Steve Jobs reveals the ugly side of Android

Apple posted robust profit and great sales for the quarter ending 25 September 2010. Apple sold 4.19 million iPads, 14.1 million iPhone, 9.05 million iPods and 3.81 million Macintosh computers in the quarter. Apple sold 3.3 million iPads the previous quarter. iPhones and iPads which are the first in their respective categories are seeing intense competition from several handset makers mainly using Google’s Android operating system. At the conference call, Steve Jobs ripped through Apple’s competition. It’s almost as if there is no competition. And 7-inch tablets are a joke.

As per Steve Jobs, here’s what’s wrong with Android :

Too many hardware configurations

Tweetedeck released an Android version of its twitter application. It found 100 different version of Android operating system running on 244 different handset models. This presents a daunting challenge for the app developers as well as the users. Motorola and HTC has modified the user interface on the Android commodity to differentiate themselves. And this is helping no body.

Highly fragmented

Android operating system is highly fragmented because of its open nature. The devices running Android will be running any of its operating systems from Cupcake to Froyo. Apple’s iPhone on the other side has only two operating system versions to deal with. One new and one current.

Too many app stores

There is only one app store for Apple’s iPhone or iPad. For Android there at least four market places. In addition to Google’s Android market place, Amazon, Vodafone and Verizon are offering their own app stores. This is a mess for both developers and users. All the Android tablets will have zero apps because of the various sizes they are coming in making it difficult for the developers.

Steve Jobs finally closes it with the open versus closed talk. As per Jobs, open vs closed debate is a smokescreen to hide the real issue. The real issue is fragmented vs integrated. Android is highly fragmented in terms of software and hardware configurations and iPhone OS is highly integrated giving users a great experience.

It is hard to not agree with what Steve Jobs said about Android. Most of the things would be true for global context.

Indian context would be little different. iPhones are not a big hit in India. Though they are highly prized possessions the sales do not backup the popularity. Android phones are hitting that sweet spot with the Indian consumers where they can get a good smartphone experience for a fraction of iPhone price. App wise, having an iPhone in India isn’t really a great place to be. There are very few apps available for Indian context. If there are fewer apps on Android, so be it. At least the phone comes cheap.

Here’s Steve Jobs (audio only) :