Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Vatican has picked sides: It's Android FTW.

According to the official Catholic News Service, the Pope used a Sony S Tablet -- an Android -- to light up an electronic Christmas tree in the Italian town of Gubbio, remotely from Vatican City.

Tom's Hardware, citing MSNBC, says that the Pope was originally supposed to use an iPad to light up the Christmas tree.  Tom's Hardware asks whether it was a case of miscommunication or a last minute switch, but that does not make sense, because such things as changing ecosystems at the last moment is not quite that easy.

Others, including the Daily Mail UK, have speculated that the reason for choosing an Android tablet over the iPad, is because it's easy to create an Android app and use it without having to "wait while Apple approved his custom app, as would have to happen on iPad."

This could make some sense, since you don't need to publish the app in the Android ecosystem -- all you need to do is create your app via App Inventor, then download it onto your Android device.  Doing so on the iOS ecosystem would require hurdles that perhaps the Vatican didn't want to jump through, particularly avoiding having to register (and pay) to get access to a digital signature so that you could download an application to your device.

But this illustrates the point: Even the Pope doesn't have the authority to overrule the House of Jobs!


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