Android Is As Open As The Clenched Fist I’d Like To Punch The Carriers With
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Right now, Android is the only popular mobile OS that you can clone from git, build, and install on some piece of hardware. All hardware? Nope. But some? Yes. This means it's basically open. Just because someone sells you a box you're not allowed to open doesn't mean that all boxes are un-openable, after all.
I had no trouble hacking my EVO 4G, deleting the stock OS with HTC and Sprint crapware, and installing a build with 100% open code. While it's not possible to do this with every Android phone ever made, it's not possible to do it with any iOS or Symbian or WebOS device. This makes Android the most open; and after the industry has been closed tight for 20+ years, it is quite refreshing. We haven't achieved perfection yet, but Android is the only software stack bringing us closer.
(Remember commercial UNIXes? Neither do I. Linux and Free/Open/NetBSD relegated them to a very tiny niche market. Android is the beginning of this for mobile; you don't just wake up one day, free of the oppression of closed hardware and proprietary software. It takes time and effort, and Google is leading the way right now. Someone else will build on this in the future, and things will become even more open.)
Nerds love to rag on Apple for their controlling ways, but seem to forget how completely locked down -- and utterly, horribly, greedily tacky -- the mobile universe was before the iPhone. Apple, through, I don't know, sheer force of will, cracked a huge hole in the status quo. Google could have landed a deathblow if they'd just stuck to their guns. Oh well.
jrockway, I hope you're right, and this is the beginning. I fear that the best window of opportunity is already past. Sensible regulation would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. Irony of ironies, perhaps it will be Microsoft that comes in and forms the second leg.
Manufacturers want to be able to customize the UI and software to distinguish themselves and not just be commodity hardware provider for Google's OS -- Google allowed that. To get the carriers on board, Google gives them the app store revenue (minus transaction charges). They also give both carriers and manufacturers a cut of the search revenue. Google has done everything possible to ensure that the carriers will have a reason to promote Android. One of the reasons they do promote Android is that they can load it up with NASCAR apps.
It's taken that much to get Android to the point where it as credible alternative to the iPhone. Trying to undo that now is like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.
Most of the world was already GSM well before the iPhone. I am not aware of a carrier that decided they should build a GSM network for a handset.
It's just one small example of how far carriers will go to offer the iPhone.
Bell and Telus spending billions of dollars to get the iPhone is a ridiculous notion. Bell and Telus spending billions of dollars to get a new, next-gen 3G network, with higher speeds and the ability to use data while a voice call is in progress.
I get the impression that carriers like Android devices better than iPhones. Analogies are fraught with danger but this looks similar to the early Mac vs PC days. I predict Apple can keep a decent minority market share as long as they execute well. Android or something like it will probably dominate the rest of the market. The network effects are strong.
From what I've heard from Google, I think with Android they're already sensitive about the perception that they're the "500 pound gorilla in the room" and they're keen to reassure the carriers and the phone manufacturers that they're not taking full control of their businesses.
Even though I think many people at Google would like to see things unfold differently, they also want to see Android adopted widely as its path to success (breadth instead of depth.) The art of compromise.
I think if you buy a N1 then you can still have a "google-centric" Android experience, though. For now.
Examples: AT&T banning sideloading, Motorola phones taking a more aggressive approach toward hacking, Verizon signing exclusive deals like Skype and moving toward a proprietary app store, Google deferring to carriers on tethering, Verizon's forcing Bing on users, etc.
"I can always hack it" isn't a solution, unless you'd accept that hacking is also a solution to Apple's App Store censorship. Android's fans are so focused on how evil Apple is that they're ignoring the way Android itself is becoming less open. I'm not entirely happy with Apple, but I'll take their curation over the carrier's vision of a new walled garden based on Android any day.
This is a great point. Many of us are imagining a hypothetical alternate world where Google forced all Android phones to be non-evil, but maybe that world can't exist. Maybe if Google was fascist about openness, the carriers would just ship Symbian and WinMo instead.
The original Droid was a high-water mark for openness and standardization on Android.
I would say the Nexus One is the high-water mark, although apparently many people never even knew that it existed due to the lack of marketing.
We can't do an all-out attack on the carriers since they will fortify their positions and we need the carriers to move data for us.
So we will take them by stealth and guerilla warfare, a little bit at a time, forcing them to be dumb bit-movers.
Google could move faster than they do right now. I think they already have the infrastructure and applications on Android to make a worldwide Skype alternative which is free. But the carriers would scream if Google does that. Hence, they slowly morph the Android system into their vision over time. A carrier can't complain on each of the small steps -- but take all the steps together and their power is dwindling.
"Open" is not a discrete thing. You can be "more open" than another handset or operating system. But "not being open" does not imply being "closed". The positive thing about Android is that we are seeing the most open devices ever. And this signals the slow but sure death of the carrier conglomerates.
The Droid (aka Milestone in the GSM world) was the first really successful Android phone though.
100% open code? So this means your not running any of the gmail/gtalk/gvoice/g... ? None of those are open code, and quite frankly, they are the most used applications on my android phone.
I would also argue that the android OS is one of the least 'open' open source mobile OSes available. When you compare android's development practices to companies like Nokia with their N900 and Intel with Meego, both companies who are actively concerned with making sure their changes get back upstream, and then you'll see that the openness of android is more of a facade.
In that sense, a restrictive license is one that allows programmers to make the once free and open code closed and secret, restricting what users can do with it.
I am a programmer, but I am also a user. I really appreciate the rights what you call "restrictive licenses" give me and find the rights they take away (mainly the right to abuse my users) a fair price for my freedom.
I believe there are lot of those who chose Android because they heard it is open. Now ask, how many did see the single line of Android code. How did Android being "100%" open help those poor solus have skype and tethering on their phones.
Dirk Hohndel from MeeGo made a good point at OSCON this year that open source is not just about releasing patches to code you changed, but oepn source is about engaging with the upstream projects that you're using, and that is something that android has not done well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfQTaIGPxP8
Don't get me wrong, I still think android is great, I've been using android phones since just after the G1 was released, and its a great platform, but there are definitely a lot of open issues with it that could be handled better.
Sure they have. The kernel developers deemed most of the changes unsuitable for upstream. That's a shame, but it's their prerogative to reject the changes, and Google's prerogative to still want to do things their way.
> Dirk Hohndel from MeeGo made a good point at OSCON this year that open source is not just about releasing patches to code you changed, but oepn source is about engaging with the upstream projects that you're using...
So now some guy who I've never heard of has an opinion on what open source "is," and that's canonical? I don't think so, and I don't agree (as an open source developer-in-hiatus myself).
Open source is whatever you damn well care to make of it (as long as you're honoring the relevant licenses). That's why it's so awesome.
Also, rooting phones is now legal in the US, so to the degree that customers want that option, that option is available.
The ruling simply says that you can't be arrested for jailbreaking phones; it doesn't require that a given phone be jailbreakable.
Maybe I'm being pedantic, but OS X is a commercial UNIX and isn't what I would call a "very tiny niche market". Just sayin. :-)
With Google Voice for voicemail, I can at least, you know, get a friggin phone number for the person calling me and not just their pre-recorded greeting name.
And I agree, though I don't think Google did it on purpose. Their main aim---I think---was just to avoid Apple (or Blackberry) becoming too powerful. They wanted to commoditise the smartphone market. And they have succeeded.
And to me it doesn't look like the hardware manufacturers got a great deal either. It's turning into a cut-throat market, where all phones are pretty much identical (and interchangeable), and your revenues come from economy of scale. Basically like the PC market.
Normally (e.g PC market) this would mean that the customer can shop for the best deal, which is great. However the "customer" here are the carriers: they buy from the manufacturers and resell to the real customer. And indeed they got all the power: they can ask this or that company to lock or modify the phone under threat of taking their business elsewhere.
The real customer, however, is only dealing with the carriers, and Google hasn't commoditise these. If anything we are getting even more market concentration.
So yeah, it seems to me to be pretty much what economics theory would suggest.
The only alternative would to get an unlocked phone but then the manufacturer would lose the massive subsidise and most users seem to prefer those to the hassle of getting a closed system from their carriers.
Either Apple couldn't get any concessions from the other carriers or they accepted a big bag of cash to give one carrier an advantage over the others. Either way carriers are in control. All you get is a slightly different set of consumer hostile activities that affect different demographics.
At best you could argue that Apple is demonstrating a better way to do things on the AT&T network and customer pressure will force other carriers to emulate (if/when allowed by whatever contract binds Apple and AT&T), but exactly the same could be said about Android. And similar could be argued across mobile OSes too e.g. with Android pressuring Apple into relaxing its arbitrary developer tool restrictions and iPhones showing a market for unbranded (by carriers at least) phones.
Apple's iPhone is still unique in its niche. Of course Android is commoditising the smartphone market, so if you are in the market for a smartphone then iPhone/Android/WebOS/etc... are all comparable.
But if someone actually wants an iPhone or an Android in particular then the view is different. In that case the carrier can get any manufacturer to build what they want or they'll choose a different manufacturer for their Android phone. But you can't get the iPhone anywhere else than Apple.
Apple does not need to bow to carrier pressure because they are the only game in town (if you want an iPhone, if you don't care about the OS then I agree with you).
If Google have betrayed us all by destroying this tiny, short-lived, half-hearted, single-network, sub-national niche of telecoms utopia then I'm not sure I can bring myself to care, particularly if they've opened up various other niches in exchange.
Not yet, anyway. But the carriers have to be the next target. The huge capital requirements to build a network is their main barrier to entry, but that's unlikely to stop Google.
I wonder if they realize this (they probably do), and if so, what they are going to about it.
Their worry was a closed iPhone with an Apple only browser might go to an Apple/ATT only search page with Apple/ATT ads - or they might simply replace all the Google ads with their own before sending pages to the phone
And once people accepted this on iPhone they might also accept it on all the other phones then on all the home cable connections - like BT/Phorn.
1- Google abandoning the Nexus One 2- Google getting too friendly with Verizon
I fear they've moved to plan B. :(
Also, one minor nit is the 2.2 stats he's referring to are from August 2. I'm sure they'll be much higher with the 2.2 rollouts that occurred for Droids and Incedibles (others?) in August.
In the end, if manufacturers/carriers make a bad product, it will fail in the market, but with Android, they're free to do that if they want.
Say Verizon creates its app store, promotes it, and removes Google's Marketplace. They also make sure you can't install apps any other way, including the original Google's marketplace.
Now, they have been able to do all of this because it's open, so yeah, it is more open. However what they will hand over to the customer is more closed, and possibly a worse experience.
Of course, I am paying $20/month for tethering on top of my unlimited data plan. The phone by itself is unlimited, but when other devices connect through it I'm limited to 2GB/month before ungodly data rates kick in. For now I'm saving it for emergencies, but so far the web browser and email connectivity are good enough that I don't think I'll even need tethering, so I'll probably cancel it.
I guess I was looking longer term, but I wouldn't be surprised if "don't close the system" is the new "stop messing with what I like". ;)
The point I wanted to make in the original comment was just to debunk one of the arguments he was making for why Android is closed.
What the US seems to be missing is some sort of protection from the government (regulation).
All in all: open is much better then closed, especially when branding of mobile operating systems is so common. It's not only Android, but also pretty much every other mobile phone that contains such apps.
As others have mentioned, this has nothing to do with the openness of Android but only with the carriers intentions, which have been doing this years before android on closed systems.
Even Adam Smith, the very father of capitalism, did not trust businessmen, and pointed out that it would not work in case there weren't plenty of supply and plenty of demand.
The mobile market is not a free market. It's an oligopoly. Admittedly this is due to a limited spectrum resource so there's not much that can be done. But in an oligopoly is veeery easy for companies to stop competing and try to keep the status quo.
Case in point: the RIAA and movie industry, and the fact that neither are CD at the equilibrium price, nor is either really innovating. Another case is academic journals publishers (there's another oligopoly there, and prices have been going up), oil cartel etc...
So "this will be regulated by the market" is not an argument: if it were it would have been regulated even before the iPhone and Android arrived, but it wasn't was it?
(sorry for the tone, and I understand in the USA people have grown up with this pseudo-religion, but maybe you are different. But you have no idea how many times "free market" is used as a panacea.)
(Forgive me for the quick soundbite. I'm googling for the articles I remember about how horrendously difficult it is to buy spectrum use rights in the US. It's not like buying lemonade. Like many regulations, wireless regulation was designed to protect the established players.)
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
28% on 2.2 and almost 75% on 2.x
It could bring down the quality of the OS, but the fact that the option exists for Verizon or anyone to make their own Market makes it more open in my book.
The whole point is none of this openness translates to anything meaningful to the end user. Those people who pick Android because it's "open" are really getting nothing for it.
I agree with you, benefit of installing arbitrary software does exist -- but that benefit alone doesn't justify the significant "openness" hype around the platform. The article points out the many ways in which you are not in control of your device.
That's what I find most compelling about the Android platform. As long as I have access to the Android Market and the ability to install apps directly from the internet, most of the problems mentioned in the article can be sidestepped. With that being said, I do find the trend mentioned in the article to be somewhat alarming. Removing those two features really cripples the phone, but I expect most Android phones to leave those enabled.
(I'm a bit stricter with stability on a device like my phone, else I'd try the RCs.)
Unless you exploit security holes in the vendors crappy security systems. The fact that they don't even invest enough resources into a quality security framework (which helps increasing their revenue) speaks volumes of the quality of the other "improvements" they make to stock android.
On a side note, I like the Nokia's hardware over Apple's.
Nah, they reacted to VZW's threats.
Ideally I could make a choice to buy an Andriod phone from a manufacturer with no branding and no restrictions, pay full price for it, and accept that the additional cost is what I'm willing to pay for an unrestricted, unbranded phone. The inability to purchase a phone like that is the real problem, not the restrictions placed on carrier subsidized phones.
Two years ago I bought an unrestricted HTC Diamond with Winmo 6.1. I paid over $600 for the phone and the privilege of being able to do whatever I want with the phone. The $400 extra over a branded/restricted phone, spread out over 24 months, is $17/month for the privilege of being able to doink around with a phone.
Having done that once, I'm leaning toward putting up with the crapware and restrictions and saving the $400. I figure that in two years, I probably only really used a couple of third party apps. Most of the rest that I tried were annoying memory leaks and crashes waiting to happen - barely better than carrier provided crapware.
I gave up T-mobile a couple of years ago due to call quality issues here in Denver. I'm hoping they've fixed it.
This has been the case since october of 2008. There has always been an unlocked option for developers/users. Consumers can buy those too, but they'd obviously rather purchase carrier related phones to save money on the phone purchase.
At the end of the day, Siegler understands that for end users, it doesn't matter whose fault the whole mess is, all that matters is that users are once more being herded into operator-controlled ghettos, much as they were pre-iPhone.
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
I've been checking that page recently because of the absolute storm of Android updates, new devices and sales increases announced recently and I expect a big shift in the stats.
Thats my opinion of it anyway. and i own a UK Milestone.
In the US I can understand your points.... how is such a large market so controlled by the carriers? How is there not someone like carphone warehouse that sells all phones unlocked and carrier free? I mean here I bought even my iPhone from the Apple UK store unlocked and chose my own carrier, would do the same with an Android - no crapware any time.
That's wrong. All PAYG phones are carrier locked - they have to be for the sake of the business. You can buy SIM-free phones easily (say from expansys).
The only way to get an unlocked phone from a carrier is to get a pay monthly plan, and that's only on some carriers (IIRC, only O2 gives you an unlocked phone, and on T-Mobile you have to request an unlock code and they give it to you 28 days later). The reseller Carphone Warehouse told me that all their pay-monthly deals, regardless of carrier, come with unlocked phones.
You can buy a phone outright and go on a pay monthly plan without a contract. That is what I am currently doing with my iPhone - I paid ¬£440 for the phone outright and pay £20/month on O2 for 300 minutes, unlimited text and unlimited data.
No reason why you can't do that on n an Android
Now imagine you bought your new crapware loaded PC but weren't allowed admin access. And weren't allowed on 'their' internet if you deleted anything
What intelligent person would throw away money?
Of course people don't, but it's a handy strawman.
"Android is open" is used to express the idea that there is competition between Android products (consumer view).
"Android is open" is also used to express the idea that a companies are free to enter or exit the marketplace without permission (developer view).
"Android is open" is also used to express the idea that it isn't "Apple's Gated Community" (brand differentiation).
This is probably the most important, and it's right out of Apple's playbook.
I will buy an iPhone next time. If I have the choice of bending over in front of Apple or T-Mobile, I'd rather have Apple.
That's an asinine, utterly idiotic argument. It's a juvenile strawman ("Gosh, and I thought Android was open...but look I can't install Skype on my Sprint phone").
MG Siegler has seldom said anything that had any merit or added to the argument in any meaningful way. Which isn't a suprise, as TechCrunch is a trollbait emporium: They know that posting such asinine nonsense gets them hits, so they'll keep doing it. It is, absolutely, feeding the trolls.
The article answers this line of thought (see below)... and instead you offer no arguments.
"And before all of you pros storm the comments with how great it is to root your Android phones, consider the average consumers here. They are the ones being screwed by this exploitation of “open.” Anyone with the desire to do so can fairly easily hack an iPhone too."
I have to particularly laugh at the Skype comment he added (a drum that Gruber has banged on in his dismissively sarcastic manner): That has NOTHING to do with Android. Skype, the company, decided to get in bed with Verizon and limit their app to certain handsets under certain conditions. What does that have to do with anything beyond perhaps "Skype and Verizon have a business relationship"?
Android, the platform, is open, although that of course doesn't mean that every piece of hardware, software, or carrier will be open. Nonetheless, it's open enough that if you don't want Verizon crapware you can get a phone elsewhere. The advantage of Android being everywhere, unlike say the iPhone in the US, is that you can get a phone from another vendor or another handset maker if someone gets abusive, as Verizon is becoming.
He's the ultimate fanboy that just cannot accept that the IPhone will not be the dominant smartphone in the near future. I don't think Apple loses sleep that they will be outsold by Android since they will still be taking massive profits.
It's really unfortunate that a writer like him gets a voice in an influential blog like Techcrunch. I hope he just post things like these on his personal blog.
Google/OHA is making progress on opening different parts of the development process/tree..the android sdk tools including the Adt plugin are now developed out in the open..ie no closed master tree of code..
Author IS CONFUSING US Telecom Mobile Operator situation with openness of he Android platform
In lieu of that, I hope Google gets back into the phone market (I know, I know, they said they won't) with a Nexus Two before all of the CM resources jump ship to Meego or whatever up and coming platform presents itself as more "truly" open (at least until the carriers monetize and lock it down as well).
If you want a low price you have to put up with retarded bullshit.
If you want a good experience you have to pay the Apple premium.