Don :

So where are all of those open source desktops and laptops? Oh yeah, they haven’t made even a small dent in those areas. The only place they’re popular is among IT techs and hidden away as servers.
Similarly, where are all of these Android phones? Oh yeah, there aren’t any. Not even one. Right now they’re just vaporhardware. Nobody knows how any version of the Android–currently nothing more than a phantasy–will compare with the iPhone, Blackberry, or any other smart phone.
Your entire article is nothing by a wild guess and FUD.

Someone should dig up their own comments to see whats become of whats been said

Now, let’s look at any other technology or application that Apple won’t approve. Apple will let GPS makers deliver their versions? Will Apple allow for FireFox lite? How about WMP lite? Sorry folks, these are detrimental to our bottom line. Simple fact is, Apple is the gatekeeper and people don’t like being TOLD what what/how/when and why they can do anything. This leaves other platforms as the obvious choice. Will it be Android or other platform (the new Ubuntu mini?) who knows, but eventually, it won’t be Apple. Now, that doesn’t mean that the iPhone won’t have a fierce following or go down, I just don’t see it being the biggest player on the block.

Let’s look at the next segment. The road warrior. Asus predicts 5M UMPCs sold this year. I would be amazed if 20M UMPCs were not sold across all vendors next year. Guess what OS they run, Linux. Apple has no client for them, so that excludes what I think will be the new road warrior business tool. Which phone will they use? I think we will see an iTunes client for Linux about the same time as Apple sells OS-X for any platform.

TripleII

Point by point:

1) While Open Source has its benefits, it is inherently “design by comittee”. Apple is not averse to using open source software where appropriate (some lower-level portions of OS X, for example), but if they want to differentiate their products and not become commodities, Apple can’t allow themselves to be limited to using technology that is freely available to all their competitors.

2) Apple’s designs have focus — to do a limited number of things, but do them with excellence. They do not attempt to please everyone. That way lies madness. Despite all the limitations and unserved market niches, Apple has shown by its success that by and large they build products that many people find useful. Time and again when a particular feature is demanded by enough users, Apple has delivered it in a way that puts the competition to shame. While this may peeve some, it apparently is a successful business model.

3) I’m not sure what your point is. The iPhone hardware has terrific processing performance and is price-competitive with other current smart phones in that regard. It remains to be seen if Android-based phones will be “iPhone-killers”. Apple has access to the same hardware and manufacturing capability as other phone companies. And they have an ace in the hole: Apple has recently purchased a chip design company, Palo Alto Semiconductor, with the intent of producing custom CPUs for use in the iPhone.

4) Of course Android is not “greedy”. It’s an operating system!. But the companies who will sell Android-based cell phones ARE greedy (or at least they are in business to make money, just as Apple is). An Android phone is no guarantee that customers won’t continue to charged by carriers for additional features and services. Perhaps hackers will find it more extensible than an iPhone, but I doubt this will matter to average users who will find the available software for the iPhone to be more than adequate.

5) Android definitely presents competition, however just because it is open source and will be offered on a variety of handsets does not mean that it will be better than the iPhone. If the inability of open-source operating systems (Linux variants) to significantly displace Macs and Windows on the desktop thus far is any indication, Apple is safe for the forseable future. Both Android and iPhone will displace the older style smart phones.

Your prediction of the iPhone’s demise is just the wishful thinking of an open source idealist.

The switch from PowerPC to Intel had nothing to do with “Intel chips were unquestionably better than the PowerPC chips.” Instead, it had everything to do with IBM & Motorola not being able to meet either demand or develop improvements on schedule. Neither architecture is “unquestionably better” than the other.

1. “Open Source will win any programming battle, eventually.” I guess you’ll have to enlighten us on what “eventually” means. It would also be nice if you could provide us with major non-server software that’s open source and leading in the market. Office? Anything from Microsoft? Anything from Adobe? Anything from Apple? What exactly are you talking about? Even Google, your hero, doesn’t open source the keys to the kingdom.

2. “The sheer innovative power of the masses will mean that Android phones will be doing things that will make Steve Jobs simultaneously cringe and salivate with jealousy.” Ah, yes, because the innovative power of the masses has performed so well over the last 7 years in trying to beat the iPod? That’s not to say that an Android-based phone won’t end up better than the iPhone – it’s to say that it’s never been the “power of the masses” that has driven innovation – it’s been individuals and small, focused groups.

[I'll also take this opportunity to point out that I find it interesting that you write as if the iPhone were the market leader. It's not, of course, not even in the U.S., let alone worldwide. This whole post reads like the words of someone who desperately lusts for an iPhone, but doesn't want to give in for ideological reasons. It smacks of the closeted kid being the most vitriolically homophobic.]

3. I confess that I have no idea what you’re trying to say in point #3. “The iPhone is expensive if you don’t sign a contract”? Is that you’re point? The N95 lists for $749 unlocked. Maybe you were trying to make another point – something that actually applies to the vast majority of customers who are going to sign a contract anyway?

4. “Android is not greedy.” Do you regularly smoke crack? Do you really think that billionaires Larry and Sergey aren’t slightly greedy? Do you really suppose that Google is pushing Android out of some sense of goodwill toward men, and not because they expect to make a whole sh!tload of money off of it on the back end? Please tell me you’re not really that naive and ignorant.

5. “Google has a lot of money and they’re on a mission to change the world.” Actually, since they’re a publicly traded company, they’re on a mission to make a profit for their shareholders. If they weren’t they’d be criminally negligent. The only interest Google (or any other publicly traded company) has in changing the world is making it even more profitable for themselves.

While it’s an open question what one (if there is only one) of the smartphones will dominate the market, that question ain’t gonna be answered by you or any of the ideas that you posit above.

Googles efforts will be in vain due to the same business model PC’s face. They are at the mercy of Microcrap, so their products are influenced by Microcrap’s crap. Google will be forced to load their software on poorly designed products that nobody will want. The other issue is profit. Why develop a free program when I can do the same for the iphone and get paid for it?

The business model is flawed, since it does not give profit incentive to programers. Developers will be working hard on iphone apps, while the closet developer will make poor programs to run on Google’s platform with little incentive to do better.

2) Are you paying attention to yourself? What do buttons have to do with anything? If Apple wanted to make an iPhone with fixed buttons, they could do it today; they don’t need Android to do that. Or are you under the impression that Macs ship without keyboards?

BTW, are you referring to the same “sheer innovative power of the masses” that managed to topple the iPod as the world’s best-selling DAP?

3) Again, what does this have to do with Android? You’re talking about subsidized hardware, the economics of which apply equally to phones carrying Android.

4) What makes you think handset manufacturers will not intentionally cripple their own implementations of Android in order to push their own services or their carrier’s services?

5) Guesswork. We’ll see.