My guess is that it's being slowly rolled out to some of Google's front-end servers. I'll get the SSL homepage one load, then a few minutes later when I'm round-robinned to a different server, I get redirected to http://.
I think Apple as a very mature company likes the long term strategy. They start with a bang but they also realize Version 2 of a product, at its core, is strikingly similar to Version 10. I don't think they feel pressured to dominate a market probably because their business model doesn't require it. The iPod was a bit of a fluke in that sense. It had a lot more to do with the competition losing than Apple being hell bent on domination. Google on the other hand, like Microsoft in the past, needs to succeed with big volume. More searches, more data collected, more services to serve more advertisements, new places to put advertisements, etc.
I think that was a good description of Apple Computer, Inc. Now that we live in the post iPhone world of Apple, Inc., they seem to be behaving quite differently. Their strategy seems dominated by short term market share grabbing in the mobile space, rather than long term product innovation and higher priced products.
Actually, I've rethought my comment a bit and I agree with you. I see the way Apple is behaving now very akin to the early PC wars, when a bunch of platforms were trying to become the dominant one.
These days, the platform war is the tablet form factor, and the iPad is definitely cheaper than anyone really expected. I have yet to see an actual competitor, in terms of price, software, and retail locations.
So sure, it's a land grab right now. But I wouldn't confuse that with true product innovation. They're just taking it step-by-step. And I'm sure the iPad still maintains their margins, although it seems cheaper. (my hypothesis as to why it has no camera, cleaning cloth, included slipcase, etc.)
"But I wouldn't confuse that with true product innovation. They're just taking it step-by-step."
Iterative improvement and innovation are not mutually exclusive. Just like with the iPhone (which had no app store at launch, and would be boring by today's standards,) most of the iPad's innovations are ahead of it. You don't have to revolutionize a market right off the bat to be innovative.
Maybe they're preparing for the future. In a few years a $200 subsidized iPhone might be a high priced product compared to a free with contract Android phone. The iPad at $499 might be a premium device compared to a <$200 netbook. The sales of traditional PCs will eventually start to drop as these other devices fill people's needs. We're probably near the high water mark for the Macintosh. Standalone iPods are already starting to seem old fashioned. How many more years can they rely on that market to exist? It doesn't seem the iTunes Store has ever been especially profitable for Apple either. They have to bet their future on the iPad/iPhone.
I disagree. The only reason iPhones aren't high priced is because they got a unprecedentedly large subsidy with AT&T. The phones may sell for $100-300, but Apple makes closer to $500-800 on them after what AT&T pays out. That's why they're the most profitable company at selling cell phones despite their small market share.
Obviously Apple wants market share too, but I've seen no indication that they're willing to prioritize it over high margins.
The techerati's frothing over new Google announcements is goofy. As if GOOG is some saviour from an indescibable hell. The view from here is already amazing.
Everything is amazing and everyone is pissed off. I'm think most of these people cheering and jeering need to spend some time naked, bare assed, with a bone through their nose and then see if this still matters so much to them.
And BTW. No, GOOG is not leap frogging. Hyperbole deluxe.
The whole leapfrogging thing implies (to me) that you are not only doing more things than someone, but also doing them better. Yes, FroYo has added a ton of great features to android, however I still feel that Apple has not yet been leapfrogged in the most basic parts of design for core parts today's mobile experience.
The most obvious of these to me is text entry via touch screen. There can be no claims of leapfrogging until I can use an android device's touch screen to SMS someone without pulling (what little is left of) my hair out.
Next is the whole activity response/switching thing. Yes, blah blah, tradeoffs for multitasking, whatever. Why not have a way to turn off non-system multi-tasking in favor of super lightning quick responsiveness on android? It's enough to almost throw the phone across the room when you are trying to answer the phone and key presses don't register.
In terms of industrial design, there have been no great leaps by any of Google's hardware partners - Every single android handset I've used has felt like a cheap, disposable piece of junk (G1, Hero, N1) or a giant tank (Droid) compared to the first generation iPhone. I haven't played with the incredible yet, so I still have hope, but not much.
Google and Apple have taken two different approaches to mobile. Google is trying to throw as many different features into android in as short a time as possible, and Apple is set on perfecting each detail before incorporating more. This is fine, it's two different philosophies.
After my prolonged experiences with the G1 and the original iPhone, I'd much rather live day to day with software and hardware that has been developed to Apple's design and usability standards. (I'm talking about the system software here, not 3rd party apps) I hope in the coming year Google has a chance to go back and spend time polishing what they've accomplished so far instead of continually heaping feature upon feature onto android.
If Google can get back to user interaction basics and stop mucking around with some of their other tangents, they could make android great, not just passable.
Or maybe I was just too abused by my time with the G1 to judge this argument fairly anymore, definitely possible.
>There can be no claims of leapfrogging until I can use an android device's touch screen to SMS someone without pulling (what little is left of) my hair out.
This is almost certainly what you are used to. I haven't had any difficulty with my nexus one. The iphone drove me to insanity everytime I tried to type on it.
>Every single android handset I've used has felt like a cheap, disposable piece of junk (G1, Hero, N1)
Everyone I know who has seen the nexus one in person found it much more attractive than the iphone. (sampling bias, yadda yadda)
>Or maybe I was just too abused by my time with the G1 to judge this argument fairly anymore, definitely possible.
That's the only reasonable explanation I can come up with for your post. (I feel your pain on that one. ;)
It's kind of funny - people seem to be fairly split down the middle between our posts, even with all the up and down voting.
What I was used to before I got the G1 was a Samsung Trace, which could not be considered any sort of "smart phone". No Qwerty keyboard, tiny screen, etc. I did not actually use the original iPhone until about a year ago when a friend gave me an unlocked 2G when she got a 3GS.
I don't know much about the subject of text input, but there are two distinctly different implementations between android and iPhone. Android tends to be more predictive, but less enthusiastic about what it thinks you mean, and hence less corrective. I find the more decisive autocorrect on iPhone OS to work out much better for me. It's less about picking out words from a suggestion list and more about just banging away on the keyboard and trusting the software knows what I mean.
The biggest advantage Android has in this area is that Google doesn't have to get it "right" for everyone. On Android phones you can just switch to one of the other keyboard implementations if you don't like the default.
Smart Keyboard Pro: text expansion, custom dictionaries, custom skins, and more. I'm not the developer even if I sound like a walking advertisement, I just love the app that much.
How is typing better on the iPhone than on the N1?
I find the predictive measures work better; the keyboard is more responsive (texting on the iPhone was an exercise in frustration: oftentimes the keyboard would lock up, preventing input).
My only complaint is that its a little too easy to accidentally hit the home key.
And really... I've got three apps running in the background and no sluggishness. In fact, I have never seen this phone lag (even when playing super Nintendo on the train).
Only complaint with typing in web forms is that it doesn't follow the cursor quite right.
> Every single android handset I've used has felt like a cheap, disposable piece of junk (G1, Hero, N1) or a giant tank (Droid)
I own an iPhone 3GS as well as a Nexus One. I prefer the N1 and a lot of it comes down to the fact that the iPhone feels like a bar of soap in my hand just waiting to take a flying jump towards the ground. It's a slippery thing.
That single thing was enough for me to use the N1 more, and now I find the iPhone hard to use (in the same way that once I stopped using Nokia years ago I couldn't go back to it).
Interesting on how the tone of the Gizmodo article is almost over-the-top pro-Google and anti-Apple. Seems almost like a backlash to the entire Jason Chen/REACT situation.
There are few things that bothers me when people talk about Google taking the lead:
1) They are comparing two different things, an open OS vs an OS tied to one company.
2) Google didn't surpassed anybody. FroYo hasn't been released yet and they are comparing them to a phone that is going to be updated in two weeks. FroYo has tethering, but iPhone has tethering since 3.0, if AT&T doesn't allow it, it isn't Apple's fault. And I'm not sure how free that wireless hotspot will be. FroYo is faster, but nobody knows if faster than OS 4.0 on the new iPhone. They presented wireless sync, but nobody knows if Apple will introduce the same in two weeks. After all, they bought Lala for some reason. Maybe it's just me, but I like to compare shipped products, not demos and announcements.
The tethering issue may not be Apple's fault, but that's fairly irrelevant since you can't get the phone with any other carrier in the U.S.. Point being, no matter whose fault it is, the iPhone just doesn't have tethering in the U.S..
Otherwise I tend to agree, there are no devices shipping with Froyo so saying it has surpassed a shipping and soon-to-be-updated product is a bit silly.
The only Android phone that initially will have that functionality won't be available with AT&T nor T-Mobile... And the Nexus One isn't a pentaband phone either.
It's not a question of fault. The point is that outside the U.S. iPhone tethering works fine. I use it often. To say that Google is "leapfrogging" Apple because someday it will support tethering is ludicrous.
What is more remarkable to me than any Apple vs. Google rivalry is how infrequently the press has mentioned Microsoft in articles on the matter. Is it a given that MSFT has gotten so far behind that it won't ever catch up?
I don't know if it's a given that they'll never catch up, but at the moment they're not really relevant in the market, so it makes sense to leave them out.
What would the articles say about them? Microsoft may regain relevance in the market when the first version of their new smartphone OS is released months from now? That's about all there is to say.
I love all the new android phones I see.... and I like the openness - the hacker in me wants one.
But you know - the iphone/ipod Touch - it took me 10 seconds to figure out how that stuff worked.
I had to ask my friend to show me how to navigate around his android based phone with all it's buttons and gestures and whatnot......
I can definitely see more possibilities wiht the android - but Apple still has them beet on the Mom test.
Froyo looks really cool, and I would seriously consider the jump from iPhone to Android, but AT&T has such crap android phones. I want a nexus one or a droid!
The thing to watch is not the feature list on one phone or platform release but the innovation speed and how fast you can improve the product in a closed environment vs an open one.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadIt's coming
https://www.google.com/
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1368499
Even in light of the iPad?
These days, the platform war is the tablet form factor, and the iPad is definitely cheaper than anyone really expected. I have yet to see an actual competitor, in terms of price, software, and retail locations.
So sure, it's a land grab right now. But I wouldn't confuse that with true product innovation. They're just taking it step-by-step. And I'm sure the iPad still maintains their margins, although it seems cheaper. (my hypothesis as to why it has no camera, cleaning cloth, included slipcase, etc.)
Iterative improvement and innovation are not mutually exclusive. Just like with the iPhone (which had no app store at launch, and would be boring by today's standards,) most of the iPad's innovations are ahead of it. You don't have to revolutionize a market right off the bat to be innovative.
Obviously Apple wants market share too, but I've seen no indication that they're willing to prioritize it over high margins.
Everything is amazing and everyone is pissed off. I'm think most of these people cheering and jeering need to spend some time naked, bare assed, with a bone through their nose and then see if this still matters so much to them.
And BTW. No, GOOG is not leap frogging. Hyperbole deluxe.
The most obvious of these to me is text entry via touch screen. There can be no claims of leapfrogging until I can use an android device's touch screen to SMS someone without pulling (what little is left of) my hair out.
Next is the whole activity response/switching thing. Yes, blah blah, tradeoffs for multitasking, whatever. Why not have a way to turn off non-system multi-tasking in favor of super lightning quick responsiveness on android? It's enough to almost throw the phone across the room when you are trying to answer the phone and key presses don't register.
In terms of industrial design, there have been no great leaps by any of Google's hardware partners - Every single android handset I've used has felt like a cheap, disposable piece of junk (G1, Hero, N1) or a giant tank (Droid) compared to the first generation iPhone. I haven't played with the incredible yet, so I still have hope, but not much.
Google and Apple have taken two different approaches to mobile. Google is trying to throw as many different features into android in as short a time as possible, and Apple is set on perfecting each detail before incorporating more. This is fine, it's two different philosophies.
After my prolonged experiences with the G1 and the original iPhone, I'd much rather live day to day with software and hardware that has been developed to Apple's design and usability standards. (I'm talking about the system software here, not 3rd party apps) I hope in the coming year Google has a chance to go back and spend time polishing what they've accomplished so far instead of continually heaping feature upon feature onto android.
If Google can get back to user interaction basics and stop mucking around with some of their other tangents, they could make android great, not just passable.
Or maybe I was just too abused by my time with the G1 to judge this argument fairly anymore, definitely possible.
This is almost certainly what you are used to. I haven't had any difficulty with my nexus one. The iphone drove me to insanity everytime I tried to type on it.
>Every single android handset I've used has felt like a cheap, disposable piece of junk (G1, Hero, N1)
Everyone I know who has seen the nexus one in person found it much more attractive than the iphone. (sampling bias, yadda yadda)
>Or maybe I was just too abused by my time with the G1 to judge this argument fairly anymore, definitely possible.
That's the only reasonable explanation I can come up with for your post. (I feel your pain on that one. ;)
What I was used to before I got the G1 was a Samsung Trace, which could not be considered any sort of "smart phone". No Qwerty keyboard, tiny screen, etc. I did not actually use the original iPhone until about a year ago when a friend gave me an unlocked 2G when she got a 3GS.
I don't know much about the subject of text input, but there are two distinctly different implementations between android and iPhone. Android tends to be more predictive, but less enthusiastic about what it thinks you mean, and hence less corrective. I find the more decisive autocorrect on iPhone OS to work out much better for me. It's less about picking out words from a suggestion list and more about just banging away on the keyboard and trusting the software knows what I mean.
I find the predictive measures work better; the keyboard is more responsive (texting on the iPhone was an exercise in frustration: oftentimes the keyboard would lock up, preventing input).
My only complaint is that its a little too easy to accidentally hit the home key.
And really... I've got three apps running in the background and no sluggishness. In fact, I have never seen this phone lag (even when playing super Nintendo on the train).
Only complaint with typing in web forms is that it doesn't follow the cursor quite right.
Written from mobile :-)
I own an iPhone 3GS as well as a Nexus One. I prefer the N1 and a lot of it comes down to the fact that the iPhone feels like a bar of soap in my hand just waiting to take a flying jump towards the ground. It's a slippery thing.
That single thing was enough for me to use the N1 more, and now I find the iPhone hard to use (in the same way that once I stopped using Nokia years ago I couldn't go back to it).
1) They are comparing two different things, an open OS vs an OS tied to one company.
2) Google didn't surpassed anybody. FroYo hasn't been released yet and they are comparing them to a phone that is going to be updated in two weeks. FroYo has tethering, but iPhone has tethering since 3.0, if AT&T doesn't allow it, it isn't Apple's fault. And I'm not sure how free that wireless hotspot will be. FroYo is faster, but nobody knows if faster than OS 4.0 on the new iPhone. They presented wireless sync, but nobody knows if Apple will introduce the same in two weeks. After all, they bought Lala for some reason. Maybe it's just me, but I like to compare shipped products, not demos and announcements.
Otherwise I tend to agree, there are no devices shipping with Froyo so saying it has surpassed a shipping and soon-to-be-updated product is a bit silly.
And the nexus one is available on at&t.
Ergo, I will be able to tether my phone on at&t.
Right?
This is it right here. What can I buy? What is reality? Talk is cheap.
Its way better to talk about what you've done (even if it was a while ago) than to talk about what you will (never) do.
Just sayin'. ;-)
What would the articles say about them? Microsoft may regain relevance in the market when the first version of their new smartphone OS is released months from now? That's about all there is to say.
But you know - the iphone/ipod Touch - it took me 10 seconds to figure out how that stuff worked.
I had to ask my friend to show me how to navigate around his android based phone with all it's buttons and gestures and whatnot...... I can definitely see more possibilities wiht the android - but Apple still has them beet on the Mom test.
Nothing is this simple in real life.
http://listeasy.net/