By the official count, more than 50 percent of all smartphones in the US are running Android, while 32 percent are running iOS. So Google’s mobile operating system wouldn’t seem in need of saving.
But the official count is a lie. It’s not that the industry groups that publish these numbers are deliberately misleading you. It’s that almost no one is using a true Android phone. I’d put it at under 2 percent. Google has indicated that it’s willing to be bare-knuckled in its handling of Motorola, slashing thousands of jobs to streamline the company. Now it needs to wield Motorola as a weapon and take back control of its mobile OS. Otherwise, Android apps are going to remain second-rate or warmed-over versions of what’s available in Apple’s App Store.
Every iPhone comes with iOS exactly as Steve Jobs intended, which means developers know precisely what they’re getting. But Google’s hardware partners like Samsung and HTC deploy heavily customized versions of Android onto their phones, replacing Google’s clean experience with their own user interfaces and bloatware. Given all the Android skins like Pure Breeze and Sense and TouchWiz, and all the companies that have failed to upgrade their customers’ Gingerbread devices to Honeycomb, or Honeycomb to Ice Cream Sandwich, there are dozens of different versions of Android in use right now.
So unless your phone says “Nexus” on it, you’re not running true Android. And Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, for example, accounts for just 0.5 percent of the smartphone market. It’s a safe bet that there are more people using jailbroken iPhones than Nexus phones. If I were a Google engineer who’d poured his time and effort into the beautiful Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean, I’d be pissed.
In what must be doubly exasperating for Google’s design team, even Microsoft has learned from Android’s difficulties, insisting on an Apple-like consistency of experience across the various Windows Phone devices. Yes, that means it’s also a more closed experience. But somewhere along the line, “open” in Android became an excuse for Google’s hardware partners to chase arbitrary distinctions in their proprietary versions of the OS rather than focusing on phones that deliver a great user experience.
I don’t say this as an Apple partisan. Far from it. I’m one of those rare people who bought a Windows Phone with his own money, and I ordered the Nexus One the day it was released, despite the $529 price tag. Only 135,000 people joined me in the first two months the phone was out. Compare that to Samsung’s Galaxy SIII, which broke 10 million in sales in June and July of this year but which runs Samsung’s own version of Android. To see Android make the leap from being the default option that comes with a service plan to actually becoming the platform that defines smartphones in the public’s imagination, Google needs to take on not just Apple but everyone in the Android hardware space too. Motorola has said it’s going to streamline its offerings. I’d push that even further. Go with a single model. And it shouldn’t have a name that reads like a license plate. Instead of the Atrix HD MB886, it should just be the Nexus Phone, with a marketing campaign that focuses on the phone, rather than Android. (When’s the last time you saw an iPhone commercial that talked about iOS?) Make it clear that this is the Google Phone.
Yes, describing this phone as “the real Google experience” will upset hardware partners like HTC and Samsung. But given the $12.5 billion it paid for Motorola, Google has kind of already suggested that it doesn’t care. Now it’s time to act like it.
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Intel Corp. (INTC) Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini told employees in Taiwan that Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 operating system is being released before it’s fully ready, a person who attended the company event said.
Improvements still need to be made to the software, Otellini told employees at a company meeting in Taipei yesterday, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private.
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Microsoft is eager to get Windows 8, the first version of its flagship software compatible with tablets, into computers next month to help it vie with Apple Inc.’s iPad during the crucial holiday shopping season. Photographer: Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg
Intel Corp. Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini told employees improvements still need to be made to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 operating system. Photographer: Noah Berger/Bloomberg
Microsoft is eager to get Windows 8, the first version of its flagship software designed for touch tablets, into computers next month to help it vie with Apple Inc.’s iPad during the holiday shopping season. Releasing the operating system before it’s fully baked is the right move, and Microsoft can make improvements after it ships, Otellini told staffers.
Intel, the biggest semiconductor maker, is Microsoft (MSFT)’s closest partner, and Otellini’s remarks echo criticism from analysts such as Michael Cherry at Directions on Microsoft. While Windows is fundamentally sound, the operating system lacks a wide range of robust applications and PC makers haven’t had enough time to work out kinks with so-called drivers, which connect software to such hardware as printers, Cherry said.
“We are concerned at the level of bugs and fine tuning that appears necessary to get the beta systems we demoed ready for prime time,” Alex Gauna, an analyst at JMP Securities LLC in San Francisco, wrote in a Sept. 13 note in response to versions of Windows 8 shown at Intel’s recent developer forum.
Vista Flops
Technology vendors often release software before it’s completely ready and make adjustments on the fly. Still, the practice can backfire. Vista, a version of Windows that debuted in 2007, was introduced two years late. It was met with poor adoption as the software initially didn’t work with many applications and drivers.
“With over 16 million active preview participants, Windows 8 is the most tested, reviewed and ready operating system in Microsoft’s history,” said Mark Martin, a spokesman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft.
Laura Anderson, a spokeswoman for Santa Clara, California- based Intel, declined to comment on the internal meeting. She also said that the company “believes Windows represents a tremendous opportunity for our business and we’re looking forward to working with Microsoft on enabling a host of new experiences on a variety of devices.”
Intel’s Sales
During the meeting, Otellini declined to elaborate on the company’s outlook following the announcement this month that it’s cutting the third-quarter revenue forecast. Lackluster demand for PCs won’t be bad enough to cause the company to lay off workers, and the market will grow in 2013, he said.
Intel said on Sept. 7 that third-quarter sales will be $12.9 billion to $13.5 billion, from a prior projection of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion. Analysts on average had estimated sales of $14.2 billion, datahttp://www.techbuddiesonline.com/ compiled by Bloomberg show.
Intel said orders in emerging markets and demand for chips used in business machines are lower than expected, compounding concern that the PC market may not grow this year as consumers flock to smartphones and tablets.
In German trading, Intel shares dropped 0.5 percent to the equivalent of $22.51 while Microsoft fell 0.6 to the equivalent of $30.36 as of 9:22 a.m. in Frankfurt. Intel yesterday slipped 1.1 percent to $22.54 at the close in New York while Microsoft declined 1.3 percent to $30.39.
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