Why Android Is the New Windows 424
An anonymous reader writes "Windows' dominance of the PC market has been good in many ways: reduced hardware costs, increased IT literacy and a standard development platform to name a few. Perhaps Android will bring similar benefits. But unless Google are very careful, it is likely to bring some of the same problems, too."
Re:Windows gave control, Android takes it away (Score:5, Informative)
This would have happened for ANY OS that wasn't tied to a big-iron vendor. As I recall, this was (and continues to be) true for Macs as well.
No. Unless you jailbreak, the software you run on it has to pass a vetting by them. If they pull it later, you'd better hope you don't lose the copy on your PC/Mac.
Are you sure you haven't mixed up Apple and Google? Last I checked, you weren't forced to go to the Marketplace to install software except on a few obscenely locked down devices from AT&T.
Re:This line from the article.... (Score:5, Informative)
Also those of us who were using Macs back in the day remember that it was horribly common to get a virus, or at least to be exposed to them. It's not until we got that program that detected suspicious behavior... Gatekeeper? And then later, Disinfectant, a recognition-based AV, that it became possible to get a handle on things.
Re:Windows gave control, Android takes it away (Score:5, Informative)
where do you come up with this shit? on android you have an .apk that can run whether or not google removes it from the app store or entirely for that matter.
Not only that, but these .apk's aren't hidden, they're on your phone, and even without root access you can back them up easily with plenty of solutions. Plenty of people install android apps without ever hitting the android market or ever having a wifi connection. in fact, there's an entire forum dedicated to it, essentially [xda-developers.com]. Did I mention that things are fairly well documented?
on iphone you can have it forcefully removed remotely, even by using the old version.
Re:mobile platform (Score:3, Informative)
"The biggest problem with Android is that from a developers point of view, it's a horrible platform."
Which developer? I'm guessing you're not one?
Android is probably the easiest mobile platform to develop for bar perhaps Windows Mobile.
"Basically, you have tons of different devices you need to support, all with different hardware, resolution and features. They might or might not have changes made by the phone manufacturer and/or telcos. They might have physical keyboards or only touchscreen. Maybe multitouch on some."
I assumed from the your first comment that you were referring to yourself as a developer, but as you apparently don't even understand that one of the basic principles of writing software is to decide what you're writing and roughly how it will work before you write it then it's no wonder the thought of having options as to how you do different things confuses you. Do you need a camera on the front and back for your app? If so then there you go, it's decided, your app only has to be developed for that, if you only need one camera then what's the problem? It's not hard to use it in your app.
"But as for mobile developers, that's not true yet and it means you have to create and test your applications and games for every device and most likely make some changes and bugfixes to some of them."
Or unless you're developing with the NDK, which for 99% of apps you wont need to, then you can just use AVDs. You do know what AVDs are right, I mean, you made your post with a well informed background about Android development and aren't just making it up as you go are you?
"Take for example the popular Angry Birds game - the developers have outright said they just cannot support all the different Android devices."
Yeah, and Crysis wont run on my 486, and apps requiring features that weren't implemented until later iterations of the iPhone can't run apps built specifically for features in the latest version. Luckily though MagicDevices (tm) are now widely available that can automatically adapt to run anything anyone has and will ever think of, so we don't have to worry about this if we buy MagicDevices instead of Android handsets right?
"As much as I dislike Apple, iPhones are a solid platform."
Yes, and here we have the point you were really trying to get to don't we? You're just a trolling Apple fanboy. Why not just cut the misinformed bollocks in future and cut straight to the point that you love your iPhone and want to put it up your bum and have someone phone you to make it vibrate whilst masturbating to pictures of Steve Jobs?
"They have a few different versions of the OS (there needs to be progress, right?), but that's it."
Oh that sucks for you iPhone users then, I didn't realise the iPhone 4 lacked GPS, is only 2G, and has a horribly dated screen resolution. I'd always thought the different versions had different hardware, but I guess if you say otherwise then it must be true, it's only the OS that's changed after all.
"While Windows Phone 7 has definitely taken a better approach than before, they also haven't considered this issue."
Because it's not like XNA and Silverlight are designed specifically to solve these issues or anything is it? This is the point you really proved you simply don't know what the fuck you're on about. I hate Microsoft, I really fucking hate Microsoft, but christ there's no denying they've got mobile development hammered out above all others.
Fuck off Apple troll.
Re:mobile platform (Score:5, Informative)
As a developer there is a HUGE difference...
The iOS devices basically progress in a predictable fashion inheriting the functions of the last gen.. IE you can easily choose your lowest target and with very minimal tweaking support ALL higher / newer devices.. Also using consistent APIs you can detect specific models and enable specific features, knowing they EXIST on the device without writing custom code to detect them.
As android has progressed there have been APIs from vendors made to support model specific features. You can't count on what UI the user sees since HTC, Sony and Moto all reskin the OS... Makes it fun to explain to users how to do stuff when the OS looks alien.
Re:Increased IT literacy??? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm guessing you weren't around in the 80's when the ONLY home PC was an Apple.
I'm guessing you weren't either [wikipedia.org].
Re:mobile platform (Score:2, Informative)
Using your argument - if there's only 1 device it has to be goddam perfect since all your eggs are in that basket. Hence the ludicrous situation earlier in the year when Apple royally screwed the iPhone4's antenna and *blamed the user* for holding it wrong. Its more than just marketing, its borderline brainwashing - they just could not under any circumstances accept their entire product range of 1 was a turkey. Fortunately, as has been said before, Steve Jobs treats his customers like idiots and, as usual, on this occasion they proved him right again.
Had an Android phone been made with a defective antenna, users would have bought a different model whilst the first is recalled, fixed and relaunched.
The Antennagate debacle should have been horribly embarrassing for Apple, both in the design, testing failure, and response once the issue was known. It kills me that Jobs got away with blaming the users.
That said, Android's nothing special. The phones are made by all sorts of companies. Some might have issued a recall, some might have dealt with it. My personal experience with a very similar issue was with the Nexus One. If I held the phone in the wrong way (which happened to be the most natural way for me to hold the phone while reading on it) I would lose 2-3 bars--often causing a complete loss of signal. You can read about this well-known issue by searching for "death grip nexus one." The term "death grip" seems to imply a tight grip, but that wasn't required to repeat the issue (at least in my case.)
The end result was not a recall, and though the Nexus One happened to flop, it's unlikely that this was the reason. My end result was sending the phone back as defective and getting hit with a restocking fee I was unable to get out of despite the fact that the phone was simply unusable to me. To their credit, Apple at least fully refunded users who felt that the antenna issue made the phones unusable.
Re:mobile platform (Score:5, Informative)
There is a big difference between obsoleteness and fragmentation, support for older devices has always been an issue of "we'll take what we can get" when it comes to technology. The problem with Android is that you can buy half a dozen currently on the shelf products and find that none are running android the same. The 3 devices I have were all purchased this year, one has 1.5, one has 1.6 and one has 2.1, 1 has google apps the other 2 don't come with, 1 has a custom front end with swipe, one has a custom front end that makes it almost unnavigable and one has a vanilla dated android front end with half the default stuff missing. I like android as much as anyone but burying our heads in the sand and pretending the problems don't exist isn't supporting the platform its supporting a path that will inevitably lead to its demise. While I like the idea of open source, Google needs to put their foot down and at least come up with a set of minimal standards that require manufacturers to comply with them for the platforms own good. As it is now its great for a geek that knows what he is doing but for the average consumer without a lot of research and someone to hold their hand has no idea what they are going to get when they go to buy an android device. I cant even count how many times I have had clients ignore my advice and go out and buy a cheap piece of crap since the cheaper one ran android too....then I have to deal with them pissed off with me that they have a version that doesn't sync with exchange or doesn't have google apps, or is missing media players, etc.
Re:Increased IT literacy??? (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, please. You're getting your anti-Apple memes all mixed up.
Facts: In 1979 the Apple II+ cost $1195 with 48K of RAM. In 1981, the IBM PC cost $1565 with 16K of RAM. Apple had cheaper hardware and software for years. And furthermore Microsoft was a key supplier to both companies, so why on earth would anyone have wanted to crush them?
The cheap PC clones vs. expensive Apple meme had real legs for about 10 years (early 1990s to early 2000's). It has been false for quite a bit longer than it was true.
Re:This line from the article.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:mobile platform (Score:4, Informative)
Linux doesn't have fragmentation issues either, unless you're goin for the fud route.
The commercial Linux companies don't have a strong financial incentive to fragment the market. They rely on app developers to directly support their product, and if they stray too far from OSS principles, they lose the dev support. There is not enough money to be made locking in customers to overcome the losses on the development side.
Phone companies do have a strong incentive to fragment the Android market. Their business model relies on making it as difficult as possible to switch providers and to provide incentives for unnecessary hardware upgrades by artificially restricting software upgrades to newer models. They don't care about openness. They don't have to. They are the phone company.
Re:Increased IT literacy??? (Score:2, Informative)
Last I checked, as of 2010, it is still true.
There are no cheap Apple laptop. I would also argue that there is no mid-price Apple laptop. Most laptops sold are in the $400-800 range. Less for netbooks.
The mac mini and the iMac might be fine if you value the form factor. But if you don't, they are way too expensive for the performances that you get. Plus, you need to replace your LCD when you change your iMac, even if you could keep it for 10+ years.
The dual socket Mac Pro is fine - for a dual socket workstation if you compare to others (also too expensive, not custom-built) workstations. But the single socket Mac Pro is an over priced tower if you compare to any Core i7 desktop.
I'm also an Android developer and I don't (Score:4, Informative)
I'm also an Android developer and I don't share those concerns. There have been some frustrations, yes, but there are usually decent workarounds for a lot of things. As an example: Bluetooth support wasn't really solid until 2.0, yet there are excellent backport open-source libraries that make it easy to provide that support to 1.5 and 1.6 devices.
I completely disagree about reflection as well. Using reflection you can degrade gracefully for platforms that dont support what you're doing. Reflection is not ugly at all, it actually quite an elegant deign pattern imho.
If you're ending up with 6 layouts for each screen you're doing something wrong and perhaps overreaching in your support for older devices or your layout is overly complicated. It's unreasonable to think the latest Mass Effect game would run on a tiny 320x240 screen. And while that's hyperbole, yes, the point is made.
Just to be clear though, I don't find you concerns invalid, However I don't think this is unique to Android.
Granted there is still much work Google and the manufacturers could do to streamline all of this. But any software development platform, any OS, has some level of variation for what is supported. OSX, Linux, iOS, WebOS, Windows, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Symbian, HTML5/JS/CSS, Blackberry OS. Really the only platforms that don't, are the video game consoles. But now even that's starting to happen there too with external storage and peripherals.