On Mar 4, 5:34 pm, Cédric Beust ♔ <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 1:05 AM, Karsten Silz <[email protected]> wrote: > > This smells like history rewriting to me: Google bought Android in > > 2005, and I doubt they knew about the iPhone then. With Android, > > Google has been a "fast follower" for the most part, copying the > > leading smartphone. > > You're contradicting yourself. > > Either Google started Android without knowing about the iPhone, in which > case they are innovators, or they knew about the iPhone and they were trying > to compete.
I think Google initially copied the Blackberry as the then-leading smartphone (see the first prototypes) and then switched over the iPhone. You can see traces of Blackberry-ness disappearing (like the joystick - still on the Nexus One but not on the Nexus S). > I do think that the existence of Android has saved us from a very bleak > future in which Apple would be the monopoly. Apple has shown what they can > do in this position and it's really not pretty. See what they are getting > away with now and imagine what it would be like without any competitor... I agree that the competition is good for both sides. My point is that when Google bought Android, they didn't do that to save the world from Apple because they didn't know it was in danger yet, they just wanted to build a mobile OS. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
