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?"

Comments

There is still long way to go

[weachiod]

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.

Hopefully not

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Hopefully not

[Craig Ringer]

Alas, Nokia kind of missed the boat with Maemo/MeeGo. They let Maemo idle for years on the no-cellular tablets that were interesting, but never really went anywhere. Then they tossed the N900 out the door - just as they decided to massively rework the OS, effectively EOLing the N900's OS before it was released. Unsurprisingly, app developer interest has been ... limited. *I* know you can upgrade an N900 to MeeGo (when it's properly ready, hopefully) but Nokia hasn't been too clear on this and it's unlikely app devs will want to target a platform where users have to reflash to a new OS to run their apps.

I love coding with Qt and have wanted it in phones for ages, so I was really excited to see Maemo move over - but the timing, amid a product launch, was horrifying.

MeeGo would've been great if it (instead of Maemo half-way through an API breaking transition to Qt) was released in finished form at about the time the N900 hit market. Now, by the time it sees real-world products, I think Android will be pretty much unstoppable, especially as it's now allowing native apps, the main advantage MeeGo had. I don't rate it's chances.

Personally I like MeeGo a lot more as a concept of how a phone OS works. It's my phone, not the carrier's / handset manufacturer's phone that I happened to pay for. Unfortunately, carriers (especially in the US) don't like that, and given the likely higher prices and limited app coverage of MeeGo, I don't see it going far.

Were I Intel and Nokia, I'd be thinking very hard about offering Dalvik and .apk support for apps without native code, at least for a subset of Android API features. Get some app coverage from the start, but encourage targeting of Qt by offering Qt Jambi from Java and offering better API access via the native interfaces. Be a better Android than Android.

Re:Hopefully not

[Lifyre]

MeeGo (or in some cases Debian Lenny with MeeGo on top) will live on in some ways as a custom ROM for the Android phones. Many people are currently working on moving it over to phones like the Eris and the Droids. It gives these phones a useful lifetime beyond that of a phone. It can be useful having a phone sized device that can run things like snort or hit the local WiFi for a quick search while still leaving your phone free to make calls.

desktops next

[circletimessquare]

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