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It seems whenever someone tries to come up with tangible benefits of Android's "openness" they invariably end up describing properties of the Palm Pilot, Window

It seems whenever someone tries to come up with tangible benefits of Android's "openness" they invariably end up describing properties of the Palm Pilot, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry operating systems that have absolutely nothing to do with open source. Case in point: > I've been pleasantly surprised at how much more > configurable Android is. The fact that you can > replace the home screen with a third-party launcher > or even make your own app store is a clear sign > that Google's heart is in the right place. Or, it's a clear sign that Android isn't well designed and is no different than most of the other mobile devices that have appeared in the last 10 years. And if you purchase a locked-down Android device from your carrier then it literally is no different.

thwarted 16y ago
It's sad that we've reached a point where what is good design is such an absolute, with no consideration for customization as a design goal.
- askbjoernhansen 16y ago
  Things aren't better just because they're more configurable, even if customization is a goal. More often options are just varnish because the defaults aren't reasonable. Make the defaults good first and then add configuration and options.
  - thwarted 16y ago
    Yeah, and they don't suck just because they do let you change something you don't like. Every Apple product is so well designed, until the next Apple product comes out.
- MrScruff 16y ago
  Isn't this a rather old trend? As technology becomes more complex, we rely on the creator to make sensible decisions about the interface to allow us to focus primarily on what is relevant to achieving our goal. Abstraction is the only way technology can become more powerful and more accessible at the same time.
- protomyth 16y ago
  To be fair, its been tried a couple of times to build really customizable machines. It is just more expensive from a manufacturing point of view and the market is never really there. The Treo lost its slot and I seem to remember an attempt by some of the Amiga team to build a PC in a modular way (ended up in a museum somewhere). The problem has really been the cellphone focus which means "open" = "what carriers want". The lack of a true iPod touch equivalent has hurt the potential of Android. I really think if you were trying to build and open, customizable, modular platform, it would be competitive with Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. Android really doesn't have a love for an ecosystem of gadgets around it. It is a lone wolf and needs to really have a high speed connector where people could really build cool add-ons that it can plug into. Make it the "I can carry my world" device that can be plugged into other things to get more power / capability. The funny thing is that the inside of the Mac Pro has so many niceties from a hardware expansion point of view that never really appear on PCs.
  - thwarted 16y ago
    To be fair, its been tried a couple of times to build really customizable machines. It is just more expensive from a manufacturing point of view and the market is never really there. Customizable machines are a billion dollar industry, chances are, you're sitting in front of one right now. It's not a matter of making a customizable machine, we know how to do that. It's a matter of actually allowing the user to customize things, which can be done by allowing core components to be swapped out for alternatives. In this context, the customization doesn't need to be complete/absolute, it just needs to recognize that different users have different needs and work differently. A consumer/home user may find the grid of icons on the iPhone screen to be easy to use, but the business user may want a calendar or email listing on their home screen (interestingly enough, we laugh at the members of both of these groups who end up with a massive grid of icons on their desktops, which is obviously bad for usability ("The link to the website was at the tip of the penis!" -- Sales Guy vs Web Dude). And Android offers the capability for apps to provide this functionality, but Android isn't considered to have Good Design(tm) (or is at least "less" than Apple's design) despite this capability.
usaar333 16y ago
First off, no Android device sold blocks installing custom home screens from the market. In the US at least, all major carriers but AT&T allow side-loading applications. What you do see across the board is restricting root access, which, while unfortunate, still allows for a lot of customization. Secondly, different users will always have different preferences and use cases; the variety enabled by customization allows for more users to be happier. Furthermore, such openness has produced custom apps that blow away everything else away. Swype, a custom keyboard that cannot be distributed to the end-user of rival mobile OS's, is the most obvious example. At least at the OS level, this modularity is a sign that Android is well-designed.
- blub 16y ago
  Swype is also available on Symbian. The company that makes it has stated that it wants it to become a standard on all mobile platforms.

thwarted 16y ago

It's sad that we've reached a point where what is good design is such an absolute, with no consideration for customization as a design goal.

askbjoernhansen 16y ago
Things aren't better just because they're more configurable, even if customization is a goal. More often options are just varnish because the defaults aren't reasonable. Make the defaults good first and then add configuration and options.
- thwarted 16y ago
  Yeah, and they don't suck just because they do let you change something you don't like. Every Apple product is so well designed, until the next Apple product comes out.
MrScruff 16y ago
Isn't this a rather old trend? As technology becomes more complex, we rely on the creator to make sensible decisions about the interface to allow us to focus primarily on what is relevant to achieving our goal. Abstraction is the only way technology can become more powerful and more accessible at the same time.
protomyth 16y ago
To be fair, its been tried a couple of times to build really customizable machines. It is just more expensive from a manufacturing point of view and the market is never really there. The Treo lost its slot and I seem to remember an attempt by some of the Amiga team to build a PC in a modular way (ended up in a museum somewhere). The problem has really been the cellphone focus which means "open" = "what carriers want". The lack of a true iPod touch equivalent has hurt the potential of Android. I really think if you were trying to build and open, customizable, modular platform, it would be competitive with Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. Android really doesn't have a love for an ecosystem of gadgets around it. It is a lone wolf and needs to really have a high speed connector where people could really build cool add-ons that it can plug into. Make it the "I can carry my world" device that can be plugged into other things to get more power / capability. The funny thing is that the inside of the Mac Pro has so many niceties from a hardware expansion point of view that never really appear on PCs.
- thwarted 16y ago
  To be fair, its been tried a couple of times to build really customizable machines. It is just more expensive from a manufacturing point of view and the market is never really there. Customizable machines are a billion dollar industry, chances are, you're sitting in front of one right now. It's not a matter of making a customizable machine, we know how to do that. It's a matter of actually allowing the user to customize things, which can be done by allowing core components to be swapped out for alternatives. In this context, the customization doesn't need to be complete/absolute, it just needs to recognize that different users have different needs and work differently. A consumer/home user may find the grid of icons on the iPhone screen to be easy to use, but the business user may want a calendar or email listing on their home screen (interestingly enough, we laugh at the members of both of these groups who end up with a massive grid of icons on their desktops, which is obviously bad for usability ("The link to the website was at the tip of the penis!" -- Sales Guy vs Web Dude). And Android offers the capability for apps to provide this functionality, but Android isn't considered to have Good Design(tm) (or is at least "less" than Apple's design) despite this capability.

usaar333 16y ago

First off, no Android device sold blocks installing custom home screens from the market. In the US at least, all major carriers but AT&T allow side-loading applications. What you do see across the board is restricting root access, which, while unfortunate, still allows for a lot of customization. Secondly, different users will always have different preferences and use cases; the variety enabled by customization allows for more users to be happier. Furthermore, such openness has produced custom apps that blow away everything else away. Swype, a custom keyboard that cannot be distributed to the end-user of rival mobile OS's, is the most obvious example. At least at the OS level, this modularity is a sign that Android is well-designed.

blub 16y ago
Swype is also available on Symbian. The company that makes it has stated that it wants it to become a standard on all mobile platforms.