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Will Android Flavors Spoil the Platform?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the kajillion-dollar-question dept.

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."

13 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. The "choice is bad" argument by symbolset · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since the competitors don't have choice and can't get it they have to argue that "choice is bad". If you like choice though - if you prefer a less expensive phone or one with all the bells and whistles, or larger or smaller or whatever, Android is an obvious choice. If you like to choose the phone network based on pricing or features, quality of network, or how badly they restrict the phone's features to maximize your bill, again Android is a clear winner. If a single great design that's wholly integrated and secured by a single vendor is your preference, iPhone is a grand choice - and that's great! You get to choose that too.

    Lack of choice as a feature though is in general a tough sell.

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    1. Re:The "choice is bad" argument by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is the old fragmentation debate.

      Choice isn't a bad thing. Too much choice is. What can Android 1.6 offer me that 2.2 can't? It's a little ridiculous. Why should cheaper phones be stuck on 1.6 when they're fully capable of running 2.2?

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    2. Re:The "choice is bad" argument by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      you can remove pc crapware. we really do own complete control (even bios) over our pc's.

      do you really think you can totally re-program a phone from open source code?

      really?

      when you buy a phone and it comes with icons and features you want to remove and can't, how is this OPEN again?

      its not open. its open on some areas but not in the ones we need. when ATT comments out the software sources menu option, this is a prime example of what we are complaining about!

      locking boot code is also evil and yet allowed by the android system or architecture.

      really bad move, google. google just bad much worse deals than apple did with the carriers. apple DEFINED what was ok and what was not. google said 'hey as long as we can insert ads, we don't really CARE what you do mr. vendor.'

      very different models in how to reign in your carrier. google had as much control as apple did but chose not to flex their powerful muscles. they made bad judgement call when they let the carriers run wild with THEIR codebase.

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    3. Re:The "choice is bad" argument by mlingojones · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Android *is* open. Open for the carriers.

      The users, not so much.

    4. Re:The "choice is bad" argument by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What? you just totally contradicted yourself, and in the same sentence. So you are saying that iOS fragmentation is a user issue, not a device issue, so um, how do you upgrade the original iPhone to the latest version of iOS? There are the same issues here too, so get off your fanboy bus and try to be a bit objective.

      Support has ended on the original iPhone. It had 3 major OS updates from 1.0 through to 3.1.3. That's a pretty good run considering some Android phones haven't gotten any new major version. Furthermore because Apple tightly controls the API backwards compatibility for apps should be easy to maintain for developers for the foreseeable future, especially because the iPad is still on iOS 3.x. The difference is mostly in games pushing the envelop in hardware use and apps otherwise dependent on newer hardware but then that's the game isn't it ?

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    5. Re:The "choice is bad" argument by twbecker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agreed. The notion that iOS is more fragmented than Android is laughable. All iPhone models short of the original are fully capable of running the latest iOS, if some *users* choose not to upgrade for whatever reason that is *their* choice. Unlike Android where even newly purchased lower tier models don't ship with the latest version, and may very well never be able to upgrade to it.

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  2. Yes... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... in the same way that all the flavors of GNU/Linux have spoiled that platform.

  3. pfft by Pojut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I love the fact that there is such a wide variety of Android phones. Different features are important to different people, and being able to choose between different phones gives them the opportunity to buy one that caters towards whatever the find most important (good screen, good keypad, good camera, etc.)

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  4. Someone call Google! by dyingtolive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Terrible news everyone. Android enables the ability to extend usability and functionality beyond what the native platform supports! It's not a one size fits all shoehorn! What a failure! God, I need to sell my stock quick!!1

    You know. I've never bought a car thinking it had any features in it other than the ones I knew it had. How about instead of treating consumers like they're the awkward creepy man-child that greets customers at Wal-Mart, we just expect people to have enough interest in the product to do their research and read the fucking box and reviews to find out what the device is even capable of? I mean, are there any reasons other than because the expectation of personal responsibility is dead?

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    1. Re:Someone call Google! by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      it also enables the CARRIER or vendor to 'comment out' stuff that we would want and adding crap to our screens that we do NOT want. and often you cannot change this, as its not really a 'portable pc' as people want to think. its still in a lock-down mode when it comes to your ability to do things with ALL 'google phones'.

      google did not control the carriers. they made a huge mistake in this design aspect.

      this is the problem.

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  5. I Agree by whisper_jeff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know I'll get modded to hell but I think that Android is in danger of suffering to forking into different carrier-specific versions. I believe that people _will_ hear about cool features that an Android phone offers, buy an Android phone and find out, too late, that it's available on _other_ Android phones, not the one they bought. This will start to result in negative user experiences down the road.

    The plus side of it (being fair here) is it is really driving competition and making the different forks of Android as well as iOS better because of it. It's forcing manufacturers to drive to improve, which is good for the consumer but, for people who want Android to win, it will soon become a discussion of specific forks of Android because there will no longer be one unified version.

    Heck, I find myself looking at Android phones thinking "if I were to switch from my iPhone, which one would I be interested in getting?" (I won't be switching - I like my iPhone - but I like to contemplate which version of Android interests me to keep my options open and all that.) That, to me, is a clear sign that the differentiation is real and something people need to keep in mind.

  6. The proper analogy is the 80's by rsborg · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's not the 90's and 00's of Linux, but the Unix wars of the 1980's where proprietary Unixes battled it out for the workstation market. The corporate greed of Unix vendors (as opposed to the ideological Linux battles after-wards) allowed a Microsoft to flourish and eventually control the high end market.

    Despite Google being the unifying factor, the carriers are even more greedy and less capable than the Unix vendors of old, and meanwhile Apple remains ascendant and proprietary.

    Inconsistent user interfaces diminish network effects and will suppress Android adoption... then there are abominations like the Verizon vCast store.

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  7. Really, people, just stop by daemonenwind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First, Steve Jobs complains that Android is fragmented and offers too many versions.
    No one else had said it before.

    Then a bunch of second-rate tech websites echo it.
    Then it gets reposted here and a bunch of 7-figure IDs and Anonymous Cowards post "me too" stuff.

    Do I have to spell out a marketing-company forged FUD campaign? Has it been so long since IBM vs. Microsoft? Do we really need to re-learn what this looks like?

    If a carrier abuses the phones, leave the carrier.
    If a phone comes out neutered, don't buy it.

    Having a codebase that moves rapidly forward is a simple fact of computing since broadband got big. Calling it a weakness is pure bullshit, especially when the competition moves (at most) at the rate of about a significant change once per year.