Apple Still Wins

13 November 2007

As promised Google have released the Android SDK so we now know a lot more then we did last week.

What we know is that Google have spent the last 11 months copying the iPhone.

What we also know is that all the hype last week wasn’t quite as much vapourware as it looked like at the time.

Finally, we now know how Apple will conquer the mobile market, and do it in a very un-Apple way.

Lets take these points in turn. Firstly, have a watch of the video tour, which is complete with Sergey Brin doing his best Steve Jobs impression. There is no doubt that the interface as taken several major cues from the iPhone, including the touch (not stylus) interface. The web browser demo is pretty much identical (bar a noticeable speed deficit) to the web browser on the iPhone, and the maps demo really is exactly the same (both being Google Maps based).

In fact, you know what the Android interface reminds me of? It reminds me of Windows 1.0. It’s stolen most of the obvious surface interface elements like animated transitions and a finger-touch interface, but missed all the bits that make it truly great like the touch gestures (squeeze to zoom in, swipe to delete etc), advanced font rendering and clutter free UI chrome. What’s also quite striking about the Android interface is that it isn’t significantly ahead of the other competition; other then the animation touches it looks very similar to what you’d find on Windows Mobile or Series 60, and those are surely going to be Androids biggest competitors (as Google and co are going for a market much larger market then the niche that the iPhone targets).

However, they do have things to show us which is a bit of a surprise considering the non-annoucement of a week ago. What I really want to know is why they didn’t either announce it all this week or all last week? Being able to go “this is what it looks like, this is what it does” last week would have been massively advantageous. Instead, this way they’ve managed to alienate all the developers they may have had on board with the kind of marketing drivel that they hate, only to follow up a week later utterly desperate to talk to them.

So then, how are Apple going to take over the mobile market? Well, unlike what I had assumed last week the browser for Android is based on WebKit, which is of course basically Apple’s little pet open source browser project. Apple is the main developer of WebKit, and certainly is in control of the direction the project goes. If Om Malik’s calculations are correct, that means that – along with Nokia’s increasing usage – WebKit mobile installs should be up near the 30 million mark.

That’s a huge number, and it’s only going to grow with iPhones and Android based ones (aPhones?) both of which will surely take a large market share. Against all odds, and possibly utterly by accident, Apple are looking at being the IE of mobile browsers. What’s possibly most interesting about all of this is that this – unlike things like Opera Mini which used to be the state of the art on mobiles – this isn’t some reduced functionality web, but the full web – the same one you get on a normal computer.

And out of the 3 main desktop browser competitors – IE, Firefox and Safari – Apple are the only ones in the race. Not only that, but I can’t see Microsoft offering a proper mobile version of IE for other platforms then Windows Mobile, and Firefox mobile is currently still to really get off the ground.

It’s a two horse race between Apple and Opera, with the winners being us; both these two are the main drivers of new web features – both are just implementing the HTML5 media tags for example; they’re both far ahead of anyone else in adopting new web standards.

So, to sum up – Google are back in the race, and probably looking to best some of the established players (Android certainly looks better then Windows Mobile for example), but they’re still a way of beating Apple at their new game. And even if they do, Apple still wins.