Google VP Andy Rubin has been a star of sorts lately. He’s the head of Android, so with the announcement of 2.2 Froyo that makes a degree of sense. We dissected a Rubin interview last week, in which he laid out an ideal release schedule. He likes May and September, which might be a hint to a Gingerbread future. After that, however, we might see the release frequency slow. As Rubin tells the Mercury News, we might see just one yearly update in the future.
Our product cycle is now, basically twice a year, and it will probably end up being once a year when things start settling down, because a platform that’s moving — it’s hard for developers to keep up. I want developers to basically leverage the innovation. I don’t want developers to have to predict the innovation.
Part of Android’s beauty is its fluid state. I’ve had plenty of people ask me about Android and how it compares to other smartphone platforms. My stock answer is that it’s right up there with the best, and because of its open nature it will get even better in the future. I’ve heard some criticism that Android doesn’t stand up to the iPhone because the latter has a superior UI. With Froyo and the Sense UI, though, Android might have struck a significant blow. And it could strike again with Gingerbread.
There are two sides to the OS upgrade debate, at least from a consumer’s perspective. On one side, we should want as many updates as possible, as frequently as possible. As long as the act of performing the update is easy, people will universally benefit from continually better software. The iPhone updates once a year. If Android can update two, three times a year, it has an advantage.
Of course, the caveat in that last paragraph provides one of the issues. Because of the different hardware specification for each Android device, there are many issues with pumping out the updates. Can this update work on all devices? If not, how many? How easy can they possibly make it for users to upgrade? Will users even bother to upgrade if they know another one is coming down the pike? This makes the issue a bit more complex.
That leads us to fragmentation, the buzz word in the Android community. Both developers and users feel the effects here. Developers might have to tweak different versions of their software to fit many different Android OS versions. Users might be miffed because they can’t get the latest Android. And, again, there will be plenty of laggards, so developers will always have to cater to the slowest to upgrade. Imagine if Android released three new versions of the OS between now and this time next year. There might still be people running Android 1.6, while the latest version will be somewhere around 2.5. That can cause problems from everyone involved.
I’m not particularly happy to hear about Google’s plans to slow the release of new platforms. I’d far rather they keep up the swift pace and just make it easier for everyone to upgrade to the latest OS. Easier said than done, of course, which is probably why they’re choosing to slow down. Another reason is that they’re going for other platforms, like PCs, cars, and TVs. All of those feature different hardware profiles. Keeping the updates to once a year could help them adapt the platform to these outlets. I think we’ll all take that.
