I just ordered a Verizon Droid

[Pliablemoose]

Here's my rant about Android...

Manufacturers are currently releasing phones with the 1.5, the 1.6 and the 2.0 versions of the OS with a half dozen custom UI's

Where Android should have become a standard OS, it's becoming a fragmented OS with too many custom versions.

Where it should have reduced carriers to dumb pipes, the manufacturers are agreeing to exclusive deals with specific carriers, and we have too many data formats supported by US carriers, CDMA and GSM are exclusive technologies, and GSM carriers are not compatible with each other for higher data rates than Edge.

Maybe in 5 years things will get better, but I think the telecos and manufacturers are too intent on keeping their customers captive to provide a real benefit to consumers.

 

[dwell]

Where Android should have become a standard OS, it's becoming a fragmented OS with too many custom versions.

Saw that coming. It's already got the too many distros problem Linux has. Say what you want about Apple's control freakishness, but they refuse to fragment their platform. Perhaps to their own detriment but still.

 

[destrekor]

Saw that coming. It's already got the too many distros problem Linux has. Say what you want about Apple's control freakishness, but they refuse to fragment their platform. Perhaps to their own detriment but still.

What that also does is bring a lack of variety, manufacturers, and thus far, lack of carrier option.

When you have an open development platform, and want to call it open, you cannot make it closed to the manufacturers yet open to customers. Thus, if the manufacturer wants to customize the experience, they have that right.
As far as that customization is concerned, it's basically just UIs and apps. With 2.0, most of those features found in other manufacturer UIs are included natively, so not much fragmentation there as far as I am concerned. The biggest fragmentation has, so far, been the idea of bringing everyone up to the current OS version. But seeing as hardware improves and maybe the OS requires more, it's possible not all phones will be able to run the latest OS version.

The way Apple is doing it, it seems they may be limiting their options for OS features since they force the OS updates to all the iPhone models, including the very first one, of which is naturally slower in hardware capability in comparison to the 3GS.

There are typical Pros and Cons to both routes. The Android platform is hoping the wide segmentation will allow people to get phones the way they want it, from who they want it.
The Droid, imho, was the first Android phone I saw myself ever wanting. As I researched it more and more, it became THE phone I wanted. And I love it. But I didn't want an Android phone prior to the Droid, though I admired the platform and it's future capabilities.

Sadly, now I'm in the spot of waiting for developers to start focusing on the Droid. And that's the biggest issue with the segmentation, is apps are going to be hit and miss with hardware specs being so different between models. We have the Droid representing the first Android phone with the hardware it has (ARM Cortex 8 CPU, and the GPU it has), as well as being the first Android 2.0 phone. All of this means developers are going to have to make some fixes, and likely some Droid-specific app releases.

Hopefully other manufacturers can start just focusing on specific hardware configurations, say all the manufacturers either releasing ARM Cortex 8-based phones, or Snapdragon-based phones, or Tegra-based phones. Let all phones have a predictable hardware configuration, and from this point on all have Android 2.0, and we'll find ourselves with developers having greater ability to make apps just work across many different phones. I think that's where Google needs to step in and say, "okay, manufacturers listen up: make phones with one of these hardware configuration packages, and everything will be great".

 

[Pliablemoose]

Saw that coming. It's already got the too many distros problem Linux has. Say what you want about Apple's control freakishness, but they refuse to fragment their platform. Perhaps to their own detriment but still.

When Google's own apps are jacked up the latest version of "Finance" was hosed, wouldn't update, widgets didn't work for a week, you know the platform is too fragmented.

G1 user for nearly a year now...

I was at a fancy mall in LA last night, seemed like 25-30% of the folks were using an iPhone, and the Apple store was packed.

I suspect Apple will keep growing like crazy.