Prospects and problems of the Android platform
Attempt to turn around to look at current problems and future prospects of the Android platform and its main competitors.
It is clear to any reasonable person that in the end the Android platform will emerge victorious from the “war of mobile platforms”, which is now rattling on the world market. You may ask why I am so sure of this? Everything is quite simple, because, unlike other modern mobile platforms, Android itself is the most accessible and convenient for manufacturers, and most importantly - it is aimed at the most mass audience.
At the moment, Android is the most open, affordable, massive and flexible player in the market of mobile platforms - this is the main advantage of Android over its competitors. As history has repeatedly proved to us, to win over competitors it is not at all necessary to make the best product, because not the best product will win the market, but the most massive and affordable. However, for various reasons, before the final victory of Android is still quite far away, and in this small note I will try to objectively and most fully look at the whole situation in which Android is now located. We begin our story with a story about the main competitors, with which Android has to fight in the market.
Apple iPhoneOS . Despite the fact that many IT blogs have now taken a negative view of the creation of Apple, iPhoneOS, at the moment, is the most complete, high-quality and convenient mobile platform on the market. If we ignore the blind fanaticism that is common to many visitors to IT blogs, then iPhoneOS is really very well done, and its usability is still a reference among all mobile operating systems, which actually explains the fantastic success of the iPhone and iPod Touch on the market (and not “zombies”). "," Consumer stupidity "and other bad things, which some trolley-like people usually like to accuse iPhone owners). iPhoneOS may not be liked by someone, it can be reproached for as many times as possible with the absence of a certain functionality or an attempt to impose its use case on you, but this will not change the facts. The strength for the user (and the weakness for the platform) is the monotony of devices that run iPhoneOS — except for the minimum number of cases, platform fragmentation is absent as a class and therefore any applications work perfectly on a specific device without problems for the user. The negative side of this is the lack of a large range of models that would be significantly different from each other and the inability to find a model for a potential client for himself. For example, if a consumer wants to buy an iPhone as a side slider with a hardware keyboard (logic or the need for such a model, we leave aside) due to the natural inability to use the on-screen keyboard (although in iPhoneOS it is, in my opinion, the best of the existing ones) Such a consumer will be disappointed and, most likely, he will choose a device based on another platform. Although iPhoneOS runs a limited number of devices from one manufacturer, its share is already very large, and the future will grow at least because of the Apple iPad, more than 150,000 copies of which have already been pre-ordered — quite a lot, if we take into account that the device has not yet been received for sale, and in the world only 3 to 4 million tablet computers are sold annually. On the iPhoneOS side, there is also the presence of the largest, most popular, convenient, and successful AppStore and the popular media store iTunes Music Store.
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Maemo / MeeGo . The flagship smartphone platform of the Finnish company Nokia began its life as an operating system for a series of not very popular, niche multimedia Internet tablets. Despite the five-year history and the fifth version in a row, Maemo is still only a very interesting and “promising” platform, which is in a state of permanent undivision and development. Fans, of course, will all refute and praise their platform, but nothing will change the fact that at the moment there is only one actual device on the market with Maemo, which is no different for usability, stylish design, good price, or competent promotion in the market. Even Nokia itself admits that the N900 is a device for geeks, who are more happy with the process of digging into the device’s OS than using it. The eternal process of adding new functionality, rewriting individual parts of the OS, changing the toolkits and everything else, of course, may be very popular with the geek or the developer, but certainly not needed by a more or less mass user. Also here you can add weak integration with Ovi-branded services and support by third-party developers. Of course, after a certain time, Maemo will finally finish and the platform will begin its march on the top smartphones of the most mass mobile phone manufacturer in the world, but, probably, even Nokia realized that this process was already too long and could be delayed therefore, it was decided to join forces with Intel to promote the joint MeeGo platform. It sounds beautiful, but what will happen in reality? Two projects that both suffered from permanent undivision, will turn into one perfect product? It may be, or it may be that the platform will disappear the only working device on the market since rumors are already circulating that the N900 will not receive updates to MeeGo. In any case, this whole confusing situation does not exactly inspire confidence in third-party software developers.
Microsoft Windows Mobile . Once, one of the largest players in the mobile OS market, Microsoft has rapidly lost over the past two years and continues to lose market share under the blows of competitors. The saddest thing is that the remaining Microsoft shares are eaten not by competitors, but by Microsoft itself - very few people will now buy devices on Windows Mobile version 6, when this branch of development was almost officially buried in Microsoft itself. Of course, an outdated OS, which suffered from many problems, needed a major overhaul and revision of the development strategy, but by its decision to totally reject compatibility with the old application database, Microsoft definitely didn’t add popularity and loyalty to old customers. Especially this solution will be “pleased” to multiple corporate customers who partially tied their work to Windows Mobile applications - it’s far from a fact that they will switch to the new Windows Phone 7 Series, which is still not there, and its fate in the market very obvious, it is likely that they will switch to alternative platforms. What can you say about the very Windows Phone 7 Series? In general, this desire to repeat the model of Apple, but without Microsoft's involvement in the process of iron production: strict requirements for the hardware stuffing, the inability to make changes to the software, installation of third-party applications only from the company store, closure of the platform on its own technology. Guessing about the success or failure of Windows Phone 7 Series is so far pointless, but such a solution Microsoft really has many strengths that will allow you to better promote the new platform and avoid a lot of your own mistakes of the past, which, of course, eventually drove Windows Mobile to where it is now be. To promote the new platform, Microsoft has many trump cards, ranging from cooperation with many other manufacturers and developers, to having many proprietary technologies and solutions like .Net, XNA, Silverlight, which are already popular and familiar to a huge number of developers. Also, do not forget that in addition to software, Microsoft has Zune, Xbox360 and many other things that they can and will use to the maximum extent to promote Windows Phone 7 Series.
Palm webOS . Faced with a total decline, Palm decided to make a completely new software platform, which eventually became webOS, an operating system based on the Linux kernel and many modern web technologies. WebOS itself is a very interesting platform where many things are implemented unusually and conveniently. For example, in webOS, in my opinion, the most convenient is the implemented mechanism for switching between running applications - the mechanism may be imperfect, but all other existing options are even worse. Despite the positive aspects of the software platform, its future is hazy and, in the long run, the platform may die - after initial growth, webOS has already begun to lose overall market share. The problem is that, as in the case of iPhoneOS, webOS is rigidly tied to the devices of one manufacturer, which at the same time does not show the wonders of effective and successful work - after a good start, sales of Palm devices have weakened. There are quite a few reasons for this and they are all different:
Of course, many of the problems were later resolved, for example, the Pre went on sale for the Verizon operator, only now Verizon is pushing Motorola Droid devices more, so in any store, Verizon representatives discourage potential Pre buyers and set them up to buy Droid. The problem is that the solution to these problems was relatively late and they managed to bring in their negative effect at the start. At the same time, Palm’s behavior and its attitude to third-party developers cannot be called positive, which looks narrow, if we consider the weak support of the platform by third-party developers and the significant loss of WebOS in the number of applications compared to iPhoneOS and Android. In this case, of course, it is impossible to declare that the webOS platform will certainly die, but the chances of this are quite large. A partial solution to the problem may be the release of a larger number of phones with webOS or even webOS licensing for third-party manufacturers, although in this case you can “break the fire”, as Apple did with Mac-clones, which would put Palm at risk of survival.
RIM BlackBerry OS . One of the market leaders (first of all, North American) of smartphones, the Canadian company RIM occupies such a high position not because of the exceptional consumer qualities of its devices and the convenience of their operating system, because the main consumers of BlackBerry are large corporations that use RIM technologies and services in their daily work. Indeed, when in the early 2000s, BlackBerry entered the market, many companies appreciated push email, data encryption, convenient keyboards, and many other features of RIM phones. Since then, a huge number of companies in the world have been using BlackBerry phones and services in their work, giving these smartphones to their employees. But in the consumer market RIM is not yet successful, of course, the company is trying to update its image of a corporate supplier and produce more modern devices for a mass audience, but these attempts look very ridiculous and inefficient. From the point of view of the mass consumer, BlackBerry phones do not distinguish anything remarkable, except for a solid business brand - they are still quite archaic and inconvenient, and the BlackBerry App World app store seriously loses to its competitors. RIM positions will still be strong for some time thanks to corporate customers, but in the long run, with the development of the Android or iPhoneOS platforms, even among corporate customers they will not feel so confident. Although it’s worthwhile to say that corporate clients are rather inert and don’t chase new market innovations, so the transition to potential competitors will in any case be delayed, which plays into the hands of RIM and gives them extra time to solve possible problems and fight with competitors.
Samsung Bada OS . So far, it’s too early to talk about Samsung’s platform - it’s simply too new, however, it’s not a reason to stoop to statements that they say it is a stillborn platform and doesn’t shine anything to it. Maybe Bada OS will not “blow up” the market, but it definitely will take a certain share on it simply because there is such a powerful company behind it, like Samsung, which is not only the largest consumer electronics manufacturer, but also takes the place of Nokia, as the largest mobile phone manufacturer. For this reason, Samsung and need their own platform, which does not depend on competitors. Here everything will depend on the success and popularity of Samsung phones, which will work under the control of Bada OS. Also, Samsung’s size can be a negative factor here, because, as everyone knows, too large and bureaucratic companies rarely are particularly efficient, which can affect the pace of development and distribution of the new platform.
Symbian OS . The nominal leader of the global smartphone market retains a significant share, mainly due to the huge number of different models of fairly cheap and mass phones, which are not really considered by consumers as smartphones. This fact clearly demonstrates website traffic statistics - the share of Symbian among other mobile operating systems is not very large and is approximately equal to the share of iPhoneOS. Those. A significant part of the "huge share of Symbian" are phones that are smartly formally related to smartphones: they are inconvenient to browse websites (and therefore do not browse, as can be seen from the statistics), they do not have such a rich choice of excellent and convenient applications, many owners do not even install any additional applications, etc. Although Nokia is trying in every way to update Symbian and push new development momentum into it, the platform continues to lose market share and remain quite archaic. Almost all manufacturers of smartphones have turned away from Symbian, except Nokia itself, and this platform cannot boast of the special support of third-party software developers. Add to this the rather poor integration of Symbian devices with proprietary Internet services, the deplorable performance of the Ovi Store proprietary store, and the general inconvenience of this OS, and it will become clear that the platform is mainly based on Nokia’s share of the global mobile phone market. Considering Nokia’s plans to make Maemo a platform for its top smartphones, the future of Symbian will most likely be associated with all the same “nominal” smartphones.
In all this porridge from mobile platforms, Android has already managed to take a pretty good share and continues to actively develop. Thanks to openness and free of charge, Android was introduced by a large number of various electronics manufacturers and now it can be found working both on a smartphone and on a microwave oven :) The availability of free development tools and the rather liberal conditions for receiving applications in the Android Market allowed him to quickly grow to more than 30,000 applications and take second place in the number of applications after the Apple App Store - an impressive result! Android is developing rapidly and in new versions there are more and more new features and capabilities, which there can not but rejoice. Due to its openness, Android can easily be modified by a specific manufacturer for its needs for a specific device, and its integration with various Google services is exemplary. Unlike a significant proportion of modern competitors, Android allows you to install third-party applications not only from the company store, but also from third-party sources. In this case, the Android operating system in the standard supports full multitasking, and its functionality and support for various technologies is constantly expanding. From a technical point of view, Android boasts a variety of correct architectural solutions that make the OS more versatile and compatible with a large number of different devices. At the same time, the quality of the OS and its usability are at a fairly high level. It is quite obvious that with such a wide range of positive qualities and the support of a company like Google (and the whole Open Handset Alliance), the Android platform looks the most promising on the market.
The truth is that you should not fanatics and turn a blind eye to the obvious problems, minuses and other negative aspects, which are also inherent in Android. The main problem of the Android platform comes out of its main advantage - free. The lack of control over manufacturers has caused the most unpleasant and dangerous feature of the Android platform - fragmentation. Android already suffers greatly from the fragmentation of the platform, which used to be mainly inherent in Windows Mobile and, as many believe, has largely caused the outflow of users from it. A huge number of manufacturers still, in the era of Android 2.1, release devices that run Android version 1.5 or 1.6, and special unique release their devices with Android 1.4 - a thousand devils! It's like selling a modern Windows 95-Me computer on board. And what is the most annoying, it is not only about some little-known Chinese companies, for even such well-known manufacturers like Sony Ericsson , Huawei and Motorola continue to produce devices with Android 1.6, and most importantly after the release, they usually don’t rush to release updates for their vehicles. For example, the owners of the HTC Hero are already “fed breakfast” for half a year and promise to release an update “next month”. This situation not only annoys many users and is upholstered in their eyes on the entire Android platform, but also creates an additional headache for developers of third-party software: the application can easily work on one phone model and not work - on the other, that is, the situation arises there which we tried to avoid using more universal technologies in the OS architecture (Java as a language for writing applications, independence of display resolution, etc.).The quick release of updates to current versions was not the rule, but the exception. Also negative is the inability to deliver branded Google applications (including the Android Market), without certification of the device by Google itself - there are already quite a lot of various devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) on the market that are deprived of the most important source of software for them.
The problem for the promotion of the platform is also a small number of truly successful devices with Android - most of the devices, although they cannot be called a failure, but they also did not become particularly popular. A relatively large number of different devices with Android have already been released, but the real success has so far been only the Motorola Droid, which was chosen as the flagship smartphone of the cellular operator Verizon and received a corresponding advertising campaign. It was the Motorola Droid that allowed the Android OS to occupy a more or less significant share in one of the most solvent markets in the world - the American one, while the famous “Google Phone” Nexus One completely failedon sale. You can argue about the reasons for this failure for a long time, but part of Google’s general approach to work is partly to blame. I will explain this point in a little more detail. Of course, Google is a well-known and large company, the very “search giant” that has offered the world the most convenient search on the Internet and many other convenient services, but beyond all of this what is characterized by Google? Of course, many Google fanboys will argue that I’m wrong and Goolge is better than what happened in the world after the wheel was invented, but Google has been “splintered” quite a long time ago and only does a lot of unfinished beta projects and beta services without meaning (Buzz, wave, etc) and a hint of some kind of support (many webmasters will clearly understand what I'm talking about) and this style of work also applies to phones.At the time of the start of sales of Nexus One in Google, there was no department and no one even thought about how and who will support the sold devices - an unheard of pofigism for a developed market. I suspect that this has spread to the process of developing the software part of Android, so most of the devices without a third-party shell show far from the best responsiveness, even with a normal hardware stuffing.
In any case, despite the existing problems, I think that Android is waiting for success in the market, because the positive points outweigh the negative ones. It’s just that Google’s policy will determine how quickly Android defeats all competitors.
PS: transferred to the thematic blog.
It is clear to any reasonable person that in the end the Android platform will emerge victorious from the “war of mobile platforms”, which is now rattling on the world market. You may ask why I am so sure of this? Everything is quite simple, because, unlike other modern mobile platforms, Android itself is the most accessible and convenient for manufacturers, and most importantly - it is aimed at the most mass audience.
At the moment, Android is the most open, affordable, massive and flexible player in the market of mobile platforms - this is the main advantage of Android over its competitors. As history has repeatedly proved to us, to win over competitors it is not at all necessary to make the best product, because not the best product will win the market, but the most massive and affordable. However, for various reasons, before the final victory of Android is still quite far away, and in this small note I will try to objectively and most fully look at the whole situation in which Android is now located. We begin our story with a story about the main competitors, with which Android has to fight in the market.
Android competitors
- Apple iPhoneOS
- Maemo / MeeGo
- Microsoft Windows Mobile
- Palm webOS
- RIM BlackBerry OS
- Samsung bada os
- Symbian OS
Apple iPhoneOS . Despite the fact that many IT blogs have now taken a negative view of the creation of Apple, iPhoneOS, at the moment, is the most complete, high-quality and convenient mobile platform on the market. If we ignore the blind fanaticism that is common to many visitors to IT blogs, then iPhoneOS is really very well done, and its usability is still a reference among all mobile operating systems, which actually explains the fantastic success of the iPhone and iPod Touch on the market (and not “zombies”). "," Consumer stupidity "and other bad things, which some trolley-like people usually like to accuse iPhone owners). iPhoneOS may not be liked by someone, it can be reproached for as many times as possible with the absence of a certain functionality or an attempt to impose its use case on you, but this will not change the facts. The strength for the user (and the weakness for the platform) is the monotony of devices that run iPhoneOS — except for the minimum number of cases, platform fragmentation is absent as a class and therefore any applications work perfectly on a specific device without problems for the user. The negative side of this is the lack of a large range of models that would be significantly different from each other and the inability to find a model for a potential client for himself. For example, if a consumer wants to buy an iPhone as a side slider with a hardware keyboard (logic or the need for such a model, we leave aside) due to the natural inability to use the on-screen keyboard (although in iPhoneOS it is, in my opinion, the best of the existing ones) Such a consumer will be disappointed and, most likely, he will choose a device based on another platform. Although iPhoneOS runs a limited number of devices from one manufacturer, its share is already very large, and the future will grow at least because of the Apple iPad, more than 150,000 copies of which have already been pre-ordered — quite a lot, if we take into account that the device has not yet been received for sale, and in the world only 3 to 4 million tablet computers are sold annually. On the iPhoneOS side, there is also the presence of the largest, most popular, convenient, and successful AppStore and the popular media store iTunes Music Store.
')
Maemo / MeeGo . The flagship smartphone platform of the Finnish company Nokia began its life as an operating system for a series of not very popular, niche multimedia Internet tablets. Despite the five-year history and the fifth version in a row, Maemo is still only a very interesting and “promising” platform, which is in a state of permanent undivision and development. Fans, of course, will all refute and praise their platform, but nothing will change the fact that at the moment there is only one actual device on the market with Maemo, which is no different for usability, stylish design, good price, or competent promotion in the market. Even Nokia itself admits that the N900 is a device for geeks, who are more happy with the process of digging into the device’s OS than using it. The eternal process of adding new functionality, rewriting individual parts of the OS, changing the toolkits and everything else, of course, may be very popular with the geek or the developer, but certainly not needed by a more or less mass user. Also here you can add weak integration with Ovi-branded services and support by third-party developers. Of course, after a certain time, Maemo will finally finish and the platform will begin its march on the top smartphones of the most mass mobile phone manufacturer in the world, but, probably, even Nokia realized that this process was already too long and could be delayed therefore, it was decided to join forces with Intel to promote the joint MeeGo platform. It sounds beautiful, but what will happen in reality? Two projects that both suffered from permanent undivision, will turn into one perfect product? It may be, or it may be that the platform will disappear the only working device on the market since rumors are already circulating that the N900 will not receive updates to MeeGo. In any case, this whole confusing situation does not exactly inspire confidence in third-party software developers.
Microsoft Windows Mobile . Once, one of the largest players in the mobile OS market, Microsoft has rapidly lost over the past two years and continues to lose market share under the blows of competitors. The saddest thing is that the remaining Microsoft shares are eaten not by competitors, but by Microsoft itself - very few people will now buy devices on Windows Mobile version 6, when this branch of development was almost officially buried in Microsoft itself. Of course, an outdated OS, which suffered from many problems, needed a major overhaul and revision of the development strategy, but by its decision to totally reject compatibility with the old application database, Microsoft definitely didn’t add popularity and loyalty to old customers. Especially this solution will be “pleased” to multiple corporate customers who partially tied their work to Windows Mobile applications - it’s far from a fact that they will switch to the new Windows Phone 7 Series, which is still not there, and its fate in the market very obvious, it is likely that they will switch to alternative platforms. What can you say about the very Windows Phone 7 Series? In general, this desire to repeat the model of Apple, but without Microsoft's involvement in the process of iron production: strict requirements for the hardware stuffing, the inability to make changes to the software, installation of third-party applications only from the company store, closure of the platform on its own technology. Guessing about the success or failure of Windows Phone 7 Series is so far pointless, but such a solution Microsoft really has many strengths that will allow you to better promote the new platform and avoid a lot of your own mistakes of the past, which, of course, eventually drove Windows Mobile to where it is now be. To promote the new platform, Microsoft has many trump cards, ranging from cooperation with many other manufacturers and developers, to having many proprietary technologies and solutions like .Net, XNA, Silverlight, which are already popular and familiar to a huge number of developers. Also, do not forget that in addition to software, Microsoft has Zune, Xbox360 and many other things that they can and will use to the maximum extent to promote Windows Phone 7 Series.
Palm webOS . Faced with a total decline, Palm decided to make a completely new software platform, which eventually became webOS, an operating system based on the Linux kernel and many modern web technologies. WebOS itself is a very interesting platform where many things are implemented unusually and conveniently. For example, in webOS, in my opinion, the most convenient is the implemented mechanism for switching between running applications - the mechanism may be imperfect, but all other existing options are even worse. Despite the positive aspects of the software platform, its future is hazy and, in the long run, the platform may die - after initial growth, webOS has already begun to lose overall market share. The problem is that, as in the case of iPhoneOS, webOS is rigidly tied to the devices of one manufacturer, which at the same time does not show the wonders of effective and successful work - after a good start, sales of Palm devices have weakened. There are quite a few reasons for this and they are all different:
- Palm Pre launch exclusively at Sprint Nextel (instead of AT & T or Verizon), which is only the third largest operator in the United States;
- very poor build quality and low reliability; the first installments of the Palm Pre smartphone scared away many customers, both real and potential;
- vague advertising campaign - much has already been said about the quality and intelligibility of commercials in Western IT-blogs;
- the release of a fairly trimmed (modern smartphone without Wi-Fi?) Palm Pixi device with a not very pleasant name;
Of course, many of the problems were later resolved, for example, the Pre went on sale for the Verizon operator, only now Verizon is pushing Motorola Droid devices more, so in any store, Verizon representatives discourage potential Pre buyers and set them up to buy Droid. The problem is that the solution to these problems was relatively late and they managed to bring in their negative effect at the start. At the same time, Palm’s behavior and its attitude to third-party developers cannot be called positive, which looks narrow, if we consider the weak support of the platform by third-party developers and the significant loss of WebOS in the number of applications compared to iPhoneOS and Android. In this case, of course, it is impossible to declare that the webOS platform will certainly die, but the chances of this are quite large. A partial solution to the problem may be the release of a larger number of phones with webOS or even webOS licensing for third-party manufacturers, although in this case you can “break the fire”, as Apple did with Mac-clones, which would put Palm at risk of survival.
RIM BlackBerry OS . One of the market leaders (first of all, North American) of smartphones, the Canadian company RIM occupies such a high position not because of the exceptional consumer qualities of its devices and the convenience of their operating system, because the main consumers of BlackBerry are large corporations that use RIM technologies and services in their daily work. Indeed, when in the early 2000s, BlackBerry entered the market, many companies appreciated push email, data encryption, convenient keyboards, and many other features of RIM phones. Since then, a huge number of companies in the world have been using BlackBerry phones and services in their work, giving these smartphones to their employees. But in the consumer market RIM is not yet successful, of course, the company is trying to update its image of a corporate supplier and produce more modern devices for a mass audience, but these attempts look very ridiculous and inefficient. From the point of view of the mass consumer, BlackBerry phones do not distinguish anything remarkable, except for a solid business brand - they are still quite archaic and inconvenient, and the BlackBerry App World app store seriously loses to its competitors. RIM positions will still be strong for some time thanks to corporate customers, but in the long run, with the development of the Android or iPhoneOS platforms, even among corporate customers they will not feel so confident. Although it’s worthwhile to say that corporate clients are rather inert and don’t chase new market innovations, so the transition to potential competitors will in any case be delayed, which plays into the hands of RIM and gives them extra time to solve possible problems and fight with competitors.
Samsung Bada OS . So far, it’s too early to talk about Samsung’s platform - it’s simply too new, however, it’s not a reason to stoop to statements that they say it is a stillborn platform and doesn’t shine anything to it. Maybe Bada OS will not “blow up” the market, but it definitely will take a certain share on it simply because there is such a powerful company behind it, like Samsung, which is not only the largest consumer electronics manufacturer, but also takes the place of Nokia, as the largest mobile phone manufacturer. For this reason, Samsung and need their own platform, which does not depend on competitors. Here everything will depend on the success and popularity of Samsung phones, which will work under the control of Bada OS. Also, Samsung’s size can be a negative factor here, because, as everyone knows, too large and bureaucratic companies rarely are particularly efficient, which can affect the pace of development and distribution of the new platform.
Symbian OS . The nominal leader of the global smartphone market retains a significant share, mainly due to the huge number of different models of fairly cheap and mass phones, which are not really considered by consumers as smartphones. This fact clearly demonstrates website traffic statistics - the share of Symbian among other mobile operating systems is not very large and is approximately equal to the share of iPhoneOS. Those. A significant part of the "huge share of Symbian" are phones that are smartly formally related to smartphones: they are inconvenient to browse websites (and therefore do not browse, as can be seen from the statistics), they do not have such a rich choice of excellent and convenient applications, many owners do not even install any additional applications, etc. Although Nokia is trying in every way to update Symbian and push new development momentum into it, the platform continues to lose market share and remain quite archaic. Almost all manufacturers of smartphones have turned away from Symbian, except Nokia itself, and this platform cannot boast of the special support of third-party software developers. Add to this the rather poor integration of Symbian devices with proprietary Internet services, the deplorable performance of the Ovi Store proprietary store, and the general inconvenience of this OS, and it will become clear that the platform is mainly based on Nokia’s share of the global mobile phone market. Considering Nokia’s plans to make Maemo a platform for its top smartphones, the future of Symbian will most likely be associated with all the same “nominal” smartphones.
What can Android oppose competitors?
In all this porridge from mobile platforms, Android has already managed to take a pretty good share and continues to actively develop. Thanks to openness and free of charge, Android was introduced by a large number of various electronics manufacturers and now it can be found working both on a smartphone and on a microwave oven :) The availability of free development tools and the rather liberal conditions for receiving applications in the Android Market allowed him to quickly grow to more than 30,000 applications and take second place in the number of applications after the Apple App Store - an impressive result! Android is developing rapidly and in new versions there are more and more new features and capabilities, which there can not but rejoice. Due to its openness, Android can easily be modified by a specific manufacturer for its needs for a specific device, and its integration with various Google services is exemplary. Unlike a significant proportion of modern competitors, Android allows you to install third-party applications not only from the company store, but also from third-party sources. In this case, the Android operating system in the standard supports full multitasking, and its functionality and support for various technologies is constantly expanding. From a technical point of view, Android boasts a variety of correct architectural solutions that make the OS more versatile and compatible with a large number of different devices. At the same time, the quality of the OS and its usability are at a fairly high level. It is quite obvious that with such a wide range of positive qualities and the support of a company like Google (and the whole Open Handset Alliance), the Android platform looks the most promising on the market.
The truth is that you should not fanatics and turn a blind eye to the obvious problems, minuses and other negative aspects, which are also inherent in Android. The main problem of the Android platform comes out of its main advantage - free. The lack of control over manufacturers has caused the most unpleasant and dangerous feature of the Android platform - fragmentation. Android already suffers greatly from the fragmentation of the platform, which used to be mainly inherent in Windows Mobile and, as many believe, has largely caused the outflow of users from it. A huge number of manufacturers still, in the era of Android 2.1, release devices that run Android version 1.5 or 1.6, and special unique release their devices with Android 1.4 - a thousand devils! It's like selling a modern Windows 95-Me computer on board. And what is the most annoying, it is not only about some little-known Chinese companies, for even such well-known manufacturers like Sony Ericsson , Huawei and Motorola continue to produce devices with Android 1.6, and most importantly after the release, they usually don’t rush to release updates for their vehicles. For example, the owners of the HTC Hero are already “fed breakfast” for half a year and promise to release an update “next month”. This situation not only annoys many users and is upholstered in their eyes on the entire Android platform, but also creates an additional headache for developers of third-party software: the application can easily work on one phone model and not work - on the other, that is, the situation arises there which we tried to avoid using more universal technologies in the OS architecture (Java as a language for writing applications, independence of display resolution, etc.).The quick release of updates to current versions was not the rule, but the exception. Also negative is the inability to deliver branded Google applications (including the Android Market), without certification of the device by Google itself - there are already quite a lot of various devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) on the market that are deprived of the most important source of software for them.
The problem for the promotion of the platform is also a small number of truly successful devices with Android - most of the devices, although they cannot be called a failure, but they also did not become particularly popular. A relatively large number of different devices with Android have already been released, but the real success has so far been only the Motorola Droid, which was chosen as the flagship smartphone of the cellular operator Verizon and received a corresponding advertising campaign. It was the Motorola Droid that allowed the Android OS to occupy a more or less significant share in one of the most solvent markets in the world - the American one, while the famous “Google Phone” Nexus One completely failedon sale. You can argue about the reasons for this failure for a long time, but part of Google’s general approach to work is partly to blame. I will explain this point in a little more detail. Of course, Google is a well-known and large company, the very “search giant” that has offered the world the most convenient search on the Internet and many other convenient services, but beyond all of this what is characterized by Google? Of course, many Google fanboys will argue that I’m wrong and Goolge is better than what happened in the world after the wheel was invented, but Google has been “splintered” quite a long time ago and only does a lot of unfinished beta projects and beta services without meaning (Buzz, wave, etc) and a hint of some kind of support (many webmasters will clearly understand what I'm talking about) and this style of work also applies to phones.At the time of the start of sales of Nexus One in Google, there was no department and no one even thought about how and who will support the sold devices - an unheard of pofigism for a developed market. I suspect that this has spread to the process of developing the software part of Android, so most of the devices without a third-party shell show far from the best responsiveness, even with a normal hardware stuffing.
In any case, despite the existing problems, I think that Android is waiting for success in the market, because the positive points outweigh the negative ones. It’s just that Google’s policy will determine how quickly Android defeats all competitors.
PS: transferred to the thematic blog.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/88096/
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