Commentary: How Fragmentation, Crapware and Carriers Are Ruining Android

“There’s something rotten at the core of Android, Google’s
operating system for mobile devices, and sooner or later consumers
— and enterprises — are going to notice that it is not as
wonderful as it seems.

“The first thing that’s rotten about Android is the whole
premise that it frees hardware makers from the burden of making
their own operating systems, allowing them to concentrate on what
they do best: designing great handsets for their customers.

“On paper that sounds like a great idea: until Apple
revolutionized the smartphone OS market with the launch of the
first iPhone, mobile device manufacturers proved themselves to be
pitiably awful at writing software for their handsets. So letting
Google and the open source movement supply a killer OS that’s
available to all comers, while allowing the hardware makers to slug
it out in the open market to produce the best handsets, sounds like
a strategy that’s bound to succeed.”

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