How Android Beat the iPhone to World Domination

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monkeymagick

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While everyone is gushing about the iPhone's ten years of existence, an article from CNN's Money blog takes its accomplishment down a peg. Launching in 2008, Google's partnership with HTC helped produce what the world has come to know as the HTC Dream (first released as the T-Mobile G1 in the US). Running off the its mobile operating system, Android, it still maintained a BlackBerry-like slide out keyboard. It ran on a 528 Mhz Qualcomm chip, 192 MB of RAM with 256 MB of internal storage and even a 16 GB expandable Micro SD slot; making it still have more possible storage space than the current iPhones.

"Google and Apple were working on developing the smartphone very much at the same time," says Fred Vogelstein, author of Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution.

Then Jobs unveiled a radically different device on stage in January 2007. The head of Android, Andy Rubin, was in a car when the presentation kicked off. He asked the driver to pull over to watch it online, according to Dogfight.


"Android is very fragmented," Jobs said on an earnings call in 2010. "The users will have to figure it all out."

"I think Steve Jobs was in fact terribly worried that Google was going to do to him the same thing that Microsoft did," Vogelstein says.
 
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Love my Android devices. My Nexus 5 is one of the best mobiles I've ever owned and without it my business wouldn't run, while my Nexus 9 is my favourite computing device outside of my main PC.

I've got absolutely no need to use my laptop outside of business related callouts anymore.

Wouldn't touch an iDevice with a 10ft barge pole, just way too limiting.
 
This is one of the few things we disagree on BulletDust. I wouldn't touch an android device with a 10ft pole due to its insecurity. Way too many malware and exploits roaming around. Walled garden of idevices is what I want when my phone has access to my bank account, paypal, e-mail etc. which could easily be monetarily exploited if the device got infected.

Not to mention Android phones can be exploited to place silent background calls to 500 bucks a minute toll numbers.
 
Puh-leeeeeze, stop the iPhone fan boi tired arguments. In its current state, neither iPhone nor Android are any more less secure than the other. Cell phones simply are not as prone to malware / viruses as compared to pc's. Unless your rooted or jail broke and downloading programs from the dark web, the average user will most likely never see a malware infection in their phone.

What one has between Android & iPhone are two different approaches to the same idea. One approach treats the end user as an adult allowing one to take as much risk as they care to take and the second approach treats the end user as an unknowledgeable child.

Take your pick.
 
B00nie said:
This is one of the few things we disagree on BulletDust. I wouldn't touch an android device with a 10ft pole due to its insecurity. Way too many malware and exploits roaming around. Walled garden of idevices is what I want when my phone has access to my bank account, paypal, e-mail etc. which could easily be monetarily exploited if the device got infected.

Not to mention Android phones can be exploited to place silent background calls to 500 bucks a minute toll numbers.
Click to expand...

I've never had an issue and I've never seen an issue TBH B00nie. I'm sure if you download and install third party apk files or use third party repositories you're opening yourself up to issues, but I've never experienced any, or known anyone that's experienced any.

Both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store have been compromised at times, but the compromised applications are so crappy that no one in their right mind would download them anyway! ;)

As stated, my Nexus 9 especially is a computing device, I can't help but view iOS devices as simple application loaders, the very simplistic OS is just far too limiting from my perspective. However, I also understand how that can be the attraction of iOS devices for a great many people and in such scenarios the simplicity and robustness of the iOS device is perfect. Each to their own and respect B00nie.
 
Sailindawg said:
Puh-leeeeeze, stop the iPhone fan boi tired arguments. In its current state, neither iPhone nor Android are any more less secure than the other. Cell phones simply are not as prone to malware / viruses as compared to pc's. Unless your rooted or jail broke and downloading programs from the dark web, the average user will most likely never see a malware infection in their phone.

What one has between Android & iPhone are two different approaches to the same idea. One approach treats the end user as an adult allowing one to take as much risk as they care to take and the second approach treats the end user as an unknowledgeable child.

Take your pick.
Click to expand...

Wrong. Android play store is open for anyone who has an e-mail address and 5 bucks to register. There are multiple malicious / fake apps in the play store as we speak. Apple store has way higher standards of approving developers and the code gets audited before release.

There are only a couple known cases of malicious apps slipping through the curtain and even those had to slip the payload through the update system after having the original app approved... I think even that hole is now closed.

The above combined to the Androids flawed model of depending on suppliers to release the OS updates leaves any older Android user shit out of luck. The hardware manufacturers don't have any incentive to keep the older model updated. Apple releases updates even to completely outdated models.

Bulletdust: we view mobile devices completely differently. I wouldn't even want to use my phone for anything but simplistic app use. It's way too small and clumsy for computing.

Tablets are so-so but the real deal is a hybrid device or a plain old laptop. I take my macbook where ever I go.
 
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Sailindawg said:
Puh-leeeeeze, stop the iPhone fan boi tired arguments. In its current state, neither iPhone nor Android are any more less secure than the other. Cell phones simply are not as prone to malware / viruses as compared to pc's. Unless your rooted or jail broke and downloading programs from the dark web, the average user will most likely never see a malware infection in their phone.

What one has between Android & iPhone are two different approaches to the same idea. One approach treats the end user as an adult allowing one to take as much risk as they care to take and the second approach treats the end user as an unknowledgeable child.

Take your pick.
Click to expand...

Your a bit off here

An android can be hacked WITHOUT the user doing anything.

More often than not Apple is hacked / infected due to the user jail breaking the device

The manufacturer finds ways to stop people from changing and gaining access to the device

The hacker community finds ways into your android device after reading hacking for dummies
 
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I was thinking the discussion would kick off with someone pointing out the grammatical errors in the OP's summary.

 
Maybe people are "gushing" about the iPhone, simply because it changed the world. It changed it enough, so that Android could exist.
 
BulletDust said:
Love my Android devices. My Nexus 5 is one of the best mobiles I've ever owned and without it my business wouldn't run, while my Nexus 9 is my favourite computing device outside of my main PC.

I've got absolutely no need to use my laptop outside of business related callouts anymore.

Wouldn't touch an iDevice with a 10ft barge pole, just way too limiting.
Click to expand...

Curious as to what you doing on these phones that you can't do on an iPhone? Downloading pirated content is about the only one I can think of?
 
Orddie said:
An android can be hacked WITHOUT the user doing anything.
Click to expand...

Examples?

Stimpy88 said:
Curious as to what you doing on these phones that you can't do on an iPhone? Downloading pirated content is about the only one I can think of?
Click to expand...

Emulation, real file management, accessing NTFS file systems on USB devices, unzipping using winrar. In the case of the Nexus 9 I do everything that most people would use a laptop for and I can do it lying down and not sitting upright, which is great for when you've got a back that's stuffed as a result of a car accident.

Furthermore my whole business is based around G-Suite.
 
As a retro computing enthusiast I love surfing the BBS scene on my Nexus 9 (and I'm getting sick of Imgur not scaling images correctly):

T6TW29s.png
 
B00nie said:
Wrong. Android play store is open for anyone who has an e-mail address and 5 bucks to register. There are multiple malicious / fake apps in the play store as we speak. Apple store has way higher standards of approving developers and the code gets audited before release.
Click to expand...
THIS!!! How many times have we heard of apps slipping into the supposed "safe" Google Play Store? More times than I can count! It's like Google doesn't care if bad shit gets into their store because in order to do something about it it would result in closing down their oh so precious open platform. Oh, we can't do that! That would be wrong!

Face it people, open platforms are great and all... until they're not. People are generally too fucking stupid to have the responsibility to keep their computing devices safe. They need all the hand holding they can get and then some.
 
I like many things about iPhones more than Android. I like the backup feature of iTunes more than any android app I have tried. I like the fact they offer a 4.5" model which doesn't suck. I like the fact that years later you can still get updates. They have a few flaws I refuse to overlook. Little things such as I can't change my default browser from Safari. Sure I can download Firefox but I can't set it to my default browser so links open up in it. iTunes also doesn't support Linux which is where I'm headed more and more. I also can't easily copy files over to an iPhone without using iTunes. The browser issue may seem petty but there is no good reason to give me so little control over my phone.
 
Maybe if Google hadn't given the keys to the kingdom to the providers you guys could have timely updates. But who would I get to make fun of then.
 
While I am no Apple fan, the iPhone is one thing I think Apple has done a good job on with only a few issues. Android has taken over for the simple fact they cover a huge range of phones, from low end to highend, while Apple only covers the upper end. Which one you like more or use yourself doesn't matter. This is coming from someone who gets a free iPhone from work, but I chose to go out and pay for my own Pixel phone. If Android was only highend as well, these numbers would be far closer, we would probably also see far less splitting of the OS, which would be a good thing and one mistake I think Google made, allowing anyone and everyone to do what they want to a great OS and is why I always go for the Google phones rather than 3rd party.
 
trparky said:
THIS!!! How many times have we heard of apps slipping into the supposed "safe" Google Play Store? More times than I can count! It's like Google doesn't care if bad shit gets into their store because in order to do something about it it would result in closing down their oh so precious open platform. Oh, we can't do that! That would be wrong!

Face it people, open platforms are great and all... until they're not. People are generally too fucking stupid to have the responsibility to keep their computing devices safe. They need all the hand holding they can get and then some.
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Just going to leave this here since your memory seems to be hazy.

https://9to5mac.com/2015/09/20/xcode-ghost-app-store-malware-malicious-apps/
 
Krazy925 said:
Maybe if Google hadn't given the keys to the kingdom to the providers you guys could have timely updates. But who would I get to make fun of then.
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Yeah but that was one of Androids selling points, that you could expect something unique from each carrier. The carriers needed this freedom to create competition and entice users to their network. Remember Iphone was proprietary to ATT for the longest. With 1 carrier and 1 manufacturer to rule them all it's easy to release timely updates compatible with devices many years old. I cant really fault them for that.
 
nysmo said:
Yeah but that was one of Androids selling points, that you could expect something unique from each carrier. The carriers needed this freedom to create competition and entice users to their network. Remember Iphone was proprietary to ATT for the longest. With 1 carrier and 1 manufacturer to rule them all it's easy to release timely updates compatible with devices many years old. I cant really fault them for that.
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Carriers holding back updates wasn't part of the selling points. That's the system we're in now. It's awful and part of the reason I left Android.
Also the iPhone hasn't been carrier locked since 2011.... also they worked on T-Mobile and if I'm not mistaken MetroPCS before that time, I was using droid/RIM back then however.
I'd rather have timely updates, than whatever excuse is being passed around about android today.
 
Avalanche said:
Just going to leave this here since your memory seems to be hazy.

https://9to5mac.com/2015/09/20/xcode-ghost-app-store-malware-malicious-apps/
Click to expand...
I know, I remember that but that's just one issue that's cropped up in the iOS ecosystem. Meanwhile it's always a cat-and-mouse game in the Android world. Hackers upload malicious app to the Google Play Store, Google finds it and removes it, hackers find a new way to slip past Google's checks, uploads new stuff, Google finds it, removes it... lather, rinse, repeat. It happens all the time in Google ecosystem. It's always reactive in the Android ecosystem rather than proactive like it is in the iOS ecosystem. Apple has strengthened the app checking whereas I just don't see the same happening in the Android ecosystem, if anything it just keeps happening.
 
B00nie said:
This is one of the few things we disagree on BulletDust. I wouldn't touch an android device with a 10ft pole due to its insecurity. Way too many malware and exploits roaming around. Walled garden of idevices is what I want when my phone has access to my bank account, paypal, e-mail etc. which could easily be monetarily exploited if the device got infected.

Not to mention Android phones can be exploited to place silent background calls to 500 bucks a minute toll numbers.
Click to expand...
Ditto.

I stopped using my Nexus 9 a long time ago, replaced with an iPad Air 2.

Granted, the locked down device is a pain in certain things, but the overall polish of the OS and device is a million times better.

Mind you, I had a N10 and then a N9, both are nowhere near close to the iPad (IMHO).

After dealing with Android devices since the Droid Eris and forced to start romming from the get go, since every single one of my devices were abandoned even before the 2 years mark, I am seriously considering in buying an iPhone.

Hell, just for shit and giggles, I installed IOS 11 on a very old iPhone 5S and it is very, very usable, even though is a rough beta.

Can't try that on my already abandoned Nexus 6....
 
A lot of the 'disadvantages' Android has, are basically the deal with the devil that made it the currently dominant OS in mobile.
We could be in world of samsung has its own OS, Nokia has MS, and motorola has its own OS and so on.
I guess we can wonder how would that look like.
Apples does get credit in understanding how stupid people are, however that and some luck is about it.
Sometimes you release innovative hardware, and fail (LG Prada), there is some luck involved, I really don't know how else to refer to it.
Of course fisher-pricing something helps, most people are truly helpless, and well, it is fucking up computing in someways too I guess.
The fuck with all the comments about android infection, I have yet to hear a single mention.
What is the infection rate on a plataform with 100s of millions of active devices logging billions of hours anyway?
 
I use my S8+ more than my iPhone now. The only thing I hate about being android is I don't get my other friend's text message since most of them use iPhone. I wish Android phone have iMessage since it's one of the best features that iPhone has now. Hate sending videos to any phones through text message and all they see is 240p resolution with half ass sounds and pixelated. And no I wont use 3rd party app with hundreds of ads.
 
Betauser said:
I use my S8+ more than my iPhone now. The only thing I hate about being android is I don't get my other friend's text message since most of them use iPhone. I wish Android phone have iMessage since it's one of the best features that iPhone has now. Hate sending videos to any phones through text message and all they see is 240p resolution with half ass sounds and pixelated. And no I wont use 3rd party app with hundreds of ads.
Click to expand...
IMessage on Android would be a 3rd party app...

Also, I prefer a communication app that is available in all platforms, instead of locked into one like you are now.
 
Sailindawg said:
Puh-leeeeeze, stop the iPhone fan boi tired arguments. In its current state, neither iPhone nor Android are any more less secure than the other. Cell phones simply are not as prone to malware / viruses as compared to pc's. Unless your rooted or jail broke and downloading programs from the dark web, the average user will most likely never see a malware infection in their phone.

What one has between Android & iPhone are two different approaches to the same idea. One approach treats the end user as an adult allowing one to take as much risk as they care to take and the second approach treats the end user as an unknowledgeable child.
Click to expand...

I have no Apple anything, I have a feature phone, and my tablet runs Android, and my PC Windows 7 (with partitions testing Lubuntu and Win10).

That being said, there is no equating the malware issue with Andriod and iOS. Android has several orders of magnitude more issues and loads of them are found in the official Google Store.

If I were actually going to run a smartphone and make full use of applications and data, it would have to be an iPhone. Android is really too much of a mess for me to trust between the Malware issues and Google tracking everything you do.
 
lilbabycat said:
...i just want a physical keyboard...

i should make that my sig
Click to expand...
Yeah i have wondered if you could place it in the back of the phone, and then a transparent water mark style layout comes up in the screen giving you feedback on what is each button and what you are pressing... A learning curve for sure but i think one could get much faster better than the current way... Look im Apple the innovator.
 
grtitan said:
IMessage on Android would be a 3rd party app...

Also, I prefer a communication app that is available in all platforms, instead of locked into one like you are now.
Click to expand...

That's what I mean, I hope android would have something like iMessage that would act the same as iMessage with iPhone users.
 
What's with all this malware on Android talk ? Never had malware on either of my android phones ever. Then again I haven't had a virus on Windows in 17 years and counting either so maybe i'm just smarter than the average bear.
 
Simmonz said:
What's with all this malware on Android talk ? Never had malware on either of my android phones ever. Then again I haven't had a virus on Windows in 17 years and counting either so maybe i'm just smarter than the average bear.
Click to expand...
Old wives tales/ urban legends die HARD.
 
Simmonz said:
What's with all this malware on Android talk ? Never had malware on either of my android phones ever. Then again I haven't had a virus on Windows in 17 years and counting either so maybe i'm just smarter than the average bear.
Click to expand...

You haven't read much tech news then.
 
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