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Yup. And I'm starting to wonder if in the end Android isn't going to reverse the trend towards carrier openness started by the iPhone. (A quick aside, when I s

Yup. And I'm starting to wonder if in the end Android isn't going to reverse the trend towards carrier openness started by the iPhone. (A quick aside, when I say carrier openness, I mean that the carrier starts acting as just a data conduit, instead of imposing their branding everywhere on the user experience. So the iPhone introduced manufacturer-initiated updates, no operator logos stuck on the phone, apps controlled by Apple, not the operator, etc. The iPhone experience is the same regardless of which operator you find yourself on, around the world). So, with Android proving itself to be a decent competitor to the iPhone, it has reduced Apple's bargaining power with operators. That, added to the fact that the "openness" of Android ironically allows the operators to lock it down, means that we may very well be seeing the end of a very short era where handset manufacturers could dictate a decent amount of the user experience. If the difference between the iPhone and all previous phones is an indicator, this is a great shame.

loewenskind 16y ago
>dded to the fact that the "openness" of Android ironically allows the operators to lock it down Why would this be ironic? It's very obvious that the more open you are the more people can do exactly what they want, and that includes locking down.
- demallien 16y ago
  I don't have any figures to back this up, but frankly I would be astonished if it turned out that most people didn't expect 'open' to mean 'not locked down'. The trick is that Android isn't actually open for all parties concerned, only for the integrator. The integrator may then decide to make the resulting device open, but that is not a foregone conclusion, as proven by some of the devices beginning to appear on the market. But that message isn't what is being marketed - people are being told that Android is 'open', by which they naturally understand that they can do what they want with their device. But in reality, not so much. Anyway, way too many words to say that this is a very ironic result if you don't take care to explicitly define the parties concerned when talking about openness/locked downedness of a device...

loewenskind 16y ago

>dded to the fact that the "openness" of Android ironically allows the operators to lock it down Why would this be ironic? It's very obvious that the more open you are the more people can do exactly what they want, and that includes locking down.

demallien 16y ago
I don't have any figures to back this up, but frankly I would be astonished if it turned out that most people didn't expect 'open' to mean 'not locked down'. The trick is that Android isn't actually open for all parties concerned, only for the integrator. The integrator may then decide to make the resulting device open, but that is not a foregone conclusion, as proven by some of the devices beginning to appear on the market. But that message isn't what is being marketed - people are being told that Android is 'open', by which they naturally understand that they can do what they want with their device. But in reality, not so much. Anyway, way too many words to say that this is a very ironic result if you don't take care to explicitly define the parties concerned when talking about openness/locked downedness of a device...