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The Android Invasion Cometh; Is Resistance Futile?
DeviceGuru writes "Last month, we learned from Gartner that Android will probably be the number-two worldwide mobile OS this year, and may lead the pack by 2014. With Android's growing use as the OS embedded in phones, in tablets, in set-top boxes, and in LCD HDTVs, it seems like the Linux-based OS could end up dominating the entire non-PC consumer device operating system space. What do Slashdot readers think: Is resistance futile?"
I think the article is forgotting that there are already many widespread OS that are taking up that market. I and obviously other geeks love Android because it could mean more open devices for us, but we aren't seeing the whole picture either because it's not in news every day.
The "problem" is the same as with Opera. People think it's not as widespread as it's barely in news and their stuff isn't blastered all over your face all the time. However Opera dominates on embedded devices, televisions (especially in hotels!), mobile phones, even Nintendo Wii.
Windows variants are also the same. Windows 7, Windows CE and Windows Mobile are majorly used but it's not always so obvious. When you take a flight all the televisions in airports run Windows. When you go to ATM they run special version of Windows CE. Some hotel TV's also run Windows. With the upcoming Microsoft tablets and Windows Phone 7, it will get even more marketshare. Windows is also used pretty much in every organization and company.
If Android actually wants to take over all of that, it will be a long road. I hope they do, but I'm not so sure they will. Microsoft is good with business relationships and marketing and thats the point. It's not a small market and Windows is already dominating it.
I'd rather see MeeGo taking a sizeable portion of market from Android. With MeeGo, desktop Linux skills suddenly become very relevant in job market, and we'll get more desktop software (eventually).
With Android, Java skills are everything and... um... we got more people capable of doing Websphere/JBoss stuff? What a victory would that be.
I for one, welcome our new Linux based non-pc consumer device operating system overlords!
Someone had to say it...
Apple - being Apple - will continue to concentrate on the overall user experience of their mobile devices. They will retain their reputation as the maker of mercedes-benz smartphones and other consumer goods, but the sheer volume of Android-based competition will eventually swamp them out of the lower-end of the market. Apple could probably care less - Steve and co. are all about the total experience and crafting the perfect device, and that's fine - they can lead the market in innovation and be the brand that everyone aspires to become. But the droid wave must eventually wash over them and absolutely eat their low-end lunch, and since most of the world ain't rich, that mean most of the world is going to be droid-powered, unless Apple can undercut droid prices, and that just isn't how they roll.
most people reading here are desktop-centric, and the smartphone os is a secondary platform, in terms of work, play, and psychological orientation
but we are rapidly entering a world that is smartphone-centric, and the desktop os is a secondary platform, in terms of work, play, and psychological orientation. the whole desktop segment will be marginal
google can ride this psychological shift to get android/ chrome os onto the desktop market. the shift will be second nature, not an alien intrusion. and it will happen with a whimper, not a bang: who cares about the desktop except old people?
the only people making noise about this "big deal", this great promise of unseating microsoft in the desktop market, chattered about on slashdot for over a decade, will be old people. the idea of using a desktop will be a fossil idea, that only fossils will care about. like looking at greybeards from the 80s with their funny unix command line interfaces
in which case, "resistance is futile" is a good allusion, because google will be the new microsoft. cue bill gates slashdot borg icon morphing into a sergey brin/ larry page borg icon. nevermind that even the idea of "the borg" is a silly scifi notion from last century that only old people even care or know about
slashdot, we're showing our age
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i take the subway and lately i've been seeing more iPhone 4's than Android phones. i've noticed that a lot of android phones look like an iphone 4, but overall i see a lot more iCrap than Andoid. could be all the people with ipod touches i see have android phones in their bags they aren't showing, but then what is the point of 2 devices?
when people ask me what they should buy i tell them that it doesn't really matter since they are 90% the same
And if iOS is the best platform ever, but no developers are developing for it... consumers (eventually) won't buy it, because they can get all the cool apps and features they want on Android.
I like iOS, don't get me wrong. I also think Google missed a huge opportunity to do right by consumers by forcing some of the 'if you want to call it Android, customers must be able to do X, Y, Z with this OS" issues (which may have prevented some of the increasingly carrier-restricted things we're seeing in Android). But you can't pretend that stock iOS devices with no developers putting out apps for them are going to compete with "anything goes" Android which will only continue to grow more polished & more functional over time.
iOS needs to compete for developers to stay relevant in the mobile space, and I think at some point Apple is going to have to either open iOS up to installing arbitrary packages without going through them, or throw out their guidelines and say "we will only stop listings where there is obvious bad behavior." I think they're more likely to allow arbitrary installs - then it's "You install it, your risk. Our app store is still clean & curated." - but allowing that would kill most of the serious criticism of iOS as an Android competitor. People will still carp about it being "not open source," but that's mostly irrelevant to the consumers, if they can install whatever software they want on the phone. Apple probably wouldn't lose a *significant* amount of business from the App Store by doing this, either. It'd make apps sort of like mp3s - Apple operates a store that they think is the best way to buy music, but if you want to buy through Amazon, or Emusic, or rip your own, well... you can still use them on your Apple device.
At this point, I'm most interested to see how iOS fares once the iPhone is available on more than one carrier in the US. I think the question that remains to be answered is, are people buying Android handsets because the iPhone isn't available on their carrier, and they don't want to switch to AT&T? Or are people buying Android handsets because they prefer them to the iPhone? I haven't seen any comparison of Android vs. iPhone sales specific to AT&T, so it'll be an interesting scenario to watch play out.
Most people don't care about Flash, HD video or dual-core phones. People want phones that can do well the basic stuff one wants to do on a smart phone (email, news, maps. weather, calls (!)). And the iPhone is terribly good at that.
"Terribly Good" does describe calls on the iPhone. If I can make and connect on an iPhone, the call quality is good. But I wouldn't use it for long or important calls because I drop calls on AT&T multiple times a day no matter where I am. And I think that the longest call I've had without dropping is about 10-15 minutes. People just get used to you calling them back when a call drops with mobile phones now and AT&T / iPhone 3 are big offenders.
The one thing about calls I wish they'd fix on iPhone vs Android is call volume. All the Android phones out there have really loud volume capability. The iPhone is very difficult to use when it's loud (i.e. bar / train / etc) -- the speaker phone is not very loud either -- at least not loud enough to easily use for handsfree talking in my car -- when I'm driving on the highway, road noises and wind are nearly as loud as the iPhone speaker phone.