Smartphones: Apple Versus the Rest

There's a lot of fuss about this-smartphone-platform versus that-smartphone-platform; about which is better -- iPhone or Android.

This piece by The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg in his All Things D[igital] blog describes an aspect of the environment -- that there is 

• iPhone: (essentially) one OS (Apple's iOS), apps from a variety of developers, (essentially) one product, made by a single manufacturer (Apple)
• Android: multiple versions and releases of the OS, apps from a number of developers (but not Apple), multiple hardware products, made by a variety of manufacturers 

Even if you take issue* with some of Mossberg's opinions and specific assertions, his piece provides a useful perspective. 

How Apple Gets All the Good Apps 

MARCH 12, 2013 

Apple tightly controls its software and hardware, and is fiercely competitive in battling its rivals, especially in the mobile market. And yet, while the company never creates apps for anyone else’s mobile system or device, each of its major mobile-platform foes — Google, Amazon and Microsoft — make many of their apps available for Apple devices. That makes those devices the sort of Switzerlands of the mobile world.

If you buy an iPhone or iPad, you get Apple-written mobile apps and services like Siri, iMessage, iWork, iPhoto and FaceTime, which aren’t available on other phones and tablets. But you can get first-class versions of competitors’ official apps.

So, iPhone and iPad users who prefer apps from other big mobile-platform makers don’t have to switch to an Android or Windows Phone or an Amazon tablet. They have access right on their Apple devices to major apps from these competing platforms. But people with non-Apple mobile devices can’t get Apple’s mobile apps and services. 

Story continues at link.

*I think a headline like "How Apple Gets All the Good Apps" is more accurately, "Apple Restricts Its Apps and Services." And there's a potentially faulty premise; namely, that people are interested in having these apps available outside Apple's ecosystem. 

*Mossberg understates the comparatively fewer choices inherent in iPhone. "Note that I am only talking about apps that are officially published by Apple’s rivals themselves, not those from OTHER DEVELOPERS that may mimic or provide workarounds for an app from one rival for another’s platform." [Emphasis mine.] 

*It's important to note that "[i]f you want to live in a Google or Microsoft world, with a single sign-on to those companies’ services and all of their apps, an Apple device won’t cut it. " See http://www.william-garrity.com/what-smartphone-should-i-get/ Which ecosystem is yours should be one of your first considerations.