I have been holding off writing about this debate, but I have found that various articles comparing the two mobile platforms miss something rather critical.

Yesterday Jobs made a jab at Android by referencing TweetDecks graphic, saying that the openness of the platform creates fragmentation, and implied that developing for this fragmentation is an issue and doesn’t make it as good of a product as his closed IOS.

Iain Dodsworth responded to Jobs saying that it wasn’t a “nightmare” to develop software for Android. He went on further to say that he only has 2 developers working on the Android TweekDeck application. It is unfortunate that he didn’t say how many he has for IOS, but I would assume that it would be the same.

Andy Rubin (father of Android) responded by tweeting that the openness means being able to download the source code of Android to your computer and doing what you want with it. (This is also the principle behind Linux… which funnily enough is used in Android)

When comparing the two most talk about the respective market places and subsequent hardware issues. None talk about the philosophies behind each company. Apple has built their empire around closed systems, providing a controlled user experience and having complete ownership over the hardware being used to run their Mac’s. Google on the other hand has built their empire around open information and closing the gap between it and its users. They see much value in openness and as such believe in embracing it in order to add value which they can monetize.

I think its best to compare them as a micro-manager, and a macro-manager. Neither are bad, and one may work much better in certain situations. One thing that we can all thank is that both companies are strongly competing and as such are expanding the smart phone market which was once completely dominated by corporate blackberries (RIM). Now I believe RIM is a formidable player in the market, but it has a niche which iPhone and Android have yet to encroach upon.

For now, enjoy the competition, the quick advancements of the smart phone and underlying technology. It can only get better from here, right?