All the article “proves” is that it’s just as easy to devise a feature list favoring the iPhone as it is to favor Android. Big deal.
The inherent worth of a product is the total package, from the hardware to the software to the ecosystem. When measured on that scale I think the iPhone beats up Android and takes its lunch money. But you’ll never capture that in a feature list, can’t we just leave those to the marketing people?
Apple keeps the iPhone screen size the same, but increases its resolution significantly while making the phone itself narrower and thinner. It is, after all, a handheld device.
Motorola increases the physical screen size and produces something half the size of Cleveland. It’s huge.
Pick what you want, but I can’t tell if Motorola is gunning for an iPhone/iPad hybrid or just thinks bigger is better even where it doesn’t make sense. Either way, no thanks.
As the Android market has grown, so has the diversity of devices. Today, 11 different device make up 96% of AdMob’s Android traffic. According to AdMob’s latest metrics, old versions the Android operating system – versions 1.5 and 1.6 – still account for over 60% of all the Android traffic on AdMob’s network. Devices running Android 2.0 and 2.1only make up about 35% of all the traffic.
So what’s the pattern I see? Since Google can’t control the versioning issue, they can at least control core functions and apps among the operating system variances. So when Android 2.x learns a new trick, there’s a good chance Android 1.6 will learn it too.
The above article discusses Google and the fragmentation issue on Android devices.
It’s a good observation, but really only describes how Google can get some of its bigger features on older versions. I don’t agree that this addresses fragmentation:
These are what lead to fragmentation, and Google can do nothing to address them. Nor do they have any particular incentive to.
They just want you looking at their ads, and whether you run 1.5 up to 2.1, they’ve got you for that. Heck, if it was about anything other than ads they wouldn’t be giving the OS away in the first place.
“I didn’t know that I had an older operating system until I compared it with my friends,” Roark says. “They said my Android Market looks very different from theirs.”…
Like Roark, many Android customers are discovering that their new smartphones do not have the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system. Despite state-of-the art hardware and design, many new Android phones are shipped with older versions of the firmware, cutting off consumers’ access to newer features and apps that require the most recent versions.
Ah, the perils of fragmentation. This is a problem that’s only going to get worse and, despite the dreams of some pundits, there’s very little Google can do about it. This is what so-called “open” begets.
In this case, why would Verizon dole out an upgrade that provides free GPS navigation when they can sell it to him for $10 a month? And that’s even assuming the guy’s phone can run the latest Android. It’s a mess, and getting messier.
I wonder what Google’s new mouthpiece Tim Bray thinks of this? I’m sure he’ll have a good little corporate response after he figures out the difference between the mobile internet and an app store.
The macho image in advertising is pretty heavily used for truck commercials, and maybe power tools. They’re low in how functional the product actually is, and high in how much of a he-man you’ll look like using it.
Now I guess the macho image applies to smartphones as well (sorry, “robot phones”). After all, what man looking to overcome his inadequacies wouldn’t be drawn to these:
There’s more, but be warned only Neanderthals need apply.
Male or female, the first thing I look for is a mind at work. I can only hope no more men will be swayed by this crap than women are swayed because a product is pink, or has a mirror. This kind of “macho” advertising makes me ashamed of my gender.
The Small Wave. 