Are OEM Skins holding back Android Growth?

by Chris Moor
tagged Android, dell streak, fragmentation, froyo, Gingerbread, HTC, iphone, O2

So if you own an unlocked HTC Desire your finally about to get Froyo, but for everyone else there is still the usual wait for the announcement of when your device is going to get the latest and greatest version of Android.

So are manufacturers skins holding up the growth of android? If every device on the market came with froyo (2.2) out of the box, would more people being switching to Android? Is the fragmentation and uncertainty over upgrades having an effect on Android?

From my perspective, working for a network in the UK, maybe, and I say maybe for one reason, that alot of the customers who purchase Android phones, are not that aware of which version they are getting. That said the almost inevitable question

“Is it as good as an iPhone?” Can lead to some potential Android customers switching to the dark side.

The lack of unified upgrades, and the issues with cross compatibility of apps between version does cause problems, and these details are almost always covered when comparing phones, the company I work for prides itself on giving the best advice, and these differences can decide if Android becomes the OS of choice.

Should OEM skins go? Should there be some minimum specification decided to ensure that Android can offer the latest version to all?

As it is, the Dell Streak, Experia X10 and X10 mini/pro owners out there, face the possibility of finally getting froyo, when gingerbread could be just around the corner.

I own a streak, and if I had to choose between Dells skin and froyo and the promise of updates to newer versions as soon as they appear, then bye bye to the skin.

I personally hope that these discussions are already taking place, and that future devices will be without the skins or at least offered with a choice to switch them off or remove them, dont get me wrong there have been some great innovation from these skins , HTC sense has excellent features that should definitely be intergrated , but most people want the latest and greatest.

Some of the best hardware on the planet is now available running Android, but which version of Android can be as important as the phone specs themselves.

» See more articles by Chris Moor

Categorized as Android Phones, Android Updates

Comments

Justin Dybedahl

I completely agree with what you are stating. I’d rather be on the latest and greatest rather than have a skin or custom UI. To me the stock interface is much cleaner and if I want to change something, well then I can.
zenaxe

I chose the Moto Droid as my first Android phone SPECIFICALLY because it had a bone stock GUI for these very reasons (Froyo to be released for it this week); so obviously, I think manufacturers are shooting themselves in the foot when “trying to add value” via a skin.

An open OS like Android should be like any other flavor of Unix: It comes with a spartan but functional default and the **USER** picks an alternative desktop manager from the open market/sources if they want more features beyond the base distribution.
Edward W

As someone who well… Doesn’t do any programming, but knows enough about programming to comment, I can imagine that writing new apps for Android would be A LOT less painful if all of the manufacturers would just stick to the stock version of Android instead of adding their own OEMs.

I mean, it’s a strong possibility that the reasons some apps are limited compared to their iPhone counterparts is that some of them aren’t compatible with another kind of phone, even within the Android platform!

Whenever I get an upgrade from Market, sometimes it’s often slower, but the good news is that it’s “Now compatible with XX”, “Fixed _____ bug on YY”, or “Optimized for ZZ UI”, with ALL apps accessing the same Market.

Also, if manufacturers REALLY wanted to add some OEM difference, they can perhaps do it as an overlay or XX-system-only software instead of taking apart the Android shell and making it so different that you’d have to learn how to use each one!

I’ve been using Android since RC29, and used every official Android build except FroYo, and even the somewhat-tweaked version of Cyanogen… But I found that the HTC-based one has a few vocabulary changes and a few UI tweaks, with barely a need for a learning curve, and don’t get me started on the Motoblur… Its resemblance to ANY build of Android is pretty different!