Will carriers destroy the Android vision?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/12/entelligence-will-carriers-destroy-the-android-vision/

by shawndumas • 16 years ago

31 40 16 years ago

fleitz• 16 years ago

Users that want to speak with their wallets will use iPhone where such problems do not exist. Other problems may exist but bundled crap is not one of them.

Crapware didn't kill the low margin bargain PC market and it's not going to kill the low margin bargain smart phone market either. There are plenty of consumers in the high end and low end market.

m0nastic2• 16 years ago

I'm not so sure that the comparison with the bargain PC market is apt.

I bought a Samsung Vibrant (not a low-end market phone) and returned it after a week. All of the crapware installed on it was absolutely one of the reasons I returned it (albeit not the only reason).

There is no distinction presently between which phones come with crapware (basically all phones that aren't the Nexus One), the only distinction is which particular crapware the manufacturers/carriers put on it.

biafra2• 16 years ago

"Users that want to speak with their wallets will use iPhone where such problems do not exist."

Or they could buy another Android phone were such problems do not exist.

But the sad thing is: I do not think that they care enough...

zackattack• 16 years ago

I hope all the Android fans show up to this thread: I am going to buy a new smart phone to celebrate my birthday. Since I don't love the iPhone, I'm thinking of getting an Android. What's the best phone on the market - or should I wait a bit for one yet to come out? I'm on the AT&T contract.

bconway• 16 years ago

I was about to list my favorite Verizon phones until I hit the last sentence, d'oh. I'd check out the Samsung Android phones on AT&T. They're just about the only ones that aren't an awful experience.

greenlblue• 16 years ago

Get a palm pre.

Paulomus• 16 years ago

An Android fan/wanna-be rather than a user yet, but of the two Android handsets I have played with, I was disappointed with the Nexus One, but really liked my friends HTC Desire (The "Sense" UI seemed to make a lot of difference).

mahmud• 16 years ago

Don't forget to tinker; the Android SDK is an absolute joy, specially with the Eclipse integration, and you don't need a physical device to write apps. The simulator is faithful to a fault (you can even get plugins to simulate the sensor, to shake and tilt the phone.)

Jump in! It's fun, clean, ambitious and Free. Most importantly, it has "winner" written all over it.

jmillikin• 16 years ago

Everything I've read about Android phones indicates that the Nexus One is by far the best. I refuse to use any phone which locks out its own user, which rules out some of the cheaper offerings, but the extra $100 is less important to me than being able to modify its behavior.

old-gregg• 16 years ago

The way I see it, there is only one Android phone out there: Nexus One. Getting anything else does not make sense - you're essentially getting a loan (!) for a dumbed-down, restricted and less capable phone hampered even more by "value adding" crapware, running an obsolete OS without any guarantees of an upgrade in the future.

T-Mobile offers cheaper plans for those who don't need a loan to buy a phone, i.e. getting a financed/subsidized crap actually ends up being expensive in the long (2yr) run.

Its not the carriers who are guilty, it is the users who keep flocking towards subsidized crap. Its like buying laptops from Dell at 50% off financed at 20%APR that have Windows+crapware engraved in ROM, incapable of booting anything else.

aphexairlines• 16 years ago

So where are the Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Gateway, Acer, Asus, Alienware, Samsung, MSI, etc of phones?

sandGorgon2• 16 years ago

No - there are several "Android" phones. These are the ones which Cyanogenmod supports.

Cyanogenmod is a community supported Android distro made for each and every phone model that it supports. My HTC MAgic (equiv. T-Mobile Mytouch 3G) is now running Cyanogenmod 6 based on Android 2.2

Most of the other custom firmware for phones are based off Cyanogenmod, rather than stock Android.

Support the project financially or otherwise, and request for your particular phone. Usually, all HTC phones are supported.

blasdel• 16 years ago

I assume you made that analogy hypothetically, but consumers buying PCs subsidized by overpriced network service contracts was actually common practice 10 years ago.

Most of the major ISPs did it — the consumer would get a ~$400 instant rebate on a PC sold at an inflated retail price, in exchange for signing up for an expensive multi-year contract for dialup internet access. Some of the vendors even had schemes where the PCs showed advertising!

dlsspy• 16 years ago

I really like my Nexus One. I got it with no cooperation from any carrier, so they have no direct influence, and the hardware is actually pretty good.

dangrossman• 16 years ago

HTC Evo 4G from Sprint. It was updated to Android 2.2 quickly after release, has similar hardware to the Nexus One, but with the addition of a 4G chip and huge screen. Even in the suburbs out here there is 4G coverage from Clear and Sprint. The plans are cheap compared to everyone else ($79.99/mo for unlimited data, unlimited sms/mms, unlimited cell-to-cell calling on any network).

nitrogen• 16 years ago

I have a Samsung Epic 4G from Sprint (I really wanted a physical keyboard). I like the hardware, and Android 2.1 seems pretty decent, but Sprint included a bunch of uninstallable crapware that clutters the Applications list, and the battery life is below 24 hours with the phone mostly idling and wifi and 4G off (I played Pandora for .5 hours on 3G/4G as I was driving). I hope it gets fully cracked so I can put a more battery-saving firmware on it.

bonzoesc• 16 years ago

The best ones that you can buy are the Motorola Verizon Droid X, Motorola Verizon Droid 2 (a different phone), HTC Sprint Evo 4G, HTC T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide, AT&T Samsung Galaxy S Captivate, Sprint Samsung Galaxy S Epic 4G, T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant, and Verizon Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate. Be prepared to buy a new one each month to keep up.

I suspect Google's vision for Android was not a confusing array of confusingly named phones running confusingly different variants of software that confusingly require your cell provider to upgrade.

mgkimsal• 16 years ago

What is the 'android vision'? Seems to me the problem outlined in the article was an issue well before Android was even available, and certainly well-known. If carriers adding crap and restricting stuff wasn't supposed to be part of Android's 'vision', Google could easily have created licensing terms to enforce that. They didn't.

m0nastic2• 16 years ago

I think the "android vision" is the mythical belief that certain consumers have that Google wanted to release an open phone platform for the benefit of the users.

I disagree about Google having much choice about how they set up the licensing terms however. In order for Android to become the defacto platform for handset manufacturers, they needed to license it in a way which was more attractive to the companies building and deploying the phones.

I don't think that carriers mucking with Android is some fatal flaw that will doom the platform, but I also absolutely don't believe that when Google was launching Android, that they envisioned carriers in China replacing all their services with Baidu.

If they did anticipate that, and still opted to release Android the way they did, then they are idiots; which I don't really believe.

ZeroGravitas• 16 years ago

I wouldn't be that surprised if that (Chinese Android phones minus Google) was actually part of the plan.

But then I'm not even sure why it's being presented as a problem by media outlets. Similar to piracy of music or games, it's only really a loss if that pirate was originally going to be buying in the first place. Having Android forks on phones is only a loss to Google if they were going to have pure Android on them in the first place (rather than WM, Symbian, Bada, Meego or whatever other competitor OS).

Just like Bill Gates said he'd rather have China running pirated Windows than a competitor and he'd figure out how to monitize it later, I'm sure Google are overjoyed that a fork of their mobile OS making it easier for Billions of people to get on the net and start clicking on ads.

jmspring• 16 years ago

I am pretty sure the "android vision" is "run on as man phones on as many carriers as possible", which mirrors the approach of Windows over the years. Which is unfortunate due to the bloat-ware that carriers will add, which is pretty much similar to what pc manufacturers added to Windows PCs over the years.

I have both a Nexus One and an iPhone4, there are things I like and loath on both platforms. However, thanks to Apple's control on the iPhone and a straight Android install, I am free of carrier bloat.

HectorRamos• 16 years ago

I won't get into the murky waters of iPhone vs. Android - usually these end in both sides calling the other fanboys.

I will say that I tried to get into JavaME development and had a few leads (back in 2006 - 2007) but it was such a nightmare to test on many devices and know which would work, that I got out of that business.

When the iPhone came out and set its own terms, I sighed with relief. Yes, its closed and has its issues, but I really like knowing that there are rules and as long as I play nice, I will be able to distribute my app in that platform and it will work perfectly in all devices. I have an iPod Touch running 3.1.3, a 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4 (all bought on launch and kept them as I upgraded) on iOS 4.0 and 4.1, and an iPad on 3.2, where I can quickly deploy and test and be pretty much sure that the application will work across 95% of iOS devices.

We haven't turned our back on Android development, but we tread that soil lightly. I could perhaps have various devices on 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 to test, but then even that is not enough as the screens vary, carriers add different enhancements and the hardware is different for each device. Before Android users gang up on me, keep in mind that I am not criticizing it from an user's POV. Rather, as a company doing mobile app development for clients, it is a very risky endeavor to sign a contract that includes Android app development for these reasons stated above. Also, since I am already an iPhone user, having all these devices around for testing is a given - I would have to invest some more to gather various Android devices in addition to the G1 we got two years ago when we were thinking about offering services on both platforms.

blub2• 16 years ago

As more models are launched and new versions of the OS are published, there will be more fragmentation. This is expected and the odds are that it will happen to Apple too.

Take a look at Symbian, where not only do you have different resolutions, but touch and non-touch phones and a myriad of OS update versions. Luckily, you have access to a virtual device hub where you can do online testing.

ericd• 16 years ago

I've experienced this first hand, and it's extremely frustrating. For some reason, my Android app apparently refuses to start on the Droid X, despite it working fine on my Nexus One, as well as the emulator with the correct screen size and the correct version of Android OS (or at least the base version of the OS, before carrier customization). I can't justify buying more than one Android phone.

The Apple store's approval process is infuriatingly slow, but I've never had any device model compatibility issues. I'll take slow approvals any day.

packetlss• 16 years ago

And this article is from the same guy that predicted that the Kin would be a massive success.

blub2• 16 years ago

That doesn't mean that we should automatically ignore everything else he says.

cma• 16 years ago

GPLv3 is looking better and better.

streamline3• 16 years ago

on a sidenote GPL v3 or any other GPL license is not allowed on apple iOS.

kylec2• 16 years ago

It's not as though Apple is rejecting GPL'd apps. Quite the opposite, the terms of the GPL are what prevent apps licensed under it from being included in the App Store.

wmf2• 16 years ago

Not necessarily; if Android was GPLv3ed the carriers might be shipping Symbian phones loaded with crapware instead.

gamble• 16 years ago

This issue is the philosophical equivalent of Apple's App Store censorship, for Android fans. Android's partisans are so fixated on victory over Apple that they ignore or excuse the fact that carriers are steadily chipping away at the 'openness' that Android is supposed to embody.

streamline3• 16 years ago

here is the difference, with android you can erase the O.S. from the device and re install a clean version, and still all applications will work.

Can you do that with iOS.

Comparing Android and iOS is like comparing freedom in America to that of Iran.

US still has death penalty sadly, but they are not stoning women for adultery.

kylec2• 16 years ago

    with android you can erase the O.S. from the device and re install
    a clean version, and still all applications will work

Rooting is a complicated process, and it's by no means a certainty that it will continue to be possible. The carriers and the manufacturers are getting better at patching the holes used to get root access and are coming out with technologies like e-fuse that are designed to prevent unauthorized firmwares from being installed.

    Can you do that with iOS.

Yes, much more so than Android. At any time I can run a restore on my iPhone and install a clean version of iOS. With most Android phones it's impossible to run a stock version of the OS unless it came with it or the phone is rooted.

streamline3• 16 years ago

To be frank Google wants to actively discourage, native app development. And they are right, their vision involves everyone using Web as their source for information or applications.

The only issue is that internet is not as ubiquitous as they would want it to be. But wait for 2-3 years and then we will live in truly internet filled world.

Regarding iPhone, Apple wants to own all parts of their users experience, which is even worse than having crapware.

Apple is one of the most old-world corporate minded corporation. and wants resurgence of old large corporate entities like newspapers, etc. They want an internet which is about selling stuff by large corporations to general consumers and not about sharing information between people. They are the ones who slept with crappy companies such as EMI.

loewenskind• 16 years ago

>Apple is one of the most old-world corporate minded corporation. and wants resurgence of old large corporate entities like newspapers

Exactly. That's why when they released the first iPhone it didn't even have native apps. They said the web is where your apps are! Oh wait... that's the opposite of what you're saying.

wmf2• 16 years ago

Apple only talked about web apps for a while because their native app SDK wasn't ready yet. Apple has never fully embraced the Web, preferring to stick with "rich" better-than-web UIs.

guelo• 16 years ago

Question is who won this battle when Verizon and Apple negotiated the iphone coming out next year. I'm guessing Verizon wasn't able to get any crapware on there but you never know, Apple really did want to expand beyond AT&T.

As far as Android, I get the sense that Google is not happy with this situation and they do have one big stick they can use, access to Android Market.

Will carriers destroy the Android vision?

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