> It’s also the case that this last quarter was the first one with phones like the Motorola Droid and Nexus One available, and the first with Verizon on board as a U.S. Android carrier. So, one might think, it makes sense that the iPhone still dominates Android in web visits, as the iPhone has been a popular device in the U.S. since July 2007. But then why has the iPad — only on sale for six weeks, only in the U.S. — already surpassed Android? I don’t get it. I have a theory regarding Gruber’s question above. Even though Android models like the Droid might be the top selling Android phones, those few more capable phones that have debuted recently are still not the majority of Android devices when you add all those other models together. I still think the majority of Android devices are running older, less capable versions of the OS (even some that are just coming out now), and therefore do not sport browsers with features as nice as the Droid. And, more importantly, those models don’t appeal to people who want to use a mobile browser, per se.

Many, many, Android buyers are the kinds of users who got their phone via a “buy one, get one free” campaign. Which means they were handed an Android device. They didn’t go out and seek one specifically. Sure, that’s a sale, technically, but it doesn’t breed a devoted user base who actually cares enough to use the phone to its full potential. And it certainly doesn’t inspire people to buy Android again and again and again.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a large number of Android phone owners didn’t even know that they have an Android phone. Many of these models are certainly not marketed that way.

With the iPhone and the iPad, people go out of their way to pay more for the device. And Apple does a great job of inspiring the public to do more with their devices. So users of Apple devices are going to use more of the features more often. And they are going to continue to be Apple users forever.

Google, in essence, is not appealing to the prize demographic with Android. Certain models like the Droid, the Incredible, and the Nexus One attract more savvy, discerning users, sure. But the bulk of the current user base are the same people who up until a year ago owned a simple feature phone, and weren’t all that unhappy about it. They don’t care about browsing from a mobile device. They just take whatever the guy at Verizon hands them.

Apple’s approach is literally changing the way people use phones. Android is just trying to get as many phones to market as possible. Very different end goals here.

> With the Adobe HTML5 Pack extension for Dreamweaver CS5, developers leveraging HTML5 and CSS3 gain such capabilities as code-hinting, in which the tool helps finish lines of code based on what already has been entered on the keyboard, Hickman said. There’s commitment for you. You can now download a special “pack” to give Dreamweaver basic HTML5 and CSS3 features. Features that should have been the core focus of this major upgrade.

Too late, Adobe. I’m already making my sites elsewhere.

> When asked about Android’s weak battery life at the Google Zeitgeist forum, Google co-founder Larry Page said that if anyone is not getting a full day’s worth of battery, there’s “something wrong.” Page then went on to suggest it’s probably user habits and third-party apps causing battery woes. “When there is [software](http://androinica.com/2010/05/19/google-blames-android-battery-woes-on-user-practices-and-poorly-designed-apps#) running in the background, that just sort of exhausts the battery quickly,” said Page. > > Eric Schmidt chimed in, “The primary consumer of the battery life on these phones is the transmit/receive circuit. So tuning that and obviously figuring out a way to not use too much of that extends your battery life…And people bring in [applications](http://androinica.com/2010/05/19/google-blames-android-battery-woes-on-user-practices-and-poorly-designed-apps#) that are not particularly smart about that.” In other words, if you want to use Android, you have to accept more responsibility as a user for issues that arise. And if you are being responsible yourself, then all your problems are the fault of developer applications you are using. And it’s up to you to figure out which developers are using best practices and which ones aren’t.

Notice in all this, Google is never to blame.

This is a fundamental difference between Google and Apple, and the main reason why I still think Android will remain a scattered, less popular platform than the iPhone for years to come. Apple puts the responsibility for great user experience on itself and on its developers. The only people who suffer from this approach are geek users who don’t care whether or not they have to spend hours configuring their phones right just to get a day’s use out of the battery, and lesser developers who don’t want to learn how to code more efficiently.

Users are oblivious to what goes on behind the scenes; they just know they love their iPhones, because they work. Good developers are happier here, too, because they are rewarded for their good coding practices and aren’t forced to compete in a sea of hacks.

Google, on the other hand, believes in the wild west, where your user experience depends on how much you want to research how to use the products properly. Google still doesn’t get that most users, even power users like myself, would rather spend their time actually using the phone than learning how to use it. Google also doesn’t seem to get that if you let developers do whatever they want, they will, and users will suffer for it.

I just don’t see how Google breaks through to mainstream users with this approach. Microsoft got away with it because there was no viable alternative at the time. Flooding the market with dozens of models that are incompatible with each other might look good on a spreadsheet, but it’s not a good way to build a long-lasting platform. Once Android kills off Microsoft’s mobile efforts, I just don’t see where the growth is going to come from. Not with this sort of attitude from its leadership.

> I hope for Adobe’s sake that he’s being disingenuous about these issues; otherwise the co-chairman of their board is completely ignorant of how their flagship products are perceived by many Mac users. This article is a very interesting read. Gruber reacts to an interview of Adobe’s Chuck Gescheke by John Paczkowski.

My take is that Gescheke is toeing the company line here. He can’t possibly believe a lot of what he’s saying about Flash being open, cross-platform development having no downsides, etc. He’s too smart to actually believe any of that.

I love how Gruber nails it at the end of the article. Gescheke tells his interviewer that Adobe hasn’t opened Flash up to a standards body to maintain because they don’t want to do “design by committee.” Which is exactly Apple’s stance with iPhone OS. The only difference is that Apple has never claimed that iPhone OS is open.

> Google has asked a third party to review what was collected and confirm that it was deleted. It also plans to review its procedures to ensure something similar doesn’t happen in the future. The company is turning this whole scenario into a lesson: “This incident highlights just how publicly accessible open, non-password-protected WiFi networks are today.” > > Indeed, it’s certainly surprising to see that this data was collected after Google confidently stated that it wasn’t. At the same time, it’s oversights like these that provide ammunition for privacy advocates and critics of Google’s perceived lack of respect for privacy. It’s also a reminder that we truly never know what kind of data is being collected, even when the company in question has the best of intentions.  I know I’m not usually overly-positive about Google, but I have to point out a clear difference here between Google and Facebook, since privacy is such a hot button issue this week.

“Don’t be Evil” may be marketing nonsense, but Google knows that trust from its users is essential to its long-term business strategy. Facebook seems to not care about trust; they’ve won their monopoly on Social Media, and they will abuse their power accordingly, probably with little consequence.

Personally, I believe Google when it tells me that this data has since been erased, and that it had no ill intentions when it collected that data. Google stands to lose more from loss of trust than it gains from random wireless network traffic. The third-party review is unnecessary, but again, demonstrates that Google takes these things seriously, or at least wants us to believe they take it seriously. That’s important.

I don’t really care if Google has information from my wireless network picked up from a passing car. What I care about is that Google is smart enough never to use that data.