<story><title>Android</title><url>http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/10/android.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thought_alarm</author><text>But the iPhone and iPad aren&apos;t priced at a premium.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, it&apos;s a mistake pit Google against Apple.  The real battle will be between Google and Microsoft for the exact same hardware manufacturers and sales channels.  (Meanwhile, you can buy an iPad from an Apple Store or from Walmart without any carrier involvement).&lt;p&gt;Google hasn&apos;t managed the fragmentation problem very well, they haven&apos;t done enough to control the quality the Android OS between carriers and manufacturers, and they&apos;ve utterly mismanaged the Android Market.  I&apos;m no fan of Microsoft or WinMo 7, but I expect Microsoft to do a much better job at addressing all of those issues.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft can also leverage their Zune desktop software.&lt;p&gt;And Microsoft&apos;s development tools are generally very popular with developers.  I&apos;ve done some work with WPF and I found it very impressive and I would expect their Phone SDK to be of similar quality.  On the other hand, even though I generally like Java I&apos;m finding the move from iPhone development to Android development to be a depressing step backwards both in terms of the dev tools and especially the SDK.&lt;p&gt;Then again, it is Microsoft we&apos;re talking about.  It may take them another 3 or 6 years to get it right.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lawfulfalafel</author><text>A lot of companies have to pay an &apos;Android tax&apos; to Microsoft in order to prevent litigation. HTC paid Microsoft off in order to not be sued[1], Samsung and LG cut a deal that included exchanging patents[2][3], and Motorola decided to fight[4] (my simplifications are not perfect). I am saying all this to say that it&apos;s unfair to say that there is a &quot;battle will be between Google and Microsoft for the exact same hardware manufacturers and sales channels&quot; when Microsoft is blackmailing everyone and profits from either outcome. I mean Google ain&apos;t a morally perfect company (I still believe based on what I know that the Verizon deal is unfair) but to my knowledge they seem to be quite the David in this fight.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/apr10/04-27mshtcpr.mspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/apr10/04-27msh...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-6177381.html?part=rss&amp;#38;tag=2547-1_3-0-20&amp;#38;subj=news&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-6177381.html?part=rss&amp;#38;t...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/lg-microsoft-link-on-licences/story-e6frgamo-1111113700475&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/lg-microsoft-l...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4] &lt;a href=&quot;http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859204575526200991561476.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870385920457552...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Android</title><url>http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/10/android.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thought_alarm</author><text>But the iPhone and iPad aren&apos;t priced at a premium.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, it&apos;s a mistake pit Google against Apple.  The real battle will be between Google and Microsoft for the exact same hardware manufacturers and sales channels.  (Meanwhile, you can buy an iPad from an Apple Store or from Walmart without any carrier involvement).&lt;p&gt;Google hasn&apos;t managed the fragmentation problem very well, they haven&apos;t done enough to control the quality the Android OS between carriers and manufacturers, and they&apos;ve utterly mismanaged the Android Market.  I&apos;m no fan of Microsoft or WinMo 7, but I expect Microsoft to do a much better job at addressing all of those issues.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft can also leverage their Zune desktop software.&lt;p&gt;And Microsoft&apos;s development tools are generally very popular with developers.  I&apos;ve done some work with WPF and I found it very impressive and I would expect their Phone SDK to be of similar quality.  On the other hand, even though I generally like Java I&apos;m finding the move from iPhone development to Android development to be a depressing step backwards both in terms of the dev tools and especially the SDK.&lt;p&gt;Then again, it is Microsoft we&apos;re talking about.  It may take them another 3 or 6 years to get it right.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>orangecat</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Google hasn&apos;t managed the fragmentation problem very well, they haven&apos;t done enough to control the quality the Android OS between carriers and manufacturers, and they&apos;ve utterly mismanaged the Android Market.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;All true, and still they&apos;ve had great success. (I&apos;m actually surprised, given how bad the Market is and how blatantly the carriers are screwing up the phones). Which just means they can do even better if they can address those obvious problems.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;On the other hand, even though I generally like Java I&apos;m finding the move from iPhone development to Android development to be a depressing step backwards&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was the opposite for me. Between getting rid of header files and manual memory management, and having the app run right away on my phone rather than futzing with certificates, I&apos;m enjoying Android development much more.</text></comment>