This rant had very little to do with the actual Android UX, and was mostly whining about bad customer service. Not that bad service is excusable, but it doesn't have anything to do with Android itself.
The point made in the article, and which I certainly agree with, is that a product like the G1 is not just a piece of hardware, it's a package consisting of the hardware, the service, the user experience, the customer service, the purchasing experience, etc. If you fail miserably at several of those, even if you excel at the others you'll probably have a hard time becoming a commercial success.
One of the things Apple has traditionally been good at is precisely managing the "whole thing" - from the perception of the product when it is first announced, to the marketing buzz until the product is launched, the launch itself, the purchasing experience, the after-sale service, and even the after-use experience (when your iPod starts to get old - hey, you can have a brand new one that's even better!).
Google's not gonna be able to compete with the iPhone until it gets more of these right.
And following that strategy it makes perfect sense that Apple would screen the app store. It bothers me when people complain that it should be open to everything with out considering that there is a bigger picture.
I have no problem with Apple screening apps for the store. I have a problem with the opacity of the screening process, and the arbitrary, anti-competitive rejections that Apple gives developers who have spent lots of time, effort, and money to develop and have no reasonable expectation for rejection.
See: rejection of apps for competing too closely with iTunes, Mail.app, et al.
Agreed. The only thing he actually said about the phone itself was that it gets about four hours active use. He could have had the same purchasing experience for any next-gen phone. A better title would have been "The customer experience failure of T-Mobile UK".
That's not true; he spends several grafs talking about quirky inputs, bad battery life, and a less effective Google Maps interface than on the iPod Touch or his old Nokia phone.
