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Google Android — a Universe of Incompatible Devices
snydeq writes "Galen Gruman writes about the dark side of the recent flood of Android smartphones: versions run amok. 'That flood of options should be a good thing — but it's not. In fact, it's a self-destruction derby in action, as phones come out with different versions of the Android OS, with no clear upgrade strategy for either the operating system or the applications users have installed, and with inconsistent deployment of core features. In short, the Android platform is turning out not to be a platform at all, but merely a starting point for a universe of incompatible devices,' Gruman writes. 'This mess leaves developers and users in an unstable position, as each new Android device adds another variation and compatibility question.' In the end, Google's naive approach to open sourcing Android may in fact be precipitating this free-for-all — one that might ultimately turn off both end-users and developers alike."
As reader donberryman points out, you can even put Android onto some Windows Mobile phones, now.
The proliferating, incompatible versions is precisely why I don't have an android powered smartphone. I really like Verizon's service (thus no iPhone: AT&T == Satan), but the Android phones are scattered and disjoint: they all look different, they all are different, and I'd hate to develop on them because its worse than windows: a proliferating set of devices, all different and all inconsistent.
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Yeah... THIS is so hard and obscure:
>> Sure it is. You just go to the "app store" and click on the application you want to install.
Time for you wankers to get over yourselves.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
1) there have been numerous articles in the last year (since May when they last changed the plan terms) of people receiving bills with multi-hundred dollar overage charges.
2) The pro-rating may have doubled, but it's still over $100 in the last 30 day period, and many times what it was a few months ago any time prior to that.
3) I don't need to be on a call while driving, but I need to know some one is TRYING to call, or left a voice mail, or a text about an emergency. If I go on a 4 hour ride, and need GPS to get me there, I'm completely disconnected during that time. yes, it's a CDMA limit, but they could have deployed 3G anytime in the last 5 years, and they chose not to. I'm also not complaining about the limitation, I'm complaining all their advertising hinges around an OS that's crippled because of it, with no honest communication to buyers at time of purchase about that limit or its potential issues.
4) Smartphones no, but if you get a smartphone, you have to pay $30 a month extra (or $45 if you use push e-mail). I want a camera phone that lets me copy pictures to a PC to free. Verizon's phones can not do that since Verizon chooses to alter the firmware to prevent it (though a few new ones can, and it's becoming less of a common practice for them).
5) http://www.verizonwireless.com/customer_care/add_feature/TC486R1099.html: Section 10, clearly states "next whole minute" I'm right.
6) You can turn it off, but not if the text plan is part of your existing contract, without resigning for another 2 years from the date you turn it off (unless you simply keep paying for it after turning it off on the control panel without changing your plan, fick that!)
7) $100 after 18 months, $200 after 2. Not $400 after 18 months and $200 after 12 as they've done on the iPhone 3 times, including existing subscribers. Also, AT&T lets you get the full rebate, up to $400, after 2 years, but Verizon caps you at your new every two amount.
8) Sorry, happened to us twice. There's also a slew of oline articles about this. Add or remove a line, change to new plans (not different tiers in the same plan, that's OK), activate a dew device, these all triger contract renewal. I was burned by this just 7 months ago and had to pay $170 to get out of a plan we'd had for 29 months because my wife had changed her terms to a different plan that included texts a bit more than a year before.
9) I dig into rollover on my AT&T plan about every 3-4 months, and by doing so, I've saved $20 month by having 1 plan tier lower for more than 3 years. That's HUGE, and something worth bitching about.
10) Verizon bit 4 people in my office with this in the last year that I'm personally aware of. One got back billed over $150 on his Windows mibole (from day 1 on his contract), and he'd only connected the device to our exchange server 3 months earlier. (we only moved his department to Exchange 4 months before). If you buy a new device, it's one of the first questions they ask, and they inform you that use of push e-mail without the term on your contract IS monitored, is a violation of your contract, and they'll not only back bill for it, they can terminate your contract without prior warning.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Maybe you do work for apple, you certainly speak like a fanboy: "their pushes are legendary." i got a chuckle out of that. while i'll give u DRM-free for itunes music, because I have seen an article or two showing them asking for it before tracks were DRM-free (though I'd venture the real reason is so that they could stay competitive with Amazon already offering DRM-free and hence superior music at the time), the other ones don't exist. And they're certainly not "legendary!"