Android is Google's Agent Smith

http://www.techvibes.com/blog/android-is-googles-agent-smith

by roblewis • 16 years ago

55 36 16 years ago

dusklight• 16 years ago

uhhhh .. I think the majority of the people don't know what version of android is on their phone, don't know why it matters, and don't care. The branding for the various android phones so far is tied to the carrier and the phone manufacturer, not the phone. There is no AndroidPhone. There is the HTC EVO, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Droid.

People just want a phone that's fun and easy to use. If they don't like the phone they have, they will buy a new one when the contract is up, which likely will have a new version (the number of which they won't know or care about) and will work better.

Fragmentation is a big pain for developers and so on, but users don't care and shouldn't need to care.

endlessvoid94• 16 years ago

Agreed. This is similar to the iPhone antenna problem: bloggers and developers making a shitstorm out of something almost nobody feels the effects of.

wvenable6• 16 years ago

As a user, I care about what OS version I have because that determines the features my phone has, its performance, its compatibility, and its stability. What you describe is the ideal for the manufacturers and the carriers -- they want to keep people in the dark about the software. But the reality is that everyone knows, every phone review includes it, and it's critically important to the end user.

Every Android user I've talked to knows exactly what version their phone runs. Many are patiently waiting for upgrades. Every single phone review tells me exactly what OS version the HTC EVO, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Droid run and I doubt anyone here wouldn't consider that piece of information extremely important in their purchasing decision.

daten3• 16 years ago

Plenty of users buy phones without knowing what Android is or even what an "operating system" is. All thee know is compared to their old phone with a random proprietary OS, this phone has a much more polished interface and apps similar to their friends iPhone.

I'm sure most of the people that read HN care about the details you listed, but I wouldn't assume your average mall-shopper that walks into a cell phone store not knowing the difference between any two phones knows or cares about version numbers or compatibility.

Most non-technical people I've talked to about it have been so confused about the marketing of a phone named "droid" that they think any reference to "android" means that phone.

usaar3332• 16 years ago

It's a good thing then that you are on Hacker News. As a tech person who wants the latest software, you can spend a few minutes rooting your phone and installing a custom ROM with the latest Android version.

Unseelie• 16 years ago

Even not knowing what an OS is, a user is incredibly frustrated by crashes, lag, and sms errors.

There may not be an 'android phone' but there is 'the alternative to the IPhone' which isn't, outside of the business market, the blackberry.

Users use. And they do compare how well things work, and migrate. So in the larger sense, users should care about fragmentation. Eventually, its going to limit their choices.

uxp• 16 years ago

Especially when manufacturers and vendors start selling devices with different Android versions, as they are now.

Someone that physically breaks their Motorolla DroidX running 2.2 and buys a replacement Samsung Galaxy that runs 1.5 (now 1.6 I hear), and then realizes that the majority of the apps that they purchased aren't compatible with the lower version of the phone, and that the phone has a terrible UI (compared to the improved 2.2), is going to be mighty disappointed in both the carrier and the Android name.

The average user doesn't know how to root and upgrade the phone software to unofficial versions. The average user only knows that it is Android, and that Android now "sucks" in that situation.

runjake• 16 years ago

Except that many of the latest and greatest and most hyped apps use Android's latest features and thus don't run on older versions of Android. This is why users will care.

daten3• 16 years ago

The summarizing line of the article:

For things to really work for them, maybe there should be one kind of device, one OS version and one App store (sounds familiar?).

I'm not saying I agree, I was disappointed with the author's opinions.

jscore• 16 years ago

Android is Google's attempt to destroy Apple's App Store model.

Que• 16 years ago

No, no it isn't.

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

One OS, one device (or a small handful of very similar devices), and one app store is simpler, but not necessary. What didn't work was the crazy panoply of design options of the windows mobile world, where screens could vary from a large HTC device to a tiny clamshell screen and where you could have a number pad on one phone, a full hw keyboard on another, and a touch screen on another. That degree of diversity is difficult to make high quality apps for. However, android is a bit better, there is less diversity and especially fewer giant gaps in capabilities. The amount of additional effort it takes to write an app that works well on a Droid 2 as well as a Galaxy S is insignificant next to the comparable effort for targeting both an HTC 8525 and a tiny clamshell phone with no kb, no touchscreen, and a 120px resolution screen. The desktop PC world manages this challenge just fine.

And ultimately catering to users' particular individual needs is likely to be a better market strategy in the long term compared to the "one true device for everyone!" ideal of Apple.

jay_kyburz• 16 years ago

I think there is a really exciting opportunity for a startup to write some simple desktop software that would allow novice users to root their phone (any android compatible phone) and then choose from a selection of fun, interesting or just more up-to-date os's.

mdaniel• 16 years ago

And if you think the folks at unrEVOked aren't doing their damnedest to achieve that goal, then I think you're mistaken.

However, the reason they don't have that toy (and the same reason another random startup won't) is because the process does carry some non-zero risk and complexity when viewed across the spectrum of all devices. It is my opinion that the risk is only going to get worse over time, given the animosity that hardware manufacturers feel toward the hacker community.

Jailbreakme.com is outstanding, but they only had to deal with a small microcosm of hardware/OS tuples (which, if I'm not mistaken, is actually the topic under discussion right now).

rfolstad• 16 years ago

What the author seems to be missing is that Google created Android to prevent Apple controlling the mobile space and locking them out. Fragmentation may not be the goal but its inevitable however google doesn't care. Google makes just as much money from iphones and ipads as it does from fragmented android phones. The goal is to ensure Apple doesn't have ultimate control of the mobile space because then they would just cut google out.

pvg• 16 years ago

Over the past few months, the Tech world has been imploding over Android’s openness.

No wonder this office is staring to feel kind of cramped.

jsz0• 16 years ago

It's going to be very interesting to see how aggressive Microsoft gets pushing Bing as the default search on Android phones. The rumor was VZ cost them $500-$600M. T-Mobile & Sprint are going to be much cheaper. So it seems for only about $1B they can capture a huge chunk of mobile search. It's way too late for Google to make some big anti-competitive push to ice out Bing. They'll have to pay their way onto their own platform. That's rough.

sprout• 16 years ago

Consumers aren't going to tolerate that kind of lock-in, and in many cases will use Google just the same.

In order for Microsoft to actually get anything out of this, they're going to have to treat Android as a first-class platform, and beat the user experience of Google Maps, Search, Voice Search, Gmail, Goggles, and so on on Android.

Microsoft doesn't have those kind of engineering chops. They can barely even manage a decent UX on Windows Desktop. (We'll see about Windows Phone 7, but I will be very surprised if it's legitimately better than Android, even Android with Bing baked-in.)

ENOTTY• 16 years ago

I think this author and a lot of other bloggers are missing the point. Android was Google's attempt to get people on the web (an Internet where Google controls the lion's share of the ad market) with their phones. Google doesn't care about "liberating the masses" from the shackles of the carriers.

The reason why Google went with Android and didn't stick to Apple was because Apple didn't really share that interest. Apple wanted to sell iPhones and apps, so they were okay with reducing their market by charging a premium price. That wouldn't get as many people onto the web as a free/cheap, widely available and customizable OS that appeals to carriers and hardware manufacturers.

If you look at the Nexus One through this prism, it also kind of makes sense. The N1 was designed to push hardware specs to a point where multimedia on the Web could function at a satisfactory level, so then people would have more of a reason to buy a smartphone.

donaq• 16 years ago

Why would Google care about fragmentation so long as apps in every version can display ads? I don't really see the author's point.

Android is Google's Agent Smith

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