Steve Jobs Rants on RIM, Android, Small Tablets

I think everyone would agree that an open experience is better than a limited experience. And if the blackberry sold 12 million phones this quarter against the 14 milion of the iphone I think their in a really good position to make their app store a big competitor.


Couldnt have said it any better myself.

Well, you'd have to agree on the RIM appstore being an uphill battle, but it is for a more corporate market, so it might do okay. I'd also agree on the 7" tablet thing - too big for your pocket, but not big enough to make me not want to get the laptop out instead. I do think that about a 10" screen is the sweetspot for tablets.
The numbers, well meh! Android is doing well, the iphone 4 is doing well, it is good that there is real competition in the marketplace.

As for open being worse for consumers, I'm not sure where I stand. Personally for a phone I want a locked down platform with a consistent UI. THe Apple appstore has enough apps and variety that the arguments about a lack of choice or a closed system being limited is hard to agree with. There is a multitude of apps for just about anything, and for $100 you can develop your own if you wish.

On my PC I want an open OS, but on my phone I'll take a closed system as long as there is sufficient variety available and a consistency in the way they work.

All the rest of the talk is typical e-peen stuff that CEOs say to impress the shareholders.

Maybe he's right.
I'll just buy a 13" Windows 7 tablet instead.

notice how he replaced the word open with fragmented, and the word closed with integrated.

*sigh*

This guy is nuts.

Pretty sure I've had a blast with the 9" Asus tablet I bought last week... but w/e.

what a douche.

anyone else find it ironic when he mentions apple's value??

RIM uphill battle? Yes, I would have to agree with Jobs on that one. The 7" tablet design being to small? Well I can see his point. Some of us have big, beefy, fat fingers. Others have little skinny ones and the rest are somewhere in between. My only issue with that is I have a 7" touch screen navigation in my my car and had very little problems using it and the problems, in regards to selecting what I want, just required a little adjustment in how I go about selecting it. Like instead of trying to hit it with my finger using the buttons to select that particular item.

As for the whole Android being open source and causing fragmentation and killing the user experiance; well I am not even going to try and explain the multiple problems with that line of reasoning. I will just let Jobs keep living in his limited, control freak world.

"The open vs closed system is just a smokescreen"

SUUUUURE...........

Bustapr, an open experience is not automatically better than a 'limited' one, especially where the limitations aren't all that limiting.

I find linux more limiting than windows, even though it is 'open'. When I jump on a linux machine, it may not even be running the same GUI as the linux machine next to it, which is a PITA. Linux is open, but it doesn't have the calibe of apps that I need to get my job done, there is currently no alternative to Photoshop for professional use, and it isn't available on Linux, and that goes for quite a few other tools. Gimp, Open Office etc. are okay for home or mild use, but don't cut it for people that really have to use productivity programs in a deep way to make a living. Open systems have advantages, but they also have disadvantages.
For example, if you buy a current model android phone or tablet, you can't be sure it will run all the apps, or that they will run the way they are intended to run. Being able to download a program to your phone from anywhere also opens you up to malware and attacks much more than in a closed system. I for one don't need that worry on my phone, it is annoying enough on my PC, but there the advantages outweigh the annoyance.

Open is open, which is great, but that doesn't automatically mean more or better choices, or a better experience for the end user.

dont forget that in most place, if you want a iphone 4 you have to be on a waiting list and they will call you later when they receive it ... my friend was told that he will have his iphone 4 in january ... in quebec at least .... and when you want a android phone or BB .... 30 min? max?

Okay, one more thing that whole: "What is best for the customer? Open vs. integrated." How's about choice. Should customers not have the choice to choose between open and integrated?

i think he is scared. he is starting to lose the smartphone, and now probably tablet market.

I recently tried out a Wepad and it has a horrible UI compared to the iPad even though it has a bigger screen and higher resolution.
Apple is king when it comes to making great UIs.

Open isn't always better than closed.

Lol!! Well, every Dawg has his Dae..............
LMAO

i would've paid good money to see someone say something like this in jobs face during his speech.

Jobs actually says 300,000 iOS devices, so that includes iPads, which have apparently outsold macs now...

Yeah, first thing that caught my eye was the audacity that Jobs has to say that openness hurts the user experience, and then in the same thought process goes on to say that choice hurts user experience.

I wonder if he even realizes that Apple has literally turned into the company it was advertising against? Makes me think of that quote from despair.com "I either want less corruption, or more opportunities to participate in it."

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPod-G [...] B002L6HEAU

... so why does Jobs not give sandpaper with these? Does his own logic magically not apply when it is his own products?

Notice how he quote's one shot numbers. The iPhone 4 just came out so the 14 million number is a one time thing. It will be way lower for the next quarter since the rush is over.

RIM sells 12 million blackberrys EVERY quarter. Not just when a single phone comes out.

In Jobs's World...
Open => Fragmented.
Closed => Integrated.
(Simplified in a very "black and white" manner, eh?)

Yet, the underlying components of his beloved OSs (OSX and iOS) uses open source components! ...Notice the hypocrisy of the almighty Jobs?

A number of people like thedokok, missed the point.

The real point in the Open vs Closed debate is about control. Not about the software implementations themselves.

With open, the power of control is passed to the user.

* They are responsible for their systems.
* They are responsible for how things can improve. (Complaining isn't the same as doing something about a problem. It promotes pro-active behaviour.)
* They have the option to change something...Which makes it more fitting to their needs.

...Its better in the way that it gives people independence in what they want to do with THEIR systems. (I thought independence was important to people? ...Apparently, not in the computing world.)

With closed, the power is to the developer of the proprietary solution.

* The user must accept what's given to them. Even if it doesn't exactly fit their needs.
* The user is tethered to a specific brand/company/solution. IF that company goes bust, drops support for it, etc...The user is screwed.
* The user complains. But cannot really do anything about the problem they be suffering. (It promotes reactive behaviour: Complain, complain, and more complaining until the closed provider changes.)

Jobs/Apple likes the closed model because they are in control. They dictate the conditions in what you can do. If you like that arrangement, go ahead and buy their products. Its your choice and money. You can do what you like with it.

Personally, I find Jobs is full of it. He badmouths others to promote his own perspective. That perspective is to sell his brand of products. (Let's face it, he is really a businessman underneath that black top and blue jeans.)

The more competition there is, the more you realise Apple and Microsoft aren't too dissimilar. They don't like serious competition from others. Belittling them is their reaction.

Hypocrisy, yes. Almighty, no.

I still hold that without Steve Jobs, Apple's market share would be twice what it is now.

openness is a double edge sword.

in the hands of a master its unparalleled,
in the hands of a novice, they are more likely to harm themselves than others.

I agree, for the technically illiterate, the Android OS is probably not the best choice. These people will keep the phone the way it comes out of the box and the Android phones are not the best out of the box, they need to be customized to be better. So for the average consumer, openness is not better.

I never new Jobs had such an annoying voice..

"14.1 million iPhones outsold the 12.1 BlackBerrys"

Apparently you can buy 0.1 of a BlackBerry.. Woo.. didnt know that

i was thinking more allong the lines of...

you knof first time computer owners and how they know nothing about what the internet is like? id say for now the internet is the most massively open thing right now. but that doesnt mean there are -bad word cut so i don't get that weeks of no ability to post again- who are only out to -bad word cut again- up the party.

or look at any first time internet users internet top bar. how may spaces are taken up? 5-10? the most there should be is 3 spaces, 1 for the file and stuff menus, one for the address and quick search bars, and the third for frequently used book marks (im excluding tabs)

i mean sure you can put that crap there, but you also shouldn't. apple holds there users hands WAY to much, and android is like a parent who lets a 10 year old wonder around a mall while they shop for an hour or so.

what there needs to be is a happy medium, that explains you shouldn't do this, but doesn't stop you aside from the warning.

"uphill battle on trying to build an app store when there's already the iTunes App Store"

My employer provides me a BlackBerry (BB) to assist me in doing WORK on COMPANY TIME. There is an app store -like feature to it, although it is blocked via a corporate policy and admin config.
iProducts are not allowed on the corporate network. Maybe Jobs could address how his products are rejected almost universally in this fashion.

RIM seems to have the edge here...

Rich nuts.

Steve Jobs is a pompous d0uchebag. It will be his undoing.

http://TechReview.LIEconomy.com

no, but 100,000 people can certainly buy 1 BB each