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I'm a freshman at Purdue University studying computer science, and my interest pretty much lays in mobile devices and programming. Just a background about myself.
I've been looking at mobile platforms. I've had some experience with using Windows Mobile and the iPhone OS, but haven't had any experience with Android. My question for all of you is, what OS do you think I, or more generally, current college students should focus on?
Obviously there's the big factor of personal preferences, but looking forward, what is going to be a big market?
The iPhone OS already has a big application market, and I do think it will only grow as the iPhone market share grows, but I fear the iPhone's market will peak before I get out of college in about 3 more years.
Android seems to be the budding OS, since its market share is quite low due to only having one device out, and for a small(er) US carrier. But I feel Android, since backed by Google, will thrive for awhile.
Blackberry OS seems really nice, but for now I think the developer pool and demand for blackberry applications is quite low. But, this means that is could peak about then time I'm out of college.
Finally, Windows Mobile seems to be, and no offense to anyone here, but the laughing stock of mobile OS'. The introduction of Windows Mobile 6.5 will help, and Windows Mobile 7 could spark the WinMo community and userbase.
What are your thoughts?
iPhone will continue to be successful but its closed environment will hinder its full potential. It is likely to reach a critical mass soon that it won't be able to reach beyond as long as it clings to proprietary hardware.
Android is likely to continue to be a niche market, much like Google Docs. Successful only if you define the term in a very particular way, but not in a "mass market" way.
Blackberry, from an applications standpoint, has already stalled and is likely to continue to do so unless the Storm can break through, which seems unlikely at this point. After the initial mania over it, it's become kind of a yawn.
You've not included Symbian, but since I don't know much about it I won't comment on it here.
Windows Mobile is not likely to increase its market share significantly, but it's also unlikely to lose much more market share. Integration with the Windows desktop/server world is only likely to become tighter, and that will remain attractive to business users.
I doubt you will go far wrong with strong skills in both iPhone and WinMo. Others are risky.
But really, you mentioned you want to program for mobile devices. With the OS's you mention you are unnecessarily limiting yourself. Windows CE is a quite powerful mobile platform that many of the largest manufacturers are basing their mobile strategies on - just not telephones or other handheld devices. There are many other mobile technologies that you should investigate and will probably give you far greater opportunities than a phone OS.
Like he said, I would definately not focus on a phone OS but rather on a core OS.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, ajbopp, and I get where you're coming from. But in terms of market share for phones, I feel that the trend is going quickly towards average-user type smartphones like the iPhone. My feeling is that whatever OS can tailor towards the average user is going to be the one that comes out with the biggest market share, but that much is obviously. WinMo and Blackberry at the moment are geared towards businesses and if they stay that way they won't own the market. I'm really looking into what OS will perform well in the mass market.
Gotta disagree with you there. Whatever OS can tailor to business needs is where the market share is at. And I don't mean the device that can integrate with Exchange Server the easiest and most reliably.
The OS that will run the navigation, climate control, GPS, etc. systems in every automobile produced by Toyota, or every transport truck engineered by Navistar, or every driver from UPS...that market will dwarf the personal communication device market. The opportunity for application development is more extensive, and the value of those applications will be immeasurably higher. They already are.
let him go with the FailPhone already...
ajbopp said:
Gotta disagree with you there. Whatever OS can tailor to business needs is where the market share is at. And I don't mean the device that can integrate with Exchange Server the easiest and most reliably.
The OS that will run the navigation, climate control, GPS, etc. systems in every automobile produced by Toyota, or every transport truck engineered by Navistar, or every driver from UPS...that market will dwarf the personal communication device market. The opportunity for application development is more extensive, and the value of those applications will be immeasurably higher. They already are.
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Well right now the iPhone has a sizable market share and is tailored to the average user, no?
And I think the OS that is capable of running the things you mentioned sounds like Android, since it's not limited by hardware or software limitations.
met3ora said:
Well right now the iPhone has a sizable market share and is tailored to the average user, no?
And I think the OS that is capable of running the things you mentioned sounds like Android, since it's not limited by hardware or software limitations.
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But it's also not standard, or well-used. You're banking on Android becoming something as commonplace as Java did so quickly in the 90s. I think that's pretty much a long shot.
Plus, you have to consider code re-use and platform diversity. Today, Windows, Windows Mobile, and WindowsCE is still the target to beat when it comes to marketing plans, project expenses, customer familiarity, legacy product integration, and a host of other considerations.
Java offered platform independence at a time when the WWW was just beginning to burgeon. Had it been developed even 5 years earlier, it probably would not have been successful.
There is no comparable event on the horizon that is likely to make Android the dominant mobile OS. There's just not enough incentive to jump to it.
As someone that sells cell phones for a living (at least while in college), I will give my perspective on what I see and hear from customers, as well, my personal feelings as a multiplatform smart phone user...
Background: I offer multiple HTC devices... the Diamond, TyTN II, Touch Dual, Touch, and S621. I offer 3, soon to be 4, Blackberries, the 8310 Curve(2mp camera, GPS, EDGE), the Pearl 8110 (Same as Curver), and the 8820 (No camera, GPS, EDGE, and WiFi), and shortly the new Curve 8900 (3.2mp camera, GPS, WiFi, and EDGE).
Customer: The majority of my customers go with the Blackberry Curve/Pearl(More Curves than Pearls). They like them for the ease of use, in terms of easy app downloading and use, easy e-mail, easy internet, easy customization with a new theme. They are mostly concerned with rock solid stability, battery life, and easy to use. Business ability plays a very small role in the choice, actually, of a BB.
Helping with business related aspects has more to do with selling a customer on a smartphone than any one brand. Also, as I am on a small tangant, BB has done a lot as of late to make their phones less business centric and more mainstream, and have been very successful with this.
As for customers that go with WinMo based devices they don't mind a slightly more complicated OS. They are a bit more tech savy. They don't really care so much about the phone's camera, as they already have a 12mp digital camera for that. The are looking more at cutting edge, from the touchscreen, to the ability to do anything with the phone. They do get frustrated with how slow out of the box the HTC can be, but they don't mind, because they are likely flashing a ROM anyways, or they don't care because it gives them more abilities out of the box than a BB will ever be able to do with every app loaded onto it.
So what does this all mean in terms of longevity? Well, a couple things...
1. WinMo has a much brighter future than BB. In 3 years, WinMo devices are going to be faster and more capable out of the box. BB's will gain in speed, but they will still be limited to essentially an 'os' inside an OS. Palm ran into the problem BB is fastly approaching, they can't improve on what they have anymore since their ceiling is already reached. That is a huge benefit WinMo has over BB, and the others, except for maybe Android, it's ceiling is much higher in terms of absoluter ability.
2. It means that whoever developes a UI for WinMo, whether it be microsoft, HTC, or someone else, that is as friendly as the BB OS will make a killing!
If I was doing a degree in computing, with my focus geared toward mobile platforms I would focus on WinMo/ Windows CE... I would also make sure my JAVA was up-to-date, as I don't see dumbphones going away anytime soon.
As for my personal preference as someone that owns both a TyTN II and a BB 8110 Pearl, I prefer WinMo. I like it because I am not affraid of technology, can customize it ten fold more than the BB, have a more complete web experience, and so forth. Basically, I prefer capability over all other aspects. And like I said already, while WinMo may lack in ease of use and out of box speed right now, it will catch up and prove to be superior.
NOTE: If, and this is a huge IF given Apple's track record, the iPhone OS becomes available for other platforms, it will explode and take over a huge share of the market, I don't think 50%, but it will be one of the top 2 smartphone OS.
pjcforpres, so you're saying that Windows Mobile will start becoming the more prominent OS in the long run?
The release of Windows Mobile 6.5 (I haven't tried it, I've since moved on to a Nokia N95 from my Tilt) looks like it's finally giving a facelift to the standard ugly interface we're all used to.
My concern with WinMo is the lack of an built-in application store. Admittedly I haven't kept up as much as I should on that, but I believe MS has one in the works to be shipped with 6.5? If so and if this takes off, I'd probably look to move into that field.
Has anyone had experience programming in XCode (iPhone/Mac OSX) and can tell how difficult it is compared to other languages such as Java?
pjcforpres said:
As someone that sells cell phones for a living (at least while in college), I will give my perspective on what I see and hear from customers, as well, my personal feelings as a multiplatform smart phone user...
Background: I offer multiple HTC devices... the Diamond, TyTN II, Touch Dual, Touch, and S621. I offer 3, soon to be 4, Blackberries, the 8310 Curve(2mp camera, GPS, EDGE), the Pearl 8110 (Same as Curver), and the 8820 (No camera, GPS, EDGE, and WiFi), and shortly the new Curve 8900 (3.2mp camera, GPS, WiFi, and EDGE).
Customer: The majority of my customers go with the Blackberry Curve/Pearl(More Curves than Pearls). They like them for the ease of use, in terms of easy app downloading and use, easy e-mail, easy internet, easy customization with a new theme. They are mostly concerned with rock solid stability, battery life, and easy to use. Business ability plays a very small role in the choice, actually, of a BB.
Helping with business related aspects has more to do with selling a customer on a smartphone than any one brand. Also, as I am on a small tangant, BB has done a lot as of late to make their phones less business centric and more mainstream, and have been very successful with this.
As for customers that go with WinMo based devices they don't mind a slightly more complicated OS. They are a bit more tech savy. They don't really care so much about the phone's camera, as they already have a 12mp digital camera for that. The are looking more at cutting edge, from the touchscreen, to the ability to do anything with the phone. They do get frustrated with how slow out of the box the HTC can be, but they don't mind, because they are likely flashing a ROM anyways, or they don't care because it gives them more abilities out of the box than a BB will ever be able to do with every app loaded onto it.
So what does this all mean in terms of longevity? Well, a couple things...
1. WinMo has a much brighter future than BB. In 3 years, WinMo devices are going to be faster and more capable out of the box. BB's will gain in speed, but they will still be limited to essentially an 'os' inside an OS. Palm ran into the problem BB is fastly approaching, they can't improve on what they have anymore since their ceiling is already reached. That is a huge benefit WinMo has over BB, and the others, except for maybe Android, it's ceiling is much higher in terms of absoluter ability.
2. It means that whoever developes a UI for WinMo, whether it be microsoft, HTC, or someone else, that is as friendly as the BB OS will make a killing!
If I was doing a degree in computing, with my focus geared toward mobile platforms I would focus on WinMo/ Windows CE... I would also make sure my JAVA was up-to-date, as I don't see dumbphones going away anytime soon.
As for my personal preference as someone that owns both a TyTN II and a BB 8110 Pearl, I prefer WinMo. I like it because I am not affraid of technology, can customize it ten fold more than the BB, have a more complete web experience, and so forth. Basically, I prefer capability over all other aspects. And like I said already, while WinMo may lack in ease of use and out of box speed right now, it will catch up and prove to be superior.
NOTE: If, and this is a huge IF given Apple's track record, the iPhone OS becomes available for other platforms, it will explode and take over a huge share of the market, I don't think 50%, but it will be one of the top 2 smartphone OS.
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Typing on my blackstone right now so will make it short. .
I definately do -not- think the WinMo OS will thrive, nor completely go out of the picture. If they manage to increase their user experience and out of the box situation it might, but I don't see this happening anywhere untill Windows 7.
Looking at your statement about WinMo users I have to completely disagree with you. The biggest share of people that have a WinMo device do nothing with customization at all, nor are they tech-savvy people. The thing that influences phone sales the most is still the outside (Features, looks, branding) before software, looking at the sale figures of let's say the Omnia vs the iPhone in Germany says it aswell. The majority of people that bought a iPhone (average-users which present the highest share) didn't go to the Apple store because they read about the fluid OS it's using, but cause it's from Apple and they had been using an iPod for so long. The biggest reason the iPhone had such a succes was cause of Apple's image in customer-friendly electronics and as a status symbol. (Say all you want, marketing-technical this is the case.)
Most likely if we actually look at Apple's record, theres nearly no chance the iPhone OS will go multi-platform. They've always been extremely tidy-up on enforcing patents and even try to go against x86 hardware Mac OS users.
Fingers getting tired now so that's all for now
pjcforpres said:
I would also make sure my JAVA was up-to-date, as I don't see dumbphones going away anytime soon.
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Lol..
Edit: What about Palm's WEB OS???
windows will be thrive i think
This is an interesting discussion. I'm a great fun of the sloppy open OS windows offers for the same reason I dwell on these forums. You asked about an appstore, which wm6.5 has (not functional yet because of the betaness). But I really don't think that's something to base future predictions on, because everyone is catching up to that right now, I do believe nokia has an appstore as well.
As for the thriving osses, I'm quite certain that the general smartfone market share is and will be increasing. People seem to pay EUR 600 to get the newest "dumb" phones, for the same money they can have a smartphone that looks good as well. I do see apple's one provider provider as limiting for Iphone OS as a lot of people are satisfied with the deals providers proir their newest phone deal and getting a simunlocked one is quite a hassle. I have had some big discussions over people who are buying what os, and they seem to believe that the general population thinks of an iphone when they think of a multifunctional phone. That being said I'm looking very much forward to windows 7 as I think it will deal with a lot of the currents uglyness and sloppyness of the phones. It will however mean that the newer WM will be "more" closed than before, but I'll guess we will manage , 12
Right now 3 OS'es are leading the pack: WM, Apples and Symbians.
Symbians will probably continue to prosper since they are still by far the easiest to familiarize devices you can ever have. But I'm sure, until symbian figures out a way to be as pretty as an iPhone or as flexible as WM.. they will slowly come out of the picture like Palm and BBs.
As long as Steve Jobs stays alive, apple will get bigger. They may not call it iPhones anymore but it's gonna be something hip and cool that would certainly appeal to the younger/new generation market.
WM will never die. As long as you have Windows PC's, you cannot kill WM. And right now, WM6.5 is heading the right track.. it maintained the flexibility and power of WM and added an iPhone feel to it. I have no doubt that WM7 will definitely make everything better. Much like what they did from XP to Vista.
Android? Hmm.. until they show more devices that can use it, yeah maybe. But I'd stick to WM and iPhones if you wanna develop mobile apps.
antrak:
I understand what you are saying about marketing and all of that. The success of the iPhone is largely due to marketing and familiarity. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, brands and locks down their technology like Apple does. And the branding they gave the iPhone was ease of use, speed, and customization out of the box.
WinMo devices don't have that as easily out of the box. Overall, you can do more with a WinMo device than an iPhone, but it takes more to get the WinMo device to do it.
And it has been my experience, with WinMo and BB as my only 2 smart phone platforms, that the more tech savvy people go with the WinMo device, and those looking for a simpler more straight forward out of the box experience go with the BB.
At the OP:
Yes, I am saying that in the long run, WinMo will be the overall leader. Just as you see Windows based PCs as the dominant computer in the market, you will see WinMo devices as the dominant smart phone in the market. The only drawbacks WinMo has can be fixed rather easily... The lack of speed is something this community has already addressed and fixed. My TyTN II flies! The touch friendliness is being address as we speak, with Touchflo from HTC and TouchWiz from Samsung and WinMo 6.5/7.0 from Microsoft. I believe that Microsoft coming up with the solution is more likely, and is more important than for HTC or Samsung or some other company to come up with their own UI solution. Also, fingers crossed, better graphics drivers would go a long way in helping out WinMo devices, especially HTC devices.
Also, note that WinMo syncs up much better with all those home PC's than any other platform. People looking to get a smart phone are buying them with the idea that they can use the phone in place of their computer for many regular day tasks. I use my TyTN II to manage the small business I am starting up, my work emails, my schedule, school work, and so much more.
I also have a BB Pearl, and as much as I loved it's simplicity, it wasn't powerful enough or integrated enough with my home PC to cut it. BB is great at making a rock solid idiot proof smart phone that allows you to communicate with ease, and they are doing more for multimedia. But BB is approaching it's limitations as it is an 'os' inside and OS.
WebOS looks amazing, and I am sure it will run amazing as well. Palm does good work, for the most part, but they are similar to BB. The new WebOS is a step above, and will have a higher ceiling than BBs current ceiling for future ability. But it is still going to fall short of WinMo, Android, etc. in long term totality because it is too isolated, just like BB.
The advantages WinMo, and the iPhone as well, have over everyone else is that they have full computer based OS backing them up. WinMo has Windows PCs, the iPhone has Macs. As Apple develops the iPhone OS more and more, it will sync better and better with Macs, and do more and more.
As Android handsets become more plentiful, the development will pick up pace, and it will gain a following, especially with Google backing them. And their is the potential they will sync up multiplatform better than anyone else just because they are open source.
WinMo will gain in out of the box speed and UI friendliness. It will probably be a year for WinMo 7.0 to come out and catch up in speed and UI. But WinMo is already ahead of the game when it comes to everything else. Just look at the market and what is available for WinMo devices compared to the other OS.
WinMo will always sync better with Windows PCs than any other OS. As Apple works on it, the iPhone will sync better with Macs than any other OS. And as time goes on, technology advances, and so forth, the smart phone market will follow the home computer market. WinMo will be the leader, Apple will be second, and the others will still hold on to the market, but they won't ever eclipse WinMo and Apple once the market settles.
Basically, I see the smart phone market as a developing market right now. I don't think today’s numbers and trends are very significant when you are trying to size up long term trends. I believe long term trends, and business school agrees here, will follow several factors, specifically for smart phones those work out like such:
1. Usability: This has to do with speed, UI ease of use, and compatibility with other technologies.
2. Price: The more expensive, the less likely it is to "boom" or "tip" or any of those nice catch phrases.
3. Stickiness: Aka, cool factor, fun factor, hip factor, everyone must have it factor.
I see WinMo, in the long term, leading all others when it comes to usability, as it is a familiar platform that will sync better with already established technologies. It will also be competively priced, except for BB, I don't believe anyone else is as cheap. And stickiness... well the iPhone has that right now, but with proper marketing and better UI, WinMo will catch back up. And FYI, I believe sticky wise it goes 1.iPhone 2. BB Curve 3. G1 4. HTC of sort.
I am rambling and all over the place a bit by now, and since I am not going to edit, I will recap to bring it all together.
Based on my personal experience with WinMo and BB, as a salesman and an end user, as well my knowledge of the market, I believe WinMo devices have the brightest future. Of course, WinMo devices have to overcome their out of the box lack of speed and UI friendliness, but I don't see those as insurmountable obstacles. Rather, I see those as all the more reason to focus on the WinMo platform, as there is going to be a demand for talented programmers capable of achieving that goal, as well, capable of taking advantage of the wide breadth of abilities that WinMo has.
I see where you're going in terms of integration and its benefits towards the future. I guess I'm being a litle short-sighted here, as now I feel the basic smartphone user *isn't* actually integrating.
Admittedly I'm looking primarily (and that's a shortfall of mine) at my own demographic, which is college kids looking for trendiness and wow factor. But I'm willing to bet that if you asked 20 college kids with WinMo or iPhones, you'd find 5 or less of them are actually syncing them to their computer.
As of right now, I believe the general public isn't tieing in their phone with their computer as most, if not all of us on this forum are used to doing. So in terms of integration being a big selling point, I don't see the general public looking at that as highly as us as more tech-savvy people do. Now, I DO believe that when we get far enough in to the future that integration WILL be a major selling point, but I believe the near future still seperates phone from computer.
The question of what attracts people to a phone is a rather interesting one. This is another assumption I'm making, but I believe what draws people to the iPhone is part trendy factor, part status symbol and part "you can do so many things with it so easily". I'm definitely open to being proven wrong, and I guess my argument comes from pure assumption and a bit of knowledge on how the college-kid's-brain functions, but I do see the average college kid as a fairly accurate representation of the general public.
It may look from all my posts that I'm very pro-iPhone, which isn't necessarily true. We can all agree that Apple has done many things right with their phone. I'm just interested in how it gained its popularity. If one were to see just how popular it was going to become and jumped on developing apps on it very early, there is a giant profit to be made here.
That's what I'm looking for-- what will peak in the coming years?
met3ora said:
I see where you're going in terms of integration and its benefits towards the future. I guess I'm being a litle short-sighted here, as now I feel the basic smartphone user *isn't* actually integrating.
Admittedly I'm looking primarily (and that's a shortfall of mine) at my own demographic, which is college kids looking for trendiness and wow factor. But I'm willing to bet that if you asked 20 college kids with WinMo or iPhones, you'd find 5 or less of them are actually syncing them to their computer.
As of right now, I believe the general public isn't tieing in their phone with their computer as most, if not all of us on this forum are used to doing. So in terms of integration being a big selling point, I don't see the general public looking at that as highly as us as more tech-savvy people do. Now, I DO believe that when we get far enough in to the future that integration WILL be a major selling point, but I believe the near future still seperates phone from computer.
The question of what attracts people to a phone is a rather interesting one. This is another assumption I'm making, but I believe what draws people to the iPhone is part trendy factor, part status symbol and part "you can do so many things with it so easily". I'm definitely open to being proven wrong, and I guess my argument comes from pure assumption and a bit of knowledge on how the college-kid's-brain functions, but I do see the average college kid as a fairly accurate representation of the general public.
It may look from all my posts that I'm very pro-iPhone, which isn't necessarily true. We can all agree that Apple has done many things right with their phone. I'm just interested in how it gained its popularity. If one were to see just how popular it was going to become and jumped on developing apps on it very early, there is a giant profit to be made here.
That's what I'm looking for-- what will peak in the coming years?
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I agree with you in general here... I am looking into the future as much as possible as that is what you seem to be asking about... "what will peak in the coming years?"
I also agree that in general, the average user isn't syncing their phone with their computer and are looking more towards ease of use. That is why I tried, and maybe failed, to emphasis that WinMo needs to improve that aspect in order for it to pop as I believe it will.
WinMo as it is right now is not very user friendly. The UI is outdated and not touch friendly. Out of the box the phones are slow and cumbersome for the "trendy" market.
But in 3 years, I don't believe that will be true anymore of WinMo devices. I believe they will increase in speed, and thus useability. I believe the UI will become more friendly to the end consumer, especially the low tech end user that WinMo seems to miss out on.
This isn't to say there are no "non-techy" users of WinMo, there are plenty, probably more than are super techy like us. But even those "non-techy" WinMo users have a bit more tech knowledge than your average BB user.
Basically, what I am getting at is that in the long term, 3 years from now when you are graduating, 10 years from now, and so forth, WinMo has a brighter future than other platforms for the very reason it will integrate better, and its current downsides are easily fixed compared to other OS downsides.
Pocket PC's are not good with cameras, they don't have good battery life, 65 colors and no multitouch, not apps preinstalled, difficut for the average user, they don't handle games right (they are good games out there but they are old),no visibility under sun and on top of that the new models can't handle non converted videos (thanks god I have Asus P535)...
That's why the public doesn't like Windows Mobile. And 6.5 - Wow transperent bars and new start menu - nothing at all. The hope for Windows Mobile is Nvidia Tegra.. !
One thing I have trouble with is gauging how long it takes for things to happen. WinMo is behind on UI's, true, but is trying to be saved by 3rd party UI's like TouchFlo and TouchWiz. I think a lot of the problem is that WinMo DOES have the reputation of being slow and not user friendly. Of course, this reputation is due to the out of the box experience, which is very crucial.
But how long will it take for people to be comfortable with WinMo? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe most people are now buying WinMo phones that have custom UI's on top of them (HTC, Samsung, etc), and I think this will really help in the revival of WM as a "good" OS.
Now, Android is starting out with the initial impression that it is touch friendly, fast and customizable. WinMo is gonna need to dig itself out of the hole that is its own stereotypes, and I believe Android has the advantage BECAUSE of its initial impression.
Thoughts?
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/57664
Watch out, iPhone—Android's nipping at your heels.
Researchers at Gartner (via AppleInsider) are predicting that the global market share for Google's Android mobile OS could overtake the iPhone's in a little over two years, with Android poised to leapfrog Apple into the No. 2 spot.
That would leave the iPhone in the No. 3 position—right where it is now, behind BlackBerry and Nokia's Symbian OS, according to Gartner. The industry researchers believe that by 2012, Research in Motion (the company behind the BlackBerry) will have lost 7 percent of its market share, causing it to slip into fifth place (behind even Windows Mobile). Android, meanwhile, will get a 12.9-percent boost to become the No. 2 smartphone platform in the world, with Symbian still safe in the No. 1 spot (with a dominating, although dwindling, 39 percent of the global market).
Those are just analyst predictions, of course, and two years is an eternity in the wireless world; after all, two years ago today, we were still getting used to the first iPhone.
That said, I think the gist of Gartner's prediction—that Android is poised to take the wireless market by storm—is spot on, and we've seen evidence of that in the past few months and weeks.
Google's open-source Android platform—which boasts one of the finest touchscreen interfaces out there, iPhone included—came slow out of the gates in fall 2008 with the solid, if uninspiring T-Mobile G1. We had to wait almost a year for the next Android phone in the U.S., but we finally got one this past August with the G1's follow-up, the HTC-made myTouch 3G (also on T-Mobile).
Soon after, what started as a trickle quickly became a flood. Sprint trotted out its first Android phone, the eye-catching, touchscreen HTC Hero, and then T-Mobile followed suit with the Motorola Cliq, its third Android handset ... followed by the Samsung Behold II just a few days ago. On Tuesday, Verizon Wireless announced it would launch a pair of Android phones before the end of the year, while Sprint announced its second Android phone—the Samsung Moment—a day later. Oh, and now there's rumors that Dell wants in on the Android action, with a new handset possible slated for iPhone carrier AT&T.
Let's see, that's ... one, two, three, four ... five new Android phones in in the past few months, with two more—and possibly even a third—due by the end of the year, from two (or maybe three) different manufacturers and three (possibly four) carriers. Some will be better than others, but consumers will have plenty of models (and carriers) from which to choose.
Of course, a bunch of new phones on the market doesn't mean diddly unless someone buys them, and for now, Apple has a solid 10.8- versus 1.6-percent lead over Android in terms of global smartphone market share. But Apple is the only company making iPhones, while the open-source (and high-quality) Android platform is available to all manufacturers and carriers—and from what we've been seeing, they're taking the ball and running with it.
I phone killa!
never touched an iphone and probly never will.
phatmanxxl said:
never touched an iphone and probly never will.
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Cant bash it tell you try it. There really not bad if you have little ambition to MOD. They update all the time which is nice for an average joe user but that sucks if you MOD them because apple is always closing the holes that are hacked. I still have my 2g 16gb Itouch and its freaking SWEET!
unless android devices leap away from qualcomm chipset, i'm not sure about the end user satisfaction
i've tried quite a few qualcomm based devices, some non-smartphones as well, and i have to say they all suck compared to non-qualcomm based devices, sucky multimedia, sucky network performance!
try htc diamond & i-mate 8150 side by side, you'll will know what i'm talking about
X-i-phoner said:
Cant bash it tell you try it. There really not bad if you have little ambition to MOD. They update all the time which is nice for an average joe user but that sucks if you MOD them because apple is always closing the holes that are hacked. I still have my 2g 16gb Itouch and its freaking SWEET!
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I got nothing against iphones really. im sure if I got to use one for a day I'd probly like it. But being on T-mobile for over over 5 years I tend to only pay attention to T-mo and At&t phones.
I'm sure once android spreads among the other carriers it will be huge. I can easily see android being in the top 3 with RIM and symbian.
phatmanxxl said:
I'm sure once android spreads among the other carriers it will be huge. I can easily see android being in the top 3 with RIM and symbian.
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Agreed, I can also see android doing the same stuff apple is now too.
Back in the early days of the PC when it was Apple vs IBM, IBM won because they licensed their architecture to various manufactures which were then able to make 100% Compatible IBM clones. Apple on the other hand insisted that it keep manufacturing in house, and look what happened.
~20 years later we may see history repeat itself.
You can't assume that apple is going for world domination. Their past successes have been based entirely off the hippie/artsie/faggie crowd, which they are likely to hold on to no matter what anyone else does.
The reason for their *temporary* position in the smartphone business is simple; they happened to be in the right place at the right time... and very lucky. A few years ago, palm was in a position to dominate the smartphone market, but they dragged their feet and allowed ugly-as-the-1970's RIM to capture the business user market. Palm *used to* have the business market, and even had a (at the time) very slick and colorful UI with touch screen and more features than you could shake a stick at, and at a time when RIM had clunky black-and-white displays, no graphics to speak of, and that stupid roller wheel. So at a time when a smartphone only really made sense to a business user, palm had devices that were actually quite attractive to just about everybody, but they stagnated rather than taking advantage of what they had, which left them in a very weak state when apple showed up to take the *entire* non-business smartphone market -- right at the time when it started making sense for *everybody* to have a smartphone.
So right before 'droid showed up, the smartphone market was severely skewed... on one hand, you had RIM with all the business market, on the other hand, you had apple with all the pleasure market. Android though, has the potential to be everything for everybody, and by everybody I mean google and the OHA, phone manufacturers, carriers, and even users.
If their computer business is any indication, apple isn't about to drop their prices to anything sensible -- they're still sitting at about FOUR TIMES what it would cost for generic hardware. For whatever reason, this appeals to the hippie/artsie/faggie crowd, that, along with the shinyness... MEANING: there are going to be TONS of manufacturers wielding android, COMPETING WITH EACH OTHER regarding prices. Which is a great thing. It means that we can look forward to very inexpensive 'droid devices while the likes of apple price themselves out of the market. Even now, the current i-phony is about $200 CDN more than Dream or Magic -- and don't give any crap that its "better" -- it does, after all, run their crap software.
Somebody said symbian? The fact that the world's cheapest mobile phone manufacturer wants to call their crap proprietary firmware by some name doesn't make it a dominating factor in anyone's opinion. Its a simple matter... nokia phones are dirt cheap -- without exception (that I am aware of), every provider gives them away for FREE to anybody who signs up for a contract.... since many people already HAVE a phone that they want to use and the carrier forces them into the contract anyways, they get a free phone that may never even get removed from the box. In fact, I have a BOX full of them myself, more of them than any other phone, and yet not a single one of them has so much as been turned on. And yet it counts as a sale in favor of "symbian". So by my math, about half the mobile phones delivered are the "free" ones that come with the contract.
lbcoder said:
Its a simple matter... nokia phones are dirt cheap -- without exception (that I am aware of),.
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http://www.nokiausa.com/buy-online?CMP=KNC-SEM_001&site=Google&device=BuyOnline
The n97 and n900 are sweet phones. Nokias market is dominating in china and japan. Many other places dont get to see all the cool stuff Noika puts out because Nokia doesnt need to advertise it anywhere else. My little bro got the N95 developer edition the day it came out, He still has it and it is still really advanced compared to most phones.
I doubt Android is gonna be used in the business market..the email client is wack, its gonna serious overhaul to compete. I went through a blackberry phase, its great as far a communication goes and by far the best damn keyboards ever. I see Android as more of a entertainment and social phone and I'm sure that's the market they're going for especially with the cliq. Ahem, move over sidekick and iphone.
phatmanxxl said:
I doubt Android is gonna be used in the business market..the email client is wack, its gonna serious overhaul to compete. I went through a blackberry phase, its great as far a communication goes and by far the best damn keyboards ever. I see Android as more of a entertainment and social phone and I'm sure that's the market they're going for especially with the cliq. Ahem, move over sidekick and iphone.
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Two things about your prediction...
1. Companies can have more input as to what goes into their business phones.
Imagine my company XYZ starts a contract for the carrier to provide a specific hardware/cellular platform. I can then take that hardware platform and load my customized Android platform onto it. What company wouldn't want that level of control over their business assets? You certainly can't get that with RIM.
2. The carriers, more than anyone, decide what functions a particular phone is marketed towards. From a financial and support perspective, what carrier wouldn't want to have a single OS for all device types and just load in specific apps to cater to specific functions? (Warning: Pie in the sky opinion follows.) Need a business phone? Here is our business suite on our business hardware. Want a gamer device? Here is our game hardware with our game suite. Support would be simplified because under the hood it all works very similarly.
And my prediction...
You will see business class Android devices much sooner than you think. Just because they have not been announced yet does not mean that they are not already in the works. It is a smart move for Google to market towards the prosumers first and businesses later. Let the prosumers work out the kinks and storm the business market later with your well tested and hardened OS. Basically, we (the devs here mainly) are doing most of the work for them... (Queue Adam Sandler) FOR FREEEEEEEE!
The only thing the iPhone has against the G1 is the fact that its thinner, but now we have the MyTouch which runs Android and is also thin...Suck it Apple!
phatmanxxl said:
...and by far the best damn keyboards ever.
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You actually *like* RIM keyboards? I have to use a couple of RIM devices for work (as a software developer -- they stay on my desk full time)... a 9000 (buttons) and a 9530 (retarded clicky-touchscreen). The keyboards on them both are absolute CRAP. EVERY button besides letters (that includes punctuation) require some extra button to be pressed, and that extra button is so close to the edge of the thing that you can hardly get to it. And their touchscreen keyboard? You have to touchscreen it once to highlight the "key", remove your finger to make sure that its selected, and go back to CLICK the screen -- usually need to click it 2 or 3 times before it actually "takes"... and no it isn't a hardware defect since the SIMULATOR does the exact same thing!
I see Android as more of a entertainment and social phone and I'm sure that's the market they're going for especially with the cliq. Ahem, move over sidekick and iphone.
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That may be YOUR USE/OBJECTIVE, and/or the use/objective of certain vendors *at the moment*, but android is an *operating system* and not just the crap software you have installed on it, nor is it restricted to the hardware you have it installed on.... for example, you can install X operating system on something you have plugged into the TV set in your living room and use it for games and videos, you can install the same X operating system on the computer you have on your desk at work, or, you can install the same X operating system on a server handling secure financial transactions within a major international bank's data center.... Android is great because it has the flexibility of being a general purpose operating system rather than a "feature" operating system as is the case for RIM (centered around their email client), or i-phony (centered around their music player).
Now with a general purpose operating system, you also have the flexibility of serving multiple needs. Take the guy who would need something that has the function of a RIM for work. Why would he want to have a second device for playing sudoku and listening to music on the subway ride home? And a third device for navigating on a road trip he and his family decide to take when they go on vacation? I see so many people holding BOTH a RIM and an i-phony and flipping between them because neither will do what the other does as well as it does it. Except now android can and *does* do what BOTH of them do *as well* as they BOTH do it.... and then some.
You need security/VPN? Work email/push IMAP? We've got that! You want music? Games? Navigation? A good web browsing experience?
What does RIM have on Android right now? Answer: nothing at all.
What does apple have on Android right now? Answer: nothing technical, there might be one or two applications you like that haven't been written for 'droid yet, but that's it.
Can 'droid handle the 'business use' case *right now*? Yes.
lbcoder said:
You actually *like* RIM keyboards? I have to use a couple of RIM devices for work (as a software developer -- they stay on my desk full time)... a 9000 (buttons) and a 9530 (retarded clicky-touchscreen). The keyboards on them both are absolute CRAP. EVERY button besides letters (that includes punctuation) require some extra button to be pressed, and that extra button is so close to the edge of the thing that you can hardly get to it. And their touchscreen keyboard? You have to touchscreen it once to highlight the "key", remove your finger to make sure that its selected, and go back to CLICK the screen -- usually need to click it 2 or 3 times before it actually "takes"... and no it isn't a hardware defect since the SIMULATOR does the exact same thing!
That may be YOUR USE/OBJECTIVE, and/or the use/objective of certain vendors *at the moment*, but android is an *operating system* and not just the crap software you have installed on it, nor is it restricted to the hardware you have it installed on.... for example, you can install X operating system on something you have plugged into the TV set in your living room and use it for games and videos, you can install the same X operating system on the computer you have on your desk at work, or, you can install the same X operating system on a server handling secure financial transactions within a major international bank's data center.... Android is great because it has the flexibility of being a general purpose operating system rather than a "feature" operating system as is the case for RIM (centered around their email client), or i-phony (centered around their music player).
Now with a general purpose operating system, you also have the flexibility of serving multiple needs. Take the guy who would need something that has the function of a RIM for work. Why would he want to have a second device for playing sudoku and listening to music on the subway ride home? And a third device for navigating on a road trip he and his family decide to take when they go on vacation? I see so many people holding BOTH a RIM and an i-phony and flipping between them because neither will do what the other does as well as it does it. Except now android can and *does* do what BOTH of them do *as well* as they BOTH do it.... and then some.
You need security/VPN? Work email/push IMAP? We've got that! You want music? Games? Navigation? A good web browsing experience?
What does RIM have on Android right now? Answer: nothing at all.
What does apple have on Android right now? Answer: nothing technical, there might be one or two applications you like that haven't been written for 'droid yet, but that's it.
Can 'droid handle the 'business use' case *right now*? Yes.
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lol u tell him
but IMO blackberry devices are very visually appealing. i think the sprint hero, samsung moment, moto cliq, LGs first android, samsung glaxy and lite version all look ugly.
and i like some of the apps apple have. i just want to see a completed multiplayer fps on android.
WM is following iPhone and Android is creating a new market. iPhone is too heavy with the iTune and paid apps as well.
Love my Android G2. Open platform is what we need
I really wish that people would learn how to discuss Android on its own merits instead of CONSTANTLY comparing it to iPhone.
So you think Android is going to do well, that's fantastic, why not talk about that instead of saying that it's going to be better than iPhone?
The reasoning is simple... pride. And money.
Android isn't just something that is *there to use*. Many of us have a lot of time invested in the platform and it not only feels good for it to be successful, it is also financially rewarding. i-phony is right now the most recognizable mobile phone, so it is naturally the target to BEAT.
chefgon said:
I really wish that people would learn how to discuss Android on its own merits instead of CONSTANTLY comparing it to iPhone.
So you think Android is going to do well, that's fantastic, why not talk about that instead of saying that it's going to be better than iPhone?
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I'm talking about the pearl, curve and curve 2. well, I really like those keyboards, just my opinion. I never had any problems using them. Microsoft/Danger abandoned project pink (supposed to be the new danger os) sidekicks are rumored to be phased out anyway. Also with the major data outage, they have no access to their contacts, t-mail and calender for almost a month now, a lot of those customers I'm sure will move to Android.
and until corporate and business owners start handing out Google phones instead of blackberrys, RIM does have one up over Android
Everytime I read mobile.engadget or any gadget site for that matter, I see posts "dogging" the Android operating system about how they are fragmented and certain apps/games won't work for older OS's/devices. Our EVOs have been out for almost 6 months now and this phone is still rock solid IMO but I wonder how fragmented (if at all) this OS is and what that means for this phone and future android devices. I'm literally asking cause I have no idea. And also what the heck is fragmented actually mean, cause all I get out of this is that the older Android devices just can't run the app or game because of the older/slower specs not necessarily because of the OS.
It would help if you posted the link. When you say fragmented, I would guess that this means that Android Users are divided between those that can run an application on said device and those that can't.
This is not any different that using M$ OS's as well. Not all applications will run on older Operating Systems. This is partly due to Hardware upgrades and partly due to marketing. If all software were reverse compatible then people would be less likely to upgrade their devices. Also the list of Drivers would get longer and longer as the Android Developers add phones to their database.
Apple only has what, 4 phones and 2 or 3 Ipod Touch's? And realistically most of the people that own these would have the 3rd or 4th Gen. Phone anyways. I think the "fragmentation" problem will exist on no matter what platform OS you are using, its just that Android is on sooooo many devices now ranging from Phones/TV and now its going into cars. It wouldn't surprise me to see it on X-box since they like to run Linux code.
So yeah.... Long story short its due to all of the different devices and the fact that no one keeps electronics for any length of time but IMHO Android will start to get a lot more life out of their electronics since the software is upgradeable like on a PC.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. We saw the same thing in the computer desktop arena. At one point you had Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, Win95, WinNT, and Win98 all running around at the same time. Going back even further all the different flavors of DOS. The PC industry survived so will Android. Eventually you will have to upgrade so fragmentation is pretty much a moot point. IMHO
My guess would be because there are phones running multiple versions of the OS such as 1.6/2.1/2.2. Some apps such as task killers will work on 1.6 and 2.1 but not 2.2+. Game compatibility seems more reliant on what that particular phone is capable of. Our phones can handle just about any game available whereas a G1 or MT3G is far more limited.
Sent from my HTC SUPERSONIC
Fragmentation refers to the fact that there are so many different versions of android the app developers have to code for. With the Iphone for example most everyone is at version 4.1 or 4.2. Android devices are being released with 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2 and soon 2.3. It makes it extremely hard to code and optimize apps across all versions. I foresee this has having no negative effects on our beloved EVO's for though.
People like to point out the fact that there are multiple android devices, and not all of them are on the newest os (like some of the sgs phones not having froyo, or the moment, or hero for example). unlike the iphone, where there is only one device of each generation, and when the update is released, everyone can get it.
My take on this is I like variety, just because I like my Evo doesn't mean it suits everyone. Just like there are a ton of people that consider a hardware keyboard a must have, yet I would rather not have one. Having to wait for HTC and Sprint to release the newest version to my phone, or wait for one of the amazing developers contributing their hard work and skill to port it for use is just fine with me. Would it be nice to get it the moment google pushes it out, probably, however I can almost bet that the Nexus line will always get first crack anyway. This is just my two cents, I hope the explanation helps.
Sent from my HTC SuperSonic 4G using the XDA app.
Brutal-Force said:
It would help if you posted the link. When you say fragmented, I would guess that this means that Android Users are divided between those that can run an application on said device and those that can't.
This is not any different that using M$ OS's as well. Not all applications will run on older Operating Systems. This is partly due to Hardware upgrades and partly due to marketing. If all software were reverse compatible then people would be less likely to upgrade their devices. Also the list of Drivers would get longer and longer as the Android Developers add phones to their database.
Apple only has what, 4 phones and 2 or 3 Ipod Touch's? And realistically most of the people that own these would have the 3rd or 4th Gen. Phone anyways. I think the "fragmentation" problem will exist on no matter what platform OS you are using, its just that Android is on sooooo many devices now ranging from Phones/TV and now its going into cars. It wouldn't surprise me to see it on X-box since they like to run Linux code.
So yeah.... Long story short its due to all of the different devices and the fact that no one keeps electronics for any length of time but IMHO Android will start to get a lot more life out of their electronics since the software is upgradeable like on a PC.
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One example of many if you google...
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/entelligence-will-android-fragmentation-destroy-the-platform/
Yeah I'm not smart enough to know if this would effect our phones or not, but who really knows as of right now? Why doesn't Android just do what MS did and make a standard for what the manufacturers need to build in order for it to be up to par for Android (for once MS did something right in that regard IMO). Is that what Honeycomb is suppose to accomplish, a minimal spec sheet for manufacturers?
My two cents:
I think the "fragmentation" issue is primarily software related and is the fault of the manufacturers and service providers. That said, I think the most important issue is whether the fragmentation discourages developers from creating apps for Android.
As hardware and software advances there will always be features that will work on some phones and not work on others. This occurs with the iPhone too and is no surprise, however, Apple still rolls out new OS's to all phones so that the vast majority of users are on the same platform.
While Google has been releasing two versions of Android per year, it is the manufacturers and service providers who decide whether or not to roll out the updates and that seems to be a crapshoot. Since the manufacturers are not just tolling out vanilla Android, instead choosing to overlay their own UI on top (e.g. Touchwiz or Sense UI), this would require effort on their part to rework their UI to keep up with Android updates. And, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't... So, even though you have hardware in circulation perfectly capable of running newer versions of Android they don't because the manufacturers don't allow it.
I think most people would agree the number of quality apps in the iTunes store far exceeds the number of quality apps in the Android Market. However, Android has been outselling the iPhone for almost a year now. The question is: Is it the "fragmentation" keeping developers from porting their apps to Android? Or, is it something else? If it IS the fragmentation then I AM worried. I think 2011 is an important year for Android and I remain optimistic the Apps will come. It'll be interesting if they don't...
To Be Continued...
the evil fragmentation comes from low-end android phones also some developers not properly coding
Beejis said:
One example of many if you google...
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/entelligence-will-android-fragmentation-destroy-the-platform/
Yeah I'm not smart enough to know if this would effect our phones or not, but who really knows as of right now? Why doesn't Android just do what MS did and make a standard for what the manufacturers need to build in order for it to be up to par for Android (for once MS did something right in that regard IMO). Is that what Honeycomb is suppose to accomplish, a minimal spec sheet for manufacturers?
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simple to answer i think, here's the thing, not every phone is going to be the same, just like not every carrier is the same, what i mean is that each manufacturer is going to have their own set of hardware and specs to follow, thus giving them an option to best choose the Android version that best suits the phone they are building.
Engadget is a huge iEverything fan, so they will help bash android and google just as much as Mr. duschbag, sorry i meant Job's, but you get the point, after all it was Jobs that first coined the whole android is fragmented war, however someone correct me if i'm wrong.
Besides if manufacturer were to listen to android about having a set standard then we might as well also be referred to as Apple, but since we're not under the dictatorship of Stevie, we don't have to worry about that.
Android fragmentation deals with both software and hardware.
Software-wise you have different phones having different Android versions -- OEMs seem to only support their phones for a year, sometimes even less, and sometimes not at all after it's release. You already see this problem with 1.6 vs 2.0 vs 2.1 vs 2.2; and as soon as Gingerbread appears you'll be seeing a sudden split between Android version share. This causes problems for developers because each Android version supports varying API levels, so some phones are inevitably left behind by developers.
Hardware-wise you have a lot of phones that are very different. You can have two phones of the same Android version and you'll still see app incompatibilities. Different CPUs, GPUs, cameras, etc., causes developers to work extra hard to make them all work; this sometimes leads them to drop support for some either because of the extra work it would take or because the hardware is just two low end. This is especially true with games and a reason why I think iOS/WP7 will be the leading mobile gaming platforms in a couple of years.
A lot of people think that Android Market will suddenly become the best once Android's market share inevitably over runs iOS; and I personally think it wont because of fragmentation. I don't think people understand just how expensive it is to develop and design an app that is of the top ~10% iOS quality -- it's in the 100's of thousands. Supporting Android is just that much more difficult for developers. Then there's the fact that a lot of the increasing market share is coming from low end phones which: 1) will probably suffer the worse from the fragmentation problem (incompatibilities with apps), and 2) would most likely not even invest into many paid apps anyway.
Beejis said:
One example of many if you google...
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/entelligence-will-android-fragmentation-destroy-the-platform/
Yeah I'm not smart enough to know if this would effect our phones or not, but who really knows as of right now? Why doesn't Android just do what MS did and make a standard for what the manufacturers need to build in order for it to be up to par for Android (for once MS did something right in that regard IMO). Is that what Honeycomb is suppose to accomplish, a minimal spec sheet for manufacturers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Intel did it, M$ did it, AMD did it, Nvidia did it and Apple is doing it now. The reason we use Android is so that Corporations don't MAKE us do it. Also, companies like M$, Intel and Nvidia have been pulled into court for things like this. In the end, they "open" back up, because thats what people want.
Brutal-Force said:
Intel did it, M$ did it, AMD did it, Nvidia did it and Apple is doing it now. The reason we use Android is so that Corporations don't MAKE us do it. Also, companies like M$, Intel and Nvidia have been pulled into court for things like this. In the end, they "open" back up, because thats what people want.
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People want open? Really? People just want good phones.
Best example....
Most people upgrade their phones every two years. So it won't really matter so long in those two years we get at least one upgrade.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
novanosis85 said:
Best example....
Most people upgrade their phones every two years. So it won't really matter so long in those two years we get at least one upgrade.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
So you'd be okay rocking a 1.6 phone right now and for maybe another year?
This may have been an issue a year ago but if you check this link:
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
you can see that 77% of android devices are 2.1 and 2.2. Newer versions of the OS will hopefully decouple software updates from the actual service carrier and phone manufacturer, increasing this percentage even further.
Google makes available many guides for deploying your application and being able to support across all versions. Also, the sdk easily allows you to target the newest version and features while still maintaining portability to older OS versions.
Basically, unless you are developing some crazy cutting edge application then 'fragmentation' is not an issue, hardware or software. Using that as a dividing factor with regards to gauging the success of the operating system is by now a stretch from the truth.
elegantai said:
This may have been an issue a year ago but if you check this link:
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
you can see that 77% of android devices are 2.1 and 2.2. Newer versions of the OS will hopefully decouple software updates from the actual service carrier and phone manufacturer, increasing this percentage even further.
Google makes available many guides for deploying your application and being able to support across all versions. Also, the sdk easily allows you to target the newest version and features while still maintaining portability to older OS versions.
Basically, unless you are developing some crazy cutting edge application then 'fragmentation' is not an issue, hardware or software. Using that as a dividing factor with regards to gauging the success of the operating system is by now a stretch from the truth.
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Click to collapse
I'd argue that the large share of 2.1/2.2 devices is due to the fact that Android has finally gotten popular and sales of current devices has really picked up. So a majority of phones are currently newer 2.x devices. Lets see how this is once 2.3 is released and OEMs fail to keep them up to date just as how it has been in the past.
That is one possibility, but if you look at the bottom of that page there is a stacked line graph representing the historical distribution over the past 6 months.
If you look at version 2.1 and compare its slope to 1.5/1.6 you can see that the older versions follow the same slope as the 2.1 slope, meaning that 2.1 phones were actually replacing physical phones running 1.5 and 1.6.
If you look at when 2.2 takes a steep upward slope you will not notice the same pattern of 2.1 and older following the slope of 2.2, which tells me that more people upgraded from 2.1 to 2.2.
So if this pattern holds, then hopefully it means phone manufactures are starting to realize the importance of providing newer operating systems for their devices. But as you said, we will see!
It's fragmented, but people wouldn't care if all the apps worked across all versions. That's really the only problem.
The average person does not care how many mflops their device scores in linpack or what their quadrant score is, they just want to play Angry Birds, and their phone they bought last year can't, and they aren't able to upgrade yet.
clamknuckle said:
The average person does not care how many mflops their device scores in linpack or what their quadrant score is, they just want to play Angry Birds, and their phone they bought last year can't, and they aren't able to upgrade yet.
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Click to collapse
This.
10char.
Hi XDA-Samsung Users,
I've been a member of XDA since Jan last year. I went from owning a Nexus One to a Samsung Galaxy S i9000. The reason for the change was for the better specs and superior hardware of the Samsung Galaxy.
The phone is an incredible piece of machinery, but is severely hampered by the modifications that Samsung makes to the Android OS. I admit that the codec support within TouchWiz is impressive, but too much of the core framework of the phone is inefficient and sluggish.
Even using the latest release of unofficial firmware Samsung, Android 2.2.1 (JPY), there is still the occasional hang and the missing RAM (which is there somewhere, but not for user applications).
Samsung is mostly to blame, but there is also a quality control element that Google should be responsible for.
I have prepared an open letter that I sent to Android via Google Press and then forwarded on to Samsung for their reference. This were all through publicly available channels so will have to filter through customer service centers and the like.
I'm not expecting much, Google appears to use Amazon's customer service approach, "No customer service is good customer service".
But would like to post it here to hopefully get it out into the wilderness.
I tweeted it here http://twitter.com/#!/ibproud/status/27528781828722688
and would appreciate if you agreed with the content to retweet it. Hopefully it should give it a bit more weight.
It would be interesting to get the communities feedback on how mature they believe Android is.
Do they need to keep trying to make everyone happy or can they start to use the weight of their OS to get manufacturers to align the user experience?
Dear Android Team,
I am writing this letter to air my frustrations and to hopefully get some peace of mind that your strategy for Android will resolve some of the main issues plaguing the platform.
I have now been with Android for over 12 months. I used to be an iPhone user, but couldn’t stand the walled garden that Apple put me in. I couldn’t download directly to the phone, replace the messaging app or sync wirelessly. I went to Android because I wanted the freedom to use my phone more as a desktop replacement than as a phone/mp3 player.
When I joined the Android family (January 2010), I started with the Google Nexus One. I was so keen to get into the Android community I didn’t even wait for it to be on sale in Australia to get it, thus I hit eBay and bought it outright.
I was very pleased with the platform but could still see a few rough edges around the Operating System. It had the usability I was looking for but was lacking the polish I had grown use to with Apple. There was good news on the horizon with an Éclair update that would give the already beautiful phone a nudge in the right direction. As I was in Australia and the phone wasn’t here yet, I had to push the update through myself, after seeing how easy this was and getting the feeling of being a little phone hacker, I was hooked, I started preaching Android to the masses. Australia is still building momentum for the platform and it’s taking some time. Most of the major carriers stock between 4-6 Android devices, most of which are low end or outdated in the overseas markets.
I follow all the key players in the industry through Twitter and have a majority of Google News trackers picking up articles with android related words. I have also now converted my Wife to Android (HTC Desire Z, also not available in Aus) and I picked up the Samsung Galaxy S and gave my sister the Nexus One. The problem I face now is that I’ve run out of money and can’t go out and buy a new Android phone just to be up to date with the latest Android OS (Gingerbread), this would also be the case for most consumers. The Nexus S is so similar to my current hardware that I must be able to leverage the extra performance from the update.
But alas, we reach the major problem with the platform. Fragmentation. I’m not referring to the Fragmentation of the various app stores and apps available based on different OS versions but more to the Fragmentation of the OS based on the custom skins and manufacturer update cycles. The open platform that is closed at 2 levels, Manufactures and Carriers. I will continue to buy my phones outright as it gives me the freedom and flexibility to upgrade my plans as better ones become available. This always guarantees that I’m free from the bloatware that is preloaded on most Carrier bought phones and free from 1 of the barriers to the true AOSP experience. The next barrier is one that is running rampant in the interwebs rumour mill at the moment and that’s manufacturer updates and in my case I refer to Samsung.
Samsung Galaxy S phones come loaded with Android 2.1, most of them internationally are running Android 2.2 and just recently as select group of the devices is getting Android 2.2.1. This is now a month after Android 2.3 was released. For Samsung I would consider this largely negligent, considering they had the opportunity to work with Google to build a Google Experience Phone (Nexus S). The specs of this phone are so similar to the Galaxy range that a port shouldn’t be too difficult. I understand that there are a lot of constraints and dependencies in the development cycle that could cause delays as well as manufacturers agendas (mostly in unit sales). It is great that Samsung have sold so many devices globally but at a cost of the user experience as well as potential damages to long term retention.
I understand the Open nature of Android and the push to encourage manufacturers to put there own spin on the platform, but Android is getting bigger and more mature, it doesn’t need to be High school girl bending to the whims and peer pressure from the carriers and manufacturers.
There are a team of Devs in Germany who are working to port CyanogenMod 7 (Gingerbread) to Galaxy S i9000, but these guys have now spent over four months just trying to get through Samsungs drivers. The team didn’t start just to customise the phone but to actually make the phone work properly, I of course refer to the RFS lag issue and Samsungs modification to the framework that slowed it down. The goal of the team is to maximise the potential of the hardware and operating system.
It would be great to see some muscle from Google thrown into the mix, there doesn’t need to be requirements dictated, but maybe ethics encouraged.
There seems to be a few options here:
- Encourage device manufacturers to share their drivers, if it is too sensitive to share at least work with the community to help them do it themselves.
- Start to break down the way the platform is customised so that way the manufactures (Samsung/HTC/Motorola) skin the platform can sit a layer above the core code, thus be a quick implementation/customisation to get their skins working.
- Get each manufacturer to offer the AOSP experience to advanced users. This can be done through an agreement between the user and manufacture that states this will void the warranty and have its own terms and conditions.
- This last one is a long stretch, but how about taking all the manufacturers drivers into a repository, the way Windows do updates. When a new Android version is developed the drivers can be updated or incorporated and be packaged out through the Android SDK.
I may be completely off the mark. I’m not a developer and couldn’t pretend to know what effort is involved at any stage of the process, from building Android to rolling it out into the latest and greatest phone. The one thing I am though is an End User, a person that wants my phone to do more, to get close to being a desktop replacement.
Maybe I’m also being a bit idealistic.
I hope the Android platform continues to flourish and for it to become the Windows of the mobile era.
Sincerely,
Irwin Proud
E: [email protected]
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It's really an excellent summary. Consider there're even more black sheeps out there. For example Sony Ericcson which ones recently made a statement like Android is their favourite Smartphone OS and left Symbian in Nokias hands.
But we found also the good ones like HTC, which every Manufacturer should have HTC as its Paragon concerning Android Software Development.
Great write-up; I agree 100%
I agree with your post fully, and concur that the Windows Phone 7 model for OS updates is more efficient, and strikes a happy medium between iOS and Android's approach to upgrades. However it is also more restrictive in terms of handset hardware limitations
I suppose the idea is that customers should vote with their wallets and buy from companies with good software and firmware support. The problem with that is a majority of phone users (android or otherwise) are technically savvy enough to take such support into consideration when looking at the latest and greatest fancy phone in a store. We could all buy the Nexus One or Nexus S only, but this too is restrictive to the customer as other phones offer more/different features
my 2 cents worth:
I agree on your points - but I'd skip the first few paragraphs if I were the one who write the letter. Other than that, thank you for making the effort.
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
What Google should do?
Toss3 said:
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
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Click to collapse
Please allow me to politely disagree. Google can do a lot about this and they have done this also. When I say they have done this - I am talking about not having Market application on Android OSes which come on non-phone hardware.
Google should put similar restrictions for loosley coupled skins, upgradable drivers. I had been giving this a lot of thought lately. I will sum up my thoughts with above letter as above:-
i) Device manufacturer skinning - Google should mandate that it should be just another APK within AOSP and users should be given a choice to turn it off.
ii) Device Drivers - Google should mandate there should be a better way of installing device drivers - similar to what we have in MS Windows (MS Windows is an excellent model of how hardware device should be handled - this lead to the exponential growth Windows is enjoying now).
iii) Android OS Update - If Google can achieve the above two, then the choice to upgrade the OS should be at user discretion. Of course, Google should mandate that there is OTA availble as an option. And obviously this OTA would be served by Google, not by device manufacturers. This would also free up time, effort and cash spent by device manufacturers in upgrading the OS.
So this is in the best of interest of everybody.
These restrictions if put in place, would free us all from this phenomena of running outdated OS.
Not sure what ti say on this one. It's true that Samsung has failed on some levels, however I must say that this is the first phone that has allowed me to get to know so much about the internals of the Android OS.
Modifying kernels, ROM's, reading about different file-systems etc... it's not a thing for the common user but I expect the people on this forum to be interested in such things.
Ok, if Samsung had done it right, we may have discussed these things anyway but it would've drawn less attention as people would not be looking for solutions to their problems.
But of course we have to strive to quality for everyone and this letter may just open some people's eyes at both Google and Samsung.
Thank you so far for the feedback.
poundesville said:
my 2 cents worth:
I agree on your points - but I'd skip the first few paragraphs if I were the one who write the letter. Other than that, thank you for making the effort.
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Remember most members of XDA would be a cut above the average user. The reason this letter was written the way it was, was to demonstrate that I am a typical end user. Although I would consider myself leaning slightly to the more advanced side I wrote the letter based on a very general experience of the platform, an experience a lot of consumers would go through.
Toss3 said:
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What am I trying to achieve with this letter?
I really don’t know, but it helps to just get the thoughts out there.
With approximately 300,000 activations daily, I don’t think Android sees the true reflection of how their platform is received.
When the Galaxy range of phones was released in the US, they would have been seen as the closest thing to an iPhone that non-AT&T customers could get. So sales and activations shouldn’t be seen as the indicator of clever consumers or consumers wanting an open platform, but of consumers who wanted an iPhone but for the various reasons didn’t want to go with AT&T.
Remember: The international Samsung Galaxy is the only Android phone I know of that looks more like an iPhone than any other phone.
What I would really like to see is, that annually google will release a major version of Android. So V1, V2, V3, etc…. the mobile manufacturers commit to any minor or incremental updates per major version. So if Google says they are releasing Android 2.4 then they are saying to the manufacturer that this version will also work on any phone that currently supports v2.1 to v2.3.
As more and more people move to smartphones and tablets, more and more will we see hackers, spammers, botnets and so on attempt to access our devices. If we can’t have the latest updates that close any open holes then our phones become a huge liability.
Pierreken said:
Not sure what ti say on this one. It's true that Samsung has failed on some levels, however I must say that this is the first phone that has allowed me to get to know so much about the internals of the Android OS.
Modifying kernels, ROM's, reading about different file-systems etc... it's not a thing for the common user but I expect the people on this forum to be interested in such things.
Ok, if Samsung had done it right, we may have discussed these things anyway but it would've drawn less attention as people would not be looking for solutions to their problems.
But of course we have to strive to quality for everyone and this letter may just open some people's eyes at both Google and Samsung.
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Click to collapse
Not really sure if Samsung has failed as such, but have put too much focus on unit sales rather than quality control and great user experience. They started releasing different iterations and modifications to the same phone without considering that each minor tweak to the hardware would mean more resources to develop updates and maintain each device.
I also agree that without Samsung I would know very little about linux filesystems, kernel and custom roms, but shouldn't all of these be more to push the phone above it's limits and not to just get it working properly?
There's nothing wrong with knowing the advanced stuff, however it shouldn't be a necessity.
The problem ironically is that Android is open source. I agree wit the letter above, but I can;t see how you can stop manufacturers doing what they want.
Also the Drivers being proprietary isn't going to change and device manufacturers aren't going to suddenly start releasing their closed driver sources.
Agreed Google should stand up and restrict the Skins to a single APK that can be removed, this would stop all the associated problems with HTC and Samsung skinning too deep in to the OS that it becomes impossible to remove it. The problem with that is, then any manufacturers APK will be installable on any phone. Which is something we know they don't want.
We already know Androids biggest downfall and so does Google. Fragmentation.
I believe once Google has the strong position they want and users demand Android when they buy a new phone, they will start to put their foot down and try to enforce standardisation across Manufacturers, but until they get to what they feel is that point, we're stuck.
Anyway much luck with the letter, I hope someone who matters get's to see it.
Logicalstep
Hello everyone.
I've always wondered why tablets/phones get free software upgrades (Android 3 to 4), while Computer OS's do not. (Windows Vista to 7).
Considering Windows 8 will be both a tablet and a desktop OS, will updates to windows 9 (or whatever they decide to call it) be free, for tablets at least?
It does not sound possible, but if Microsoft phones got free upgrades, why not their tablets?
Please share your thoughts on this.
Micro$haft?
I dont think so.
do you know how much money Bill Gates has? Yes, not enough!
It would be nice if we got a "Mac" type deal $29 upgrade , etc.
I thought Bill Gates retired.. Oh well..
And I wouldn't set Apple as a model for pricing.
DarkSeL said:
I thought Bill Gates retired.. Oh well..
And I wouldn't set Apple as a model for pricing.
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I second that brother... And I think some people have not even the slightest idea about the philanthropy Bill Gates is involved in... Plus, if PC OSes are upgraded freely then we would be at mercy of hardware providers to determine whether our hardware deserves an OS upgrade or not (as it is in the case of all smartphones today)...
gururoop said:
I second that brother... And I think some people have not even the slightest idea about the philanthropy Bill Gates is involved in... Plus, if PC OSes are upgraded freely then we would be at mercy of hardware providers to determine whether our hardware deserves an OS upgrade or not (as it is in the case of all smartphones today)...
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The question remains.. Will W8 tablets be treated like computers or phones.
android is a bad example given that the money is made through advertising and selling your info.
a more reliable comparison is Apple and iOS. WP7 and the iPhone are limited use devices,
OSx and Windows on there respective hardware are computers with a significant use attached to them, the same can be said for Windows Tablets, however they are different from Apples ipad offerings which is just a bumped up iphone OS, the tablet is (at least we believe. x86 - yes, ARM - ?) its a fully functional computer
So to your question, a Windows Tablet, is a computer (probably), and thus will likely follow computer upgrade cycles. and ipad is an extension of its iphone and would follow the phone update model.
As to how much it should cost, well that's up to MS, but before folk start raving about Apples "cheap" updates, its worth pointing out that developing an OS with a fixed hardware design will be much easier (cheaper) to do than for an almost infinite number of hardware designs
Lets be clear on something, NOTHING is done without there being money to be made in one form or another, Googles model is not as transparent as Microsofts but it still makes a mint, and whilst it doesn't do that by charging you directly it does use you as its *****
Its a nice though but not going to happen.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA
chrisrotolo said:
Micro$haft?
I dont think so.
do you know how much money Bill Gates has? Yes, not enough!
It would be nice if we got a "Mac" type deal $29 upgrade , etc.
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Click to collapse
The difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple already ripped you off with their expensive hardware so they can afford it to upgrade the OS for 29$.
Microsoft needs to get their profits from software only, that's why it's a bit more expensive than OSX upgrades.
DarkSeL said:
Hello everyone.
I've always wondered why tablets/phones get free software upgrades (Android 3 to 4), while Computer OS's do not. (Windows Vista to 7).
Considering Windows 8 will be both a tablet and a desktop OS, will updates to windows 9 (or whatever they decide to call it) be free, for tablets at least?
It does not sound possible, but if Microsoft phones got free upgrades, why not their tablets?
Please share your thoughts on this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no they wont be, in the same way that OSx updates are chargable
you need to remember that everyone needs to make money, even the beloved Android "free" OS, android makers and OEMs make their money by selling your soul to anyone who has the money to pay for it, MS makes money by charging you directly, both are valid business models but one is more "open" than the other, the irony is that the "open" OS is actually the least open when it comes to the business modelm both have good points both have bad points.
The Windows phone portion will remain "free" to a point, but tablets and desktop versions are very much computer OSs, not a phone OS unlike its android and iOS cousins
edit, Boom! 1700 posts
Donny1987 said:
The difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple already ripped you off with their expensive hardware so they can afford it to upgrade the OS for 29$.
Microsoft needs to get their profits from software only, that's why it's a bit more expensive than OSX upgrades.
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Click to collapse
Everyone looks at Mirosoft thinks that they are cheating big arse sum of marney from you guys.
Microsoft just ended their support for XP like few months ago, which was release about 10years ago.
For just $29, Apple only provide 11 updates on that whatever cat OS and then just kiss your old cat goodbye on support on your whatever latest iPhones or Pads.
So Apple OS = cheap????
Sent from my Milestone using Tapatalk 2
DarkSeL said:
Hello everyone.
I've always wondered why tablets/phones get free software upgrades (Android 3 to 4), while Computer OS's do not. (Windows Vista to 7).
Considering Windows 8 will be both a tablet and a desktop OS, will updates to windows 9 (or whatever they decide to call it) be free, for tablets at least?
It does not sound possible, but if Microsoft phones got free upgrades, why not their tablets?
Please share your thoughts on this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a good point, and potentially a future issue for Microsoft. Apple can afford to give software updates away for free because they make so much money off hardware sales, iTunes and the App Store. The updates for the iPod Touch weren't always free though, I remember paying for a few. Google can afford to give the OS away for free because the OS is just a vehicle for ad revenue etc.
To my mind though, the parallel between PCs and smartphones/tablets isn't an issue yet (maybe one for the Windows 9 launch?). iOS and Android are updated to new versions annually, Windows is more like every 3 years. Windows support continues long after the next version is released. The oldest device to get iOS5 was the iPhone 33GS (now 3 years old) and the oldest device to get the ICS update was likely (I don't actually know the answer) much younger. While iOS and Android contain a limited amount of legacy hardware support, Windows will run on very old computers indeed. Windows 8 will run on hardware less powerful than my smartphone (actually, that could be an interesting experiment at the end of the year; which OS will run well on lower hardware; the latest Android build, or Win8 RT?).
I can see consumer perceptions towards paying for software shifting though, and that could well cause Microsoft issues in the future, especially when Apple inevitably stop charging for OS X upgrades.
chrisrotolo said:
Micro$haft?
I dont think so.
do you know how much money Bill Gates has? Yes, not enough!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bill Gates has been giving his money away as charity for the past 10 years.
satchef1 said:
It's a good point, and potentially a future issue for Microsoft. Apple can afford to give software updates away for free because they make so much money off hardware sales, iTunes and the App Store. The updates for the iPod Touch weren't always free though, I remember paying for a few. Google can afford to give the OS away for free because the OS is just a vehicle for ad revenue etc.
To my mind though, the parallel between PCs and smartphones/tablets isn't an issue yet (maybe one for the Windows 9 launch?). iOS and Android are updated to new versions annually, Windows is more like every 3 years. Windows support continues long after the next version is released. The oldest device to get iOS5 was the iPhone 33GS (now 3 years old) and the oldest device to get the ICS update was likely (I don't actually know the answer) much younger. While iOS and Android contain a limited amount of legacy hardware support, Windows will run on very old computers indeed. Windows 8 will run on hardware less powerful than my smartphone (actually, that could be an interesting experiment at the end of the year; which OS will run well on lower hardware; the latest Android build, or Win8 RT?).
I can see consumer perceptions towards paying for software shifting though, and that could well cause Microsoft issues in the future, especially when Apple inevitably stop charging for OS X upgrades.
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Click to collapse
I don't think desktop OS upgrades will change in the near future, theres too much work within a desktop OS, yes the kernel may be the same or similar but there is an awful lot more to a desktop. which is why paying for upgrades in justified so long as upgrades bring new functionality.
a Phone OS is very different its a limited use function and the revenue stream is from sale of apps and market penetration and adverts. Personally I think if windows RT is similar to the desktop in functionality then it will follow the desktop model, if it is a limited use device then it will more likely follow the phone OS model.
That's because you're paying the lisencing for the product. Microsoft is a software company, they make very little hardware (And most of their hardware is just comprised of peripherals and concept products). They have to make money somehow, so they do this by selling the lisencing to their OS. Mac is exactly the same, $30 and upgrade. Windows just charges more though because their OS upgrades take longer to come around and usually take a bigger step forware (I'm not dissing Mac by saying it's slow to evolve or anything, I'm just saying Mac takes slow and steady steps, while Windows takes a large leep, but only every few years).
iOS used to cost money to upgrade on iPod Touches, but this generated very little revenue, and mostly irritated iPod Touch users, so Apple stopped. As only Apple makes devices that use Apple OS's, there's no licesing fee.
Andriod is 100% open scource and free, meaning anyone, including you, can just go and download it free. They don't charge licesing fees, instead, making money off increased ad traffic.
Windows Phone does charge a liscensing fee, meaning every WinPhone device sold, the manufactor has to pay a small fee to Microsoft. Of course, to stay competitive, they don't charge upgrade fees.
Going back to conventional x86 desktops, when you buy one at a store, the license for that computer has already been paid for by the maker, so if you build your own, you have to pay Microsoft for a license. If you wish to upgrade, you must pay for the right to use that new OS, through the means of paying for a new license or upgrade fee.
I imagine Windows RT/WoA wil follow this same principle, because it's a more full fledged OS (But it can't run legacy programs). Of course, I would imagine the upgrade fee would be much smaller, but we can't know, becuase this will be the first time Windows has ever supported an ARM device.