Much Ado About Nothing

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This morning, the New York Times published an article entitled "Apple Moves to Tighten Control of App Store".

The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store.

Apple rejected Sony’s iPhone application, which would have let people buy and read e-books bought from the Sony Reader Store.

Apple told Sony that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division.

Am I missing something? From reading the article, my understanding is that Sony tried to submit an app to the store that would allow in-app purchases. The Kindle or Nook apps, for instance, currently do not allow this either. When users click the various "store" links within these apps, it redirects the user to Safari. In other words, no ebook apps currently allow in-app purchases. It is my understanding that this has always been Apple's policy. Nothing has changed. Why is the New York Times feigning ignorance on this? Or are they really just that, ignorant.

The writers of the article, Claire Cain Miller and Miguel Helft go on to say:

The move could affect companies like Amazon.com and others that sell e-book readers that compete with Apple’s iPad tablet and offer free mobile apps so customers can read their e-book purchases on other devices. An iPad owner, for instance, has not needed to own a Kindle to read Kindle books bought from Amazon.

That may now change.

No, it will not.

Why have so many bloggers followed along with this incorrect narrative this morning? This is just Apple enforcing th same policy they always have had and Sony probably whining to the Times because they want special treatment.

On Google's Announcement That Chrome Will Drop Native h.264 Playback Support

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I haven't written about what I think is the 2nd biggest news story of the week yet, but I've tweeted about it quite a bit. On Tuesday, Google announced that in a future version of Chrome, to come out later this year, they would drop h.264 playback support. And then, on Twitter, I announced that I would cease using Chrome & move back to Safari.

In short, I think this is an incredibly idiotic move on Google's part. I think this is a purely evil and corporate political move in order to try to do harm to iOS devices. I think that Google is outright lying when they try to claim the reason for this decision is a commitment to open standards and I do not think its a coincidence that they made this announcement on the day of the Verizon iPhone announcement.

Why do I feel all of these things? Rather than do a poor job of articulating my thoughts, as I am a horrible writer, I will instead link you to John Gruber's piece he wrote today. He called it, "The Practical vs. Idealistic Scenarios for the Near-Term Future of Online Video (OR: HOW GOOGLE’S DECISION TO DROP NATIVE H.264 PLAYBACK FROM CHROME SERVES TO PROP UP FLASH PLAYER)".

I see this as coming back to bite Google in the ass. I also see this as the final move, in a steadily crescendoing series of moves that Google has made in recent years that has made me completely lose trust in them as a company. Also on Tuesday I began searching for a way to migrate off of gMail (which I probably will do soon to MobileMe) along with other Google services I use. I no longer want to have anything to do with them as a customer. Google is the new Microsoft. Microsoft is now the new IBM. And IBM is now an irrelevant behemoth of a bureaucratic consulting company that no longer makes anything of value. And I guess Apple is the new...Apple? See, horrible writer.

Too Much Hardware Choice

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Yesterday, I wrote "Crazy Prediction: Verizon iPhone Will Dramatically Hurt Android." I largely commented on two articles written by Marco Arment and Watts Martin. Marco has written a follow-up article today called "Too Much Hardware Choice". If this topic interests you, then you need to read his follow-up.

Again, I think Marco is 100% correct.

Brilliant! "An Open Letter from the President of the United States of Google"

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Tim Sneath nails it. "An Open Letter from the President of the United States of Google".

Last night at home, and this morning as work, I've switched Safari back as my default web browser after using Chrome primarily for the past year. Sorry Google, it was good while it lasted. Your move is clearly a political decision and you're characterizing the decision as being one to foster "openness". Bullshit. You're anti-Apple hostility is obvious.

Crazy Prediction: Verizon iPhone Will Dramatically Hurt Android

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This may seem like a crazy prediction given various Android phones' recent successes, but I think the Verizon iPhone is going to drastically impact sales of Android. Outside of the tech community consumers have no concept of open source or understand the difference between a Droid and a Samsung Galaxy S. Many would have no idea those two handsets both run Android. Two recent articles did an excellent job of echoing various thoughts that I've had in the back of my mind for some time on this topic. Watts Martin wrote "Who's Afraid of the Verizon iPhone?" and Marco Arment wrote an untitled followup to Martin's article.

Do be clear, when I refer to "people who buy X" in this article, I'm talking about the mainstream. I'm not talking about the tech community. There are Google/Open Source fanatics out there who buy Android phones to jailbreak/hack them into becoming an IR remote to control their media center PC and bittorrent client to get last night's episode of Furturama. I'm not talking about those users. I'm talking about your non-tech savvy friend who is your same age and wants a smartphone but doesn't know much about them.

Before reading any further, please go read those articles first. Okay, done? Good.

I want to point out these three paragraphs from Watts Martin's article:

The theory is this. There’s a subset of tech-savvy consumers who buy Android phones because (a) they want to run Android specifically as they think it’s really the best mobile operating system for their needs, or (b) they see it as a political/philosophical statement (pro-“open,” or simply anti-Apple). Here in Silicon Valley or in other nerd-o-centric places, you’re going to find a disproportionate number of people carrying Droids and Galaxies and the like who fall into these groups.

But my hunch is that most people don’t care much about the operating system on their phone. They make their purchase based on branding, availability, quality perception, availability, price, availability, and did I mention availability? When many consumers want to get a new smartphone, or move from their old feature phone to their first smartphone, they go to their carrier’s store, and then they apply their other criteria: what phones in this room with me right now are ones that I’ve heard good things about, that I like the looks of, and that I can afford?

Granted, some people may actually choose their carrier based on their desired phone—I switched from T-Mobile when the iPhone came out. But that’s also the rub. I’ve heard of many people, both nerds like me and non-nerds, who switched to AT&T for the iPhone. But how many people switched to Verizon for the Droid? I can think of some who switched to an Android phone on Verizon or T-Mobile either as a political/anti-Apple statement or to get away from AT&T—but that’s not the same. I’m sure they’re out there, but without exception the people I know who own Android phones either fall into one of the two groups I outlined above, or bought them because they were already on a non-AT&T carrier and couldn’t or wouldn’t switch.

In Marco Arment's response to Watts Martin, he made some excellent points. These points align more closely with what I think the truth is: people don't buy Android phones because they like Android phones. People buy Android phones because they're the most iPhone-like phones available on Verzion...until now.

Marco wrote:

Sure, Android has moved a lot of volume. But the platform’s various devices seem to lack most of the passionate customer demand that iPhones have always had. Nobody’s lining up the night before to buy them. Even the gadget blogs have a hard time feigning enthusiasm for this week’s hot Android phone because they still haven’t taken the shrinkwrap off of last week’s.

Whenever I’ve overheard conversations about smartphones in real life, by “normal people” (not geeks like us), it has always been clear that the true battle happening in the U.S. phone market wasn’t iPhone versus Android, but iPhone versus Verizon.

The decision that people were discussing wasn’t “Do I get an iPhone or an Android whatever?”

It was always “Do I get an iPhone or do I stay on Verizon?”

I get the feeling that very few people except anti-Apple geeks really care about Android itself. The buying decision for most seemed to be, “I’m on Verizon and don’t want to switch, so which of the phones in the Verizon store looks best? They say this one is just as good as an iPhone. I guess I’ll get that.”

My sentiments exactly. Marco hit this one out of the park. I'm sure I'll be ridiculed by Android fans and anti-Apple radicals, but I'm sticking to my guns. I think that the release of the iPhone on Verzion, and perhaps now Sprint too(?) is going to drastically curb the growth of Android in 2011 or at least put a significant dent in it now that users can buy an iPhone on whatever carrier they choose.

I'll let Marco sum up:

But I suspect that the media’s conversation about Android versus iPhone is going to be very different in a year. Even moreso in two years, the duration of the average Verizon contract. And it’s not looking great for Android.

The iPhone is going to gain a lot of U.S. marketshare by being on Verizon, and it’s going to come significantly at Android’s expense. (BlackBerry will lose some of their Verizon customers to iPhone, too, but I bet Android will lose proportionally much more.)