Can Any Smartphone Platform Overcome the Android/iOS Duopoly? 404
Nerval's Lobster writes "The company formerly known as Research In Motion—which decided to cut right to the proverbial chase and rename itself 'BlackBerry'—launched its much-anticipated BlackBerry 10 operating system at a high-profile event in New York City Jan. 30. Meanwhile, Microsoft is still dumping tons of money and effort into Windows Phone. But can either smartphone OS — or another player, for that matter — successfully challenge Apple iOS and Google Android, which one research firm estimated as running on 92 percent of smartphones shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012? What would it take for any company to launch that sort of successful effort?"
Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
...if giant asteroids hit Mountain View, South Korea, and Cupertino at the exact same moment.
Analyst's opinion here (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, it is Tomi Ahonen and he has been very critical of Nokia's adoption of Windows Phone, but please tell me where he is wrong. Otherwise your posting is just argumentum ad-hominem.
Just to remind you, he predicted the insignificant market share Nokia has achieved with Windows phone, while every other analyst predicted much higher sales.
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If the asteroid is big enough, it could wipe cupertino and MV in the same hit.
Invest in walkie-talkies (Score:4, Insightful)
Any asteroid big enough to wipe out Cupertino is going to wipe out whatever economy is necessary to buy new WinPhones and RIMs. No, I think the winners of that civilization-altering event will be the makers of survivalist communication gear like walkie-talkies.
I'd expect that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd expect that... (Score:5, Funny)
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I know the answer: No. Unfortunately, I'm still not filthy rich.
I know the answer: Yes. But it'll take both an unusually well designed platform and a shitload of money thrown both at handset makers and app developers. No customer in their right mind is going to come to a platform with no popular apps. And no handset maker is going to take a chance on an upstart. Whoever wants to try this is going to bleed money like crazy just to get a foothold in.
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Android and IOS just don't have really good tools to integrate with business.
I'm curious what you feel they are missing.
E-mail and calendaring, I prefer Android and iOS's tools to what is available from Microsoft, and that is connecting to a Microsoft's own Exchange servers on the back end. I imagine Android should be even better for businesses that have migrated to GMail for their back-end.
Remote wipe features for mobile devices are available on all platforms.
Document creation and perusal seems to be pretty inter-operable across platforms (although animations in presentation packa
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Control, Monitoring and provisioning.
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Now to get recursive... What "Control, Monitoring, and Provisioning" does Blackberry have that the iOS and Android do not? The answer: none that anyone cares about. If anyone did care it would rapidly be available either from Apple/Google/Samsung or the hundreds of third party device management providers.
Re:I'd expect that... (Score:5, Informative)
Android and IOS just don't have really good tools to integrate with business.
I'm curious what you feel they are missing.
REALLY GOOD TOOLS TO INTEGRATE WITH BUSINESS
Everything you mention except remote wipe are for the end user. When people talk about tools to integrate with business they are usually referring to enterprise infrastructure integration tools. The problem is...The end user usually outnumbers the enterprise admin 200 to 1 so you have 200 people all going "It does what I need it to do" and 1 guy desperately trying to get anybody to listen to him about the inadequacies of the overall system. For enterprise the phone is but one piece to a very large whole. BlackBerry designed an enterprise system whereas Apple and Google designed a consumer oriented ecosystem. The former allows for fine granular control from the infrastructure to be pushed outward. The latter allows the end user to get stuff from iTunes/GooglePlay. From the very first BB phone connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) the infrastructure group was able to mandate policies on the device. There are third party policy tools to manage iOS devices in the enterprise but they are not as mature or feature rich as BES. Of course the new BES 10 actually has built in support for iOS/Android devices now which could aid in enterprise adoption of these platforms but BlackBerry will be making money off of each device with a seat license. But BB 10 upgrades can use existing licenses. BlackBerry wins either way.
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End users do not want to give up *any* control over their devices.
Your argument is irrelevant. If you want to connect to an enterprise network you are granting permission for them to control your experience. That's why BlackBerry developed BB Balance [blackberry.com] With Balance you get 2 phones in 1. Why should they have this control? Because people in general can't be trusted to always think of the company first. Multiply that fact by a few thousand and the potential for a security breach grows exponentially. It's not that they want to destroy the company (but some actually do) but the
Re:I'd expect that... (Score:5, Insightful)
battery life vs flexibility (Score:3)
The early blackberrys were highly optimized text messaging machines...everything was aimed at maximizing battery life.
Once you start bringing in big bright high def screens, arbitrary apps, fluid video, fancy gui elements, etc. you pretty much by definition are going to use more battery keeping the whole thing running.
You could have 3 days of battery life now if you were willing to go back to the feature set of the 8830.
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I can get two solid days of heavy use on my iPhone 4. If I'm not using apps, I can get 3 days out of it.
So how come no one else I know can get more than a day?
Let me guess, they're using their iPhones wrong?
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I take encouragement that iOS is a combo of Windows CE and older Blackberry functionality that was done well. Schmidt was on Apple's board when they were conceiving iOS, and he took what he discovered and grafted it onto Android. These have all been incremental repackaging of stuff. BB/RIM has a weak engineering team, but good ideas, hobbled by not making vast ecosystems out of content, apps (especially games), and so forth. They focused on business. In a way, that much hasn't changed, but they're trying to
Lots of Money (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Microsoft can. It's a matter of how many billions of dollars they want to bleed first. It worked with the XBox. Of course the XBox was also helped by Sony's stupidity.
Re:Lots of Money (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Lots of Money (Score:5, Funny)
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Microsoft can win if they focus on the mobile worker running a line-of-business application. The ability of such a device to make phone calls probably isn't that important.
Think
delivery driver with the job/route list loaded onto the phone scanning barcodes, collecting signatures, then being told where to go next
service engineer booking parts to a job and recording the work done
breakdown recovery with the thing they plug into the dashboard
sales staff with something similar to the modified iPod touches used
Re:Lots of Money (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Microsoft can. It's a matter of how many billions of dollars they want to bleed first. It worked with the XBox. Of course the XBox was also helped by Sony's stupidity.
I was going to ask what you were smoking after reading the first sentence. Reading the rest of the post lends credibility to the possibility, though.
If Apple seriously screws up the next iPhone and Microsoft manages to come up with something far, far better than any OS they've put on a phone ever ... than they might stand a chance of Microsoft coming out over Apple.
It would be hard to beat out Android on all fronts, though ... there have been some seriously crappy Android phones, but I don't think the market has been without great Android phones from at least two different manufacturers in years. So that would require a failure from Google that applied to all manufacturers of Android phones, which doesn't seem too likely.
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Even if Apple seriously screws up the next generation, I think Microsoft is still far from being in a position to take over. Their Windows Phone software is not terribly popular, and their partners are all very, very wary of their antics, i.e. nobody would willingly partner with them. They have no good will left among the industry, and besides manufacturers, there are no developers interested in making their platform successful. Nokia doesn't count because it's rather clear Nokia is running around the smart
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Re:Lots of Money (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Lots of Money (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Microsoft can. Microsoft phones have been around for a while now, and not only do they still suck but they're still not popular. AFAICT the Xbox 360 is a fairly decent platform all told, too bad about their overmonetization of Xbox Live but that's not enough to keep them from success. But Windows CE and all its incarnations have always sucked hard, and not in a good way. I imagine that Microsoft will keep up their unvarying record of mediocrity in the mobile space, so I doubt that Microsoft can ever become even the #2 player in mobile no matter how much they spend. They have never demonstrated an ability to make a phone that fucking works.
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To be honest, Windows Mobile 6.x was decent for power users. Of course, once Android hit, it quickly became overshadowed, but WM6.x did have a reasonably good core market.
The problem is, Microsoft utterly threw away the entirety of that market with WP7. They went from an OS popular with power users to one that catered to the tech inexperienced.
It seems like a great approach, except when you have a well established competitor that is targeting the EXACT same market. With a company as well established as A
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Windows CE for phones for 2002. I haven't seen much since then that makes them seem like they have more of a clue now then before. The problem before was that they tried a Desktop-Mouse metaphor on a phone. Now they're forcing a touchscreen phone UI on a desktop.
This will not end as well as they'd like.
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And really, you can't sell phones at a loss and make up the difference in games, like you can with consoles.
Microsoft has its own market on its phones and I believe are you locked into their market if you have one of their phones. If they can get traction, they could indeed sell phones at a loss and make up the difference in apps/games.
Didn't Google do something pretty close to that with the Nexus 7? They made extremely low profit on Nexus 7 hardware. [appleinsider.com] Of course, they knew that almost no one uses anything but the default app market. They were trying to compete with the Kindle Fire's price because it doesn't use Go
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No (Score:5, Insightful)
As is always the case with /., if the subject is a question, the answer is no.
Unless you let enough time pass, then the answer to this case is most certainly yes. Nobody knows how much time that would be, though.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
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But don't you think Google glasses are going to run android? I do.
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The problem is not really the devices themselves any more. Admittedly, Apple or Google could screw the pooch in some horrendous way, but I don't think they're going to make any missteps that large. The problem here is the app stores. Apple's app store is very large and very mature, and while Google's is still a bit of rough around the edges, particularly for developers, it too is very large. Microsoft is starting out three or four years late here, and while it may be able to push out a decent mobile OS and
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While I agree with you in principle on the No to headline aspect, lets put things in perspective.
5 years ago, neither Google nor Apple sold a phone, yet between the two of them they've entirely owned the market, world wide.
If that doesn't make it clear just how silly fragile your market dominance can be I don't know what is.
Can someone do it? Yes, just have to wait until Google and Apple sit on their butt for a bit. It may not be today, or tomorrow, but it will happen.
All things come to pass.
Re:No (Score:4, Funny)
So, what you're saying is, you agree with my first point, but to put my comment into perspective, you're going to state exactly my second point ?
Better question (Score:5, Insightful)
Can any smartphone platform overcome the Nokia/RIM duopoly?
Re:Better question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better question (Score:4, Insightful)
But most of those people already had phones. So a future market player can sell a foo-phone to the (large) market of people who don't own foo-phones and only own smartphones.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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What makes a smartphone a different kind of device?
* Touchscreen? Early smartphones didn't have touchscreens, many non-smartphones do.
* Powerful processor? Many "dumbphones" of today have vastly more powerful processors than smartphones of yesteryear. All cell phones have CPUs; the difference is just cost and battery life.
* Graphics processor? Early smartphones lacked them, and these days it's part of the CPU (or rather, the SOC) anyhow. Minor.
* Installable apps? Present on d
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The monetary value of the apps probably isn't a hindrance, I've probably bough maybe ten apps. Total cost is around $50. That wouldn't deter me from switching to blackberry or Jolla if they are decent.
Something we haven't seen yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
What it will take to break the duopoly is someone bringing me a new capability on the order of the iPod, cell phone, GPS, digital camera, or Palm Pilot. And , of course, it needs to be integrated with the phone. Just giving me a new user interface, or a way to stir facebook, twitter, and the rest of that crap together won't do it. NFC payment systems are trying to be this, but don't make it. Whatever it is will be a whole new class of feature.
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I didn't know I really, really wanted an iPod until I saw one. Same with a cell phone, GPS, digital cameras, and palm pilots. It wasn't a stretch to imagine a device that integrated them all, but that took about another 7 years. What it will take to break the duopoly is someone bringing me a new capability on the order of the iPod, cell phone, GPS, digital camera, or Palm Pilot. And , of course, it needs to be integrated with the phone. Just giving me a new user interface, or a way to stir facebook, twitter, and the rest of that crap together won't do it. NFC payment systems are trying to be this, but don't make it. Whatever it is will be a whole new class of feature.
All of those functions were, at the time, handled by individual devices or analog usually. We knew about all the things that were being done with those services, before those devices came and the devices made it better. So the question is, what possibly else could a mini computer do for you that it doesn't already do? All the sensory and location recording and communication is pretty mature now. The only possible thing I can see, mainstream, is some type of medical monitoring through sensors on the skin
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why can't you people just pay for a proper free health service
I think you broke reality with that statement.
some suggestions: (Score:2)
1) Augmented reality, overlay virtual information on the real world.
2) 3D motion sensing, like the "leap motion" device.
3) Ability to dock with something that has common ports (USB in, video out, etc.) and turn into a full-fledged computer with full sized keyboard/mouse while also charging the mobile device.
4) Better battery. (like 10x better)
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I didn't know I really, really wanted an iPod until I saw one. Same with a cell phone, GPS, digital cameras, and palm pilots.
Exactly. People back in 2006 were asking whether or not the then-rumored iPhone would even make a dent in the market, and it was a good question to ask (then-CEO of Palm, Ed Colligan, famously said, "We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in", back in November 2006). But as soon as the world saw it, it knew that direction was the future. Android came along shortly ther
ubuntu phone (Score:2)
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there were a lot of nice features about the ubuntu phone... but the one thing i disagreed with was the lack of a lock screen... at least as far as i could tell
That's because it's Open.
Yes (Score:2)
Presenting the EyePhone [youtube.com]
All a company has to do is to come up with something that none of the big companies have thought about, patent the shit out of it so they have exclusive rights and then they will have people falling over themselves to buy it while everyone else stands around saying "Why didn't we think of that?". The big companies do not have a lock on innovation.
But can they do it is a different question from "How easy is it to do?"
Why just Smartphones? (Score:2)
However, there is a huge potential for any OS/framework that can tap into Cars, TVs, Office Cubes, Kitchen appliances..
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This is exactly what I want. My smartphone should be able to easily dock into my car and transfer my maps, media, text messages (to voice), call functions, etc to the car's display and audio easily. I know there's a level of that possible now, but nothing as simple as dock and forget. I should then be able to come home, plug my phone into a dock and have my media easily available, and if i have a landline style phone, my calls should just transfer to that while docked. Same plan with an office. Stop bu
Does it matter ... (Score:3)
Re:Does it matter ... (Score:5, Informative)
Does it matter if we are legally prohibited from unlocking our phones to make any modifications to the software or firmware?
You are not legally prohibited from making modifications to software or firmware.
The recent law that prohibits unlocking refers only to the unlocking process that allows you to use any SIM card you want in your phone.
You are still free to jailbreak or root your devices, install the operating system of your choice, etc. None of that has anything to do with unlocking your phone.
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That's referring to unlocking, which is turning your carrier-specific phone into a carrier-independent phone. You're thinking of jailbreaking, which enables you to modify software you were not originally intended to modify. They're entirely separate things.
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Don't most carriers provide this for you?
Tmo gave me mine Today, after this law was passed. Simple, easy, took a few hours to get an email for both my phones. Just incase I sell them.
Secondly, if you have a att phone why would you want to bring it to tmo, the 3g/fake 4g run on diff frequencies. Sure you could make phone calls/text but the data would be 2g/edge speeds. Fun times.
Just buy an unlocked phone to begin with. That way you know it's has more frequencies so it can go on either network.
(I do not
I can't imagine why not. (Score:2)
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Why would Amazon partner with BlackBerry when they already have their own phone coming to market [forbes.com].
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People tend to forget (or maybe this is just
Waiting only makes it more impossible (Score:2)
The thing that makes Windows stay is not "because it's better." It's because it has critical mass and the cost of moving away from it is too painful and complicated.
Smart phones in the form of Android and IPhone have not quite reached that point but they will soon. At the moment, there are no "can't live without it" apps though the games are a kind of resistance to change already.
Integration with business will be a critical piece for any smartphone challenger to offer. Blackberry has done this while offe
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Big Cash Prizes! That's what it takes! (Score:2)
It wouldn't hurt anyway. Seriously though. They had better either do something remarkable or have some great features. For example, I'd pay good money for a phone with a physical scrolling wheel. Ditto for sound. Or an On/Off switch that didn't make you wait for the computer to contemplate its navel would be worth something too. Sometimes you can't beat physical controls. Nobody has yet done scrolling right and you always end up clicking something you wish you hadn't. Truly painless linking to Outlook and o
Re:Big Cash Prizes! That's what it takes! (Score:4, Insightful)
It wouldn't hurt anyway. Seriously though. They had better either do something remarkable or have some great features. For example, I'd pay good money for a phone with a physical scrolling wheel. Ditto for sound. Or an On/Off switch that didn't make you wait for the computer to contemplate its navel would be worth something too. Sometimes you can't beat physical controls. Nobody has yet done scrolling right and you always end up clicking something you wish you hadn't.
What? No.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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The big difference is that back then, all of the functionality of a Nokia phone was provided by Nokia, and pretty much any phone could do the same thing - make phone calls, send text messages, take photos, maybe listen to mp3s.
Now, most of the functionality of an Android or Apple phone is provided by third parties who write software for it, and someone else who wants to move into that market has to persuade those third parties to develop for their platform. That isn't going to be so easy.
Do the math, silly ponies (Score:4, Insightful)
Aging population + Jitterbug phone = THE FUTURE
I think Windows has a shot.... (Score:2)
Re:I think Windows has a shot.... (Score:4, Informative)
We have enterprise support for android and apple without any issues at all. You need new IT people.
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Microsoft has had a phone product since 2003, tied heavily to their platform, and it has been soundly ignored for the last 10 years by the enterprise crowd. Windows Mobile actually had about 24% world market share in 2004, it dropped to 14% by 2008 even before iPhone came out, and then it became irrelevant afterwards.
Its pretty obvious that the enterprise types do not value Windows phones in spite of tight integration into Microsoft platforms.
Savior by the enterprise is the biggest myth for Windows Phone,
what? (Score:2)
What kind of idiot story is this? Android and IOS just got done destroying the Microsoft/RIM duopoly... Suddenly they are the underdog deserving of our sympathy? They are doing poorly because they suck... not because they are being crushed by Google/Apples corporate might.
rim/blackberry now new, maybe not suck (Score:2)
The new Blackberry OS has some interesting functionality (reminiscent of webOS in some areas) that I could see some people really going for. In particular the separation between business/personal could reduce BYOD concerns a lot (though I think it should also be able to have separate sim cards as well).
With the new OS, I think it's reasonable to give Blackberry another chance, and so the question becomes what it would take for them to actually succeed.
No, don't make me laugh (Score:2)
Its laughable for Microsoft or RIM to believe they can claw their way into the top 2, and I mean every other smartphone OS developer would have to have a solid year of chronic brain farts for FireFox or Ubuntu to even break 4th place.
The fight is going to be for #3 for a good long time.
Its not impossible for Apple or Google to slip (will give it to Apple to fall from grace before Google any day), just look at how quickly RIM dropped from nearly 50% global market penetration to less then 1%. But I can safel
Windows Phone (Score:3, Interesting)
Possible? Yes. (Score:2)
Likely? No.
Once any one or two players get to a majority like that, they typically only lose share if 1) they start being stupid, lazy, or ineffective, or 2) something drastically different comes along.
Related to #1 is when there is a strong competitor that gets incrementally better over time and overtakes the leader, but that usually only happens when the market is relatively young and there's lots of room for improvement. We saw it early on with battles over spreadsheets and word processors, and later wit
History shows... (Score:2)
-1997: can anubody overcome the DOS/Epoc dominance
-2000: can anybody overcome the Palmos dominace
-2002: can anybody overcome the WIndows CE dominance?
-2005: can anybody overcome the Symbian dominance?
-2009: can anybody overcome the Iphone/Blackberry dominance?
Yes, at some point sombody will. Nothing is as fluctuating as PIM devices. They have a well defined set of apps which really will make my buying decision, and i am not hesitant to change the OS. Did that two or three times. If QNX proves to be solid an
Incoming ecosystem (Score:2)
Symbian used to be THE ecosystem in mobile phones, and look where is at now. iOS and then Android hit big, both with their own ecosystems, and have most of the market by now, but it could change. Windows Phone want to be the next one, but i think it won't have good chances, not sure how much compatibility will be between desktop and mobile programs, and the clean cut they did with "old" win 7.x phones and apps is not a good signal).
But could be an incoming new ecosystem. Blackberry 10, Sailfish, Ubuntu Mob
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Symbian was never an ecosystem. Symbian was an operating system. Being part of the Google or Apple ecosystem has an impact on users. Using Symbian was completely transparent to them.
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Re:firefox or ubuntu (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with ubuntu (and any new mobile OS in the past few years) is that they do not innovate, they simply copy and add a few gimmicks.
Developer tools need to be available WAY before the launch. They need to be free. Pay developers for startup apps. Make an office suit, a few games, etc. and make them freely available for everyone. Make them run android binaries (last I've heard, the dalvik code is open source). See those cloud services others charge for? Make them free.
Let your hardware partners go crazy. Don't impose guidelines, just make sure all binaries will run. The rest, leave it to them so they are not all clones of one another (like windows phones).
Be ready to spend a few millions without return of investment.
And above all, don't try to keep your competition out, invite them in. Google develops for iOS and with that they give out a good company image to iOS users. Maybe those that love the new Maps app will want to get it on android without the limitations. Having a full set of google services would be a plus.
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The problem with ubuntu (and any new mobile OS in the past few years) is that they do not innovate, they simply copy and add a few gimmicks.
That's exactly it! What compelling reason is there that people would want to switch from Android or iOS - the established market players - to Ubuntu Mobile, Windows Phone, Blackberry OS, Tizen, MeeGo, webOS, et. al? None of these have the 'killer feature' and that's why they fail.
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Re:firefox or ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
I love your business plan: Make everything free and spend millions on it with no returns. You should set up a Kickstarter page immediately. I know you'll do well!
Isn't that exactly what Google did with Android? And now they rule the game?
It looks as if his business skills are more aligned with reality than yours.
Re:firefox or ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
I love your business plan: Make everything free and spend millions on it with no returns. You should set up a Kickstarter page immediately. I know you'll do well!
Isn't that exactly what Google did with Android? And now they rule the game?
It looks as if his business skills are more aligned with reality than yours.
No, it's not what Google did with Android. Google has enough money in the bank to do stuff "because they feel like it", and see if it could be successful. They weren't banking on Android's success, and they'd continue to be making billions if WebOS was in second place. When you can start from *that* starting line, it's much easier to make it to second place.
From there, it was a timing issue - Apple was the phone that everybody wanted, but at least in America, many of them were either locked into multi-year contracts with their present carrier, or were loyal to them - many frequent domestic travelers swear by Verizon, because for all the Big Red does to royally screw them over, they frequently are the only carrier to have towers in obscure places, and for all of CDMA's faults, it did a much better job of routing calls through multiple towers (thus reducing the number of dropped calls) than the EDGE flavors of GSM. Resultantly, those who didn't want to give up their carrier were prime candidates for the Motorola Droid* when Verizon released it - the billion dollar marketing campaign Verizon did to launch the handset and its then-more-powerful interface didn't hurt the cause either, and neither did the generally-well-liked Google logo. Android took advantage of the fact that Apple and AT&T had an exclusivity contract and a limited feature base to springboard it to popularity. HTC and Samsung stepped up the game, and that's the nutshell version of how Android got the timing right.
UbuntuPhone, Windows Phone, BB10, and UnknownPhone all share similar problems. Windows Phone has a pile of money behind it, but Microsoft has to care if it succeeds and it suffers from a brand with a stigma - I swear if it was green themed and called the "X Phone" it'd have double its present market share. BB10 has some money behind it, but BlackBerry desperately needs it to succeed and it too has a bit of a brand issue ("Who makes the battery inside a Blackberry when they made on which you can't pull it out? Energizer - the alkaline battery will long outlast your system uptime!"). UbuntuPhone has some pocket change behind it, but not a well known brand. UnknownPhone has to start from the ground up with everything. None of these brands have the winning formula of "we don't care if we succeed", "we have a mountain of cash behind us that continues to grow", "we are well liked by our existing customers", "we're affordable", and "people are being held back from getting the phone they really want, so we'll be the fallback until we have enough buzz behind us".
That, however, will not stay that way forever.
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1- Headsets
2- Building a userbase and tying it to your ecosystem (and your app/movie/whatever) store.
3- Ad network for your now ubiquitous smartphone ecosystem.
If you only plan to offer what the others already do, then you'll die a very painful death.
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I responded to "No guidelines is what is damaging Android." by demonstrating that Android is not being damaged by freedom of choice. In fact Android is becoming the defacto phone/tablet OS because it DOES support "many screen sizes, compbinations of buttons etc etc".
People don't buy a phone because it has Android on it. They buy it because they like the big screen, the colour or price or style or any number of other factors. Android just enables that variety and choice more than iOS or WPx.
MS Dos/Windows ga
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Then you'll never have it. Catering to freetards is not profitable.
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How is a nexus phone locked down?
I have a Debian chroot is that not enough?
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Uhhh, no, it uses drivers written for linux, it also runs ARM ELF binaries just fine - it's Linux down there. How else would it run chrooted Debian?
The problem with updates is that drivers for most parts of devices, especially radio parts, are very much proprietary and patent-encumbered.
And yep, that'll limit your Ubuntu phone happiness. Unless there'll be profitable completely open source hardware, you won't see much of those phones and you'll get same problems with updates.
You can unlock and try to flash
Re:firefox or ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
how can JB not support your hardware?!? oh, because it's not using drivers written for linux, it's stuff written for dalvik.
So how do you think Ubuntu mobile runs on phones if the drivers were written for Dalvik? Especially given that Ubuntu uses the same drivers as Android [ubuntu.com]. You seem very confused about what drivers and/or Dalvik are, Dalvik is a Virtual Machine, drivers do not run in Dalvik.
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Two things:-
1) The Linux kernel does not need to be compiled with all the available drivers that we're used to having in desktop distros. There's no reason that Ubuntu can't use a stripped down kernel just like the one powering your router or any embedded device.
2) Ubuntu on mobile uses Android's Linux kernel, already optimised for mobile hardware.
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Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
At that time, the two dominant players in the server market were Unix and Novell. Microsoft's share of the market grew at the same time that Linux's share grew.