Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase03-Feb-2012
I have been wanting to put this in writing, my view on the lifecycle of iPhone, the entry, the bubble, the compression, and the explosion it will go into later on (maybe sooner than we think). And all the while that this is happening, the blip, the steady spot, and the ever-growing hold of Android’s worldwide presence.
What iPhone is in my view
Come to think of it, iPhone was decided to be a very unique device: closed system, and why not? It was the only phone that got the very formula of being accepted by people all over the globe with its very user-friendly touch screen, very responsive, doesn’t need a stylus or a pen, and doesn’t need a manual to be operated even by toddlers and unlettered hawkers. And because it is a closed system, the apps that were available to users from the AppStore were simply the better make, if not the best. I could be hearing moans and groans of disagreement, but hey, that is my view. That was the catch and hold of iPhone – and it may be its own cause of demise.
What Android is to my view
The other device isn’t having an entrance to the electronic world like iPhone had, but if I were to put it in my own words, it is like an ant that crept, almost unnoticed, but once in position, it made the bite, and what a sting it made! I could be prejudiced, since I never was enamored with the iPhone, however pretty it was, there’s no amount of fairness in it that charmed me. Hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you can’t blame me. But with Android being open, the entry it made was logarithmic: the single cell dividing into two, and two diving, and four dividing, and on, and on, and on. It would seem like a virus, and if it is, it is the incurable virus that will attack and hit iPhone to its very core, unrelenting, allowing no chance of recovery until complete takeover is accomplished.
With this I bring to mind Google OS, which was not a success. The world simply wasn’t ready for that idea, I believe. That was in 2009. The size and presence of Google didn’t help Google OS, or perhaps, the timing wasn’t right, since there isn’t an accompanying electronic device to advertise the new OS. Thus the flop.
Android Phone
Android's first device was unveiled somewhere late 2007, and it was an immediate hit. And why not? Even at the inception stage, the agreement and understanding was already on an open-source, open-market foundation. And from that structure, the development and marketing was opened to the whole wide world. That’s the attack and impact that Android phone made.
What now?
Design
iPhone doesn’t change its design. It is still the same size, and the screen remains the same, since iPhone 3 till iPhone 4S. If the story is true, that iPhone 5 will all be a device of built-in accessories, battery, memory, SIM card, etc., to me that is a fiasco in process, a phone designed to doom, designed for doom. It will be on both sides. If you buy that kind of phone, and if a part breaks while under warranty, it is to the iPhone company’s cost, and out of warranty, it is to the consumer’s burden. So either way, a device will all built-in parts is not a good design at all, a lose-lose situation. I think iPhone is way out of hand in its closed-system strategy. Well it has somehow changed, but it is on the reverse path: curved corners becoming squared and pointy, that’s all.
Implementation
iPhone remains a closed system, and it is still iPhone. Then there is iPad, but these remain a closed system. Just a very annoying limitation that it makes. It’s like saying to you: “I give you a wonderful device to use and play with, but only you can do such and such…”
Android is opened to the world, and anybody can develop, for free (iPhone isn’t), and sell your products out in the market. Now this free-ness of the Android Market is its own problem. While AppStore presents you with the better and best of the deals, you find all kinds in the Android Market. Actually there is a thing called Android Black Market, where apps are purchased and the paid versions are uploaded for anybody to ‘search and acquire’ later on. Talk about freedom…
Which is why more and more phone manufacturers are hitching to the Android bandwagon with each days that passes.
Acceptability
iPhone is very well accepted, there is no question to that. To date, iPhone still commands a queue whenever the next release is announced or simply rumored. But the experience later on could very well be described as a sudden burst, a flame that ignites and is gone as quickly as the fire was lit. Am I making the wrong judgment here?
Android gives user a much more realistic mobile experience. E-mails, browsing, YouTube, streaming media, what have you, not to mention social networks - on the go. So the initial feud between Google and Facebook can’t be avoided, but the differences have been settled, or a compromise has been reached. I now do Facebook on my Android phone.
I am able to install a lot of apps from the Android Market, try them out, uninstall, rate, reinstall, rate again, or blog about them, and even root my phone. I’m not worried about the warranty, since I got my unit for only $11 as a promotional price, but I have tried rooting many times afterwards, and I will do even more things with my Android phone. What am I saying here? Freedom to the max!
Simply put, I like a phone that enables me, and frees me to do what I want. Caveat: With freedom comes accountability.
My wife sees me installing so many apps for kids, like read-me stories, alphabets, puzzles, memory games, and our toddler is tirelessly playing with my phone and learning in the process, and she spends less time with my wife’s iPhone nowadays. What’s the message? Kids cannot lie. They like Android phones. Not so much apps of those kinds can be found in the AppStore, if not for a fee. A small fee by the millions isn’t small money, you know.
She actually asked me, “can we exchange phones?”
Verdict
iPhone got a beating, and a good one at that, making her black and blue all over. PSP also got knocked down with a right hook: who’s holding PSP nowadays, if not an iPad, a tablet, an iPhone, or an Android phone?
Finally, who knows, with the undeniable presence and impact that Android is making, stronger with each passing day, just one fine day, it will be able to rise up against Microsoft, brandishing a completely overhauled, redesigned and retrofitted Google OS that is already equally capable as, if not better than, Windows OS?
Just my wild view, fired by Android phone.
Till then!
