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168 points okeumeni | 1 comments | 16 Oct 10 16:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source

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thought_alarm ◴[16 Oct 10 19:26 UTC] No.1798654[source]▶

But the iPhone and iPad aren't priced at a premium.

Anyway, it's a mistake pit Google against Apple. The real battle will be between Google and Microsoft for the exact same hardware manufacturers and sales channels. (Meanwhile, you can buy an iPad from an Apple Store or from Walmart without any carrier involvement).

Google hasn't managed the fragmentation problem very well, they haven't done enough to control the quality the Android OS between carriers and manufacturers, and they've utterly mismanaged the Android Market. I'm no fan of Microsoft or WinMo 7, but I expect Microsoft to do a much better job at addressing all of those issues.

Microsoft can also leverage their Zune desktop software.

And Microsoft's development tools are generally very popular with developers. I've done some work with WPF and I found it very impressive and I would expect their Phone SDK to be of similar quality. On the other hand, even though I generally like Java I'm finding the move from iPhone development to Android development to be a depressing step backwards both in terms of the dev tools and especially the SDK.

Then again, it is Microsoft we're talking about. It may take them another 3 or 6 years to get it right.

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orangecat ◴[16 Oct 10 20:05 UTC] No.1798747[source]▶

>>1798654 #

All true, and still they've had great success. (I'm actually surprised, given how bad the Market is and how blatantly the carriers are screwing up the phones). Which just means they can do even better if they can address those obvious problems.

On the other hand, even though I generally like Java I'm finding the move from iPhone development to Android development to be a depressing step backwards

It was the opposite for me. Between getting rid of header files and manual memory management, and having the app run right away on my phone rather than futzing with certificates, I'm enjoying Android development much more.

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minalecs ◴[17 Oct 10 10:38 UTC] No.1800063[source]▶

>>1798747 #

I would say that fragmentation problem is not that big of a problem in general. It should be handled much like iOS is handling in basically they are not allowing iphone 3G phones and earlier not to have certain features, and ability to download apps.. which is essentially the same thing. I have a 3G and theres more and more apps that I'm unable to download, and I don't have access to a lot of features in the latest iOS.

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1. kgutteridge ◴[17 Oct 10 11:13 UTC] No.1800103[source]▶

>>1800063 #

This is a slight red herring, I do wonder how many of these apps you would like, could actually be rather easily made to run on your phone (can you give a specific example, many apps do not need 4.0 features or could easily have them ported around)

Apple have done a great job of outdating the old sdks, mainly through the method of dropping simulator support for the previous sdks and no legitimate route of running previous firmwares on an iPhone other than holding them back (obvious flaw in this plan, how does a new developer acquire an ipod running 2.2 or 3.0)

Android on the other hand has had no where near this rate of attrition of the previous sdks with only really the initial release not being heavily supported.

However Android suffers from the problem you are not just waiting for Google to update the firmware so you can't make your app 2.0+ only in the thoughts that if users want my app they can update their firmware, this step would remove a lot of htc, sony and other phones that do not currently have the ability to run a 2.0 firmware whilst still being a very comptent phone.

As for the carrier "enhanced" firmwares....

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