CrunchGear

Apple is a SOFTWARE company above all else. Not a computer company. They only make computers so that their software gets used on machines built for the operating system. The iPhone is 95% software. The phone itself isn’t really a big deal, just a phone.

Nah… that’s ridiculous. They sell 75% of their products based on form factor, then sell 75% of their software to a captive market. The iPhone was an engineering marvel first and a software achievement second.

recently its been mostly hardware. without the cool hardware not a lot of ppl would be messing w/apples.

That’s not the point. It’s never been “mostly hardware”, since Apple is a software company who makes their own computers. Not a computer company who makes their own software. They make the hardware in order to get the most out of their software. It’s a perfect marriage.

Just a phone? just a software company?

You are undercutting Apple, pal.

Apple is a unique player: a successful hardware/software company. Design meets function… thats their pitch, man. I’m guessing you still put yourself through Windows on a daily basis (though I’m sure you’ll claim some obscure ‘nix build… uh huh… suuuure.) ;)

I’m not undercutting anything. I’m a heavy Mac user and has been for the last 15 years or so. I don’t touch WinDOS or Linux even if my life depended on it. What I’m saying is that the iPhone in itself is nothing more than a touchscreen mobile phone. It’s the software that makes it the best phone available. It’s OS X that makes my MBP fantastic, not the 6 months old hardware inside of it.

If Apple would have been a computer company, they would operate like Dell, HP, Lenovo and such by releasing new makes and models every month in a desperate attempt to always have the latest technique available. But Apple is a software company and only releases computer upgrades every 6 months or so, and new models every year if they need to.

iphone killer. Apple already beat them to the punch when they selected to make it exclusive to AT&T. I love the iphone, but I hate Cingular/AT&T with a passion. I thought of getting the hack and putting it on tmobile, but I would miss out on all the software updates. Apple has boxed in the iphone by over estimating their power to overcome a bad carrier. 90% of the field is now completely open to Googles android and I look forward to it.

Let’s not forget that Apple is a superb MARKETING and BRANDING company as well.

Google is a customer-centric tech innovator and I think Android plays to Google’s strengths while exploiting the “build high walls” mentality of these isolationist cell phone companies.

Pretty nice Android site at http://www.phandroid.com if this sort of thing tickles your fancy.

We’ll forgive your site name-dropping because you make a good point. Apple has an extremely strong brand but Google is trusted, powerful and flexible.

I would love to see a badass Alienware phone…