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Android is Google's Agent Smith

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Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#21

Post by semanticist »

wvenable wrote: post #10
daten wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of users buy phones without knowing what Android is or even what an "operating system" is. All thee know is compared to their old phone with a random proprietary OS, this phone has a much more polished interface and apps similar to their friends iPhone. I'm sure most of the people that read HN care about the details you listed, but I wouldn't assume your average mall-shopper that walks into a cell phone store…

I disagree with your top statement. Every user knows what an operating system is -- they've been educated on that fact for decades. And any user of a "smartphone" knows they're really getting a little computer. The iPhone probably has the broadest market of non-technical users and even they periodically get OS upgrades -- you think their users don't know what that is? The problem with this conversation is lumping tog…

I worked as Nokia's UK and Ireland technical support, both tier 1 and 2, and you are entirely wrong.

Almost no users, including people buying smartphones, have any idea what a phone operating system is. Most users, including people buying smartphones, struggle to tell you what their computer operating system is.

Phones, including smartphones, are not sold like computers. Lots of people buy smartphones because they have the best cameras, or because they're the 'top end' phone, or because 'they want a blackberry' and can't tell a Nokia E61 from a BlackBerry device.

Also, at least in the UK, there's a lot of smartphones - including Android devices - being marketed at the general consumer market. There's not really any phones sold to 'technical' people - the distinction you want to make is 'consumer' versus 'business'. Windows Mobile and BlackBerry are 'business' (traditionally). The iPhone is 'consumer', albeit high-end.

Android phones tend to be consumer-focussed, competing against the iPhone. There's a few Android phones that are priced to the mid- and low-end of the market, and there's a lot of Nokia S60 smartphones in this range. (A lot more than Android or iOS, actually. Nokia are still the #1 smartphone manufacturer.) Most people buying these devices are 'non-technical' and if they understand the difference between 'Android 1.5' and 'Android 2.1', they just don't care.

Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#22

Post by rfolstad »

What the author seems to be missing is that Google created Android to prevent Apple controlling the mobile space and locking them out. Fragmentation may not be the goal but its inevitable however google doesn't care. Google makes just as much money from iphones and ipads as it does from fragmented android phones. The goal is to ensure Apple doesn't have ultimate control of the mobile space because then they would just cut google out.

Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#24

Post by enjo »

semanticist wrote: post #21
wvenable wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your top statement. Every user knows what an operating system is -- they've been educated on that fact for decades. And any user of a "smartphone" knows they're really getting a little computer. The iPhone probably has the broadest market of non-technical users and even they periodically get OS upgrades -- you think their users don't know what that is? The problem with this conversation is lumping tog…

I worked as Nokia's UK and Ireland technical support, both tier 1 and 2, and you are entirely wrong. Almost no users, including people buying smartphones, have any idea what a phone operating system is. Most users, including people buying smartphones, struggle to tell you what their computer operating system is. Phones, including smartphones, are not sold like computers. Lots of people buy smartphones because they ha…

I'll just +1 this. I spent several years at a major app developer (ya, there were third party apps before the iPhone!) and my experience matches up exactly.

Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#25

Post by Unseelie »

dusklight wrote: post #2

uhhhh .. I think the majority of the people don't know what version of android is on their phone, don't know why it matters, and don't care. The branding for the various android phones so far is tied to the carrier and the phone manufacturer, not the phone. There is no AndroidPhone. There is the HTC EVO, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Droid. People just want a phone that's fun and easy to use. If they don't like the phone…

Even not knowing what an OS is, a user is incredibly frustrated by crashes, lag, and sms errors.

There may not be an 'android phone' but there is 'the alternative to the IPhone' which isn't, outside of the business market, the blackberry.

Users use. And they do compare how well things work, and migrate. So in the larger sense, users should care about fragmentation. Eventually, its going to limit their choices.

Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#26

Post by jsz0 »

It's going to be very interesting to see how aggressive Microsoft gets pushing Bing as the default search on Android phones. The rumor was VZ cost them $500-$600M. T-Mobile & Sprint are going to be much cheaper. So it seems for only about $1B they can capture a huge chunk of mobile search. It's way too late for Google to make some big anti-competitive push to ice out Bing. They'll have to pay their way onto their own platform. That's rough.

Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#27

Post by runjake »

dusklight wrote: post #2

uhhhh .. I think the majority of the people don't know what version of android is on their phone, don't know why it matters, and don't care. The branding for the various android phones so far is tied to the carrier and the phone manufacturer, not the phone. There is no AndroidPhone. There is the HTC EVO, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Droid. People just want a phone that's fun and easy to use. If they don't like the phone…

Except that many of the latest and greatest and most hyped apps use Android's latest features and thus don't run on older versions of Android. This is why users will care.

Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#28

Post by sprout »

jsz0 wrote: post #26

It's going to be very interesting to see how aggressive Microsoft gets pushing Bing as the default search on Android phones. The rumor was VZ cost them $500-$600M. T-Mobile & Sprint are going to be much cheaper. So it seems for only about $1B they can capture a huge chunk of mobile search. It's way too late for Google to make some big anti-competitive push to ice out Bing. They'll have to pay their way onto their own…

Consumers aren't going to tolerate that kind of lock-in, and in many cases will use Google just the same.

In order for Microsoft to actually get anything out of this, they're going to have to treat Android as a first-class platform, and beat the user experience of Google Maps, Search, Voice Search, Gmail, Goggles, and so on on Android.

Microsoft doesn't have those kind of engineering chops. They can barely even manage a decent UX on Windows Desktop. (We'll see about Windows Phone 7, but I will be very surprised if it's legitimately better than Android, even Android with Bing baked-in.)

Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#29

Post by ENOTTY »

I think this author and a lot of other bloggers are missing the point. Android was Google's attempt to get people on the web (an Internet where Google controls the lion's share of the ad market) with their phones. Google doesn't care about "liberating the masses" from the shackles of the carriers.

The reason why Google went with Android and didn't stick to Apple was because Apple didn't really share that interest. Apple wanted to sell iPhones and apps, so they were okay with reducing their market by charging a premium price. That wouldn't get as many people onto the web as a free/cheap, widely available and customizable OS that appeals to carriers and hardware manufacturers.

If you look at the Nexus One through this prism, it also kind of makes sense. The N1 was designed to push hardware specs to a point where multimedia on the Web could function at a satisfactory level, so then people would have more of a reason to buy a smartphone.

Re: Android is Google's Agent Smith

#30

Post by uxp »

Unseelie wrote: post #25
dusklight wrote: post #2

uhhhh .. I think the majority of the people don't know what version of android is on their phone, don't know why it matters, and don't care. The branding for the various android phones so far is tied to the carrier and the phone manufacturer, not the phone. There is no AndroidPhone. There is the HTC EVO, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Droid. People just want a phone that's fun and easy to use. If they don't like the phone…

Even not knowing what an OS is, a user is incredibly frustrated by crashes, lag, and sms errors. There may not be an 'android phone' but there is 'the alternative to the IPhone' which isn't, outside of the business market, the blackberry. Users use. And they do compare how well things work, and migrate. So in the larger sense, users should care about fragmentation. Eventually, its going to limit their choices.

Especially when manufacturers and vendors start selling devices with different Android versions, as they are now.

Someone that physically breaks their Motorolla DroidX running 2.2 and buys a replacement Samsung Galaxy that runs 1.5 (now 1.6 I hear), and then realizes that the majority of the apps that they purchased aren't compatible with the lower version of the phone, and that the phone has a terrible UI (compared to the improved 2.2), is going to be mighty disappointed in both the carrier and the Android name.

The average user doesn't know how to root and upgrade the phone software to unofficial versions. The average user only knows that it is Android, and that Android now "sucks" in that situation.

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