

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with a walled garden for a phone platform. The issue is not whether we should lock the gates. It's who owns the key. On the Nexus One, the phone is equally locked down. However as a Nexus One owner I can unlock the gates for any app or app store I choose to use. As an iPhone owner I can't. Apple decides who is allowed to install what on an iPhone. In effect, they own the phone. The people who "purchase" the phone don't. Would you buy a house from a seller who insisted on retaining the only copy of the master key, and would only let you buy furniture from their approved furniture store from which they got a 30% cut? If not, why would you buy an iPhone?

johny boyd

Posts: 28
Nickname: johnyboyd
Registered: Apr, 2007

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 5:23 PM

Reply

Umm .. because an cell phone is not a house?

Let's not go overboard with our comparisons ..

-jb

Kay Schluehr

Posts: 302
Nickname: schluehk
Registered: Jan, 2005

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 6:10 PM

Reply

> This is the insidious part. As long as Apple is happy
> with your application being listed on the store and their
> 30% cut, there's money to be made.

Very much unlike Google, which relies on FOSS, which signals to the Android customer: you get everything but the hardware for free.

Money for Google for selling Android and for setting Ads, no money for Google, selling apps but also no money for developers who create apps, which have to compete with FOSS. The Android market will become very tough for developers. So good luck for professional Android application developers if there are any.

Tim Bray is right. Freedom is not optional. But Jaron Lanier is also right that without a sound economical base you will get a herd of peasants serving their feudal lords, not free citizens. Who will solve this contradiction? Certainly not Apple, which is just the evil, old, exploitative capitalist in this game. But will Google solve it for you? I guess not either.

Steve Goschnick

Posts: 1
Nickname: gosh100
Registered: Jan, 2008

Re: Tim Bray on Android versus iPhone

Posted: Mar 28, 2010 7:07 PM

Reply

>Anyone can sell any program they write via the Android Market; no approval >required.

That statement is simply not true if you live outside of the current 9 countries from which you can sell Android programs at the moment. i.e. Austria, Italy, Germany, Japan, France, Spain, Netherlands, UK and US. It has been that way since Sep 2009 and seems unlikely to change anytime soon.

Developers from the countries not in those 9 listed above, tend to release their applications for free (thereby undermining the commercial proposition for those developers in the 9 countries).

This make the proposition for 'ads within apps' the better proposition on Android in all countries - which of course suits Google mode of operation.

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