Android as a working machine has had some exceptional success over a previous couple of years. Android producers took a lower back seat to Apple; Android became right, but iOS became higher, the critics stated. Over a previous couple of years, Android’s achievement has critics seeing the Apple enemy in a whole new light, with some suggesting that the future of the telephone enterprise lies with Android producers and no longer with the Apple Corporation – a company that many as soon as notion changed into invincible and beyond fail.
Android’s achievement becomes supposed to turn out to be a perfect thing; it was supposed to assist Android manufacturers in seeing the fulfillment that they could reap and propel them to heights of which they’d in no way dreamed. Android’s success changed into speculated to be its producers’ incentive and impact to surpass Apple and iOS. I fear the worst, but: with Android’s rising success, its manufacturers are beginning to see their very own individual agencies as “superstars,” dividing Android, once a cohesive whole, into person portions or fragments. We are on the point of the fragmentation of Android.
Before you put this newsletter down and stroll away, could you permit me to explain? Earlier this week at the International CES, LG Electronics announced that the Nexus 4 turned into handiest, the first of collaborative efforts with Google:
“Through our collaboration with Google, we launched the LG Nexus four telephone. This is the first of many gadgets to come back from our developing partnership with this very selective employer” (underline mine).
What this means is that we will stay up for a Nexus five and six, likely a “Nexus nine” or “Nexus eleven” one of nowadays (depending on how the Nexus smartphones are named, in contrast to the Nexus tablets). Sometime after LG made this declaration, however, the International Business Times claimed that “the Nexus four production ‘is said to have [been] halted,’ with LG interested by building its next-gen gadgets” (Chris Smith, “Nexus four production reportedly halted, as LG is that specialize in destiny smartphones, Nexus five included?”). What is that this intended to intend? To be blunt, LG has decided to desert the Nexus four in want of its own smartphones. Supposedly, the LG Optimus G has made the organization grow assured in transferring ahead to improve its motive. As for its challenge with Google? Well, LG looks to work with them within the destiny. However, no exact time frame turned into given wherein the two agencies would come collectively. Consumers who wanted to get their arms on a Nexus 4 are now left watching for the following Nexus assignment (which will be in a year or two).
In an editorial I wrote on the Google X Phone, I stated that it might no longer be a wise flow for Google to push Samsung out of the manner. I assumed that Samsung might want to stay within the Android production institution. While Samsung’s telephones have made Android the OS to be envied, Samsung has also been running on an OS of its own: Tizen. Reports have surfaced in the final weeks that Samsung will produce extra Tizen telephones this year than ever earlier than. This means that Samsung, who has never gone public about its “OS in the wings,” intends to sell its personal OS in its own hardware this yr. Some say that that is in response to Google’s plans to create an X smartphone; thinking about that Google published its statement first, I could no longer be amazed if Samsung’s selection to press ahead has something to do with Google’s preference to rule Android (and Samsung’s choice to rule Tizen).
Now, LG has improved and made the same pass as Google: finding out to position its personal paintings ahead of the partnership between itself and Google. LG’s circulate could also be a political response to Google’s X cellphone announcement: considering Google is transferring ahead with its own cellphone, LG seems to do the same. Unlike Google or Samsung, however, it does not have the economic assets to maintain producing one line of smartphones while working on a brand new line, so it has determined to tug its sources together and begin on some other cellphone (past the LG Optimus G and Nexus 4). What this says to the consumer is the following: “at the same time as LG and Google produced a nice smartphone collectively, nothing subjects extra than our own phone line and organization called. If left to pick out among our phones and a partnership telephone, the accomplice cellphone task may be the first to move.” This does now not bode well for a company that, until the Optimus G and Nexus four, become now not known for its telephone collections.
With Google’s circulate to create a 100% Google smartphone, Samsung’s flow to have its own autonomous Tizen OS, and LG’s withdrawal from its Google undertaking to pursue its personal line, we’ve got the start of what is called “the fragmentation of Android.” This curious assertion refers back to the breakdown of what turned into once a unified OS, a set of smartphone and software manufacturers who, once unified, decided to head their personal separate ways and create their personal Android flavors that stick out from the relaxation. The fragmentation of Android refers back to the breakdown of a unified OS into individual agencies and their tech achievements. In other words, corporations that once stated, “it is about we” (more than one producer) will now say, “It’s about me” (our one corporation)!
Android has ended up a hit via no longer only its team spirit, however also its diversity. The variety of the Android atmosphere, running together with the settlement of its hardware manufacturers, has kept the running system together – even via the times while it struggled to compete with Apple’s iOS. There is harmony in variety and variety in team spirit, and those principles have made Android what it’s far these days. Unfortunately, Android producers are beginning to believe that there may be no variety in solidarity (handiest in the department); this mindset will allow Apple to divide and overcome in its method to stay on pinnacle inside the telephone global. This mindset, sadly, will prove unfavorable for Android as a whole.
Apple has made its fulfillment show up with a dictatorial, exclusive method. The employer produces its personal OS and maintains stern control over its providers and plans. It does the whole lot for itself and, most effectively, does what it wants to do. Samsung has already proven in 2012 when it beat Apple inside the closing zone ($8.Three billion vs. Apple’s $eight.2 billion) that working with Google has been a successful project, in preference to going on the tech industry by myself. Now that Samsung has validated that “there may be no ‘I’ in ‘team,'” Android manufacturers should do what they could to hold to push their economic profits above that of Apple. These 12 months, but Android manufacturers are beginning to think that they could accomplish more independently than they could in collaboration with others. This is a risky mindset with a purpose to handiest depart a course of destruction behind. The truth is within the sales: If customers are pressured to choose among companies instead of operating systems, Google and Samsung will rack up income while corporations including HTC, LG, and different lesser-recognized names will lose in the cellphone warfare.
