Is Android Ready?
Is Android Ready?
Although Android has gone mainstream
already, and is currently the dominating smartphone OS, there is
still some skepticism over its overall polish and usability.
To clarify, I don't mean, "Is
Android Ready - For group 'x'?"
I mean, quite simply, is it ready as a
whole? Would you consider it a complete product?
To start the discussion, I am going to
argue that Android, as an Operating System, is indeed ready. However,
Android, as a marketing movement, is not.
What do I mean by that? I mean that
since manufacturers have some inexplicable desire to mutilate vanilla
Android with their custom skins, they are stealing value and
ease-of-use from their customers. One of the biggest problems caused
by their customization is a lack of uniformity. Though Android is
inherently customizable, out of the box, ALL ANDROID PHONES SHOULD
LOOK THE SAME. I don't mean the hardware, I mean what you see on the
screen. I mean the default apps. I mean the /experience/.
What would this do for a user? A few
things:
1. Unified experience, tutorials work
across the board. When a user decides to use Google to look up a 'how
to' thread or video, they should be able to use it across any android
device. This means that the community as a whole, and also
manufacturers, will be able to better cater to the user, and they
will need less manpower to handle manuals and FAQ's, such as what is
needed for HTC's Sense, Samsung's TouchWiz, and ViewSonic's
Tap'n'Tap.
2. One less thing to 'go wrong'. With
that one less layer of customization, users will inevitably have less
problems. For example, the Droid Incredible 2 has problems with its
Clock widget and app due to Sense customizations (see:
http://tinyurl.com/72jxmvv ) and ViewSonic's Tap'n'Tap is so
horrible, some users returned it rather than trying to install a
custom ROM such as CyanogenMod (which shouldn't be necessary at all).
3. Less confusion, easier marketing.
Even some less savvy users have seen the hype about Google's latest
OS releases, such as Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) and eagerly
await their updates to the spiffy new software. With no additional
customizations, the manufacturers could port the latest releases to
their devices with relative ease, which in turn may mean some devices
get more updates during their lifetime.
