“Android is now the world’s most popular mobile operating system. It’s unclear if Google makes much money from Android directly—by some estimates Google makes as much from ads on Apple’s iOS devices as it does on Android machines,” Farhad Manjoo writes for Slate. “But there’s no question that Android has helped lower the prices of smartphones across the globe, which can only help Google’s ad business. It’s hard to call Android anything other than a resounding success.”
“Well, except for one small thing: Most Android phones are crap,” Manjoo writes. “As part of a New Year’s resolution, I promised to trade in my beloved iPhone 5 for an Android phone sometime in 2013. I reasoned that, as a tech writer, I should spend more time with the world’s most popular operating system… I’ve been testing two of the most expensive, most advanced Android phones on the market, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. Actually, I’ve been doing more than that. I’ve been using two versions of each of these phones—the standard phone that you get for $199 when you sign a two-year cellular contract, and a second ‘Google Play edition,’ which is a special, full-priced version that features only the essential software you need on a smartphone. (The Play edition HTC one is $599, and the S4 is $649.) I’ve been switching between these four devices, using one or the other as my primary phone at all times. Except for the brief period during which I tested out Apple’s new version of iOS, my iPhone hasn’t been charged in weeks, poor guy.”
Manjoo writes, “Altogether I experienced the best and worst of Android — and I saw, up close, Android’s basic problem. I’d sum it up as follows. Google makes a fine mobile operating system. Some phone manufacturers make attractive, powerful Android handsets. These phones have the potential to be really wonderful machines, even as great as Apple’s flagship phone. But then, at the last second, the phone makers and the world’s cellular carriers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They ruin the phones’ potential with unnecessary features and apps that lower the devices’ battery life, uglify their home screens, and make everything you want to do extra annoying.”
“The worst thing about Android phones isn’t the crapware, though. It’s the ‘skins’ — the modifications that phone companies make to Android’s most basic features, including the dialing app, contacts, email, the calendar, the notification system, and the layout of the home screen. If you get the Play edition of these phones, you’ll see Google’s version of each of these apps, and you’ll come away impressed by Google’s tasteful, restrained, utilitarian design sense. But if, like most people, you get your phone for $199 from a carrier, you’ll find everything in it is a frightful mess,” Manjoo writes. “Because I’m eligible for an upgrade with my carrier, I’d rather not pay full price for a Play edition Android. So, New Year’s resolution be damned, I’m sticking with Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Too many cooks in the kitchen. Windows redux.
And Manjoo didn’t even mention Android’s growing malware problem.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Chris Renaldi,” and “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
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