Editorial: Android's problem isn't fragmentation, it's contamination

[zerocool84]

This thought was first given voice by Myriam Joire on last night's Mobile Podcast, and the simple, lethal accuracy of it has haunted me ever since. All the hubbub and unrest about whether Google is trying to lock Android down or not has failed to address whether Google should be trying to control the OS, and if so, what the (valid) reasons for that may be. Herein, I present only one, but it's arguably big enough to make all the dissidence about open source idealism and promises unkept fade into insignificance.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/09/editorial-androids-problem-isnt-fragmentation-its-contamina/

While I agree that the big difference in user experiences can and does hurt it, where are you going to say it's ok for Google to control the platform and totally lock it down? Consumers have shown that there's more than enough room in the smartphone world for a locked down OS and a wild west open OS where almost anything goes. I don't mind some smoothness of experience but I don't want to to have to lock it down even more because what's the point of having yet another locked down OS? I'm glad we as consumers have all these choices of what we want in a smartphone because essentially that's what it all boils down to, and have the ability to argue over them, but if Google does start locking down Android, I feel that we will lose some of the great competition we have gotten.

Realistically Android is doing just fine and doesn't need to change anything right now. If and maybe if Android starts slowing down in their growth then maybe they can talk about change but it's the other players in the game that need to figure out what they need to do differently because they are the ones that need to catch up.

 

[Bateluer]

Dang. Guess the mods can delete my thread. Should have refreshed the GG&P forum before I posted.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The problem with this editorial is that if people really cared about the "tainting" of the experience, then the thousands of HP/Dell/Toshiba/etc. systems with crapware on them wouldn't be sold. Everyone would buy Macs.

What one person calls "the ability to taint" is what another person calls "the ability to improve."

 

[Anubis]

the only thing they need to do is make it so phone manufs cant put shitty skins like blur touchwiz and sense on it

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

blur needs to be axed along with moto's management before sense should go. honestly, sense makes the android devices BETTER for most users.

 

[Anubis]

blur needs to be axed along with moto's management before sense should go. honestly, sense makes the android devices BETTER for most users.

IDK about better but sense sucks the least out of all of them

If there were no skins in theory large updates should be able to be pushed to phones faster. the 6+ month lag some have (samsung) is pretty pathetic

 

[Ika]

The problem with this editorial is that if people really cared about the "tainting" of the experience, then the thousands of HP/Dell/Toshiba/etc. systems with crapware on them wouldn't be sold. Everyone would buy Macs.

What one person calls "the ability to taint" is what another person calls "the ability to improve."

I don't know about you, but nowadays I'd be surprised if I ever saw more PCs in a lecture hall than Macs. People like Macs because they have an easy, no-tinker user interface. They don't want to deal with PCs because most people aren't smart enough or care enough to deal with PCs. Same goes for smartphones.

 

[Bateluer]

The problem with this editorial is that if people really cared about the "tainting" of the experience, then the thousands of HP/Dell/Toshiba/etc. systems with crapware on them wouldn't be sold. Everyone would buy Macs.

What one person calls "the ability to taint" is what another person calls "the ability to improve."

The difference is, with Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc, you can wipe anything they install off and go with a clean install of the OS of your choice. You cannot do the same with a smartphone. If I don't like the junk that HP installed on my DMZ1, I can reformat and install a completely clean Windows 7 or Fedora or Ubuntu or whatever. If I dislike Blur, the best thing I can do is install LP or ADW, leaving all the junk on the phone taking up storage space, memory, bogging the system down, and delaying the release of updates as a final insult.

 

[Anubis]

The difference is, with Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc, you can wipe anything they install off and go with a clean install of the OS of your choice. You cannot do the same with a smartphone.

you can

you just need root access with an unlocked bootloader

 

[poofyhairguy]

I don't know about you, but nowadays I'd be surprised if I ever saw more PCs in a lecture hall than Macs.

That is due to the fact that younger consumers prefer Macs for image reasons, and have proud parents willing to shell out for them as a right of passage. PC sales still greatly outnumber Mac sales in the market as a whole.

People like Macs because they have an easy, no-tinker user interface. They don't want to deal with PCs because most people aren't smart enough or care enough to deal with PCs.

Some people don't want to deal with Macs because it was hard enough for them to learn a PC and they don't want to start over. Just like with smartphones- a HTC customer that likes Sense is more likely to by a HTC phone in the future to get the same interface.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The difference is, with Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc, you can wipe anything they install off and go with a clean install of the OS of your choice.

And what percentage of customers do that? This is a very geek perception- the kind of perception that if you think that way you probably have the ability to put custom ROMs on an Android phone.

Most people take what they are given, and try to use it to the best of their ability.

 

[Bateluer]

And what percentage of customers do that?

Irrelevant. People still have the freedom to do it, with no repercussions from Dell/HP/Toshiba/Etc and without them actively taking steps to prevent their customers from reformatting. Anyone who's willing to read for 15 minutes is able to reinstall Windows on an OEM computer.

 

[QueBert]

the only thing they need to do is make it so phone manufs cant put shitty skins like blur touchwiz and sense on it

The Sense UI's the main reason I'm getting an EVO 4g in a few days, I cannot stand the vanilla UI, and there's no roms out that really make me like the UI much more. I hate blur and touchwiz but Sense, and especially HTC's widgets are cool, and I typically hate widgets.

 

[KentState]

The Sense UI's the main reason I'm getting an EVO 4g in a few days, I cannot stand the vanilla UI, and there's no roms out that really make me like the UI much more. I hate blur and touchwiz but Sense, and especially HTC's widgets are cool, and I typically hate widgets.

Had a Droid for over a year and was very troubled about having the sense UI on my Thunderbolt. After I gave it a chance, I would never want to go back to vanilla. They do an excellent job of integration between SMS, contacts, calendar, weather and so on.

 

[QueBert]

Had a Droid for over a year and was very troubled about having the sense UI on my Thunderbolt. After I gave it a chance, I would never want to go back to vanilla. They do an excellent job of integration between SMS, contacts, calendar, weather and so on.

Exactly, I would pay $50 for them if HTC offered their widgets for stock Android on the Marketplace, I've even tried 2 of the sense rom hacks. 1 was getting there in terms of usability, but the dude who was working on it just gave up

 

[Bateluer]

Exactly, I would pay $50 for them if HTC offered their widgets for stock Android on the Marketplace, I've even tried 2 of the sense rom hacks. 1 was getting there in terms of usability, but the dude who was working on it just gave up

I dunno, I like their People/Contacts app, and the Camera app seems solid. But I loathe their FriendStream and Peep apps. But then again, I loathe most social network apps when they are not uninstallable.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Exactly, I would pay $50 for them if HTC offered their widgets for stock Android on the Marketplace, I've even tried 2 of the sense rom hacks. 1 was getting there in terms of usability, but the dude who was working on it just gave up

$50 is a bit steep. $9.99 for sure. They would make a fortune.

 

[QueBert]

$50 is a bit steep. $9.99 for sure. They would make a fortune.

It'll never happen, and even the best knock off HTC like widgets in the Marketplace pretty much suck. But them not making no HTC versions of the widgets and selling them on the Market. Is making me go out and get one of their phones, so I suppose they know what they're doing.

 

[foghorn67]

It'll never happen, and even the best knock off HTC like widgets in the Marketplace pretty much suck. But them not making no HTC versions of the widgets and selling them on the Market. Is making me go out and get one of their phones, so I suppose they know what they're doing.

I think their widgets blow ass. LP has most of the useful widgets, and it has a much cleaner look, and it has all sorts of themes to download.
For the clock, BW and FW are much better.

 

[Looney]

Irrelevant. People still have the freedom to do it, with no repercussions from Dell/HP/Toshiba/Etc and without them actively taking steps to prevent their customers from reformatting. Anyone who's willing to read for 15 minutes is able to reinstall Windows on an OEM computer.

Except there are choices on Android if you want the stock experience. Get a Nexus S. The % of powerusers who want a stock experience is probably less than 5%. I'm pulling that number out of my ass, but if 'contaimination' was really a problem, then people wouldn't be buying those Androids. That's the free market at work.

 

[simonizor]

The Sense UI's the main reason I'm getting an EVO 4g in a few days, I cannot stand the vanilla UI, and there's no roms out that really make me like the UI much more. I hate blur and touchwiz but Sense, and especially HTC's widgets are cool, and I typically hate widgets.

It's not about roms; its' about the launcher apps! Check out launcherpro. It's much better than Sense, Motoblur, or TouchWiz, IMO. I wish that I had vanilla instead of TouchWiz so I could be running launcherpro without TouchWiz running in the background all of the time. Sadly, there's no option to turn it off on my Mesmerize that I'm aware of without rooting.

 

[BenSkywalker]

blur needs to be axed along with moto's management before sense should go. honestly, sense makes the android devices BETTER for most users.

MotoBlur makes the device better for most users, but too many people around here have the Apple mentality- they will decide what is best for everyone. Honestly, I can't stand Blur or Sense but then again, I'm not too fond of stock either. Speaking of Blur in particular, it is the UI that helped launch Android into a major player in the market. From a business perspective it would be horribly moronic for Google to mess with that element. Right now, they have millions in R&D being spent to make the user interface better by a variety of companies, any no brainer improvements they come up with Google can then add their own version to base Android. If it is a preferential issue, then they can leave it be and let users decide which way they want to go by picking out what phone they want.

We seem to have a lot of people under the delusion that the skins are what delays so many companies from getting their updates out faster. Anyone who has even glanced at Android development would quickly notice that custom UIs are very, very easy to do- device drivers for a particular unit aren't.

you just need root access with an unlocked bootloader

That just makes it easier, root and deodex and you can do what you want(yes, you can't load a full custom ROM but you can change all the elements to make it just like that ROM, just a bit more work in ADB).

The Sense UI's the main reason I'm getting an EVO 4g in a few days, I cannot stand the vanilla UI, and there's no roms out that really make me like the UI much more.

SPB offers a very distinct UI, perhaps check that out before you go get a phone with some rather serious issues just for the UI. No rooting/flashing/deodexing/ROMs or anything else to deal with.

 

[Bateluer]

Except there are choices on Android if you want the stock experience. Get a Nexus S. The % of powerusers who want a stock experience is probably less than 5%. I'm pulling that number out of my ass, but if 'contaimination' was really a problem, then people wouldn't be buying those Androids. That's the free market at work.

Most people also don't know what the differences between Vanilla Android, TW, Blur, and Sense are. Yes, you could get a Nexus S, but then you're stuck with older hardware, no SD card, etc. I'd much rather have the option to buy any phone I wish, and have the UI I choose to have.

It's not about roms; its' about the launcher apps! Check out launcherpro. It's much better than Sense, Motoblur, or TouchWiz, IMO. I wish that I had vanilla instead of TouchWiz so I could be running launcherpro without TouchWiz running in the background all of the time. Sadly, there's no option to turn it off on my Mesmerize that I'm aware of without rooting.

This is true for every manufacturer UI, Sense, Blur, etc. I barely touched the Sense UI after I got my Thunderbolt last week, installing ADW Ex almost immediately. When I tried to play around with Sense, I couldn't stand it. It was slow, clunky, and generally poor compared to Ander Webb's work. HTC's apps and widgets, on the other hand, are far better. The People app, as I said, is much better.

 

[theeedude]

As anyone who has studied evolution will tell you, diversification, survival of the fittest, and weeding out of the weakest is a good thing for an ecosystem. There are going to be failures along the way and consumers will weed out the companies who commit them. In the long run, differentiation that adds value over stock experience will be rewarded, and differentiation that destroys value will be punished and weeded out.

 

[lothar]

As anyone who has studied evolution will tell you, diversification, survival of the fittest, and weeding out of the weakest is a good thing for an ecosystem. There are going to be failures along the way and consumers will weed out the companies who commit them. In the long run, differentiation that adds value over stock experience will be rewarded, and differentiation that destroys value will be punished and weeded out.

What will happen to those that don't have any differentiation over stock experience?
A Google Nexus certainly doesn't add value over "stock" experience...I don't think it destroys it either.

And since when did you become a capitalist? :hmm: