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Google Tightening Control Over Android as Fragmentation Increases
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What is this, "let's go on an Apple fansite and act surpised that it's full of Apple fans" day?
Sure, just buy a Honeycomb powered device. Until then Google has no legal requirement to let you have the GPL portions of source. As for the rest, it is licensed under an Apache License, which does not require Google release the source at all but does allow a user to modify and redistribute what they do have.
FOSS does not mean they have to put the source out in the open.
That's ridiculous.. If It was for HTC, my Hero would have it's support blocked in a 2.1 buggish system with a daylong battery life.. Thanks to "cooked" rom I've 2.3 Gingerbread with an overclocked phone, terminal access and 5 day of battery...
Stupid.. stupid move indeed...
Stupid.. stupid move indeed...
I don't think it's about planning. After all, how much "planning" do you need to do if your philosophy behind the product is basically " open it up so everyone can contribute and see where it goes"? The point most here are making is that the age-old "open" vs. "closed" ecosystem argument, which has repeatedly been used to criticize Apple over many years, is now looking more and more as if Apple was right all along. In this case what you call "lack of planning," I call lack of much thought at all. I for one don't have much faith in most things accomplished by committee, and that is the basic flaw in most "open" systems.
The "bait and switch" reference applies in that many of those who jumped on the Android bandwagon now find they don't have nearly as much control as they thought they would, as evidenced by the complaints from that community.
I don't think it is evil. It is crazy for people to pretend like Google makes Android to be benevolent and help the world. They have financial motives, and they have to protect their interests. Removing Google as search is probably going to be a huge no-no. It is kind of dumb that anyone has even tried to do that... That is part of the problem. Some of the carriers/manufacturers are stupid.
They have disrespected what Google has done for them and forced Google to clamp down. When someone gives you something for free and does a lot of work for you, you can at least respect their position and understand when you do things that might be stepping on their toes.
That is the real problem with the android commodity market though. It is not google, it is all the second rate manufacturers who sucked at making smartphones before Apple and Google, and continue to do dumb things to this day.
You mix a more general usage based OS with a hardware marketplace filled with knuckleheads, and you end up with the mess that is the Android hardware market and ecosystem.
Who didn't see this coming? They differentiated themselves, gained enough marketshare and now want to clean up and tighten the ship down.
As an EVO 4G user I'd love to have the latest updates as soon as they are released by Google.
Man do these stories bring out the ignoranus fanboys. IMO if you have never owned both an Android phone and an iPhone, you shouldn't be allowed to comment because 99% just can't be objective about it.
Now, I'll hop on my pedestal and say I owned the original Moto Droid, and now own an iPhone. The ability to customize your experience on a droid is what I found so attractive, and Google isn't taking that away, so IMO this story is nothing but good for Android. Better control, more polish, yet the same customization capability that the majority of everyday users want. All of the iBoys tooting their horns and patting each other are doing so for absolutely no reason.
With that said, the polish of the iPhone is what I love the most about it, and if I could pair that polish with Androids ability for personalization of my device without jailbreaking and their much superior notification system, it would be the perfect phone. The next device to get it all right gets my money, whether its apple or Google.
Now, I'll hop on my pedestal and say I owned the original Moto Droid, and now own an iPhone. The ability to customize your experience on a droid is what I found so attractive, and Google isn't taking that away, so IMO this story is nothing but good for Android. Better control, more polish, yet the same customization capability that the majority of everyday users want. All of the iBoys tooting their horns and patting each other are doing so for absolutely no reason.
With that said, the polish of the iPhone is what I love the most about it, and if I could pair that polish with Androids ability for personalization of my device without jailbreaking and their much superior notification system, it would be the perfect phone. The next device to get it all right gets my money, whether its apple or Google.
Ah linux trolls are my favorite
I lost count how many times I've answered a question and/or posted on something to have the random linux guy show up and spout "Or just toss out your mac/pc and install linux on a new machine". Of course no one asked about linux.
That was a hoot changing the search to Bing. Only thing gutsier would be to somehow replace every admob ad to a competitor.
I wouldn't leave Google completely blameless here. They knew who they were dealing with. They need eyeballs to sell (ad business) so they made their bed. Same reason why the software marketplace on android sucks, they designed it for their bottom line (eyeballs). They aren't making a product for people to use, they're making a channel to deliver a product (eyeballs) to their customers (advertisers).
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)
I also kind of thought that Google would close things off after awhile. Android is what Wonblows was in the 90s. Every Tom, Dick and Harry wrote software for it, most of it was crap but gave the belief it was superior to the Mac OS. Microshaft cracked down and eased out the bad software developers and the same thing will happen to Android. Especially since rouge developers have came about.
I also kind of thought that Google would close things off after awhile. Android is what Wonblows was in the 90s. Every Tom, Dick and Harry wrote software for it, most of it was crap but gave the belief it was superior to the Mac OS. Microshaft cracked down and eased out the bad software developers and the same thing will happen to Android. Especially since rouge developers have came about.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)
Android is a huge mess. If they took the approach Microsoft is taking with WP7, then they might have a better shot, but for now, it's just a fragmented and whored out OS and community.
Android is a huge mess. If they took the approach Microsoft is taking with WP7, then they might have a better shot, but for now, it's just a fragmented and whored out OS and community.
How about
1. I don't care what neighbors say as long as I can work on my car and rev up the engine, even at midnight.
My point was 'I don't care what happens to others as long as I get what I want' is not good.
Thanks. Wish I could favorite that post to point out to Fandroids (have a few at work) everytime they tell me that Android came before the iPhone, to claim the iPhone copied it (yup, technically it did...but as you have shown, Android was nothing like Android now then...In line with its successor, which was an iPhone knockoff, Android then was a BB knockoff).
This is right. However, the moment you mention that to a Fandroid, they would go all ballistic about how you are just an Apple fanboy, or a hater.
Blame the victim, much? Maybe Google shouldn't have been trumpeting its complete openness all day. And maybe they should have, like Apple, said what is allowed and what is not.
I would add I never understand the comparison of Smartphones running Android to smartphones running IOS.
Neither Google or Apple sell their phone operating systems, and the Android spectrum is made up of 50 handsets from 10 different manufacturers who are in direct competition with each other. They are not one big group working together to take on Apple. It makes absolutely zero sense to make that kind of comparison.
It is just as weird as loping off iPod and iPad IOS users...
If people want to compare smartphones, then compare actual sales of individual smartphones, each which only use one OS. People should not draw meaningless lines in the sand lumping all android based handsets together, because they are not together other than they run android. They might as well compare black phones to white phones.
I imagine if you made a chart of the top selling smartphones in the last 5 years, it would consist of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 3G and the iPhone.
Why not group smartphones by what kind of graphics chip they have or what type of memory chip they use? The OS is irrelevant. Nobody in the smartphone business is directly making money off any of these oses, it is a stupid way to categorize smart phones.
Of course it happens because if they didn't lump them together it would look absurd with Apple totally dominating the smart phone market with their latest phone every year while 100 android commodity phones all have tiny market shares just to get replaced by the next one.
How does HTC running android OS benefit or relate to a Motorola phone running android? It does not, at all.
Ah linux trolls are my favorite
What?
Apple realized long time ago that it is bad if the cell service provider has too much freedom, puts too much **** on the phone and customizes it in ways that it is no longer maintainable ... they got bashed as being too closed.
But now people finally realize they were right:
- android is getting too fragmented because service providers are either too slow to provide updates or refuse to update at all for current phones
- microsoft just realed an update to their mobile7 - guess what: service providers are too slow to update the brand new phones - weeks after the MS release they still need many more weeks to 'test' and 'adjust' for their phones
What good is it to have an OS that claims to be 'open' but you still can't get updates because the openess was abused by service providers who struggle to re-adding their ****.
But now people finally realize they were right:
- android is getting too fragmented because service providers are either too slow to provide updates or refuse to update at all for current phones
- microsoft just realed an update to their mobile7 - guess what: service providers are too slow to update the brand new phones - weeks after the MS release they still need many more weeks to 'test' and 'adjust' for their phones
What good is it to have an OS that claims to be 'open' but you still can't get updates because the openess was abused by service providers who struggle to re-adding their ****.
Well, I guess the Open Source concept backfired at Google and everyone else doing Android. Open Source is a great concept, but when handled the wrong way, it does lead to fragmentation.
The problem is that all the happiness about Android being an open system will now turn into disappointment to many hobbyists and tweakers, and also to developers.
The fact that Apple keeps iOS closed is for a good reason, but at least it created a system to be able to advertise and sell apps. The quality control may not be perfect, but at least so far we haven't heard of an iOS viral app. iOS devices are very tight, protecting their own integrity.
Well, let's see what happens. We need Android to keep poking on Apple's creativity to make better products.
I'm not against Android; I may get an Android phone when I see one worth my money.
The problem is that all the happiness about Android being an open system will now turn into disappointment to many hobbyists and tweakers, and also to developers.
The fact that Apple keeps iOS closed is for a good reason, but at least it created a system to be able to advertise and sell apps. The quality control may not be perfect, but at least so far we haven't heard of an iOS viral app. iOS devices are very tight, protecting their own integrity.
Well, let's see what happens. We need Android to keep poking on Apple's creativity to make better products.
I'm not against Android; I may get an Android phone when I see one worth my money.
Android is the next windows. So many drivers, so much requirements, so many configurations, so little memory. Fortunately Apple's provided a better sandbox.
Wow... classless AND wrong at the same time. Care to go for the hat trick and throw in 'fanboi' too?
'Open Source' to the degree that it serves Google's purposes.
The point is that Apple is derided as 'closed' while Google is erroneously beatified as 'open', when in fact there is little difference between the two (other than the fact that I somewhat trust Apple with private info, while I wouldn't trust Google as far as I could throw them.)