Social media maven Robert Scoble says he’s migrating from Apple to Android. “I’m no longer an Apple fanboy,” Scoble wrote in a post on Google+ yesterday. “I’m getting ready to leave the Apple platform and switch to Android.”
That might not seem like a big deal. But the fact is, a lot of people follow Scoble on social media and consider him influential. They respect his opinion. And Scoble isn’t just any fanboy. He’s the kind who camps outside Apple stores and sleeps on the sidewalk when a new Apple product is coming out and cheers like a triumphant hero when he walks out of the store with the latest iToy in his hands. (See also here and here and here.)
Scoble isn’t the first high-profile Apple defector. A few months ago we reported that legendary Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki had become a hardcore Android fan.
Reasons For Switching
Kawasaki said he moved to Android because he simply believed that Android had leapfrogged past Apple and was delivering a better solution.
Scoble said he’s bailing because “Apple lately HAS slipped in my eyes and there are lots of examples how (Google Now, Waze maps, and tons of apps that are here already and coming on the Android platform, like SwiftKey keyboards).”
Scoble still believes that “most apps are smoother and have fewer problems on iOS,” but he’s switching anyway.
Partly Scoble seems excited about Google’s Project Glass wearable computer. He’s getting one soon, and says that “of course that will work better if you use Android.”
Yet Another Switcher
The irony is that Scoble was writing this stuff about Android in a post where he was criticizing a reporter from GigaOm who Scoble felt had unfairly criticized Apple.
The GigaOm reporter, Mathew Ingram, had written an article describing his own switch from Apple to Android.
Ingram originally adopted Android because he got sick of Apple’s walled garden, only to discover that he also likes the way Android handles notifications and finds it less intrusive than how Apple does it.
Scoble went on a rant saying you can just turn off Apple notifications if you don’t like them. But then Scoble confessed that he too is in the process of switching to Android.
What does it mean when high-profile “influencers” and devoted Apple lovers start moving to Android? They all have different reasons, and you may or may not agree with them or be persuaded by their arguments. But even the most hardcore Apple fans must recognize that these decisions are significant.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia.
