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Google lauds, chastises iPhone, promotes Android

updated 11:55 pm EDT, Thu March 13, 2008

Google on iPhone, Android


Rich Miner, group manager for mobile platforms at Google, recently spoke at the eComm conference, showing both praise and disdain for the iPhone. According to Yahoo, Miner said that while Apple "did a number of things right first time, first device", the lack of a background environment for applications is a major limitation. He also cited that interpreted languages and multiprocessing apps are not supported, summarizing that "there's a lot of restrictions."

Miner spoke about Google's upcoming Android OS platform, saying its openness well help shift power in the industry to the software developers.

Last November, Google announced the Open Handset Alliance – a conglomeration of developers, hardware manufacturers, and wireless providers – nicknamed "Android". The Linux-based platform provides an open-source software developer's kit, available from Google itself.


By Electronista Staff

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iPhone, software, mobile, developer, Google, Android

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  1. ClevelandAdv

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2004

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    03/14, 12:26am | report spam | reply

    No Background Apps

    Is a major drawback to the iPhone platform. Interpreted languages are not as important if you have a stable, robust and complete set of tools (which you do in XCode - Cocoa Touch).

    As to Android being able to shift power to developers, that will also depend on the devices it runs on. This will have have it's own set of security and stability issues as well.


  1. Rezzz

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2006

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    03/14, 02:31am | report spam | reply

    oh wait.. linux software?

    that means we'll get superbly named apps like:

    YAAPG, XEmeraldia, Kazehakase, YanC42, sl, SSIP-GST, and the ever popular yeanpypa!

    geez, i sure wish i could have yeanpypa running in the background on my iphone.. of course, the iphone does run a version of Unix, so...


  1. mr100percent

    Junior Member

    Joined: Dec 1999

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    03/14, 04:28am | report spam | reply

    multiprocessor apps?

    Background apps do run, my email still collects in the background, and I have ssh and AFP daemons installed.

    Why is he insisting on multiprocessor apps? Am I going to be encoding on the iPhone?


  1. BelugaShark

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2007

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    03/14, 07:58am | report spam | reply

    background apps

    Allowing developers to freely develop apps that run in the background might make the iPhone slow and frustratingly irresponsive. This is very important because the iPhone is a *users* product, you need the processor to respond quickly to important tasks such as picking-up a call, or navigating to your address-book during a call, with background apps running, such tasks would be frustrating and annoying. Android, on the other hand, is more of a developers product, It's like Linux allowing you to do everything under the sun, and therefore holds no responsibility for user experience.

    Having said that, I'm sure Apple will allow some specific developers to access background functionality when absolutely necessary.


  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

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    03/14, 08:03am | report spam | reply

    Re: multiprocessor apps

    But he has a point. It has always pissed me off that apple just made an arbitrary decision to ban multiprocessor applications from my iBook.

    I kept trying to get a real answer from those people, too, but they refused, just sticking to their lame-a** "We don't support multiprocessor apps on single-processor systems" excuse.


  1. Rezzz

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2006

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    03/14, 10:45am | report spam | reply

    LOL

    To be fair on this point, many smart phones are *dual core* which, in essence, appears as a multi-proc machine to the underlying OS. The AT&T Tilt is one such example which uses the Qualcomm MSM 7200 CPU.

    To obtain the greatest benefit, you have to code your app to take advantage of this. However, there is usually some speed benefit from multi-core irregardless.

    But, let's face facts, the dude is really grasping by pointing these out as shortcomings. The truth is that the industry was just *totally blown away* by what Apple demo'ed and they are looking at Google for a response.What do you think of their response so far? LOL

    Google wants to do to the smart phone market what Microsoft did to the PC market (and tried to do with Win Mobile). Develop an OS and license it and dominate the landscape. Apple is still going closed platform no license.. Who will win out?


  1. greenG4

    Grizzled Veteran

    Joined: Aug 2002

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    03/14, 10:47am | report spam | reply

    I love it

    When people compare an successful existing product with one that should be out "soon".


  1. danviento

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Dec 2005

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    03/14, 01:32pm | report spam | reply

    more accurately

    If you want an excellent analysis of the multiple app 'issue,' Daniel Eran Dilger does his usual top-notch job here:

    http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/03/13/iphone-20-sdk-the-no-multitasking-myth/


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