The conflicting interests issue is really a problem in the Android space. As has been shown time and time again, vendors really don't want the burden of keeping your handset up to date forever because there is nothing in it for them, aside from perhaps avoiding too much negative press.
Naturally people are going to compare it to iOS, where updates are free and rapidly disseminated. The difference there is that there definitely is something in it for Apple -- they're getting a cut of every app you buy, every song you download, etc. They're a middleman, so it's just a cost of doing business.
I wish we could get to a point where Android updates cost money. I would happily pay $30 or whatever for each major update if it motivated the vendor to have an interest in keeping it up to date.
"As has been shown time and time again, vendors really don't want the burden of keeping your handset up to date forever because there is nothing in it for them, aside from perhaps avoiding too much negative press."
The reality is a lot more depressing; the vendors actually want you to buy a new phone.
If your current phone can run the latest version of Android - why would you bother ... ?
- Brand loyalty. Apple's fans are die-hard partly because Apple doesn't (often) screw their users. You can expect timely (even major) updates to your iPhone for quite some time after release. When's the last time someone reported that they won't buy anything but LG/Samsung/Motorola?
- Apple also loves having you on the upgrade cycle. The difference is that these have been largely driven with hardware changes. Retina display, new styling, front-facing camera, GPS unit, 3G connectivity... etc.
There's no reason why Samsung, LG, Motorola et al cannot follow this model.
I have an iPhone 3GS already, and there's no incentive for me to upgrade to iPhone 4.
Which is pretty cool, considering that many people buy these iPhones with a 2 year contract. There's nothing more depressing than having to pay monthly rates for a deprecated product.
Which is why I think Apple's fine with a 2-3 years upgrade cycle, as long as you keep being an iPhone user.
I would argue that there is a reason why Samsung, LG, Motorola, et al cannot follow this model – Apple is a player in the high end of the mobile market. They come out with a new phone once a year, and it's hotly anticipated because in most (if not all) respects the new phone will be the most impressive phone on the market. Couple that with new OS features, and it creates quite a buzz.
If Samsung (for example) just made one phone a year, they'd lose market share because it would only be 'the latest thing' for a few weeks until someone else came out with an Android phone. Even if Samsung's product life cycle comes in one-year intervals, the rest of the Android community is much faster, and carriers will be glad to push the latest new phone with the latest whiz-bang features.
In order for Samsung to really compete, they would have to make a high-end, cutting-edge phone, comparable in build quality, features, and software to the iPhone. It would have to stand head and shoulders above the sea of mediocre Android handsets, and stay there for quite a while. It would need to be different enough from the rest that it was a clear winner, the Android phone to own this year. This would have to be said about the hardware and the software.
There are two problems here. Samsung isn't a software company, so their modifications to Android are superficial at best and mostly take the form of different UIs, as well as the bundled carrier apps that they have to agree to in order to get a carrier's full support. Samsung can't make a truly great smartphone because they're shipping the same thing everyone else is shipping – the latest Android build, with a different coat of paint.
There's also the hardware end. Apple knows that they're going to sell massive numbers of phones (according to the earnings call today, they're selling them as fast as they're making them, which I believe). They can pre-buy billions of dollars worth of components ahead of time to get preferential pricing and treatment. Their competitors can't match them because they simply cannot get the same hardware for the same price, and so their margins end up slimmer and they have to sell more units to recoup their costs.
Amusingly, Samsung is one of the companies Apple has preferential deals with (for Flash memory), and if I recall correctly, LG is another one (for LCD panels, not likely for mobile though).
So in order for Samsung to make the exact same hardware as Apple, they would have to sell it for more, in larger volumes, with lower margins, which would require betting big on one new product and impressing everyone. It would also require doing something new and innovative with Android, which is difficult because Google and Apple are both doing new and innovative things with their respective OSes so it would be difficult for Samsung to get ahead of either one.
Even assuming they did all that, they're still up against iOS's established mind share. Everyone's heard of the iPhone, and a lot of people want it. They want the apps, the TV shows, the movies, the music. Each step Apple has taken has built upon the successes of the last - first iTunes, then the iPod, then the iTunes Store, then movies and TV shows, then the iPhone, then the app store, and then the iPad. Samsung can't duplicate the entire stack, and they can't piece it together from existing offerings in a way that other providers (or end users) couldn't do. Even if they did manage that, they wouldn't be taking nearly as much of the profits from all of those services as Apple does with its own stack.
There's no way for Samsung (or the other providers) to differentiate themselves significantly. In consumers' minds, there's 'Blackberry', 'iPhone' and 'neither', and establishing a totally new category just for one phone based off of the same software as most of the smartphones in the 'neither' category isn't feasible; supporting it for two years afterward is impossible.
It's much more practical for Samsung to ship a new, slightly-better-than-the-rest phone every six months and just catch their share of the little fish, instead of trying to catch the big fish and risk getting hurt.
The reason I called you out as an iPhone owner, was that your summary of the situation seems to be quite polarised (TL:DR: Apple makes the best, the rest can't compete).
The reason why these other companies can't follow this model is more complex.
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In many ways Apple is re-running the battle it fought in the 80s and 90s with regard to the personal desktop computing.
Where Google (via Android) - together with its group of handset manufacturers - is taking the place of Microsoft and the associated group of PC-compatible hardware manufacturers.
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The situation comes down to compliments and commodities. The hardware is commoditised - this drives the price of hardware down - because so many companies can produce hardware for the Android OS, each is forced to become as competitive as it can. Android OS then takes a place as a necessary compliment.
In Apple's 80s/90s war, they did their best to stamp out any Mac-compatible machines. I remember in the early 90s there were quite a few manufacturers who tried to produce hardware that would be compatible with MacOS and they were stopped dead in their tracks.
In comparison, Microsoft's rights agreement with IBM spawned the birth of the 'PC Compatible'. Of course, the machine was arguably worse that the Apple Macintosh - but the fact that an ecosystem of hardware manufacturers was able to develop and create a life of its own, meant that Microsoft could produce software to compliment this commoditised hardware.
Microsoft won the war.
In my mind, due to Apple's philosophy - Android will most probably 'win' this war too. Unfortunately, shear force in numbers will generally trump beauty and intelligence.
I think the most amazing thing about Apple, is the absolute, total and utter control its able to exert on the way it's perceived. The word 'marketing' almost doesn't do it justice. Every owner becomes written in as a 'supporter' - there's a culture brought about through ownership that supports its main brand messages. It's superbly clever - and if Apple does win out, I'm sure this will be a large part of the reason behind its success.
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The problem I have with your analysis, is that you don't allow for the possibility that one of these manufacturers could step up to produce a phone that can compete with the iPhone's quality.
Android OS is creating a hardware ecosystem, in much the same way that the lack of licensing restriction allowed a PC hardware ecosystem to form.
From the past (and the development of the PC compatible platform), we can see that many different classes of hardware emerged - from bargain basement offerings to very expensive, luxury machines.
I can't see any reason why the same won't happen for Android OS. In fact many reviews have already reported that some of the newer Android phones are strong contenders for the iPhone's crown.
So, once again .. I'm led to believe that you might be an iPhone owner ;)
What I like about Apple is that I could get iOS 3.1.3 installed on a first generation iPod Touch. Doesn't run well, but it works, and I could get the games I play installed on it and running; most apps still run on iOS 3.x.
I also have an iPhone 3GS, with iOS 4.2 on it: there's no incentive for me to buy an iPhone 4, so I'll wait for iPhone 5 or even 6. Apple is still happy because I keep being an iPhone user.
This story about Android is pretty sad, as I was considering getting a Galaxy S. Now that Apple phones are sold by each of the 3 GSM/3G operators in my country (and for reasonable prices) ... what incentive do I have to buy an Android which I cannot upgrade myself?
True to a point, but they don't have the luxury of assuming that you'll buy from them. Not upgrading their devices works against a repeat consumer, really, so you're just as, if not more, likely to help the bottom line of one of their competitors if they leave you in the cold.
And of course there's the march of progress, and the nexus one of one year ago is now outmatched by almost all devices with better screens, dual cameras, coming dual core processors and much better GPUs, etc.
The Nexus One may not match the hardware specs of some of the newer phones, but that doesn't mean it is out of the game. My Nexus One is still fast and powerful, and outside of that one Unreal Engine 3 game, has no problems with any app. So my point is that even though other devices have better hardware, rarely is the Nexus One outdated.
> I would happily pay $30 or whatever for each major update if it motivated the vendor to have an interest in keeping it up to date.
That would just be a different user-hostile incentive. The path forward is for Android to actually become consumer open source (GPL3). Let device manufacturers concentrate on shipping hardware and adding any new device drivers to a public repository. Updates can then be directly applied by eager users, or eventually pushed out by carriers with minimal integration effort. Proprietary "value adds" like SenseUI can still be done through the package system.
You're assuming that there's a decent amount of people who both have a pressing need for an OS upgrade and wouldn't revolt at the manufacturer charging them to access what is primarily a free update from AOSP. Furthermore, once one person pays $30 for the upgrade, that image can be freely passed around the tinkering communities, so the manufacturer has an incentive for even stronger consumer-hostile DRM.
(Yes, integration takes work, but that's exactly why manufacturers need to push their modified code upstream so it can be tested/changed along with the rest of AOSP. A carrier-blessed release should take QA and some minor bugfixes instead of a horrifically large merge-and-debug.)
I might pay $30 for a major update but simply going from 2.1 to 2.2 or 2.3? Absolutely not. There aren't enough new features to justify this. The idea of mostly paying for bug fixes is totally unacceptable to me. I'll throw my SmartPhone in the garbage and go back to whatever free-with-contract junk phone they offer before I get held hostage for security and bug fixes.
Perhaps future Android devices should have universal upgradeability, and all the carrier has to do is update a table enabling the upgrade for your device - at your own risk. I'd be willing to take it.
> As has been shown time and time again, vendors really don't want the burden of keeping your handset up to date forever because there is nothing in it for them, aside from perhaps avoiding too much negative press.
Then stop locking the bootloader and let me put the latest version of CM on my phone. I'm not going to buy Motorola and I'm not going to buy Samsung. Samsung won't release their kernel modifications for Froyo which are needed by the CM team to get CM7 running on the Galaxy S devices... Motorola is keeping the bootloader (and thus kernel) on their phones restricted. They're also not even close to timely on their updates. My D1 is running Gingerbread fairly stably, especially considering it's ONE maintainer disappeared two weeks ago due to personal financial concerns. OTOH, only one device is running GB from the manufacturer/carrier and that is Google's own phone.
Let me use my damn phone, I'll take care of the updates. I don't know how much simpler we can make installing CM7 and I know there are some/many/random-number people who have gone CM just to get the latest Android version.
Just developing GPL software for a certain part of an embedded system doesn't necessarily require all other hardware parts to be GPL'ed as well, just as your BIOS being proprietary doesn't violate the GPL if you're running Linux.
Would be great to see a fully open-source phone some day. I believe OpenMoko was striving for this goal, too.
Part of the problem is that they haven't shipped Froyo officially. But yes, manufacturers, even HTC, have been up to 6 months late delivering code as required via GPL.
Are we missing even Eclair source? I know Froyo and GB have changed things enough with some of the drivers that forward porting has been harder than expected... but if Eclair's source is missing, it seems the proper response is some sort of campaign to get Samsung in gear. I do think that HTC responded to GPL complaints when they had held out so long on releasing their kernel mods.
As I said elsewhere in the thread, vendors don't have to release source for drivers (kernel modules); AFAIK every Android phone uses proprietary GPU drivers at least. So even if a vendor released all the source that they're required to release, that may not be enough to create a custom ROM with a future version of Android.
This story was the one that broke the camel's back for me, in terms of waiting for Samsung/T-Mobile to ship a 2.2 update for the Vibrant. I dug around and found "Eugene's Ginger Clone" 2.2 ROM and installed it yesterday. My Vibrant is noticeably snappier, battery is lasting longer, and it's now devoid of bloatware.
But yes, I think someone is hacking on the Vibrant, but last I asked in #cyanogen or #koush, I was told that no one wanted to work on the S-G-S phones until more source was released by Samsung.
Also, that guide follows the same template as all their other build guides. If it works, I'm impressed, but I suspect it is a preliminary copy/paste job waiting to be filled in or expanded upon.
Just as one aside on this, it's pretty clear by now that it isn't simply a matter of doing a source control get and the vendor's work is done.
Aside from simply having technical insight into the individual ROMs, you needn't look further than the disaster that has been Sony Erricson and Dell's Android entrants to see the truth in this -- those vendors came out with devices running dated Android versions, turning possible winners into catastrophic losers, eviscerating sales of the Streak and X10.
If they could have just done a merge and they were done, obviously they would have.
So now we're getting to the point where it seems that makers like Motorola and HTC have started to build up a significant Android talent pool, and that bodes well. Despite the constant incantations that Android is free, I wouldn't be surprised if the in-house development costs rivaled or exceeded what something like Windows Mobile cost to license.
I wouldn't be surprised if the in-house development costs rivaled or exceeded what something like Windows Mobile cost to license.
That implies that Windows Mobile doesn't require similar in-house effort, on top of the OEM license fees. Windows phones still require the same hardware driver development effort, and WM7 is already starting to receive the carrier-bastardization treatment. I'd say Android's licensing being free is the only difference.
Android OEMs have to develop their own drivers to get the various components (screen, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G radio, accelerometer, etc.) working whereas with WP7, Microsoft will provide all the device drivers. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that Android devices have a much wider range of hardware options, so it's a lot more difficult to have an uniform set of drivers.
All current Windows Phone 7 devices are restricted to the Qualcomm QSD8x50 platform, so there isn't much customization to be done as the hardware is nearly the same for every vendor.
As far as I understand it, Windows Phone 7's API is Silverlight with a few restrictions related to screen size and the like.
I haven't coded anything for Windows CE, but making a Silverlight app for Windows Phone 7 is about a difficult as making a WCF app for Windows, or an ASP.Net app for the web.
I got an X10 for free with upgrade over the holidays and love it. It makes me wonder if all the talk about version upgrades is mere noise. I'm relieved not to be affected by the Android SMS bug in Froyo, so will happily wait until it is fixed. Even if my phone ever sees an upgrade to Eclair, I probably won't notice with AT&T's customizations, which I like quite a bit. It's funny to hear the X10 described as a loser when I like it more than the iPhone. Oh, well, I liked XP more than Vista, too.
Wait, didn't everyone like XP more than Vista? I know I used Windows from version 3.1 right up until my experiences with Vista convinced me that spending an extra $1000 to get a MacBook Pro instead of a Vista laptop was completely worth it...
I am talking purely from a market perspective. The X10 was hotly anticipated and was set to make waves...but then it was announced that it was coming with 1.6 and that balloon deflated almost instantly. It is a gorgeous device, but a simple software misstep seriously hobbled its adoption.
Dell has suffered the same outcome for its entrants into the Android field. Clearly they were trying to enter the market on the cheap and it hurt them.
Naturally people are going to compare it to iOS, where updates are free and rapidly disseminated. The difference there is that there definitely is something in it for Apple -- they're getting a cut of every app you buy, every song you download, etc. They're a middleman, so it's just a cost of doing business.
I wish we could get to a point where Android updates cost money. I would happily pay $30 or whatever for each major update if it motivated the vendor to have an interest in keeping it up to date.