He is known simply as Charbax. You can find him on Twitter, on Youtube, and very often in the comments section of any post that trashes Android. He is in my opinion the biggest Android fanboy — fan, fanatic, believer, evangelist — in the world. His numerous first-hand, homebrew videos showcase the incredible innovation occurring across the Android ecosystem, be it in China, in Europe, or America.
What fuels his passion? Apple makes gorgeous physical products, easy to love. Android, by contrast, is a string of ones and zeros, cold, unfeeling code. There are many more questions, of course. If Android is “winning” then how does he explain Apple’s massive profits? Or the pre-eminence of iPad? Why care about an OS whose primary reason for being is not to get more people online but to capture more personal data to sell to advertisers? And what of Google’s continued moves to tighten control around this once aggressively marketed “open” platform?
Charbax arrived in San Francisco last week and did not shy away from any of my questions — though his numbers are often suspect.
Disclosure: I have followed Charbax online for at least three years. As that rare pundit who has gone on record stating that Android is, well, not very good, and almost certainly to be eclipsed by a far more functional and cohesive platform, I have faced his wrath many times over. Watch his videos, however, and you must admit that no person, no company — not even Google itself — has so well documented the stunningly rapid spread of Android throughout the globe, and into all manner of computing devices, be they phones, tablets, toys, cameras or sensors. If Android does come to rule our world, as Charbax absolutely believes it will — maybe already has — then history will lean heavily upon his work.
Author note: I have edited responses for the sake of brevity and clarity.
His real name is Nicolas Charbonnier. He is from Denmark. He tells me that he funds his work primarily through his well-trafficked pro-Android website and popular Youtube channel.
What explains the rapid global spread of Android?
Android is the first embedded Linux for smart devices platform that got enough investment to reach full usability.
What are some current examples of innovative development taking place with Android?
Android is reaching sub-$25 Phones this year and it’ll be in sub-$15 phones next year. Android has reached sub-$20 Desktop HDMI Sticks now and it’s going to reach sub-$10 desktop prices next year. Without Android, there would be nothing of interest going on in the tech world.
Android is enabling the next 5 Billion people access to smart technology. You can fly to China and buy an iPhone 5S copy on MediaTek MT6572 (dual-core ARM Cortex-A7, Android 4.2.2) for the same total price as buying a “real” iPhone 5S in America.
It seems as if only Samsung has profited from Android. What if they abandon the platform?
This is the dream of the same morons that sank Nokia and Blackberry. Samsung is hugely profitable only thanks to Android. Android subsidizes Samsung, Sony and LG’s HDTV business and other businesses. Companies make money on Android because it’s free, open source, and optimized for the most advanced consumer products.
Are you affiliated with Google?
Nope. If Google wants to give me a job, they are welcome to hire me.
Why are you an Android “evangelist”?
I’m basically an evangelist of technology. I think technology is the solution to all world’s problems and all the (latest) technology is powered by Android. I video-blog at 20 consumer electronics shows per year and 99% of what is happening there revolves around Android. Without Android, I would have nothing to video-blog about.
How do you support your globe-spanning work documenting Android?
My Youtube channel passed 25 million views and I make money from ads. A few companies pay for my flights and hotels when they want me to video-blog at their conferences. I have some 300+ members paying me $20/year on my website. I also earn money by offering advice on sourcing devices out of China.
What do Apple users get wrong about Android?
The world is bigger than Cupertino. Most technological innovation is not happening in the USA and especially not in Cupertino!
Stop believing Apple invents stuff! Apple never invented anything! Even selling overpaid hardware pre-dates Apple by millenia. Apple is simply a cash machine. They invest money wisely in components at the right time for them and they make absurd amounts of profits selling those devices.
They convince consumers that it’s worth paying $2,500+ with a 2-year contract for a device that cost Apple less than $150 to manufacture by underpaid workers in China.
While you may stay in love with your Apple plastics if you want, there is much more happening out in the rest of the world. Android has 100 times more engineers and 100x more R&D being invested throughout the thousands of Android companies working on Android innovation right now.
Author note: I did not ask Charbax if he was referring to me with his “stay in love with your Apple plastics” remark or to Apple users in general.
What is the future of Android?
Android has about 90% market share today (where it matters, growth markets and non-US developped markets). It’ll be 98% in 2 years. It’ll power everything in the world.
But isn’t fragmentation a significant problem for Android?
With retail prices for Android devices ranging from $20 to $2000, you cannot expect everything to work on all those different types of devices. On the other hand, even without “official” support on perhaps 50% of the Android device output to date, most apps and most Android features work perfectly fine on 98% of the Android devices on the market.
Author note: Again, Charbax did not offer verifiable evidence for his assertions.
Android was very ingeniously designed since day 1 for both massive backwards compatibility and forwards compatibility. The Android apps SDK enables 99.9% of the 1 million Android apps to work perfectly fine on 99.9% of Android devices being used on the market right now. Even your 3-4 year old Android device will support above 99% of the 1 million Android apps today.
This is absolutely not true of Apple iOS. iPad apps don’t work right on iPhone. iPhone apps don’t work right on iPad. iPad (2) apps don’t work right on iPad Mini. iPad Mini apps don’t work right on iPad Mini Retina.
Android is built to accomodate for just about any screen size, pixel density and any optional hardware features. You do not need to design “tablet optimized” apps for Android for example as you must absolutely do so for iPad.
What else is better about Android than iOS or Windows Phone (or any other operating system)?
Android is 100% open source. This is the most important thing. Android is like the web. iOS and Windows are like proprietary competitors to the web. Android is 100% free.
What about claims that Android or Android makers infringe on other’s patents?
All those patent lawsuits against Android are complete bullshit. Anyone who believes Microsoft or Apple have the right to sue Linux open source on smart devices is just out of his mind. Nobody must touch Linux, it’s free and open source. End of story. Nobody can patent any touch UI, any device shape, any essential user interaction idea, or anything that somebody else would have come up with.
Google appears to be transitioning away from the very open source view you espouse.
Admittedly, Android needs to be even more open source and even more free. That means open source GPU drivers, open source WiFi, Bluetooth, and other source drivers. It means perhaps 100% free alternatives to HDMI, USB, H264, Mp3, Dolby, as well as alternatives to whatever else other people are claiming licence fees against Android device makers for. That practice is just wrong and needs to stop.
Connectors, codecs, graphics engines, all those things need to be free to use for any device maker. Google needs to ramp up their involvement in providing 100% free alternatives to the market for these things so that device makers can in fact produce 100% free and open source Android devices worldwide.
But is this something Google should do? What about controlling the Android brand name, the use of Google apps, and controlling development of future releases?
(I suspect) Sundar Pichai‘s role overseeing Android may be to prepare Android 5.0+ to be totally open. Google should (and soon may) allow any third party developer access to see in real time all the future features of Android that Google is working on. Google should release dailies and accept way more third party patches and feature requests. Any improvements to Android that any third parties want to submit should get integrated in real-time.
You think Google will do this?
I think Google knows they are so far ahead of anyone else now that it really doesn’t benefit either Google or Google’s hardware partners to offer exclusive access to future Android development anymore. Give everyone equal, real-time access.
I also think Google will un-licence and un-restrict the use of their Android apps so that anyone will be allowed to ship Android with Google Play, Google Maps, Gmail, and whatever other apps Google offers, as much as they want, with no more need to ask for Google certification first.
Google should also count all Android activations in the future, and not only count certified Android devices. The 1.5 million Android activations per day are only certified Android devices being activated. That does not include the 500,000 – 1 million non-certified Android devices that are sold worldwide and activated each day.
Why are you visiting San Francisco?
I want to interview HP, Intel and others in the region. I will also be attending a Samsung developer conference. Before this, I was in Shenzhen, China and purchased some Android phones for $36, and Android-powered devices that copy both Windows Phone and iPhone.
Thank you.
Author note: below are some of my favorite Charbax videos:
Just to note that he is constantly speaking about the Android Open Source Project, and he should use that name (ASOP), he is not talking about Android in the normal sense here (the Google experience Android). This is perhaps the smartest thing done by Google in marketing Android, use the same name to refer to two different but related projects makes for great cross promotion.
Thanks for the comment. I struggled with this very issue and that’s why there is such a long intro before the actual interview. I wanted to hear from — without judgment — what I consider a “true believer” in Android. That is the intent of this article. But, I don’t want anyone to believe something that isn’t true. Thus, the many caveats.
I will admit, that when you tried to ask about the way Google is currently handling Android, he did go off into a bit of a ideological rambling, with the delusion that somehow Google should and wants to completely open source everything about Android. It is a bit sad, because he has in his heart a noble goal, computing for everyone.
I was most struck by the fact that he thinks Google WANTS to make Android more open. Not that he wishes they would, but that he thinks they actually will. I understand why a self-professed evangelist would hope for such a future, but he lost all credibility (already at zero, but now even lower) when he suggested that Google shares his desires for Android.
I may explore this idea at a future date. Charbax believes that it is in Google’s best interest to make Android (and all that’s necessary for Android to function) fully open. That was his one statement that I thought was both off the rails and yet potentially the only sustainable path for Android. Only Samsung and Apple are making any real money from smartphones and tablets. Google’s current strategy of tightening control seems to me doomed to failure.
I don’t think Google cares, or has ever cared, how well Android does in the market. All they ever wanted (I believe) was to maximize eyeballs on Google properties (web sites, apps, services, etc.) in order to scrape better data on more users to increase CPC to their customers. Looked at through this lens, everything they’ve done has made sense.
-Android initially designed as an improvement over Windows Mobile. License was free to spur OEM participation. Google realized early on that Webkit browsers (Safari and Chrome) had the potential to exponentially grow mobile web usage.
-Changed direction as an iOS copycat when the iPhone was released. Microsoft was essentially defeated overnight in mobile, and the new enemy became Apple. With launch of App Store, Google spent a lot of energy telling the market that the web is a REAL platform, not the OS and its apps. Obviously, apps cause a problem for Google; usage is opaque to all but a few parties.
-Tightened grips on Android licenses as OEMs (Chinese vendors and Amazon in particular) started to disintermediate Google from Android, routing eyeballs to Google’s competitors. Words like “Free” and “open” become less common in the platform marketing because these words now hurt Google.
-Meanwhile, the company has been developing Chrome OS in the background all along. This product, combined with Google+, seeks to move all user data to a cloud. Youtube, Google Maps, Gmail, etc. all naturally reside online, and with Chrome & G+, the company is hoping to migrate all user behavior permanently onto a domain which is fully transparent to the company’s algorithms.
So where to go forward with Android? Google’s incentive is to continue to tighten the reigns. Why?
The company has to see much more potential in Chrome, at least on a per-user basis. This has to be why Sundar Pichai was tabbed to take over for Andy Rubin. In fact, I’d speculate that Rubin shared a lot of Charbax’s idealistic vision, and that he simply had to go – he couldn’t be trusted as a product manager once Android got so big.
Or maybe I’m wrong about everything.
Great comment. Thanks.
Andy Rubin made Android rules for Google’s closed development and priviledged partners exclusive early access to new versions of Android (which probably made sense to help make Android the world dominant success through getting hardware partners and carrier partners on board to make, sell and promote the Android ecosystem so fast), while Sundar Pichai made Chrome OS and Chrome, fully open development anyone can see in real-time all that Google engineers are developing daily in Chrome and Chrome OS at http://chromium.org also there are many new secret areas at Google in which Andy Rubin can have lots of fun leading, for example why not some Google Robots, Internet of Things, why wouldn’t he try to be famous as the guy that not only did Android but something else potentially huge also in a different way, something else that also may work with Android, but just be something different. Interviews how Andy Rubin loves robots, and I think it would make sense for Google to work on Robots now. Basically a real Android.
I think you may be conflating openness/transparency of source code and openness of Google’s commercial products. Chromium OS is a fully open project; anyone can download and compile the code and do with it whatever they please. Chrome OS is a Google product based on this open code, but this does NOT make it an open OS.
Chromium and Chrome are two very different beasts. Chromium is the guts that make Chrome (both the browser and the OS) work, but without all the Google crap built in. However, all Chromebooks are sold under license to Google. The Chrome browser cannot be installed without accepting terms of use on a license. User interaction begins with a sign on to Google+. Web browsing is pretty much the only function that can be performed on Chrome OS without logging into a Google account, and even then the company can obviously still scrape a lot of user data from its own browser product.
You seem to think that Google is not a $300B+ publicly traded company with global ambitions. It’s great that the company churns out open source code, but this code is merely a byproduct of Google’s commercial interests.
The company often leaders speak of how information “wants” or “needs” to be “free” or “public” or “open.” They dismiss intellectual property rights as if they are not enforceable by any governing body (a view you apparently share, despite countless court rulings to the contrary). They cite this ethos as justification for all manner of controversial actions (street view on private property, OCR scanning of copyrighted materials, etc.), as though anything “open” is in the public interest. The company then gives away its products for free to the public, and acts as though this is the same as “open”. But ask Larry Page to share any of the company’s search algorithms; see how his face contorts as he is forced to admit that proprietary information is what makes the company tick. PageRank is Google’s equivalent of the recipe for Coca Cola Classic. It is what makes them Lego instead of Mega Bloks, Disney World instead of Six Flags, BMW instead of Hyundai.
Mind you, Google has every right to make and sell proprietary products. I respect the amazing businesses they have built. But the leadership triumvirate are the very face of hypocrisy. They make every effort to obfuscate their business model; they highlight anything open/free/transparent in an effort to distract from the fact that USERS ARE THE PRODUCT GOOGLE SELLS. I detest the insincere, smug disdain that the company seems to have for all their competitors who would dare actually sell a product to a user; they will never acknowledge that Apple/Amazon/MSFT (even Facebook!) are all vastly more transparent in their business models than Google will ever be. The company is so arrogant as to use the word “evil” to describe its competitors. In contrast, Google does no evil by their own (malleable) definition. Schmidt, et al. dismiss any claim to the contrary out of hand, often feigning offense at any suggestion of impropriety or ulterior profit motive.
So go ahead and love Android. Go ahead and love Chrome. But don’t be naïve.
Top Hole.
Excellent reply. Very thoughtful.
I guess it all depends on how you, the user, perceive “openness”. To me, it’s first and foremost about freedom of access. Android is far more open than iOS. Other than illegal content (malware, illegal pornography, etc.), they don’t forbid much, if at all. Even then, they have a built in jailbreak on allowing non-market apps to be installed as an option. Heck Windows is far more open in this sense than anything Apple ever put out: driver model, freedom to write and publish and run any application or content you desire, etc. Metro on the other hand is closed, Apple showed the way….
Does this freedom impart responsibility upon the user? Absolutely! Every tool does.
“Only Samsung and Apple are making any real money from smartphones and tablets.”
Yeah, he really glossed over that question, didn’t he?
Joe
No they are not. Everyone making Android devices makes huge profits (comparatively with their size, investments, marketing reach, expansion goals etc). Most of the big Android companies profit hugely on selling Android to subsidize the whole rest of their money loosing enterprises, for example Sony, LG, plenty other subsidize their HDTV and other losses thanks to the giant Android profits that they make.
To quote Wolfgang Pauli, as I am fond of doing, this isn’t even wrong. Sony, for example, lost more money in phones, tablets, and PCs (23 million yen) than it did in TVs 16 million yen. GTC, which is pretty much an Android pure play these days, almost certainly slipped into a loss in the current quarter. Except for Samsung, where are these profits?
Your numbers are totally useless, Laptops are not ARM Powered Android, and Sony Electronics just spent a huge amount acquiring and transforming the Sony Ericsson part of their business, so obviously your understanding of numbers don’t work for anything. Every single major Android company is making giant profits and have huge sales numbers thus huge market shares which they would not have without Android existing. HTC is just being stupid, only limiting themselves to selling only few high-end phones, that is their mistake, but they are probably learning and coming back to making the devices people want to buy.
Every single major Android company is making giant profits and have huge sales numbers thus huge market shares which they would not have without Android existing.
There really isn’t any other way of making this point.
You are lying. Past a certain point, being mistaken just doesn’t cut it. There is an avalanche of real world data that handily proves that this simply isn’t so. Continuing to claim otherwise makes you a liar.
Go to the top-1000 Android companies for example exhibitors at the next CES 2014, go ask each and every single one of them how important Android is for their past, current and future revenue, profit, market share, possibilities for development. I’m a liar? You don’t know what you are talking about. Every Android company profits from using Android, every single one. If they are losing money as a company, they would have been losing way more without using Android, then it’s just them being completely useless in doing this business. Android cannot teach each company how to do the business, it just helps everyone who know what they are doing.
…and you will find that not only have you never heard of these companies, Tim Cook could buy every last one of them with the cash in his sofa.
The only company making huge profits on Android is Samsung, and they are not making huge profits because of Android. They are making huge profits by making devices that people want to buy. Everyone else using Android as a basis for their phones is making little money or losing money.
My sat point. They’re not my number, they are Sony. This is the way they choose to report their results. You said Sony is making huge profits on phones, but they aren’t because of the cost of fixing Sony Ericsson. HTC is making big profits on Android, but they are not because they are making the wrong phones. LG lost 20 billion won–I’m not sure what their problem was.
Sony made so huge profits on Android it not only subsidized much of their money-losing Bravia segments and other money losing consumer electronics segments, it allowed them to acquire/absorb Sony Ericsson nearly for free. LG’s only money making segment is their Android segment, they need to stop supplying Apple with displays and use those displays themselves and sell them to other more reasonable Android companies who will pay them for components so they can profit from it. This is why LG does Nexus 4, Nexus 5, this is why LG is investing huge amounts into making way more Android and Chrome OS devices, they know and understand Android is the best for them.
There have to be evangelists for Android that are not completely and utterly disconnected from reality. I can’t even pretend Charbax makes Android supporters look bad. He’s a raging lunatic and can be dismissed out of hand. Trolls in forums are models of restraint compared to this loon.
I find he makes great points, does a great job of promoting the platform, and truly believes in its potential. But…when he lands on a comments section it then gets ridiculous in my opinion and utterly diminishes everything else.
I haven’t even read the article yet and I’m going to say it’s the most awesome thing you’ve ever written! Genius!
I just keep getting better;-)
Yep.
Rumor has it you buy your iProducts the same way…
🙂
There’s some truth to that. After almost 30 years of buying Apple gear and having it work great, last for years, and give me very little trouble as well as a ton of value, I don’t feel the need to shop around.
Read the article. Yep, genius! Charbax is so entertaining. He says “Android is 100% open source” and “Android is 100% free” and then he goes on to say “Android needs to be even more open source and even more free”. Android, now 125 percent open and 132 percent free!
I have to assume the evangelist hasn’t read “Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary”:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
Charbox isn’t that connected to reality. He’s parroting Googly propaganda 150%. It’s all the kit-kats, cupcakes, and whatnot jacking his sugar sky high. Android 6.0 – Diabetes shutdown.
Android is 100% open source and 100% free. Just not the drivers that you probably need to make an Android device and just not the licences that you probably need if you want to sell an Android device legally. That doesn’t change that you can find Android 100% open source at http://android.com (excluding the GPU and other proprietary drivers which you probably need) and you can make and sell an Android device now for 100% free, but to really be legal, you may have to pay licences to Mp3, AAC, Dolby, HDMI, USB, etc etc. You probably also have to pay for FCC, CE, etc. That law requires you to pay those things, does that mean I have to say Android is not 100% free?
Of course not. Android is 132 percent free!
I actually thought you made a good case that Android will benefit greatly once everything required for Android devices to be fully functional is 100% free and open. I don’t think you made a good case that Google will actually do this.
Google might, if they can find a way to grab ad revenue by doing it. But I’m not sure they can. Google has a tough five years ahead of it. They make almost all their money from ads, and it’s far tougher to make money with mobile ads, and the mobile market already has some big and growing advertising players that aren’t Google. The easy money is slowly decreasing for Google. Half-assed products crammed with ads aren’t going to continue to cut it. I can’t think of a single Google service, even search, that I think is awesome today.
Half-assed products crammed with ads are not going to cut it, indeed.
Google could be showing zero ads on Smartphones and Tablets, and still be making tons and tons of money on the users of these devices, because those users use these devices. A Smartphone user is possibly 10x more likely to click on an ad and to buy stuff online on their laptop than a person who doesn’t use a cellphone.
Google can also get rid of Android and still make a lot of money from iOS users which are apparently a lot more active online.
Now, I let you explain to GOOG shareholders this clever strategy consisting in making less revenue and profit for the sake of the Open Source community 🙂
iOS continues to be the mobile platform driving the most global mobile advertising revenue, 50% in the second quarter of 2013, according to Opera Mediaworks.
Android devices, including tablets, claimed Just 28%.
Even Google still makes the majority of it’s mobile money off the iOS platform. Apple customers are more valuable by far.
Could be showing zero smartphone ads but more likely to buy stuff on their laptop than a non-smartphone owner? That doesn’t equal them making tons of money off those devices. That just means they have a huge share of ad revenue, period.
Who the F is Opera Mediaworks. Why don’t you name another more obscure ad network company while you’re at it. You have no understanding of how Google makes its money. Google makes way way more money thanks to Android existing than id they had not made Android. Android users generate way way more revenue and profits to Google quite simply because there are so many more Android users being added to the world each day compared to iOS users. While iOS users may have more money to waste (the definition of an Apple customer), it does in no way make up for the 10x more Android devices being sold. Android also enables Google make way more money on iOS users simply by pushing the platforms forward. Same with Chrome way way improving how Google makes money overall online by pushing browsers forward. Google makes upwards above $100 per year on high-end smartphone/tablet users in average, above $60 per year on mid-range smartphone/tablet users in average and above $40 per year on low-end smartphone/tablet users. Google only makes something around $10 per year on users of the web who do not yet own a smartphone/tablet, that is the global average. If the user is an Android or an iPhone user makes little difference, except of course that the mid-range and low-range smartphones and tablets only exists with Android. But if you compare only the high-end users, then Android dominates above iOS also.
How about you actually name a single reputable source? Or is it easier to just keep making up crap?
Every single ad firm shows the same thing. Even Google shows they make the vast majority of their mobile ad revenue from iOS. It doesn’t matter if 100x the androids are out there, if they spend 1/1000th the money. It’s called demographics.
Money to waste? You mean the way every Android fanatic dismisses the fact that iPhones hold their resale value, get system updates for years, and are built on hardware that holds up?
Compared to Androids, which are still overwhelmingly stuck at least 3 OS versions behind, just a month after being released? Which drop like a stone in resale value within a month of purchase? Which don’t offer any reliable updates, and usually require rapid buying and selling if you want to have an updated OS? What a joke. Making the case that Android, which has a piracy rate of up to 70:1 for most games and apps, is anything but the platform of people who just prefer to steal things is intellectually dishonest.
Apple’s customers prefer to pay developers reasonably for their hard work and products. They also prefer to buy hardware that lasts the full two years of a contract, and is still worth so much that you can usually trade it back in and pay $40 to move to the newest iPhone/iPad. That’s not ‘having money to waste’, that’s actually knowing the value of a dollar.
You keep playing statistics games with Google revenue. Global revenue means nothing, when they’re getting 80% of it from iOS, and 20% of it from Android. The fact is, if Apple blocked Google and changed their search engine to bing, Google would take a massive financial blow from mobile revenue. Those freeloaders who praise “free everything” from Google would learn in a heartbeat who really pays Google’s bills.
Also, Google can easily destroy the iPhone by blocking access to Search, Gmail, YouTube, Drive etc on Apple devices, how would anyone still want to buy an iPhone or iPad if Google blocks all those services on them? Android already has 90% market share in the mobile device market, with this move, Android can easily accelerate up to 98% of the market worldwide, it would be better for Google and it would be better for the world.
You mean, Apple could cripple Google by simply taking all the paying search customers and making Bing the default search engine?
Amazing how quickly you expose the nasty bully that Google truly is. Where’s all your ‘OPEN’ bullshit now?
Google would be crippled overnight if they didn’t have the revenue from the paying demographic of iOS. Those freeloading Fandroids wouldn’t spend a dime to pay Google’s bills, and you know it.
Android wouldn’t accelerate anything by blocking gmail. Do you really thing the world is already under Google’s nightmarish control? This is exactly the truth behind the Googlopoly – Google mail, Google maps, google music, google search, google videos, google social network, all in the name of ‘freedom!’ from Apple’s monopoly. How insane are you fanatics?
Apple mail doesn’t limit me to Apple’s email service. It supports everything under the sun. Even Gmail accounts. That’s freedom.
Apple doesn’t force me to their search engine, and lets me choose anything I want. That’s freedom.
Apple fully supports everything from twitter to Facebook to linkedin. That’s freedom.
You are living in an ALL-GOOGLE prison and declaring it freedom. Google owns you lock-stock and barrel.
Apple blocked Google Voice, Google Maps, probably about a hundred other apps because Apple decided those features competed with their much inferior products, you can’t share data between apps, you can’t really multi-task, you have to jailbreak (thus lose your warranty) to pirate apps and games on iOS, you call that freedom?
Google can easily block all their services on all iOS devices overnight, the same night that Samsung/LG block all component supply to Apple, the day after that Apple’s share price is halved, iOS market share is destroyed. You are at the mercy of Android.
Google doesn’t have to provide their free services to users on a platform that tries to illegally ban their platform sales in certain markets like the USA, Europe, Asia etc. If Apple thinks they can keep at suing Android for no reason, Android should just simply counter attack and destroy Apple.
Why do you enjoy being so wrong. Google makes $30 Billion per year on Android users and make less than $10 Billion per year on iOS users, and make less than $10 to $20 Billion per year on people who do neither use Android nor iOS yet (thus most likely don’t use any smartphone/tablet yet). That is how the money is counted. Not by some complete BS ad agency or the other, those people have no understanding of anything. Again it means little to nothing how much Google can make on the actual devices alone, it means how much Google can make per user also on laptops, desktops, and elsewhere and how that revenue is impacted by the use of them using a smart mobile device.
Why do you enjoy being so wrong. Google makes $30 Billion per year on Android users and make less than $10 Billion per year on iOS users, and make less than $10 to $20 Billion per year on people who do neither use Android nor iOS yet (thus most likely don’t use any smartphone/tablet yet). That is how the money is counted. Not by some complete BS ad agency or the other, those people have no understanding of anything. Again it means little to nothing how much Google can make on the actual devices alone, it means how much Google can make per user also on laptops, desktops, and elsewhere and how that revenue is impacted by the use of them using a smart mobile device.
Google has probably generated more than $200 Billion thanks to Android thus far. I’m not saying they would have made $0 of that if Android did not exist, but Android has been influencing how those $200 Billion have been made, and have been the major influence in how those last $200 Billion have been made for the company. And there is a good chance that the next $500 Billion that Google will make in revenue will be mostly influenced and enabled by the existance and the advancements with Android worldwide.
Apple hardware looses value the day you buy it, it’s the most overpriced you can buy. Just ask Apple if they would pay you even 30% of what you paid for your iPhone 5 just a year ago, they won’t. How the hell can you measure that as keeping value?
What is the point in bragging about software updates if they mean absolutely nothing to users, and if they bring nothing new and in most cases they just make things worse, because nobody at Apple actually tests new features before they release them, they are so secretive. You buy into that.
All major new technology comes on Android years before Apple decides to catch up. Not the other way around. That is simply due to the open nature of Android vs the closed stupid and proprietary nature of iPhone.
Source? Not one I can find anywhere matches your outrageous claims.
As for Apple hardware not getting even 30% – lmfao. Gazelle will give me $305 for the 32 gig iPhone 5 phone I paid just $299 for from Verizon a year ago with contract (who wastes money buying off contract?). Walmart gives $300 for an AT&T 16GB iPhone 5 in good condition.
As of Sept 20, Gazelle was offering $190 for an AT&T 16GB iPhone 4S.
Even Amazon, the cheapskate’s paradise, offers up to $160 for the 16GB iPhone 4 AT&T. That’s a phone that’s three models old and came out in 2010!
“Currently, the average selling price for an 16GB iPhone 5 Verizon edition is $410,” an eBay spokeswoman told NBC News.” – http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/no-lack-options-when-it-comes-iphone-trade-ins-4B11211747
Get real with your information. At this point, you just keep making things up and even I’m embarrassed for you.
You think not paying $2000-$2500 for a 2-year contract is wasting money. I don’t need to argue anymore. Go ahead and enjoy paying $2500+ for your iPhone.
Google makes $30 Billion per year on Android users
NO IT #$%KING DOESN’T!
It makes 30+ billion a year from ADVERTISERS! It’s in Google’s own financial reports! Android makes NOTHING! For Odin’s sake stop lying to yourself!
Sorry Ben, last time.
That’s like saying Google makes no money on Chrome/Gmail/Gmaps/YouTube/etc that it makes money only on advertisers, that’s the bullshit. There’s soon about 1.5 Billion Android users using Android right now, there’s only a bit more than 2 Billion people on the web at all. This means Android influences more than 75% of Google’s revenue before you take into account how Android users monetize way more than people who don’t use smartphones/tablets yet.
“Google makes $30 Billion per year on Android users”
“There’s soon about 1.5 Billion Android users using Android right now”
You literaly just make this stuff up don’t you?
Over 1 Billion Android users is the official number, Google does not include the over 50% of Android devices being sold that are non-certified. Most of the Android devices that I film about on my site are not certified by Google thus not counted by Google.
If you cannot just simply understand that 1.5 Billion Android absolutely obviously means above $30 Billion revenue per year for Google comes from its Android users, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t make anything up. You just are afraid to make a basic count.
I recommend ending the conversation with him. It is going now where and he has proven to not be able to comprehend facts or truth.
After reading your impressive comments on the SOC nature of Apple’s A7, and his inability to respect your obvious knowledge of the topic, I must agree with you.
Why don’t you continue to dismiss everything that counters your claims?
Oh, wait, you are already doing that.
That makes no sense whatsoever. Google makes money thru ad impressions. They are not making money on Android; it’s 100% “free”. They are not making money from Samsung, Samsung uses Android for “free” (once it pays all the licenses and fees to make the device actually operate. And despite the lumping of absolutely every ebook and picture frame running Android into the “Android marketshare” number, Google makes more money off of iOS because iOS devices get used at a rate all out of proportion to the putative market share.
and still be making tons and tons of money on the users of these devices
Except they are not, and their own financials show it.
You go out and measure how the 1.5-2 Billion Android users (and Android influenced users, f.eks. the less than 0.4B iOS users) are monetized by Google vs the less than 1 Billion web users that use Google and don’t yet use Android. Saying that Android doesn’t matter is just being stupid.
Google makes more money on smartphone users than on non smartphone users. In total, Google makes well above $50 per year from Smartphone/tablet users. It’s not about making money on the smartphone only, it’s about making money on that user using the web more, because of the smartphone and because of the tablet. Those smart mobile devices turn people into web addicts, and that means they become more comfortable buying things online which significantly increases their value for Google on the web, as the ads served to them become much more valuable. So really, it doesn’t matter that much how much money is made on mobile ads, it matters that people who use mobile phones become web addicts and generate Google way more money. Pretty much all Google services are awesome. Android/Chrome/Search/YouTube/Gmail/Maps/Drive to name a few..
Stop lumping the platforms together. You’re just transparently shilling now.
If I paid 95% of a bill and you paid 5%, we are not equal ‘partners’.
And where are they making this money from smartphone users?
iOS.
It is pointless to argue with him. Like arguing with a fundamentalist of any religion.
Perhaps you really mean, “the other religion”.
I thought I knew what a tech fanatic was, and now I realise I had no idea.
Google doesn’t get anything from proprietary GPU drivers, WiFi/BT drivers being closed source, nor that Mp3/AAC/H264/H265/Dolby/AC3/etc requires licencing, nor that HDMI/USB/etc requires licencing, why would you believe that Google has any incentive to want to keep those closed and proprietary?
Google gets plenty from Chrome development being open, just see how fast Chrome has become the worlds dominant web browser, and Chrome isn’t even default on most laptops and desktops when people buy them. This is a huge feat. Google wants to continue on that path with Android because opening up the development process of Android going forward only accelerates the adoption of Android, that basically means 10x more industry insiders can participate in real-time in building the future Android devices, making them all better sooner, why would Google want Android adoption to be slowed down by continuing to develop Android 5+ in secret only with few exclusive partners each time?
You could think perhaps Samsung/LG/Sony/HTC/etc have too much to say about them preferring to keep having exclusive early access to each new Android version before each get released, but I think it’s understandable that actually those companies benefit more from a real-time open Android development process in the future. For example Samsung benefits from everyone seeing Android 5+ features and development in real-time, as the industry’s embrace of new Android features sooner means better Android on Samsung devices, it means easier and faster updates for Android versions on Samsung devices as all of industry can participate in optimizing new versions for hardware, the open source work to optimize on different hardware benefits all Android hardware.
Basically the benefit of open source development is clear for all to understand, especially in the Android space, these people understand. Nobody benefits from duplication of work nor from delay in work getting done, not even if you think you can delay your competitors work being done.
Google also basically shouldn’t care anymore if Apple nor Microsoft then can see in real-time how they work on future Android feature releases, Google does not loose anything if Apple and Microsoft copy Android advances in real-time them also, in fact the more Apple and Microsoft embrace the advances from Android, the better it is for Google also. Google makes money on all platforms, they just push Android forward to push the whole industry forward faster.
Chrome, the webkit based browser (using Apple’s open sourced code contributions) that Google is now forking off to close and won’t share with anyone anymore?
Typical Google. Taking something someone else built, calling it their own, and locking it under their thumb while declaring how ‘OPEN’ it is.
Chrome is 100% open source and free at http://chromium.org Apple could use that to improve their crappy Safari browser, but they do not.
You are like a little clueless kid.
chrome and chromium are different things. Your trying to “prove” chrome is 100% open by using chromium as evidence. Chromium is 100% open and pure. and Google are taking chrome down the same route there taking android now, closing it down because they’re selfish assholes. saying “They have nothing to gain by keeping it closed” is not proof or a reason to nu-neceserily waste your own time making things open for your competitors.
You are the clueless one. Chrome is pretty much 100% the same as Chromium, the main difference is Chrome has Flash support while Chromium cannot have Flash support. Perhaps also a couple or three codecs like AAC and stuff like that are included in Chrome which cannot be included in Chromium. Pretty much everything else is fully the same. If you want to know what Google will launch in Chrome and Chrome OS in the future, all your have to do is to look at the 100% open source and 100% free Chromium source code, with tons of Googlers submitting all their new code in Chromium every single day.
No, the main difference is the Chromium is an experimental, open source environment, while Chrome, built on the same code base, is a proprietary OS and browser, Maintaining both is a very interesting experiment by Google, but they are separate and distinct projects.
Just not the drivers that you probably need to make an Android device and just not the licences that you probably need if you want to sell an Android device legally.
So none of this matters one wit. In the consumer space in which Android supporters claim that Android is competing with Apple, the “100% open source and free” Android is of no consequence. Samsung makes money selling Android phones chock full of custom Samsung software that in no way shape or form makes it back to any other Android phone or even Android itself. And yes, saying that the Android source is 100% free is a lie of omission in that to do anything of value with Android, manufacturers have to license the thing things that actually add value to the device, never mind allowing it to operate in the first place.
You can’t confront the Androifools. Resistance is futile!
I wouldn’t actually say an Android user is a fool. It’s a choice, and if it works for them, great. What I don’t like is when people piss all over Apple users, as if we’re foolish for the choices we make. There seems to be a rich vein of anger or resentment among some Android nerds when it comes to Apple, as if Apple’s approach to technology offends them, and there’s an inability to admit that Apple actually makes good products that lots of consumers really like using.
What offends is when Apple users think they are better people. That smug flag waving nationalism that is one of the worst parts of the USA.
Ah, that’s Americans, not Apple users. There’s people like this on all sides, using Android, Windows Phone, whatever. I’m Canadian. You have to love me, it’s the law 🙂
I do understand some of the anger towards Apple comes from their pricing. There are people who can afford Apple products, and people who can’t. And Apple doesn’t really care about you as a customer if you can’t afford what they sell. That does piss people off. But it’s just business, Apple segments the markets they operate in, they don’t want all customers, just the best customers. And that comes too close to sounding like ‘best people’.
Most Apple users can’t afford giving all their money to Apple. Countless people spend way too much of their income on their overpriced iPhone. Most iPhone users spend more than a months salary for their iPhone each month. This is completely ridiculous, but that’s how people are, people don’t count.
Gotta love these “open software” ideologists and fanatics. Always good for a laugh. Thinking they’re fighting some kind of holy war for the sake of humanity. You know, they have a name for this in psychology. Its called “delusions of grandeur.”
Yikes. What a bunch of trollery and foolery. Hope Techpinions got paid for this advertainment.
Trollery and foolery. Great phrase!
You may all be laughing now, but just wait until he finds his way here and starts rambling non-stop.
Your prediction has come true.
It’s an all too familiar pattern…
I assume desktop HDMI “sticks” means Chromecast which actually runs Google TV code not Android.
Google TV is Android. The HDMI Sticks in China run mostly Android, but soon mostly Chromium OS I think.
I’m not sure what the point is of posting this..he is wrong about almost everything he says.
Just like me predicting Intel would announce they are making ARM processors in their Intel Fabs, something you can see proof of me talking about on video the day before on my website: http://armdevices.net/2013/10/30/forbes-intel-to-make-arm-64bit-processors-in-their-fab/
“Android is 100% open, exept for this and this and excluding this” You do realise all google android apps are proprietary and they abandoned the open versions long ago? You are a massive clueless tool.
Do you know the difference between Android and Android apps? Are you saying all Android apps should be open source too? There is no need to open source the Android apps. What’s truth is just about 100% of the Android OS source code is fully open source and anyone can download it for free at http://android.com
I can claim anything is ‘open source’ till the cows come home. That’s irrelevant, since Google has a ton of stipulations that require anyone being ‘Android certified’ to place Google everything front and center.
It’s the same old BS we heard from MS for years — “Windows is so OPEN!!!” Yet. nothing, I repeat, nothing, actually is competing directly with Windows in their ecosystem. All they are doing is allowing you to run programs on their Windows.
That’s equivalent to an oven manufacturer proclaiming how OPEN they are, since you can cook any recipe in their over. It means nothing to other Oven manufacturers, whatsoever.
Google sells search, it sells ads, it sells map data. It makes it’s money through collecting data from maps, mail and searches. None of which it allows anyone to openly use or modify to compete.
Google doesn’t sell operating systems. It doesn’t (really) sell phones.
When I can make a competing map service with Google’s data, that would be OPEN.
When I can use it’s search algorithms to open a competing search business, that would be OPEN.
Till then, it’s all just a bunch of BS propaganda spewed forth for the abandoned Ralph Nader crowd still seeking to be ‘outside the norm’, but ‘super accepted by a massive geek-group’.
https://developers.google.com/maps/
https://www.google.com/cse/
And it is of absolutely no value to Google as they get ad revenue from their closed Google apps. Apps that the manufacturers can not even get access to unless they play by Google’s rules.
Insisting that Android’s open source status makes any difference whatsoever to the consumer is why you are deluded.
http://android.com 100% open source and 100% free. This is why 4000 exhibitors at the next CES 2014 are using Android to make 10000x more/better devices than iPhone and iPad. You need to go to CES and learn for yourself.
“10000x more/better devices”
.
I can guess the ratio of “more” to “better” in that phrase.
CES? The exhibition where bad ideas go to get a mention on the Verge, only to never be seen ever again? That CES?
Just more evidence of your delusion that you think anything of note ever came out of CES. CES is a graveyard of futures past.
Finally! Android has a Macalope!
Ha!
Umm, the difference would be that Macalope has reality and facts on his side. Charbax can easily be disproven and outed for the misinformed Andri-taur that he clearly is.
Seriously, who can give credibility to someone who doesn’t know Apple has engineered and designed it’s own processors for generations now?
Indeed Apple is a veritable Intel…
Puhleese!
And I suppose those tweaked ARM designs are the be-all end-all.
And the Macalope has all those one dimension facts on his side. He’s above reproach and impartial.
Puhlease, again!
Apple never invented anything? Talk about absolutely having your head in the sand!
Where do we start? As Apple just unveiled their custom designed and built 64 bit CPU that blows away anything currently being offered by the competition, we get this ‘genius’ claiming tech advances ‘certainly aren’t coming from Cupertino’?
Here, here. The A7 is a true feat of engineering.
Made and designed by Samsung.
Fabbed by Samsung, but definitely designed by Apple.
And you know that because… you’re an Apple chip designer or you are an insider at Samsung?
In Major Shift, Apple Builds Its Own Team to Design Chips (2011)- http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124104666426570729
“Apple (AAPL) dumped designs from ARM Holdings (ARMH) in its iPhone 5 and its iPad 4. After years of using off-the-shelf ARM-designed cores such as the Cortex A8 and the Cortex A9 in various configurations in its custom systems-on-chip, Apple finally made a clean break from designs provided by ARM Holdings with its brand new A6 and A6X systems-on-chip for the iPhone 5 and iPad 4, respectively.” –
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1044041-apple-dumped-arms-designs-in-iphone-and-ipad-but-nobody-noticed
The Linley Group – How Apple Designed Own CPU For A6 – http://www.linleygroup.com/newsletters/newsletter_detail.php?num=4881
Charbax, is there anything you actually are knowledgeable about related to Apple?
Building on ARM Architecture licence does not mean Apple designs the chips, and them buying a chip company, them having chip designers on staff, does not mean they design the chips. All Apple processors are designed by Samsung and made by Samsung based on the ARM Architecture and based on ARM core designs, in the last two doing more customization because the big.LITTLE and 64bit cores weren’t ready early enough in Apple’s marketing taste.
You are mis-understanding the difference between a chip design and an SoC design. Apple designs custom architecture or SoCs based on an ARM architectural license. This is the same thing that a handful of other architecture licensees do like Qualcomm, Nvidia, etc. ARM is just an IP licensing company. Some companies like TI, and Allwinner in China, etc., are just chip vendors who do not customize any of the ARM chips and just sell them in market.
Apple like Qualcomm and Nvidia and the other licensees just have them printed at places like TSMC, Qualcomm, Global Foundries, etc., but none of those fabs actually design the SoC. In the same way that Samsung does not design the A7 they are just the fab.
This works in concept the same way as if you were to license an image from a licensing shop. You can customize that image as much or as little as you like to meet your needs. Then should you need it printed you choose the place of your choice with the equipment to meet your needs.
Apple design customs SoCs and in this case the A7 is a custom 64 bit architecture a billion transistors. ARMs basic cores of the A56 and A57 have this many transistors so it shows you how far Apple went in their customization.
I had a good chat with many ARM execs last week at ARM tech con on this and general consensus all around was they were impressed at Apple’s custom A7 work.
You don’t know how processors are made if you think ARM Architectural licencees necessarily do much more work than companies that Licence ARM cores. There can be just as much actual design work going into one as the other. The Fab provides most of the technological basis for how any of these chips can actually be made in the first place. The Fab is not just a printing company. The Fab actually provides all the design possibilities from which fabless chip providers can choose from to build what they want to tape out.
You obviously have no idea who and how the Apple A6 and A7 is made. Just because Apple acquired one or two chip design companies does in no way prove that Apple has in any way more influence in how the A6 and A7 is made compared to the world class world leading chip design teams at Samsung Semi, in and around the Samsung Fab. You have no proof. Just spouting out something about one “customizing” ARM and the other one not customizing it, it’s just not that simple. Companies who licence ARM cores have plenty of stuff that they can customize in and around those designs, and they also have plenty of designing that they can do based on how they want to use them.
Apple makes giant mountains of money per iPhone/iPad sold, ergo they have no problem paying extra for an ARM Architecture licence vs just using the Core Licences as before, which lets their marketing department claim some kind of distorted superiority over everyone else. You just eat into that, don’t you.
Real full A57/53 ARMv8 designs are superior to Apple A7, just as real A15/A7 big.LITTLE Octa cores are superior to Apple A6.
Since I speak with all the major semiconductor companies regular as my role as an industry analyst with specialties in semiconductors, I know for a fact how wrong you are. And you don’t need to take my word for it either. Go speak with someone at ARM and have them explain to you what architectural licensees do and what vendor companies do.
Ask ARM about Apple’s custom process as well. That will be eye opening for you.
Also go speak with Qualcomm and Nvidia and any other arch licensee and learn what a custom SoC design process does.
If you do not know who to talk to or can not get a conversation with execs from these companies on these topics then that will say quite a lot.
The evidence is out there from Chipworks to look at the custom process, Apple’s included if you are so included. The evidence is there but you are free to choose to ignore it. How the SoC is architected from a design standpoint, software standpoint, etc., is where the secret sauce is. That is where the 8 architectural licensees differ from the rest of the pack.
Just because you’re an analyst and I’ve enjoyed seeing you on Cranky Geeks a couple times or something like that does not mean you understand how processors are made. A lot of BS is spewed around by so called analysts every day.
The Architecture licencees don’t necessarily do more than Core licencees, what they mainly do is they try to differentiate, usually by picking features from future core designs to use with current available technologies, thus release things “in between” new technologies actually being available. That can make them claim to be “first” and “early” with new technology, which can be somehow true in some ways, but mostly there is no magic, and a customized design most often can only be half baked, it cannot include all the technologies planned for each new ARM Core design. For example Qualcomm, Marvell, Nvidia, Apple can pick stuff from not-yet-ready ARM Core designs, like ARMv8, big.LITTLE, and go with older platforms to actually be able to manufacture.
Qualcomm claiming ARM Cortex-A15/A7 class in some of their Snapdragons is basically BS, and Apple claiming ARM Cortex-A57/53 class in their Apple A7 is also BS. You shouldn’t feed into their BS marketing, that would make you a bad analyst.
Please stop. Reading your foam flecked histrionics is becoming embarrassing.
The SoC that powers Apple’s mobile products is a custom product designed by Apple. It is not an off the shelf solution.
I’ve never been on cranky geeks. And to be an analyst at our level the industry has to find you credible. If I said the kinds of things you said I would not be viewed as credible since they are factually inaccurate.
Your unwillingness to seek the truth is disappointing. The evidence is there with regards to arch licensees but chose not to seek it out.
ARM will gladly educate you if you chose to actually understand how the semiconductor industry actually works. The choice is yours. Consider this the end of the conversation since I have actual industry analysis to do using facts and hard data which you do not have.
I mixed you up with Tim Bajarin, at least that guy knows a bit more what he is talking about. You just continue convincing yourself you’re a competent analyst.
Yes you did. He is my father and my partner at Creative Strategies. I joined him after spending some time working at Cypress Semiconductor then starting and selling off two startups.
Unfortunately for you, many industry execs from all the big OEMs and semiconductor companies read our site and much of the content we have as well the commentary. You are making yourself look foolish by spouting incorrect facts that it appears you do not care to accurate with. The weight of factual evidence and hard data is at odds with your commentary here. You have to live with that not me. I’m already established as credible in this industry.
I saw you at ARM TechCon so I’ll say this again. If you actually care about being accurate and your reputation I challenge you to request a briefing on how the ARM licensable IP actually works as well as the difference between those who customize SoCs and those who don’t then talk to them. Until then this conversation is over.
And be respectful in these dialogues or I will block you.
Go ask your dad for advice. Way more industry execs watch my videos and go on my website, I passed 25 million views, filmed countless factory videos, EDA industry interviews, if you search for any type of ARM related information you will find my website as number 1.
He agrees with me! Since we spend so much time with semiconductor companies we have our facts straight. Funny you say I’m no insider yet I don’t see you at all the technology industry councils I’m on or any of our exclusive analyst advisory teams.
Simply amazing to me that you talk so much about ARM and the semiconductor industry yet your grasp of it is rudimentary at best.
I know your influence is minimal so again I’ll stop wasting my time here. Go talk to ARM, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Broadcomm, etc and they will set you straight.
Why don’t you ask him if he agrees with you. Older generations have a lot to teach us. Overvalued and overpriced Companies like Apple andand Intel feed on analysts ignorance.
Millions of people go to his website in the same way people slow down for an accident.
Wrong. A7 Designed 100% by Apple engineers. All Samsung did was print the chips in their Fab. Fabs are expensive to run and ever chip company farms out their machinery.
And you know that because… you’re an Apple chip designer or you are an insider at Samsung? I can explain to you how chip manufacturing and design works, but I have no time.
I don;t claim to know much about chip design, but Anand Lal Shimpi does, and I’ll rely on his analysis. Or if the A7 is available as a merchant chip, why is no one else using it or anything like it?
So now Anand knows who at which lab designs which CPU how all the way from design to fabrication? How would he know that exactly?
Great Googly Moogly. An entirely unreconstructed fanatic.
Apple designed the A7 because Apple has publicly stated it designed the A7, has purchased companies and talent that it allow it to do so and because this is part of the public record.
Your opinion of Apple and it’s products gives you no special insight into the origins of the A7. None whatsoever.
And yet you have plenty of time to argue with the commenters on this forum…
.
Perhaps a link to one or two of your videos that explain it in simple terms for us laypeople? Or articles on your website? …
Exynos5420 and Snapdragon800 are better than A7.
Not according to any honest measurements. The reality is A7 still creams both.
http://gigaom.com/2013/09/19/tests-show-iphone-5s-a7-chip-is-dual-core-still-beats-quad-core-android-competitors/
http://www.zdnet.com/iphone-5s-64-bit-a7-chip-is-a-marketing-gimmick-says-qualcomm-exec-7000021590/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/2
Apple’s engineering team designed the A4, A5 and A6 chips, as well as the A7:
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/10/03/apple-mobile-chip-design-job/
Benchmarks are complete bullshit, especially when trying to compare two different platforms while one is closed and proprietary. Why don’t you ask Apple to install an open source verifiable Android 4.4 firmware on iPhone 5S and then let’s compare that with for example the Snapdragon800 Nexus5, but even there, I don’t think neither of them allows any tester source code access to the Adreno nor to the Imagination GPU parts, thus even then it would make little to no sense to expect reliable results on benchmark. But all this is way above your comprehension obviously.
So your definition of “better” means “installing whatever I wish to run on them”.
Better is eight cores 1.8/1.3Ghz ARM Cortex-A15/A7 in big.LITTLE formation using IKS and now HMP system with Mali-T628 GPU Open GL ES 3.0 on 28nm Samsung and quad core 2.3Ghz Snapdragon on 28nm TSMC with things like Adaptive Voltage Scaling, 4K video record, and all come with 2GB RAM minimum, overall way more expansion and possibilities within, of course they are better than emasly 1.4Ghz 1GB RAM Apple A7.
Really? What’s the power consumption on each of those CPU/RAM configurations? What’s the weight of each of the devices using those configs? What’s the response time of the interface at the extremes of processor load (minimum and maximum)? How hot does each device get at max load?
.
Also, how much time do I have to spend managing the end device? How much time to recharge the battery of each? Can I make it through a full day on a single charge? What’s the network availability for a given device in the geographical areas that I cover?
.
With respect, your argument sounds a lot like “the more computational power I have on paper, the better something is” when the real world is not that simplistic.
No, they are not.
He thinks android will get MORE open?
Quite the oposite, in a coupple of years google will no longer use any open components in android, they are systematically closing it down. It’s up to other people to better the open android not google.
I agree. Since Android is just the bait to get more people using Google services, Google fears truly open will have people using alternatives to their apps and search.
“Nobody must touch Linux, it’s free and open source. End of story.”
Should be used as an example for the word “dogmatic” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
God, I hate to post anonymously, but I have to because of my job/position in the community. I see this guy at lot of tech conferences, always yapping the same incorrect facts, always being absolutely resolute in his opinions. For a few years he was adamant that Archos was not only selling more tablets than Apple, but that it was making more money off of their tablets. Hilarious stuff.
Great interview. I’m not really sure how you stomached it. I saw this guy at SDC and basically everyone else there who knows him just sort of runs, because really, who wants to talk to the zealot with the $45 Chinese knock-off phone?
Wow you’re obviously jealous. I never said Archos sold more than Apple, I said Archos invented the space way earlier than Apple did. I have been video-blogging about ARM Powered tablets since 2004, what were you doing in 2004? And actually Archos did dominate sub-$400 Tablet sales in the top-4 European countries until around 2011 when all the other Android makers joined that lower cost tablet market. Archos started selling $199 Android Tablets in 2009. Archos released a 7″ tablet about 7 years before the Nexus 7. What’s interesting about the $36 Chinese “knock-off” Android powered phone is not that it’s a knock-off, but that it just shows that most of the smartphone industry is a giant scam, especially Apple. But you’re obviously way too underdeveloped a tech journalist to understand that.
Archos has always been better value for money than Apple. Still is today. The $199 Archos Gamepad2 for example is a hundred times better value per dollar than the $499 iPad Air. But there isn’t only Archos, there are hundreds of better value for money Android hardware makers in the world. I don’t have time for Asymco and other AAPL-shareholder sites.
We’re to believe that a 32 bit, outdated and far less graphically capable machine, ostensibly marketed for gaming, is somehow a better value than an insanely faster, far more graphically powerful 64 bit processor and OS?
Just in this thread, you’ve been wrong about three major points. How are you considered credible, whatsoever, by anyone outside an asylum?
Clearly, you aren’t rational whatsoever.
$199 Archos Gamepad2 Quad-core 2GB RAM is way way better value per dollar than a $700 iPhone 5S Dual-core 1GB RAM or a $499 iPad Air Dual-core 1GB RAM. How you cannot understand that basic fact puts you in the asylum. Also, have fun with your 64bit 1GB RAM Apple device, 64bit’s main purpose is about using more than 4GB RAM, way to go Apple marketing! Putting all your fans in the asylum!
http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/377181/apple-64-bit-a7-chip-making-big-to-improvements-audio-and-video-apps – “A7 provides immediate benefits to developers thanks to its “modern instruction set”
You’re wrong yet again. The A7 isn’t just about the memory. In fact, that’s the smallest improvement. It’s an entirely modern instruction set. The instruction set changes alone massively improve its speed even running 32 bit programs.
As the hardware gurus at Anandtech pointed out from the launch event: “So just to be clear, the 2X increase in performance is not from the move to 64-bit.” Rather, the speed boost is immediate from a modern instruction set, 2x general-purpose registers, 2x floating point registers, and over 1 billion transistors. – http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/iphone-5s-and-apple-a7s-64-bit-architecture-what-does-it-mean-417340
“The A7 chip will improve the overall performance, regardless of whether it is 64-bit or 32-bit application or game. The A6 chip has 16x 32-bit general purpose registers, but only 8 of them are accessible in all execution modes; and three of them are only used for dedicated purposes. In comparison, the A7 chip has 30x 64-bit general-purpose registers, and all of them are accessible in all execution modes. A7 has separate registers for special purposes. More importantly, A7 has 32x 128-bit vector registers, whereas A6 has only 16x 64-bit vector registers.” – https://medium.com/tech-blogging/c80bf285b855
Fundamental to ARMv8 has to be the new instruction set,
known as A64 – http://www.arm.com/files/downloads/ARMv8_white_paper_v5.pdf
So, you’re wrong about the A7 being slower than snapdragon 800 and the other processor, you’re wrong about Apple not inventing their own chip designs, you’re wrong about 64 bit A7 not being a massive step forward immediately, and you’re wrong about the gaming performance of a cheap piece of junk being a better value, since it’s far slower in graphics performance and lacks the graphics capabilities of the iPad Air.
Do you honestly ever research these things? try this amazing search engine. It’s OPEN. It’s called Google.
The new architecture is ARMv8, and Apple does not implement all of it, A7 is a half-baked ARMv8, just as A6 was a half-baked combination of ARM Cortex-A9 and ARM Cortex-A15, Apple always does half-baked because that is their core business model, selling half-baked at overpriced and claiming they invent everything and claiming everyone else copies them.
Once again, you try to muddle things. Half baked? That’s why it blows away the ARM competitors?
Is anyone shipping a fully ARMv8 processor in their smartphones? No? Then what’s your point?
First you claim they didn’t design or engineer it. It’s a custom CPU core, based around the ARMv8 instruction set. It’s not a reference design, nor did Samsung do anything other than fabricate the chips.
You then claimed Snapdragon 800, etc, were faster. The benchmarks prove that’s a lie.
You just keep changing your story. It’s old.
Try running same open source software on both and then benchmark, by someone who can verify and measure every detail of how the benchmarks are run including inside of the mostly proprietary GPU drivers, otherwise it’s just BS and you feed into that.
You do know samsung got busted for rigging it’s Android benchmarks, right?
Do you know Apple has been rigging its benchmarks forever and Qualcomm, Nvidia, they all do it? Do you know that those benchmarks are BS anyway in that they do not measure the performance in actual real usage.
So benchmarks are bogus, yet someone should “try running the same open source software on both and then benchmark” ?
Software that has been tuned for particular hardware is always going to benchmark better than software that is designed for generic hardware. iOS and the apps written for it are tuned for the Apple hardware. Android and the apps written for it _might_ be tuned for a subset of the available hardware but even if that is the case you have to ensure that your device is one that the creators tuned for. It’s not as simple as “proprietary drivers” needing to be open-sourced, it’s about managing performance of the system as a whole. That is a hugely complex task and frankly, given the choice between 1,000 professionals working on the problem and a mix of 10,000,000 professionals and hobbyists working on it, I’d take the smaller team every time – the overhead of communications will kill the ability of the larger team to achieve the end goal.
And the Snapdragon chip does?
Archos has always been better value for money than Apple.
No, it is not. Apple’s library of apps alone provide more “value” than anything for the Archos. Your problem, as with all the Android fanatics out there, is that you insist that “value” starts with the price paid at the till. Apple’s products provide more value than the competitions. The simple fact that Apple’s products hold their value far beyond their purchase date is evidence of this. And despite all the blither to the contrary, consumers recognise an Apple products inherent value past the sticker price as well.
Apple offers you barely $250 for an iPhone you paid $700+ for just a year ago.
How much does Archos offer you for a Gamepad2? How much does Samsung offer you for a GS3?
.
I think the better measure is what the open market offers you for a second-hand device. Not every manufacturer has a trade-in process.
And your Archos is worth less than 40 bucks after the same time period.
Delusional fellow.
The greatest noise comes from the cheapest seats…
I’d like to give the fellow the benefit of the doubt but anyone that continually goes that far off the rails in their need to denigrate Apple’s accomplishments and customers will have no luck convincing me regarding the validity of their position. If the position was capable of standing on it’s own merits, it would be completely unnecessary to run down Apple and it’s customers with a simplistic distortion of history.
From todays column…
“Do they? Are you sure about that? Because the last time the Macalope looked, he didn’t see that many Surfaces coming in anywhere. Admittedly, he hasn’t been to the bargain table at Best Buy recently.”
Funny? Absolutely! Accurate and unbiased? Well….
“All major new technology comes on Android years before Apple decides to catch up. Not the other way around. That is simply due to the open nature of Android vs the closed stupid and proprietary nature of iPhone.”
Okay, I have an electric guitar, a MIDI keyboard, MIDI drums, 48V phantom mics, and other various instruments. Which system, Android or iOS, allows me to connect all this equipment to their products and record or manipulate the sound? Which OS allows me to connect my MIDI keyboard and use the hundreds of synthesiser apps? Which OS allows me to plug in my electric guitar and modify the sound with virtual stomp boxes and amp modelling apps with little latency so that I can use it live? Which OS allows me to plug in my mics and record the sound?
If I take your statement as fact then obviously the answer is Android, what with it being ‘open’ and all that.
However it is the ‘closed stupid and proprietary’ iOS that enables me to create music with my equipment and my iPhone and iPad. For years the iOS platform has allowed this. Android is still a joke when it comes to trying to create music with it. Google have had years to fix the problems that make Android an unsuitable platform for creating music and they still haven’t fixed all the problems. That is a great advert for the superior nature of Android’s ‘openness’
Meanwhile the ‘closed stupid and proprietary’ iOS is flourishing with the technology you assert that ‘comes on Android years before Apple decides to catch up.’
awful
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Youre never going to be taken seriously by anyone because you have no idea what your talkiing about. You’re like an exited child making up bs hes knows isnt true and asserting it. Grow up and speak the truth man. Going round lying about android isnt going to make your wishes come true. Your just spreading mis-information and making a big joke out of yourself.
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