Google Android vs. Mobile Mac OS X

I like it. The mobile OS and software industry is still in its infancy and the next couple of years will be very interesting. All the current options have one flaw or another.

Your arguments are mostly flawed starting with the fact that most of what Google has done has NOT succeded ... search & ad dollars - brilliant, don't get me wrong but there are plenty of Google failures including such obviosu examples of not being able to dent YouTube so they bought them ... and then clearly your agenda is different than most people. Most people want a multi-feature contact book-app phone ... 98.7% of people on this Earth do not want to program their phone just as I do not want to build a tuner for my TV. I want to buy it and use it with minimal fuss and that is where ALL the mobile phone companies failed for 15 years and here's your premise - these same engineers and designers have a toolbox free from Google but a monkey is a monkey - give him better brand name hammers and nails, are you going to get a house? No.

Can Google help with a Ui design? THere's is ZERO evidence of that. Go to Google.com and click on MORE - the front page search is great and brillaint - evrything else? Look at their "everything" page, it is a jumbled mass of icons that are NOT even from the same designer ... some are 2D, some are "3D" and others are just bad or poor.

"WMA, Ogg, AVI/DivX and WMV are horrendous omissions" are yopur opinion of course as it's your review but clearly with 150 million ipods sold, MOST PEOPLE DO NOT CARE.

And OSX "superficial beauty?" That's what normal people call a user interface which as you point is ugly or non functioning on the other cell phones to this point.

Your premise that the other phones are "vastly superior" business machines are not backed by any evidence as clearly, the smartphone business was growing but not very fast or far (RIM has 14 million customers after 15 years in business? That's less than half the people in most Chinese cities after 15 years in business??!) In less than 18-months, Apple has passed up nealy everyone except for the hundreds of phones Nokia labels smartphones when they are barely phones.

And as you note, in nearly 90% of the areas in which there is a comparison, even you concede Apple has done it better and it won't change. Why do you think nitwits at the cell comapnies acn produce a better UI - what were they doing the first 15 years in which they LAUNCHED the industry? Would you homesrly et that MS can deliver an online store as easy to use and thoughtfully conceived as itunes (updating apps, restore, etc, etc ...)

The bottom line is Nokia, Emerson, Sony, Moto - FAIL.

They had 15 years to produce a phone that would serve a multitude of needs. They failed. Why do you believe they can change other than like MS with Zune, copying Apple but by the time it's released Apple has released three new generations?

Banking on Google to produce a phone Ui is like saying Google spreadsheets is innovation ...

If you want a open source phone, that's fine to ask for that and judge the phones on that but useability, design in real lige situations. The iPhone is a BMW 535 ... the other phones, a three-wheeled golf cart ... certainly better than walking but barely anything.

Fascinating.. essay, I think is the appropriate term! As well written and entertaining as always, thank-you Gordon.

Open source has generally triumphed over insularity in my experience. I'm just worried that in this generation the iZombies have already achieved critical mass, and Apple just don't feel the need to care about what else is out there.

Do you think that there's any conceivable situation where Apple would feel that it had to start reacting to what was available on Android? I'm not talking about anything as crazy as not making people use iTunes (but, oh sweet Jesus, please?), just things like being able to sync from more than one computer. Oh, and copy and paste. My CALCULATOR can copy and paste.

I think it's going to take an absolutely killer handset using Android before people even notice the iPhone isn't what it should be. Samsung, I'm looking at you. Put that Windows Mobile DOWN.

Thanks, Tim

PS: Just had a thought, anyone got Android running ON an iPhone yet? Win/win!

With your foresight you should be running Apple and not here writing...

I have tried both the iPhone and the G1 and there is no contest here, iPhone wins hands down. You can find flaws in any product but the G1 has a long way to go. Given my experience with Google apps I would have to say Apple has nothing to worry about. Google is great at search but mediocre in everything else, at least so far.

@ Gordon

You spent nine pages saying almost nothing. As jbelkin astutely pointed out - all of the other developers (other than Google) had over a decade to produce something approaching the tech of OS X in a phone. The closest competitor previous to Google was Nokia with Symbian. Symbian is cp/m compared to OS X - solid and ancient (oh and check the history of Symbian if you doubt me). Yes Google's entry is based on Linux which is a great start and a long way from the tools available to the OS X developer.

Comparing Nokia's sales figures vs. the iPhones is silly in the extreme. You are counting phones that barely have a four banger calculator in those numbers. Totally unrealistic. A more effective count is that of Nokia's smart phones i.e. their series 60 phones (the ones that run Symbian). Of course if you did that you'd be fidgeting in your seat since in 16 months Apple sold more "smart phones" than all other smart phones sold previously. And this wasn't because the market was ready for smart phones, it is because Apple came to the table with a smart phone that people could actually use. Oddly enough no other company had done this previously.

Your assertion that Apple must address the markets that make little or no profit is unfounded. The idea of market share domination through lost leaders is passe. Does Apple participate in low end computers? Does BMW compete in low end automobiles? The answer is no and the reason is the point of diminishing returns - they wisely choose to stay out of those markets. This is smart business - it's part of the reason Apple has such a healthy bank account. Lesson - respect the inflection point!

@Tim

The iPhone is unfinished. Yes you can copy and paste with your HP and so can I. You can do it with an S60 phone too (although it is such a PITA that you'll quickly find that you never do it - get three finger out and try it if you must). People freaked when Apple introduced the iPhone without explaining its developers plan. They simply weren't ready to introduce it, and even now it is a work in progress, yet no other "mobile" development platform can do what OS X can do on an iPhone. Video will come to the iPhone, as will copy and paste (remember it was Apple that introduced the world to copy and paste), and many other "features" that one has come to expect in a "smart phone." Feature sets are only part of the product.

@all

It would be pointless if I commented on open source so I wont - figure this one out on your own, it really isn't that difficult.

Look the app store will quickly eclipse iTMS in gross sales. It took years for the iPod/ iTMS to develop and dominate the music business. Years. The app store is doing comparable sales in months. No other platform in history has even come close to the achievements of the app store. No other platform has come close to developing the wealth of quality products that the developing community has created for the iPhone. The reason for this is OS X. Slapping a touch screen and a cheap copy of the iPhone icons on a crapy phone wont create a platform with over 5,000 applications and hundreds of millions of downloads in less than a third of a year. To achieve that you need a solid set of tools that will attract serious talent. Had our buddy Gordon done his homework he'd be writing about these mile markers and not driveling on and on and on about fan boys. Come on Gordon lets get trusted.

As an observer this feels like a debate over "Who will win a boxing match between 2 great fighters?", but they box at different weights eg Ali vs Sugar Ray. The great news is, unlike in the sporting world where they dodge each other for years, these 2 'heavyweights' are now going toe to toe in one arena at least and surely we will be the winners. Sure beats those days of watching Bill 'mousey' Microsoft win every contest on points!
Things move so fast I have no idea who'll win...or maybe a wonderful draw. All i do know is that the first times I used Google Search, Google Mail, Chrome and the iPhone were heady experiences compared to the daily frustration of using my PC.(I know...get a Mac...:) )

Thank you for a truly wonderful article. It is very rare in this day and (internet) age that writers care about, not just what they write, but also how they write.

I do have one objection to the article, and that is the comment that the tie-in with the Google account is a negative. I think this is necessary in order to enable the phone to be cloud based, which is clearly the whole idea. Just look at the "commercial" where the Google developer throws away his G1 to pick up another one, log in, and get on with his life. I think this is where the true revolution lies.

If you can agree that this is indeed one of Androids strengths, then there is the question of who should provide the cloud. Obviously our information would have to be stored somewhere. The traditional solution would be for the operators to store and thereby control our cloud. This would easily mean that we would get even more tied up with our operators then we already are, not a good thing from where I stand.
Of course the optimal solution would be the opportunity to choose from a variety of cloud suppliers. This might very well happen, since I guess Googles focus is on the mobile internet and commercials, and not necessarily to host your calendar and email.

And one last comment regarding the Iphone. The Iphone is two years underway and it still does not have cut and paste or MMS. I am not saying these features are essential for a mobile phone, but clearly some people actually want it, and it is still not there? I think it clearly shows the drawback of the mobile OS X platform, it is simply evolving extremely slow. Mobile OS X may have been a quantum leap, but what good does that do anyone if it is only updated once every year, and is not able to deliver the simplest and most basic request from it's (potential) user base two years after it has been released. They may have a roadmap for making a flawless mobile OS, but that does in no way make it flawless today.

I would buy an Iphone, I love it, it looks cool, and it is surely worth the mighty heap of cash it costs. But I need a cloud, and I don't want to pay for it. This may seem like an unfair requirement, but obviously Google is willing to give it to me. Now all I need is to wait for an Android based device to be released in Denmark. Until then my Samsung D500 can still do all the things that I (and 95 % of all mobile phone users) need, stay in contact with my family and friends.

I think that the comparison is a great idea, however once again it's like comparing apples with bananas: a system that has been out for weeks can hardly be as polished as one out for years. I commend the general idea, as these platforms are clearly a most innovative ones out there, however they could only be realistically compared years from now...

If Android in the future can do everything the I-Phone can, plus some more, will this mean the end of the I-Phone etc, well I'm not sure, they has been plenty better/feature rich music players in the past, eg. Creative players technically were always far superior to the I-Pod's but the I-Pod always came out on top.

This is the reason why I visit this site daily- fantastic journalism. A great read, and Gordon should do long articles more frequently.

This commenting bit needs a decent reply system though, it's difficult to keep track of who's replying to who

I think the iPhone has to be commended for basically kicking the industry up the backside with regards to the UI. However the hardware itself is poor in terms of features, and the UI immensely annoying if you want to do something outside of what Apple presents (that's typical Apple though!)

Android and the G1 are less impressive tbh, the hardware is clunky (compare the G1 to the touch pro), and Android is unfinished, however the potential is there.

However I think that any phone discussion is irrelevant without mentioning the market leader, Nokia. Who cares that iPhone beats RIM, its still miles behind Nokia. Their touchscreens are due early 09, and then the fight will be properly on, as S60 already has all the business functionallity required, already has a massive app support (although the signing crap has to go, and a single portal would be better than the multiudes Nokia seem to have).

Gordon, great article - I agree that the UI is the thing. As a Win Mobile user, I fully appreciate the pros and cons of that OS.

The main pro (particularly at the time I took out my contract) was the sheer availability of software, much of it free. I can use my phone as a GPS navigation device in the car, I can read media of pretty much any format I want, and if I feel that a feature is missing, I can usually find some software to do it.

The main con is the (lack of) usability of the underlying OS, and it relates to one point where I would disagree with what you have written. If Mobile OSX had been released 'on multiple handsets across every form factor, price range and network', then it wouldn't be nearly as good as it is. The Apple business model is _perfect_ for phones. PC users such as myself have long derided Apple for being so restrictive of its home computers. Replacing PC components is so straightforward, why shouldn't the consumer be free to choose from the wide variety of hardware available, instead of paying over the odds from Apple's limited configurations? But mobile phones are not upgradeable in the same way as PCs, so there is a huge benefit in being able to write your OS for a specific set of hardware. Why design an OS around multitouch, and then expend effort in allowing for a physical keyboard, or different screen resolutions, or ..., or ... etc? It suits Apple to work this way (it forces people to buy their iphones, use their itunes etc) and it suits consumers too.

Both cjb110 & Mike Dowler have hit the nail on the head. The iPhone is a long way off being perfect (ha ha @Gordon for likening it to an Aston Martin...although price-wise you're not far off...actually, it's an interesting question, what car would you compare the iPhone to...a pink Rolls royce maybe).

You can't really compare either of these two "operating systems" in any great detail until you have been able to compare them both running on different h/w. At the moment, all you have to compare is the G1 vs the iPhone - hardly a decent sample size is it. And actually, as it would appear that Apple is unlikely to get it's o/s working on any other handset, I'm wondering if this comparison will ever be valid.

Maybe compare Android with Symbian...new and untested vs old and diverse. But remember, if you're comparing operating systems then the UI is only a small part of the equasion.

ILG

Good Artice.

However, the author is obviously biased toward operating systems that allow him to do anything to modify the system.
It is the classic battle of open systems versus proprietary systems.

Commercially, I expect Android to be less successful than Apple's OS X, RIM's Blackberry OS, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
It will be similar in success to Linux Destkop compared to Windows and Mac OS X.

Apple did an enormously fantastic job in creating OS X and the iPhone. Its development tools are the best in developing mobile applications. The development tools are also the same ones used for developing Mac OS X desktop applications - thus allowing cross-pollination, which pushes the rest of the Apple product line forward.

Only a proprietary operating system can garner all of the resources necessary to create a fully conceived, well designed interface and operating system. There are so many thoughtful features in OS X and Mac OS X compared to Android and Linux, that the latter look and feel primitive in comparison.

Why is that? Because development costs money. Craftsmanship costs money. Design costs money. You can't pay a craftsman noting to develop software with care and quality. You can't get high quality for free.

It is like comparing a Lexus to a Yugo.

On the consumer side, Apple is king. Apple is highly consumer centric. The iPhone works. It works well in downloading apps directly to the iPHone. It works well in synchronizing with iTunes. iTunes is a huge strength, not a weakness of the system that is iPhone.

Look at the codecs you complain that are not supported by the iPHone: Ogg (which is hardly used commercially, which is NOT totally free of intellectual property lawsuits if it does become if ever popular), and Microsoft's propriatary formats. I'm glad these are off. No need for Apple to license these nonstandard formats. And it doesn't have to. If a user wants to convert from these formats to MP3 or AAC, they can do so. The vast majority of consumers don't are about these formats. And they have spoken with their wallets. Look at how successful the iPod has been and how no viable competitor - iPod killer - has yet been developed in all the years the iPod has been available.

As a development platform, Android is going to be a mess. It also is a run-time environment, not a native platform. All you have to do is look at the more than 6000+ apps that are in the app store and growing. Alll you have to look at are the more than 300 million downloads of apps since the app store opened. All you have to look at is the billion dollar market for iPhone Apps that will be in place in 2009 vs. what? for the Android - and certainly less.

Developers fllock to the iPhone. It makes money. It is possible to make a living creating iPhone apps. In these economic times, the same cannot be said of he Android for developers.

Great article, Gordon, as ever.

The thing that really gets me (and I've said it in the comments section before) is what you highlight in the opening paragraphs - it's been nearly 2 YEARS since Apple announced the iPhone, and sold it as revolutionary, not because of its hardware, but its software. For the last two years, dozens of manufacturers have been selling handsets that outstrip the iPhone for hardware, but cannot even compete on software. THIS IS INSANE!

It's like every high-end handset manufacturer has decided to compete with Apple the same way as they compete with each other - through hardware one-upmanship. This is despite the fact that Apple is not even playing the same game as everyone else. It is pathetic that it has released two iterations of the iPhone, each with serious flaws, and there is no one out there that has topped either of them yet. Pathetic.

If handset manufacturers didn't have the ability to write software like Apple (and honestly, why would they?) why didn't they try to do something about it, like shout at Microsoft, or hire/pay some people to build it?

Now Google has come along, and looks to be the answer to their prayers. Android may never by quite as polished as mobile OSX, but it certainly looks to be streets ahead any other competition.

I'm no Apple fanboy (indeed, I positively HATE iTunes), but there is no denying this simple fact - Apple make very good products that, for the very most part, work simply. To me, the single greatest achievement of the iPhone was to embarrass the hell out of every other handset manufacturer and mobile OS developer.

Now, let's just hope that they convert this embarrassment into progress/catching up.

@jameskatt: You hit the nail on the head, the problem is most users are not tech guys. They don't give a stuff if it can't do OGG/WMA etc, it's only techheads that are bothered, so maybe TechHeads will go for Android, while people who want to get on with there lifes will go for the I-Phone, It plays Music/Video/Games and Surfs the net, Mr Joe Public most likely doesn't care too much if it's not got MMS/Cut&Paste/10 Gazillion Mega Pixel camera. And I can assure you the percentage of Techheads is a small part of the general consumer base.

I think this is were a lot of manufactures are making the big mistakes, it's not features that people are interested in, it's if it can do good with what features it has, and Apple seem to have cracked that part.

I'm a TechHead, as most users browsing here most likely are, but remember people most consumers are not, so try and think outside the box, and don't get too carried away with what features are missing from one, compared to the other, because that's not what's going to win the war.

I'll repeat what I said earlier, Apple have dominated the Portable music player now for a long time, even thought they has been much better feature rich players out there, and so far I cannot see this been any different when it comes to smartphones.

And of course don't forget, by the time other manufactures have catched up, I'm pretty sure Apple will only be moving the goal posts yet again.

@ gordon
that that was a great article. i've always thought you were an iphone fanboy but this piece has changed my opinion.

@Gordon, I think you've missed my point. Your going on about choice, and it's not choice that sells. Why did people go for an I-Pod, when for the same price they could have got a device that did much more?. I read some interesting literature the other day about choice, and how choice is in fact just confusing people and in the end actually giving the user a worse experience, as an example he showed how they was about 8 difference ways to shutdown a PC. Also the OpenSource aspect of things really doesn't excite me, I'm a PC/Win Developer, and have tried a few times to get into the Linux side of things, but the Elitist attitudes the OS community gives you is very off putting to say the least, most likely one of the reasons it took so long for a user friendly install for a Linux Distro to be created (if you can't handle a bash prompt you can leave), I can see it now, the future versions of Android will have a Bash prompt. With the OS aspect of Android, and can see this been a Geeks smartphone.

@Riyad - yes, but unlike the iPhone the Aston does all the basic things that other similarly priced / high performance cars can do ;-)

ILG

Theres a couple of mentions of Android only being for Tech guys but I dont agree with that TBH and thats really where I see the main strengths of Android over the Mobile OsX

Android can be as simple or complicated as you need it to be, so phones that vary in complexity can vary in complexicty depending on what people want from their phone. OsX is very rigid in comparison really with thier one phone model

As long as the the phone manufacturers use Android in what I see to be the right way (essentially design both the phone and the software in parallel to each other like INQ seem to have done, rather than cramming the software in after they design the phone) then I can see a very rosy future for Android.

Of course, as the author notes, an important question for Apple is whether it wants to be King of the World. It's certainly doing very well with its "high-end" strategy; thus, it might succeed phenomenally without trying to be Nokia ... what I find missing in all the smart phone discussion is the fact that major U.S. carriers such as Verizon and AT&T won't sell you a "smart phone" without a data plan (they don't even offer an option of no data plan when you pay full price for the phone) ... my guess is that an Android phone attached to some type of PAYG/data optional plan will be a huge hit.

Excellent article and delightfully wide ranging opinions following it.
I'll dare to be slightly off topic (on the grounds that I'm executive editor in chief of this comment) ..Can we have a bit more editorial content on TR? The articles from Riyad et al are generally excellent and a pleasant varition for regular readers.
More over I'm intrigued to see Gordons literary credentials tested beyond the news!!

Great debate. Gordon = deprogrammer, article = intervention, Apple = cult

Open source when backed by a company is quite different from stand alone open source. There may well be forks and home brews, but only the techies need even know about them - the Android distributed by Google should be user firendly, but benefit from any fixes and contributions 3rd parties feel inclined to make.

And of course the biggie is that developers of 3rd party apps won't run into the issues they have on the iPhone - Google won't suddenly declare that actually your idea is not one they want to see happen.

I could see a situation where Android puts some serious pressure on Apple if handset makers who are used to competing on spec get an off the shelf O/S that has comparable usability. I know I'm currently caught between functionality (I want A2DP and tethering) and usability (I want mobile OS/X) and operator (I don't want O2) - I shall probably end up biting the bullet and getting the iPhone, but if there were a credible alternative that didn't tie me down as much I'd take it.

@riyad

what's your gamertag? i can't see any invites to accept. i'll be on tonight. completed wave 50 last night. only on casual though. can't imagine getting past wave 20 on anything higher.

I really think the main thing wrong with the iPhone is that Apple does not sell it on a more open basis. Apple should make a CDMA version and allow any carrier to sell it. Given that they sell it on a more tradition subsidized model now, I can't see what keeps them from doing it.

Other than the issue of supporting all carriers I think many of the issues here are nits or are things that will be dealt with in time. Copy-Paste, its going to happen. Dependence on iTunes, its a tradeoff. Its only bad for enterprises currently and that may be resolved in time. I only use wired syncing for media now and I think its entirely reasonable to have my media based on one machine.

I am not sure why you call the iPhone premium. That tag applies to other Apple products I'll agree but the iPhone seems quite competitively priced, at least in the states. The G1 is only $20 less and then you need to buy memory on top of that.

The Android platform does have a potential promise. It reminds me a lot of Linux. I can see a trajectory for Linux to succeed but so far its a very slow process. On one hand you have the power of the open community, on the other you have the power of what happens when you have organized technical and aesthetically focused leadership like you have at Apple. OSX, at least until now, has seemed to evolve not only faster but better than the others and that is quite an advantage, even if you have to pay the engineers working on it.

My brief time playing with a G1 left me pretty cold. It looked like really old junky stuff. I can't see any attraction to it. Its very bulky, the software is ugly. Things did not work that well. I am not sure who really would want one. Yet I see people carrying the iPhone around everywhere I go. Teens, moms, men. And I am convinced that its more powerful and easier to use. Frankly I think there are 2 phones out there worth having. A blackberry if you want that for work or an iPhone for everyone else. I don't see any current Android device as a contender.

I don't think choice of operator should be tied to choice of handset. It may or may not be that O2 meet my needs - I haven't researched it, so I don't know, which leaves me a little surprised that you do...

People go on and on about iPhone killers. Why? There's phones out there selling way more than the iPhone. There's phone out there with way more features. For me the fact the iPhone camera is pretty apalling makes just about every other phone on the market an iPhone killer in my eyes. And there are dozens of other features that will make other phones "killers" for other people.

What makes the iPhone good is the integrated iPod, the browser and the overall ease of use. Browser wise there's a few options out there that equal Safari on the iPhone. Mp3 playing, well Apple are the top there, you can't blame other manufactures for not being able to top them ther; but many handsets have perfectly good mp3 players - and the fact I don't have to use iTunes is a big plus for me. So you're just left with ease of use, I've not used an iPhone but I've never had a problem using my Sony Ericsson or Nokia phones, so what's the big deal? Maybe most people are too dumb to press two or three buttons when on the iPod it's one and a swipe? It's just "cool", I don't think there's anything on it that's much better than most other phones.

As for calling it a smartphone and saying it should be compared to smartphone sales only. How is it a smartphone? It can't edit Word or Excel documents. To me that is essential to be called a smart phone. I'd imagine most Nokia phones can browse the web & do email, so they are thus smartphones as well by that flawed definition.

So nobody needs to make an "iPhone Killer" there's already hundreds of them out there, and they're being bought by the millions instead of an iPhone, so it's already beat. The iPhone is just a very cool phone, with a lot of the basics done incredibly well. It's lacking far too many features for me to get one.

As for the main meat of this article Mobile OS X vs Android. The iPhone strength is it's Achilles Heel. It's proprietary, it's on one piece of hardware. It's a lovely bit of hardware & works great with the software written for it. But soon the G1 will be superceeded by far better Android handsets. And the Android software is releasing new patches and features all the time. I think that's exciting and something that makes it work for non-geeks. It's something I wish Microsoft would do. Imagine a "Windows update" that gave you a useful new feature/game/resource instead of just a dull bug fix. So getting a new update on my (theoretical) G1 (or G5 cos I can't see me getting an Android phone for a while yet) and seeing a new application, design improvements and everything else, i'd be quite excited.

App Store? Developers are moving to the Android store as it's more open than Apple's. Another Apple problem is the fact that no two apps can do the same thing, and if you write something that Apple then implement yourself, you're app gets kicked out. Sure money can be made there (even if 90% of the apps are free) but it's not a safe platform to program for. If I was developing for a phone I'd rather go the Android route (actually I'd go Windows Mobile cos it's got a much much larger user base and they will soon get their act together and have better app stores).

For me, my contract ended 3 months ago, there's not one phone out there that's so special, or has enough boxes ticked to make me call my operator and ask for my new handset.

Come on who ever uses something before commenting these days? Hell most people have their opinion formed before the product is even a twinkling in the eye of the head honcho of these companies. :-)

But it's usually easy enough to tell from reading a few reviews and filtering out the fanboi nonsense what a product is like. So, given the reviews here I'm off to PC World to see if I can find a Samsung NC10 in stock, I'd rather waste my money on a netbook than a new phone that gives me so little over my old one.

"When it comes down to it, there's no significant difference between the various operators anymore."

I think that's a highly debatable position. Really, there's nowhere in the whole of the UK where coverage might affect your choice of carrier? They all have precisely the same levels of customer service? A consumer who has had an extremely bad experience at O2 should just suck it up and give them more of their money?

Great article, IMHO. Thanks for distilling the key points, some of which I'd missed.

I'm fond of mobile OS X myself. I bought a 1st gen Touch on the day it was released, which seemed a far cheaper way of reaping the benefits of the Apple OS than shelling out for an iPhone.

However, what really grates with me is Apple's apparent approach to its customers. No MMS support and belated 3G support indicates to me that they design the handset for the US market and then get round to the rest of the world when they feel like it. As for the lack of copy/paste and reduced file format support, these smack of Apple limiting the platform for their own benefit, so they can push their own services and formats. Again, the customer comes second.

It's not that I think this is a bad business model, it clearly works for them and has done for years. It's just that if this was ANY other company (Nokia, SE, RIM) we would be would be hammering them for it. I think Apple's incredible design flair, their revolutionary, intuitive software together with slick PR allows them to get away with murder. Nearly two years later, they're still at it - still no MMS, video recording, copy/paste or >2MP camera. These days, these are BASIC features for a phone in this class. As long as this is the status quo, I don't see that Apple have much impetus to rectify these glaring flaws. I'm sure there will be more examples of this commercialised feature cherrypicking in future too. So, I won't be parting with wads of my cash to become an iPhone owner anytime soon.

Doesn't "I'm sure every iPhone owner has their own redundant functionality they'd like to file away." contradict: "actually encourage owners to use all their featur"

"To be fair neither is mobile OS X, though let's confront one misnomer head-on: the virtual keyboard. Simply put if you can't use it you just haven't put in the practice." The same applies to the default WM SIP. I can tap out a text rapidly, using my thumb.

"then RIM's proprietary BlackBerry OS," "OS X Mobile" is even more proprietary.

Multitouch itself is utterly pointless unless you want to walk around using both hands to control the oversized iPhone. Although most of the people I've seen using an iPhone/iPod touch anywhere seem to hold them at arms length, and poke them like they're going to explode at any moment. Hardly an intuitive way to use a device is it? "benefits of multi-touch shine through across the whole platform" so, how many apps can actually use multitouch over traditional single input screens? Safari, and photos. Great platform wide support...

"Look, the 'best' isn't enough to win which you seem to be implying rather naively. Think of Aston Martin or Bugatti which arguably make the best cars in the world, but neither company is ever going to dominate - or even take a significant sector - of the car market."
Hence why WM is undoubtedly the current winner. You can spend very little on a WM Standard device, or go and buy for a Touch HD - there are already multiple different price ranges.

"@jbelkin - PS, your assertion about the business market is completely wrong. The iPhone has done very well in the high end US consumer space (a true minority sector) but there has yet to be a single major multinational organisation announce it was switching employees to the iPhone. If there was we'd cover it!"
You'd cover it, and then make assumptions that this applied to everything.

"Apple sold more "smart phones" than all other smart phones sold previously."
How many licenses for Windows Mobile 6 were sold in the past month?

"Apple has such a healthy bank account."
The reason behind that is that they refuse to use up to date hardware, and charge four times what the hardware/software is actually worth.

"Apple did an enormously fantastic job in creating OS X and the iPhone. Its development tools are the best in developing mobile applications. The development tools are also the same ones used for developing Mac OS X desktop applications - thus allowing cross-pollination, which pushes the rest of the Apple product line forward."
Have you ever even heard of Visual Studio?

"As for calling it a smartphone and saying it should be compared to smartphone sales only. How is it a smartphone? It can't edit Word or Excel documents. To me that is essential to be called a smart phone. I'd imagine most Nokia phones can browse the web & do email, so they are thus smartphones as well by that flawed definition."
I've been trying to make a point along those lines for a few years. Apparently Apple fans aren't interested in the blatant lies of Apples advertising.