To repeat myself: You don’t have to work very hard to find things about Steve Jobs to dislike. You aren’t obligated to give the company he co-founded any money. You can even root against it, and take pleasure in its failures. But all Jobs ever did was make products that people were free to choose or ignore. Stallman and Raymond, however, seem to be confident that they understand what’s good for Apple customers better than Apple customers do. They’d be happier if the choices offered by Apple didn’t exist: Both say they hope that Jobs’ passing might hasten the end of the Apple we currently know.
Henry McCracken's response to this post by Richard Stallman and this post by Eric Raymond.
It is apropos that these posts were written at a turning point in my life: the point where I am switching over from Android to the so-called 'walled-prison' of the iPhone 4S.
So naturally, these posts led me to think about the iOS vs Android debate, a la Closed vs Open.
Here is where the contention lies; which is better?
I feel it is necessary to point out user experience as the major difference here. Specs, mods etc. do not matter to the average consumer. And for that, the iPhone has an unparalleled user experience. I might sound anecdotal when I say this, but a lot of people praise the ease of use when operating an iPhone. And you know what? The numbers back it up.
Apple holds a walled-prison model due to UX/UI. Controlling and dictating the User Experience means controlling and dictating the User Interface. By doing so, Apple (and by proxy, Jobs) offers the user an interface that it wants the user to experience on the iOS - and thereby, controlling the user's experience.
The point is this: Apple cuts to the chase and offers you what they think you would enjoy. By doing so, they control what goes into your phone/tablet.
On the other hand, the Android experience is highly fragmented and discombobulating. Google and the Android Open Source project offers a base version of Android, whereby OEMs can add their customized UI skins on top, and followed by more modifcations by the end-user (through rooting etc.). In this sense, Google (and by proxy, OEMs) enable the user to control his/her own experience.
With that comes the ability to modify and personalize your phone. Since it was coded by open source developers, the ability to mod your phone came as a priority for them - not UX. With that said, and at the risk of sounding anecdotal again, ask the regular Android user how it's like using an Android and the response is not nearly as enthusiastic as a regular iPhone user's (Of course, expect jubliant and excessive Android prasie from hacker-types using an Android).
Why is this? And how does that explain the 550,000 Android activations per day?
That questions boils down to the topic of markets. Apple caters to a higher-end market, marketing their products as premium brand products. Android phones, due to various OEMs, caters to a wider spectrum of the market; both low-end and high-end. Apple does *not* offer a competing product on the lower-end, and will probably not. That is the main reason why Android has been achieving such high activations.
Android's true market lies with hacker-types who want modification options on their phones. User experience trumps everything. And if it were not a question of Apple being selective over its markets, I daresay iPhone adoption would be rampant.
And that's where the true distinction lies between the two. One is clearly created for general usage (iOS, iPhone), whilst the other one - originally created by open-source hackers - has been adopted for general usage. Created for versus adopted for. That's where their differences lie.
The bottom line is this (TL;DR); the regular user doesn't need the ability to hack/mod their phone. They just want a phone that works and is easy to use. The iPhone satisfies that. Do Android smartphones satisfy that need? I don't think so. But that won't stop hundreds of thousands of people from adopting them.
