[OT] mobile rising

[Joakim]

On Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 22:28:32 UTC, Ola Fosheim 
Grøstad wrote:
> On Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 21:36:58 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> I don't know why you go back to Apple, when you clearly cut 
>> out the part of the above excuses quote where I pointed out 
>> that _google had none of the advantages_ you think were 
>> necessary to win mobile, yet created the OS that now ships on 
>> the most mobile devices.
>
> Android wasn't all that great in the beginning and most 
> manufacturers didn't make much money off it. Samsung was more 
> the exception than the rule, and no, not only Google is making 
> Android happen. For a single company to go that route alone you 
> better have a good starting point. Microsoft had it, obviously. 
> Apple had it. Maybe the owners of BeOS could have done it, not 
> sure, but there are few companies that actually could have 
> produced a high quality OS + application frameworks + hardware 
> in anything less than a decade. Apple could focus on hardware 
> and drivers and a little bit of fickling with their existing 
> OS-X frameworks. That's a major difference.

Google pretty much did it on their own in around five years, as 
all indications are that Android is mostly developed in-house.  
Yes, the Android hardware vendors add polish, some drivers, and 
their own skins, but most of the source comes from google.

>> belied by the fact that google had much less.  You talk about 
>> OS expertise, all while HP has long had their own OS's, HP-UX
>
> That's only a generic Unix with X11 on top. HP had WebOS, but 
> gave up on it!! I can only assume they realized it would be too 
> time consuming and too expensive to be worthwhile.

The point is that HP had plenty of OS expertise.  As for WebOS, 
HP didn't buy it till 2010, when mobile sales were just passing 
PC sales and it was getting too late.  WebOS was not only a dumb 
idea, just like ChromeOS, it likely had major technical issues, 
judging from the reviews I read at the time.

> Just take a look at how difficult it is to build something as 
> simple as D or C++ standard library. Then multiply that by the 
> challenges when create complete application frameworks. Nokia 
> bought up QT (which isn't all that great) for a reason, and for 
> _a lot_ of money!

And yet google, much smaller than MS or HP and without the OS 
expertise you say is needed, did all that mostly by themselves.

> I think you underestimate what it takes to get it all to work 
> together in a reasonably manner. Anyhow, with Android out there 
> as a possible contender it basically wouldn't make a whole lot 
> of sense to invest in rolling your own OS. I assume that is the 
> reason HP let WebOS stagnate.

I think you greatly overestimate what was needed to compete in 
this mobile market at that time.  I'm not saying it was easy, but 
the PC and mobile giants before iOS/Android clearly didn't have 
the vision or ability to execute what google, a much smaller 
search company, did with Android, leaving aside Apple because of 
your silly claims that their existing software gave them a 
headstart, which is why those former computing giants are all 
either dead or fading fast.