I use an iPhone and have apps like: flashcards, tv listings, language dictionaries, and a sleep tracker; which stray from the typical functionality of a smartphone.
I wonder what portion of Android users use such atypical apps. Any out there care to weigh in?
Hmmm, I have a Nexus S.
I use a dictionary
Play minecraft
Use a voice recorder
Flash player settings
and that's about it. Everything else is either a Google app or for productivity in some way.
he's trying to paint a picture that Apple has no new buyers, just all the previous sheeple buying again. Of course he misses that repeat customers are a great sign of customer satisfaction, something Apple exceeds in and something Android's vendors envy in Apple. He also fails to see how iPhone sales continually rise year after year, so unless he wants to argue that these same few sheeple are exponentially buying new iPhones each quarter he'll have to admit that Apple's year long sales with the same product are mostly to new buyers.
I use an iPhone and have apps like: flashcards, tv listings, language dictionaries, and a sleep tracker; which stray from the typical functionality of a smartphone.
I wonder what portion of Android users use such atypical apps. Any out there care to weigh in?
On my G2 I have apps for: File manager, ROM and backup management, Instant messaging (MSN and AIM), Soundhound, Graphing calculator, Terminal access, Camera scanning, Barcode scanner, and SetCPU (overclocking)
Everything else is done via google's apps or through apps that came with the ROM I'm using (CM7.0)
In terms of total number of apps, its roughly equal to what I had on my 3GS; though those were mainly to cover functionality deficiencies, while on android I have more apps dedicated to dicking around with superuser access.
My sister's iphone 4 on the other hand, has a ton of 'fart' apps
I use an iPhone and have apps like: flashcards, tv listings, language dictionaries, and a sleep tracker; which stray from the typical functionality of a smartphone.
I wonder what portion of Android users use such atypical apps. Any out there care to weigh in?
I have a TV listing and reminders app (TV Show favs)
that's about it as far as "Atypical" apps go...the rest are native apps for social sites (twitter, facebook, google +, myspace - just kidding about myspace)
maps, a subway listing app, an audio manager, file/photo hider app (very useful), 3 file managers (1 that comes with MIUI, one that has root access, and another that I hardly use but I use to back in my G1, Nexus One days so it's more nostalgic...plus it allows me to edit zip files without extracting them)
8 games (3 angry birds, Shadowgun, MC2, Nova 2, WordsWF, and a game called Project INF a top down team deathmatch/CTF game that is noticeably outdated)
A banking app, A backup app, a barcode scanner
3 different cameras not counting stock, and a photo editor and video player
SoundCloud, Shazam,
A translate app, a craigslist app, and thats about it really.
Well, depending on how you define out of date, the IPhone comes out with outdated hardware. Now I own a IPhone 4 and love it. However, Steve is wrong, there is no one size fits all. Otherwise, It wouldn't exist. I am in college(Engineering); so a lot of my friends like to mess with coding and stuff. The android is open so they can do this. I do not know anything about that stuff, so a phone that works great and does most of the same thing, IPhone is better for me. (Until they get more than like 20% thinner than the Iphone 4, then ill jump to android, simply cause I don't get Apple's thing with things being 1mm thin. I want to hold something, not air.
Steve didn't say one size fits all. He said, this is how Apple does it.
Of course, some models will always be obsoleted, after a decent interval. But the latest OS will NEVER get onto the HTC Nexus One, and that's recent, right? A year and a half ago?
iOS5 fits on the 3Gs, and that's how old? Oh, and how, oh how do you get the update? Plug it in to charge it and you get the notification.
While fragmentation is an issue that needs to be taken care of ASAP (part of the reason I feel Google should go vertical if they have to) the chart is purposefully misleading.
Steve didn't say one size fits all. He said, this is how Apple does it.
Of course, some models will always be obsoleted, after a decent interval. But the latest OS will NEVER get onto the HTC Nexus One, and that's recent, right? A year and a half ago?
iOS5 fits on the 3Gs, and that's how old? Oh, and how, oh how do you get the update? Plug it in to charge it and you get the notification.
It's been almost 2 years.
And ICS will most likely be ported to the Nexus One, it just will never see an official update.
Imagine, for a minute, that you could control your TV with your voice. And what it was calling up wasn't "channels," but apps. Buy Comedy Central. Buy or rent X. Play free web video. Your TV also has FaceTime on it. Kind of an Apple TV with apps and program storage. Multi-tier cable for $200 a month? No, no. Buy what you actually watch. Get a few basic channels from cable, for sports, live news and events.
"As of August, progress was spotty, and abysmal at T-Mobile and Verizon, where AndroidAndMe found that only a fraction of phones with those carriers were running the latest version of Android."
"What's the end result of fragmentation for you and me? First, the constant game of waiting for updates--some of your friends have Gingerbread, you're still on Froyo, you're complaining about that and then another friend comes up behind you and says they haven't even gotten Froyo. You never know when updates are coming, other than rumors on blogs and forums, and there never seems to be a reason for the delay. That's just a terrible customer experience--but it's not the worst problem.
"Fragmentation also leads to lukewarm developer support, which leaves us frustratingly behind the apps race compared to the iTunes App Store. And it means delays on hotly desired apps, like the Netflix app, which the company said was nearly impossible to develop considering the lack of a common DRM platform across devices."
Android is not fragmented. The only issue you would have would be on a device over 2 years old. And that would only be for a limited number of applications.
For modders, and hackers, and tweakers, etc...Android will probably always be fine as we are more forgiving because we can fix shit ourselves.
But for the average consumer, Android IS ugly, Android IS buggy, and Android IS unintuitive.
ICS fixes at least 2 of those problems from what I can see, let's hope they can fix the 3rd, and also let's hope that OEMs realize it isn't 2006 and earlier anymore and the blitzkreig phone release and ignore model of the past isn't gonna work.
I wonder if the average Android user even notices or cares if he or she can get the latest OS, though?
Buy a cheap or free Android phone, get a functional smart phone with a decent browser, decent email and texting, excellent maps and navigation, OK media playback and some currently popular games. If you never stray much beyond that functionality, and the phone works OK when you get it, you're probably content to use what you have, even if an update should become available.
My dad had some old Samsung model running some ancient version of Android, 1.x I believe. He doesn't know the version. It has never been updated, and AT&T has never tried to encourage, enable, to help him upgrade (and why would they? They would rather sell him a new phone and get him to re-up his 2-year contract). It was a free phone deal anyway. So I wasn't expecting to hear my dad tell me that he had upgraded his iPod Touch (4th Gen) to iOS 5 already. I was surprised he even knew what it was, why he should upgrade, and how to do it. Apple makes it a cinch. This is why fragmentation is minimized on iOS.
BTW, he's ready to ditch his Samsung phone... He says half the touch screen sometimes stops receiving input and he has to reboot it, LOL.
Nexus One owners, who up to now had received timely updates, are frozen out of Ice Cream Sandwich altogether.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Swift
But the latest OS will NEVER get onto the HTC Nexus One, and that's recent, right? A year and a half ago?
iOS5 fits on the 3Gs, and that's how old? Oh, and how, oh how do you get the update? Plug it in to charge it and you get the notification.
New Rule: When referring to Android updates categorize them Official or Unofficial.
With that now said, just because the Phone isn't getting updated by Google/Manufacturer/Carrier does NOT instantly mean that that particular phone will NEVER see said version. Case in point, the T-mobile G1 was able to go up to Gingerbread(1.5, 1.6 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) unsupported by Google or HTC for 3 years before being legacized and abandoned this year by the community. 1 phone duration in canada, almost 2 Entire contracts with a US carrier.
Secondly the Nexus one already has an SDK port of Ice cream sandwhich running on it. However it's still missing a some features that are being worked on such as bluetooth and small issues with data.
And lastly, The Nexus one was a developer phone which received almost zero marketing, sold unlocked and primarily for Tech oriented folks so I HIGHLY doubt that Google not updating the Nexus one will stop them from getting Ice cream Sandwhich.
New Rule: When referring to Android updates categorize them Official or Unofficial.
With that now said, just because the Phone isn't getting updated by Google/Manufacturer/Carrier does NOT instantly mean that that particular phone will NEVER see said version. Case in point, the T-mobile G1 was able to go up to Gingerbread(1.5, 1.6 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) unsupported by Google or HTC for 3 years before being legacized and abandoned this year by the community. 1 phone duration in canada, almost 2 Entire contracts with a US carrier.
Secondly the Nexus one already has an SDK port of Ice cream sandwhich running on it. However it's still missing a some features that are being worked on such as bluetooth and small issues with data.
And lastly, The Nexus one was a developer phone which received almost zero marketing, sold unlocked and primarily for Tech oriented folks so I HIGHLY doubt that Google not updating the Nexus one will stop them from getting Ice cream Sandwhich.
What a foolish argument. Sure, there will always homebrew ways of poorly cramming some OS onto some HW but that isn't how you categorize CE. If the vendor or carrier isn't issuing an update for that device then that's it. Done! Kaput! You can't claim that some guy in Budapest figured out a way to get ICS on the Nexus One (though the speaker and BT don't work and the battery lasts 1/3 the time) and then claim that isn't fragmentation. Consumers aren't going to bother with all that crap. They want a simple solution that works. A solution they can trust. Note the C in CE stands for Consumer, not Coder.
Comments
You make an interesting point.
I use an iPhone and have apps like: flashcards, tv listings, language dictionaries, and a sleep tracker; which stray from the typical functionality of a smartphone.
I wonder what portion of Android users use such atypical apps. Any out there care to weigh in?
Hmmm, I have a Nexus S.
I use a dictionary
Play minecraft
Use a voice recorder
Flash player settings
and that's about it. Everything else is either a Google app or for productivity in some way.
I'm not sure what this means as a reply.
he's trying to paint a picture that Apple has no new buyers, just all the previous sheeple buying again. Of course he misses that repeat customers are a great sign of customer satisfaction, something Apple exceeds in and something Android's vendors envy in Apple. He also fails to see how iPhone sales continually rise year after year, so unless he wants to argue that these same few sheeple are exponentially buying new iPhones each quarter he'll have to admit that Apple's year long sales with the same product are mostly to new buyers.
Quick, somebody call the cops! That would mean my gf is a child rapist!
Nice comeback
You make an interesting point.
I use an iPhone and have apps like: flashcards, tv listings, language dictionaries, and a sleep tracker; which stray from the typical functionality of a smartphone.
I wonder what portion of Android users use such atypical apps. Any out there care to weigh in?
On my G2 I have apps for: File manager, ROM and backup management, Instant messaging (MSN and AIM), Soundhound, Graphing calculator, Terminal access, Camera scanning, Barcode scanner, and SetCPU (overclocking)
Everything else is done via google's apps or through apps that came with the ROM I'm using (CM7.0)
In terms of total number of apps, its roughly equal to what I had on my 3GS; though those were mainly to cover functionality deficiencies, while on android I have more apps dedicated to dicking around with superuser access.
My sister's iphone 4 on the other hand, has a ton of 'fart' apps
You make an interesting point.
I use an iPhone and have apps like: flashcards, tv listings, language dictionaries, and a sleep tracker; which stray from the typical functionality of a smartphone.
I wonder what portion of Android users use such atypical apps. Any out there care to weigh in?
I have a TV listing and reminders app (TV Show favs)
that's about it as far as "Atypical" apps go...the rest are native apps for social sites (twitter, facebook, google +, myspace - just kidding about myspace)
maps, a subway listing app, an audio manager, file/photo hider app (very useful), 3 file managers (1 that comes with MIUI, one that has root access, and another that I hardly use but I use to back in my G1, Nexus One days so it's more nostalgic...plus it allows me to edit zip files without extracting them)
IMDb, ReadItLater, Engadget, XDA, Pulse News Reader
8 games (3 angry birds, Shadowgun, MC2, Nova 2, WordsWF, and a game called Project INF a top down team deathmatch/CTF game that is noticeably outdated)
A banking app, A backup app, a barcode scanner
3 different cameras not counting stock, and a photo editor and video player
SoundCloud, Shazam,
A translate app, a craigslist app, and thats about it really.
Well, depending on how you define out of date, the IPhone comes out with outdated hardware. Now I own a IPhone 4 and love it. However, Steve is wrong, there is no one size fits all. Otherwise, It wouldn't exist. I am in college(Engineering); so a lot of my friends like to mess with coding and stuff. The android is open so they can do this. I do not know anything about that stuff, so a phone that works great and does most of the same thing, IPhone is better for me. (Until they get more than like 20% thinner than the Iphone 4, then ill jump to android, simply cause I don't get Apple's thing with things being 1mm thin. I want to hold something, not air.
Steve didn't say one size fits all. He said, this is how Apple does it.
Of course, some models will always be obsoleted, after a decent interval. But the latest OS will NEVER get onto the HTC Nexus One, and that's recent, right? A year and a half ago?
iOS5 fits on the 3Gs, and that's how old? Oh, and how, oh how do you get the update? Plug it in to charge it and you get the notification.
Steve didn't say one size fits all. He said, this is how Apple does it.
Of course, some models will always be obsoleted, after a decent interval. But the latest OS will NEVER get onto the HTC Nexus One, and that's recent, right? A year and a half ago?
iOS5 fits on the 3Gs, and that's how old? Oh, and how, oh how do you get the update? Plug it in to charge it and you get the notification.
It's been almost 2 years.
And ICS will most likely be ported to the Nexus One, it just will never see an official update.
"As of August, progress was spotty, and abysmal at T-Mobile and Verizon, where AndroidAndMe found that only a fraction of phones with those carriers were running the latest version of Android."
"What's the end result of fragmentation for you and me? First, the constant game of waiting for updates--some of your friends have Gingerbread, you're still on Froyo, you're complaining about that and then another friend comes up behind you and says they haven't even gotten Froyo. You never know when updates are coming, other than rumors on blogs and forums, and there never seems to be a reason for the delay. That's just a terrible customer experience--but it's not the worst problem.
"Fragmentation also leads to lukewarm developer support, which leaves us frustratingly behind the apps race compared to the iTunes App Store. And it means delays on hotly desired apps, like the Netflix app, which the company said was nearly impossible to develop considering the lack of a common DRM platform across devices."
Dear Android: This is your last Chance
Android is not fragmented. The only issue you would have would be on a device over 2 years old. And that would only be for a limited number of applications.
Dear Android: This is your last Chance
I wholeheartedly agree with that article.
For modders, and hackers, and tweakers, etc...Android will probably always be fine as we are more forgiving because we can fix shit ourselves.
But for the average consumer, Android IS ugly, Android IS buggy, and Android IS unintuitive.
ICS fixes at least 2 of those problems from what I can see, let's hope they can fix the 3rd, and also let's hope that OEMs realize it isn't 2006 and earlier anymore and the blitzkreig phone release and ignore model of the past isn't gonna work.
http://theunderstatement.com/post/11...ory-of-support
I wonder if the average Android user even notices or cares if he or she can get the latest OS, though?
Buy a cheap or free Android phone, get a functional smart phone with a decent browser, decent email and texting, excellent maps and navigation, OK media playback and some currently popular games. If you never stray much beyond that functionality, and the phone works OK when you get it, you're probably content to use what you have, even if an update should become available.
My dad had some old Samsung model running some ancient version of Android, 1.x I believe. He doesn't know the version. It has never been updated, and AT&T has never tried to encourage, enable, to help him upgrade (and why would they? They would rather sell him a new phone and get him to re-up his 2-year contract). It was a free phone deal anyway. So I wasn't expecting to hear my dad tell me that he had upgraded his iPod Touch (4th Gen) to iOS 5 already. I was surprised he even knew what it was, why he should upgrade, and how to do it. Apple makes it a cinch. This is why fragmentation is minimized on iOS.
BTW, he's ready to ditch his Samsung phone... He says half the touch screen sometimes stops receiving input and he has to reboot it, LOL.
Nexus One owners, who up to now had received timely updates, are frozen out of Ice Cream Sandwich altogether.
But the latest OS will NEVER get onto the HTC Nexus One, and that's recent, right? A year and a half ago?
iOS5 fits on the 3Gs, and that's how old? Oh, and how, oh how do you get the update? Plug it in to charge it and you get the notification.
New Rule: When referring to Android updates categorize them Official or Unofficial.
With that now said, just because the Phone isn't getting updated by Google/Manufacturer/Carrier does NOT instantly mean that that particular phone will NEVER see said version. Case in point, the T-mobile G1 was able to go up to Gingerbread(1.5, 1.6 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) unsupported by Google or HTC for 3 years before being legacized and abandoned this year by the community. 1 phone duration in canada, almost 2 Entire contracts with a US carrier.
Secondly the Nexus one already has an SDK port of Ice cream sandwhich running on it. However it's still missing a some features that are being worked on such as bluetooth and small issues with data.
And lastly, The Nexus one was a developer phone which received almost zero marketing, sold unlocked and primarily for Tech oriented folks so I HIGHLY doubt that Google not updating the Nexus one will stop them from getting Ice cream Sandwhich.
Android is not fragmented.
The rest of the planet's definition begs to differ.
New Rule: When referring to Android updates categorize them Official or Unofficial.
With that now said, just because the Phone isn't getting updated by Google/Manufacturer/Carrier does NOT instantly mean that that particular phone will NEVER see said version. Case in point, the T-mobile G1 was able to go up to Gingerbread(1.5, 1.6 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) unsupported by Google or HTC for 3 years before being legacized and abandoned this year by the community. 1 phone duration in canada, almost 2 Entire contracts with a US carrier.
Secondly the Nexus one already has an SDK port of Ice cream sandwhich running on it. However it's still missing a some features that are being worked on such as bluetooth and small issues with data.
And lastly, The Nexus one was a developer phone which received almost zero marketing, sold unlocked and primarily for Tech oriented folks so I HIGHLY doubt that Google not updating the Nexus one will stop them from getting Ice cream Sandwhich.
What a foolish argument. Sure, there will always homebrew ways of poorly cramming some OS onto some HW but that isn't how you categorize CE. If the vendor or carrier isn't issuing an update for that device then that's it. Done! Kaput! You can't claim that some guy in Budapest figured out a way to get ICS on the Nexus One (though the speaker and BT don't work and the battery lasts 1/3 the time) and then claim that isn't fragmentation. Consumers aren't going to bother with all that crap. They want a simple solution that works. A solution they can trust. Note the C in CE stands for Consumer, not Coder.
[citation required]
The rest of the planet's definition begs to differ.
Please explain how Android is fragmented then.
I've already explained twice that only need Froyo (2 year old OS) to run the latest applications.