Sounds like some parity and stability is coming to the Android platform.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_15/b4223041200216.htm

Of course this flies in the face of all the hypocritical bullsh*t Andy Rubin, et al. at Google have been blabbing about for months.

I'd be perfectly happy if Google treated every manufacturer identically, as does Microsoft (according to the article, anyway), so long as all the manufacturer shovelware and phone carrier policing came to an end.

I'd also be happy if the carriers gave you an easy way to turn off their crapware. I have no idea why they think it's better to get their hooks deep into the OS and force you to use their stuff. It's not like the phone will cease to work correctly if I use plain Android. I played with a Galaxy Tab 7" in a retail store the other day for about 20 minutes just to check it out. The thing I find funny is that while nobody will be awarding Android for style, Samsung doesn't seem to realize that their design touches are horribly ugly. Google tends to use all white icons in their menus, but Samsung has ugly, color, clip-art-looking icons all over the place. Yuk.

It makes me wonder why they put their own take on these devices in the first place. I'd always assumed that it was a way for them to differentiate themselves in the mind of an average consumer walking into a phone store and seeing five Android phones in front of them. In fact, it seems the entire purpose of these alternate skins is to immediately signal to the user that it does not look like another company's Android phone.

It's understandable to differentiate, but when it starts hurting your customers, it simply doesn't make sense. You're going to end up with phones that are missing features from newer versions of Android, or even more importantly you miss out on security updates.

I honestly don't understand the manufacturer skinning. I simply can't figure it out. There are tons of alternate launchers in the App Market, and ever since Android 1.5, I've never had one crap out after an update to the OS. So why not simply create, for example, a Sense UI Launcher? They could make the phone default to the company's system applications like their own phone dialer. That way, it's riding on top of an OS that can still get updated.

Anyway, in the end I'm happy about this. Bruno, I think you're misunderstanding the meaning of hypocritical. This is giving up Google wanted to play nice, but they clearly grossly underestimated the manufacturers' ability to f*** everything up for no good reason. I'd be surprised if Google ever foresaw this situation, and if they had they would have come out with a different approach.

I have a hard time seeing this as not being pro-consumer.

Most likely it's because it's a bullet point on the powerpoint presentation of "why people may buy our product over [insert identical android phone name here]"

I suspect everyone is worried that ZTE will come along and push out a same spec (same qualcomm chipset) phone which is indistinguishable from theirs... except it costs less.

Matt, I think I know the definition of hypocrite:





Biggest bait and switch of the past 10 years, IMO.

I'd say that Google is responding to pressure from customers who want to buy "stock" Android. Also, Microsoft took noticeable pleasure in restricting its Windows Phone 7 vendors, as it also increasingly restricts Windows licensees (relative to the earlier days).

Frankly, I'd be perfectly happy for Motorola to use their stable of developers to debug the device drivers. I'm annoyed that WiFi doesn't work anywhere near as well on my Android as it did on my earlier iPhone. Bluetooth also seems more prone to drop the connection, particularly with my car. I'm sure some of that blame rests on Google (or on Linux), but that's where Motorola could really contribute. They know how to do real-world testing and could generate really high quality bug reports.

Likewise, if the hardware vendors focused their efforts on good hardware support, then presumably it would be much easier for them to port their changes forward to newer versions of Android, bringing newer versions to their customers sooner.

Oh well. I can always upgrade my Droid X to an apparently leaked build of Gingerbread (apparently an official build from Motorola that Verizon rejected, perhaps because it mentioned AT&T inside the tethering app... oops), using techniques that will brick my phone if I screw something up. Or I can wait. And wait.

Sorry, Bruno, I still disagree. I think hypocrisy implies a simultaneity. This is a company changing their minds, which is a minor but important distinction. Do you always view someone changing their mind as a sign of hypocrisy?

I'm not saying they're right, either. I'm just saying it's a reaction, not a malicious decision or doublespeak. They aspired to something and weren't able to make it a reality due to external forces. At the very least, I have every reason to think they're doing what they're doing for the good of the consumer. I really would like to hear your specific thoughts on why this is a bad move and what negative effects could result from it.

Uh, they're only restricting early access. It's still open source once it's released, and anyone can do whatever they want with it.

Although, I will say that there's no problem with fragmentation of Chrome or Firefox (okay, maybe a startup or two trying to fork Firefox), and for those we get nightly builds and real-time access to their source code repository.

Whatever Google's reason for not letting out real-time source code, it's got nothing to do with market uniformity. My guess is that it's instead about trying to kow tow to hardware vendors trying to keep things under wraps, like new hardware features for which Google might be building suitable drivers or applications.

But Google are stating that they have not changed their minds. That these rules have always been there, they just haven't been enforcing them.

They also continue to call out Apple and other "closed" systems.

There's a huge shitstorm brewing over this with manufacturers who feel like Google is pulling the rug out from under them.

It's only early access on the face. But they're manipulating what you can and can't do well beyond that. Not giving access to certain apps, the market, etc. The OS was created to generate ad revenue. If someone goes off an implements solutions using Google's competition, Google isn't really going to be too happy about it. And they haven't been.

I don't think for a second this has anything to do with complaints from individuals. Consumers are not Google's customers. We're more their assets. Their customers are their AdSense buyers. It's always been that way and nothing has changed in this respect with Android.

I don't personally think it's a bad move from a consumer perspective. It's bad for manufacturers, but I've been calling for this type of move for a long time. I just think that Google should have been more up front about this and enforced it right from the start, giving every manufacturer equal footing at the same time. Instead they've played favorites and participated in a big bait and switch, potentially screwing a lot of their manufacturing partners in the process, who have probably spent lots and lots of dollars developing their customizations - as shit as some of them may be.

In contrast, Microsoft was very up front about this for WP7.

Overall, I think Google stepping in to control Android a bit more is a good thing for end users considering my experience with the Captivate. For most of the Android fans out there, they choose a similar experience to what the Apple users do. A Google designed phone (Nexus One/S), with a Google (only) OS, and a Google update system. The rest of the Android market is made up of normal consumers who wanted a smartphone and simply picked what was available on their carrier, unaware of all the differences. Unaware that Samsung or Verizon or whoever was altering the "Android Experience" and hindering the speed of updates.

What does trouble me is most of what Bruno and others here have pointed out. Google is moving forward with these changes, while trying to act like they aren't changes. It's just enforcement of rules they already had in place, and they still hold dearly to the "Open" tag. (I want to revisit that thread soon, but specifically avoided going too far down the Android path there). The hardware manufacturers ended up with their own idea of what open meant for them, and they ran with it. Google went along with it too, certifying devices like the Galaxy S variant on Verizon even though it took out Google search and changed it to Bing. This set a certain precedent that Google is clearly trying to back away from, to the point of not allowing search to be changed on a recent T-Mobile phone. Google should have been more consistent with the enforcement earlier, denying the Google certification that allows the proprietary parts of Android to ship on a device if they weren't happy about something.

If they want to keep using the Open tag, they need to release source when they ship at a minimum. Most pure open source projects these days even grant access during development, with Chorme and Firefox being two notable ones pointed out by Dan. Linux, Apache, Samba, FFMpeg, VLC, Socorro, Wine and many others work this way. Does Google have to do the same? No, they don't. But they should't bash their competitors over the head with "Open" while intentionally restricting access. Honeycomb is not open to end users, and not open to any hardware vendor. It's only open to chosen companies, and may remain that way until Ice Cream. The next Google I/O should be interesting to see. If Google backs away from the whole Open description, then great, they are being more honest about their change in direction. But if they say similar things as last year, then yes, I can see the hypocrite tag fitting.

While the phrase "Google is the next Microsoft" doesn't properly describe the situation, I do see some truth to it at least with Android. Google makes an OS that they license to hardware vendors, just as Microsoft did with Windows. Google allows vendors to make modifications, just as Microsoft does with Windows. On a technical level, yes the open source part is different then Microsoft's closed methods, but there are similarities. Dell is free to add programs before a system ships, and change some aspects of Windows. Same for Android. And much like Microsoft did in the 90s, Google will use threats like a stop ship order to prevent changes they dislike, even after previously certifying said changes. If Android becomes the dominant licensed OS for smartphones, Google is likely to have a similar focus on their activities as Microsoft had in the 90s. Such actions as the Skyhook situation jump from breach of contract issues, to potential anti trust issues. Especially when Google touts the "open" nature of the OS. Microsoft said OEMs were free to make changes, up until one of those changes was bundling Netscape as an equal choice to IE.

Ok, this thought I'll admit is way out in conspiracy theory land, but here goes. What if a reason Google is withholding Honeycomb source is due to them not wanting to have to compete with Amazon? There has been a lot of speculation recently that Amazon may look to build their own tablet to compete with Apple, and potentially the other Android tablets. This tablet could potentially run just the open part of Android, ignoring the proprietary Google parts. Out of the gate, there would still be a place to get apps (Amazon Appstore), a place to stream videos from (Amazon Instant Video), a place to buy music from (Amazon MP3 Store), a place to buy books from (Kindle Store), and a place to stream cloud music from (Amazon Cloud Player).

Amazon would be entering the field with an ecosystem that rivals, or even beats Apple's in certain areas, and also would be stronger then what Google offers today on the media side. Motorola, Samsung, and the other Android tablet makers have next to nothing when looking at ecosystems. This could do severe damage to the already slow start of Android with Google as a tablet platform.

My read is that they're simply restricting access to pre-release versions. Once released, it's Open Source, and same as usual.

Heck, call RedHat a "closed" company if that's how you think, because they do the same thing.

Cheers

That's enough to sink (bankrupt, completely destroy) some handset makers if they don't play ball. Starting development after a few other companies have already released their products isn't going to work for most of these companies.

How much lead time will "pre-release" offer? A month? 6 months? Maybe a year. I'm guessing between 6 months and a year myself.

Having the "open" version of Android come out "eventually" is perfectly fine for some companies. It would be perfectly fine for my intended use for example, but that version simply won't be useful at all to be competitive in the mobile handset space. It could even be fine for a company like Amazon who could use it to offer what ends up being their own platform without so much as a single Google mention. Now, if everyone did this, Google would be screwed - and they know that. That is the big impetus in controlling the release of Android versions, not what Joe consumer thinks.

I'll put it in plain English. Google doesn't give a rat's ass what the consumer thinks about Android fragmentation and extra UI bits from third parties.

Android's only purpose is to bring in money for Google. That's it. It's not about some lofty holy crusade against Apple and other closed systems. And there's nothing wrong with that. If everyone starts heavily customizing and dropping Google services that expose eyeballs to advertisements, then Google's suddenly running a charity. And the last thing Google is about is charity. Google doesn't do free as in beer.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, because as I've already stated, as a consumer, I agree with a tighter Android experience. But manufacturers have apparently already started the complaints to the DoJ about Google.

How long does pre-release last? The Motorola Xoom has Honeycomb on it, and has been in consumers hands for over a month. Either Google is admitting they ship pre-release quality products and charge people money for that, or Motorola shipped before Honeycomb was done.


Source for RHEL 6 was available when it went into beta, in April 2010. RHEL 6 was in pre-release mode until November 2010. Thats a window of 7 months where source was available before they shipped a final product. Big difference between that timing and the situation with Honeycomb. That 7 month window allowed CentOS, and Scientific Linux to also continue their work as normal. The community would have been up in arms had RedHat held back the code while shipping public beta versions.

Some insight into the Android changes, looks like Skyhook may have been the tipping point for this:

http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/

One part of the article talks about the rumored Amazon Android tablet, and how a contract between Samsung and Google may hinder it, if Amazon was going to have Samsung manufacture it.


Google also confirmed at I/O 2011 that Honeycomb (both 3.0 and 3.1) will remain closed.

I repeat my statements earlier in this thread. The manufacturers are simply ruining Android. It's that simple. Here's an example (Bruno, you'll love this):

I have a new client with a small business who's email is done through a hosted Exchange account. This week she got rid of her old Blackberry and went with the HTC Thunderbolt because she's loyal to a Verizon franchise store, and because neither Verizon nor AT&T let their franchise** stores sell the iPhone for some reason, she went with the Thunderbolt. I probably would have suggested the same thing.

Well I certainly don't now.

Her Exchange account added just fine, and she can get her email and calendar items. The problem starts with contacts. MOST of her nearly 8000 contacts synced, but oddly some of her most-used contacts did not. Even with the ones that did, they were missing different pieces of info, like some would be missing one or all phone numbers, or a mailing address, and not a single one shows a second email address if it was entered.

Clearly, this is an enormous problem for someone running a small business who's making calls all day long. In addition to this, HTC has designed their dialer so that in order to call the person you want to, you either start typing their number or you spell it out using the 9-digit keyboard. That's right, it's a smartphone that came out this year that's expecting you to use a sort of T-9 system to find the contact you want to dial. What's worse? When you press the search hard button, it doesn't bring up a QWERTY keyboard where you can search for the person you want, no, it brings up instructions on how to use the 9-digit keypad to find the person. If it had been my phone I think I might have thrown it against a wall.

Now, just to make sure it wasn't a problem with the Exchange server or something, I decided I'd try it out on my own phone. I even went so far as to blow out my own contacts and stop all syncing so as not to risk any cross-contamination of data. I added her exchange account and waited an hour. Sure enough, the stock "Contacts" app (the HTC app is "People") was showing every single contact she was having problems with. It also showed every piece of information for every contact I looked up, including multiple email addresses, mailing addresses, and phone numbers.

In order to go back to my client tomorrow with all the information I could muster, I looked into rooting the Thunderbolt and putting a replacement ROM on it. Turns out it's one of the less supported phones out there, and while the rooting process isn't the hardest around, it's not dead-simple.

Thankfully, I was treated to an incredibly rude a-hole on the AndroidForums who basically said "here's a link to the 23 different ROMs out there." Nevermind they all have names that look like the names of hacker BBSs, and I have no idea which one would be best suited to my client. Cyanogen, sadly, isn't ready for this device.


After this, combined with Tom's experience with his Samsung, I simply can't recommend nearly all Android phones to the average consumer right now. The Nexus S is fine, and for more advanced users so is any phone that will take a stable version of Cyanogen. Otherwise you're dealing with s**t that manufacturers put on their devices in an effort to differentiate themselves, but ends up ruining an otherwise wonderful platform.

I can't tell you how frustrated this makes me. It also solidifies my decision to wait until a new Nexus device is released (there's rumors of one at the end of the year).


**"Franchise" might not be the right word here. I'm not sure what you call these stores, but they're usually family-owned. There's an AT&T store in my home town that used to be a general cellular phone store, but went exclusive with AT&T. The owner was seriously pissed when AT&T wouldn't let him sell the iPhone.

Take the phone back to the Verizon store and let the people there know that it sucks and that they should complain to corporate about it. Then see what other alternatives they have. Lastly, if that's not going to get a proper phone, just buy an iPhone online through the Apple Store for the Verizon network.

Android is likely to always have these problems, even with Google tightening down, I don't think they'll be able to fix all the cruft these second-tier manufacturers are dumping on there.

I can sympathize with the extra work and headaches you're having to go through here to support this customer. Ouch.

The thing is, this would all be moot if even one of these manufacturers changed one thing about their addons: make them optional. I can't for the life of me think of one reason, other than arrogance, why these alterations they make are so deeply integrated with the OS.

To begin with, there are only two reasons I can think of that they put these alterations to the OS:

1) To differentiate: clearly, to the average consumer in a phone store, if 6 different Android slate phones look the same, the one with the different home screen is going to stand out. Plus you can advertise your UI on the spec sheet. But that doesn't explain why you make the add-ons unremovable. Perhaps...

2) They honestly think they offer a better user experience. The problem is this is clearly bulls**t, they're just too proud of their own stuff to admit it's awful. Plus, they could still make the add-ons removable.

I will say one thing: HTC actually has very good customer support:

- Their free phone lines are open from 6am to 1am EST
- There are no prompts (you go straight to an actual person)
- The wait times seem very short (10 minutes this morning and almost instant last night around 8pm)
- The support technicians are far better than the usual tier 1, and the woman I spoke to even got a Thunderbolt, added the Exchange account, and waited for everything to sync while spending an hour on the phone with me

Too bad their software blows big time.


You'll like this, Bruno. On the AndroidForums, I said the following:

- That the rooting community, while doing a lot of good work, simply wasn't very clear on procedures for new users.
- Besides, it's not very practical to root a client's phone,
- There are no plain vanilla Android phones sold by Verizon anymore (the OG Droid was the last/only one).
- After this experience with Sense UI, why would I risk trying out a Motorola phone with MotoBlur?
- The only conclusion was to go with an iPhone.

You know what the a** "helping" me out then said to me? To paraphrase: "I should have known you were an iPhone troll." Yeah, he accused ME of that

One thing I find somewhat amusing about the situation is that you have a customer using Microsoft Exchange, and they were initially using a RIM Blackberry, before changing to an HTC/Google phone, with an Apple iPhone in the running. Really shows how far behind Microsoft has gotten on the phone side, unable to even take advantage of people leaving Blackberry devices.

If Android phones weren't freebies or heavily pushed/customized by the carriers, it would probably be in the same boat Microsoft is in right now. That OS has legs only because they're taking over from feature and feature-less phones. There's a very small percentage of customers who are moving to it from other smartphone products, but the big bulk of its numbers are simply people who want a new phone.

MS can go this route, but it's difficult to compete for phone models when Google's offering is close to free. If they want to make money they have to look at Apple and RIM for inspiration and change their mobile business to be nothing like their desktop business. Maybe then we'll start seeing the corporate world embracing MS mobile handsets.

You'd think that Win Phone 7 device would be a good competitor for Exchange integration.

I hadn't thought about that, but this is a funny thing. But this particular situation is a little different because Verizon, for all intents and purposes, doesn't have WP7 phones. I only see two, one is "free," and the other is $50, so they look like pretty crappy phones.


Well I'm back to not knowing what the hell you're talking about.

The entire smartphone market is benefiting from users getting their first smartphones. You seem to think that every single iPhone user was once a Blackberry or Palm owner, and that's simply not the case. If anything, the smartphone market share reports are showing a decline in RIM/Nokia, and a rise in Android, and if you wanted you could read that as more people switching from smartphones to Android than are doing so to iPhone. I don't necessarily think that, but I do think the entire pie is growing, and all these companies are getting new buyers.

What's more, I don't know where you're getting these ideas that Android is being carried by free/cheap phones. The biggest seller has been the Galaxy S line, which is the same exact price as the entry level iPhone, as is almost every Android phone that comes to market. I can't think of a single sub-$200 Android phone that has been a huge success (most of them are crap that sell terribly, like the Cha Cha).

Indeed. Oddly, they aren't that great with Exchange. While the basics work, they lack several Exchange features, including the ability to search all e-mail on the server.

This is another reminder I never did finish up my review thread of WP7. I did find I liked quite a bit of what the platform had to offer, but it's definitely not a great enterprise device. I'll have to wrap that up soon, before the experience fades.

Matt, look at the number of high-priced Android phones compared to the overall number of Android phones. Small numbers. There are over 100 Android handsets right now to put this into perspective.

The iPhone customers have come from everywhere, but my point was that most Android customers have come up from feature or dumbphones. Yes, it's great to have more smartphones around, but the Android brand is not the draw here. The simple availability and price and bundles from the carriers are what's pushing sales in the biggest numbers. And while this is the case, you're going to continue to see manufacturers and carriers re-branding the hell out of the experience to try and establish their own flavor as a premium item. It hasn't worked so far and I won't hold my breath for it to work in the future.

MS is suposed to be significantly improving WP7 in the next update, offering a number of enhancements changes specifically for the email experience. I'm eager to find out if this latest Nokia rumor is true. I think MS needs it for long-term success. I don't think they're going anywhere following Google.


Recent Android security issues (transmitting auth in the clear):
http://www.uni-ulm.de/en/in/mi/staff/koenings/catching-authtokens.html

How many products will ever get a fix for this?

Every platform is going to have security vulnerabilities. What's sad about Android is how many phones are running ancient versions. All of this customization crap slows down the rollout of security patches. Yes, yet another reason why the Android ecosystem needs to crack down on customization.

As to Exchange integration, I'm amazed it works at all. Android naturally works really well with Gmail because that's how everybody at Google uses it. Once you get away from that...

Sorry, I just don't know from where you arrive at this conclusion. You seem to be looking at the entire landscape of Android phones and not paying attention to how well any particular model is selling, when it's selling, and for how much. Sure, you could go buy an old Android phone for a nice discount, but you can do the same with the 3GS, and I wouldn't call that a crappy freebie (and I'd be amazed if people buying the 3GS now are current smartphone owners).

I think my problem with what you're saying is that you're arguing two things as a single, inseparable argument: that Android's brand isn't the draw so the platform is living on the sales of freebie/heavily discounted phones.

I agree that Android doesn't have the draw that iPhone does, but the most popular phones aren't the fee ones, they're the $200 ones.

To be honest, I couldn't actually tell you why that is. Up until the Verizon iPhone, it was clearly because Apple wasn't releasing on all carriers. But people are still buying the expensive Android phones, and given how crappy the manufacturer overlays are, I couldn't tell you why. My guess: you look at an iPhone screen and see the same boring grid of icons. You look at an HTC phone and see that super fancy weather/clock widget. As crazy as it sounds, that appeals to the typical consumer. Unfortunately they don't know what waits for them once they start using the thing...

And this new agreement among the carriers has truck-sized loopholes. The best one is "if the phone supports the update." What's to stop the manufacturer from saying it doesn't?

But you're right, the manufacturers are hurting their customers with unsecure old versions. Ugh.


The thing that kills me is that on my Nexus One, no joke, it works perfectly. Every contact synced with every piece of information. All 7000+ names in about 90 minutes. It's the sh***y HTC junk that acted all weird and wouldn't properly display or sync all the contacts it should have. It's extremely frustrating, and I spent two hours on the phone with HTC about it. It's aggravating that they can't give out any message other than "there must be something wrong on your end." Clearly, given that I've done every bit of troubleshooting possible and every piece of information points to the Sense app as the problem, it's HTC's fault. I don't know what I was hoping for. Maybe they'd give me a magic button sequence I could enter in the dialer that would unlock the plain Android OS on the phone

Slightly good news: it looks like there's a good app for Android that interfaces with Exchange servers and essentially replaces whatever else you're using on the phone for mail and contacts.

I wish it weren't so butt-ugly, but it's something. I'll also replace the completely absurd dialer with some other app...

At the big three carriers here in Canada you can't buy an Android phone for more than $150 unless you pay an unsubsidized price off contract. And that $150 is only at one carrier, the other two max at $100 (Atrix and Galaxy S for instance). And you can get them for as little as $0 advertised with a number of models at $75, $50 and $25-29.

There are plenty of other phones also available for $0 advertised. Most of those semi-smart and feature phones will in time all migrate over to Android, I'm pretty confident of that.

I've seen first hand at a number of phone kiosks people asking about "that iPhone" but not liking the price or contracts, only to be told by the sales person they could get this similar phone for $50 or this other one for $20 instead. I don't doubt for a second that Android handsets will continue to increase their lead in units, but they're already at the commodity level now. There's nothing premium about Android in general, and it's few handsets running Android that are premium product in their own right.

The problem with this mix of handsets at these manufacturers is product lifecycle and longevity. You're looking at anywhere from a few short months to 18 months tops for any hand set. Didn't we just hear recently that the software update lifecycle is supposed to be 18 months? Was it at Google IO?

The situation Matt had with his client isn't likely to change because of all this. It's why I brought this up in the first place. The race to differentiate and the short lifecycle of the Android products pretty much insures incompatibility and that problems will not be resolved, even long-term.