Google Tightening Control Over Android as Fragmentation Increases

[GenesisST]

Oh, then I can take the Honeycomb source code and do whatever I want with it?

Oh, wait, I can't? Then how doesn't this make Android 'closed source'?

At least with Gingerbread (2.3), the source code wasn't available until it was officially released (on android.git.kernel.org). A few days after the release of Gingerbread, I could see the gingerbread branch.

Honeycomb is still not released as far as I know. When it's released and the code is not available, then we can talk.

Until then, it like a G5 powerbook :-D

 

[JoeG4]

lol damn what a bunch of crap.

Google is saying that Honeycomb was designed for tablets, not for mobile phones - and if you've actually used a honeycomb tablet you'd see that yea.. it's more of a computer/tablet thing than a phone thing.

The phone OS isn't that much of an iOS ripoff. Samsung ripped Apple's "grid of rounded off square icons" off but if you look at vanilla Android it doesn't really have that look.

That and home screens with icons in a grid are nothing new.

 

[NAG]

If there's any truth to the Google Android prototype phone being Blackberry-like, then Google is merely pulling a Microsoft by copying Apple's success. Otherwise, why wouldn't Google have continued down that path?

What do you mean "if"?

 

[Frobozz]

You could say the same thing about Apple though. The Apple fad will go away and the extremely closed ecosystem which seems to not be really developing much in terms of UI or having an actual roadmap could end iOS.

I don't understand why people can't just see the pros and cons of both and accept both are great platforms. Its always a WAR with Apple fans. Apple against EVERYONE!

The "Apple fad" ?

I suppose you can't stop people bandwagoning a product or brand. But Apple got to this point not because it was chic to love iOS. It started with a better user experience. It extended greatly when the app store was released. Android is very much lagging in both of those criteria.

The advantage Android offers is not financial, either. You can get an iPhone 3GS for $50. It's not user experience. It's not the strength of it's app suite.

Android is popular because it is on a lot of different device manufacturers and service providers. It also allows the maybe 1% of apps that are both useful and not allowed under the App Store TOS. So people who enjoy tinkering like it, for sure.

Android's strength is in numbers. Now that they have it, they can improve the UI to compete with Apple. That's a tall order. I don't think Apple will ever lag Android with truly useful features.

Let's put it this way: If the average consumer could buy an iOS device or an Android device for the same money on the same provider, which would most choose? Again, Android's strength is not in execution, it's in it's wide swath.

But, over time, the two platforms will be closer in UX and market reach.

 

[Kan-O-Z]

You could say the same thing about Apple though. The Apple fad will go away and the extremely closed ecosystem which seems to not be really developing much in terms of UI or having an actual roadmap could end iOS.

I don't understand why people can't just see the pros and cons of both and accept both are great platforms. Its always a WAR with Apple fans. Apple against EVERYONE!

I am an Apple fan and I do recognize pros and cons with both platforms. When you have control and integration of hardware and software, you have a much better experience, more stability, better overall hardware quality (both hardware and software), etc. The "open" systems don't control anything so anything goes, including installing any app you may find anywhere and customize things to your hearts content.

What I would like to say is that for 95% of people out there, the advantages of iOS are far more important than the advantages of Android. Honestly most people are very happy with all of the capabilities of the iPhone (and app store) all of which the iPhone performs beautifully. On top of that the Apple ecosystem is so easy and so integrated...Android can't compete. Think about renting a movie on your iPhone, streaming songs and videos to your TV, buying songs and books on the fly, etc...on top of which many ppl have extensive iTunes content and it integrates right in. Where do you start with Andriod with all this? And remember that people on this forum are the techies...and don't represent 95% of people out there.

Kan-O-Z

 

[deputy_doofy]

What do you mean "if"?

Thank you. I was trying to find that.

 

[DJsteveSD]

funny

you keep using that word…

lol

 

[Žalgiris]

so what Apple FAD are you talking about?

It's technology when it's Google.
It's a FAD when it's Apple?

What the **** are you talking about?

He is extremely biased.

 

[nealibob]

John Gruber's take:



Can't say I disagree.

The real Android bait-and-switch is calling the platform "open" to consumers. Sure, there are a few "Google Experience" devices that have not been mutilated by handset makers, but even those often have closed hardware. The way I see it, Google uses this ruse of openness to get geek support. Geeks then advocate their platform, which is a great form of marketing.

The reality is that any Android handset with a locked bootloader or no root access from the factory is just about as closed as any iOS device (or BlackBerry, WebOS, Windows, etc. device). The open vs. closed = Android vs. iOS argument is ridiculous, because it focuses on the part of the platform (underlying source code) that matters the least to almost all users.

 

[Xian Zhu Xuande]

This is a smart move. It had to happen sooner or later.

John Gruber would eat Steve Job's ***** if he could. His opinion is extremely biased.

Except... he's right. This was a bait-and-switch from Google. I don't think it was a bad move for the future of the platform, but it does render a lot of their PR commentary through history as bogus. As for Gruber, you clearly don't like him, but while he is certainly a fan of Apple he is usually correct.

 

[layte]

From now on, companies hoping to receive early access to Google's most up-to-date software will need approval of their plans.

Emphasis on the important bit for those who didn't bother to actually read the article. If you want to wait a bit, you can get the code and do whatever you want. Well that's my reading of it anyway, but please, don't let get in the way of giving the new enemy number one a good kicking.

 

[mamouneyya]

Hahahahahaha! Go to the hell!
iOS for ever

 

[Consultant]

So Google is becoming big brother of the open wasteland?

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-gb; Blade Build/FRG83) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

I'm not impressed by this at all. The very fact that the Gingerbread source is available has given my Orange UK branded ZTE Blade Gingerbread before other phones had official builds.

I know that some here despise all that may compete with Apple but the Android community and developers who put work into projects like Cyanogenmod are an awesome bunch. It would be sad to see the community go by the wayside because of any change in the distribution of Android.

 

[dwd3885]

This is a smart move. It had to happen sooner or later.



John Gruber would eat Steve Job's ***** if he could. His opinion is extremely biased.

Ditto. Gruber is as much a blow hard as anyone can possibly be. He's such an arrogant, self-absorbing prick of a human being, without an un-biased bone in his body. He is the epitome of Apple fanboy.

 

[tundrabuggy]

You could say the same thing about Apple though. The Apple fad will go away and the extremely closed ecosystem which seems to not be really developing much in terms of UI or having an actual roadmap could end iOS.

I don't understand why people can't just see the pros and cons of both and accept both are great platforms. Its always a WAR with Apple fans. Apple against EVERYONE!

This is a short-sighted statement if I've ever seen one. The Apple "Fad" will go away?? Apple is paving the way for all the me-too products to rip-off, oh, I forget, in its proper term, its labeled "competition". First iPhone and iPad are created as explosively successful products, then all the copy-cats come, as Jobs predicted they would. Not an ounce of creativeness from the others, now, linguists and Lawyers are being hired to copy the name "App store" as well, they need to have it to compete. If Apple went away, innovation in this market would stifle for 5 years at least.

 

[mlayer]

This is huge for the OEMs

A big part of each Android OEM partner's strategy has been to differentiate by software, usually through skinning. I'm curious to know what this means for them when Ice Cream comes around. How limited will they be in terms of customization? And if differentiation is curtailed, how can the OEM's stand out? What's to stop some no-name upstart from undercutting all of them and eating their lunch? The era of the commodity smartphone has officially begun and it's a race to the bottom for Android partners. Apple may not win the market share war, but as long as they maintain margins, sell out every unit and maintain customer satisfaction, they'll be in an enviable position.

 

[Žalgiris]

Ditto. Gruber is as much a blow hard as anyone can possibly be. He's such an arrogant, self-absorbing prick of a human being, without an un-biased bone in his body. He is the epitome of Apple fanboy.

He's self-loving jerk everyone knows that, but what's even worse that he's more often right than wrong. That makes fandroids go mental.

 

[NAG]

The real Android bait-and-switch is calling the platform "open" to consumers. Sure, there are a few "Google Experience" devices that have not been mutilated by handset makers, but even those often have closed hardware. The way I see it, Google uses this ruse of openness to get geek support. Geeks then advocate their platform, which is a great form of marketing.

The reality is that any Android handset with a locked bootloader or no root access from the factory is just about as closed as any iOS device (or BlackBerry, WebOS, Windows, etc. device). The open vs. closed = Android vs. iOS argument is ridiculous, because it focuses on the part of the platform (underlying source code) that matters the least to almost all users.

Actually, I think the open shtick was probably mostly to convince handset makers to abandon Windows Mobile (not that they needed to do much with Microsoft finding new and inventive ways to shoot themselves in the foot). It's open and free meant that the handset makers were not beholden to Redmond, which everyone was chafing under. Just look at HP if you want a good example of former Redmond partners fleeing as fast as they can (which isn't very fast but still).

The handset makers only recently realized, apparently, that Google is not their white knight and Google is just trying to use them as pawns to make everyone dependent on Google advertising. Does this come as any surprise after handset makers started toying with things like removing Google search for Bing or removing the Android marketplace entirely?

Google wanting greater control so they can maintain their business plan isn't evil, of course since only Apple is evil. Seriously though, the issue here is that Google's true plan (or loyalties, I guess) are being laid bare and they are not what they've been claiming (although if you were paying attention you would have known they were lying from the start). Did they plan to do this from the start? I doubt it. Android has always been reactionary – they tried to fix it with the various Google phones that failed and then tried to decouple components of the OS so they could be updated via the marketplace and not as reliant on the handset makers/carriers. It still doesn't excuse Google for blatantly lying about their motives.

 

[smiddlehurst]

Emphasis on the important bit for those who didn't bother to actually read the article. If you want to wait a bit, you can get the code and do whatever you want. Well that's my reading of it anyway, but please, don't let get in the way of giving the new enemy number one a good kicking.

Except Google have made it very clear with Honeycomb that they're not willing to release the source code for the foreseeable future so 'a bit' could be a lot longer than you'd think. More to the point that does manufacturers very little good. If, f'instance, Google decide to only release a version of Android as open source when they release the next version any manufacturer wanting to use it is going to have to grab the open version, make whatever tweaks they want, get it on a device, get it built in bulk and launch it into the relevant sales channel(s). By the time they do that Google is likely to have released another version of Android and they'll be hopelessly out of date.

Make no mistake about this, Google tightening up on the Android T&C's like this makes it almost impossible for anyone outside of Google's control to launch a device that really competes with the manufacturers who are on the inside track, at least from an OS point of view.

 

[jamesryanbell]

Jobs was right. AGAIN.

When he speaks, listen.

 

[azentropy]

Honeycomb is still not released as far as I know. When it's released and the code is not available, then we can talk.

The Motorola Xoom ships with Honeycomb. It has been released. You miss that???

 

[rosalindavenue]

Not a problem for me. HTC does a great job keeping phones updated.

Spoken like someone who never owned an Eris.

 

[pdjudd]

The Motorola Xoom ships with Honeycomb. It has been released. You miss that???

The source hasn't been released. It's the source code that people are talking about. The source code that Google has always released up till now.

 

[bbplayer5]

Android > iOS. This just makes it even better that they are going to tighten up with providers are doing to bend over the consumer.