Baidu forks Android to introduce its own mobile OS for China - Page 2

Actually, there are countless posts by developers who say that while yes, Android has fragmentation, it's not the huge deal everyone says it is.

Just a few examples:
Mika Mobile (Battle Heart): http://mikamobile.blogspot.com/2011/06/android.html
Angry Birds: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Angry...tation_id15593
Meridian Apps: http://nfarina.com/post/8239634061/ios-to-android (Great overview of differences, positive and negative)


There is fragmentation, but it's not game breaking. The real problem is that some companies are using the fragmentation politically (IE tegrazone, Netflix, Hulu support) These are INTENTIONAL cases of fragmentation that would not exist otherwise.

And Gameloft can DIAF over their billing practices.

Isn't IOS fragmented since you can not run all of the IOS versions on all of the iPhone handset hardware versions (iPhone, 3G, 3GS, 4)? My dad has a 1st gen iPhone, my daughter has a 3G, I've got a 3GS and my girlfriend has a 4. We all have different IOS versions, and we all have apps that we can't install and run from the Apples App Store.

It's not a problem for us, we have what we paid for we can run the IOS fragment that applies to each our respective flavors of iPhone handset. If we wanted to run on one of the other IOS fragments for some reason, say a hardware feature or a particular app that only runs on an IOS fragment higher than the one we are able to run, we would, if we could afford to, upgrade by purchasing a newer more current version of the iPhone hardware, like the new iPhone coming to Sprint next month hopefully.

PS. I don't care how fragmented IOS is, it still kicks Android Assets every which way.

PPS. I'm grateful for fragmentation, it's a sign of progress and innovation, I mean imagine no innovation, no fragmentation, no smartphone, maybe just old Nokia featureless phones with 3 line LCDs.

If Baidu Yi OS ... is that pronounced iOS?
Anyways, if it stays in China, there will not be a chance in ever of a lawsuit. It will probably run on the best Chinese electronics copy-cats phones (http://en.meizu.com/)

Did you know that stores actually sell DvDs and CDs on Chinese labels in real stores in malls (vs. black market hawkers) of new releases, professionally and commercially packaged at 1/5 the price? I own some of them, and I never play them outside of China...

These and other items simply have a statement on them that says: "For sale and use in China only."
That apparently circumvents international patent and copyright laws.

Heck, Apple is having a hard time shutting down copying of the business at a whole store level.

When 1.3 billion people have wants and needs, what are you gonna do?

Ikea copy: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...rticle2116829/


Car copies: http://www.wordplop.com/2008/05/07/c...-walk-instead/

Google has already said they will not give the newest OS version to forked version of Android. How are they going to keep up with API's.



That's always been a ridiculous argument. iOS is as fragmented as OS X on the various versions of Mac computers out in the world.

Apple gives clear documentation about what version of OS X will support which type of hardware.

Its as fragmented as Windows 7 running on a Pentium PC.

Or as fragmented as Lion running on a PowerPC Mac.

No it's not because you can run apps from previous version (made for 3.0) on a 4.0 AND you can run iOS4 on a 3GS. You can't on the first gen because it will be too sluggish, not because some vendor decided that it won't support the phone anymore six months after release.

You can't run IOS 4.x on a 3G either, or can you? hmmmm.....
Anyway what sucks is not being able to run apps developed for IOS 4.x on IOS 3.x only devices, analogous to Android users not getting updates for their handset and not being able to run new apps.

Isn't that what the Chinese always do? Take something, add their own crap to it and release it as their own?

Google is getting a taste of it's own medicine.

Very soon, the only true Android phones will be made by Googorola.

The fragmentation will a nightmare for developers.

Businesses will be reluctant to standardize on such a fragmented platform

Time will tell.

Well, I actually think some apps developed for Froyo will run on Gingerbread and I know for a fact that vast majority of apps I use on Gingerbread run perfectly on Ice Cream Sandwich. Plus Nexus One runs Gingerbread etc. So not as fragmented as you and DED make it out to be.

iOS 4.2 is the limit for a 3G, with certain limitations. No multitasking, screen lock, home screen wallpaper, and Bluetooth keyboards.

Nice twist on a major problem for Google. This will limit the penetration of Android in China. The problem with Android is that there's no one phone that matters. So Chinese manufacturers can come up with their own. If they manage to get apps enough for this, Chinese will buy them.

But this won't really be Android any more. No more so than will be Amazon's tablet.

Like the Meizu M9 which can access the "M" market and the Android market, but nowhere says it is an android phone.

I'll second 4.0 being sluggish on a first-gen iPhone.



I kept it on mine because it's darn useful, but slow? Heck yes. Unusable for most people's desires.

It's what killed Unix as a unified OS, which was the entire point to it. Programs became limited to the company who produced the OS fork and machine it ran on.

The same thing is happening to Android. At some point in time it will have evolved just as new species do, and there will be little or no congruence between them. Once that happens, they will be different OS's. No more Android. It won't be enough to say they're based on Android.. It would be like saying that an elephant and a mouse are both based on DNA.

I thought this was appleinsider not androidinsider... Geesh!

but isn't ... apple inside ur android? (you gotta say it fast)

So, the early pre ipad tablet looked nothing like an ipad but now they do. And both companies use a split keyboard that someone else invented. Your point is.......

You're right and wrong. They won't be Android as I just said in the above post. But people may expect they are. It depends on the publicity surrounding these things. If people think they're Android, then they will expect Android apps to work.

I don't know exactly what to expect from Amazon, even though I read the hands on article of their tablet. amazon does have it's own Android store, though it has a small selection of apps when compared to the Android market. But like Apple, Amazon is curating all the apps it allows in. So I would imagine that its tablet would be able to run these apps. The UI itself might not be enough of a barrier to that.

But if Baidu is changing the OS on a deeper level, then yes, Android apps might not be able to run.

What I see that I don't like, is that it looks pretty close to iOS, even duplicating the phone icon. The name itself is pretty darn close, and in a Western court, would never be allowed. Yi OS, vs iOS is going to be easily confused, and with Chinese manufacturers copying Apple's products, many people may even be thinking they are buying an iPhone.

You're a bit confused here. OS X is based on Darwin, which is built from Free BSD, which is UNIX. For the first few years the windowing system that UNIX uses (X Window) was an optional download, but then because standard. Possibly that's what's got you confused.

Remember this came from NEXT which was Openstep, and all of this was based on UNIX.

It took Apple several years to get full certification for their version, and possibly that also has you confused. Most versions of UNIX were never certified, which didn't mean they weren't UNIX. The only certified versions, from what I remember are, OS X, AIX and Solaris.

As far as Android goes, it's a distro of Linux. There are many of those.

?.

Make sure you make sense when you respond.

Maybe you should slow down... slow like android.

There won't be a lawsuit because Android is OSS. Only IP is the Android trademark which is cheaply licensed as long as you use the Google services such as Google Maps, Google Marketplace, etc.

Since Baidu will not use the name Android and won't be using any of the services there will be no lawsuit. I say sucks to Google becuase they went with this low priced commodity, high volume business model and now it will come back and bite them. There will be no stopping other countries or companies doing the same. It already looks like Amazon is doing the same with their rumoured Kindle Tablet.

At a guess Google is starting to get bitter about what is happenning because it looks as though many companies are making money with Android except Google.

But most admit that they can only develop for a few of the devices on the market. So they develop for the most popular. Many Android users never even see many apps, because Android Market hides them from the devices that can't run them.

Fragmentation is also a major problem because while some developers write apps that can run on many phones, there are many kinds of apps that will only run on certain phones, so they don't get developed at all. It's a physical problem as much as a software problem.

We have a lot of apps for iOS that tie into hardware, hardware that can't be used on Android phones. Sometimes it's because of the OX fragmentation. sometimes it's because of the lack of a standard connector like Apple's, that allows integration into Apple's OS and hardware.

That's not the same thing. When a three year old phone isn't upgraded to the latest OS, it isn't considered to be fragmentation, because most people discard their phone after two years. But Apple has the new upgrades and updates available immediately for every phone for at least two years old, and possibly even older. Everyone can upgrade their OS the same day Apple releases it.

With Android, it's very different. Phones that are a year, or even less, old may not be capable of using the new OS at all. Or the manufacturer may decide to not release it for the current models. Or the carriers may delay it for many Months. Or the manufacturer may delay it for many months. If you can get the update at all, it may be months after you buy the phone, and after a newer update is out for even older phones than yours.

Or a brand new phone may come out with an older version of the OS than is current.

It's a mess!

Then there is the physical disparity between the phones themselves. Different size screens with fractionally different resolutions that aren't the same in ratio, making apps look bad, or not enabling them to work at all.

I have 4.2.1 on my 3G. It is missing multitasking features, because the phone is old, and too slow. But the 3GS uses all the features and has the latest version of the OS.

The only phone that can't run iOS 4.x is the very first model, from four years ago. You aren't seriously comparing that, are you? Four years?

I can run ALL apps available, as long as they don't require hardware features the phone doesn't have. Or I can run them, but won't have the advantage of that specific feature, such as the gyroscope.

Obviously, old devices are going to be more limited in all systems. It's kind of an odd way to talk about fragmentation. You might as well say Windows is fragmented.

You know what fragmentation means. It means that current phones, or phones that are a year old can't run the latest version of the OS, or apps that need it. I would define it as phones that are two years old, as one should always be able to upgrade to the latest and greatest OS and apps as long as you are within your two year contract.

Of course, Android has more problems than that.

Fragmentation is not a sign of anything other than the lack of thinking on the part of the company that has the OS. There is no reason for OS fragmentation, other than Google never gave it much thought.

If Apple can manage to give the latest versions to everyone at the same time without the interference of the carriers, at least, so should Google. We know that nothing the OS does will affect their networks, because Apple has been doing that for over four years now.

Are you implying that Google is going to fork Android into 2 forks:

1) Android Motorola

2) Android Everyone Else

Some work on Gingerbread, but most of those that do, don't work properly.

I assume you've been running Ice Cream Sandwich?

But the major problem is that many people will not be able to upgrade at all, or will be months behind. That's a big problem for Android.

It's incredible to me that such intricate characters are readable at that font size.

Any of you out there who can read both English & Chinese, please give me some feedback. I look at these screenshots and think to myself that it must be much harder to read Chinese at this size, compared to English. Is that true? If not, can you explain why not?

The site has articles that are of interest to its readers. Not all of those articles have to be specifically about Apple.

If people weren't interested, we wouldn't see many posts. But we do get a lot of posting on this site, more than for most sites.

An overwhelming majority of apps can run across multiple devices. And by that I mean approaching 90% or more (at least of the popular ones) Not to mention that even cheaper devices are running off of snapdragon/TI chipsets now, so there's not anywhere near the hardware fragmentation their used to be.

Of those that can't (Netflix, Tegra only, etc) It's not because the other hardware can't run it. Take Netflix. It apparently "Can't run" on my Galaxy tab, but if I pull the file from my Incredible and install it on my tab (without touching the coding AT ALL) it works flawlessly. Whatever it is "checking" for it obviously finds in my Tab, so it plays. Yet Netflix decided not to offer it in the market.

For tegra games, all you need to do is have a rooted non-tegra device and you can get a file that will say that the phone is running a tegra chipset, and the games will play. The file of the game itself is again not altered. Yes, these games require dual core still, but most of them have single core versions as well.

I don't doubt that Apple's tighter integration of hardware and software allows for easier compatability across models, I'm just saying that the "Fragmentation" issue tends to get blown out of proportion. It does exist, but it's not the major issue people claim it is unless THEY make it so, or in very specific use-cases.

(People like to mention Angry birds not running on older devices. Angry birds ran fine on older devices, it was the ads that messed it up)

I think he was implying more the opposite, that samsung, htc, etc would all fork their own versions of android, but that's not going to happen unless they can somehow come up with an ecosystem at least as potent as Android market and Google Applications. The only US company who has that kinda potential is Amazon. HTC and Samsung don't. Baidu is the Chinese search engine, so I'm betting they have replacements for most Gapps, and I don't think the market would make it past china's censors anyway.

Thats a bold (and false) statement that most Froyo application doesn't work on Gingerbread. You bother to provide any sources to support that bogus claim ?


It is the same assumption that there are many people who run final version of iOS 5. There might be some people, but they are not allowed to answer your question. Generally speaking, both platforms are doing pretty decent job in backward compatibility.


Hm, maybe it is problem for you, or that crowd of sheeple who will need to spend a night in the queue to get the iPhone X the very first day it is released, otherwise their life is ruined forever. Vast majority of the mobile users have no clue what version of OS they are using, and all they care their favorite app is available for their phone. Which is pretty much the case with both iOS 3, 4, 5 and Android Froyo, Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich.

Statements like this don't lend much credibility to your argument.

Name calling is the clear sign of someone who has run out of facts to back up their argument.

Every OEM and his mum is going to have an Android fork soon, and with good reason - Google's jumping into hardware full-time. Any manufacturer who got burned by PlaysForSure should know what that means:

Mr OS Licensor is about to lose a bunch of money doing everything in its power to kill your products dead, whilst pretending to be your best friend.

I was curious about that so I searched around. This is the list I found of UNIX certified OS versions/brands for anyone who might be interested. Not sure if the list needs updating since Lion is not included.

http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/

Are you sure the right word in the headline is 'forks'?

Which part of it is name calling ?

It may be up to date, it just might be that Lion has yet to get approval.

To illustrate, Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June*8,*2009 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. On August*28,*2009, it was released worldwide, yet it wasnt until October 22, 2009 it was deemed certified.

•

http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/r.../brand3581.htm On the other hand, Leopard was certified before it was released to the public.

Apple 1993

Google steals from Apple.

China steals from Google.

Hahahahaha you suck Google! You suuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!