Silicon Shecky

I had the opportunity yesterday to watch the Android keynote from Google I/O. I was impressed with some of the stuff they talked about and showed. I was amused by the jabs at Apple also.

The new version of the Android operating system, named Froyo, looked as impressive in a demo. The features such as natively being a wireless hot spot, speed increases, the new API for pushing from the web, the new update features, all of it seemed to work rather nicely and smoothly. Even the peeks at the future beyond Froyo looked nice. The addition of flash was one of the biggest improvements people wanted to see, and it didn’t disappoint either.

To compare, they had an iPad, and tried to bring up Nickelodeon’s website. This is a children friendly, Flash based website. Of course, the iPad failed at it, as would the iPhone. The new version of the Android OS, opened it and showed it no problems. The dig at Apple was complete. The OS that allows porn, also allows a kid to view a site that has Sponge Bob on it.

After the keynote, I was chatting with some friends about it, when we all came to the same realization. We’ve seen this fight before, and we know who loses.

At this point, lets set the wayback machine to 1984. the computer world has a number of players, but the 2 big ones are IBM with its PC, and Apple who has just announced the Macintosh. The Macintosh, was an innovated, fantastic machine. the price points between the PC and Mac were about the same. The Mac offered that simple GUI interface and a mouse in a compact, all in one unit. The PC was larger, ran DOS, and you needed to get a monitor for it separately.

It was the start of a war that would last for a number of years, with Macintosh staying as a closed system. The PC opened up, a number of manufacturers started making them and selling them with Windows 3.1 on them in the early 90’s. Prices dropped on the PC. Windows 95 Came out, and made the PC even more popular.

In the same time frame, Macintosh got rid of Steve Jobs, and became a niche product, that was amazing for graphical artists, but not worth the price for an everyday user. Limited software, due to the tightness of the development terms was a big problem. The hardware was all controlled by Apple, with no competition for other types of Mac OS machines. Even when they tried to license the OS companies couldn’t compete to drive the prices down. The Game market took off, and those games were not as readily available for the Mac, again because of restrictions, or cost of getting the proper information to program the games for Macintosh. Apple needed to stay in control of all aspects of the Mac and force others to follow super strict guidelines.

Now don’t get me wrong having to follow those guidelines does help prevent some crashing, make things work nice and seamless, etc. Apple, though real innovative, had gone ahead and limited itself. Basically what ammounted to trying to kill itself in small increments. Microsoft came in the 90’s and infused money into Apple to help keep it afloat. Jobs came back, created the iPod, then the iPhone, and now the iPad. Apple was back in a position of innovative importance.

So you all know, I use a Blackberry Curve from work, my personal phone is a Motorola Droid. I support clients that have iPhones in a SMB environment. I have had a chance to play around with the iPhone, and it is a nice phone. It does just work. The issues I’ve had with it are, the lack of being able to change the battery out on it, and how much control Apple has over it.

You take a look at the market now, and its really iPhone OS vs. Android OS. the Android OS has become viable in the 18 months its been around, and continues to impress. It also works on multiple devices, on multiple carriers, and is open to developers. The new terms of the iPhone OS developers agreement tightens the requirements again. If the rumors of an Android tablet from Verizon and Google is true, Apple could be in major trouble.

I hope that Apple turns around and learns from the mistakes of the past that they made, because competition is good and needed. If they don’t, well, we already saw this happen to Apple once, and I don’t know if they can survive another downturn like that. After all, those that don’t learn from the past, are doomed to repeat it.

Apple has announced the long rumored iPad. Will the iPad bring about a new age of tablet PC growth or not is the real question. I say no.

It will bring about a series of wars with the eBook readers. Looking at the specs and what the iPad does, I can’t call it a tablet PC. You load software from the app store like the iPhone. You can’t just go out and buy software for it. There is no CD/DVD drive. Heck even the developer kit is included as part of the new iPhone developer kit. How is this a tablet PC instead of an overgrown iPod touch (there is no phone or camera on the iPad also) with eBook capabilities?

Microsoft has been trying to crack the whole tablet PC area for years. They have come a long way, but its still not perfect. The plus side is that if you get a tablet from a vendor like Lenovo, its a laptop with a special screen than can rotate into a position on top of the keyboard so you have a tablet. You get the best of both worlds, even though the OS is still shaky (I have not seen the tablet features of Windows 7 to make a comparison with).

Lets look at the other issue with the iPad. The versions with cellular capabilities are partnered with AT&T. We all know about the overtaxed network due to the iPod. Not only that but most of AT&T’s coverage areas are still 2G compared to 3G. If the iPad takes off as a gadget, and that is what I look at it as, AT&T is going to have more problems.

The iPad’s price could be its downfall in the near term. With the way the economy is, I can’t see why someone would choose this over a lower end laptop in the same price range.

A person I know recently wrote a nice little blog piece about how Windows 7 is a Crossgrade. They made some really nice points, but missed the mark on a bunch of others.

First off, the statement that you do not “own” your copy of Windows is correct, this statement is also true of OSX. From the EULA for OSX, “The software (including Boot ROM code), documentation and any fonts accompanying this License whether on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “Apple Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Computer, Inc.” This is why its called Licensing, and while even the GNU Public License allows one to modify the source code, there are still restrictions as to what you need to do for distribution otherwise you have broken the agreement. This is not inductive of owning the software itself.

The next thing is about viruses. I do not deny that Windows has more Malware made for it than any other Operating System, but in this case its about security through obscurity. The people who are writing the majority of viruses now seem to be doing it for money, a way to get personal information and sell it. The best and easiest way to do this efficiently is to target the weakest link, which would wind up being the end user. The majority of end user machines run Windows software. Now to be a bit more fair, Apple has finally started recommending that its users get some sort of anti-malware protection. As a matter of fact there was an OSX Botnet that was found to be active last year. Heck even Linux has a botnet which winds up distributing Windows Malware. So much for that argument.

Apple did a great thing with the $30 upgrade to Snow Leopard, and yes it has Windows beat on the price point there. Microsoft did have some good short term deals when Windows 7 came out such as special student pricing and family packs, but it does cost a bit more to go to Windows 7, and in the long run for an everyday user, it would be more efficient to get a new machine. Of course last year there were a number of companies that would send you Windows 7 for free if you bought a computer from them, a free upgrade from Vista.

Finally, is Windows 7 perfect. No it is not perfect, but it is better than prior versions, and is a step in the right direction. Nobody gets it 100% correct (Snow Leopard shiped with an old version of Flash with a major flaw), but they try. Honestly Microsoft’s OS is closer to Linux than Apple’s in my opinion, considering how much more guarded Apple is about allowing people develop for it. Speaking of Linux, I do use Ubuntu, and I love it. I would love to see more people use it, but I know that comes with some risks and more chance for it to become scrutinized more. I look at Firefox and see what could happen to Linux if it became more mainstream. Linux, I feel,  first needs to become more homogeneous so people don’t have to worry about what flavor of Linux they get.

There are pluses and minuses to every OS out there, and not everyone is going to agree on everything, but at least look at things logically and thoroughly first.