Is the Android OS Growing Too Quickly?
Filed under: Cell Phones , Google After getting off to a slow start, Android phones have gone gangbusters. As of last July, there was only one Android-powered device available in the U.S., but that number has since exploded. Now, there are eight Android phones available stateside, with more expected to debut in the coming months. So things must be looking pretty great for the mobile OS from Google , right? Not necessarily. A few issues have both Google and the developers of Android-friendly applications worried. For the most part, the issue can be reduced to the term “splintering.” Right now, those eight phones share three different versions of the Android core: 1.5, 1.6, and 2.0. The phones also have vast hardware differences between them; for instance, some models have keyboards while others don’t, and some cameras have flashes while others do not. Then, there are the customized interfaces (or skins), like HTC’s Sense on the Hero and Motorola’s Blur on the Cliq. These differences make it difficult to build apps, since even basic updates need to be tested against every possible combination of hardware, skin, and Android version. And a smartphone OS lives and dies by its developers. Continue reading Is the Android OS Growing Too Quickly? Is the Android OS Growing Too Quickly? originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read
