Google engineers: We're trying to fix Android fragmentation
news.cnet.com
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While you could call this trivially true if you assume that this is a goal of theirs and they are actually trying, I think it misses the reality that operators don't care, at all, whether your device is up to date in terms of the OS once you've signed on for your plan.
It would be a very interesting challenge to attempt an OS that could be kept up to date in terms of base functionality while still allowing carrier bastardization at a different layer. However, this is a goal that, it seems to me, would have best been addressed ten years ago.
I think it's more likely that they care, but in complex and conflicting ways that aren't always obvious to the general consumer.
When you first buy the device (if it's close to launch), they probably care because your opinions inform others quite a bit, so hey want to make you happy and generate positive feedback.
Close to the launch of a new flagship device, they probably would prefer to delay updates for other/older models, to help adoption and uptake of the new model.
Throughout the entire time, they care enough to not generate too much negative feedback about their products such that it affects the marketplace.
It seems doubtful that they'll be available on devices that don't have Google Play installed, because Play Services is part of Google Play. Apps that require Google Play (e.g. for in-app purchases or license validation) already need to find some other option if they want to run on devices running stripped-down Android distributions.
I don't think it's fair to characterize this as lock-in, because apps are free to use some other mechanism to implement provided features (or just disable them if not available).
Hence as a developer it would be wise to just test my apps on Samsung devices and not worry about anything else. Likewise if Samsung were to have custom APIs I would be forced to not instantly dismiss them.
However, if the Android folks really do want to zip the stack up (from the kernel to UI) all the way to a common interface, for example, they are going to have to start with the kernel in a way carriers seem unlikely to get behind - namely getting bleeding edge drivers into the mainline tree in a coordinated way that would make desktop ARM distributions on phones much more likely. If not, separate houses will just go on keeping their forks alive and maintaining their increasingly separate interfaces, since the forks start lower. At the moment, that doesn't seem to be what is meant by fixing fragmentation however.
IMHO, the Android UI should just be a packaged environment like Unity or Gnome or KDE. It seems unlikely that we'll see a Debian package for Android any time soon though, but that would be a move in the right direction.
The main issue is, the largest Android hardware vendor has no inherent interest to follow Google. Samsung sees itself as the next Apple and they want to tackle both hardware/software differentiation to maintaing market dominance. Unless google wants to follow Samsung, the fragmentation will be around.
http://www.techspot.com/news/51862-android-4x-installations-...
Assuming Android will be around for many years, they can fix the vast majority if this issue.
That said, just like on the web it's all about what your users have. My app has roughly 25% Gingerbread and 75% Ice Cream Sandwich or newer. I hope that holds, but there really is no way to stop building for Gingerbread even with the majority on the newer versions.
That seems like a fatal delusion...
Apple, for all that I don't like many of their policies or much of their software, is in a different class when it comes to hardware. They have something special that other makers do not, and that gives them an edge. [It remains to be seen whether they can keep this edge with Steve Jobs out of the picture, of course.]
Samsung makes decent hardware, but they aren't in a different class than other Android smartphone makers. Their current position has a lot to do with simply being in the right place at the right time, and making some good calls, but there's really nothing particularly special about their hardware, and their software (that is, the software they write, rather than stock Android stuff) is reportedly pretty typical of big electronics makers: really bad.
For a while, they can coast along on name-recognition, but I can't see any direction but down for Samsung if they attempt to strike out on their own.
Which in turn updates every thing on the phone. MSoft designed it so that every function is an app. No need to update the entire os, but rather just the app. Ive seen updates for Utils and diagnosis tools come in as well as your regular app.
Maybe its something the Android Team needs to look into. Even though their is carrier bastardization, it still allows for real partial updates of internal Android Apps.
You're wrong.
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/how-to/wp8/basics/windows-...
> Maybe its something the Android Team needs to look into.
How Windows Phone updates actually work is exactly the same as how Android updates work: the OS is updated, and these days, the apps (even Google's) are broken out into separate updates. Google was doing this before Microsoft, so Google would not need to learn anything from Microsoft, in this regard.
I am speaking from experience. You are just speaking from things you found on the internet.
And I actually do own two Windows Phones (one is a developer "HTC Mazaa" unit given to me by Microsoft after being one of the winners of a Windows Phone development competition, and the other is a WP8 Lumia) and I develop for Windows Phone. Has Microsoft given you a developer phone lately?
Seriously though, don't presume to know my experience level.
seems like there is a lot of presuming going around. I'll apologize now and say I am sorry to have offended you.
If Windows Phone ever takes off, it would ideally offer the best of both worlds. Differentiation in terms of hardware and apps while core functionality remains the same.
However, all the unbranded parts - Messaging, Dailer, Gallery, Camera, Browser, etc. - don't register as user apps (they also live on /system which is mounted read-only except during OS updates) and need a proper system update to be updated.
I'm eventually hoping that everything can be updated through the Play store, and the only reason to do an OS update will be for kernel updates.