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posted by martyb on Monday September 12 2016, @11:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the avoided-Betteridge's-Law-of-Headlines dept.

I've been an Android user since Froyo, over several devices. I'm beginning to think that there must be a better way.

First, although I liked Android, especially the part that was Open Source, I'll suggest that the whole Android ecosystem represents a dead end.

At a minimum, it seems like madness to rely on two or more layers of outside partners to deliver software patches and updates. It's just not reasonable or safe for end users to wait for months or years until device makers and wireless carriers deliver patches from Google - if they ever do.

That there's no way a user can update their system without their cooperation is just not acceptable today.

Second, even if an update or patch does arrive, it brings with it the likelihood that some feature or application that you have been using will be hobbled, eliminated, or just plain be made unusable by Google. Services provided by Google are subject to changes that, depending on your circumstances, make them significantly less usable. (Gmail being a prime example) Standalone apps like Reader or MyTracks may just stop working one day if Google loses interest.

Finally, there's the Play store, and the millions of apps available to users. I think that most people would agree that trying to find a usable app for a specific purpose is an exercise in frustration.

[Continues...]

The current system pretty much requires you to guess on a search term to find an app, then wade through dozens or hundreds of possible results.

App ratings are filled with obvious astroturf, or one word disses - neither of these help you tell if an app actually works. Without someone actually moderating the ratings system it is pretty much of no value.

There's no practical way to tell if an app is a finished product, or an abandoned half-baked pastime. Our only option, even with paid apps, is to install it and find out if it works.

There is speculation that Google may be preparing to abandon Android, but will a new Google OS really be any better for end users?

The problem is that Android has more or less become the only game in town, so what alternative will we see emerge?

Obvious notes:

a) Cyanogenmod - been there, done that. Not a realistic option for the vast majority of end users. And honestly, I just don't have the time and inclination to root and install it these days.
b) iPhone - actually owned a Powerbook for three years as my primary machine. Gave it my best go, but just don't like the way Apple machines do things. YMMV.
c) BlackBerry - actually really loved the BlackBerry, except that it REALLY didn't play well with Google contacts, and they refuse to support either Linux, or individual end users.
c) Linux - yup. Guess I'm spoiled. Stuff generally doesn't break, and if I need a specific tool or function — someone, somewhere has almost always created it.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Jolla Announces Sailfish 3 OS 18 comments

What, it's not Android?

Jolla Announces Sailfish 3 With Feature Phone Support – MWC 2018

Finnish mobile OS developer Jolla is attending Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, Spain, where the company has officially announced Sailfish 3, the next-generation independent mobile OS built on a five-year software legacy. The company also announced a handful of new devices that have joined the Sailfish ecosystem and it revealed its plans for a new branch of its mobile operating system which was designed specifically for 4G-enabled feature phones as it sets out to allow select Android app access on low-spec hardware for consumers who don't need or want a full-fledged smartphone.

One of the biggest changes introduced with the latest Sailfish 3 OS lies in the way the software can be distributed through regional licensing, providing full support for regional infrastructure which should lead to steady upgrade releases and more. As for the mobile operating system itself, Sailfish 3 should provide 30-percent faster performance, improved multitasking with the ability to quickly switch between applications, as well as a redesigned top menu containing actions and settings. The mobile operating system employs a new visual style comprising new ambiances, light themes, and animations, while also offering new security solutions including revised architecture, fingerprint support, encryption, remote locking and wiping capabilities, as well as enablers for blockchain-based services.

Sailfish OS.

Press release. Also at TechCrunch, Engadget, and NDTV.

Related: Jolla Tablet Ship Date Slips
Sailfish OS Maker Jolla: Funding Delay Results in "Temporary Layoffs"
Android is a Dead End
Jolla to Sell OS Image for Sony Phone


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khakipuce on Monday September 12 2016, @12:12PM

    by khakipuce (233) on Monday September 12 2016, @12:12PM (#400650)

    Both my kids use Apple becuase it is cool but they both have problems with it, the last iOS update rendered my daughter's phone pretty much unusable for many weeks. They have both had Android phones in the past and actually prefer them but ... Apple.

    One the subject of updates my Lenovo tablet has never received an Android update in many years, can't say I'm bothered though. Given that these things only have a life of a few years I suspect most people jsut get a new device when they want an upgrade.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 12 2016, @12:40PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday September 12 2016, @12:40PM (#400668)

      I had a custom piece of hardware, I wrote a nice app for it, I shared it with the "world" of 100 other people who had similar systems, and about 50 of them paid me $65 each for the app (I'm pretty sure the other 50 pirated it). Anyway, that was a total dead-end. The hardware is now out of production and new systems are totally incompatible. C'est la vie. We're all gonna die, this is an incredibly temporary existence as are all endeavors within it. If you're not satisfied with a platform that has millions of users with a foreseeable lifetime of at least 5 years, go carve granite or cast bronze or something.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday September 12 2016, @04:03PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday September 12 2016, @04:03PM (#400776) Journal

        Algorithms, baby, algorithms. They're timeless, and they are independent of media, no need to carve stone. Euclid's algorithm for Greatest Common divisor is over 2000 years old, and still relevant today.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday September 12 2016, @02:12PM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Monday September 12 2016, @02:12PM (#400712)

      Given that the only real alternatively is Apple, where you have the hardware and the software controlled through a single company and no choice at all, I would argue that it is the more likely dead end. Android is open-source and there are many hardware providers. Google, Samsung, HTC, etc, could all disappear tomorrow and life would go on with Android still available as an OS and other manufacturers still available as well.

      Personally, I'd love to see a pure Linux or other open mobile OS mobile OS out, but I think Android is by far the best alternative until we have that happens. If and when that does happen, I'd also like to be able to *choose* my OS, not have it forced on me an locked in place.

      People tying themselves to a single company with a poor history of playing nicely others has always amazed me.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @04:43PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @04:43PM (#400798)

        Not to mention the forks of Android that do give the user back power to control their phone (mostly).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @11:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @11:21PM (#401009)

        FTFS: c) Linux

        Props to opinionated_science, below, for mentioning N900 and A780.

        We have mentioned here multiple times Ubuntu Touch. [soylentnews.org]

        .
        I also like the comment by requerdanos:
        Android is the worst phone ecosystem and environment, except for all the others.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:14AM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:14AM (#401099)

        I backed the Jolla tablet - I've got 50% of my money back now, and they're promising to send the other 50% "when they are able."

        Jolla did make a phone that launched in Europe, but I believe they moved away from a pure Qt on Linux implementation to focus on Android app compatibility. That's the reality of making a new phone OS, whether Windows, Linux, or something completely new, the phone owners will all be sad if their friends have a new "don't spill the beer" or whatever app that isn't available on their phone - so every new phone OS pretty much has to run Android apps, or the phone will never reach any kind of mass market.

        Android may be a dead end today, like the Roman Empire was a dead end in 300 BC.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday September 12 2016, @05:34PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday September 12 2016, @05:34PM (#400830) Homepage Journal

      Actually, Apple is worse, in that you don't have to jailbreak an Android to sideload an app. If you have the APK file (similar to a Linux tarball) just copy it to the device and click on it with a file manager.

      Funny, Appalbarry (note the user name, either an Apple shill or fanboi) has all these problems with Android, and they look no different than problems with any other computing platform.

      My only problem with Android is the damned thing crashes. It's worse than a 20th century copy of Windows. I thought it was my cheap kyocera phone's hardware, but since have bought two Samsung tablets, both of which crash as often as the phone.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday September 12 2016, @07:23PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday September 12 2016, @07:23PM (#400885)

        My only problem with Android is the damned thing crashes. It's worse than a 20th century copy of Windows. I thought it was my cheap kyocera phone's hardware, but since have bought two Samsung tablets, both of which crash as often as the phone.

        I have a Galaxy S4 that I've had for about a year now. It was updated to 5.0.1 by the carrier as soon as I got it, and I've *never* seen it crash. It's not perfect: it gets slow sometimes thanks to all the bloatware and Samsung's TouchWiz, and it probably doesn't help that I have a bunch of network-using apps (two VoIP apps, two dating apps, etc.) that basically constantly run in the background (at least I don't use Facebook). But crashes? I've never seen one on this device. Now my old HTC phone? That thing was horrible, and crashed all the time.

        I'm upgrading to a Galaxy S5 this week, so hopefully that'll go at least as well as this S4. We'll see.

        • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday September 12 2016, @09:50PM

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday September 12 2016, @09:50PM (#400956)

          My Galaxy S4 is three years old next month, and continues to work as well as the day I bought it. I've heard lots of complaints about Touch Wiz over the years, but I've never had a problem with it.

          The battery started to go bad last year, so I bought a new one for $20 (local dollars, worth less than your US dollars), it took a few seconds to change it out.

          I have a 32 GB micro SD card in it for extra storage. When the old one went bad I bought a new one for not much and restored the pics and whatnot from my Owncloud backup.

          Those features are worth having in my opinion.

          Sometimes I have a look at the shiny new S7's on display in the Mall and think how great owning one would be. It would obviously make me more attractive to the opposite sex and would wash my car for me on Saturdays, but I can't justify spending the money when the phone I own does everything I need it to.

          Both of my sons own a Galaxy S5 and they are very happy with them.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 13 2016, @04:08PM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @04:08PM (#401361)

            I have a housemate with another S4 (this one's the L720T, mine is the older L720), and that one sucks because it doesn't recognize the SIM card so it won't make calls any more. Replacing the SIM socket assembly doesn't work, doing a factory reset on the software doesn't work, so it appears to be a motherboard problem. Trying other hacks like putting paper over the SIM assembly connector didn't work either. Online searching shows that tons of people have this problem with this model, and there's no real resolution. So for anyone reading this, don't get the L720T (the tri-band Sprint model). You're not in the US so you probably don't have this problem.

            Anyway, I'm upgrading to the S5 and giving my housemate my S4 (L720), which still works great. Other acquaintances I know with the S5 love it. It should be a little faster than the S4, plus it's waterproof which is a nice plus, but still retains the removable battery, SDcard slot, the wonderful SuperAMOLED screen, and overall repairability. (I was impressed with how easy it was to open up the S4 to replace PCBs and such; if the USB socket went bad, for instance, it'd be pretty easy to swap out that board for a replacement. Try that on an iPhone...)

      • (Score: 1) by Demena on Tuesday September 13 2016, @12:52AM

        by Demena (5637) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @12:52AM (#401036)

        My iPhone is not jail broken. Nor will it be. I prefer the limited security provided by apple to none at all. Apple places zero restrictions on the apps you can install - provided you have the source code. In that sense apple is open source but closed binary. No one sees the advantage in this?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @09:30AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @09:30AM (#401212)

          Well, this is a recent'ish development. It used to be that it's $99 to load your own software to your own device.

          • (Score: 1) by Demena on Tuesday September 13 2016, @10:36AM

            by Demena (5637) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @10:36AM (#401230)

            No, I have had the development kit since the S3 and they have never asked a cent for it. So why you are claiming it had a 99$ cost attached to it I hate no idea. Same situation for my friends. All it requires is that you register (which means give them your name).

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @10:49AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @10:49AM (#401239)

              What is this Apple S3 you are talking about?

              Context, context, context, man.

              • (Score: 1) by Demena on Tuesday September 13 2016, @10:57AM

                by Demena (5637) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @10:57AM (#401241)

                An Apple iPhone S3 which I bought partially to write an app on. I was beaten to a (free market). I never finished the App and the phone is now on a shelf.

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday September 12 2016, @07:26PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday September 12 2016, @07:26PM (#400886)

      Wait, your kids prefer Android, but continue to use Apple, why? Are they worried other kids are going to make fun of them or something?

      There's a simple solution to this: get them the phone you want them to have and think is the best choice for them, since that's your job as a parent. If they want something different because of peer pressure, too bad. They can buy it with their own money if they want.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @12:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @12:13PM (#400651)

    Former power user got lazy and became an end user. Now end user is whining about needing to depend upon the work of others.

    Shut! Up! Leech!

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by coolgopher on Monday September 12 2016, @03:20PM

      by coolgopher (1157) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:20PM (#400750)

      I must disagree with you on this. I mean, have you looked at what's available on the (smart)phone front these days? It's slim pickings, that's for sure. With Apple you get a pretty, walled garden with prison wardens looking after you. With Android you get a wild-growing field with scarecrows monitoring your every move. If you look to Windows Phone, you find a small Japanese rock garden that someone stopped decorating halfway through, and somehow all the rocks have eyes. These are your choices. None are for powerusers. In fact, all of them actively try to prevent you from power-using your device.

      On the periphery I've heard rumors about a Mozilla Firefoxy type phone device, but have never seen such a beast. Same with Jolla/Sailfish, which is a pity because Maemo was the open-source light on the horizon for a while, and really nice to use as well.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Nerdfest on Monday September 12 2016, @03:45PM

        by Nerdfest (80) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:45PM (#400765)

        You can run Android with no interaction from Google whatsoever, and install software only from open-source providers like F-Droid. You can root Android phones quite easily from many hardware providers, and most also have alternative versions of Android firmware available for them. The only reason anyone would be "monitoring your every move" is if you choose that to be the case.

        • (Score: 2) by everdred on Monday September 12 2016, @06:53PM

          by everdred (110) on Monday September 12 2016, @06:53PM (#400869) Journal

          This precisely. Android is really good about allowing third-party applications to provide what would be considered core system functionality on another OS... without having to even root the device.

          • (Score: 1) by letssee on Monday September 12 2016, @07:21PM

            by letssee (2537) on Monday September 12 2016, @07:21PM (#400883)

            Except that a lot of functionality you'd consider 'core os functionality' is moved from aosp to google apps. So if you use just the open source parts you get rather a second rate experience.

            • (Score: 2) by everdred on Monday September 12 2016, @07:49PM

              by everdred (110) on Monday September 12 2016, @07:49PM (#400897) Journal

              You know, I've been hearing comments like this for years and I'm not sure I understand which niceties I'd personally be missing out on if I chose to go AOSP-only. (For one thing, I know about the "Google Now" combination home screen/launcher/voice search, which I've replaced with an open-source local-search-centric launcher.) My usage may not be typical, though.

        • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday September 13 2016, @07:14AM

          by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @07:14AM (#401169)

          If I wanted to play with a toy, sure. But I don't wanna do that much work to remove the spyware. It's easier just to get a flip phone. No Google Spyware to remove.

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 12 2016, @08:04PM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday September 12 2016, @08:04PM (#400904) Homepage Journal

        It makes and receives calls, and sends and receives texts. I don't text a whole lot except for one friend who's heavily into texting.

        I used to have an iPhone. If I got another I would develop apps for it but otherwise I wouldn't use it.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @11:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @11:05PM (#400999)

        > I mean, have you looked at what's available [...] These are your choices

        Well I mean... Apple sells its phone for $1000. You might as well consider the 'secure' options in that price range. Blackphone is open sourced. There are other options.

        Maemo can still be installed on some HW but support and app environment are null, so yes, that distant lighthouse has extinguished.

      • (Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Tuesday September 13 2016, @04:18AM

        by Kilo110 (2853) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 13 2016, @04:18AM (#401118)

        What are your thoughts on blackberry. The OS is virtually EOL but it's quite capable. I've been using iphone since its release and moved to android around 2013. I've switched to a blackberry passport about a month ago and I've been surprisingly happy.

        The native app selection is admittedly poor but the Android 4.3 runtime with Google play services sideloaded goes a long way to increasing the utility.

        • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday September 13 2016, @07:00AM

          by coolgopher (1157) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @07:00AM (#401159)

          I've never used a Blackberry. It seemed to be the padded-room with constant camera surveillance option back when it was popular though. My understanding was that they've gone Android these days.

        • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:28AM

          by DECbot (832) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:28AM (#401593) Journal

          I have a blackberry classic from work and I hate it. Keyboard keys are in the wrong spots, screen is too small, virtually no apps in the market.... And I'm still miffed by the work/personal security. I've had blackberries for more than 3 years and still can't figure out how to copy text from my email to a work browser. The only good feature is the battery. It lasts forever because I don't want to use that phone. About the only thing I actually use it for is a wireless hotspot so work can pay for my data.

          --
          cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by AndyTheAbsurd on Monday September 12 2016, @12:15PM

    by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Monday September 12 2016, @12:15PM (#400654) Journal

    Finally, there's the Play store, and the millions of apps available to users. I think that most people would agree that trying to find a usable app for a specific purpose is an exercise in frustration.

    The current system pretty much requires you to guess on a search term to find an app, then wade through dozens or hundreds of possible results.

    This problem, at least, is not unique to Android - it's exactly the experience that someone new to ANY operating system will have searching for any sort of software that's not bundled with the OS. (And bundling software with the OS leads to the same kind of crap we saw with IE in the late 1990s.)

    I "like" Android mostly in that I dislike it less than I dislike Apple products (and their ridiculous locked-down-ness and even more ridiculous prices).

    --
    Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday September 12 2016, @07:31PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday September 12 2016, @07:31PM (#400887)

      I "like" Android mostly in that I dislike it less than I dislike Apple products (and their ridiculous locked-down-ness and even more ridiculous prices).

      It's not just that: Apple products are *objectively* inferior. The new iPhone 7 still comes with a crappy LCD screen, for instance, rather than the brighter and more vivid and more power-efficient SuperAMOLED screens that Samsung phones have had for years. And the screen size is smaller, and the resolution is FAR lower on the iPhone 7 than on the Galaxy S7 (its direct competitor). The Samsung also has a smaller bezel (meaning the ratio of the phone size to the screen size is lower for Samsung than for Apple: less wasted space). Add to that the lack of a user-replaceable battery, inferior waterproofing, and lack of a standardized power jack (so you can't use your friend's microUSB cable to recharge), and the Apple phone is worse in every way, and a LOT more expensive to boot.

      The only thing the Apple is better at is being thin, which is a pretty stupid metric; everyone these days keeps their phone in some kind of case anyway, and thinner phones are more easily damaged by twisting.

      • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday September 13 2016, @07:21AM

        by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @07:21AM (#401172)

        Apple's lighting connector is objectively better than mictoUSB on all dimensions expext ubiquity/openness. On all devices I've seen (in my possession or other people's/company's) microUSB has a short halflife followed by an interminable amount of "hold it perfectly" time. The 30-pin and lightning connectors from Apple sumpoly don't have that.

        I like a bezel, but that's certainly an artistic decision. The dumb curved edge is retarded.

        I agree on the amoled screens as a tech, but low resolution is a feature. There's no point on burning processing power rendering pixels I can only see if I hold the device up to my eyes.

        As for the removable battery, I totally think that's a great feature. Of course. Galaxy S7 batteries explode, which is even worse than being non removable.

        • (Score: 2) by joshuajon on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:37PM

          by joshuajon (807) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:37PM (#401345)

          Good thing USB-C is replacing MicroUSB which is better than either that, or Lightning.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 13 2016, @04:25PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @04:25PM (#401372)

          No, the lightning connector is objectively inferior because of ubiquity and openness. Those two things completely trump every other consideration. It's like having a car that seems great, except you can only drive it on a few particular roads that aren't usefully located for you, and it costs $10M. I don't care how great the connector supposedly is, if the cable for one costs $30, I'm not going to buy it, no matter what. I can get microUSB cables on Amazon for next to nothing. And I don't have big problems with those, except on really really cheap cables (the Aukey cables seem to work really well for me, and a 5-pack of them costs about $10). And finally, as the other poster noted, we're now moving to USB-c which is still open and better than Lightning.

          The bezel isn't an "artistic decision". Maybe I wasn't clear: the Samsung makes more efficient use of space. That's objective, not artistic or subjective. The screen on the S7 is larger, but the overall size of the phone is only slightly larger, than the iPhone7. Why would I want a phone that's only barely smaller in physical dimensions, but has a significantly smaller screen? If it was an artistic decision to make it that way, then they were stupid.

          Low resolution is a "feature"? That's some serious Apple Kool-Aid there. From everything I've read, the S7's battery life is at least as good. If you were really saving battery life with a lower-resolution screen, then that would be a good argument, but I have not seen any such evidence. Aside from this, there's nothing stopping Apple from adopting a lower-resolution SuperAMOLED display if they really wanted. The screens in the S4 and S5 had this technology and were fantastic, but likely had lower resolution than the newest versions.

          As for exploding batteries, I haven't heard that at all. The new Galaxy Note 7 has exploding batteries, so definitely avoid those. I did see some links about the S7 Edge having problems too. Here's a link [pocket-lint.com] that shows the 3 devices side-by-side. The Note7 is a huge device, really a "phablet". The Edge is also quite large. The S7 is the smallest, and is a more traditional slate-type smartphone, and is the one which directly competes with the iPhone7. I didn't see anything in a quick Google search about the S7 batteries exploding. The Note7 is not a competitor to the iPhone 7; AFAIK, Apple doesn't make any phablets.

          • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:58AM

            by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:58AM (#401661)

            Lightning is better than USB because its a solid core in a slot. YOu can swing the phone by the cord and it won't disconnect. It's also why I like 3.5mm headphone/line plugs. USB have thing pieces in the middle of the connector that break off. It's not that the cables go bad, it's the connectors on the devices. miniUSB was fine, it was pretty secure because its center piece had enough thickness for structural stability. microUSB has too many thin parts that break. And USB-C is based on microUSB, so I assume will have the same issues.. You're right that open is good. And ubiquitous is good. But Apple is big enough that any adapter they choose is/becomes ubiquitous. I do wish they would open it up. But anyone can make the vable. And a cable is a cable. They're the same price as USB cables (cheaper if you factor in lifetime)

            The bezel isn't an "artistic decision".

            It most certainly is, or at least a matter of taste. I like a large bezel. When the screen goes to (or wraps around) the edge, it feels worse to me. I understand that the tradeoff is either a bigger phone or a smaller screen. Frankly, since I like a big phone, adding a bezel around a screen not a cost for me. What I hear is "the battery will be larger and the phone bigger, also the phone less ugly." What you hear is "the screen will be smaller". I have a hard time thinking your point of view is correct, but it could be.

            Low resolution is a "feature"?

            Once I can no longer see the pixels, yes. More pixels incur more cost, and unless you're strapping it to your head as a cheap VR solution (and probably even then) the iPhones already have a pixel density that may as well be infinite for all the extra resolution you can perceive..

            The cost isn't entirely financial/battery. There is a limited amount of GPU cycles. Producing more pixels lowers the average number of cycels per pixel. This can mean worse graphics per pixel (or lower framerate). Sometimes, it's clearly worth that to up the resolution. But I would argue that improving beyond the iPhone is most certainly not

            Again, I would want AMOLED screens.

            The new Galaxy Note 7 has exploding batteries

            Maybe I was wrong about which model. Certainly, I bucket (esp. for this conversation) Samsung built Android devices and Apple built iOS devices. I don't really care which one we're talking about, because we're talking about design philosophies. But I will say when a line has issues, it casts a pall over the whole similar product lines - esp. unless it can be shown why those phones won't suffer the same fate.

            That's some serious Apple Kool-Aid there

            Random aside, of the devices I have used today, there have been an equal number of iOS/Android/Windows/Other machines (discounting work machines). I'm not in love with Apple. I always assumed I would like an open-source solution. But I'm constantly disappointed with Android devices.

    • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:17AM

      by captain normal (2205) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:17AM (#401045)

      The biggest problem I have with Google Play Store is that recently virtually all apps in it require access to my phone's images, camera, and contacts. Even when there is no reason other than data-mining for the requirement in order for the apps to work.

      --
      When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Tuesday September 13 2016, @05:57PM

        by JeanCroix (573) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @05:57PM (#401419)
        And since the latest version of Android has granular permissions, one can immediately disable all unnecessary permissions upon installing a new app. If that breaks the app, then it's not worth having, imo. But I can't recall a single instance of an app being broken by my denying it access to things it shouldn't need.
        • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:37AM

          by captain normal (2205) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:37AM (#401534)

          Yeah...that's great, but my old phone is still on 4.4.2. If/when it breaks I'll get a new one with the latest version. Unless someone comes out with an open OS phone. ;-)

          --
          When life isn't going right, go left.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday September 12 2016, @12:15PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday September 12 2016, @12:15PM (#400655) Homepage Journal

    Some points, like problems with the search function in the App Store, seem a bit petty.

    But the really important points are on the mark. Since the 1980s, we have had open-architecture computers, where those so inclined could replace individual hardware components. While operating systems have generally come pre-installed, it has generally been possible to replace them. And certainly, we have had the choice of what programs to install on our computers.

    The current Android and iOS systems have eliminated all of this, by coming to the masses as replacements for mobile phones. The hardward is not user-modifiable. The operating system is baked into the hardward. While we can choose to install additional apps, just try to uninstall the ones that come pre-delivered. Eliminate Google apps from an Android phone? Apple apps from an iPhone? Not possible.

    So, those points are valid and true. Unfortunately, the masses don't care. So, no, perhaps unfortunately, Android is not a dead end.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by everdred on Monday September 12 2016, @07:07PM

      by everdred (110) on Monday September 12 2016, @07:07PM (#400878) Journal

      > The operating system is baked into the hardward.

      While there are limitations like closed drivers, that doesn't seem to have stopped community ROMs from appearing for many Android devices. The OS is very much not baked-in.

      > Eliminate Google apps from an Android phone? (...) Not possible.

      This is totally possible, and Android doesn't get enough credit for it. Go to Settings > Apps > Gmail and you'll find a handy "Disable" button. Same for Google Maps, same for Google Play Music, same for anything you can think of. Disable an app, even a system app, and it will not run again, and basically no longer exists. (Though if it was pre-loaded into the ROM, it will still take up some system space.)

      Android doesn't get credit for this, because it's not something they go out of their way to make widely known. However, it's something anyone commenting about Android on SoylentNews should make it their business to know.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Monday September 12 2016, @12:21PM

    by Arik (4543) on Monday September 12 2016, @12:21PM (#400657) Journal
    "That there's no way a user can update their system without their cooperation is just not acceptable today."

    That there is no way to stay reasonably secure without trusting these updates, and the routing that takes you to their source, is just not acceptable today.

    I started with computers in the early 80s. We've had more than enough time to get basic things like Operating Systems right. But that hasn't happened, and it won't happen, because the industry has the attention span of a 5 year old, and because it has no real interest in ever seeing things done right (that's not how you make the big bucks boy!) So as soon as any piece of software starts to approach stability it is simply abandoned and a new turd-polishing project begins instead.

    "Services provided by Google are subject to changes that, depending on your circumstances, make them significantly less usable. (Gmail being a prime example) Standalone apps like Reader or MyTracks may just stop working one day if Google loses interest."

    Good reasons to avoid anything made by Google.

    "There's no practical way to tell if an app is a finished product, or an abandoned half-baked pastime. Our only option, even with paid apps, is to install it and find out if it works."

    Even then you don't know. You have no idea what logic is buried in that binary, you do not have the source code, you're not even so much as allowed to compile the thing and then check if the binaries match - nothing!

    Any system that requires you to trust binaries is a broken system from the start.

    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Monday September 12 2016, @01:53PM

      by cubancigar11 (330) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:53PM (#400700) Homepage Journal

      That is because computing is not science but engineering discipline. There is no "frontier" to be at after settling down on an OS. Hardware part still sorta comes down to being actual science, but software is all about user-experience. And UI is purely engineering problem.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Monday September 12 2016, @04:01PM

        by Arik (4543) on Monday September 12 2016, @04:01PM (#400774) Journal
        That doesn't even make sense. It's not 'engineering' that causes this, it's a market marked by severe information imbalances, where buyers not only don't understand what they are buying but are not capable of understanding what they are buying. As a result, they rely on industry experts, who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo which provides them regular paychecks and not rocking any boats.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Monday September 12 2016, @12:29PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Monday September 12 2016, @12:29PM (#400662)

    The handsets (meego , the wonderful N9, the functional N900, the useful A780) , have all had mostly fullblown linux on them.

    Sailfish was supposed to bridge Linux and Android in a meaningful way - you can have proper linux running the phone and then all the rinky dink apps can be android. The problem is the Jolla phone (and tablet) were insufficiently funded (until now? I've read the Russians have picked it up...).

    Android is fine - once you realize it *REALLY* is linux under the hood, but the *patches* that make android "less" are not *yet* part of the main linux kernel.

    So if you follow the browser drama/wars, you will know that chrome/ium can run android apps on the desktop.

    The biggest problem for Android is the same as the one for Linux in general - there is a perverse incentive for handset manufacturer to NOT allow external development of the drivers. They have a REALLY strong incentive to make it obscure enough, ONLY write a new driver for some tweaked hardware, and then SELL you a new phone. Or to be more accurate , sell a new chip to the company that MAKES the phones, but since they are all selling the principle still applies.

    So Linux has won - I have a Linux desktop, Android phone(s), Meego etc.. and they are *all* still functional. I might not trust unpatched devices, but thanks to the freedom of Linux, they can be defanged and still be made useful.

    In conclusion, what is badly needed, is a tool to disobjectify binary drivers. Not reverse-engineer (which of course, is not allowed under many of those click through documents), but simply reuse binary paths. Changing the ABI is a linux thing, but to a certain degree it is arbitrary - we just dont have sufficient development tools.

    I've had some ideas how to do this practically (alot of strange things are need to do science), but insuffcient time to implement...

    I tried to hold out for decade (as long as I have NOT been using M$ windoze), but eventually a ended up with an android (full fat Nexus 6P). So far , so good. They at least update the software...

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Alphatool on Monday September 12 2016, @01:31PM

      by Alphatool (1145) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:31PM (#400682)

      Sailfish has had a bumpy road but things are on the up. Intex have launched a new phone running Sailfish, the Aqua Fish, and while it's a budget handset it's actually really nice to use as a phone - the gesture interface is so much nicer than anything else out there. It runs proper linux but still gives a full android compatibility layer in case there is an app you can't do without. Plus, it's super cheap (less than $100) and available on eBay, so there are no excuses to not give it a shot*.

      *OK, Sailfish still has some minor parts that lack polish, it's not fully open source and there are potentially some issues with LTE bands depending on where you are and who you use as a service provider. I haven't found any of these to be significant yet though.

      • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday September 12 2016, @01:59PM

        by opinionated_science (4031) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:59PM (#400705)

        hence my musing about "binary reuse". In my work messing with biological assembly (genomes), there a techniques that could be used to help de-binarise closed source drivers. Not reverse-engineer, but simply use the constraints of the working system to derive the working format.

        This is pretty much what we are doing to diseases! It used to be "broken gene, bad things happen". But with more genomes and a wealth of other data, we are teasing out the minimums for a *functional* system, and hence interactions of systems where none is the master, become possible to model.

        So since biology evolved over billions of years with no plan and only the working bits survive surrounded by stuff that was once useful. Computing is all goal based, and therefore, although a large space of solutions, a much smaller set of "unknown" function.

        I predict, if Linux manages this, those hated binary blobs will become signed blobs. Our system of industry is based upon artificial scarcity, and functionality such as this might really upset the consumer view of "upgrades". Maybe...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:56AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:56AM (#401063)

        I currently am still using a Nokia N9 that I would really like to replace with a newer equivalent model. But I'm in the United States, currently using T-Mobile. As far as I can tell, there's no option for a Sailfish phone, even if I'm okay with no LTE (just 3G). Am I missing something? I'd be very happy if there's an option I've missed.

  • (Score: 4, Troll) by Celestial on Monday September 12 2016, @12:29PM

    by Celestial (4891) on Monday September 12 2016, @12:29PM (#400663) Journal

    I realize this will be a fairly unpopular opinion, but I gave up on Android. I've used Android smartphones since 2011. After five years, I moved to iPhone. Why? Two reasons.

    1. I've mentioned before on here that physically, I am a dwarf. My hands are tiny. Android smartphones since 2014 are just too danged big, with no indication of ever going back to a 5" size. My last Android smartphone, the LG G3, is 5.75". It literally hurts my hands to use it for more than a few minutes at a time. The only smartphone manufacturer today that makes a 5" smartphone is Apple. They're my only choice. Oh, there's the Sony compact line of smartphones, but they're fairly difficult to obtain in North America, and leads to my second point.

    2. Lack of updates. My LG G3 Android smartphone was bought last year, and never received an update. Same with my mother's LG G3 Vigor. Bought last year, still runs Android 4.4. As I alluded to in my first point, I've read that Sony's not any better. Their smartphones never receive an Android update.

    For me, the Apple iPhone is my only choice.

    • (Score: 1) by beernutz on Monday September 12 2016, @01:12PM

      by beernutz (4365) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:12PM (#400674)

      You might have a look at the new Samsung S7 (not the edge). It is 5.1" That might be closer to what you need?

      It is very fast, and updates software about as often as other non-nexus devices.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @01:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @01:34PM (#400686)

      Agreed on size - but fortunately I could quite easily get the Z3 compact in the uk, and it fits the bill really well.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @04:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @04:07PM (#400778)

        Oh - and is now running 6.0.1, so Sony aren't as bad as you've heard!

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday September 12 2016, @06:40PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 12 2016, @06:40PM (#400859) Journal

          Sony aren't as bad as I've heard? I really doubt that.

          Presumably you mean something like "they do update their OS", but I can't tell for sure. I do know that I'm unlikely to trust them enough to find out.

          It's a real pity. Sony was once a quality company. Then it bought a media company...and the company took over management.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by cubancigar11 on Monday September 12 2016, @01:55PM

      by cubancigar11 (330) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:55PM (#400703) Homepage Journal

      Buy a Xiaomi product. Seriously. Almost all devices are regularly updated and UI has all the goodness of Apple and all the openness, as much as is possible, of Android.

    • (Score: 1) by gauauu on Monday September 12 2016, @03:36PM

      by gauauu (3693) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:36PM (#400757)

      The only smartphone manufacturer today that makes a 5" smartphone is Apple.

      Really? I just bought an LG Nexus 5x. It's 5.2 inches. (Plus has an unlocked bootloader so I can install what I want, and if I stay on stock software, get timely updates).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:33PM (#400855)

        He meant 4" obviously, as Apple makes two devices smaller than 5" and nobody else even participates in that category anymore, much less provides up to date specs and software updates.

        I was just in the Apple store and I admit, the 4" SE felt great and I can catch and palm a regulation basketball one-handed with no problems. Would not trade for my 5,5" 6s+ though as I do a lot more than just make phone calls anymore and I like the extra screen real estate.

        I moved to iPhone this year as well after being on Android since the beginning. Android is better UI wise, but lack of updates and a lack of ownership of the stack even on the Nexus/Pixel devices kills it for me. Android is a total disaster and I say that as somebody who helped port Cyanogenmod to 3 different phones. Only Nexus and Blackberry get it right wrt rhe monthly updates and even then they are vulnerable to shit like quadrooter because they have to rely on shitty Quallcomm.

        • (Score: 1) by gauauu on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:08PM

          by gauauu (3693) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:08PM (#401299)

          He meant 4" obviously, as Apple makes two devices smaller than 5" and nobody else even participates in that category anymore, much less provides up to date specs and software updates.

          That makes complete sense.

          I moved to iPhone this year as well after being on Android since the beginning. Android is better UI wise, but lack of updates and a lack of ownership of the stack even on the Nexus/Pixel devices kills it for me

          This doesn't make sense to me. I'm not saying that iPhone isn't better for you. But I honestly don't understand how ownership of the stack is better on iphone than on a nexus? (I'm not trying to fight, I'm interested in your explanation)

    • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday September 12 2016, @03:36PM

      by curunir_wolf (4772) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:36PM (#400758)

      I ended up with an Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3. It comes in a 5.5", but I got the 4.7" because that's the size I need too. It's a very nice phone, now runs Marshmallow, and you can find it used/refurbished for about $100, or $170 for factory fresh. I bought a used one last time when my son smashed his, and I couldn't tell the difference from new.

      --
      I am a crackpot
    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday September 12 2016, @05:43PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday September 12 2016, @05:43PM (#400835) Homepage Journal

      1. That has not to do with size, but gender. I'm a normal sized man, but I'd have to carry a purse to use a new high-priced phone. (snarky photo about the situation [mcgrew.info])

      2. U had an LG phone back around '04, and as a result I'll never buy another LG product, Worst damned phone I ever used, buggy as hell. Returned it under warranty, the replacement was worse. Never again.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
  • (Score: 1) by fraxinus-tree on Monday September 12 2016, @12:32PM

    by fraxinus-tree (5590) on Monday September 12 2016, @12:32PM (#400665)

    Have you ever looked at the drivers? At half of the apps on the average Android phone?

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 12 2016, @01:20PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 12 2016, @01:20PM (#400677) Journal

      Well, yes - but now you've opened a different discussion. Linux, BSD, and other Unix-likes see that discussion all the time. The OPERATING SYSTEM is open source, yeah. But, you, the owner, can run any kind of driver or application you like. Purists demand open source drivers and apps, while the rest of us reach our own compromises.

      Personally, I run the proprietary Nvidia driver on all of my machines. I finally learned how to install it without to much headache, and it does seem to run graphics better than the open source alternatives. So, I run a proprietary driver on my otherwise open source machines.

      I also use virtual machines. I know, there are open source alternatives, but I never was quite willing to tackle the learning curve. VirtualBox happened, and I kinda like it. It's simple, the learning curve is nice and shallow, and it works. But, today, it's owned by Oracle, aka, The New SCO. I could go with VMWare, but they are less open than VBox, even after Oracle got hold of it.

      Now - the question is - do you own your phone, or does the phone company own your phone? Who is the paying customer, from the manufacturer's point of view? And, from government's point of view, who owns your phone? Don't forget that we have telco monopolies embedded into our legal system. You and I can't guarantee to the government that our phone meets legal requirements in any respect. (Unless you're a qualified radio tech, of course.)

      To summarize, you and I aren't the customers that the manufacturers cater to. The monopolies took everything out of our hands, before we were ever offered an end product.

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 12 2016, @05:32PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Monday September 12 2016, @05:32PM (#400829) Journal

        I used to love the Nvidia drivers (quite a few years back, now), then was stuck with amd machines (mostly hand me downs) since then.

        amd is supposed to be better supporting of linux, from what i've heard, and nvidia got 'linux unfriendly'...

        ...my next machine, i hope to build myself and will be looking at nvidia and amd support, but right now, yeah i pine for my old nvidia....

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 12 2016, @08:49PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 12 2016, @08:49PM (#400917) Journal

          You're correct that Nvidia was quite unfreindly to *nix users for awhile. I think that when you look at it again, they've gotten much better. It is STILL tricky though, because you have so many different Nvidia drivers and setup scripts. I've found that the cleanest install comes from downloading the installer directly from Nvidia, blacklist that stupid nouveau driver, then run Nvidia's installer. But, there is one other "gotcha" - you have to be sure to download a version that matches your hardware. Get to new a driver, it don't work. Get to old a driver, and it only half-works, unless it doesn't work at all. But, they have a page where you can doublecheck and match your hardware to the latest driver that works for it.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 12 2016, @01:04PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:04PM (#400672) Journal

    The problem is Google. They are an advertising agency. Android was just another way to sell ads through apps. Their problem appears to be a management process that keeps throwing money in different directions until something sticks and run with it until they loose interest in it.

    Every time I've used an older ipad air at a friends house, I am always surprised about how well it works. Everything is responsive and remains so even after many updates and years of use. Still wont buy one. But contrast that to my Google Nexus 7, 1st gen, which Google pretty much abandoned out the gate and completely hosed it with the 5.0 update. Even rolling back didn't fix the glacial UI response. It's now a $200 paperweight.

    My Nexus 5 is slowly shitting the bed. It randomly looses the sim card. And how convenient is that wne you arent aware that you have no connection and people are trying to contact you? So I have to keep checking my phone to make sure it's connected. And it's not hardware because a reboot solves the problem. No amount of updates has ever fixed it and I am not the only one with that problem. Wifi is another problem. With wifi turned on, I experience frequent connection loss and sites stop loading or streaming stops. If I turn the wifi off and use the cell data, presto, pages load and video streams. Thankfully I have that T-mobile unlimited data plan, otherwise I'd loose my mind. And its not my router because it happens at work too.

    And I've ranted about this before but Android has a crap architecture. A Java VM no one wants to use so devs build frameworks in native user land and use the JVM for the UI. Yea, cross platform my ass. Its a mess of a software stack. And lets not forget how google is slowly abandoning the open spource aspect of the OS as more and more default google apps are closed source. If Google releases another mobile OS, they better toss the JVM and move to a more native Unix/Linux implementation. And if they were really smart, they'd start working on a new OS architecture based off of the brilliant ideas in Plan 9 and Inferno. Trash the legacy OS and API's and move to something distributed and simple.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday September 12 2016, @01:33PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:33PM (#400684)

      If you have a for-profit business, and you have proprietary code, then it is basically guaranteed that somebody will eventually say "Hey, wouldn't this be more profitable if we screwed over our users?" And they will. And if they get caught, they'll do a PR dance for a little while, swear up and down that they'll never do it again, and then go right back to doing what they did before.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday September 12 2016, @02:06PM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Monday September 12 2016, @02:06PM (#400709)

      As far as I can tell, Google released Android so the mobile world wasn't locked to a control-freak company that would be guaranteed to implement a non-open experience as soon as they had a big enough market share. Google relies on an open internet. You can use Android without any interaction with Google at all, so please stop spreading the advertising FUD on this one. Chrome OS may be a different matter as it does require Google interaction, but even then I get the impression that it was released as Microsoft seems to be closing up their platform as well, and is showing their own ads in Windows 10. Google saw what MS has in mind early, as did Steam.

      Again, they *rely* on an open internet for their business to work as well as it does.

      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 12 2016, @04:41PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday September 12 2016, @04:41PM (#400795) Journal

        As far as I can tell, Google released Android so the mobile world wasn't locked to a control-freak company that would be guaranteed to implement a non-open experience as soon as they had a big enough market share.

        Is the control freak company you speak of Microsoft? At the time Android was in development, Apple unveiled iOS. Google saw the icon touch interface and scrambled to copy it. Prior to that, Android looked much different. Google wasn't concerned with Microsoft as Microsoft wasn't in the game. They were making bulky hand held organizers with a stylus. The modern UI of tablets and phones came from Apple.

        You can use Android without any interaction with Google at all, so please stop spreading the advertising FUD on this one.

        Sure you can. But just how useful do people find it? Face it, without all of google's services, Android is not very useful as a mobile OS. People have tried to create alternative ecosystems but the majority followed the ad revenue streams. The rest is history.

        Chrome OS may be a different matter as it does require Google interaction, but even then I get the impression that it was released as Microsoft seems to be closing up their platform as well, and is showing their own ads in Windows 10.

        I have never heard this rumor. Chrome OS was another attempt of google to throw money until something sticks. It was more of an experiment to see just how useful a pure web platform really is. Again, nothing to do with Microsoft.

        Google saw what MS has in mind early, as did Steam.

        This was about the Microsoft store. The original rumors were that Microsoft was going to move to a store like system for *all* application distribution. This sent off alarms as companies like Google and Valvle were nervous about more anti-competitive behaviour. But it turned out the store is optional. Steam and Chrome can be installed without a store or MS account.

        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 12 2016, @06:04PM

          by Thexalon (636) on Monday September 12 2016, @06:04PM (#400845)

          Is the control freak company you speak of Microsoft?

          Probably Apple, who historically was more control-freaky than Microsoft: Steve Jobs' vision involved Apple-made applications running on an Apple-made OS running on Apple-made hardware, communicating to other Apple-made applications running on an Apple-made OS running on Apple-made hardware using an Apple-made network protocol.

          They've relented on the network protocol, mostly. They've kinda relented on the applications, so long as they get a cut from the application developer. They've only sorta relented on the OS with their switch to a BSD-based system. But their vision has always been Apple controls everything.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:32PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:32PM (#401515) Journal

          Sure you can. But just how useful do people find it? Face it, without all of google's services, Android is not very useful as a mobile OS. People have tried to create alternative ecosystems but the majority followed the ad revenue streams. The rest is history.

          What Google service do you think is so essential? The only one I ever use on my phone (Galaxy S5) is the Play store (unless you count YouTube, but half the time I just open YouTube in the browser anyway.) And even though I've never used them I'm aware of at least three alternatives to the Play store just off the top of my head. Tons of devices ship without it included at all.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by meustrus on Monday September 12 2016, @02:21PM

      by meustrus (4961) on Monday September 12 2016, @02:21PM (#400717)

      With wifi turned on, I experience frequent connection loss and sites stop loading or streaming stops. If I turn the wifi off and use the cell data, presto, pages load and video streams. Thankfully I have that T-mobile unlimited data plan, otherwise I'd loose my mind.

      That might just be the most dystopian advertising pitch I have ever heard.

      --
      If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 12 2016, @03:18PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:18PM (#400747) Journal

        It's almost ironic given how the sim card is lost from time to time. So either the wifi craps out or the cell radio stops working once the sim is "lost".

        I'm sure someone will chime in and say time for a new phone. And maybe they're right. But I'm not that desperate yet. Just disappointed in the continuous stream of software issues Google unleashes and doesnt seem to care about fixing because they've already lost interest in the product and are focused on the latest offerings. Meanwhile I see iphone 4/5 users happily walking around using their devices without issue.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by wonkey_monkey on Monday September 12 2016, @01:15PM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:15PM (#400675) Homepage

    Android is a Dead End

    I think you mean "one guy has some gripes with Android."

    The vast majority simply couldn't give a monkey's. When they phone gets slow or stops working, they'll just go and buy another one.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 12 2016, @01:27PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 12 2016, @01:27PM (#400680)

    There is speculation that Google may be preparing to abandon Android, but will a new Google OS really be any better for end users?

    Correct that the OS has exactly one monopoly business model provider. Incorrect that changing the OS code will have any effect other than coincidental on changing the screwed up business model.

    One important issue OP missed is social. Social in that yes the store is full of junk thats useless to me and vital to someone, much like a shopping visit to an old time hardware store or a car parts store. I'm looking for 1 specific thing and the other 99999 products get in the way. What does work is social. So at least when I got used to Android (some years ago) you use baconreader to look at pr0n on reddit, doggcatcher to listen to podcasts, Ambling book player to listen to downloaded mp3 format audiobooks of questionable origin, Moon+ for reading ebooks of questionable origin, connectbot as kinda the industry standard SSH client. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure there's at least 10K google play store app entries for those fields but you need ONE social friend to boil this down for you. ONE. Then all you do with play store is search for "doggcatcher" or "connectbot" and its all done. I would never confuse crappy clickbait journalism for social interaction so don't just google for "top 10 ssh android apps" because that'll be clickbait crap even if they accidentally recommend connectbot.

    Another important issue OP missed is long term economic stability. Note my app suite listed above hasn't changed in maybe 3 years. That means the developers haven't made a penny in 3 years. That means if the market barely made enough money to get by, 3 years ago, they're on ketchup and ramen now and soon will be gone. So your software is in a rotation of new and profitable, abandonware, finally gone, then repeat. One counterexample is I pay an annual fee to RadarScope theoretically for some BS added features, but in practice to make sure I'll still be able to run RadarScope in 2020 so the devs get to eat lunch on me in perpetuity. Something to think about with subscription fees is it'll be a win for something you'll use forever like a podcast player, but it'll be a disaster for flash in the pan games like angry birds or pokemon. So the marketplace has both models and needs both models but "most" software isn't billing correctly with the right model. I "should" be paying connectbot $0.25/mon to patch and upgrade in perpetuity but I'm not. A quarter per month doesn't sound sustainable until you multiply a million sysadmins and suddenly a quarter-mil per month to apply openssh patches and recompile isn't so bad.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Monday September 12 2016, @01:29PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:29PM (#400681)

    Android was released to sell stuff, including hardware. Not the OS, unless it's the selling of the OS as a concept so that people would use it. Give away the handle and charge for the razor, etc.

    People are addicted to the handles that form the base of Google's control of what you do with the blades now. The plan is for you to replace the blades regularly, in this case, every 18 months is what their general going rate is.

    The "Obvious notes" fail to take into consideration that Google doesn't care about those other things and they are not going to help you solve any problems unless it's going to give them more data; the use of other products limits that collection. The goal is to get you using the OS, and replacing the hardware as frequently as allowed, if not more frequently. Providing cross-compatibility is mostly done to keep torches unlit and pitchforks in the hay, and not pointed at the industry. It'd break sooner (software or hardware or both) if they could get away with it.

    The one, true, designed, tested and marketed solution is to replace the phone to get the new version, because the old version doesn't deliver ads to you as effectively as the new one and it won't be able to do all that tracking on the slower processor and such, and it will provide a terrible experience for the most part if you shove a modern OS on what is now a disposable phone. For a comparison, Look at what javascript did to the internet and the web; the requirement to upgrade is very hostile to the degree they don't even ask anymore unless you disabled the updating. You wake up one day with a new browser version and it may not even tell you about it. Oh now now its too slow. Time to upgrade--not everyone can afford this, but the push is less than subtle. Only old people that dont use the new features are expected to hang onto elderly phones--but if they want to do video chats with the kids and grandkids, they can be relied upon to drop the cash on what works and use a jitterbug to make actual calls.

    Few things get people to upgrade their phone other than the phone being terribly slow because it affects almost everything on it. That reason to upgrade can be arranged via software.

    Luxury items may have a longer life because their hardware is superior, but the door closes on those as well after a few years, rather than 18 months. Someone has to evangalize and not be on the payroll--those are the people buying Nexus devices, generally speaking. Want the latest in diamond collars and leashes? Buy a new phone or get a Nexus. They will say everything is great, and their harwdare is. People like them are fantastic marketing vehicles for cheaper hardware because they know how the latest OSes work and recommend the use to others.

    In any event-- the author seems unfamiliar with the concept; if he looked at how Apple is doing things as a comparison, people wait in lines to get the newest hardware that has the latest software on it, even if the improvement is mostly marketing related or introduces new proprietary features to ensure continued purchasing of applicable accessories. You can upgrade some of the older hardware, but most (non-technical) people frown upon this and just buy new shiny.

    The end is already in sight -- it involves the end of the use of his current phone in favor of a replacement model.

  • (Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Monday September 12 2016, @01:43PM

    by ShadowSystems (6185) <ShadowSystemsNO@SPAMGmail.com> on Monday September 12 2016, @01:43PM (#400691)

    I went to a regional T-Mo HQ store this weekend with the intention of purchasing a SmartPhone. It didn't matter if it was an Android or an Apple, as long as it was completely Accessible.
    I know Android claims to have the TalkBack functionality to make it Accessible to the blind, but NONE, not a single sales rep nor manager at the store could get the danged thing to behave. Turn it on, yes, but actually say what was on the screen in a consistently accurate manner No.
    I then asked to see (hear) the Apple phones, only to hit the same wall. The manager managed to get it to talk, but for some STUPID reason the phones would all start speaking at about a trillion words per second & be completely useless.
    When even the Android & Apple "FanBoys" of the store couldn't get their favorite devices to do what I needed, it pretty much pounded the nail in the coffin for any plans to buy one.
    If the phone doesn't talk, reading the screens accurately in a consistent & understandable fashion, then the phone isn't Accessible no matter WHAT the marketing twits may say.
    So despite having the cash on hand to buy a SmartPhone, I ended up leaving with all of it still in my pocket & my original Feature Phone as well.
    When a $40 Feature Phone can do what your $500 SmartPhone can't, what's that say about the damned obviously-not-very-smart SmartPhone?
    So from my POV at least, both Android & Apple are dead ends.
    I know other blind folks have them & swear by them, but given *Sighted Folks* couldn't get the phones to work, what hope in HELL do I have of getting it to do it either?
    *Sigh*

    And that sucks schweaty monkey buns, because I *really* wanted a SmartPhone for the GPS subsystem. I could use it to navigate around town so I could do my own errands, but since the damned thing wouldn't behave...
    *Comical pout*

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Monday September 12 2016, @05:16PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Monday September 12 2016, @05:16PM (#400811)

      but given *Sighted Folks* couldn't get the phones to work

      Because sighted folks don't use those features. If you were actually blind you would know that, but you are just a troll. If you were really blind you would know people who would be able to get either of the major phones set up for you, same way you know people that helped you set up your desktop PC because zero sales weasels in a retail outlet know how. It is a specialty IT niche, sighted people who work with the blind, because it is one of the few things the blind simply can't do for themselves, since they can't use any computing device out of the box. Once that initial setup is done though, it is amazing what they can do. Knew a local sysop 'back in the day' that ran a DOS based BBS, even open up up the box and set ISA card jumpers, and do anything else needed to run a system.

      The manager managed to get it to talk, but for some STUPID reason the phones would all start speaking at about a trillion words per second & be completely useless.

      This line was the 'tell' that you are just trolling, btw, so you can up your game in the future. Just my little effort to help Make Trolls Great Again. Why that line was the 'tell' is left as an exercise for the student.

      • (Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Monday September 12 2016, @06:35PM

        by ShadowSystems (6185) <ShadowSystemsNO@SPAMGmail.com> on Monday September 12 2016, @06:35PM (#400856)

        I *AM* Totally Blind. I've demonstrated this fact repeatedly before in my posting history. It states this fact in my bio blurb. It says so on my photo ID & restates it on the Disabled Parking placqard I carry when I'm getting a ride so the driver can park in the disabled spots without getting a ticket for doing so. In short, there IS a troll in this conversation but it's not ME.
        The rest of your bullshit post doesn't even deserve a reply beyond the following:
        *Double handed rude gesture*

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by art guerrilla on Monday September 12 2016, @06:57PM

        by art guerrilla (3082) on Monday September 12 2016, @06:57PM (#400872)

        jmorris, you are an inspiration to trolliollioes everywhere !
        *if only* they were as accomplished as you in uttering insane inanities...

  • (Score: 1) by loic on Monday September 12 2016, @01:46PM

    by loic (5844) on Monday September 12 2016, @01:46PM (#400694)

    Sorry but I fail to see the point for a end user who does not care about the OS. I mean, my 5 yo Android phone never stopped working because of lack of update and most updates have only a cosmetic feel to them, for the average Joe. To compare frankly with iOS (software only), the average Joe could not care less about software updates. Security is also an afterthought. Sure iOS get updates for 5 years after you buy the device, but what is the point for an end user to be up to date? Does he feel any better? And it has the reputation of slowing phones to a crawl, so it does not look as great as advertised. I also fail to remember a revolutionary iOS software update, which would justify the whole thing for an average user.

    So yeah, it is a problem for developers, who have to target an outdated set of features, maybe a bit of a problem for Google, which cannot serve its latest and greatest ads, though I am not really convinced about that. So in a nutshell, it is a problem only to techies.

    Non-tech people just want a shiny slab.

    • (Score: 2) by tibman on Monday September 12 2016, @04:10PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 12 2016, @04:10PM (#400781)

      I know two apple people who don't update because they don't want things moved around or broken.

      --
      SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:16PM (#400851)

        Yeah. You buy the phone and you like the way it is and you've accepted the bugs and flaws.

        Then you "upgrade" and stuff often breaks and the new stuff often doesn't really benefit you that much.

        With my phone I foolishly "upgraded" and I lost the app permission control feature.

        Yeah security is an issue but y'know what? In most cases all you have to do is update the browser and other apps that are the popular "entry points" for exploits. Many more people get pwned via browser exploits than via OS exploits.

  • (Score: 1) by metarox on Monday September 12 2016, @02:19PM

    by metarox (788) on Monday September 12 2016, @02:19PM (#400714) Homepage

    I personally think it's the android development model that is somewhat flawed/not helping. Second level OEMs (Google -> SoC Vendor -> Phone OEM) are not pushing/supporting updates to Android because it is a resource hog. When you have multiple devices in circulation, pushing patches (especially through carriers - US ones are the worst) is a nightmare. Then every 12 months you have Google pushing API breaking changes and new features and it costs a truck load for OEMs to port their additions on top of this as Google has a good habit to break the hell out of some functionality (see sd card...). So most low cost OEMs don't even bother, they just release the phone with the version at that point and never update it.

    It would be much better if they did a form of tic-toc (à la Intel CPU) release model where one year they release all the API breaking stuff (and have more time to think it through/design) and the next year they concentrate on fixing the bugs/optimizations/making it better, etc. without touching the API/userland parts. I'm sure these updates would make it much easier for OEMs to push/port and release some of the pressure on OEMs to patch and update stuff if the base stays more stable.

    Samsung is better positioned than others as they are the SoC + OEM so they can cut through some of the duplication, but other OEMs like HTC, LG, Sony, Blackberry, etc. not so much. Often people complain that they can't get Android release X on their phone fast enough but fail to understand that most SoC vendors will support the latest Android on their most recent platform first and older ones will get it later, if they ever do. So OEMs are again dependent on SoC vendors for updates to that new Android version on which they add their stuff. In the end it takes them 6-12 months to get the latest android on older devices. And most OEMs will bail on this for time/cost reasons.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:57PM (#400871)

      It is semi bad but way better than it used to be.

      At least you do not have to have your application vetted out on 30 different phones before the phone company will allow you to sell the app.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @02:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @02:35PM (#400726)

    ITT: capitalism's myopic drive to squeeze everything to death for a few more dollars is why we can't have nice things. But keep going to work every day and hope your overlords will sort it out. Suckers.

  • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Monday September 12 2016, @02:35PM

    by wisnoskij (5149) <reversethis-{moc ... ksonsiwnohtanoj}> on Monday September 12 2016, @02:35PM (#400727)

    For me the biggest hurdle is that Google still has not even produced a good fully featured email client to bundle as default. It is literally impossible to send a bulk email from android with the default apps. And the selection of third party apps is horrible, their is practically no one making decent freeware for Android. No one puts up with adware funded software on their computer, and why should they have to on their phones?

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:55PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:55PM (#401520) Journal

      Was K-9 Mail one of the ones you tried? I don't do bulk mail, but I *do* have some very weird email habits (9 different personal accounts, multiple identities on each account, selective notifications, PGP, etc). I don't think the default mail app can do any of that, but K-9 Mail handles it no problem.

      Feels like the mobile version of Thunderbird to me -- it's not all pretty and shiny, but I've found I can pretty much configure it to do everything I want, exactly how I want.

  • (Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Monday September 12 2016, @03:09PM

    by mmcmonster (401) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:09PM (#400742)

    There are several problems mentioned in the article.

    The OS needing to be upgraded by the phone company is one. I think Google fixed this with shim OS and everything else in the OS being updateable by the Pay Store? If not, that seems to be the reasonable way to go. With logic in the Pay Store that will check your hardware before allowing you to download an update that you couldn't possibly install.

    The Pay Store having too many application possibilities is another, and inability to trust binary apps is a third. These are fixed together. Having people trust a particular repository and having the ability to remove untrusted repositories is a reasonable option. The trusted repository would have to curate apps and remove anything that is deemed a turd. But who do you trust? Also, using a website associated with the repository that gave good options for the various application classes so people have an idea of what to install is a reasonable idea. One would guess these already exist.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Monday September 12 2016, @03:43PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 12 2016, @03:43PM (#400762) Journal

    I'll suggest that the whole Android ecosystem represents a dead end.

    I think I get what you're saying. I've used only Android phones for many years (my first Android phone was the Google G1 [google.com] with an extended capacity battery), and I think it boils down to this:

    Android is the worst phone ecosystem and environment, except for all the others.

    Where it lacks in apps or features, it provides a way to install or write your own. I haven't had any serious problem--other than the play store experience of download, test, download, test, repeat until finding something useful. And that, once done, isn't a problem any more for that app or feature.

    I've been through lots of phones, and right now I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 Active. I wouldn't trade it for a non-Android device. I don't love it, but I really like it and it works for me.

    Bottom line, with all its problems, only Android seems to have a clear path to solution. Even if that turns out to be forking the thing.

    • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday September 12 2016, @03:57PM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:57PM (#400772)

      Well said.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday September 12 2016, @03:59PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Monday September 12 2016, @03:59PM (#400773)

    As an Android developer, it's a dumpster fire of constantly changing APIs, Google services, build tools, and so on. Google changes Android so much that it's hard to develop any momentum or expertise with it.

    But if "there must be a better way" what is it? Hardware companies don't want to give Google their profits. TV makers have been successful at ignoring Android TV, but unsuccessful at developing any interest in their smart TV products. Phone and tablet makers have tried an alphabet (you see what I did there) of also-ran, never-gonna-be mobile OSes from Tizen to FireFoxOS to Meego to WebOS to whatever else I can't remember, and nothing has gotten any traction. Android is like capitalism. It's the worst platform except all the others. Even Microsoft, which often throws money at a platform until it succeeds by wearing people down, can't create a viable mobile OS.

    The problem with app stores (Google Play, Apple, etc) is not finding a specific app, but that people only use half a dozen apps. Beyond YouTube, VLC, and a few others, there's just not much demand for apps. There's too much choice.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by waximius on Monday September 12 2016, @04:07PM

    by waximius (1136) on Monday September 12 2016, @04:07PM (#400777) Homepage

    Mobile developer here with my own anecdote to contribute - take it or leave it. I wrote a keyboard extension app for iOS some time ago, both a paid and free version. The free version did very well, and the paid version did OK. Seeing my numbers, I thought it would be worth the effort to port it to Android and maybe make a few hundred bucks - so I did. I figured that since Android has some ridiculous 70% market share in mobile OS that I'd get a return on my invested time and, worst case, learn about the ecosystem. Sadly, it wasn't worth the effort, but I did learn a lot.

    I ended up selling a whopping $15 of product from the paid version, but in contrast the free version was downloaded thousands of times. The interesting thing was that nobody was using the Android app - I have tracking which tells me how frequently each OS and paid vs free version is used by the owner. Additionally, the free Android version was ad supported, which raked in roughly $3.50 in impressions. I can only assume bots were downloading the free version because I saw it appear on hundreds of "alternative" Android stores and the apk was archived in random git repos on Google. The download count vs usage count was way too low for these to be real people downloading it (hundreds of downloads never resulted in the app being opened even once).

    Not only was the code distribution wildly out of control in Android, but my app's store reviews were nothing but with bogus, 1-star, nonsensical reviews comparing it to whatsapp. For the record, there's no correlation between the two apps, these were simply spam reviews and flagging/reporting them led nowhere.

    My conclusion, for better or worse, is that given the amount of system-wide abuse and ridiculously poor return on my invested effort, I've decided not write anything for Android for quite some time. I hope Android succeeds as an iOS alternative, but damn it has a long way to go in terms of quality. I'm sure there are many different experiences with the Android and iOS stores, but this was mine. Technically, Android was OK, it was everything else about it that left a bad taste in my mouth.

    • (Score: 2) by goodie on Monday September 12 2016, @04:30PM

      by goodie (1877) on Monday September 12 2016, @04:30PM (#400790) Journal

      I have tracking which tells me how frequently each OS and paid vs free version is used by the owner

      I have 2 questions WRT this quote:
      1- Out of curiosity, I was wondering about those sort of things. Are those embedded by developers or reported by the Apple or Android as part of "sales analytics" or whatever mumbo jumbo they use?
      2- Do users know that you track this? I mean is that the kind of thing that has to be disclosed even if at the bottom of an EULA or is it something that is implicitly known etc.?

      I don't know much about mobile, I'm curious :)

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by waximius on Monday September 12 2016, @06:39PM

        by waximius (1136) on Monday September 12 2016, @06:39PM (#400858) Homepage

        Glad you asked, there's a few things going on. Keep in mind this is just my perpective, everybody has their own way of developing.

        Apple does give you metrics around how many downloads of which versions of the apps you have gotten, what region they are in, and more. And the now defunct iAd system did also provide a little more insight when it was active (for monetizing free apps with ads). This is standard data you get with every iOS app.

        Android does it a little differently, they provide all the same as the above, but they also show you app activity. They can tell within a reasonable accuracy whenever your app is started up, how many people still have it installed on their phones, and some other interesting bits of info. It's not perfect, but good enough, and the standard metrics on Android are much more comprehensive than iOS in my opinion. Once you throw in AdMob you get even more analytics, it can get overwhelming.

        In my case, I got all of the above and built some of my own. The app was for location sharing and the payload needed to travel through my server (for lots of reasons) to be truly cross platform across Android/PC/Apple/blackberry/whatever. I was able to tag each encrypted payload with a number (1, 2, 3, 4, etc) to identify "iOS-Paid", "iOS-Free", "Android-Paid", "Android-Free", "Special builds", blah blah. So, that little tag (and Google Analytics) let me see precisely how active my app was. The amount of metadata a developer can obtain around app usage is out of this world.

        There is no legal requirement to do so, but I disclosed all of the above things in a privacy policy online, unfortunately not everybody reads that. I tried to make a "lay man's" version of the privacy policy too, non legalese, so everybody could understand it. I did as much as I felt I should (ethically) to let people know: "Yes, we collect your data, but its just for providing the service." Which is true.

        The data collected is purely for me to monitor how much people "like my app", the greatest indicator of that (in my opinion) would be actual usage. Aside from my personl ethics around this, no, there wasn't a legal requirement to do any of this. In fact, it's very scary to me how much data can be collected from an app and how free developers are to use it for any purpose they want.

  • (Score: 1) by cloud.pt on Monday September 12 2016, @05:09PM

    by cloud.pt (5516) on Monday September 12 2016, @05:09PM (#400806)

    At a minimum, it seems like madness to rely on two or more layers of outside partners to deliver software patches and updates

    Ima list you some (very few) examples of OS's that schedule release on the same conditions, and have no problem at all: Most non-Debian variants, bare-bone Linux distros are "2 layer-dependant", as they depend on kernel and themselves; most complex non-Debian distros also depend on X or something else (notable example: Android); Android ROMs, which depend specifically on their OEM (or CYANOGENMOD, or COMMUNITY); Debian (as in the real Debian. 3 layers: depends on X and kernel, and itself); all Debian variants (4+ layers by association, counting themselves).

    Note all the previous depend on COMMUNITY to some extent (even if for source availability/analysis), but some of them are enterprise-driven (RHEL/Fedora/CentOS, SUSe, Ubuntu, Android, etc). The only real-world alternatives for these are the big 2 closed source branches, and they also have the problem you mention: MS Windows (including Mobile) variants and MacOS variants (including iOS). Blackberry is dead. And so is everything else mobile. And so is everything else desktop unless were talking very narrow cases (e.g. IBM's environment, BSD-prone environments like CE and whatnot).
    ---------------------------------------------------------

    The thing is, you're listing notable problems, without proving the actual cause. I actually get your point because I, sometimes, have a similar mixed feelings about Android too, some of them similar to yours, but for very different reasons: I'm an Android developer, and I don't see the API going the right way as it evolves. At least not in a way that does stimulate measures to prevent the problems that we, power users, notice. Then again, what I usually try to do, because this is my job and the thing I can call myself Senior at, is I change perspective to Google's side of the equation, and it all makes sense, and I deal with it because we live in a capitalist global market and I also want to make money. As an example, just today I saw some news of Google partnering up with diabetes top labs and I thought to myself "wtf". Then I remembered diabetes is a condition that 8.5% adults worldwide have, and that pharmaceuticals are one of the most profitable industries in the world, and more so in the US "free" market. "Fck me Google knows how to invest".

    But at the end of the day, I honestly, altruistically look at Android's "state of the union" and I don't paint it as bad as you do. As someone else pointed out here, your discourse identifies your as "a once power user-gone-basic": you want an app for something but Play is a problem? Google it directly - Play is highly biased on their curation-for-profit, but Google's search still provides decent, unbiased results as "apps-for-anything" goes. If you can't find one, you can make one easy, "program with boxes" easy, and I mean "3x easier than MSVS" easy. And you know what, no other OPEN platform has that and Android deserves that credit BADLY. Not with as many sensors, not with as many API, not with that much "low-levelability" (wanna go deep? Use the NDK. Wanna go deeper? Change Android source and cook a ROM for your device from a list of the "easy" ones to cook for. Wanna go deeper than NDK yet not change the ROM? Go Xposed framework module-building. There's nothing like it, and the big CyanogenMod/XDA/WWW in general influence on Android is one of the main reasons I KNOW FOR A FACT Android has more of a future than anything else available).

    "But linux distros update seamlessly when their repos upgrade" - why is that so great? Android is a platform for Apps, and these update just fine, on a weekly basis if needs be, just like stable repos, yet most Apps have ACTUAL PROFESSIONAL-GRADE QA for every release, which you can't say about most anything else. As Android OS's internal components go, they do releases security patches, and that's enough. OEMs are supposed (and most of them do) launch timely security patches next to Google does, they sometimes even launch independent ones for their specific problems. If yours doesn't do it, it's your OEM of choice's problem, not Google's. Just as Fedora is for the bleeding-edger, RHEL/CentOS is for the stability guy, and Debian sits comfortably in-between (despite the different paradigm), and even then you get to chose the LTS versions on most - Android is for the general mobile population (tm), and that market wants apps, they want them bad and fast, and Android provides (so does iOS, yet not open!). In a sense, both iOS and Android also have LTS's, as major versions, and these are just bulks of features and design that make sense to support as a whole. But where Android differs, and I don't mind repeating myself on this one: ANDROID IS FOR APPS.

    Now, when you start taking about Play, markets, ratings, etc, the conversation ends because those aren't the dead-ends of the OS. For some people the best market is called sideload, aka "google download apk FOO free". I use and love apps that have 3 or less rating on Play, apps that are no longer on play, apps that never will be, and I know I'm not alone. And I do pirate apps that I don't think have a proper business model, yet I need them. I'm human. I actually make apps professionally that weren't ever intended to be on Play, but for the sake of capitalism, are now planned to change to be there. But the main point is: THE MARKET HAS ABSOLUTELY NULL NEXUS WITH YOUR DEAD-END POINT.

    And finally, don't let my caps and laid-back talk pass that I'm attempting to win an argument or offending you for the sake of discrediting you. I'm trying to make a point with logic, and I use those for emphases. Feel free to counter my arguments, so we can all agree, or agree to disagree. As good members of SN.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:00PM (#400844)

    At a minimum, it seems like madness to rely on two or more layers of outside partners to deliver software patches and updates. It's just not reasonable or safe for end users to wait for months or years until device makers and wireless carriers deliver patches from Google - if they ever do.

    And this is different from other tablets and phones, with the exception of Cyanogenmod, how? ...

    That there's no way a user can update their system without their cooperation is just not acceptable today.

    And this is different from other tablets and phones, with the exception of Cyanogenmod, how? ...

    Second, even if an update or patch does arrive, it brings with it the likelihood that some feature or application that you have been using will be hobbled, eliminated, or just plain be made unusable by Google. Services provided by Google are subject to changes that, depending on your circumstances, make them significantly less usable. (Gmail being a prime example) Standalone apps like Reader or MyTracks may just stop working one day if Google loses interest.

    And this is different from other tablets and phones, with the exception of Cyanogenmod, how? ... And before you say iOS, I've seen lots of iOS apps break with updates.

    Finally, there's the Play store, and the millions of apps available to users. I think that most people would agree that trying to find a usable app for a specific purpose is an exercise in frustration.

    And this is different from other tablets and phones with official stores, how? ...

    The current system pretty much requires you to guess on a search term to find an app, then wade through dozens or hundreds of possible results.

    And this is different from other tablets and phones with official stores, how? ...

    App ratings are filled with obvious astroturf, or one word disses - neither of these help you tell if an app actually works. Without someone actually moderating the ratings system it is pretty much of no value.

    And this is different from other tablets and phones with official stores, how? ...

    There's no practical way to tell if an app is a finished product, or an abandoned half-baked pastime. Our only option, even with paid apps, is to install it and find out if it works.

    And this is different from other tablets and phones with official stores, how? ... Except that when I use Google Play, it lets me get an immediate refund if I do so within X time.

    There is speculation that Google may be preparing to abandon Android, but will a new Google OS really be any better for end users?

    Better than what? What's better for you that Google has to be better than?

    The problem is that Android has more or less become the only game in town, so what alternative will we see emerge?

    The world is replete with turning points, Saavik. And nothing is ever perfect. So why the bitchfest? There are alternatives to Android, sunshine. Because you don't like them is your problem, not the world's. Go build your own universally acceptable phablet OS, then - you can do it right!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:25PM (#400854)

    it's amazing how a bunch of people go thru the commotion of creating a chip and then having to rely on two or three "complete system" manufacturers to get to market.
    it is even MORE amazing that the creation of said chip probably involved some open-source software in one way or another only to yield a chip with only a closed source driver and only available in a configuration that will only run on the "complete system manufacturers" OS.

    i understand that the "other internet" (mobile phones network technology) is extremely well guarded and that chips that interact wit this "other network" also need to be well guarded but please, soembody explain, why a tablet with no 2G, 3G or even 4G capabilities (no SIM card) cannot just have a driver for the latest android version available for download?
    srsly, how about, if you want to use android on a non-SIM device, you HAVE to provide android drivers for all chips that need a driver for FIVE years and which are FREELY down loadable via wifi/internet!!?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:42PM (#400861)

      hahaha! you earthlings are funny! we on alpha centauri only have open-source mobile "phones".
      it is hilarious how you buy expensive, shiny devices that revolve around one little piece of SIM-card, only to throw them away because soemthing in the rest of the phone cannot be modified or upgraded...

      our "mobile phones"devices all come with a standard wireless-card plug, which you could compare to a usb port,
      into which we plug our mobile phone radio modules, which are a bit more spacious then your tiny SIM-cards.
      since the connector is standardize, you can either plug in a module or not, the "phone" is still functional and can get regular updates and all device drivers, for touch screen, camera, sound, wifi etc. are freely available.

      we alpha centaurians are a bit jealous about your form factors, tho.
      your earthling have some very thin and neat designs, however, we on alpha centauri are very proud to show off a 10 years old "phone" that has been upgraded, modified and reflashed a dozen times with the only exception of what you call "mobile phone", module.
      ^_^

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @08:10AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @08:10AM (#401190)

        How is immigration policy in Alpha Centauri? Sounds like a great place to live. How do I get there?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:19PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:19PM (#401307)

          thanks for your interest.
          unfortunately there are no one-way or return tickets sold on earth for alpha centauri.
          only return tickets originating on alpha centauri are sold ... there.

          i have made some inquires and it seems the policy might be reversed if human kind
          has a collective paradigm shift that stops looking at planet earth like they look at "mobile phones":
          throw-away sleeves for SIM-cards or rather the planet being a resource to be pilfered and raped and then
          when dying uttering the words "and now please a biblical flood!"... alpha centaurians don't feel that their planets are sleeves for a bunch of egomanics.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:15AM (#401585)

    This article is kind of awful, barring one massive point: the difficulty of updating on Android devices is an absolute security nightmare.
    It shouldn't be this way, and it's only an issue caused by carriers and manufacturers to keep people buying new phones.

    The Play Store? It's not hard to find good, useful apps. Same on the iOS app store. They're huge targets, so you're gonna get people gaming the system with false reviews, but that's going to be true of any large-scale software distribution center on the scale of the Play Store or the App Store.
    As for the other complaints...
    >system updates might break things
    Like on nearly every other system?
    >I can't find apps
    What are you even looking for?

    Like, seriously -- what are you looking to do? On my phone, I'll have a few apps for web services I use (so, you look up the site name and get the official app), a few emulators to play games or whatever with, and then a text editor (like, a proper text editor).

    False reviews are a major problem for app stores in general, you pretty much need to sit down, read through the reviews, and then install.
    For paid apps, the Play Store lets you get a refund if you try it out and it's bad.