BBC NEWS | Technology | Google's Android mobile unveiled

[Andrew Robinson]

2008/9/24 The Dong <dong at f2s.com>:
> In all honesty, seriously, I have only EVER seen ONE iPhone in public
> owned by a friend and that friend earns a LOT of money. Others may have
> a Blackberry. That includes glancing about on buses and in pubs, shops etc.

Interesting - are you looking for the for white headphones with a
distinctive little lump for the headset mic that distinguishes the
iPhone from iPod?

I'm down in London for a mo, sorting out stuff to take to Worcester
from my parents house, and on the commuter train from central London
there were so many iPhones that mine didn't draw a second glance -
very different from the first few weeks when strangers would strike up
conversations about mine. At a guess it was split about 50% generic
phones, 25% blackberries and 25% iphones - but of course the
headphones give away an iphone but not a blackberry/other, so there's
a bias there.

> In the case of iPods, only one person I know has one that still works, a
> new Shuffle, the only other one I know about is broken beyond reasonable
> repair.

They do die if you drop them often enough, but I killed a lot more
Walkmen in the 80s than Wendy's kids have killed iPods (death toll so
far is 1 dropped from a moving car, 1 lost, 1 retired due to newer
model and 2 still in use). My shuffle and both my iPhones are as good
as new. You can't walk round London without seeing white headphones
everywhere. Even Wendy's Mum had one (admittedly only because she won
it in a raffle, and she had no idea what it was even after having it
explained for hours. She was so technophobic that she stuck to her old
'heat it on the gas ring' kettle, when a modern electric one was
bought for her, she stuck it in the back of the cupboard saying 'it's
broken, it keeps turning itself off!', but I digress...)

> In the case of the desktop computer, NOBODY has one (unless you count
> the first generation Apple Mac, of which there is one and someone owned
> one of them for a week too, until they realised it wasn't a PC and none
> of the software they needed would work on it) and laptops a staggering
> single one (maybe 2) have I witnessed in 20 years. Really.

Maybe it's just because I hang out with designers and musos a lot, but
I see many more Macs than PCs. Could well be because I'm the 'go to
guy' for people to have their new Macs explained to them though.

> ... that is the main reason all their shit costs twice as much as
> everyone elses. Not because it is twice as good.

The Android phone is 10% cheaper then the iPhone. Ignoring allegances,
would you really not find the extra cash to have 8Gb instead of 1Gb,
and to have the free apps from the app store?

- Andy_R