Android (and Windows 7 phones) leads to too much hardware choice | Hacker News Reader

Android (and Windows 7 phones) leads to too much hardware choice

marco.org

68 pointsKylekramer89 comments

Nahhhhh... this is like saying "We have too many car manufacturers... we all need to narrow down and settle on a couple key models"

While we as tech-heads tend to follow all of the market, the author is right, most users don't. But to me this is what naturally focuses the choice. "I had a Motorola, show me only those because I liked it" "I am on ATT, I'm not moving, show me only ATT phones" "I want a big screen, I have poor eyesight, make it big"

The average customer even without being a tech-head knows what they like and will automatically self-limit their choices to a manageable field. The fact that they may still have 2-4 devices that fit their general spec is a big plus for Android, not a detriment because they still have choice. It is WE, those of us who follow every possible model launch that start comparing specs and plans and proto-types. I do admit this does become a little frustrating for us... but never forget, WE are not the bulk of consumers.

Great points that you've made. One thing though, I would argue that we've seen this issue in action: "Nahhhhh... this is like saying "We have too many car manufacturers... we all need to narrow down and settle on a couple key models"

That is essentially what the reborn GM has done - it paired down a wide range of models by their brands into just a handful. If the recovery of the company is any indication, consumers responded well to a whittled down set of choices over fragmentation set.

True, but I would offer the difference between "Too many models" and "too many models at a manufacturer (or in this case, per OS)".

GM fragmented their product line too much to offset the manufacturing and R&D costs to support all of those models. Narrowing focus was more to save their own skin than to make the consumer's life and easier. I would guess (this is purely off the top of my head) that the number of GM's sold hasn't changed that much... but what has changed is GM's profit margin per model, and thus cost savings allow cost cuts to the consumer which may have increased sales. HTC would have the same problem if they produced 2-3x the number of models they do now.

To me the original article reads more like "cars with four wheels have too many choices... one company needs to make four wheel ones, one needs to make two wheel ones, and one needs to make unicycles". That's the jist I got from it anyhow.

Without googling, I'd say most Android manufacturers have less diversity than GM, or a typical car company. It should also be noted that each car model has about 3 different trim levels, meaning each car company probably has 50 or so combinations at any one point.

Exactly. There's a ton of android phones, but only a few per carrier, and those are mostly graduated on a pricing scale. Don't know about other carriers, but Verizon is pretty smart with its B&M stores about how to narrow down the selection for customers. If anything there's way more choice among non-smartphones on a carrier then there is among droid phones.

I've never understood how the carriers can differentiate on price, either. Given that any contract with data will cost $1500-2000 over two years, the difference between a free phone and a $399 premium phone is pretty insubstantial.

The only conclusion I can reach is that a whole lot of consumers have never worked out what they're actually paying for the contract. And that's REALLY scary.

That's why T-Mobile's now non-advertised Even More Plus plans are so nice. No contract, pay less per month, and buy your phone outright. If you sign-up in a store you can even get an 0% interest, $0 fee payment plan for your phone, really the best way to go.

That sounds like a fantastic idea, but after brief look at the T-Mobile website it looks like the Even More Plus plans don't come with any minutes. Can you buy minutes as a monthly add-on, or do you have to pay the crazy $0.45 per minute call rate?

They do, they mirror the contract plans exactly, but are $20 less a month. They took all the "Even More Plus" plans off their website, the information you see is related to pre-paid, and not Even More Plus. You can only get that information by walking into a store, it's really unfortunate, but they don't want to cannibalize their contracts.

Picture of plan and flyer: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadgetmobile.com/media/2009/10/...

http://www.t-mobile.com/templates/generic.aspx?PAsset=Pro_Pr...

That's really amazing. Were these introduced recently? Do you think there's much chance of them realizing what a great deal they are and discontinuing the plans?

I think they were introduced around 2 years ago. There's lots of buzz on the interweb about whether they'll be kept, right now the consensus is yes, based on T-Mobile's feedback, however, they clearly can't discontinue if you sign up for it, so get going while the going is still good.

The thing is though, car manufacturers only update their cars once a year, and for the most part, they keep the same models, just with small updates. Verizon might be getting a brand new Android phone every month and retiring old ones just as fast, making it hard to keep track of what the best phone at the moment is.

That only makes it hard if you're buying a phone by name. The answer is always, "Whichever one is in the store," which is what most people will buy anyway.

Didn't brand/model overload play a big role in the decline of US auto makers? I've heard this repeated many times but I don't know if it's true or not. Given that almost all of the US automakers have drastically cut their brands/models over the last few years I tend to believe it's true.

I agree, I would say that what we need, to your point, is a single site which all manufacturers upload product details for side by side comparison.

I worked at a startup in 1999 that did this: decide.com

The idea was to show side-by-side phone and plan features from all the carriers and then you get to pick what best suits you - we even had a feature where you could put in your commute route and it would show you the best carrier coverage for that route.

This article is full of assertions without actually providing evidence behind them. For example he makes the statement: "since then, very few non-geeks know about individual Android handsets". He doesn't cite any surveys of consumers that back this up. Its all very well making these assertions, but when they are so lacking in evidence its hard to trust this article, its reasoning or its conclusions.

On the other hand market share figures offer some evidence to the contrary. Consumers are clearly buying Android phones - more so than any other platform. Developers are clearly writing programs for Android phones - the market has less programs than the iphone app store but its growing incredibly fast, and its a clearly ahead of Windows Phone 7, Blackberry and Nokia's efforts.

In the tablet marketplace there has been clear demand shown for the Samsung Galaxy Tab - despite the fact that the Android software isn't even tablet ready. In other words people are buying a specific Android device for its hardware - the exact antithesis of the argument in this blog post.

I find it really hard to believe that this article is motivated by anything other than the author's liking of Apple products. Thats fine - its his prerogative to take those stances - except that I find articles promoting opinion that don't back them up with any real evidence to be incredibly unconvincing and pretty much a waste of time. Its a real shame that this got voted onto the front page of HN.

Also, all the different MP3 stores really make my head spin. Why cant we all just buy music and video from iTunes? Give me a break. I bet walking down the cereal isle at the grocery store is a nightmare for Marco.

This, like all of Gruber's work, is pure brand loyalty. Look - I get that a lot of people really like Apple products. I own several - they're slick. But at the end of the day, Apple just puts way too much effort into insisting that you operate entirely within its ecosystem. And it makes me uncomfortable using their products.

Oh, you want an iPhone? Cool. Of course you'll have to use iTunes. Oh, and if you're using iTunes you really should have a Mac because iTunes on Windows is awful. And if you want to play it on a stereo you'll need one with a Apple licensed connector. Oh, and if you want games on it just head over to our App Store. And if you want to put your photos online, you'll just need a $99 Mac.com subscription...

No thanks. I'll take choice any day.

Well, I hate to quibble, and I mostly agree with what you're saying, but if you remember back to the last time that Apple had to negotiate it's contracts with Universal, Warner, Sony BMG, etc, the music studios weren't exactly trying to negotiate the iTunes music store's prices down. In fact, they were asking for a lot of fairly consumer-unfriendly stuff, like the option to jack-up the price of singles in the first few weeks of release, and more album 'bonus tracks' (ie less a-la-carte song pricing).

In fact, it's Universal et. al. that own the rights to all this music. Do they really have to sell any of it in the iTunes music store? Would they have to sell any of it in the iTunes music store if the retail online market for music was split evenly between a multiplicity of mp3 stores? Why don't they tell Apple to take their $1.25 price point and shove it? The answer to that question is the key to understanding the digital music market.

You're wrong, but it's not why you think. iTunes is no less awful on the Mac. It's arguably worse, and certainly no better.

Hardware diversity in an OS is almost never a flaw. Even Apple knows this: look at the iPod line. The simple fact of the matter is no one device is going to fit all the needs of all users, whether those needs are real or just perceived. I agree with Marco on a lot of things and admire his work, but he does have a weird blind spot when it comes to Android (like his opinion that it is going to be much less relevant now that there is a Verizon iPhone).

The one device model does have its positives, of course. But the advantages are either too niche or too minor to matter. Fragmentation is the favorite knock, but outside of the tech world not that many care. A significant percentage of iOS users don't even update cause they don't realized they can. Software is somewhat easier to develop, but the advantages are overstated here. Accessories are nice, but those are post sale for the most part. Very, very few people buy phones based on a case or a dock. But even if people hate choosing from similar devices, the manufacturer will win in the long run if they have a plurality of the choices. And in the end, whether or not that is good for the customers, that is what matters.

All that choice, and yet there isn't a GSM model with high specs, a 5-row keyboard and a front-facing camera. Some of the author's points are valid, but ultimately I think the market will be better served by more choice than what's currently available, not less.

A problem, as I see it is that there are so many nearly-identical devices out there. Making a device just like the one the other guy is selling a lot of may be an easy recipe for profit, but it's a bit lame. Manufacturers showing a bit of originality might help them get ahead more than "me-too" devices.

I think the accessory issue is really understated. Not sure how much it matters to others, but to the subset of people I know, it is quite an incentive to go for Apple.

I have a tremendous amount of available add-ons for my iPhone and iPad: speakers, docks, cases, chargers. They are compatible with my car, my A/V receiver and my bedside stereo/alarm clock.

Some of these I bought myself, some I got as gifts from family and friends knowing I have the iDevices.

With Android? Not so much...

> With Android? Not so much...

Headphone jacks are amazing things. Perhaps none of your equipment has one?

(usb is also quite cool)

One thing the iPod connector does have going for it is a better 2-way interface. But in practice most devices just give me an optional, equivalent screen, inches away from the iDevice anyways. It's like a wireless remote for a car stereo.

Until your Apple device is outdated or thrown away and you're left with a pile of incompatible hardware, a fact which I find pretty distasteful (nothing enrages me more than people buying perfectly good stereos with adapters for hardware that will be obsolete in two years).

Give me USB and miniplug any day over unnecessary proprietary connectors.

"But since then, very few non-geeks know about individual Android handsets. They change so frequently, and are so numerous, that there’s never much of an opportunity for a meaningful buzz to generate around any of them. Nobody’s lining up to buy them. CNN’s not covering their launches. Consumer Reports isn’t vigorously testing their antennas. The Daily Show isn’t making jokes about them. So the mass market doesn’t really respond to individual devices."

These problems are for Android the BRAND, not Android itself. For ~15 years the cellphone industry did just fine without people knowing/caring about specific models (with a few minor exceptions). You walk into the store, look at what's available and pick what you like, just like with PCs themselves. I'm not really sold on the idea that Google cares all that much about the Android brand. It is in their interest that phones become generic internet-consumption devices, just like PCs have.

I do agree that the paradox of choice thing can be a problem for purchasers, but ultimately the market seems to think that it's not enough of a problem. Every industry eventually moves to 50 varieties of spaghetti sauce, because even the most popular variety doesn't appeal to millions of potential customers.

Finally, this: "The manufacturers and carriers have very little incentive to maintain the software on devices that are still relatively new and under contract, because they want everyone buying the newest ones instead."

What? Even if they didn't want everyone buying the newest one instead, what incentive do they have? The way the industry works now you are basically married to your phone for 2 years, like it or not.

But since then, very few non-geeks know about individual Android handsets. They change so frequently, and are so numerous, that there’s never much of an opportunity for a meaningful buzz to generate around any of them. Nobody’s lining up to buy them. CNN’s not covering their launches. Consumer Reports isn’t vigorously testing their antennas. The Daily Show isn’t making jokes about them. So the mass market doesn’t really respond to individual devices.

I thought this just made him sound impossibly old - as in some elderly man, sitting out on his front porch, complaining about all the craziness the kids these days are involved in. "Nobody gets dressed up to fly or go to the movies these days! All these crazy restaurants, whatever happened to just a diner and a bar! How'm I supposed to know about these new fangled color TVs! My wireless Marconi radio never talks about 'em! What do you mean Eisenhower isn't President anymore!"

I would actually go the other way on this one. I really think we have too few truly different mobile devices. Ignoring the OS, we seem to be in the chase-the-iphone phase after a while in the chase-the-blackberry. It seems like we are missing true differences. I was encouraged by some stuff at CES (mobile phone is brains of laptop), but I really am looking for some wildly different form factors.

Not that it's anything new or radically different, but the choice of a physical keyboard is a nice difference in form factor between the iPhone and Android. It was certainly a deciding factor for me. Still, it seems like the reason for the typical form factor's success is that it just makes sense. Wide enough screen for occasional video watching, but not too large so that it's awkward to hold. Buttons down the bottom, because they're out of the way, but still easy to hit. Notification bar up top to show what's new, because that's where menu bars typically are.

Do you have any particular ideas in mind when you're discussing wildly different?

I am intrigued by the idea of having something modular. I think plugging a phone into a case to get a notebook or tablet is pretty cool. I guess I want a block of cpu/memory/storage to be my portable home (kinda like some people used their iPods for) that had docks and cases to become something else. Probably a pipe dream, but it would be interesting.

Or maybe something designed with bluetooth as a known instead of an option.

Totally agreed. I really hope we'll start seeing more Android phones which aren't basically iPhone rip-offs. I'm not sure what the form factor of my ideal phone would be, but I know it isn't the form factor of the iPhone.

Couldn't the same argument be made, even more so, with other areas of the technology market? When is the last time there has been a must have entry level digital camera? Or that one laptop that everyone has to have (although certain models stand out, keep in mind that the average consumer is spending in the under $800 range). Even devices where this is less of a choice, such as with iPods, there is still a range for what different feature choices people want, as well as other moderately successful devices. I'm just not understanding the point... walking into a Best Buy to get a gadget has always been this way.

If you really want a good example of where there is "too much choice" (in my opinion of course), look at video cards. Unless you follow hardware, it's very difficult to differentiate between models, or even have any sense of comparison. It's all hidden behind strange model numbers which seem to have no correlation between features.

(Well, either that, or I'm an idiot who just doesn't understand video cards.)

You're right that you could make the same argument for other gadgets, and he does mention tablets at the end of the article , but it's really true for almost all consumer goods today. If you really want to understand this argument better, I highly recommend The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. He argues that the abundance of choice in today's world is making us less satisfied with our decisions.

This fragmentation meme doesn't even pass the laugh test. So why does it keep coming up?

My best hypothesis is that people who're invested in the iPhone are trying to rationalize their desire to stay on Apple's platform. Is there a better explanation?

I think HN commenters are really missing Marco's point. He's talking about what's beneficial for the company, not what's beneficial for consumers.

Are any Android manufacturer's making as much of a killing as Apple is right now, globally? I'm talking about profits -- not unit sales.

The diversity can be bad for consumers, too. Marco makes a great point: How many 6 month old Android phones are never going to see an Android update? How many Android phones available right now will never get Honeycomb?

With an iPhone, you know you're going to get iOS updates for at least a few years, to the extent that the hardware can support various features. I've got an iPhone 3GS that's over a year and a half old and I'm running the latest and greatest iOS.

(Honest question: How many Android phones released in the summer of 2009 -- Android 1.5 days -- can now run Android 2.3?)

Rumours are that the iPhone 3G (which was the top model until the summer of 2009) won't be able to run iOS 4.3. If Google supports Android 2.4 on the Nexus One they'll support it with upgrades longer than Apple supported the 3G.

Nexus One was released Jan. 5 2010 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_One

iPhone 3G was released Jun. 9 2008 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphone_3g

How are you doing your math?

Sorry, I got fixated on "summer 2009" date in the original comment and got confused. My original point stands in much reduced form: A Nexus 1 should have a similar support period to an Apple phone. Better? probably not.

Given that Honeycomb is for tablets only, the answer to your second question is "0". :)

> Are any Android manufacturer's making as much of a killing as Apple is right now, globally? I'm talking about profits

HTC has doubled profits in Q3 2010:

http://www.talkandroid.com/16666-htc-has-doubled-profits-in-...

I'm not sure how you measure "killing" but I'd say it qualifies at least as comparable.

"People hate choosing between similar things. The more choice we have at the time of purchase, the more stress we feel making the choice, and the less satisfied we feel afterward because we’re worried that we made the wrong choice."

That is so very true. When you get an iPhone you have the comfort of knowing that the iPhones in Japan aren't better. The iPhones with the carrier on the other side of hte fence aren't better.

You have the best iPhone (presuming you have the latest) available. It's consistent and treats the hardware as a platform in addition to the software which makes sense with a cellphone.

The people who buy a phone for it's operating system are a minority. They're shooting themselves in the foot by trying to make the cellphone market like the 1980's PC market.

This paradox of choice is very real.

The situation is no different than with laptops. You can expect certain quality standards out of Macbook's. You might be able to get something far cheaper, with more features from others, but there is clearly a market for Macbooks..

I don't know if users of Android care whether Android is open or not. Now there will always be geeks who will run nothing by Linux or *BSD, but most others don't care.

Most of these phones could be weeded out by simple criteria (like no updates to recent Android versions). Unfortunately it is difficult to get that information among all the noise.

You also can't predict whether the phones you're considering will get updated to newer versions of Android. I got burned by this when Froyo came out three months after I got a phone, and the manufacturer would not update it.

Nearly every phone gets updated to newer Androids, just often not by the manufacturer. http://www.xda-developers.com/ is your friend.

It's somewhat true. If you listen to Barry Schwartz's TED talk "the paradox of choice," he cites a few studies that show if you give a consumer too many choices, there's a better chance they won't buy anything at all. I think that's a definite advantage Apple has had over its competitors: the product lines are clear and simple.

link to talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...

I think choice is somewhat of a red herring (although I do recommend reading "The Paradox of Choice")

Speaking for myself, I don't really care about "choice" (it falls slightly higher than "openness" as a criteria for selection; although both are pretty much at the bottom).

Ultimately, there is either a phone that meets my needs; or one that doesn't. A choice between one phone which doesn't meed my requirements, and thirty phones which don't meet my requirements isn't much of a choice.

So I don't think the fact that there are a multitude of Android phones is inherently good or bad. I agree on the accessory issue, although I'm not sure how much that really effects people's purchasing decisions (I for one probably wouldn't buy a phone based on the docks available for it).

I do think that the large accessory ecosystem is a big benefit for Apple, but probably not as big as Marco postulates.

Although in that sense, I just saw a post about this today: http://www.akaipro.com/synthstation49 and I'm incredibly excited about buying it (and wonder when we'll start to see similar things for Android show up).

As far as I'm concerned, there have been two Android phones: the Nexus One and Nexus S.

Don't forget the ADP-1.

commodity (noun) /kəˈmɒd.ə.ti/ Undifferentiated goods characterized by a low profit margin, as distinguished from branded products.

Could it be that most of those phones are actually OK, so that one could pick after other criteria, like design?

Some people made this argument about the Bell system breakup in 1974. Doubt they still feel that way.

I'm more worried about developing mobile apps for all these different phones. Minor differences between hardware profiles and firmware versions can lead to major headaches for an app developer. If that concern leads to fewer apps, then it sucks for the consumer.

Seemed to work out ok for Wintels.

But with computers you have a keyboard, monitor.. eventually mouse.

These things were pretty universal and even carried over from machine to machine.

Even then the marketing was more about the OEM branding than Microsoft for a long time.

MS shouldering more of the burden for software updates makes the comparison a little flawed though, doesn't it? If every PC buyer was at the mercy of their OEM when they wanted to upgrade to the next version of Windows, desktop computing would be a different place now.

And Apple products lead to too little. Am I destined to forever be stuck in Nokia land?

(really, is it too much to ask for an SD card slot and a standard usb connector on an iDevice?)

The one strange thing about the overload of Android phones is there seems to be very little choice in the <4" touchscreen only model category. I'm not sure if the handset makers are conceding this market to the iPhone or they just don't sell very well?

400 models of cars would have a problem if they could not standardize on a single kind of road or petrol.

The accessory issue is about a standard connector and protocol.

There are heaps of iPods and iPhones, but one connector and protocol.

Too much, too little, death of one thing, year of another. Anyone else getting tired of some of these pointless opinion threads?

Since when in the USA there is a thing of too much choice?

An alternating circus of asymco, marco, and daring fireball all trying to spin everything in the iPhone's favor, each referencing each other as moral support.

Nokia E71 owner here. Marco's post described my experience to a T. Last summer I was looking to upgrade to a touchscreen phone. I like the iPhone, but I can't get an unlocked one in the USA (not easily at least) so it wasn't an option. So I looked at Android. I wanted an unlocked GSM Android phone, so I looked at http://www.htc.com as well as the various Android phone comparison pages and was quickly overwhelmed. Of course I follow various tech publications that always talk about the next great Android phone which will be released in the coming months. Add to that my sister's experience with her 13-month old Droid being considered "out of date" (with respect to buying accessories locally) and I just kept putting off the decision for another day.

I've since decided to stay with Nokia because I've come to rely on the free GPS with downloadable maps. But for people like me who really want to get the best phone for the money, there is a tyranny of choice here and Google/Android phone makers ignore that at their peril.

> there is a tyranny of choice here

How do you buy cars?

People have been buying cars forever.

New cars only come out once a year.

Cars are very feature/price segregated (on equivalent models).

The phone market isn't like that at all. Smartphone's are only a couple years old. New android devices are coming out at the rate of a few per month (or so). With carrier incentives and discounts you have a choice of 2, 4, 8, etc. phones for the same essential price ($99, vs. $149, vs. $199) are basically the same (when compared to $12,000, $16,000, and $19,000 in the car market).

So yes, there are a lot of cars to choose from. But people have been buying them long enough to know the basics about each manufacturer, they only come out with new models once a year, and they are priced in easily recognizable bands.

Well there is a reason I'm driving a 13-year-old VW with 200k miles.

But to answer your question, it's not the same thing at all, especially in my specific situation. First of all, I have a job that requires a lot of travel, which means I rent a lot of vehicles - those extended "test drives" help a lot in terms of including or excluding potential cars from consideration. There's also the fact that new cars generally all come out at the same time, so I'm not worrying about the "next big thing" coming out next week. Finally I have friends and colleagues who drive a variety of vehicles and I can add their experiences to my decision tree. When I pick I car, I make sure to maintain it to the best of my ability in case I can't find another car I like as much (hence the reason why I've had the same car for 13 years and decided to put $2000 into it for a new clutch last fall rather than get another car).

Smartphones aren't similar at all - like I wrote above, there's always the next hot new phone around the corner which makes me hesitate. I don't have an opportunity to try out most phones since most people I know who have a smartphone generally have an iPhone or a Motorola Droid (yay marketing!) And there's the issue of which Android phone will be upgradable in the future. It may not be a problem for you, but it is a headache for me, especially when I'm dropping several hundred dollars for a phone.

Well, if we're talking specific situations, I work for a mobile web developer and I'm literally surrounded by a pile of devices. My plan for when I want to buy a new one is to convince the company that we need to test on all my top candidates so I can play around with them until I pick the best one :)

Or clothes, or buy food...etc.?

Is it just turtleneck and jeans and turkey and swiss on rye everyday?

>Or clothes, or buy food...etc.?

Again, not the same at all - I've been buying food and clothes all my life so I know what I like and what I don't. There's also the issue that I generally don't spend hundreds of dollars for food or clothes at once so there is a lot less potential regret. But yes, I do generally have a class of food and clothes that I like and those are generally what I buy. And if that $25 of fish I decided to experiment with turns out to be a mistake, I can live with that. For a $500+ phone (remember I want an unlocked phone), that's a risk I'm not eager to take.

Not to be entirely contrary (okay, a little contrary)

I'm not sure how buying a phone is really any different from buying any other kind of consumer electronics -- and I'm guessing everybody on here has been doing that their entire lives as well.

In many ways it's better, I probably won't replace my $2500 TV in the next 5-7 years, but I will definitely be replacing my $500 phone within 2 years -- so if I made a marginal choice my "suffering" won't be so long.

Just do the same thing you'd do buying xyz other electrically powered widget, get some spec sheets, read some reviews, talk to your friends, then go buy it.

And just like with flatscreen TVs or netbooks (another consumer electronics item), the different between top of the line and bottom of the barrel isn't so vast that you'd really be suffering in any meaningful sense either. So long as you avoid the complete crap stuff you'll probably be in the clear.

and I'm guessing everybody on here has been doing that their entire lives as well.

I can tell you how everyone I know buys their electronics - they generally ask me what they should buy, or they buy the cheapest thing on sale at Walmart. I suspect my experience is not unique.

* but I will definitely be replacing my $500 phone within 2 years -- so if I made a marginal choice my "suffering" won't be so long.*

When I need my phone, I need my phone, so a software bug, or lack of support can have real consequences. A defective or sub-optimal TV is an annoyance. A defective or sub-optimal phone cam have life-alternative consequences. YMMV. And of course in 2 years, the entire phone landscape will change again!

So long as you avoid the complete crap stuff you'll probably be in the clear.

It's more than just avoiding the bottom of the line stuff - there are otherwise well-regarded Android phones that may not be getting updates. It's just one more headache to deal with in the decision matrix that I would rather not deal with.

I search on craigslist for used cheap ones.

I don't fall for the tyranny of choices that forces me to believe that just because there are 200 options all of the same insane high value that the insane value is somewhat sane.

The post references neither Asymco or Daring Fireball. It's almost like you commented on something you didn't read, but I know that can't be the case because that would be childish.

No, it's like I've paid attention to the various posts by Asymco, Daring Fireball, and Marco over the past couple of months. I fully anticipate Gruber will link to Marco's piece, Asymco will add some sort of twisted perversion of data that supports it, and so on.

I read the piece and thought it added nothing that hasn't been debated and discussed countless times before.

Yet, the market has spoken, hasn't it? A year ago such was the argument about why Android could never succeed, with so many confusing choices and options against the iPhone's simplicity. Android has done pretty good for itself in spite of that, I suppose. In fact I thought the current angle was "of course Android would do well with so many handsets and so many options".

I agree, it's been pretty amusing watching and reading the re-structuring and re-wording of arguments on the Apple circle-jerk of blogs this past year.

It's similar to the current "browser wars." We're all over-privileged and spoiled to have 4 (soon to be 5) standards-compliant, fast, extend-able browsers to choose from on any platform we want. It's basically just nit-picking and personal preference at this point.

It's the same way with smartphones now. We have dozens of handsets that come in a bunch of different flavors (Android, iOS, Windows Phone) that are for the most part very well designed. We're just as spoiled with them as we are with browsers right now. Isn't it enough that we can all choose our favorite equally-awesome version of a smartphone without having to trash the slightly different competitor and write dissertation after dissertation over-analyzing how the other will fail or is bad (when clearly they are succeeding and a large portion of the market enjoys the product)?

Marco, Gruber, and co: you can stop. We get it, you like Apple. Good for you, not everyone else does. Isn't there something more productive you can be doing with your time?

>Marco, Gruber, and co: you can stop. We get it, you like Apple. Good for you, not everyone else does. Isn't there something more productive you can be doing with your time?

No they don't, and I'm not being facetious. They are all Apple Tech Writers, not Tech Writers. They don't understand or care much about technology beyond Apple, so if they didn't glowing pro-Apple articles, they wouldn't have much to write about.

Yes, all the choices are awesome technically, which is why the debate is about consequences and morals, freedom and openness.

The Apple defenders have to be so strident because Apple rarely has the high ground in these debates, except perhaps for its Flash position.

The Google defenders have to be so strident because freedom and openness are important but invisible attributes.

I fully anticipate Gruber will link to Marco's piece, Asymco will add some sort of twisted perversion of data that supports it, and so on.

Does that make any of them wrong? If that didn't happen would that make any of them right? I'm not really getting the significance here. It's the internet. People link to things. You don't have to pay attention to any of them.

>It's the internet. People link to things.

Absolutely. And of course people who believe the same thing naturally come together. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with that. It's how it is supposed to work.

However there is a perspective lens when the posts from the same group are widely propagated, reinforced through repeated assertion. It's an opinion bloc more than valuable or interesting insight.

No one cares when a couple of guys at the bar rabble off about their opinions. When they're, say, Glen Beck and his cohorts of a certain sphere, though, the discussion of course changes because their opinion is propagated widely. Stop the presses: Glen Beck and all his cohorts disagree with something the administration does.

I guess what I don't understand is what the significance of pointing to this effect other than to poison any chance of there being a reasonable discussion about the submission.

You were not wrong:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/13/hardware-choice-...

Reading Asymco makes my head spin. I can never understand what the hell he's talking about, and I do computational modeling by day.

Most commentators aren't neutral, this is nothing new. I'm not, and you yourself clearly aren't, based on your extremely one sided posting history on this subject. Would you prefer it if other HN readers read and responded to the content of your posts, or dismissed them as trying to spin everything in Androids favor?

You should rethink that first sentence. Slippery slope. There are still some neutral and reasonable commentators - Leo Laporte, Ryan Paul- left. If we accept bigotry (and there is plenty of history to asymco, df and arment to attest that all they ever do is turn everything into pro Apple circle jerking. There is no insight, alternative view, logic, reasoning, probability or anything closely resembling. Just one view - Apple is glory, Apple is right. That is ridiculous.) we will soon end up with compartmentalized world where everyone hears and subscribes to what they like - not progress to say the least.

That's hyperbole. Daring Fireball, Asymco and Arment are advocates for Apple, no doubt. That doesn't prevent them from being able to provide an interesting perspective from one side of the argument. There are plenty of Android advocates out there making the opposing case, and they also get linked on HN.

Also, if you're talking about Ryan Paul of Arstechnica, then I certainly wouldn't regard him as neutral. He's an advocate for open source software. I disagree with his stance on many subjects. Doesn't stop me reading his articles though.

Key difference here is that Ryan Paul doesn't go on a hyperbole, make numbers up, show poor logic and clear bias in advocating against what he doesn't subscribe to. That is why you don't stop reading his articles. It is because DF/Arment/Asymco do outrageously illogical, facts-be-damned, bigotry-without-fail that I stopped reading their articles. If even once they offered a balanced view point I will reconsider.

To make it clear - If for example Paul went and started telling people on a daily basis that don't use Windows as it gives too much hardware choice, kills puppies, gives your data to NSA, Windows will never succeed and what not - that is totally different than what he does currently - covers open source and may be hints at "you should try this" which is way more reasonable. As far as I know he hasn't done the former.

The elitist out-of-touch circle. These guys like their iPhones, because they believe them to be "The Best". They just can't understand why other people would want anything else, and if people DO get something else, then there must be something wrong with them.

Building flimsy straw men and knocking them down is an activity for children.

(See what I did there?)

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