Alright fine. Time to move on to using "red shoes" vs "fuzzy car dice"

That should make it more clear.

Thanks, - I should have been more specific though, I meant a specific route with waypoints that adjust the route. And then syncing that with the GPS navigation map. This never seemed to work for me. But I havent tried it in a few months.

This is eactly what I mean, using waypoints in the navigation app.

I guess I should have been more specific, but nice of you to be rude in response. What I was trying to get is to save a modified route, one that I added waypoints to and adjusted, because the auto generated route took me through high traffic areas. I know how to save to my maps, but the saved map doesnt jive with the GPS navigation when driving. Last I checked was a few months ago however but the syncing/waypoints have been around much, much longer.

It's interesting to me how much location-aware and social are being pushed out as features for users. Interesting in that it seems to me like very little value is being created for the user. Maybe it's just me, but social and locatioan aware stuff seems so lacking in innovation despite being billed as such. I'm honestly not sure why I should +1 something for Google, or "Like" something for Facebook, or "check in" to foursquare. And I feel like it's hurting real innovation. As an example: I've been waiting for Google Maps to be able to save the route I chose on the desktop Maps and sync it with Android for two years-ish, but with every update all I see is "new Latitude features!" And this is far from just a Google thing, I'm sure someone could find examples of Apple/MS/Facebook/HP/Whoever doing the same things.

So, I dunno. Is this just clueless middle/upper managment seeing dollar signs in buzzwords? Will this social/location bubble pop like the tech bubble did? Or am I just not seeing the innovation happening behind, or in spite of, the hype?

Honestly it is still a vocal minority (though a large minority). However -- what HTC may have recognized here is that they are the early adopters and influencers of the greater market in general. Who do the people who don't know what a bootloader is ask when they are looking for a new phone? The vocal minority of techie types who like to root, ROM, and customize.

Interestingly too, they have been fighting another copyright case which seems related to fair use, but not exactly the same:

Time Warner, Viacom aim legal guns at each other over iPad app

It should be noted that one of the reccommended ways for devs to employ LVL DRM is to offload the returned response to the dev's own trusted server. This would require internet access. This is done because LVL is trivial to break alone and trusting the client is always insecure.

Anyways, not to sound too spammy or promotional, but for beginners to Android I've written a guide and app that they can use as a pocket reference for the permissions and something they can give to family/friends who might be less than tech savy.

The guide is posted here: How to be safe, avoid viruses, and find trusted apps -- A guide for those new to Android

And the app is here: PocketPermissions

*Please excuse some of the typos as I'm not the best writer/editor and am in the process of cleaning up the guides now. However it should be a good beginner's guide -- somewhere to start understanding permissions and security before jumping into rooting and ROMs

So you're saying it would be totally awesome?

I think that's what MC Hammer used to wear.

Well you seem to be missing my point, not sure if I wasn't being clear or what. I didn't deny it's profitable, I posted that you were correct on that part of what you were saying, but you seem to be upset about it anyways? Anyways, I'm not here to argue which is better, Android or iOS, that seems a huge waste of your, and my time.

But I am confused how can you really think that Android is no threat to the iPhone when it just surpased iOS in US market share. It hasn't caused the iPhone to fail overnight, but you're crazy if you think Cupertino isn't totally stressing how to move forward in the the next few years. In 2008 no one would have predicted Android taking #1, they would have thought it laughable, myself included. But here we are in a fiercly competative market, and it's great.

Anyways...My two main points are this: 1) Apple's proprietary connector *seems* like fake invention in order to extract license fees. And thus the entire mess they make people go through, (especially sending them your financial records and the per-unit tithe) seems like fruit from the poisonus tree. This is not to say that the ecosystem has no benefit. And of course I don't think they are required to license things for free -- but I don't think it's valuble when companies make up fake products in order to get a license fee or patent. It's not 100% clear to me that this is what is happening here though. I readily admit I'm not a hardware engineer, nor have I reviewed their patent(s) -- but it's hard to imagine technical reasons why USB and Firewire would not have sufficed at performing the job. And you havent really provided any evidence to contradict that. Do they have to use a standard? Of course not. But is it good for consumers when companies rebrand existing technology and throw a shiny new patent on it?

Regardless -- the point is -- it's clearly and obviously a higher barrier to entry. And one that *can* work for certain types of businesses and/or certain markets with dominating players. But it's not the *only* one.

2) On the other hand, Google's open-API approach (in this instance) vastly contrasts the business style of Apple, and could make for very interesting market competition in the years to come. If you really think this will have no effect, see above point about how much the G1 and Android were a total joke compared to the iPhone in 2008.

Rest of the post I will just try to address quickly as this conversation is draggin on at this point.

- The consumer argument is offtopic -- both ecosystems will provide ample accessories.
- You contend there is, and will continue to be, substantially less money to be made in the Android accessory market but have nothing, not even an anecdotal fact or statistic to back that up.
- Most Android devices use microUSB
- Coby is a bad example when discussing Android and iOS etc. I'm not saying go buy a flip phone or tin can and some yarn or some crap. All things *basically* are equal when discussing high end smarphones. They have their pros and cons. But I agree that it's obviously not the only thing to consider.
- With regards to Apple fixing the fee structure, the flat fee itself is more than the cost of some USB cables, so it could easily be a much higher percentage. I didn't say they were fixing it, just that it has changed. You just assumed they made it better.
- Entering into deals with Apple *is* risky, they can kick you out of the garden and clone your product at any time (same is true for anything built upon a layer of someone else's technology) However, using open standards makes this far less likely to happen.
- If the connector has no real tangible value beyond providing a road to a patent, then it benefits no one but Apple. Consumers are paying more for less and/or companies need to shave off the margin.
- The speaker/dock maker's statement was not meaningless because you have to make you product fit within a certain price point to sell. Adding 10% to your cost could mean that consumers will just ignore your product.
- Your games analogy was reductive because it ignored many of the key features of the devices your were comparing in order to fit your analogy, it also put and arbitrary use-case on it (gaming), and compared devices with very different purposes (console vs PC). Which have significant other factors at work, such as piracy, different processor specs, DirectX vs OpenGL, etc.
- The fact that you're arguing that an open-API approach can't have an impact just seems irrational given the evidence of Android's and Linux's success in the past few years.
Anyways I think I've written enough walls of text for this topic, but other than the insulting yawn stuff earlier (not really a big deal though), I do enjoy a good debate, so cheers for that.

Well, perhaps the draconian characterization was a bit inflamatory, but I don't find your "it's just business" arguments in the least bit compelling either.

Apple's use of a proprietary, non-standard, and patented connector appears from my perspective (admittedly I am not hardware expert) to be a bit of rent seeking. USB and FireWire have been around a long time and Apple has, since the introduction of it's MFi program, attempted to add the restrictions to headphones. Would you think it OK for them to charge a tithe for using the 3.5" heaphone jack? (They don't unless you want to use the MFi logo currently, but you get my point)

That's a really bad way to look at the world. First, it's not really true due to the fact that consumers don't always reward the best products. Often they "go with what they know." Further, cost of entry being artificially inflated doesn't help anyone but the company inflating. If you read the first link I posted you'd have come across a good example of this where speaker/dock makers were saying they could have made better speakers if they didn't have to pay so much in fees to Apple. The original MFi fee was 10% of every accessory sold (it's now a flat fee structure per unit sold AFAIK). In a lot of industries 10% is the profit margin, especially in the competitive accessory market. Anyways, here's the relevant quote:

Now if Apple's connectors were truly revolutionary here then maybe there's a case to be made. However, I find it far more likely that the patented connection there is novel at best. It's also bad for the system of capitalism and innovation in general to let the big, entrenched players construct artificial walls to entry.

Your game analogy on the other hand is an interesting one. I'm not sure you are applying it correctly though. Surely many more PCs are sold in a given year than xboxes, and that's clearly because they are more general computing devices with standardized connection ports beaing a commonly touted feature. Also, MS, Nintendo and Sony have all dabbled with, or currently have, alrenative ways of working with their products (thinking software/mini games/web broswers/OtherOS etc). None of them are great, but it's there, so they have clearly considered using it as a wedge to drive against competitors.

So if you limit your analogy to games, (an artificial reduction of the analogy), then yes, it sort of provides an example of this. However if you look at the bigger picture then things aren't so clear cut. I do agree that clearly this is done elsewhere in business and much money is made off of it and that it is unlikely to disappear overnight. I just was saying it will be an interesting competition between business models. But it's far from clear who the winner would be. And I don't condone MS/Nintendo/Sony for behaving that way nor car manufacterurs with their attempt at proprietary computer codes of OBDI stuff. Interestinly too, the same guy in the speaker quote says this at the end:

So that does show that it works -- clearly there are upsides and profits in that market for those involved. But to dismiss the business case for an open-platform approach would be as silly as Apple dismissing Android back in 2008 as no real threat to the iPhone.

Anyways, one last semi-preachy idea I had: Interchangable parts revolutionized the world -- so as consumers should we not reward those companies that promote interoperability and punish those that rent-seek with patents and licenses and such? Isn't it a bit of our jobs as the more technically inclined not to just shrug our shoulders and say "oh well, it's just business."

AFAIK you need to have the accessory approved by Apple to connect via the docking port and there is a NDA/Licensing agreement that requires you pay Apple a certain amount for each accessory sold. You also have to purchase a chip from them to integrate your hardware. And they require you to submit your financial records/bookeping so that their auditors can be sure you are paying them the fee for every unit of your hardware you sell. This doesnt seem to apply to all accessories, but it does seem to be a real problem for a lot of them. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/4272628 Also, if you dont, Apple will sue you: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/04/apple-gets-go-ahead-to-move-against-unauthorized-accessor-makers.ars

So, yeah, this could have real impact. Going out and grabbing an Arduino board vs all that draconian stuff is gonna be interesting.

Obviously I have a bias here being an Android app dev, but I believe the two approaches to accessory development are vastly different. And just because Apple has a huge lead out of the gate does not mean they will retain it.

Good luck, I'm behind 7 Sandboxies.