I wish I had mod points. College is one of the biggest things an individual will ever pay for in his/her lifetime. For most people(i.e. anyone who will earn $150,000 or less) deciding between a $10,000 a year state university versus a $45,000 a year private institution has everything to do with economics. Any who suggests otherwise is being disingenuous.
That's an assumption on your part. If people like stock more than customized UIs then more stock devices will proliferate. The reason they might like these better is less functionality may have been censored and they may not be burdened by bloatware. In either case, I think we can agree that whatever the general public's preference is it will become the preferred type of Android device that exists.
If the general public buys more carrier customized phones then the consumer is getting what they want. They have a choice and they would be choosing the carrier customized phones. The customer getting what they want is not a bad thing!
The key you miss is there are so many different Android phones being produced now that it doesn't matter if a few don't do well. Android will not die, because XYZ phone is fouler than a dead raccoon in 125 degree heat. The consumer has lots of choices and doesn't need to buy that dead raccoon.:-)
Your previous statement, "but it is certainly a problem for devices and computers aimed at a market that wants to power-on and head straight for Facebook." led me to believe otherwise.
Regardless, to your point about standardization, Google does distinguish there brand today with the "Google Experience" device designation. (Phones with this designation, normally carry "powered by Google" or "with Google" somewhere on the device) These highly customized manufacturer/carrier combinations do not bear the "Google Experience" designation. This does not seem to be marketed that well to the consumer, but then again the people doing the marketing are manufacturers/carriers who may or may not have "Google Experience" devices.
In the end, even if there is some confusion about whether I as a consumer is purchasing a "Google Experience" device I would say that in general with Android the consumer knows what they are getting.
Let me summarize your position, you think that because some people will buy Android phones loaded with carrier restrictions and software that doesn't work how they expect, that they will blame the Android platform as a whole. Further, your position appears to be that there will be a significant number of these people that it will cause a significant decline in Android adoption numbers.
My refutation is that if a few manufacturer/carrier combinations produce Android phones that don't live up to their Android name, consumers are not forced to buy those phones. Once enough people give a particular phone a bad name no one will buy that particular phone and they will go to other phones. There are lots of high quality Android phones that meet the needs of users today. Take a look at the Droid, Nexus One, or HTC EVO for some great examples. This idea that bad press for one particular phone will turn people off the whole Android platform is rubbish. There is no evidence for that and no precedent for it. Consumers don't care about platforms they care about phones. There are many different manufacturers producing many different phones for Android, which gives the consumer a lot of choice to find the phone that suits them. That's the power of Android being open. Will there be bad Android phones produced? Inevitably, but the market place will marginalize those products into irrelevance.
Finally, I'd like to add that your Toyota example is particularly malformed. First, Toyota is a manufacturer of cars. The correct parallel to the cell phone world would be a Motorola, HTC, Samsung, etc. If Motorola puts out a bad phone then it won't sell well, just as if Toyota produces a bad car it won't sell well. Secondly, the reason Toyota's sales numbers dropped was because of safety concerns, not a bad user experience. You can't compare a runaway Prius to "my Android phone looks different/I can't get XYZ app."
So if Apple wants to kill Android they should just funnel some money to a third party manufacturer and carrier and have them create the most craptastic, watered-down, bastardized version of an Android phone and that will kill the platform?
Okay, I'll bite. I would argue that for the vast majority of Android phones out there, regardless of Android version number, they all offer the same basic functionality that people come to expect out of an Android smartphone. Sure there are differences, but most of those differences are irrelevant.
It seems today that most smart phone users are looking to do the following core tasks:
- Call
- Text
- IM
- Check Email
- Access the Web
- Social Networking (Twitter/Facebook)
For these core tasks the Android fragmentation issue is nonexistent. The point is, yes fragmentation exists, but the Android platform is good enough about providing compatibility across the platform for the core tasks that fragmentation doesn't hamper your average user. Thus, the phone does what the consumer needs it to do.
That is all that matters when you are talking about the success of the Android platform as a whole.
I understand what you are saying, but this type of thing will naturally work itself out. If enough people hate the phones that become highly customized by the carriers then the phone will not sell well and the carriers will stop producing highly customized phones.
Carriers want your monthly contract, and if consumers want phones that haven't been customized and watered down by a carrier then they will go to whatever network offers these non-customized phones. The only danger is if ALL the carriers demand that ALL android phones must be customized this way, which will probably never happen as that might attract attention for monopolistic behavior.
As a consumer, if I don't like a particular manufacturer or I don't like a particular carrier, then I can choose to go to a different carrier that doesn't have restrictions and pick a phone from a manufacturer I do like. This is the benefit that Android brings, as an open platform. Now perhaps, some consumers won't care about the carrier restrictions on their phone, but I think given a choice the majority of cell phone users will choose a phone without carrier limitations.
Yeah it will. If I can us Android to make calls, check my email, find out the name of the artist of the song that is currently playing on the radio, watch videos in Flash, post to my twitter/facebook, get navigation directions/maps of a location, etc. then my phone does what I need it to do well enough. Most of the applications I use on the Android platform function just the same on the iOS platform and in fact I use applications on Android that don't exist for iOS.
What is making the Android platform "successful" is that consumers are buying products that are built on the Android platform and they will continue to buy Android based products, because they deliver what they need to get done. As I said earlier, the consumer doesn't care at all about fragmentation and since the products meet the expectations of the consumers then Android is GOOD ENOUGH. Now perhaps that is not the best marketing term to use, but that is the underlying economic logic that makes and will continue to make Android successful.
Choice is a great thing! Options are a great thing! Sure, ensuring that an application works PERFECTLY on ALL handsets EXACTLY the same is more difficult on Android than the iPhone, but that simply doesn't matter. There is a saying, "Don't let GOOD stand in the way of GOOD ENOUGH". This is very applicable in the case of the fragmentation debate. You can make GOOD ENOUGH applications for Android quite easily and then stamp out the bugs as you go. Not to mention, Google makes it extremely easy to test your app on all the different versions of Android that they have out there. It is simply not that hard.
This has a straight parallel to the Windows vs Mac world. When developing application for Windows do you think that all the Windows developers are out there buying every single PC configuration to test their app? Of course not, that simply isn't practical. It is why Mac systems have always had a more cohesive/"just works" feel to them. (Apple owns the hardware) The end of the day though, Windows systems work just fine for almost everyone out there. It has also led to a much lower cost for computers that you can't get in the Mac universe. This is the same thing that you are seeing with Android. It is good enough and in fact has features that I would hazard a guess gives the iPhone a jealous eye. Android is running on all sorts of different hardware, some with keyboards, some without, some starting at $199, some as low a $0(BOGO deals). All these things end up in a highly tailored product that allows each consumer to make their own choice. The good Android phones will rise to the top and the bad Android phones will fall to the bottom. It's the way business works.
In the end, the consumer doesn't care at all about fragmentation. What the consumer cares about is, "Does the phone do what I need it to do?"
Android delivers what consumers need out of a smartphone platform and it does it well enough that any small fragmentation issue becomes irrelevant.
I think this could help propel their social networking adoption rates as you will need to have a gmail account to sign up. I love the convenience of Buzz as I am a current gmail user, but Facebook obviously has the lion's share of the social networking market. If Google can get more people signed up to Buzz they can deliver more targeted advertisements as they learn more about the habits of their users through social networking. This further increases the value of AdSense and AdMob.
Also, they serve up ads at the top of gmail itself, not to mention I'm sure they could mine data of users' phone calls. They have great voice-to-text technology for Android that I am sure they could re-purpose for analytical uses.:-)
I'm probably in the minority, but as a Gmail user and Android user Buzz works nicely for me. I prefer it over twitter as it does not have the 140 character limit that twitter does. I keep my posts small (normally), but if I happen to go over a 140 characters I don't like to try and find ways to shorten my post. I also like the content fetching that Buzz will do when you post a link. It makes sharing news/content quite easy.
You aren't kidding. $300 for a code editor? What features could this thing have that could possibly be worth that much money?! I read some of the "cool features" like: code navigation, syntax completion, and auto-completions. There are lots of IDEs and editors that are free that have these very same features, so I am at a loss as to why anyone would choose to spend hundreds of dollars for this.
Maybe the iPhone will be a more consistent experience than Android, but it will also be limited in its diversity of hardware, which is an advantage for Google when it comes to market dominance of the Android platform. We've all seen this before with Mac vs Windows on the desktop, just this time it it is happening on mobile devices.
Get the motorola droid (aka sholes). They are going to release it very soon. An official announcement is expected sometime in October. All of the major carriers are going to have android phones and many major manufacturers are betting on the platform, so they can compete with the Iphone. Motorola has 10 android phones planned to launch sometime in 2010. Samsung is releasing the Moment on Sprint's network. The HTC Hero is already being sold on Sprint's network. T-Mobile is all about android with the MyTouch and the Motorola Cliq.
I'm telling you the future is Android. The platform is easier to develop for than the Iphone and the Android Market already has a ton of apps. Both paid and free. Not as many as the Iphone, but eventually the number will get there. Besides, with over 10,000 a lot of the bases have already been covered.:-)
Now the Motorola Droid has some phenomenal specs.
- 3.7 screen with 854×480 (16:9 widescreen) capacitive touchscreen
- 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 Processor
- Wi-Fi, EV-DO
- 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash and video recording
- QWERTY Slider, 13.7mm thick
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- 16GB onboard storage with microSD expansion slot
- Android 2.0 'Eclair'
- Builtin accelerometer
In addition to the specs, the Droid will come (like many android phones) with all the google applications including Google Voice. If you have a google voice account then you can end up saving a lot of minutes by using it to connect your call instead of going over your minute plan. Blackberries are going to become antiquated very quickly. Android already has connectivity to office applications for checking corporate email. As the platform evolves and the phones saturate the market, I think there will be little else that can really compete with it.
Yes everyone is moving to LTE, but Apple should not wait for everyone to upgrade their networks to LTE. As was pointed out it would not be a lot of money for them to roll out on other carriers.
Yes this may force people who can't pay off the network and solve the congestion problem for those who can, but I don't think anyone wants that, except for maybe ATT, so they can improve their profits. A much better solution is to invest in infrastructure and keep the pressure up on the FCC to release more spectrum for mobile devices. In the short term, service will suffer, but for consumers it will be the best long term solution. Innovation is the solution, not pricing people out of the market.
I never said you improve the network by "slapping up cell towers". There is a lot more to telecommunications infrastructure than just the number of cell towers a carrier has or do they not teach that in Michigan?:-)
Apple will be forced to drop that exclusivity deal, once Android starts kicking ass and taking names in 2010. With Sprint and Verizon both rolling out multiple Android phones Apple can't afford to stay tied to a crappy network.
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I wish I had mod points. College is one of the biggest things an individual will ever pay for in his/her lifetime. For most people(i.e. anyone who will earn $150,000 or less) deciding between a $10,000 a year state university versus a $45,000 a year private institution has everything to do with economics. Any who suggests otherwise is being disingenuous.
This description is spot on. It's so disappointing how many people really don't understand this.
That's an assumption on your part. If people like stock more than customized UIs then more stock devices will proliferate. The reason they might like these better is less functionality may have been censored and they may not be burdened by bloatware. In either case, I think we can agree that whatever the general public's preference is it will become the preferred type of Android device that exists.
If the general public buys more carrier customized phones then the consumer is getting what they want. They have a choice and they would be choosing the carrier customized phones. The customer getting what they want is not a bad thing!
The key you miss is there are so many different Android phones being produced now that it doesn't matter if a few don't do well. Android will not die, because XYZ phone is fouler than a dead raccoon in 125 degree heat. The consumer has lots of choices and doesn't need to buy that dead raccoon. :-)
Your previous statement, "but it is certainly a problem for devices and computers aimed at a market that wants to power-on and head straight for Facebook." led me to believe otherwise.
Regardless, to your point about standardization, Google does distinguish there brand today with the "Google Experience" device designation. (Phones with this designation, normally carry "powered by Google" or "with Google" somewhere on the device) These highly customized manufacturer/carrier combinations do not bear the "Google Experience" designation. This does not seem to be marketed that well to the consumer, but then again the people doing the marketing are manufacturers/carriers who may or may not have "Google Experience" devices.
In the end, even if there is some confusion about whether I as a consumer is purchasing a "Google Experience" device I would say that in general with Android the consumer knows what they are getting.
Exactly most people miss this point.
You may find this useful as a reference in the future -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole
Let me summarize your position, you think that because some people will buy Android phones loaded with carrier restrictions and software that doesn't work how they expect, that they will blame the Android platform as a whole. Further, your position appears to be that there will be a significant number of these people that it will cause a significant decline in Android adoption numbers.
My refutation is that if a few manufacturer/carrier combinations produce Android phones that don't live up to their Android name, consumers are not forced to buy those phones. Once enough people give a particular phone a bad name no one will buy that particular phone and they will go to other phones. There are lots of high quality Android phones that meet the needs of users today. Take a look at the Droid, Nexus One, or HTC EVO for some great examples. This idea that bad press for one particular phone will turn people off the whole Android platform is rubbish. There is no evidence for that and no precedent for it. Consumers don't care about platforms they care about phones. There are many different manufacturers producing many different phones for Android, which gives the consumer a lot of choice to find the phone that suits them. That's the power of Android being open. Will there be bad Android phones produced? Inevitably, but the market place will marginalize those products into irrelevance. Finally, I'd like to add that your Toyota example is particularly malformed. First, Toyota is a manufacturer of cars. The correct parallel to the cell phone world would be a Motorola, HTC, Samsung, etc. If Motorola puts out a bad phone then it won't sell well, just as if Toyota produces a bad car it won't sell well. Secondly, the reason Toyota's sales numbers dropped was because of safety concerns, not a bad user experience. You can't compare a runaway Prius to "my Android phone looks different/I can't get XYZ app."
God where are my mod points when I need them. :-)
So if Apple wants to kill Android they should just funnel some money to a third party manufacturer and carrier and have them create the most craptastic, watered-down, bastardized version of an Android phone and that will kill the platform?
I'll believe it when I see it.
Okay, I'll bite. I would argue that for the vast majority of Android phones out there, regardless of Android version number, they all offer the same basic functionality that people come to expect out of an Android smartphone. Sure there are differences, but most of those differences are irrelevant.
It seems today that most smart phone users are looking to do the following core tasks:
- Call
- Text
- IM
- Check Email
- Access the Web
- Social Networking (Twitter/Facebook)
For these core tasks the Android fragmentation issue is nonexistent. The point is, yes fragmentation exists, but the Android platform is good enough about providing compatibility across the platform for the core tasks that fragmentation doesn't hamper your average user. Thus, the phone does what the consumer needs it to do.
That is all that matters when you are talking about the success of the Android platform as a whole.
I understand what you are saying, but this type of thing will naturally work itself out. If enough people hate the phones that become highly customized by the carriers then the phone will not sell well and the carriers will stop producing highly customized phones.
Carriers want your monthly contract, and if consumers want phones that haven't been customized and watered down by a carrier then they will go to whatever network offers these non-customized phones. The only danger is if ALL the carriers demand that ALL android phones must be customized this way, which will probably never happen as that might attract attention for monopolistic behavior.
As a consumer, if I don't like a particular manufacturer or I don't like a particular carrier, then I can choose to go to a different carrier that doesn't have restrictions and pick a phone from a manufacturer I do like. This is the benefit that Android brings, as an open platform. Now perhaps, some consumers won't care about the carrier restrictions on their phone, but I think given a choice the majority of cell phone users will choose a phone without carrier limitations.
Yeah it will. If I can us Android to make calls, check my email, find out the name of the artist of the song that is currently playing on the radio, watch videos in Flash, post to my twitter/facebook, get navigation directions/maps of a location, etc. then my phone does what I need it to do well enough. Most of the applications I use on the Android platform function just the same on the iOS platform and in fact I use applications on Android that don't exist for iOS.
What is making the Android platform "successful" is that consumers are buying products that are built on the Android platform and they will continue to buy Android based products, because they deliver what they need to get done. As I said earlier, the consumer doesn't care at all about fragmentation and since the products meet the expectations of the consumers then Android is GOOD ENOUGH. Now perhaps that is not the best marketing term to use, but that is the underlying economic logic that makes and will continue to make Android successful.
Choice is a great thing! Options are a great thing! Sure, ensuring that an application works PERFECTLY on ALL handsets EXACTLY the same is more difficult on Android than the iPhone, but that simply doesn't matter. There is a saying, "Don't let GOOD stand in the way of GOOD ENOUGH". This is very applicable in the case of the fragmentation debate. You can make GOOD ENOUGH applications for Android quite easily and then stamp out the bugs as you go. Not to mention, Google makes it extremely easy to test your app on all the different versions of Android that they have out there. It is simply not that hard.
This has a straight parallel to the Windows vs Mac world. When developing application for Windows do you think that all the Windows developers are out there buying every single PC configuration to test their app? Of course not, that simply isn't practical. It is why Mac systems have always had a more cohesive/"just works" feel to them. (Apple owns the hardware) The end of the day though, Windows systems work just fine for almost everyone out there. It has also led to a much lower cost for computers that you can't get in the Mac universe. This is the same thing that you are seeing with Android. It is good enough and in fact has features that I would hazard a guess gives the iPhone a jealous eye. Android is running on all sorts of different hardware, some with keyboards, some without, some starting at $199, some as low a $0(BOGO deals). All these things end up in a highly tailored product that allows each consumer to make their own choice. The good Android phones will rise to the top and the bad Android phones will fall to the bottom. It's the way business works.
In the end, the consumer doesn't care at all about fragmentation. What the consumer cares about is, "Does the phone do what I need it to do?"
Android delivers what consumers need out of a smartphone platform and it does it well enough that any small fragmentation issue becomes irrelevant.
I think this could help propel their social networking adoption rates as you will need to have a gmail account to sign up. I love the convenience of Buzz as I am a current gmail user, but Facebook obviously has the lion's share of the social networking market. If Google can get more people signed up to Buzz they can deliver more targeted advertisements as they learn more about the habits of their users through social networking. This further increases the value of AdSense and AdMob.
:-)
Also, they serve up ads at the top of gmail itself, not to mention I'm sure they could mine data of users' phone calls. They have great voice-to-text technology for Android that I am sure they could re-purpose for analytical uses.
I'm probably in the minority, but as a Gmail user and Android user Buzz works nicely for me. I prefer it over twitter as it does not have the 140 character limit that twitter does. I keep my posts small (normally), but if I happen to go over a 140 characters I don't like to try and find ways to shorten my post. I also like the content fetching that Buzz will do when you post a link. It makes sharing news/content quite easy.
That sounds like an absolutely horrible idea. :-)
Great piece of software. But yes, quite expensive cake. http://www.slickedit.com/
You aren't kidding. $300 for a code editor? What features could this thing have that could possibly be worth that much money?! I read some of the "cool features" like: code navigation, syntax completion, and auto-completions. There are lots of IDEs and editors that are free that have these very same features, so I am at a loss as to why anyone would choose to spend hundreds of dollars for this.
Interesting. I'm going to try this out when I get home. Thanks for the tip. :-)
Everything I have read says that eclair does not support storing apps to the sd card. You have a link for that?
Maybe the iPhone will be a more consistent experience than Android, but it will also be limited in its diversity of hardware, which is an advantage for Google when it comes to market dominance of the Android platform. We've all seen this before with Mac vs Windows on the desktop, just this time it it is happening on mobile devices.
Get the motorola droid (aka sholes). They are going to release it very soon. An official announcement is expected sometime in October. All of the major carriers are going to have android phones and many major manufacturers are betting on the platform, so they can compete with the Iphone. Motorola has 10 android phones planned to launch sometime in 2010. Samsung is releasing the Moment on Sprint's network. The HTC Hero is already being sold on Sprint's network. T-Mobile is all about android with the MyTouch and the Motorola Cliq.
:-)
:-)
I'm telling you the future is Android. The platform is easier to develop for than the Iphone and the Android Market already has a ton of apps. Both paid and free. Not as many as the Iphone, but eventually the number will get there. Besides, with over 10,000 a lot of the bases have already been covered.
Now the Motorola Droid has some phenomenal specs. - 3.7 screen with 854×480 (16:9 widescreen) capacitive touchscreen - 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 Processor - Wi-Fi, EV-DO - 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash and video recording - QWERTY Slider, 13.7mm thick - 3.5mm headphone jack - 16GB onboard storage with microSD expansion slot - Android 2.0 'Eclair' - Builtin accelerometer
In addition to the specs, the Droid will come (like many android phones) with all the google applications including Google Voice. If you have a google voice account then you can end up saving a lot of minutes by using it to connect your call instead of going over your minute plan. Blackberries are going to become antiquated very quickly. Android already has connectivity to office applications for checking corporate email. As the platform evolves and the phones saturate the market, I think there will be little else that can really compete with it.
Just my two cents.
Yes everyone is moving to LTE, but Apple should not wait for everyone to upgrade their networks to LTE. As was pointed out it would not be a lot of money for them to roll out on other carriers.
Yes this may force people who can't pay off the network and solve the congestion problem for those who can, but I don't think anyone wants that, except for maybe ATT, so they can improve their profits. A much better solution is to invest in infrastructure and keep the pressure up on the FCC to release more spectrum for mobile devices. In the short term, service will suffer, but for consumers it will be the best long term solution. Innovation is the solution, not pricing people out of the market.
I never said you improve the network by "slapping up cell towers". There is a lot more to telecommunications infrastructure than just the number of cell towers a carrier has or do they not teach that in Michigan? :-)
Apple will be forced to drop that exclusivity deal, once Android starts kicking ass and taking names in 2010. With Sprint and Verizon both rolling out multiple Android phones Apple can't afford to stay tied to a crappy network.