Will Android Flavors Spoil the Platform?

rsmiller510 writes "Open source operating systems have a lot of upsides, but when you give cell phone makers and providers the power to customize the phones to whatever degree they like, it could end up confusing consumers and watering down the Android label."

Comments

Re:The "choice is bad" argument

[Wyatt Earp]

The issues on the iPhone you linked to are for a model that is over two years old. I had a 3G until two weeks ago, with iOS 4 it could get slow at times launching certain apps but it wasn't a big enough issue to warrant reverting back to iOS 3.x and it's not a big enough issue that my fiancee complains about it.

It's not like there are any iPhone 3Gs sitting on shelves across the planet with the slow ass iOS 4 while a iPhone 4 is sitting next to it for sale. The fragmentation chart you linked to comparing iOS to Android is flawed in that the 3.x flavor fragmentation isn't because of Apple, its because users just don't update their phones. The Android fragmentation is the fault of the vendors, so apples and oranges for that argument.

So really its 44.54 iOS 3.x, 34.05 iOS 4.x and 21.42 running jailbroken or iOS 2.x and are never going to patch anyway or get apps anyway so who cares? At least in early August

The Android issue being discussed here is fragmentation of current phone models. Apple is shipping iOS 3.x for iPads and iOS 4.x for iPhones and iPods, so mobile wise Apple is shipping one flavor of the iOS, 4.x