5 challenges for the future of Android
02/03/2012 — AndroidZoom
Following the path taken by Android since its unveiling in 2007 isn’t an easy task: we’re not talking here about a calm walk but a climb through a very steep slope. Its growth has been as impressive as its evolution and ability to adapt to the changing environment. Born in the shadow of iPhone’s hegemony, Android hasn’t been only able to struggle with iOS for the smartphone market share but it has also been able to introduce innovations, attract manufacturers and keep the armony with them.
The consequence: Today the market is mostly split between two Smartphone Superpowers in a not-so-Cold War. iPhone is still the best-selling smartphone while Android is the most used OS on smartphones around the World. As superpowers, each of them has their vices and virtues, their army of supporters and detractors and their challenges to be maintained or stand out from the other. In this brief post I’m going to set out which are, from my point of view, the five challenges that Android has to face in a short/mid-term not to miss the boat.
Fragmentation
In other words, the different OS versions cohabiting out there: Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich,… Why is this a problem? For developers: they’ve to develop apps thinking of making them run on devices which will probably have different Android OS versions. This is a barrier to entry. What’s more, new features can be introduced not only by hardware that take advantage of apps (multitouch, for instance): it can also be done by upgrading the OS (for example, Face Unlock on ICS).
The drawback for users is a consequence of this: since some developers will opt to develop only apps for the last Android OS version (to take advantage of the last features), the users that own an older version get stucked, specially if they can’t update their OS version because the manufacturer has decided not to release an update for an old or low-end... [continues]
02/03/2012 — AndroidZoom
Following the path taken by Android since its unveiling in 2007 isn’t an easy task: we’re not talking here about a calm walk but a climb through a very steep slope. Its growth has been as impressive as its evolution and ability to adapt to the changing environment. Born in the shadow of iPhone’s hegemony, Android hasn’t been only able to struggle with iOS for the smartphone market share but it has also been able to introduce innovations, attract manufacturers and keep the armony with them.
The consequence: Today the market is mostly split between two Smartphone Superpowers in a not-so-Cold War. iPhone is still the best-selling smartphone while Android is the most used OS on smartphones around the World. As superpowers, each of them has their vices and virtues, their army of supporters and detractors and their challenges to be maintained or stand out from the other. In this brief post I’m going to set out which are, from my point of view, the five challenges that Android has to face in a short/mid-term not to miss the boat.
Fragmentation
In other words, the different OS versions cohabiting out there: Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich,… Why is this a problem? For developers: they’ve to develop apps thinking of making them run on devices which will probably have different Android OS versions. This is a barrier to entry. What’s more, new features can be introduced not only by hardware that take advantage of apps (multitouch, for instance): it can also be done by upgrading the OS (for example, Face Unlock on ICS).
The drawback for users is a consequence of this: since some developers will opt to develop only apps for the last Android OS version (to take advantage of the last features), the users that own an older version get stucked, specially if they can’t update their OS version because the manufacturer has decided not to release an update for an old or low-end... [continues]
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