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BillyBoy
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Why call it a 'toy'/'fashion item'? Some of your posts are incredibly immature but I guess thats due to your age and how you think that your opinion often is fact.
No one is arguing with the point that Android is a great OS. I don't know if you read my post but I currently own two Android devices (a dual core Samsung Galaxy S2 and a tablet) and have dipped into time to time starting with the original G1 (the first Android device) and then again with the Nexus One and Nexus S.
From all technological sources and from close work partners, friends and colleagues who I connect with over application development (even though thats got nothing to do with my job/career - its just another opportunity to do further business) they all agree that while Android is a great OS it still needs to mature.
You can list all the great advantages such as customisability, widgets etc but as usual your not even bothering to list any of the huge problems that have been documented regarding the OS by people far, far more knowledgeable then you. And then you claim 'i'm not bias'. Yeah right.
Firstly the platform suffers from a huge fragmentation problem. Those 'app stores' you talk about as an advantage aren't that good a deal to the actual developers. But you wouldn't know that. See its quite simple. Having loads of different app stores is completely unnecessary. You only need one and thats Google's own Android Market (plus they already allow third party downloads from within the settings). Having different app stores will eventually create compatibility problems or worse still some apps may only be available on a certain app store for a period of exclusivity (as was the case with Tune In Radio Pro). The current Amazon app store is only available in the US. Who knows how long it will take to come to other countries. But to a developer why bother putting your app onto a market with a smaller audience?
Oh thats right you might want to because Google sadly haven't done a good job curating the Market. Some of the most common complaints we hear from developers is that the sections within the Android Market and the rating system are broken. Their apps get lost in all the crap. This need to be fixed. (Thankfully Google will be updating the Market as was outlined at I/O recently). This is in turn forcing some developers to release onto a different store for exposure purposes. But then their stung again when that store is not available on a certain carrier (AT&T were blocking third party app stores until recently) or in a certain country.
Then the other, more major area of fragmentation lies with the OS itself. Android is growing rapidly which is great, but the fragmentation of the OS is getting to such a point that they have had to step in with members of the Open Handset Alliance.
We have had several major releases within 2 years.
1.5 Cupcake.
1.6 Donut.
2.0/2.1 Eclair.
2.2 Froyo.
2.3 Gingerbread.
2.3.3 Gingerbread.
2.3.4 Gingerbread.
Then you have all the different bloatware from carriers (Verizon, T-Mobile) and all the different UI skins from manufacturers:
Touchwiz - Samsung
HTC Sense - HTC
MotoBlur - Motorola
Timescape - Sony Ericsson
etc.
This causes a huge problem in regards to timely updates as instead of it being upto Google when they are released, its now upto both A - The Manufacturer (who have to ensure the new OS works with their skin) and then B - The Carrier (who has to test that their crapware works with the new OS).
This means that some phones are out of date already after just two months on the market. (Look at the Xperia X10 which I believe if i'm correct still hasn't received the Froyo update of last May alongside loads of other phones.)
Yes ROMs solve the problem to a certain extent, but they don't work on all the phones, especially if the manufacturer locks the bootloader as HTC have decided to do.
Then finally you have the actual quality of the apps. The unanimous, undisputed opinion of those in the know is that the quality of Android apps is not near the level of iOS. Why? A lack of solid APIs and other things. I have bought many apps from both the App Store and Google Android Market and its clear that the overall quality of the apps on Android still has a way to go. Yes its improving daily but its still way behind.
That point is further exacerbated by the fact that Google recently released Honeycomb (Android 3.0) which is a major revision to the platform and finally adds stuff developers have been screaming about such as hardware acceleration and new and improved API's such as HTTP Live Streaming controls.
As someone who owns a Motorola Xoom I know that Honeycomb isn't 100% stable. The OS while promising has been called by some to be 'a beta OS' due to constant crashes and a paltry 300 or so tablet optomized apps. Google themselves even acknowledged the fact and said they had to rush the OS out so they could fight off the iPad 2, BlackBerry Playbook, HP Touchpad and others. Not only that they have refused to release the source code of the OS (even though they done it for all the other versions) because they are worried the community might try and put it on a phone. (They didn't add telephonic features into 3.0 thats coming later with, yep you guessed it another major revision this time called Ice Cream). So I wont be getting any custom ROM's for my Motorola Xoom.
So next time you want to point out articles and act like an expert, I suggest you do some background reading first. Google will obviously overtake Apple in both market share and number of apps since they have over 50 manufactures behind them. Anyone can tell you that. But the number of apps means diddly squat. Its the overall quality that means the most. Thats what brings in the customers and repeat purchases. And thats what makes Apple far more money off their App Store ($1.7 billion) currently compared to Google's Android Market ($110 million).
No one is arguing with the point that Android is a great OS. I don't know if you read my post but I currently own two Android devices (a dual core Samsung Galaxy S2 and a tablet) and have dipped into time to time starting with the original G1 (the first Android device) and then again with the Nexus One and Nexus S.
From all technological sources and from close work partners, friends and colleagues who I connect with over application development (even though thats got nothing to do with my job/career - its just another opportunity to do further business) they all agree that while Android is a great OS it still needs to mature.
You can list all the great advantages such as customisability, widgets etc but as usual your not even bothering to list any of the huge problems that have been documented regarding the OS by people far, far more knowledgeable then you. And then you claim 'i'm not bias'. Yeah right.
Firstly the platform suffers from a huge fragmentation problem. Those 'app stores' you talk about as an advantage aren't that good a deal to the actual developers. But you wouldn't know that. See its quite simple. Having loads of different app stores is completely unnecessary. You only need one and thats Google's own Android Market (plus they already allow third party downloads from within the settings). Having different app stores will eventually create compatibility problems or worse still some apps may only be available on a certain app store for a period of exclusivity (as was the case with Tune In Radio Pro). The current Amazon app store is only available in the US. Who knows how long it will take to come to other countries. But to a developer why bother putting your app onto a market with a smaller audience?
Oh thats right you might want to because Google sadly haven't done a good job curating the Market. Some of the most common complaints we hear from developers is that the sections within the Android Market and the rating system are broken. Their apps get lost in all the crap. This need to be fixed. (Thankfully Google will be updating the Market as was outlined at I/O recently). This is in turn forcing some developers to release onto a different store for exposure purposes. But then their stung again when that store is not available on a certain carrier (AT&T were blocking third party app stores until recently) or in a certain country.
Then the other, more major area of fragmentation lies with the OS itself. Android is growing rapidly which is great, but the fragmentation of the OS is getting to such a point that they have had to step in with members of the Open Handset Alliance.
We have had several major releases within 2 years.
1.5 Cupcake.
1.6 Donut.
2.0/2.1 Eclair.
2.2 Froyo.
2.3 Gingerbread.
2.3.3 Gingerbread.
2.3.4 Gingerbread.
Then you have all the different bloatware from carriers (Verizon, T-Mobile) and all the different UI skins from manufacturers:
Touchwiz - Samsung
HTC Sense - HTC
MotoBlur - Motorola
Timescape - Sony Ericsson
etc.
This causes a huge problem in regards to timely updates as instead of it being upto Google when they are released, its now upto both A - The Manufacturer (who have to ensure the new OS works with their skin) and then B - The Carrier (who has to test that their crapware works with the new OS).
This means that some phones are out of date already after just two months on the market. (Look at the Xperia X10 which I believe if i'm correct still hasn't received the Froyo update of last May alongside loads of other phones.)
Yes ROMs solve the problem to a certain extent, but they don't work on all the phones, especially if the manufacturer locks the bootloader as HTC have decided to do.
Then finally you have the actual quality of the apps. The unanimous, undisputed opinion of those in the know is that the quality of Android apps is not near the level of iOS. Why? A lack of solid APIs and other things. I have bought many apps from both the App Store and Google Android Market and its clear that the overall quality of the apps on Android still has a way to go. Yes its improving daily but its still way behind.
That point is further exacerbated by the fact that Google recently released Honeycomb (Android 3.0) which is a major revision to the platform and finally adds stuff developers have been screaming about such as hardware acceleration and new and improved API's such as HTTP Live Streaming controls.
As someone who owns a Motorola Xoom I know that Honeycomb isn't 100% stable. The OS while promising has been called by some to be 'a beta OS' due to constant crashes and a paltry 300 or so tablet optomized apps. Google themselves even acknowledged the fact and said they had to rush the OS out so they could fight off the iPad 2, BlackBerry Playbook, HP Touchpad and others. Not only that they have refused to release the source code of the OS (even though they done it for all the other versions) because they are worried the community might try and put it on a phone. (They didn't add telephonic features into 3.0 thats coming later with, yep you guessed it another major revision this time called Ice Cream). So I wont be getting any custom ROM's for my Motorola Xoom.
So next time you want to point out articles and act like an expert, I suggest you do some background reading first. Google will obviously overtake Apple in both market share and number of apps since they have over 50 manufactures behind them. Anyone can tell you that. But the number of apps means diddly squat. Its the overall quality that means the most. Thats what brings in the customers and repeat purchases. And thats what makes Apple far more money off their App Store ($1.7 billion) currently compared to Google's Android Market ($110 million).
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