iPhone already clobbering Google's Android?

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Monday, April 21st, 2008


Android inside!

AndroidGuys posits that Android’s lack of certification requirements will bite Google in the butt when it finally launches Android. The theory goes like this: anyone can install and run Android. You or I could make a GSM phone in our basements, pop Android on it, and go nuts. There is no “certification” program nor is there any particular requirement for usability. Joe Chinese-OEM can pump out any piece of crap, put the Android logo on it, and go nuts. No questions asked. This means that any piece of crap phone can run Android and, because price is often the number one driver in phone purchases, your first Android experience will probably be on a low-rent phone.

Then look at the iPhone. QA out the wazoo, red hot apps, a great GUI, and a cute package. Even Symbian has some QA, which means you won’t get a bum implementation on janky hardware if Nokia has anything to say about it. While I can’t get behind the theory “Android will be on bad hardware, therefore iPhone wins,” I can understand the huge risk Google is taking in letting the average OEM have at their operating system with no oversight. Oh well. I always said the project was a dud.

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