To the Non-Technically Minded, Steve Jobs is Right About Android
The five-minute statement that Steve Jobs made during Apple's (AAPL) conference call has gotten an enormous amount of attention from those who follow the tech world, which is a huge number of interested parties. Many picked up on his comments about Google's Android apps and his somewhat contorted attempt to recast the terms "open" and "closed" to Apple's advantage.
In a riposte, the former Apple employee who now runs Android tweeted some code that only a programmer could read explaining the definition of open. That, in a nutshell, explains part of the problem. Because technical community is sure right that Android is open and Apple closed.
But they seem to miss the underlying logic of Apple's appeal to the non-technical, especially those who have to adapt their businesses to the world of apps without the kind of engineering mastery that would allow one to comprehend at a glance the meaning of this:
Jobs would have done better to impose a new vocabulary. Indeed, he tried to shift the terms of the debate from open and closed to fragmented and integrated. Here's his most succinct example:
The multiple hardware and software iterations present developers with a daunting challenge. Many Android apps work only on selected Android handsets, running selected Android versions. And this is for handsets that have been shipped less than 12 months ago! Compare this with iPhone, where there are two versions of the software, the current and the most recent predecessor, to test against.A better way to look at it might be something more like stable and dynamic. Apple, with its tightly controlled app platform and limited number of devices, is a much more predictable place for anyone with a business that needs an app. Prove the business logic of having an app for your enterprise on Apple and you'll surely want to tackle Android.
The same logic doesn't work in the reverse. If you don't know whether you have a significant business need for spending the money on app development, you're surely not going to test the case on Android even with the numbers of Android handsets already outstripping iPhones.
Once you have a product that has demonstrated demand, the open, dynamic aspects of Android will surely become irresistible. We still haven't reached the point in the evolution of the smartphone from elite device to ubiquitous consumer product where Apple's influence on the market doesn't serve a purpose.
Apple has found itself in a similar position to that of Microsoft (MSFT) at the beginning of the PC revolution. The Wintel monopoly of Microsoft Windows and Intel (INTC) chips provided the kind of stability and scope that allowed consumer software like Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3 to flourish. Those programs drove the desktop adoption of PCs a generation ago just as apps are driving the proliferation of smartphones.
No one uses either program anymore -- do they? -- but that doesn't mean the stability of the Wintel platform and the attraction of those software programs didn't serve an important, and profitable, function in the growth of personal computing.
Apple is paranoid aggressive at times. But remember, Jobs lived through that period. He knows better than anyone the value of a stable platform, and he's got good reason to fear the dynamic forces that continue to drive his industry.