Remember all those years ago, when people laughed at the first Android phones (which were, to tell the truth, pretty clunky, but still...). Remember how Apple fans have always insisted that however well Android did in the smartphone market, it would always be second best, and never seriously threaten Apple's dominance? Well here's what actually happened:
When the first Android smartphones came out, the consensus view among certain "experts" was that Google didn't stand chance. The dogma was that the iPhone was so perfect, and its hold on the market so strong, that there was no way that Android could displace it. I think we can say that hasn't proved to be the case:
In the wake of the news that Android sales now represent around 75% of the global smartphone market during the most recent quarter, there's still some surprise that this has happened. After all, this was a sector that Apple absolutely dominated just a few years ago. Some find it hard to understand how Android has pulled this off in just five years.
The reaction to the jury's decision in the US patent infringement case between Apple and Samsung has been rather remarkable. I've seen it called all kinds of turning and inflection points for the computing/mobile world, as if we are entering some strange new era whose landscape is weird and unknown to us. This is utter nonsense. I don't think Apple's "stunning" or "total" victory - all phrases I've seen bandied about - is particularly stunning, or even a victory.
As sales of its products soar, and its share price continues to climb, Apple has come under increasing scrutiny because of the working conditions in the Chinese factories where its iPhone and iPad are manufactured. This has led Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, to announce recently that the Fair Labor Association will be conducting audits of Apple’s final assembly suppliers, including Foxconn factories in China.
The annual Digital Music Report (pdf) of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is a curiously conflicted production. On the one hand, it must celebrate "a healthy 8 per cent increase in our digital revenues in 2011 -- the first time the annual growth rate has risen since records began in 2004 "; on the other, it must continue to push the party line about how the industry is being destroyed by piracy.
The smartphone space is turning into a textbook example of why patents not only do not promote innovation as their supporters claim so insistently (though never with any proof to corroborate that claim), but actively block the further development of a field. Just look at the diagram at the bottom of this post from Techdirt to get an idea of how hopelessly entangled things are.
On Open Enterprise blog.
We are entering a post-PC world – or so we are told. But is that good or bad for open source?
The open source world has been fixated so long on the “Year of the GNU/Linux Desktop” that it runs the risk of failing to notice that the desktop is no longer the key platform. That's been evident for some time in the developing world, where cost and power constraints mean that big, expensive PCs are simply impractical for most people. But with the rise of smartphones like the iPhone and Android devices, many people in western countries are also ditching their desk-bound systems in favour of powerful, more pocketable ones.
On The H Open.
Back in August last year, I wrote the following:
we no longer live in a simple binary world of Internet Explorer as the dominant player and Firefox as the doughty but distant challenger. We are entering a new situation with three powerful players all striving to impress users with their respective strengths and capabilities, each sometimes gaining, sometimes losing a little market share.
In this sense, Mozilla has won, because this kind of healthy competition was precisely what it was trying to achieve when it launched its open source browser project over a decade ago. It has also won in the sense that Internet Explorer is now much more compliant with open Web standards, and seems unlikely to try to lock down the Internet again with its own proprietary add-ons as it did successfully during the dotcom boom. As a result, it's probably fair to say that with its relatively static market share, what we are seeing is not so much the beginning of the end for Firefox, just the end of the beginning where it was the plucky underdog able to ride an easy wave of browser rebellion.
But if this is the end of the beginning, what comes next?
On Open Enterprise blog.
A remarkable continuity underlies free software, going all the way back to Richard Stallman's first programs for his new GNU project. And yet within that continuity, there have been major shifts: are we due for another such leap?
On The H Open.
Wonderful post from a blind person about the effect of owning an iPhone:The other night, however, a very amazing thing happened. I downloaded an app called Color ID. It uses the iPhone’s camera, and speaks names of colors. It must use a table, because each color has an identifier made up of 6 hexadecimal digits. This puts the total at 16777216 colors, and I believe it. Some of them have very surreal names, such as Atomic Orange, Cosmic, Hippie Green, Opium, and Black-White. These names in combination with what feels like a rise in serotonin levels makes for a very psychedelic experience.
I have never experienced this before in my life. I can see some light and color, but just in blurs, and objects don’t really have a color, just light sources.
...
The next day, I went outside. I looked at the sky. I heard colors such as “Horizon,” “Outer Space,” and many shades of blue and gray. I used color queues to find my pumpkin plants, by looking for the green among the brown and stone. I spent ten minutes looking at my pumpkin plants, with their leaves of green and lemon-ginger. I then roamed my yard, and saw a blue flower. I then found the brown shed, and returned to the gray house. My mind felt blown. I watched the sun set, listening to the colors change as the sky darkened. The next night, I had a conversation with Mom about how the sky looked bluer tonight. Since I can see some light and color, I think hearing the color names can help nudge my perception, and enhance my visual experience. Amazing!
Indeed. (Via @segphault and @KatherineD.)
Arguably the most important development in the world of open source in the last year or two has been the rise and rise of Google's Linux-based Android operating system. It's true that the mobiles out there employing it are not 100% free, but they are considerably more free than the main alternatives. More importantly, they are turning Linux into a global, mass-market platform in a way never before seen.
On Open Enterprise blog.
Although I have never owned an iPhone, nor even desired one, I do recognise that it has redefined the world of smartphones. In that sense, it is the leader, and will always be historically important. However, as my title suggests, I don't think that's enough to keep it ahead of Android, however great you may judge the feature gap to be currently. Here's a good explanation of why that is:Through a bevy of handset makers, Android can offer a variety of phones that will make it difficult for Apple to beat with just one hardware release a year. While it is hard to ever go wrong with an iPhone, Android offers a ton of alternative form factors, price points and carriers: Sprint (NYSE: S) has released the first 4G phone on Android; T-Mobile has a new competitive Android phone with a slide-out keyboard; the HTC Incredible sold by Verizon has been flying off store shelves; and even Google’s Nexus One still boasts some of the latest hardware. Not to mention new Android phones from Samsung and LG (SEO: 066570) coming later this summer.
The thing is, no matter how amazing any given feature of the iPhone, in any iteration, sooner or later (and probably sooner) there will be an Android smartphone that matches it. And alongisde that handset will be dozens of others offering other features that the iPhone hasn't yet implemented - and may never do.
It's an unfair race: iPhone iterations, even blessed by Steve Jobs' magic pixie dust, can only occur so fast; Android innovations, by contrast, are limited only by the number of players in the market. Want a new Android handset ever week? Easy, just wait until the ecosystem grows a little more.
And don't even get me started on the fact that the Android code is already starting to appear in totally new segments, bringing yet more innovation, yet more players....
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.
I've written a number of times about the curious experiment South Korea has been conducting: making its entire governmental and financial computing infrastructure dependent on Microsoft by requiring *all* users to install proprietary security software that is typically an ActiveX plugin (yes, one of *those*).
This is obviously insane, because it forces people to use a piece of technology that has been a major cause of security problems on the Windows platform, and it creates a monoculture, with all the weaknesses that implies.
Despite the manifest folly of this approach, changing it has been hard because of the total lock-in. But apparently change is finally coming, and for a couple of surprising reasons:For those of you who have followed my blog, you know that it has been 3 years since I first reported on the fact that Korea does not use SSL for secure transactions over the Interent but instead a PKI mechanism that limits users to the Windows OS and Internet Explorer as a browser. Nothing fundamentally has changed but there are new pressures on the status quo that may break open South Korean for competition in the browser market in the future.
In fact, one of the new pressures on the status quo has been the popularity of the iPhone in South Korea, which wasn’t available officially until late 2009 due to a different Korean software middle-ware requirement, WIPI, which has since been deprecated. With WIPI dead and buried, Apple released the iPhone to great fanfare in the Korean market and Blackberry has also launched in the Korean market.
Another pressure on the status quo was a recent report out from 3 researchers (Hyoungshick Kim, Jun Ho Huh and Ross Anderson) from the University of Oxford’s Computing Laboratory, “On the Security of Internet Banking in South Korea.”
...
The popularity of the iPhone (the press claims 500,000 units sold in the few months since it was released) resurfaced the issue that only Windows and IE can be used to make secure transactions with Korean Internet services. iPhone/Blackberry/Android users in Korea (not to mention Firefox/Opera/Safari/Chrome users) cannot bank online or purchase items online or do any secure transaction with the smartphone browser because Korean services only support the PKI mechanism that only works with Active-X in IE and Windows.
This is a rather unlooked-for consequence of the arrival of smartphones in general, and of the iPhone in particular. Combined with pressure from the users of other browsers and other operating systems, we can hope that this will bring the South Korean government to its senses, and end this bizarre and unfortunate experiment in government-mandated monoculture.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is always good for a laugh thanks to its transparent agenda (the use of the weasel word "competitive" gives it away), and it doesn't disappoint in the following, which is about the evils of net neutrality and openness:Consider the Apple iPhone. The remarkably successful smartphone has arguably been a game-changer in the wireless world, having sold tens of millions of handsets since its 2007 launch and spurring dozens of would-be “iPhone killers” in the process. If you listen to net neutrality advocates’ mantra, you would assume the iPhone must be a wide open device with next to no restrictions. You would be mistaken. In fact, the iPhone is a prototypical “walled garden.” Apple vets every single iPhone app, and Apple reserves the right to reject iPhone apps if they “duplicate [iPhone] functionality” or “create significant network congestion.”
Why, then, has the iPhone enjoyed such popularity? It’s because consumer preferences are diverse and constantly evolving. Most users, it seems, do not place openness on the same pedestal that net neutrality advocates do. Proprietary platforms like the iPhone have advantages of their own– a cohesive, centrally-managed user experience, for one– but have disadvantages as well.
Which is fair enough. But it then goes on to say:
But under the FCC’s proposed neutrality rules, the iPhone and similar devices that place limits on the content and applications that users can access would likely be against the law.
Net neutrality has nothing to do with the edges - which is where the iPhone resides - and everything about the wiring that connects the edges. It is about preventing those who control the networks from blocking innovative services - like the iPhone - being offered across them. It would only apply if Apple owned the network and refused to allow third parties to offer rival services to its iPhone - clearly not the case. It does not forbid Apple from choosing which apps to run on the iPhone, any more than it forces Microsoft to go open source.
Painting the freedom of net neutrality as a kind of slavery in this way is really a tour-de-force of topsy-turvism, even by the high standards of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.
Hm, this looks like a good excuse to get an Android phone soon:
A big part of ‘learning on your terms’ is not being tied down to sitting in front of a computer in order to learn. Learning should adjust to your lifestyle and not the other way around. The ability to download podcasts and take them on-the-go was a big step in this direction, and today we add another - a ‘Quick Review’ application for Google Android-powered phones.
...
The ChinesePod Quick Review App is an integrated Chinese dictionary and flashcard system designed for ‘fast launch and short use’. We will be following up with another more full-featured app in the future. The App has four main sections: dictionary, flashcards, settings and history.
Interesting that the iPhone version is still held up in administrative limbo....
One thing that is evident is the continuing emergence of the mobile platform as a real alternative to the traditional PC. The iPhone and Android systems are the clearest manifestation of this. But here's another:For many Japanese adolescents, cellphone is inseparable partner of their lives, you might have heard. Different from PC, kids can have their own (not-shared with your family/siblings, not filtered by home-broadband), can bring it with you to school, outside, anywhere (it is important when your writing back within 5 minutes to your friend’s mail is the only way to prove your true friendship). The largest Social Network Mixi already got more page views from cellphone than from PC (and #2 Mobage and #3 Gree are mainly on mobile).
Some are said to write their college reports by e-mail on cellphone. (*1) (*2) (*3)
For those cellphone-adapted youth, PC’s QWERTY keyboard does not necessary be the best input device. They had to use PC keyboard fewer times on their computer class, however, 0-to-9 number pads are more familiar, even faster way for them.
If number pads in cellphone order is more convenient, some youth feel easier to use it even for PC. Yes, there are some solutions.
Keiboard+IE is USB external keyboard having cellphone-keypads, mouse-like joy pad and many short cut buttons (for IE, as its name implies).
I do hope it's not *that* IE.....
So the fabled Googlephone has arrived. It's pretty much as people expected, with tight integration to Google's main services, including a rather nifty use of Google Street View. It undoubtedly lacks the glamour of the iPhone, and even misses a trick or two in terms of basic mobile technology – Apple's use of the touchscreen seems superior – but that is mitigated to a certain extent by the presence of a keyboard for those of us who can't live without such things.
But maybe the most important fact about the G1 is that for the first time Google has shipped a major product that is open source....
On Open Enterprise blog.
You may remember that a little while back there was a bit of a kerfuffle about the BBC's decision to go with a Microsoft-based DRM solution for its download service. Initially we were told that only six people and a couple of mangy dogs ever accessed BBC sites with GNU/Linux, and therefore it wasn't worth supporting, but the BBC later admitted that what they really meant was that the audience ran to six *figures*. The story then was: trust us, we'll get round to GNU/Linux support as soon as we can. And you know what? Silly old me believed them.
So what do we have here?Today was a big day for BBC iPlayer: it's the day that it first became available on a portable device. BBCiPlayer is now available on iPhone and iPod touch.
Really groovy. Er, now could we have GNU/Linux, please?
Then this:If you have a Nintendo Wii, it's already connected to your TV, and now you can play iPlayer programmes directly on your Wii.
Amazing. But what about the GNU/Linux you promised?
And now we have this:Today is another significant day for BBC iPlayer as it launches on its first TV platform: Virgin Media.
Totally far-out, man. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BLOODY GNU/LINUX VERSION?
I wonder how that complaint about the BBC providing state aid to Microsoft is coming along....
Here's a tired old meme that I've dealt with before, but, zombie-like, it keeps on coming back:The open-source software community is simply too turbulent to focus its tests and maintain its criteria over an extended duration, and that is a prerequisite to evolving highly original things. There is only one iPhone, but there are hundreds of Linux releases. A closed-software team is a human construction that can tie down enough variables so that software becomes just a little more like a hardware chip—and note that chips, the most encapsulated objects made by humans, get better and better following an exponential pattern of improvement known as Moore’s law.
So let's just look at those statements for a start, shall we?There is only one iPhone, but there are hundreds of Linux releases.
There's only one iPhone because the business of negotiating with the oligopolistic wireless companies is something that requires huge resources and deep, feral cunning possessed only by unpleasantly aggressive business executives. It has nothing to do with being closed. There are hundreds of GNU/Linux distributions because there are even more different kinds of individuals, who want to do things their way, not Steve's way. But the main, highly-focussed development takes place in the one kernel, with two desktop environments - the rest is just presentation, and has nothing to do with dissipation of effort, as implied by the above juxtaposition.chips, the most encapsulated objects made by humans, get better and better following an exponential pattern of improvement known as Moore’s law
Chips do not get better because they are closed, they get better because the basic manufacturing processes get better, and those could just as easily be applied to open source chips - the design is irrelevant.
The iPhone is just one of three exhibits that are meant to demonstrate the clear superiority of the closed-source approach. Another is Adobe Flash - no, seriously: what most sensible people would regard as a virus is cited as one of "the more sophisticated examples of code". And what does Flash do for us? Correct: it destroys the very fabric of the Web by turning everything into opaque, URL-less streams of pixels.
The other example is "the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines", which presumably means Google, since it now has nearly two-thirds of the search market, and the page-rank algorithms of Microsoft's search engine are hardly being praised to the sky.
But what do we notice about Google? That it is built almost entirely on the foundation of open source; that its business model - its innovative business model - would not work without open source; that it simply would not exist without open source. And yes, Yahoo also uses huge amounts of open source. No, Microsoft doesn't, but maybe it's not exactly disinterested in its choice of software infrastructure.
Moreover, practically every single, innovative, Web 2.0-y start-up depends on open source. Open source - the LAMP stack, principally - is innovating by virtue of its economics, which make all these new applications possible.
And even if you argue that this is not "real" innovation - whatever that means - could I direct your attention to a certain technology known colloquially as the Internet? The basic TCP/IP protocols? All open. The Web's HTTP and HTML? All open. BIND? Open source. Sendmail? Open source. Apache? Open source. Firefox, initiated in part because Microsoft had not done anything innovative with Internet Explorer 6 for half a decade? Open source.
But there again, for some people maybe the Internet isn't innovative enough compared to Adobe's Flash technology.
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