Android’s Window Is Narrowing

31Oct/110

Android’s Window Is Narrowing

The iPhone 4S from Apple wasn’t what anyone in the tech industry predicted, leading to a very mixed set of coverage with one resounding thought: “that sure wasn’t an iPhone 5!”

That let-down, in spite of the iPhone 4S’ amazing early sales, has given Android an opening into more consumers’ hearts and more techies’ minds, but the window is narrowing almost immediately after opening. The latest update from Android could be its last chance to grab the influential voices in the market all at once.

Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, has been a big hit with developers for all the things it can do down the road and the promised spread of the platform to devices running older versions.

Google is stuck, however, because it lacks the credibility to convince customers, developers, carriers and manufacturers that it is not only ready for prime time, but that it’ll make sure all device get on stage before the curtain goes down.

Fragmentation Woes
Android has had fragmentation troubles for quite some time, and these don’t appear to be going away, but they need to, immediately.

Google pledged to address the fragmentation problem with the formation of the Android Update Alliance back in May. Google said it would be working with carriers and manufacturers to deliver quicker updates and make sure handsets would receive updates for at least 18 months after their launch. This was great news and got a lot of people excited.

So far, the service has yielded a few small fruit, but it hasn’t been nearly the harvest Google promised.

So far, for phones covered by the Update Alliance, there are still six running Android 2.1, 23 running Android 2.2 and 32 running Android 2.3, and not all of these devices running Gingerbread (2.3) are running the versions with the latest patches (2.3.3 and higher).

Of the Android manufacturers that have publically spoken about being part of the Update Alliance, HTC has the most mobiles running Gingerbread (2.3), with 13 different models. That, however, contrasts to four of its models covered by the Alliance still running Android 2.1.

Gingerbread was released in December 2010, but it wasn’t until this month that Froyo (2.2) dropped below 50% penetration of Android handsets for the first time. Google is getting good at defining slow burn.

There were also many delays along the way. Android Cupcake (1.5) was delayed on all T-Mobile devices. That was followed by Donut being delayed for Samsung’s devices; Éclair being delayed on HTC devices; Froyo getting an overall delay; Gingerbread was delayed on some models and even caused the Nexus S to push its launch date back; Honeycomb forced tablets to launch very late (many were planning launches directly after the 2011 CES); and Ice Cream Sandwich was delayed a week and its SDK slightly longer.

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