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Is Google Bad For Mobile?

Hate is a strong word, but that’s how MG Siegler if often perceived to feel about Android. The ex-TechCrunch editor says he has nothing against the “concept” of the operating system, though he has come to distain “what Google has done with Android,” i.e., given carriers -- and Verizon, in particular -- too much power over the fate of the mobile industry. “Android is now the carriers’ best friend,” Siegler writes, after reminding us that at one time, Verizon and Google were at odds over Net Neutrality.

That, of course, was before Google needed Verizon to beat Apple.  “Verizon was opposed, Google was in favor. Then a funny thing happened,” Siegler writes. “Google started supporting Verizon’s viewpoint on the matter! … A few months later, guess what happened? Thanks to the Google/Verizon alliance on the matter, the FCC decided the compromised vision of Net neutrality was just fine also.”

In other words, Siegler is convinced that Net neutrality was declawed in the wireless space because Google sided with Verizon. By contrast, Siegler adds: “Apple, for all the shit they get for being ‘closed’ and ‘evil’, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers.”

 

Read the whole story at ParisLemon »

1 comment about "Is Google Bad For Mobile?".
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  1. Curtis Bahr from TBWA/Chiat/Day, January 10, 2012 at 3:51 p.m.

    Apple may have wrestled control away from carriers, but they sure as hell haven't put it back into the hands of consumers.

    iPhone users have merely traded one locked garden for another (albeit a much prettier one).

    For all of Android's flaws (and they are legion), the one thing I wouldn't knock is how much control the consumer is given over their own handset.

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