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I don't understand how he could interpret Verizon making and promoting their own app store as meaning the platform isn't open. Am I missing something or is the

I don't understand how he could interpret Verizon making and promoting their own app store as meaning the platform isn't open. Am I missing something or is the fact that anyone can make their own app store mean the platform is more open? Also, one minor nit is the 2.2 stats he's referring to are from August 2. I'm sure they'll be much higher with the 2.2 rollouts that occurred for Droids and Incedibles (others?) in August. In the end, if manufacturers/carriers make a bad product, it will fail in the market, but with Android, they're free to do that if they want.

nanairo 16y ago
It's the usual open for whom argument. Say Verizon creates its app store, promotes it, and removes Google's Marketplace. They also make sure you can't install apps any other way, including the original Google's marketplace. Now, they have been able to do all of this because it's open, so yeah, it is more open. However what they will hand over to the customer is more closed, and possibly a worse experience.
- AndrewHampton 16y ago
  I would agree with you if he was talking about removing the Android Market, but that's not the argument he made in the article. He said "it would likely be more prominently displayed than Android’s own Market for apps" which would leave the Android Market intact.
  - nanairo 16y ago
    Oh, then I am with you. :) I guess I was looking longer term, but I wouldn't be surprised if "don't close the system" is the new "stop messing with what I like". ;)
    - AndrewHampton 16y ago
      Yes, I definitely think it's possible for Carriers/Manufacturers to really screw up the Android experience on any given phone. I just hope that those phones fail in the market. The point I wanted to make in the original comment was just to debunk one of the arguments he was making for why Android is closed.
  - wvenable 16y ago
    The fact remains, for all this openness you have vanishingly small amount of control over your own device. If you don't want Verizon's market and if you certainly don't want it "prominently displayed" you may end up being out of luck.
    - DougWebb 16y ago
      That's not what Verizon has done, though. I bought a Droid 2 from them recently, and when I first started up there was a question about V.Cast which I said no to (because I knew everything there would cost money that I didn't want to spend) and I wound up with the Android Marketplace icon on my home page and the V.Cast app buried in my app list. If I want to check it out it's there, if I don't I don't have to click on it. Same goes for the other apps that cam pre-installed, which mostly aren't even that bad. I did go and re-organize most of my home pages, including getting rid of things like the Fox News widget, but that's just customizing. At no point did I really feel constrained by running Verizon's rom. Of course, I am paying $20/month for tethering on top of my unlimited data plan. The phone by itself is unlimited, but when other devices connect through it I'm limited to 2GB/month before ungodly data rates kick in. For now I'm saving it for emergencies, but so far the web browser and email connectivity are good enough that I don't think I'll even need tethering, so I'll probably cancel it.
- buster 16y ago
  Yes, but this will be regulated by the market. If the experience sucks, people won't buy the phones anymore or switch the carrier. What the US seems to be missing is some sort of protection from the government (regulation). All in all: open is much better then closed, especially when branding of mobile operating systems is so common. It's not only Android, but also pretty much every other mobile phone that contains such apps. As others have mentioned, this has nothing to do with the openness of Android but only with the carriers intentions, which have been doing this years before android on closed systems.
  - nanairo 16y ago
    No, and sorry if I come to strongly. But this "regulated by the market" dogma (and that is what it is) is an extremely simplified which gets repeated over and over again, despite plenty of examples that it doesn't work. Even Adam Smith, the very father of capitalism, did not trust businessmen, and pointed out that it would not work in case there weren't plenty of supply and plenty of demand. The mobile market is not a free market. It's an oligopoly. Admittedly this is due to a limited spectrum resource so there's not much that can be done. But in an oligopoly is veeery easy for companies to stop competing and try to keep the status quo. Case in point: the RIAA and movie industry, and the fact that neither are CD at the equilibrium price, nor is either really innovating. Another case is academic journals publishers (there's another oligopoly there, and prices have been going up), oil cartel etc... So "this will be regulated by the market" is not an argument: if it were it would have been regulated even before the iPhone and Android arrived, but it wasn't was it? (sorry for the tone, and I understand in the USA people have grown up with this pseudo-religion, but maybe you are different. But you have no idea how many times "free market" is used as a panacea.)
    - jacoblyles 16y ago
      I would like to point out that the reason for the cell phone oligopoly is that spectrum access is regulated - by the government. Poorly. (Forgive me for the quick soundbite. I'm googling for the articles I remember about how horrendously difficult it is to buy spectrum use rights in the US. It's not like buying lemonade. Like many regulations, wireless regulation was designed to protect the established players.)
kyleslattery 16y ago
He's not arguing that it makes it less open, he's saying it brings down the quality of the OS, since carriers can remove features and add their own junk.
- AndrewHampton 16y ago
  I think he is arguing it's less open when he says "isn’t the point of "open" supposed to be that the consumer can choose what they want on their own devices? Instead, open is proving to mean that the carriers can choose what they want to do with Android." It could bring down the quality of the OS, but the fact that the option exists for Verizon or anyone to make their own Market makes it more open in my book.
  - wvenable 16y ago
    Android isn't really much more open for carriers and manufacturers than other operating systems. The source for Windows Mobile is available to manufacturers to tinker with, for example. The whole point is none of this openness translates to anything meaningful to the end user. Those people who pick Android because it's "open" are really getting nothing for it.
    - AndrewHampton 16y ago
      I disagree. I think being able to install any .apk file I want from any source on the internet is a clear benefit of this openness.
      - wvenable 16y ago
        I think two concepts are being combined here: one is that Android is open source and the other is that's not restricted like the iPhone. The former is not a prerequisite for the latter. Android is as open as Windows Mobile and Symbian in allowing arbitrary app installs. I agree with you, benefit of installing arbitrary software does exist -- but that benefit alone doesn't justify the significant "openness" hype around the platform. The article points out the many ways in which you are not in control of your device.
AndrewHampton 16y ago
The 2.2 stats were updated today: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve... 28% on 2.2 and almost 75% on 2.x

nanairo 16y ago

It's the usual open for whom argument. Say Verizon creates its app store, promotes it, and removes Google's Marketplace. They also make sure you can't install apps any other way, including the original Google's marketplace. Now, they have been able to do all of this because it's open, so yeah, it is more open. However what they will hand over to the customer is more closed, and possibly a worse experience.

AndrewHampton 16y ago
I would agree with you if he was talking about removing the Android Market, but that's not the argument he made in the article. He said "it would likely be more prominently displayed than Android’s own Market for apps" which would leave the Android Market intact.
- nanairo 16y ago
  Oh, then I am with you. :) I guess I was looking longer term, but I wouldn't be surprised if "don't close the system" is the new "stop messing with what I like". ;)
  - AndrewHampton 16y ago
    Yes, I definitely think it's possible for Carriers/Manufacturers to really screw up the Android experience on any given phone. I just hope that those phones fail in the market. The point I wanted to make in the original comment was just to debunk one of the arguments he was making for why Android is closed.
- wvenable 16y ago
  The fact remains, for all this openness you have vanishingly small amount of control over your own device. If you don't want Verizon's market and if you certainly don't want it "prominently displayed" you may end up being out of luck.
  - DougWebb 16y ago
    That's not what Verizon has done, though. I bought a Droid 2 from them recently, and when I first started up there was a question about V.Cast which I said no to (because I knew everything there would cost money that I didn't want to spend) and I wound up with the Android Marketplace icon on my home page and the V.Cast app buried in my app list. If I want to check it out it's there, if I don't I don't have to click on it. Same goes for the other apps that cam pre-installed, which mostly aren't even that bad. I did go and re-organize most of my home pages, including getting rid of things like the Fox News widget, but that's just customizing. At no point did I really feel constrained by running Verizon's rom. Of course, I am paying $20/month for tethering on top of my unlimited data plan. The phone by itself is unlimited, but when other devices connect through it I'm limited to 2GB/month before ungodly data rates kick in. For now I'm saving it for emergencies, but so far the web browser and email connectivity are good enough that I don't think I'll even need tethering, so I'll probably cancel it.
buster 16y ago
Yes, but this will be regulated by the market. If the experience sucks, people won't buy the phones anymore or switch the carrier. What the US seems to be missing is some sort of protection from the government (regulation). All in all: open is much better then closed, especially when branding of mobile operating systems is so common. It's not only Android, but also pretty much every other mobile phone that contains such apps. As others have mentioned, this has nothing to do with the openness of Android but only with the carriers intentions, which have been doing this years before android on closed systems.
- nanairo 16y ago
  No, and sorry if I come to strongly. But this "regulated by the market" dogma (and that is what it is) is an extremely simplified which gets repeated over and over again, despite plenty of examples that it doesn't work. Even Adam Smith, the very father of capitalism, did not trust businessmen, and pointed out that it would not work in case there weren't plenty of supply and plenty of demand. The mobile market is not a free market. It's an oligopoly. Admittedly this is due to a limited spectrum resource so there's not much that can be done. But in an oligopoly is veeery easy for companies to stop competing and try to keep the status quo. Case in point: the RIAA and movie industry, and the fact that neither are CD at the equilibrium price, nor is either really innovating. Another case is academic journals publishers (there's another oligopoly there, and prices have been going up), oil cartel etc... So "this will be regulated by the market" is not an argument: if it were it would have been regulated even before the iPhone and Android arrived, but it wasn't was it? (sorry for the tone, and I understand in the USA people have grown up with this pseudo-religion, but maybe you are different. But you have no idea how many times "free market" is used as a panacea.)
  - jacoblyles 16y ago
    I would like to point out that the reason for the cell phone oligopoly is that spectrum access is regulated - by the government. Poorly. (Forgive me for the quick soundbite. I'm googling for the articles I remember about how horrendously difficult it is to buy spectrum use rights in the US. It's not like buying lemonade. Like many regulations, wireless regulation was designed to protect the established players.)

kyleslattery 16y ago

He's not arguing that it makes it less open, he's saying it brings down the quality of the OS, since carriers can remove features and add their own junk.

AndrewHampton 16y ago
I think he is arguing it's less open when he says "isn’t the point of "open" supposed to be that the consumer can choose what they want on their own devices? Instead, open is proving to mean that the carriers can choose what they want to do with Android." It could bring down the quality of the OS, but the fact that the option exists for Verizon or anyone to make their own Market makes it more open in my book.
- wvenable 16y ago
  Android isn't really much more open for carriers and manufacturers than other operating systems. The source for Windows Mobile is available to manufacturers to tinker with, for example. The whole point is none of this openness translates to anything meaningful to the end user. Those people who pick Android because it's "open" are really getting nothing for it.
  - AndrewHampton 16y ago
    I disagree. I think being able to install any .apk file I want from any source on the internet is a clear benefit of this openness.
    - wvenable 16y ago
      I think two concepts are being combined here: one is that Android is open source and the other is that's not restricted like the iPhone. The former is not a prerequisite for the latter. Android is as open as Windows Mobile and Symbian in allowing arbitrary app installs. I agree with you, benefit of installing arbitrary software does exist -- but that benefit alone doesn't justify the significant "openness" hype around the platform. The article points out the many ways in which you are not in control of your device.

AndrewHampton 16y ago

The 2.2 stats were updated today: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve... 28% on 2.2 and almost 75% on 2.x