Motorola sees future in Google's Android OS | Hacker News Reader

Motorola sees future in Google's Android OS

sfgate.com

11 pointsgibsonf115 comments

I hope Motorola or somebody else will put a low-cost android phone in the market with the ability for the owner to replace the whole operating system and public full specifications.

In a closed environment Apple will win because the iPhone just rocks from the point of view of the quality and design of the UI, the amount of applications, and so forth, but something really open can contrast the iPhone using the Apple everything-close policy against itself.

'really open' is also a huge headache to support: could you imagine the level of training the telecom operators would have to receive in order to take calls from users of this open phone when they accidentally hid the SMS function, deleted important system files by accident or even formatted the phone?

Also, openness is not necessarily a good thing - specially for mass markets. If people really, really wanted to 'replace the whole operating system', wouldn't they all have migrated to linux (on its thousand formats) already...?

edit: I wonder why I get downmodded every time I say that people in general DON'T WANT 'open' or 'fully customizable'... Is it because I mention Linux? Downmodders, care to explain?

'really open' is also a huge headache to support: could you imagine the level of training the telecom operators...

It's not the telecom's responsibility to support your phone's OS any more than it is your internet provider's responsibility to support your computer's OS. The point that was made is that an open device, analogous to the PC in the early computer days would be a Good Thing for the phone ecosystem.

and that's exactly why most internet providers specify they only support Windows (some include OSX, but not many AFAIK): if you call them with your all-custom OS and complain about faulty Internet access, they can simply say it's not their problem...

The only problem I see with openness is that the GSM network is secure only as long as all the devices are in full control of operators. This should change ASAP because GSM sniffers/injectors are already in the hands of hackers that are starting to figure very well how the GSM network works and the vulnerabilities it has (not only about encryption algorithms in use, but think to all the TCP/IP stack bugs of the latest 20 years).

That said an open market where the user can upgrade to the next version of Android, or to a custom version of android, and generally, when the vendor of the OS is not necessarily the same as the hardware vendor is a good thing.

http://www.android.com/about/ says Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services.

But the question is how much willing the operators are to let the user customize their handset. Operators are definitely not going to like android's statement of openness to users.

Motorola is so screwed right now they have NO choice but to put faith in the one OS that's looking for people to pick it up. They are seriously about be out of the race.

Motorola is going to need more than the 3rd Android phone on the 4th place carrier to save themselves. Hopefully they have a Verizon Android phone up their sleeve.

That said, it's great to see the flood of Android phones hitting the market. Time to finish up that little game I've been hacking on.

there are billions of JavaME phones out there, and yet very few people actually profit from them...

Same for the Symbian and WinMO phones (comparatively)

They are apparently releasing an Android phone on Verizon later this year: http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/30/motorola-sholes-android-p...

I'm definitely going to be watching that. I have an iPhone 3G right now and am fairly happy with it -- but I would really like to take advantage of Google Voice's voicemail transcription, as I'm deaf and if works even halfway decently it would be a huge thing for me.

That, and I do think Android does notifications (the drag-down notification panel) far better than the iPhone does. The potential sticking point for me is that for work, I need Exchange support that's at least as good as the iPhone's.

I don't use Exchange so I am not sure how good it is comparatively, but the HTC software in Canada (on Rogers) has Exchange support. That code has been taken and made available through back-channels to other android OS users.

I see in webos more potential than android. But google has a far more open/aggressive approach than palm.

care to elaborate why?

I would have agreed with you a few months ago but Palm has totally dropped the ball on WebOS. It's slow, buggy, missing tons of basic features. I just don't think Palm has the resources to put into WebOS that are required to keep up with Apple & Android. Unfortunately they are falling further behind, not catching up. It would be generous to say WebOS is even on par with iPhone 1.0 at this point IMO.

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