A Brief History Of Android - Part 4: Crossroads

Ice Cream Sandwich. Sweeeet...

In this series so far, we've looked at the modest beginnings of Android through its various iterations, with our last chapter focusing on the explosive growth of the platform in the last year. To the makers of competitive platforms, Android's rise to dominance has been a serious impediment to their own good fortune. And they haven't been shy in roundly criticising Google's effort whenever the opportunity arises either.

Although Android's perceived weaknesses have been the subject of regular negative commentary from the opposition camps, the spectacular performance of the little green robot has continued unabated. So what's going on here? If Android is the disaster that its opponents claim it to be, shouldn't it be failing miserably? Is it failing at all? Let's have a peek after the jump.

Fragging the robot 

One of the most critcised aspects of Android is in its many incarnations across numerous handsets. Its critics call this “fragmentation”. In their PR-speak, fragmentation is a “bad thing”, an undesirable attribute in a smartphone platform. Some Android handsets, particularly the earlier models and even lower-powered more recent ones, are simply not able to run newer versions of the operating system well, some not at all.

If your immediate reaction is “So... how is that unique to Android?”, that's a very good question. It's not. The opposition critics ignore that in their own product, but prefer, if challenged, to make the point that their system is less fragmented. So the real issue is that their beef isn't with fragmentation at all. It's with the amount of fragmentation their competitor has, but only if theirs has less.

A chap explaining the problem with fragmentation

You see, Android's largest rival happens to also make a PC operating system which is actually more fragmented than the main opposition OS. Strangely, that famous fruity smartphone maker never mentions fragmentation when it criticises its market-leading PC OS competitor. Spooky, eh?

With the development of devices in the fledgeling tablet category, Google chose to create a tablet-specific version of its OS called Honeycomb. This 3.x branch was the laboratory for developing the technologies and techniques for larger hardware configurations so it's not a fragmentation per sé since it had no requirement to be relevant to non-tablet devices, nor did any non-tablet device need its important technology.

Besides the points just made, it's entirely unclear just who is disadvantaged by fragmentation anyway. Since smartphone owners tend to replace their handset every two years, the majority of Android owners who were early adopters are about to, or recently did, upgrade to something completely capable of running the latest available Android version. So not the owners then. The people who bought cheap and cheerful low-end phones perhaps? Not likely, as their needs and expectations were obviously well satisfied with their low budget original choice.

The developers maybe? Anyone who has developed for the personal computer will hear “fragmentation” and laugh. Their lives have been intimately involved with dealing with a virtual universe of hardware, featuring countless technologies, frequencies, bandwidths, architectures, permission requirements, performance variation and almost endless permutations of graphics acceleration, drivers, screen densities and sizes and so on, which they've dealt with admirably for decades.

To those developers, Android is a doddle. Fragmentation? Shmagmentation...

But what if Android offered a single OS for every sized mobile device?

You want an Ice Cream Sandwich with that?

Ice Cream Sandwich, Android ver 4.0, is the unification of all future mobile devices under a single operating system. No need for a separate tablet version, the new OS delivering the scalability to adjust automatically to your device irrespective of its hardware specifications.

A caution here – some earlier handsets will struggle to run ICS, just as iPhone models prior to the 3Gs handset won't cope with iOS 5 (even the 4S is arguably struggling with 5, but that's another story). Nonetheless, I fully expect my HTC Sensation to be infused with the new OS as soon as HTC feel the urge to provide their take on it. And if they don't? I'm sure the clever devils at XDA will be happy to create a nice Sensation-friendly ICS for me to use. And that's one of the reasons I'm an Android user and not an iFan.

So what does Ice Cream Sandwich offer that my Gingerbread doesn't? I'm glad you asked that.

First, performance. Gingerbread isn't a slug on the Sensation by any means, but ICS runs faster, supports multiple processors and processes better, uses hardware acceleration including GPU integration across the board and multitasks better than any competitor.

Then there's the interface improvements over what was already an impressive mobile UI. And many of the interface elements have been optimised for faster response and greater smoothness, delivering a better user experience. Which, considering how really smooth things have become with the new dual core CPUs, is certainly saying something.

Besides the performance improvements, the introduction of new functionality isn't exactly unwelcome either.

For example, home screen folders now allow you to group your apps and shortcuts however you wish by dragging one on top of another. The All Apps launcher lets you drag an app to get its information, immediately uninstall it, or even freeze a stock app.

The home screen features a “favorites” tray, viewable from all home screens. Widgets are now resizable - stretchable to show more content, shrinkable to save screen space. From the lock screen, you can access the camera directly and pull down the notifications window to check for messages. You can also dismiss specific notifications with a quick swipe of your finger. With the music player running, use all the player controls and even see album art.

Where your data went... oops.

Settings now shows the total data usage on your networks, including the quantity of data used by each running application, in chart form. You can set alert levels or caps on data, or disable data entirely.

Input is improved with better error correction and word suggestion with new dictionaries and heuristics for such situations as skipped letters, double-typed characters and omitted spaces. Alternate word suggestion has been improved with a simplified suggestion strip showing just three words now. There's a new voice input capability, delivering a constant "open mic" experience with streaming voice recognition. Dictate your text for as long as you want, using any language, even pausing if needed, and dictate appropriate punctuation. Possible errors are flagged as you go.

For the socially addicted, a new People app offers more profile information, including picture, phone numbers, addresses and accounts, status updates, events, and connection to integrated social networks. Contact info is stored in a new "Me" profile, facilitating sharing with apps and people. All contacts are available in a handy list, controlling contacts via any integrated account or social network. Finally catching up with Apple, there's a new “visual voicemail” integrating incoming messages, voice transcriptions and other audio from multiple providers. Also, third party apps can leverage the Phone app to add customised voice messages and transcriptions to visual voicemail.

There's lots you can do with the new picture Edit capability.

The Camera app has been improved with instantaneous capture and reduced time between snaps. Zoom has been stabilised, even when video is recording and you can capture stills at full video resolution by tapping the screen as you record. There's a new single sweep panorama capability that let's you start the exposure and slowly rotate while the camera records the scene into a single still image. You can then share your shot by email, txt, bluetooth and so on, by tapping the appropriate app thumbnail.

Beam me up Scotty...

And on the topic of communicating, the email app has been much improved and NFC-enabled peer to peer connection is provided by Beam, allowing you to directly transfer music, video - practically any kind of file to a similarly equipped device. And you can also connect directly to another WiFi enabled device via Wi-Fi Direct to share files, stream audio and video, and also send to print.

There's more, of course, a lot more – some of it a bit frivolous like the face recognition-
based Face Unlock, Live Effects video 'enhancing' and the Gallery now features a new photo editor, something I'd have to try to comment on.  

Spectacular browser performance improvement. Woot!

But there are also major improvements in the existing apps like the web browser, which performs incredibly well and is probably the new gold standard in the mobile space. And there are also major improvements in accessibility which will be very welcome in a segment that traditionally has lacked user friendliness. 

Getting the crystal ball out 

It's been a brief history, made even more so by the short space of time that Android has been with us. But also because it would take a decent sized book to do a 'proper' job on the topic, needing more time than I can offer.

I've concentrated more on the shifting nature of the marketplace and its effect on the participants in this ever-evolving story than on individual events that drove progress, although the key steps are there. Some important factors have of necessity been omitted in the interests of keeping this project do-able, and the sometimes arbitrary decisions are of my own making. This is a brief history of Android through my eyes. But unless I've expressed an opinion as such, the material is factual.

Android has certainly come a great distance since its beginnings and is a massive success in terms of its near-ubiquity. Whether it's been such a success for Google remains to be seen. Certainly it has materially assisted Samsung and Motorola, and Huawei and ZTE continue to profit handsomely from the little green robot's existence. HTC has curiously failed to capitalise on the Android wave, even though they've proved themselves capable of producing some fine devices. Nokia and Microsoft have suffered though, while Apple is desperately trying to avoid being marginalised in mobile devices in the way it was with PCs.

But however this drama plays out, Android has exceeded expectations in a myriad of ways, not least that it has powered smartphone growth in a manner that no other platform could. And driven the technology and performance in ways that would've been seen as fantasy two short years ago. As users, we're all a little better off as a result.

That's the history.

The crystal ball gazing? OK, I'll stick my neck out. The Microsoft/Nokia tryst will fail to reach the heights that they hope for, and Nokia will eventually adopt Android as its BFF. In turn, Microsoft will abandon WinPho and concentrate on making portable X-Box gaming/social media devices. RIM will continue to find a niche within its areas of superiority, particularly in the enterprise. Apple will continue to profit from its iFanatical legions' loyalty and hold a highly profitable, respectable market share for the foreseeable future. Bada? Who can say...

But hey, I've been wrong before.