Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cheeze 456 days ago
I generally agree with all of this but Google wasn't the one that stopped the vendor controlled OS. That was Apple for the most part.

Apple released the iPhone and basically told all of the carriers "tough crap, you can't put your bloatware on our phones. This started with AT&T (exclusive carrier for iPhone) and by the time that agreement ended, every carrier was clamoring for the iPhone on their network. It was the next big thing after all. If you don't want us on your network you can explain to your customers why they can get an iPhone on a competitor, but not on your network." Vendors had no choice.
1 comments
DannyBee 456 days ago
"I generally agree with all of this but Google wasn't the one that stopped the vendor controlled OS. That was Apple for the most part."

I dunno, Early iphone did not have the market share to command this in the way it does now. Android did fairly quickly, knocking off Symbian and RIM much faster and getting to higher market share much faster than apple.

Honestly, I think it was both in combination - and more particularly, that none of the up and comers (apple or android) were willing to accept control on the part of the carriers.

Back then Google was even bidding on spectrum :)

I'm unsure what would have happened if only one of android/iphone had existed.

link
kergonath 456 days ago
> I dunno, Early iphone did not have the market share to command this in the way it does now. Android did fairly quickly, knocking off Symbian and RIM much faster and getting to higher market share much faster than apple.

Apple did not go for market share, that’s what makes you misunderstand what happened. Android was nothing when the ball started rolling, which is when Apple used its leverage (and Cingular’s struggle at the time) to be as independent of the carrier as it could. The early success of the iPhone spooked Verizon, which put a huge amount of resources behind the Droid campaign, which is when Android really took off. This is fairly well documented. RIM obsoleted itself by not taking it seriously, and then seriously fucking up the Torch.

Android ended up getting the largest market share because it was in the right place at the right time. Google had the technical abilities and humongous resources to develop it, so the OS was good enough. And the OEMs rushed to provide modern hardware cheaper than iPhones. Google itself did not need to get money from phone sales and was happy to let OEMs die if they failed to race to the bottom.

link
DannyBee 456 days ago
"Android was nothing when the ball started rolling, which is when Apple used its leverage (and Cingular’s struggle at the time) to be as independent of the carrier as it could. The early success of the iPhone spooked Verizon, which put a huge amount of resources behind the Droid campaign, which is when Android really took off. This is fairly well documented. "

I disagree pretty strongly with this - I was around at the time, involved in the contracts and very close with the business folks.

This is definitely not the version of history i lived or remember :)

But honestly, it was also 2 decades ago so i don't care enough to go dig up data to refute it, so i'll drop it.

link
happymellon 455 days ago
> The early success of the iPhone spooked Verizon, which put a huge amount of resources behind the Droid campaign, which is when Android really took off.

Citation please. Android was already becoming quite a topic before Verizon jumped on the bandwagon.

Finally an alternative to WinCE without getting stuck with Apple. I don't remember anyone claiming that Verizon caused Android to "really take off".

link