It's pretty obvious that he's new to mobile development. The first thing to understand is that the carriers completely control the playing field. It's incredibly frustrating trying to write an app across multiple devices let alone multiple carriers. Hardware on one device may be very easy to work with on one carrier, yet a complete pain in the rear on another carrier. They just have to get their hands on things and make adjustments.

Certification is also way more painful than it needs to be on some carriers. Access to some portions of the APIs are blocked by the carriers unless certified by the carrier. The certification process can be very painful if you do not have elevated status inside the carrier.

We have had problems getting GPS to work reliably on a specific popular line of smart phones with a specific carrier. The GPS on the same devices works perfectly on other carriers. This kind of stuff happens at all levels of the API.

Welcome to mobile development.

I don't pretend to know much about mobile development, and I've heard much the same about carrier certification. That's exactly why I think Android will do well.

"Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session that developers won't need to get Android applications certified by anyone nor will there be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators."

from: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/android_is_out_for_ipho...

Has that since been proven incorrect and I just didn't hear about it? That's possible, and if so I think it will be significantly less appealing to developers.

Carrier certification works differently outside the US and can be much less restrictive. In most of the world it isn't a Apple/Blackberry one point five horse race, but rather a much more diverse fight. I would certainly encourage anyone who is counting Nokia out to go and pick up a E71 and give it a go.

Don't let the local market distort your perspective unless you want to limit your reach.

This statement was made before any handsets have come to market. How many carriers do they have? I'll believe it when I see it.

Well, it is true that, being open source (well, it will be), the carriers could hack it to be just as closed and broken as they want. Whether that happens lots, none, or something in between is anyone's guess.

The argument is also too optimistic about the number of phones that will be produced and what networks they will be allowed to operate on.

Contrary to what Google's marketing materials would have you believe, neither the handset manufacturers nor the carriers want to get deeply in bed with Google. In fact, they distrust Google already because of their involvement in the 700Mhz spectrum auction. The carriers all know that what google REALLY wants is to own their own wimax network so they can bypass the carriers altogether. Ultimately, this might be great for consumers but for the near-term Google will have to cooperate with the carriers if they want anyone to actually use the Android phones.

Regarding handsets, the only major phone manu interested in Android is Samsung. Nokia, with 40% of the market, doesn't give a shit about Android. Neither does Motorola or Sony Ericsson. The companies that do care about Android will play it safe and let HTC take on all the initial risk and see how that goes before committing any serious resources to the platform. The only Android phones that have a chance of coming to market in the next 9 months are from HTC.

There will not be 100 different Android phones on multiple carriers anytime soon - there will be one or two HTC phones on T-Mobile.

If someone can build something like the iPod Touch, but with GPS and Wimax or EVDO, then kids will acquire it and use it. If it can take over the functionality of SMS and go beyond it, then a younger generation would use this instead of cell phones. Then a Chinese manufacturer would build units with microphones and swiveling cameras, and the cell phone carriers would be SOL.

Ha, it's definitely not an excellent experience end-to-end according to the friends who've bought iPhones, especially 3g. The first end involved lines at the Apple store, bricked phones, arcane activation procedures.

Most of that involved over excited early adopters. This is a bad strawman. Most folks over the last year (for 2g) did not experience any of this at all.

I don't understand why anyone takes Matt seriously, everything he writes is very trollish. He's some sort of Apple bigot.[1]

I've seen him claim that Apple's "service is atrocious" yet their service is consistently ranked at the top.[2][3] Other times, he'll give some lame anecdote about his friend's MacBook constantly needing repair or receiving bricked iPhones. I have no idea if those stories are true, but if we made a poll, I think we'd find that he's exaggerating.

Once a troll in the poker world, today he's moved to this little corner of the Internet. Matt: we still hate your online persona.[4]

[1] http://searchyc.com/mattmaroon+apple

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150563

[3] http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1689

[4] http://mazeorbowie.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-i-hate-matt-maro...

It's interesting how easily people are subjected to ad hominem attacks if they dare to criticise Apple. There are unhappy Apple customers. Count my vote. And just because Apple censors their own message boards doesn't mean they should be able to count on their "loyal followers" to oppress opinion elsewhere.

I don't want to defend Apple. Infact, I don't even use their products. My point is that he's as guilty as an Apple fanboy, except he's a member of the Apple haters' cult.

Some of his posts above about Apple products are just not factual. There have not been widespread issues with bricked iPhones nor have people been returning them in droves like he's claimed. I'd imagine that you could make the same exaggerations about the Motorola RAZR. There are always defective products from the factory and people who return them; the numbers are not any higher with the iPhone.

I don't think it's fair to dismiss Apple as hype.[1] Let's give them credit for creating some very well designed products and hate them for the right reasons.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=275608

It should be possible to dispute someone's claims without resorting to vitriolic ad hominem attacks.

People take me seriously because my arguments are well-reasoned and well-written. People mistake me for trollish because they are very direct. For instance, the 4th one you cited objected to the use of the word "retard" to describe someone who did something very dumb. If only I were as smart as Ben Stiller I would have somehow made millions off of it.

I have to admit, I've been called a lot of stuff, but you're the first person to actually back it up with citations. Only on Hacker News..,

You also tend to pick topics that people feel very strongly about and are sure to push buttons.

Eh, you might be right in that it's not entirely typical, but it's a pretty significant chunk of their users. There have been many other problems as well, especially with the 3g model. Lots of people have been returning them.

My point wasn't to enumerate its flaws, but rather to point out that it's far from all roses in terms of owner experience.

iPhone owner here. Roses? Not entirely.

That is so true. When the iPhone came finally out in Canada, the experience was ruined by roger's horrible contracts & conditions.