Google Trying New Strategy to Fix Fragmentation 355
CWmike writes "Google announced a new version of Android this week with some impressive new features, but it's unclear if it's done enough to solve a problem that has dogged its mobile OS: fragmentation. Even as it announced the imminent launch of Android 4.1, or Jelly Bean, the majority of users are still running Gingerbread, which is three major releases behind. According to Google's own figures, just 7 percent are running the current version, Ice Cream Sandwich, which launched last October. That means apps that tap into the latest innovations in the OS aren't available to most Android users. It also means developers, the lifeblood of the platform, are forced to test their apps across multiple devices and multiple versions of the OS. So when Google's Hugo Barra announced a Platform Developer Kit during the opening keynote at I/O this week, the news was greeted with applause. The PDK will provide Android phone makers with a preview version of upcoming Android releases, making it easier for them to get the latest software in their new phones. But is the PDK enough to secure for developers the single user experience for big numbers of Android users that developers crave? In a 'fireside chat' with the Android team, the packed house of developers had more questions about OS fragmentation than Google had answers."
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
...enabling users to upgrade the devices themselves? And actually forcing all carriers to open source everything?
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say that changing the way that Android works would be better: Update system will by default upgrade everything, instead of just apps. OEMs using Android will be forced to assume that the device will upgrade itself, and that it has a system that will brick & replace menu systems if they don't work.
Carriers flossing won't do anything, it will still involve a lot of thinkering and rooting to get past their restrictions.
Addresses one issue but not the other (Score:5, Insightful)
ICS simply can't run on budget Android devices. The Android makers that are making money (Samsung) are targeting a much wider market then just the high end subsidized North American market. Samsung is able to turn a profit because they're spreading their costs over a much wider net with both mid range phones like the Ace line and a lot of super-low end ones (Y, Mini, Pocket) that compete directly with feature phones and in emerging markets. ICS is never going to run on those and Samsung and others won't try - they're still releasing brand new phones, 8 months later, running Gingerbread with no hope for an upgrade.
Android will continue to be 'fragmented' between Gingerbread and whatever the latest and greatest is for a long time, at least as long as the gulf exists between heavily carrier subsized phones in a few countries (allowing iPhones, Samsung Galaxy Ss and HTC One Xs to sell in any quantity) and full cost phones in other countries where (Gingerbread) Android's price point is the biggest selling point against more expensive smart phones and increasingly identically priced feature phones.
Not as big a deal as might first appear (Score:5, Insightful)
Fragmentation has been getting less and less of an issue for Android over time, it's a lot more complex than Apples presentations would have you believe.
The first issue is that a lot of features announced as part of new Android releases are actually new features of the apps, and those apps are often backported to old OS releases and released through the Play store. For instance, basically any feature added to Maps becomes available all the way back to at least Gingerbread, and I think also Froyo. Voice search, upgraded Gmail apps, upgraded YouTube apps, new versions of the Play app etc, all backported. Apple tends to announce new app features as part of new iOS releases, and then remove them from the "upgrade" distributed to old devices. Therefore you can be running a new iOS or an old Android yet have the same or better features!
So what about from a developer perspective? Well, here too the issue is more complicated than it looks. A lot of the new APIs that are "pure software" have also been backported through compatibility libraries. These are drop-in libraries you include with your app download that provide the API on older phones that don't have them natively. The APIs that remain are often hardware oriented and wouldn't be available on older iPhones either.
The final issue is upgrades that aren't. I used to think that OS upgrades on a phone were a no-brainer and if you didn't get them, you got screwed. Since then I've seen a few things that changed my mind. One is that manufacturers including Apple have sometimes (not always) released updates for old devices that can't really keep up and which seriously degrade performance. Typically you can't go back, so that's a problem. The upcoming iOS 6 might be seen as a downgrade on the Maps front as well.
Another is that the Gingerbread to ICS was a huge change in user interface - for the better, I think - but time and time again the software business has learned that some users just don't want big UI changes, period. I'm pretty sure if every Gingerbread device became Jellybean tomorrow, a lot of Slashdot readers would rejoice and a lot of our friends/relatives/etc would hate Android with a passionate fire, just because it's a big change that would take them by surprise. Apple has largely avoided this problem by not making any big UI changes over the iPhones lifetime. You could argue they got it right first time, I guess ;)
Re:Make phones like laptops (Score:5, Insightful)
The most important reason is you'd riot if your laptop couldn't be upgraded, but the carrier business model depends on you signing a new 2 year contract in exchange for a new "free" phone... with upgraded software.
If the vast majority of people were only able to buy laptops via their ISP, their ISP would use upgrades as a lever to force 2 year contracts, just like cell phone operators.
Re:Names have power. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're an idiot that has failed to understand the point of Android. Google does have certain mandates to let you Google-certify a device, that is load the Android Market (Google Play) and apps (Gmail, etc.) onto it. If you don't want Google certification you can still run Android and do whatever you want with it, but even then the Google mandates are more to ensure quality rather than consistency.
Google's ethos is that they want people to innovate and do things differently. Google APPROVES of the custom-UI's like Sense and TouchWiz and according to the guy who actually designed ICS [gizmodo.co.uk]
Less requirements means more innovation and more diversification. Otherwise you just end up with 5 phones that are all the same.
Yes, this comes at a cost - the Changes to Android's system need to be ported over to the various custom skins and that takes time, but that's what Google is focusing on now rather than just giving up and making everyone do the same thing.
Open source the interfaces anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if open sourcing everything is necessary.
If SONY wants their experia UI, HTC wants their Sense, Samsung wants whatever theirs is called, then I'd be fine with them keeping that locked up as tight as they want.
But when they add a piece of hardware that is not familiar from other devices, open up the interface to that hardware.
Right now I could put CyanogenMod on mine, but the FM radio wouldn't work, the camera wouldn't work, and mobile data wouldn't work. Pass.
But that's not the CyanogenMod devs fault - they have to work with what's available, and the stock Android rom doesn't know what to do with the hardware there either.
If only the manufacturer opened up the interfaces, then those devs could easily build bridge software.
As it is, I opted to go with another rom that's based on the manufacturer's official rom binaries. That's not gonna fly for getting ICS or JB on there, though.
That said, I'm happy with it as it is - some setcpu and link2sd sprinkled on top and off it goes. It'll never be a Galaxy SIII - but then, a Galaxy SII will never be a Galaxy SIII either.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
A thousand times this. I cannot blame Google for these fragmentation problems when it's pretty clear that the carriers are deliberately holding back the newest OS updates to force people to purchase new hardware, not to mention the tons of crapware most of the carriers insist on shoving into every corner of every Android device.
Well, I can blame Google for not doing more to stop the carriers from playing those games, but I doubt it would do any good, as that level of deference seems to be reserved for Apple.
Google should just start making plans to jump into the telecom space as a service provider, as they seem to be exploring with Google Fiber on the ISP front, but I doubt that will happen. I mean, how fast would Google end up testifying before Congress again before they even tried? "We've gotta stop this 'free, ad-driven' bullshit at all costs! It's goddamned communism!!! Buy the new iPhone, the official smartphone of U.S. Congress!! (TM)"
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. I have a Motorola Triumph, and while I can download hacked versions of ICS (do want), a proper / supported version seems unlikely.
The way I figure it, from the cellphone manufacturer's point of view, offering an upgrade to the latest version of Android may not be in their best interests: in doing so, they are missing out on a chance to up-sell you on a newer model. It's that brain-damaged style of thinking that infects some sectors of the global economy, and holds the rest of the human race back.
Charity begins at home (Score:5, Insightful)
You know that Android vendor you bought Google? Motorola Mobility.
Certain phones are still stuck on 2.x because *your company* won't update them. Less than 2 year old (24 month contract) phones are stuck on froyo - e.g Defy.
Providing an unlocked bootloader so the community (e.g. cyanogenmod) can update them to Jellybean would be a good sign.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is that the you are not (usually) the hardware manufacture's customer. The carrier is and from a hardware manufacture's point of view, why should they spend any money on getting a new version of the OS onto an already sold and accounted for phone?
It won't make them any more money, and might even help loose money in both the costs of getting the OS up and running, testing it and supporting it, and also if you (the end user) has the new OS on the existing phone, where is the incentive to buy a new phone with the new OS?
Not saying its right, but it seems to be the way it works right now.
Re:How about... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No one wants to keep phones up to date (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Names have power. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you begin with "you are an idiot", you have already lost the argument.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Presumably anyone who cant manage to support two versions of Android is stupid or incompetent.
I think the is the crux of the problem: is it that thousands and thousands of developers are all stupid or incompetent, or is it that Google has not provided an ecosystem that makes it financially worth it to make things work perfectly, debug, test, answer support questions, etc., for large numbers of versions and devices?
The iPhone is a whole different beast. There have been 5 total models since its initial release, and 5 versions of the OS. Over 80% of all iPhone users are on the latest OS. The iPhone 3GS, released about 3 years ago, runs the current OS and will be upgradable to the next one. That leaves the original iPhone, and the iPhone 3G (which many had complaints about its upgradability) as the only orphaned iPhones. That's one side of the equation. On the other side is an app marketplace which outsells Android by a significant margin despite a smaller installed base, and which is well-curated with a clear path from development to release to sales. That yields a dramatically better return on investment, and is (I think) the reason developers are less willing to support the latest (or multiple) Android versions.
Users can upgrade Android devices (Score:4, Insightful)
But 99% don't give a crap.
Re:Make phones like laptops (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe if upgrades were linked to a new 2 year contract the carriers would take upgrading more seriously. Of course people would riot, but then again the average sheep doesnt seem to complain about these abuses any more than they complain about dropped calls, low data rates, and piss-poor call quality. Im dumbfounded that no one has seriously sued any of the carriers over failure to support existing contracted customers with sufficient towers and software updates.
Re:I don't know if this will fix it or not. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have an iPhone, and I don't have a hard time believing 80% of users would update.
Well, hard time believing it or not, the simple fact is, the actual rate of upgrade is a good bit lower--probably around 50-60%.
That number will change now that OTA updates were put into iOS. The majority of those who don't upgrade will be because they never connect their phone to their computer. Now you don't need to do that to update it, and it will still periodically check for you, so there will be an even larger percentage using the current version of the OS in the future.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
If I ran the word[sic] (and I really think I should), things would be different. It would be illegal to have phone contracts longer than 2 months.
Let consumers decide the best products.
Are mutually exclusive concepts, right (Government control vs. Market Forces)?
But what can I expect from a person who wants to rule the word ???
Re:Charity begins at home (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Manufacturers WANT fragmentation to create "distinctive features". Otherwise their bland product must compete for same priced or cheaper priced offerings from all other competitors. The above requires rediscovering the wheel give that they MUST customize the OS* for every "fresh and new" hardware choice and every Moto-blur-type idea they conceive... let alone how each feels they can disable mainline features in order to push their own paid-subscription-based offerings.
Amazing how Apple solved all that with a combination of internal development policies (make OS version updates available for several hardware versions back, even if some newer features have to be sacrificed for those users). and carrier licensing agreements that say, in no uncertain terms: "WE are selling this phone to OUR customers; you are simply a STOREFRONT. Hands off! The OS is what it is because WE (Apple) said so. Take it or leave it. If you don't, there are plenty of other STOREFRONTS (carriers) that will be glad to..."