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Comment by ellyagg | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to be interested to see how long this article stays on the front page after the far more alarming and longstanding Android SMS bug fell off the front page after only a couple hours.

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iOS having a mission-critical bug is like a plane crash: a rare failure of a service we think of as working flawlessly every time, which we can do almost nothing to fix except hope the powers that be do it soon.

Android having a mission-critical bug is like a car crash: relatively unlikely for any given device, but there are so many devices running around that you'd be surprised if there weren't one happening somewhere all the time. And the collection of devices was never billed as just-working every time anyway.

(I have an Android phone and an iPad, and will be first in line for a Verizon iPhone.)

Android bug might be more severe, but you have to give it that the iOS bug is more alarming.

cough

It's not alarming at all. That's the problem!

Both are unfortunate bugs. The iPhone one is the one that burned me and my wife and many people at work. I'm sure the Android one is real too, but I don't know anyone who has been affected yet.

The built-in alarm on my Android failed some time ago, too. Since the last update I got, if I set two alarms in the morning, only the first will sound. I think with Androids I'm still in the early adopter mindset, willing to put up with bugs and workarounds, whereas iPhone is very much a finished, polished product designed for non-geeks, who don't want that sort of hassle.

Except the demographics actually point to Android being the go-to platform for the non-geeks. Android, not iOS, will be the platform that puts iPhone-like functionality into the hands of millions. And as of today, Android devices very much "work out of the box". Given the lower price points (and increasing quality) of Android devices, I think it's pretty clear which device is designed for "real people" and which is designed for tech enthusiasts and early adopters.

I agree that it's not fair to say that Android isn't made for "real people" (hey, Windows is made for "real people", and I'd much rather use Android than Windows), but iPhone is most certainly designed for "real people", too.

Yes, fair enough. Agreed. I would revise this to say that I think Android will ultimately be the more accessible of the two platforms - mostly because of the different price pointing strategies. Why should Apple give up the hefty premium people are willing to pay to use Apple products? Their attitude might be "let other manufacturers cater to the cheap flip-phone crowd. We build best in class devices here, and our customers know that, and are willing to pay for the value we provide."

I'm guessing it's because the iPhone alarm bug has probably affected millions of people and the Android bug has probably affected far fewer? And because this isn't the first time the iPhone has had a bug in the alarm system.

The vast majority of Android users probably haven't noticed any issue with SMS.

What? iPhones have a bug? Well uhh... look over there, Android has a bug too! Why aren't you paying more attention to that, huh? What are you some kind of anti-apple bigot? Shame on you for noticing this bug!

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