Every Man Is An Island: The Fragmentation of Android

Susan M. Davis August 12, 2024

Android as a working Page Design Hub device has had a few terrific achievements over the last few years. Android manufacturers took a lower back seat to Apple; Android became excellent, but iOS became higher, the critics stated. Over a previous couple of years, Android’s achievement has critics seeing the Apple enemy in an entire new mild, with some suggesting that the future of the smartphone enterprise lies with Android manufacturers and not with the Apple Corporation – an employer that many once thought turned into invincible and past failures.

Android‘s achievement changed into imagined to turn out to be a good thing; it was purported to help Android manufacturers see the achievement that they may acquire and propel them to heights of which they’d never dreamed. Android’s fulfillment changed into imagined motivation and affected its manufacturers had to surpass Apple and iOS. I worry the worst, however: with Android’s rising achievement, its producers are starting to see their own character groups as “superstars,” dividing Android, as soon as a cohesive complete, into character pieces or fragments. We are on the brink of the fragmentation of Android.

Before you put this article down and walk away, let me explain. Earlier this week at the International CES, LG Electronics announced that the Nexus four changed into most effective primary collaborative efforts with Google: “Through our collaboration with Google, we released the LG Nexus four smartphone. This is the primary of many devices to return from our developing partnership with this very selective corporation” (underline mine).

What this means is that we can look forward to a Nexus five and six, probably a “Nexus 9” or “Nexus 11” one in all in recent times (depending on how the Nexus smartphones are named, in assessment to the Nexus drugs). Sometime after LG made this assertion, but, the International Business Times claimed that “the Nexus four manufacturing ‘is said to have [been] halted,’ with LG inquisitive about constructing its next-gen devices” (Chris Smith, “Nexus 4 production reportedly halted, as LG is that specialize in future smartphones, Nexus 5 blanketed?”).

What is that this meant to intend? To be blunt, LG has decided to abandon the Nexus four in prefer of its personal smartphones. Supposedly, the LG Optimus G has made the employer grow confident in transferring ahead to enhance its personal reason. As for its project with Google? Well, LG appears to paintings with them in the destiny. However, no precise time body was given in which the 2 businesses would come together. Consumers who desire to get their arms on a Nexus 4 at the moment are left anticipating the subsequent Nexus task (which will be in a yr or two).

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In an article I wrote on the Google X Phone, I said that it might not be a smart circulate for Google to push Samsung out of the way. I assumed that Samsung could want to stay within the Android production organization. While Samsung’s telephones have made Android the OS to be envied, Samsung has also been running on an OS of its personal: Tizen. Reports have surfaced in the final two weeks that Samsung will produce extra Tizen telephones this yr than ever before. This indicates that Samsung, who has never gone public about its “OS in the wings,” intends to promote its personal OS in its own hardware this 12 months. Some say that this is in reaction to Google’s plans to create an X smartphone; considering that Google posted its announcement first, I could not be amazed if Samsung’s choice to press ahead has something to do with Google’s choice to rule Android (and Samsung’s desire to rule Tizen).

Now, LG has improved and made the identical move as Google: deciding to place its own paintings beforehand of the partnership between itself and Google. LG’s move could also be a political reaction to Google’s X telephone assertion: because Google is moving ahead with its very own cell phone, LG looks to do the equal. Unlike Google or Samsung, it no longer has the monetary assets to retain producing one line of smartphones while operating on a new line, so it has determined to tug its sources together and begin on every other cell phone (past the LG Optimus G and Nexus four).

What this says to the customer is subsequent: “while LG and Google produced a quality smartphone collectively, not anything matters extra than our very own smartphone line and company name. If left to pick out between our telephones and a partnership telephone, the associated phone project might be the first to head.” This no longer bodes well for an enterprise that, until the Optimus G and Nexus four, become not recognized for its telephone collections.