Apple CEO Tim Cook likens Android to boring old Windows platform

Android users love their variety. The dedicated quickly dismiss the iOS competition as being "boring" and "copying" features their handset had months ago. those same users point to the variety Android offers as reason the platform is so amazing, and commands the impressive global market share it does. Apple CEO Tim Cook, in a recent interview, wasn't quite so kind about Android. To his mind, Android is the new Windows — and not the cool new Windows, either. Tim Cook thinks Android is like Windows Vista Windows.

Speaking to Fast Company on a variety of topics, Cook discussed collaboration within Apple. Though what ultimately comes out of Apple annually in the form of hardware/software is divided up into various divisions, cook praised the collaboration between those departments as reason the resulting experience is so good.

As for the competition — Cook wasn't so complimentary:

We've turned up the volume on collaboration because it's so clear that in order for us to be incredibly successful we have to be the best collaborators in the world. The magic of Apple, from a product point of view, happens at this intersection of hardware, software, and services. It's that intersection. Without collaboration, you get a Windows product. There's a company that pumps out an operating system, another that does some hardware, and yet another that does something else. That's what's now happening in Android land. Put it all together and it doesn't score high on the user experience.

No collaboration is Windows, and that's the road Android is traveling. Ouch.

Is that accurate? Possibly. It might just be an affectation of open-source software, though. Android is built on the back of partners as much as it is Google. Though many will disagree (probably vehemently) with Cook, he brings up an interesting point, and possibly a lot of foresight.

Source: Fast Company