Southern People's Weekly: The separatist war of smart phones

"What cell phone do you use now?" "Nokia." Well, the last one was Motorola. "5 years ago, it was a question-and-answer model that people used. No need to explain, we also understand, ask each other and interested in the mobile phone brand. "What cell phone do you use now?" "Android, but I still want to buy a iPhone4." Now, the new generation of thinking mode is no longer based on the brand of mobile phones, but more on the operating platform of mobile phones.

IPhone4, it seems, is a hardware-conceptually mobile phone. But in fact, the iOS system that runs on the iphone is the core, and the dazzling features are based on the hard core--ios system. As for Android, the mobile operating system, developed by internet giant Google, has saved the ailing Motorola and Samsung in the form of a savior, and nurtured new smartphones such as HTC.

and 5 years ago we were happy to compare Nokia, Motorola or Samsung which brand is stronger, better quality, more durable battery, today, we care about Android, IOS, WP7 (Microsoft operating system) or rim (BlackBerry operating system) which platform on which the software game more, It is more convenient to process mail and documents, and the interface is more user-friendly and user-friendly.

It's not just the convenience of young people who are passionate about innovation in technology, but my parents have come to know the year of Destiny, which they used to use as a standard for handwriting, big screens and strong durability. This year, they bought an HTC Wildfire (Android) and IPhone4. Now, we use Skype for free phone calls, free text messages with Kik Messenger, weather forecasts, Map navigation and real-time discounted information search are practical and not difficult to operate the function, whether it is to fry, watch Korean dramas or play card games, can be done on the phone, which makes them excited unceasingly. At the same time, they never bought a newspaper.

In a sense, today's "mobile phone" and 5 years ago, "mobile phone" is no longer the same thing, and 20 years ago, compared to "Big Brother", of course, the difference is farther. Mobile phones have been given the symbolic role of identity, and in its core without revolutionary innovation, good-looking appearance and popularity is often a key factor in the sale of a mobile phone. And now, the rapid development of smartphone platform, so that its impact on our lives more far-reaching. Today's mobile phones, in fact, closer to a small, portable Internet access terminal equipment, carrying the internet swept all the torrent.

According to Gartner, the global handset sales report in the third quarter of 2010, global handset sales reached 417 million in 2010, up 35% from a year earlier, with smartphones accounting for 19.3%, or 96% per cent year-on-year. The Nielsen survey company said that in the United States, Smartphone market share will surpass 50%--last year in 2011, which is less than 20% per cent.

Software Achievement Hardware

When did all this start?

On the January 10, 2007, in San Francisco, a regular new session of the Macworld, has relied on the success of the ipod in the music playing field of the powerful Steve Jobs high-spirited stage, this time, he brought the world is a phone called the iphone.

Also at the conference, he announced that Apple Computer Inc. officially will take the more than 20-year "Computer" out of the company's name and be renamed Apple Inc.-Apple is starting to accelerate, From a PC as the core business of IT companies to the consumer electronics supplier transformation.

What is an iphone? Jobs said it was a combination of "wide-screen ipods, revolutionary phones and groundbreaking networks". "We are at least 5 years ahead," he shouted arrogantly. "We're going to have to remove all the keys, just one big screen." How do we operate it? With a touch pen? No, who's going to use this crap ... The best pointing device in the world is our fingers! ”

When the iphone first appeared, Nokia thought the product's market share would not be too high for its own impact, and Samsung said, "There is nothing extraordinary about the functionality." "Traditional handset makers feel that the product is flashy.

Jobs didn't waste his breath, he just told the world, "the iphone can run Mac OS X (the later iOS system) to manage files, run applications and networks," because-"software makes hardware." "From the success of the ipod, jobs learned the most important thing is itunes."

For the past 3.5 hours, the iphone has confirmed jobs ' conclusions with sales miracles and Word-of-mouth. Each generation of iphones has a variety of complaints, such as the early 3G network is not supported, do not support multitasking, but, "software hardware." Mr. Jobs built a perfect industrial chain, Apple made mobile phones, opened software platforms, and sold apps in itunes's App store for tens of thousands of software engineers in the world, and Apple split it up with them (Apple accounts for 30%, developers get 70%), Users get a better, more advanced experience. Now, the app in this store is over 300,000.

And what about the companies that used to laugh at Apple? Nokia's Symbian system has been relentlessly pushed into the "outdated" ranks, and their push for the Ovi online store is far from the app store; without Android, Samsung and Motorola's earnings are ugly. Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu said, "Mobile hardware manufacturers do not need to deal with software developers, they do not have this habit, but now the world is being driven by software." ”

Everything seems pretty, and Apple's market capitalisation has even surpassed Microsoft this year. In addition to Google, they are now one of Apple's most important enemies. The Android phone OS is now the most likely player to challenge and impact iOS.

Not many people remember the iphone 3 years ago, when Steve Jobs smiled at Google's CEO, Schmidt, who was also a member of Apple's board of directors, on Macworld, where two companies announced a joint effort to implant Google's search and map services The iPhone. The atmosphere was so easy that it even made Mr. Schmidt joke: they should be merged into a company named "Applegoo".

But in the business world, there is no forever friend and foe. Two years before Apple launched the iphone, Google quietly bought a mobile operating-system design company called Android. At the time, the main purpose of their acquisition was to ensure that Microsoft was no longer dominant in mobile devices.

After Apple became the benchmark for smartphone operations, September 23, 2008, Google and Taiwan manufacturer HTC launched its first mobile phone based on the Android operating system, called "G1". Since then, the competition of two companies has opened the curtain.

This made jobs furious. The New York Times said, "He thinks that Google's doing so is materially, technically and spiritually violating the alliance between two companies, in short, he thinks his old friend Google stole money from his pocket." "We didn't go for the search, but they came to do the cell phone," Mr. Jobs said. Google wants to kill the iphone. Executives at two companies often argue in public or private situations, and jobs even angrily claimed that Google had stolen the iphone, and Google said some of Android's prototypes were older than the iphone.

There was a very unpleasant meeting at Google headquarters in 2008. Jobs warned Google that he would issue lawsuits if they continued to manufacture handsets that hold multi-touch. In fact, in 2010, after a series of hard work, Apple did win the patent for multi-touch.

However, this is already a something. Over the years, Google has been working with many vendors to create a large number of handsets that support multitouch. Android has become one of the most popular intelligent operating platforms, unlike Apple, where software and hardware are separated, with the exception of a nexus one that is still recognized by the HTC Foundry as Google's own handset, and all other handset hardware are owned by manufacturers. Android uses "machine-sea tactics" to rival the iphone. Because the licensing is free, many hardware manufacturers have chosen Android, from Samsung to Huawei, from 1000 yuan to 4000 yuan price, you can find different types of Android phone.

Google has also built its own software market. Android market is dubbed "the market" by the user, where developers do not need to undergo a cumbersome vetting process, and most software is currently free. Compared with the expensive iphone, in the Android world, users can enjoy the convenience of many smartphone operating platforms with a much smaller cost.

In Gartner's smartphone data for the third quarter of 2010, Android phones accounted for 25.5% of global smartphone sales, and even surpassed iOS (16.6%), which fell 0.5% compared with last year. Nielsen said that from February to August this year, 32% of new smartphone users chose Android, and only 26% chose iOS.

Now, the war between Apple and Google is getting hotter. Mr Schmidt withdrew from Apple's board last year, and Mr Jobs's statement was highly charged, "and now Google's Android and Chrome OS are already competing with us in Apple's core area." Because of conflict of interest, he has had to choose to avoid at some board meeting ... It's time for him to resign from Apple's board. ”

Two companies have all clashed over acquisitions, patents, board and application development. Apple has even sued HTC in the name of a patent infringement, and everyone knows that HTC is one of the companies most willing to make Android phones.

However, they are still cooperating in some areas, and Google will pay Apple 100 million dollars a year to make sure it is the default search engine for the iphone and ipad. Interestingly, their common enemy, Microsoft, is now a powerful tool to fight each other. Microsoft has also developed a proprietary Bing search application for Apple's iphone and ipad. People familiar with Silicon Valley can even laugh at this news, Apple and Microsoft? These two old enemy, unexpectedly also can have kiss possibility?

At the same time, Microsoft is not willing to let itself become the cannon fodder for others to fight. Microsoft already had its own operating system, Windows Mobile, before the iphone was launched. They dreamed of "copying the PC to the phone", which was not as much a market share as Nokia's Symbian.

iOS and Android have changed all this, and in November 2008, after G1 's listing, Microsoft terminated its long Windows Mobile system and redesigned a new system. They call this month "reset".

This is a sign of Microsoft's resolve and the danger they face: if they fight back, Microsoft will be completely out of the mobile OS market. 3 years ago, they laughed at Apple's lack of a physical keyboard, but they judged it wrong. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said: "We have been leading the game, but now we are ranked five, we missed a whole round." ”

"Microsoft finally decided to press Ctrl+alt+del and restart its mobile operating system to usher in a new start," Wired magazine said. "On October 11 this year, Microsoft unveiled its new system, Windows Phone 7, and the iphone and Android, which is accused of being too much like the iphone, Microsoft didn't use the icon grid interface to welcome users, but instead adopted a dynamic, intuitive new interface."

"The iphone suddenly starts to look outdated," says Morten, who works on the user experience at Vodafone, after contrasting the usual interface with most users. "Microsoft has won a rare applause, even the" elegance "that previously only belonged to Apple's praise.

WP7 mobile phone listing on the day, a total of 40,000 handsets sold. Although the sales record can only be described as passable, many market analysts have pointed out that Microsoft's WP7 Outlook is still worth looking forward to, thanks to the support of operators and mobile hardware companies.

As Gartner points out, "competition in the smartphone market is a marathon." "It would be premature to predict who will eventually win," he says.

Application leads the future

No one will deny that the final decision on smartphone platforms will be the software developers who develop applications for the platform. Handheld Equipment Observation site IFANR author Guo Lei said: "No platform will exhaust all the functions, it is impossible, in the final analysis or rely on everyone for the platform to develop software to play more possible mobile phones." ”

Now, iOS has more than 300,000 apps in its App Store, and Android market is approaching 150,000, and the rate of growth has been flat with iOS. Many people predict that Android market will have more apps than iOS by the end of next year or the beginning.

And the fledgling WP7 is also busy promoting that, as of September this year, their Application Development toolkit has been downloaded more than 300,000 times, according to the laws of the software industry in the past, half of these people will launch the final software. In other words, at least 150,000 applications for WP7 will appear in their markets in the future. Don't forget, WP7 just rolled out for one months.

However, Lawrence Li, who is a member of the Apple Product research website Apple4us and is also involved in Third-party software development, may be just a false boom. "Sheer numbers can make sense to companies, and investors like to listen to these numbers to influence their investments." But most of the software in the App Store is rubbish, which can stay and have little lasting value. So, how much good software there is, and how much of the software is two concepts. ”

As the current boss of smartphones, the iphone's obsession is typical. Apple has always wanted to build a more closed biosphere, and this spring, Adobe released tools to allow developers to use Flash to create IOS apps, and Apple immediately modified the developer license Agreement to prohibit developers from using any non-Apple official development tools. While Apple has eased the deal in the face of regulatory and competitive pressure, the problem is becoming increasingly apparent-how can you make your software stand out from the growing number of apps? And how many of the technicians like Lawrence Li expect "have love, see moved to tears Software"? "In this market, all the new ideas you can think of can be found in a similar search," ifanr author logout. "This problem cannot be solved, and Apple's App store will face slowing growth," he said.

Apple has taken some steps to control the quality of the software and improve the user experience on the one hand. They have a human-machine interface protocol, which advises all software developers to design the same rules, such as software not just to get into the picture, but to render the software operating interface from the outset. Lawrence Li said, "There will be a psychological deception that allows the user to assume that the load is over." ”

Furthermore, all software needs to undergo a review process before entering the App store. Apple tightened its guidelines again this year, and they wrote, "We don't need more software that can be used to demonstrate ' fart '." If you can't develop something useful, or offer some of the latest entertainment, your application may not get through. We will reject any content or behavior that we believe has crossed the line ... Where is the line that judges the crossing? ...... When I see it, I'll know. If your software has been rejected, we have a review committee that you can go to ' appeal '. But it won't help if you're going to fry the press or just scold us. ”

In Apple's world, Apple has the final say.

Can this effectively address the lack of boutique software in the App Store? At present, it is still not enough. and other problems are creeping up, says Wu Hong, an engineer who develops software for both iOS and Android, saying, "If the software bugs, the App Store is subject to the audit process, and users may not get updates within six or seven days." This can cause delays. "This requires developers to design software from the very beginning of the high standard requirements."

However, Apple is only facing the bottleneck in development, the Android problem is more prominent and outstanding. Apple is designed to dominate the product, but Android has inherited Google's algorithm culture, and the engineers are open, open, open, and open.

Tens of thousands of developers are complaining angrily about Android, and the simplest reason is money, of course. Developers come for money and don't get paid, they will leave. Apple's App Store supports a variety of payment options, and users have developed a good habit of paying for music and software in itunes over the past 10 years of Apple's product experience, and more importantly, the inability to install pirated software without escaping the iphone.

But what about Android? First, it used to support only Google Checkout and credit card payments, just announced support for PayPal, and the location of the purchase of Android software is too fragmented, only a part of the application market, the developer site, even in places like Amazon can buy Android apps. Second, Android basically does not audit any application of the release of software, in other words, even if I am just a rookie, hand-write software can also be put online for people to download the use of free, if there is a virus, the consequences of course disastrous.

Google is proud of the "open" behind, there is also a trap, some features like the user root (get Administrator privileges) to use. Musixboy, of Google Research blog Tanioku, said, "It's just not true that Google is trying to belittle Apple and raise its own rhetoric." ”

The dazzling duplication of application and the cumbersome purchase channel behind, it is difficult to have users to pay for the software consistently. More importantly, because of the openness of Android apps, the installation of pirated software has become a very simple thing. Moreover, even if there is a software that does not have pirated money to pay, users can easily find the same type of software substitution. Developers are struggling in a market environment that is far from being mature in the App store.

However, developers are willing to wait for the market to mature, after all, this is a huge potential space. Wu Hong Program for Android, all without charges, simply rely on the built-in ads, a day can earn dozens of of dollars, side of the user base of the large and potential consumption capacity.

What makes developers tired of Android is the magic of Android's rapid rise this year: multi-level mobile devices and vendor-defined interfaces. In the Android world, there are 1000 dollars of mobile phones, there are 5000 of dollars of the machine, the processor, the resolution is not the same, the problem is that an application is not possible on all machines are perfect operation. Whenever a developer develops a software, it waits for them to debug endlessly in all the models on the platform. The Android platform is far too expensive to take into account the cost of an iphone device.

So when the iOS platform's most popular game, "Angry Birds", was transplanted to the Android platform, Rovio chose free, but the fragmentation of the models still made them unbearable. On November 21, Rovio apologized for its poor performance on many Android devices: "Despite our efforts, we failed to give the game the best performance." "They declared:" We are not willing to make more versions of the ' Angry Birds ' for Android devices. ”

That seems to confirm Jobs ' curse on Android, which he believes is what Android calls the opening of the Great Wall: "Android phones are always equipped with different interfaces, leaving the problem to the user." The benefits of the iphone's uniformity are self-evident. "A typical example is that there are no fewer than 100 different versions of the Twitter client to get the best experience for users of various Android phones."

In the Android and iOS dual-male hegemony, WP7 quietly as a spoiler appearance. At the beginning of the IPO, Microsoft offered money incentives to software developers to lobby for the development of software for WP7 developers in iOS and Android, and Microsoft would pay a portion of the fee first. At the same time, in the face of those who have already entered the developer, Microsoft has also established a support team to provide help. These measures have had a notable effect. Jonathan Sasse, vice president of marketing at Slacker, said, "in the iphone and Android environment, developers and companies are not communicating." "But Microsoft has provided a lot of help.

Microsoft is not out of the game, after all, they are the first giant of the software industry, but also for developers to provide considerable convenience-they work closely with the hardware manufacturers, HTC put on the agenda of the WP7 mobile phone even more than the Android phone, lock the high-end market. And, unlike Google's licensing of all vendors, WP7 only for those who meet the audit standards of open licensing, which makes it difficult for developers to debug.

At the same time, WP7 in the business market will also make breakthrough progress. After all, today's most popular file operating software is the Office series on the PC, only Microsoft's WP7, can realize the true meaning of seamless transfer of documents document. Just as Google integrates its gtalk and Gmail seamlessly into Android handsets, this is Microsoft's unparalleled advantage.

Nokia and BlackBerry may be the two most frustrated and anxious companies in the face of Microsoft, Google and Apple's three traditional it industries. Nokia's Symbian system, despite its historical advantage, remains the number one in today's smartphone operating platform, but Symbian's logic is an indisputable fact of the previous era. Nokia has teamed up with Intel to focus on the development of a new system Meego, while creating the Ovi online App Store. In any case, the Finnish giant has begun to awaken from silence.

As for the BlackBerry, its pace is even slower than that of Nokia. Lawrence Li says the rim system may only be suitable for people who "are good enough and don't want to change". Android's fast-growing North American market share is largely captured from the BlackBerry's declining market.

The BlackBerry's way out may be on the pons system it bought, which is now being used on the BlackBerry's tablet playbook, and perhaps the BlackBerry will go against Apple, porting Pons to the phone, or BlackBerry's best chance.

When a mobile phone meets a network

Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel, Nokia, BlackBerry ... 5 years ago, these businesses were never considered by people in a sequence. Their attributes are software companies, network companies, hardware companies and mobile phone companies. But today, they are fighting in the same battlefield, looking at the mobile phone operating system, in fact, they are struggling with the way users access the Internet.

Today, the world is getting smaller, and the spread of information is getting faster. Many times, our perception of the outside world has been confined to a single screen. In the past, we relied on PC computers, but mobile phones were the only devices that were able to do it 24 hours a day. The latest internet research from Morgan Stanley says the trend in the future is 3 keywords: mobile, social and advertising.

Smartphones are no doubt the most capable of satisfying these 3 key words. It is a mobile device that carries our social needs, and the number of contacts on the phone may be the most important resource for many people, and the advertising needs and growth implicit in the endless stream of applications are not to be underestimated.

Look at Google's launch of Nexus One's slogan: "Network and mobile phone meet", and then recall Apple 2007 when the iphone's slogan "Your pocket of the Internet", we can understand that the phone is not just a mobile phone, it is our connection with the world the easiest, Quick and smooth way.

In the United States, wireless bandwidth will exceed cable bandwidth over the next 3 years. By the end of the year, the biggest U.S. network operator has questioned Verizon's deployment of bandwidth up to 12Mbs in 20 cities in the United States, Lte.lte bandwidth will be upgraded to 50Mbs in the future, and the technology can support 100Mb per second. This is about 10 times times the speed of the network that many people use today. By then, the web will be everywhere.

At present, mobile devices are 7 years behind the PC, which means that our current mobile phone has a performance equivalent to that of a 2003 desktop. But the speed of the future development is accelerating, the speed of the chip replacement is getting shorter and faster, and the lithium-ion battery's endurance time is also increasing exponentially. One day, we will live in a world of complete intelligence and precision.

The price of mobile phones will also be getting lower. If not limited to operators, Google originally intended to nexus one to less than 100 U.S. dollars in the sale price. Because mobile, advertising and social benefits can fully complement this gap, more people using smartphones will undoubtedly accelerate the overall process.

This day will always come. Then maybe we'll stop asking, "What cell phone are you using?" "Because everyone's cell phone function is not very different-that is our link with the world."

(Thanks to Ifanr, Apple4us and Tanioku three websites for the help of this article.) Part of the material reference "wired" and "The New York Times")

Reporter Ma Li Lingshan