I love my iPhone and my MacBook Pro. I’ve loved (and lost) my XBox 360, Play Station, Sega Genesis, NES and Atari. As a hacker and engineer who *must* know how everything works, I really appreciate when high tech is made elegant and it just works. I enjoy fully open systems, building on them and working through their headaches all day. But when I’m not creating I’m not working. Sexy tech should work for you, it shouldn’t require you to work for it.
I don’t yet own an Android device, but from the experiences I’ve had, I love them. However I’ve also seen Henry brick his phone and struggle with it all day because he ran some bleeding-edge hacked-up firmware. And why is it difficult to find and download Angry Birds or spend a few bucks on an app you trust? There’s a huge opportunity here.
Tablets are the future, but Apple will not be the only winner. I agree with Paul Graham on this, “The more versatile the tool, the less you can predict how people will use it… Give hackers an inch and they’ll take you a mile.” But I’ll take an Integrated platform you can trust (thanks, Apple) over a Fragmented one (looking at you, Android) and believe consumers want the same and will pay more for it.
With the power and innovation Android will spur, a smart curator/gatekeeper/marketer could produce an elegant super high quality platform to compete with Apple. Apple isn’t in the lead because of their hardware or software. They lead because of great design (they aren’t afraid to say no) and they market their brand and ecosystem so well. That’s why I give them so much of my money (and own their stock). Build the same on Android and we’ll have ourselves an innovesting1 fight.
1innovesting = innovating + interesting
