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Update from the CEO

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Re: Update from the CEO

#91

Post by cooldeal »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #83
recoiledsnake wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At least on Android you can write one app and then tweak it to work on different devices, previously you had to write apps as different as Android/iOS/Windows for each device - and often individual manufacturers even had multiple platforms to write for. >So I think we owe Google some congratulations. Before Android, you could write a Windows Mobile app and have it run pretty much on every Windows Mobile device and t…

It wouldn't have been adopted if they had taken a hard line on that issue.

So you mean Google picked popularity over consistency and sold out to the OEMs and carriers for the sake of marketshare? Android is the pretty much the only OS where this is such a big problem, unlike Windows, OS X, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Windows Phone, iOS and probably even Linux.

Re: Update from the CEO

#92

Post by king_jester »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #79
technotony wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Device fragmentation on Android is nothing like fragmentation used to be. At least on Android you can write one app and then tweak it to work on different devices, previously you had to write apps as different as Android/iOS/Windows for each device - and often individual manufacturers even had multiple platforms to write for. And don't even get me started on distribution. You used to have to negotiate with carriers i…

>At least on Android you can write one app and then tweak it to work on different devices, previously you had to write apps as different as Android/iOS/Windows for each device - and often individual manufacturers even had multiple platforms to write for. >So I think we owe Google some congratulations. Before Android, you could write a Windows Mobile app and have it run pretty much on every Windows Mobile device and t…

Did windows mobile ever really have a wide variance in hardware types, e.g. phone size devices vs. tablet sized devices? It was my understanding that windows mobile targeted certain screen resolutions (that or those resolutions were the only ones manufacturers were producing) and that was pretty much it.

Re: Update from the CEO

#93

Post by MatthewPhillips »

cooldeal wrote: post #91
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't have been adopted if they had taken a hard line on that issue.

So you mean Google picked popularity over consistency and sold out to the OEMs and carriers for the sake of marketshare? Android is the pretty much the only OS where this is such a big problem, unlike Windows, OS X, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Windows Phone, iOS and probably even Linux.

I don't know where you get your information from, but Blackberry has broken compatibility in the last 3 OS releases, and Windows Phone 8 doesn't even run the same kernel as the previous version (breaks compatibility). I'm not sure if you ever touched Java ME back in the day... but yeah. You're just wrong on this one.

Re: Update from the CEO

#94

Post by ajross »

georgemcbay wrote: post #80
jmillikin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that Chrome has figured out how to push updates, while a majority of Androids are still running a version released over two years ago. If Google can start pushing auto-updates to all of its devices, that would be one of the greatest improvements ever made to Android. Also, one of Chrome's most touted features is performance, which has always been Android's weakest point. Hopefully he'll be willing to a…

Much harder for an OS than an app. Phone makers have their own custom set of drivers for driving their unique hardware and these often have to be changed in subsequent releases to deal with changes to the hardware abstraction layer. And even for releases that don't change the exposed hardware abstraction layer it can be really difficult to know if each phone maker's drivers will deal properly with subtle changes to t…

Exactly. I mean, Chrome itself (being an app) is pushing updates on android at a cadence now that almost matches what they are doing on the desktop.

Doing hardware integration is a lot harder than writing an app. I wish more app developers recognized this.

(That said: I do think Google could have done a much better job at separating out the true kernel/HAL/BSP layer stuff, which needs to be done per-device, from the framework layers that are largely device-independent. There's no reason to force a full hardware test just to push an fix for the Intents framework or whatever).

Re: Update from the CEO

#95

Post by king_jester »

cek wrote: post #60

> But his insight immediately struck a chord because at the time it was extremely painful developing services for mobile devices. We had a closet full of more than 100 phones and were building our software pretty much device by device. It was nearly impossible for us to make truly great mobile experiences. This is highly ironic statement given that one of the biggest pain developers trying to build mobile experiences…

The kind of fragmentation Google has to deal with in developing Android and its framework is very, very different from the kind of fragmentation the average app developer deals with. The vast majority of apps only need to test on a couple different device types, all of which can be done via the emulator. Most app developers have trouble with the APIs their apps use that do not behave as expected on some devices, usually as the result of a manufacturer or carrier change that subtly alters the behavior of or breaks the API.

Google, OTOH, has a significant amount of testing to do on most Android devices produce. Not only do OS devs need many devices to ensure the OS and framework continues to function, but most (if not all) devices will be run against the Android CTS (http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html).

Re: Update from the CEO

#96

Post by cooldeal »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #77
cek wrote: post #60

> But his insight immediately struck a chord because at the time it was extremely painful developing services for mobile devices. We had a closet full of more than 100 phones and were building our software pretty much device by device. It was nearly impossible for us to make truly great mobile experiences. This is highly ironic statement given that one of the biggest pain developers trying to build mobile experiences…

I think you are missing the point of Android. Android starts with the premise "fragmentation exists, how do we make the best of it?" and goes from there. The idea that every person on the planet is going to use the same phone with the same capabilities and the same size screen is a fantasy world iOS developers live in.

>fragmentation exists, how do we make the best of it?

>The idea that every person on the planet is going to use the same phone with the same capabilities and the same size screen is a fantasy world iOS developers live in.

There are a billion plus PCs running Windows with various hardware, screen sizes and even different form factors. Yet fragmentation is not as big a problem as on Android.

The primary problem comes with the deep customization of the OS and lack of standards, not things like screen sizes. For example, look at this http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/12/10x120...

Re: Update from the CEO

#97

Post by aashaykumar92 »

New Pope, New Head of Android--a wonderful correlation...just kidding.

It's an obvious move to try and blend Chromes OS with Android more seamlessly but I think it also means something else BIG at Google is coming--and not their everyday-'big'. As qualified as Pichai is, it doesn't make sense for Rubin to go anywhere UNLESS he truly is upto something groundbreaking.

My bet is that Rubin has a vision, perhaps a "moonshot" as Paige said, that impressed the execs at Google so much that it made sense for him to move on from his current position. It'll be interesting to see exactly what this is, but I have to imagine Rubin is upto something the masses (most of us) have not yet heard about...and his ingenuity will be absorbed by Google themselves.

Re: Update from the CEO

#99

Post by protomyth »

georgemcbay wrote: post #75
cek wrote: post #60

> But his insight immediately struck a chord because at the time it was extremely painful developing services for mobile devices. We had a closet full of more than 100 phones and were building our software pretty much device by device. It was nearly impossible for us to make truly great mobile experiences. This is highly ironic statement given that one of the biggest pain developers trying to build mobile experiences…

Having been working in the Android space as a programmer, IMO the idea of Android fragmentation is mostly overblown these days. It was more of an issue in the past, but post-Gingerbread it has ceased to be a practical problem for any dev work I've done. This isn't to say Android development is wonderful, it (often) isn't. And I've been increasingly concerned with the amount of "OMG HOW?" bugs that have been introduce…

and what version of Android do you target?

Re: Update from the CEO

#100

Post by benburleson »

jmillikin wrote: post #23
dguido wrote: post #16

Andy Rubin was the major factor responsible for insecure Android devices. He thought it was impossible to be both secure and 'X' for any 'X'. Meanwhile, Andy Rubin's replacement is Sundar Pichai, SVP for Chrome and ChromeOS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundar_Pichai If you care at all about the security of Android mobile devices, this is probably a good sign. EDIT: I wonder if this helped move Andy out the door? htt…

Not to mention that Chrome has figured out how to push updates, while a majority of Androids are still running a version released over two years ago. If Google can start pushing auto-updates to all of its devices, that would be one of the greatest improvements ever made to Android. Also, one of Chrome's most touted features is performance, which has always been Android's weakest point. Hopefully he'll be willing to a…

If OTA updates aren't baked into the existing OS, it's highly unlikely that will be possible.
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