Action at a Distance

Why Google's new Nexus 4 doesn't have LTE

Android head Andy Rubin calls the lack of LTE a “tactical issue,” and cites cost and battery life as major concerns with devices that have to support multiple radios.

MG Siegler has a followup to that:

Make no mistake, when Andy Rubin tells Dieter Bohn and Nilay Patel of The Verge that “costs” and “battery life” are two major factors in the decision, it’s pure misdirection. Said another way, it’s bullshit. How do we know this? Just look at the iPhone 5. It’s rolling out on LTE networks around the world just fine with its thin design, multiple antennas, and solid battery life.

The iPhone 5 is not “rolling out on LTE networks around the world just fine”. For example, in the UK, it will work with EE’s new LTE network, but it won’t work with LTE from our other major carriers when they go live next year. This is because international LTE support is hard, just as Rubin suggests.

Furthermore, the iPhone 5 (16 GB) is £529 SIM-free. The Nexus 4 (also 16 GB) is £279, just slightly more than half the price for broadly equivalent hardware. The cost issue doesn’t sound like “bullshit” to me.

Siegler goes on:

And yet, Apple has no problem shipping iOS updates over the same networks. Why? Because they strong-armed Verizon into the same deal they got with AT&T. They fought for the user. Google sold us out to sell some phones. Now the devil is collecting.

Apple has kowtowed to AT&T numerous times: over Faux-G, over Facetime-over-cellular, over tethering charges. Apple isn’t invulnerable to commercial pressures, nor does it have an unblemished record of putting its user’s interests before its own (or those of its partners).

Is Siegler too much of a bigshot now to engage his brain before writing a post, or something? I’m sure he used to be better than this lazy, knee-jerk, only-Apple-can-do-right stuff.