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13th January 2011

Marco.org: Too much hardware choice

marco:

From my Verizon iPhone post:

Even the gadget blogs have a hard time feigning enthusiasm for this week’s hot Android phone because they still haven’t taken the shrinkwrap off of last week’s.

Not enough Nick’s response:

Wait, the stream of high-quality, constantly improving hardware with…

Click through and read, please.  Very astute observations regarding Android fragmentation, and not the software fragmentation of the platform itself, but the fragmentation of consumer perception of the Android ecosystem.

If you are an Android advocate, you would have to hope that a phone could cut above the static outlined in Marco’s post.  You could argue, as an Android evangelist, that a phone like the Moto Atrix, a phone built around the excellent hardware accessories, would differentiate itself from the crowd and rise above.

Let’s presume, however, that you do cut above the rest and become known as “the best” Android phone.  Let’s also presume that you hold that spot for longer than 12 months, a feat barely accomplished by the Nexus One.  Even with a meteoric rise to the top and a long reign, you still have to contend with every other phone manufacturer gunning for your spot.  I would say it is highly unlikely that the best selling Android handset would stay “best selling” for longer than six months.

Android is such an interesting new thing… there hasn’t really been a smartphone operating system other than Symbian that has proliferated so quickly, and you could say that Symbian is a bad comparison.  Windows Mobile is closer, but you had to license it from Microsoft at no small fee.  Android is a smartphone OS that any manufacturer can use, bar none.  That’s pretty incredible, and I’m not aware of any similar situation.  It’s no wonder that handset manufacturers went berzerk and threw their weight behind Android.

But Marco’s post was in reference to how Android’s fragmentation issues are going to hinder the platform, and I tend to agree on his points.  I have a feeling, however, that all of this competition within the Android ecosystem is eventually going to produce something incredible.  The phone that becomes a household word with the same ubiquity of the iPhone.  The Moto Atrix is the first glimmer of that; a phone that outshines not only every other Android handset, but shows up the iPhone with its unique desktop/laptop docking capability.  I’m going to be looking out for the phone that outshines the Atrix, forcing Apple’s hand to evolve the iPhone past their already quickly evolving roadmap.

(Source: marco)