I just returned from the 2010 edition of Apple's WWDC. The week before I took a week off from my iPhone and lived with an Android Nexus One. Both my personal experience with Android and the following week's announcements left a strong impression that, in the so-called "smartphone" space, we are really seeing the success of two very different mind-sets, cultures and philosophies. I'm not interested in a winner-takes-all kind of war. Instead I wanted to look at the differences between these two companies in the context of them co-existing and each having a happy, satisfied base of customers.
I was going to write about how capable the Nexus One seems to me, but how amateurish the UI appears. At times, the look and feel of the Android UI looks like its designers simply couldn't figure out how to fill the space with something interesting.
I was going to write about how the ubiquity of the four hardware buttons are both a blessing and curse. I understand that the designers were trying to provide a set of near-universal options in a consistent place. Unfortunately it was too easy to accidentally hit the "home" key while typing on the soft keyboard.
I was going to write about the moment I realized just how different the design philosophies between Android and iOS (nee iPhoneOS) are when I wanted Instapaper integration with a good Twitter client. I needed to find an Instapaper app, not a Twitter app with Instapaper integration. I simply didn't grok the universal plugin architecture of Android at first. In hindsight it makes perfect sense—if you're a software developer or tech-geek. It seems insane to require the user to have a mental model that's so intimate with Android's implementation details.
I was going to write about how delighted I was with Android's GMail integration and how much I wish something similar existed on the iPhone. I love GMail. I couldn't care less about other mail configurations (POP or IMAP). Maybe the built-in regular mail app is as clunky as Apple's, but I didn't use it. Kudos to Google for such a seamless integration with not only Gmail, but the calendar and contacts too.
I was going to write about all these little bits of evidence that showed just how different the philosophies are between these two companies and these two platforms. I was going to write about how it's a bit odd to put them in competition with each other because, in a sense, they are really trying to build two different things: Google wants to build the most bad-ass feature-rich, piece of mobile technology there ever was. Apple wants to build a mobile experience.
I was going to write about all of these things, but after attending the keynote at WWDC last week, I realized that there was only one thing that I needed to point to that most effectively highlights the differences between the two:
At the end of this video, you had a room full of five-thousand geeks drying their eyes. You can call the video cheesy or manipulative. You can call it a piece of marketing fluff. But that video was not about protocols, compatibility, specifications or any of the myriad technical details we debate on a daily basis. That video was about telling human stories that we can all relate to.
I haven't yet been to a Google I/O event. I'd really like to attend one. But right, wrong or indifferent, you would never see something like this from Google. I can't think of anything that does a better job of summing up the completely different views that Google and Apple have of the world.