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We Need to Talk About Android

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Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#111

Post by betterth »

shingen wrote: post #3

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough. 85% good enough, is more than enough to win a market if you have substantial other adv…

Android will continue to dominate? You mean, it will continue to win most activations so long as it lets any budget device count?

Because what other metric is Android winning? Apple captures the lionshare of the entire industry's profits. HTC and Moto are barely breaking even on Android devices.

Google can't even get users past 2.3, no one is using 4.0, and they're already on track to have 5.0 out in what, three months?

Some "domination". I wish I understand what metrics people used to determine these things.

I guess it comes down to "activations". Which, when you get down to it, is a rather poor indicator of platform strength.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#112

Post by betterth »

usaar333 wrote: post #50
eykanal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an excellent line in the middle of the Android Support Visualization article he links to ( http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphan... ): "In other words, Apple’s way of getting you to buy a new phone is to make you really happy with your current one, whereas apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one." 85% i…

An issue I have with his claims: > A Price Observation All of the even slightly cheaper phones are much worse than the iPhone when it comes to OS support, but it’s interesting to note that most of the phones on this list were actually not cheaper than the iPhone when they were released The chart really doesn't quote pricing correctly. I'd prefer if he just used the un-subsidized cost. The subsidized costs are meaning…

But that's not $380 that has anything to do with Apple or Android.

That's like saying your new LG TV is $400 dollars cheaper than your last Samsung TV, because you -also- switched your Comcast plan to pay less monthly.

That's not a fair comparison.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#113

Post by batista »

shingen wrote: post #3

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough. 85% good enough, is more than enough to win a market if you have substantial other adv…

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough.

And people don't understand that wining a market means nothing and it can even be a race to the bottom, it's wining the profitable part of the market that matters.

But, you say, that's just so horrible! Welcome to reality, where markets are never dominated by perfection and fairy tales. You don't have to like it, you can rail against it the rest of your life, and fight the good fight; and Android will continue to dominate, and it will have absolutely nothing to do with issues related to fragmentation.

Was this written in 2001 or something? It's like the PC continues to dominate but the industry is dying for profit margin, the cool kids have all moved to OS X and/or Linux (go to any university campus or programming conference), and all the majority of the money and mindshare go to the ecosystem that's not PC based...

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#114

Post by batista »

mrb wrote: post #80
bunderbunder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Microsoft was pushing updates and security patches to all those XP machines. Still are, over 10 years after initial release. Whereas Android users are lucky if they're still getting updates and security patches after 10 months.

It does not change his point. Many Windows users are not regularly applying security patches or upgrading to the latest Windows version, making the Windows ecosystem fragmented, yet this did not prevent it from becoming a market leader on desktops, with a large Windows development economy flourishing and producing apps compatible with many different Windows versions and service pack levels. For the same reason, Andro…

or upgrading to the latest Windows version, making the Windows ecosystem fragmented

No, this did not made the Window ecosystem "fragmented" in the sense that Android is. Windows always had excellent backwards and forward compatibility, which meant you could develop for XP and still run on Vista and vice versa. You just couldn't take advantage of the latest and greatest APIs, but most apps used the classic APIs anyway --you still had access to the whole of the OS and hardware across all Windows versions, even with a custom built C API or MFC.

On Android devices you are cutoff from using tons of features if you can't deploy to the latest versions. And you have to walk a very fine line to make it compatible with all versions/form factors, and mostly cut corners.

For the same reason, Android fragmentation is a non-issue.

A, the classic "lalalala, fingers in the ears" argument.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#115

Post by ZeroGravitas »

gnaffle wrote: post #109
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're begging the question. Apple doesn't do it for iOS, but why does that make it unthinkable? Apple don't perfectly sync up their Mac OS X and hardware releases, you buy your hardware and then shortly afterwards you pay(!) to upgrade. If Apple can do it for laptops (and the first iPad), why can't Sony do it for phones? Because a third party has released a device with a fourth parties updated software? I understand…

The focus of the comments is not the disjoint between software and hardware releases, but rather that manufacturers are very slow to update to newer software releases. That's what everyone's complaining about. Sony Ericsson releasing a new phone with an old operating system is just another indication of that. For your comparison to be accurate, Apple would have had to release a new Mac that didn't run Mountain Lion,…

Other people not doing it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it (as you yourself have pointed out twice) so... what makes it bad?

Google lets consumers use products that it labels as "beta"? Is this bad? Why?

Google only let people with invites into Gmail at first. Is this bad? Why

Google tests changes by pushing them to random subsets of web visitors. Is this bad? Why?

Google pushed the last version of the market to 2.3 devices before it pushed it to 2.2 devices. Is this bad? Why?

Android updates seem to roll out by country over a period of weeks. Is this bad? Why?

A lot of Android functionality is in Apps rather than the OS and the trend is to increase this (e.g. Chrome on a 6 week update schedule). Is this bad? Why?

You could have interesting, enlightening debates about any of these decisions and reasonable people could argue either side of each of them. But it seems we skipped that step for Android updates and decided that if it wasn't the same as Apple it must be bad. I'm just looking for an actual reason why an average consumer (or indeed any particular subset of consumers) would prefer everyone to adopt Apple's model to justify these strongly and loudly held opinions.

Note that "not having the latest version of the OS" is not a reason why not having the latest version of the OS is bad, it's just restating the question.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#116

Post by megablast »

erohead wrote: post #26
tomschlick wrote: post #7

A lot of the points made here are exactly why I'm going from an android device to an iPhone once my device cycle from Verizon is up later this year. I'm so tired of hearing about all the new awesome things that are happening with the android operating system and not being able to get them. Even when my device (HTC Incredible) would support such features it's always a question of if HTC/Verizon is going to put in the…

Buy a nexus phone?

I bought a Nexus One, it can no longer run the latest software. The software it has is buggy. I will never buy a Samsung, but maybe when the next Nexus comes out, hopefully by Motorola.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#117

Post by rsynnott »

ericabiz wrote: post #52
marquis wrote: post #20

This leaves a really good space for the Android manufacturer who gets this right. I'm due to upgrade my phone and am seriously considering between iPhone and Android. The fact that my current Android phone, just a year old LG that only now runs 2.2, so quickly went out of usability makes me wonder exactly the same thing. If someone can deliver to me solid technology that keeps working with Android as it evolves (to a…

Already been done. The Nexus line of phones have the latest software directly from Google, and no carrier bloat. Really, anyone technical enough to read HN should go with a Galaxy Nexus or Nexus S vs. ANY other Android phone.

> The Nexus line of phones have the latest software directly from Google, and no carrier bloat

With the caveat that only some Nexus Ses have received ICS.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#118

Post by recoiledsnake »

nextparadigms wrote: post #88
elithrar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Circa 2002 they had '95, 98, ME, and XP spread across over half a billion units. With further varied patch configurations and service packs. It's worth pointing out that this comparison isn't the same. You could, in 2002, run the latest version of Office on all of their operating systems. With Android, there are situations where even Google's own software (see Chrome on Android) only runs on the absolute latest ver…

Office is Microsoft's own software. And 2002 is still one year later compared to when XP was launched. Manufacturers generally start using the new version of Android 6-12 months later, too. The difference between Windows and Android is that even if Microsoft finished XP in 2000, they waited until all the manufacturers put it on new hardware to release it. Google doesn't do that. They release it as soon as it's ready,…

>The difference between Windows and Android is that even if Microsoft finished XP in 2000, they waited until all the manufacturers put it on new hardware to release it. Google doesn't do that. They release it as soon as it's ready, and then manufacturers have to put it on hardware. It's just a matter of perception of who has it "faster".

Is the XP timeline an idle speculation on your part(as seems to happen with your posts about MS) or do you have references to back that up? You couldn't be wronger.

Microsoft regularly shares builds with OEMs so that they can start optimizing their hardware and even publishes beta versions to the public so even small developers can start making their software compatible.

What do we get with Android? For something that's supposed to be open source, the source gets thrown over a wall at release. One OEM does get a head start at the expense of others though.

Microsoft just released Windows 8 developer and consumer previews, did Google do that with ICS?

>It's kind of like Microsoft not wanting to make IE9 work on XP anymore, because it's a much different version than Vista and 7.

IE8 came up almost 10 years after XP. Not to mention that Vista and Windows 7 were on atleast 40% of mahines then and selling on almost 100% of machines. With ICS the numbers are 1%.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#119

Post by chrisrhoden »

mattparcher wrote: post #64
vibrunazo wrote: post #40

> "I'm talking about fragmentation of the basic operating system as deployed in the field.[...] I'm talking about APIs. [...] Apple is deploying and the installed base is rapidly upgrading to much more powerful APIs on the devices in consumers' hands" The article says iOS newer APIs are better than Android older APIs, but he doesn't seem to back it up. I'm not very familar with iOS as I am with Android. So I would li…

I'm not qualified to compare Android APIs to those on iOS. I believe the author's main point in this regard is simply that old Android devices don't usually get any new Android features (and APIs, for improved apps), because the manufacturers/carriers don't update the old devices very often.

I think that the point of this comment is that that's mostly incorrect. There are support libraries which basically mean that any device can run at any API level. This is fact, it has been for a while. Suck it up.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#120

Post by rimantas »

nextparadigms wrote: post #91
rimantas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is iOS really that much less fragmented > in real-world terms? http://pxldot.com/post/18754186750/ios-ebb-and-flow

So it takes about a year for near 100% adoption of the iOS version, too? So what's the complaining about Android, then? In a year the new version can get about 75%, which is not that bad.

The complaining is because of this:

  > iOS 5 captured approximately 75% of all iOS users in the same
  > amount of time it took Gingerbread to get 4% of all Android
  > users. Even more astounding is that 15 weeks after launch
  > iOS 4 was at 70% and iOS 5 was at 60% while Ice Cream Sandwich
  > got to just 1% share at the same age.
So 60% vs 1% at the same age since release.
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