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by isleyaardvark 5555 days ago
It is getting tiresome to hear Apple fans, having long bashed Google's Android because "open" was bad, now bash Google for being somewhat less "open."

From my admittedly Apple-fanboy perspective, I always thought the argument wasn't that open = bad, just that that Google shouldn't use it as a marketing point if they're not 100% open.

Here's my admittedly Apple-fanboy perspective: Apple took a "closed" approach which helped in quality control. Google took an "open" approach which allowed others to add or modify their OS in ways that did not benefit the consumer, or just plain sucked. This resulted in multiple products that either simply lack polish or just stink to use. Google found this out the hard way and is now trying to tighten their control, and Apple's approach is being entirely vindicated.

1 comments

I agree partly, but not entirely. Some lock down is good, such as preventing the modifications from carriers that usually users don't like (from what I've seen, at least) and delay updates. However, allowing the user choice to apply their own modifications like custom homescreens and skins is a good thing, and has actually improved the default product for me. Some control is good, but I think Apple takes it too far.