UTTERMEDIA

“We believe integrated will trump fragmented every time.”

Motor-mouthed Mac money man Steve Jobs offers his introspective opinion on the imaginary iOS VS Android battle. Explained, he believes an integrated solution will triumph over fragmented multi-manufacturer solutions.

The Android OS is made by one company, to work on a handset made by another. The apps on that handset are tested but not vetted. Apple, however, create the OS and manufacture the handset as well as approving and testing all apps for said device.

Jobs is no stranger to saying one thing and doing the complete opposite. He vowed never to create a tablet device. He quashed rumours of the iPhone. However, his latest and probably throw-away rant goes against his mantra on a deeper level.

A company opposed to the intensive chokeholds of Flash, Apple strive for an open-standard for web and mobile device video. Flash is buggy, closed and bloated. But soon after my switch from iPhone to HTC, I suddenly learned that iOS is/was buggy, closed and bloated. Eg: the “1GHz” iPhone 4 processor is underclocked to 800MHz to prevent overheating. The HTC Desire 1GHz processor doesn’t really need speech-marks.

Openness in product design will bring manufacturers and consumers closer, and the end result with be something that the consumer can enjoy without being hypnotized by marketing, gloss and hype, and just “making do” because the GUI looks nice.

Like I’ve said before, the iPhone is an awesome piece of mobile technology. It brings so many features and experiences which are new to mobile users. These are not new features and new experiences, they are just packaged and marketed in a way that is accessible to the school mum, the technophobe, the toddler. iPhone is closed for that reason - it needs to be solid and straight, perfectly aligned to the needs of a user who wants it to “just work” without questioning why or how.

Android handsets (give or take a few) can do anything the iPhone can do, as good as or better. It’s the OS that really sets it apart. The hundreds of tweaks and options that you discover for weeks after purchasing your new device are just brilliant. Sometimes simple solutions to everyday problems, other times really nice features that you wonder how you coped without.

“Did we at any point say it was a nightmare developing on Android? Errrr nope, no we didn’t. It wasn’t.”

TweetDeck’s CEO responded fairly well to Jobs’ outburst. And good on him too, for the head of a predominatly Apple-targeted social network platform, he didn’t even really need to acknowledge Android. Instead though, he and his team have taken TweetDeck for iOS, thrown away the rulebook, and started right from the bottom up. The two versions, aside from visuals, are a world apart, with features that marry beautifully with the Android interface - features that iOS wouldn’t allow.

There is fervent competition within the industry between Apple and Android, but this blog post (one of many many millions) just goes to show how different both brands are when it comes to user-experience. So the question remains, why try to compete when you’re so different? Android outsold iOS weeks ago, but who’s counting?

10 years from now Jobs will have that Mac market share that he deserves, and perhaps the iOS VS Android dust will have settled, and we’ll have two even more different, honed and unique mobile platforms. And he can retire quietly. Toys in pram.

Motorway service stations - sprawling damp meccas to stale Gingsters pasties and dog-eared A-Zs.

Like your worst zombie nightmare come true, mustached midlanders and hyperactive helpline workers stumble and stagger gormlessly into one another like a pit of suicidal science-lab rats.

But you desperately need a piss and you feel safe in M&S, even if its full of the Somerfield massive uttering “well posh innit”.

Here are 5 sights you will see at any service station anytime anywhere in glorious England…

1. An obese dog with matching obese owner. Not walking but waddling side to side like a tired discarded dingy abandoned in a rundown eastcoast harbour.

2. A vending machine repair man sporting Lake District sized sweat patches, with thin gold spectacles - the arms disappearing into the side of his head, swallowed by bloated red flesh. Busy doing nothing. Think doomed bomb disposal expert (Fox Mulder, first X-Files movie) but a definite bum exposure expert.

3. A child called Jake being shouted at by a short tempered parent possibly with a leather bumbag or “sun hat” that you’d find at a local village fete. Or Skegness.

4. A discarded pair of baby shoes. Thoughtfully put somewhere in view, maybe atop a payphone or charity collection box. Some poor child somewhere is being dragged around on bloody stumps, probably alongside a chubby canine.

5. Lads. Dopey lads holiday lads. You know, Carling for breakfast, blokes minivan trip to Blackpool to tie Wayne to a lamp post before he ties the knot with Shannon. Careful, these guys spit and sniff hard - but they’re shy. They’ll piss at the urinal facing the corner and will avoid eye contact (and soap) at all costs.

So next time you’re sat head-in-hands on the great white chair crying into your fingernails trying to poo in peace and not pieces, refer to this handy list and see just how easy character assassination can be at one of our infrastructures many decaying armpits.

Brought to you from Chorley Services on the M6. A blog for the bog.