Every Man Is An Island: The Fragmentation of Android

Android as a working Genius Zone system has had a few first-rate successes over the previous few years. Android producers took a back seat to Apple; Android turned into exact, but iOS became higher, the critics said. Over the last few years, Android’s success has critics seeing the Apple enemy in an entire new mild, with a few suggestions that the destiny of the smartphone enterprise lies with Android manufacturers and no longer with the Apple Corporation – an agency that many as soon as the notion was invincible and past failures.

ANDROID

Android’s success became a great thing; it was supposed to assist Android producers in seeing the fulfillment that they may reap and propel them to heights of which they’d never dreamed. Android’s success was speculated to be the motivation and effect its manufacturers needed to surpass Apple and iOS. I worry the worst, but: with Android’s growing success, its producers are beginning to see their very own individual businesses as “superstars,” dividing Android, as soon as a cohesive whole, into individual portions or fragments. We are on the point of the fragmentation of Android.

Before you placed this text down and stroll away, let me explain. Earlier this week at the International CES, LG Electronics announced that the Nexus four changed into most effective primary collaborative efforts with Google:

“Through our collaboration with Google, we released the LG Nexus 4 telephone. This is the primary of many gadgets to come from our developing partnership with this very selective agency” (underline mine).

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What this indicates is that we will look ahead to a Nexus 5 and six, likely a “Nexus nine” or “Nexus eleven” one in all nowadays (relying on how the Nexus smartphones are named, in assessment to the Nexus drugs). Sometime after LG made this statement, however, the International Business Times claimed that “the Nexus 4 production ‘is claimed to have [been] halted,’ with LG interested in building its next-gen devices” (Chris Smith, “Nexus four manufacturing reportedly halted, as LG is focusing on destiny smartphones, Nexus five included?”). What is this intended to mean? To be blunt, LG has determined to abandon the Nexus four in want of its very own smartphones. Supposedly, the LG Optimus G has made the agency develop assured in shifting ahead to boost its own motive. As for its assignment with Google? Well, LG looks to paintings with them inside the future. However, no particular time frame was given wherein the two businesses might come together. Consumers who desired to get their arms on a Nexus 4 at the moment are left expecting the following Nexus task (which will be in a yr or two).

In an editorial I wrote on the Google X Phone, I stated that it might no longer be a smart flow for Google to push Samsung out of the way. I assumed that Samsung would want to stay in the Android production group. While Samsung’s phones have made Android the OS to be envied, Samsung has also worked on an OS of its own: Tizen. Reports have surfaced in the closing two weeks that Samsung will produce greater Tizen phones this year than ever earlier. This means that Samsung, which has never long gone public about its “OS inside the wings,” intends to promote its personal OS in its own hardware this year. Some say that that is in response to Google’s plans to create an X smartphone; thinking about that Google published its assertion first, I could now not be surprised if Samsung’s selection to press forward has something to do with Google’s desire to rule Android (and Samsung’s choice to rule Tizen).

Now, LG has advanced and made the same circulate as Google: figuring out to position its very own work ahead of its partnership and Google. LG’s pass can also be a political reaction to Google’s X telephone announcement: seeing that Google is shifting forward with its own telephone, LG looks to do the equal. Unlike Google or Samsung, however, it does not have the financial sources to retain generating one line of smartphones even as running on a brand new line, so it has decided to pull its sources collectively and begin on some other cellphone (past the LG Optimus G and Nexus 4). What this says to the customer is the following: “whilst LG and Google produced an excellent smartphone together, nothing topics more than our very own cellphone line and business enterprise name. If left to select between our telephones and a partnership telephone, the companion smartphone mission could be the primary to head.” This does now not bode nicely for an organization that, until the Optimus G and Nexus 4, became no longer recognized for its telephone collections.

 Fragmentation

With Google’s circulate to create a one hundred% Google cellphone, Samsung’s flow to have its personal independent Tizen OS, and LG’s withdrawal from its Google venture to pursue its personal line, we have the start of what’s known as “the fragmentation of Android.” This curious declaration refers to the breakdown of what changed into as soon as a unified OS, a set of smartphone and software program producers who, once unified, determined to move their very own separate methods and create their very own Android flavors that stick out from the relaxation. The fragmentation of Android refers back to the breakdown of a unified OS into individual companies and their tech achievements. In other phrases, corporations that once stated, “it’s about we” (more than one manufacturer) will now say, “It’s about me” (our one organization)!

This mindset, lamentably, will show adverse for Android as a whole. Android has grown to be successful via now not handiest its harmony, however also its diversity. The range of the Android atmosphere, running collectively with its hardware producers’ settlement, had saved the working gadget together – even thru the times when it struggled to compete with Apple’s iOS. There is unity in diversity and diversity in solidarity, and these concepts have made Android what it’s far these days. Unfortunately, Android producers are beginning to trust that there can be no range in solidarity (best in division); this mindset will allow Apple to divide and overcome its approach to stay on pinnacle inside the telephone international.

Apple has made its success appear with a dictatorial, specific approach. The agency produces its personal OS and maintains stern control over its carriers and plans. It does the whole thing for itself and only does what it wants to do. Samsung had already proven in 2012 whilst it beat Apple in the ultimate zone ($eight.3 billion vs. Apple’s $eight.2 billion) that running with Google has been a hit venture, in preference to going at the tech enterprise alone. Now that Samsung has demonstrated that “there’s no ‘I’ in ‘crew,'” Android manufacturers need to do what they can continue to push their financial income above that of Apple. This yr, however, Android producers are starting to assume that they can accomplish extra alone than they can in collaboration with others. This is a dangerous mindset to depart a direction of destruction handiest behind. The reality is within the sales: If clients are compelled to pick out between companies in place of working structures, Google and Samsung will rack up income while corporations together with HTC, LG, and other lesser-recognized names will lose in the telephone war.

Englishman John Donne once wrote the statement, “No guy is an island”; if this is authentic, Donne’s words could not be truer than inside the current Android circumstances. Android’s achievement has come thru its collaboration and innovation – a mixture in preference to isolation. Take away one of the equation elements, and the Android “I-land” will become nothing at all.

John R. Wright
Social media ninja. Freelance web trailblazer. Extreme problem solver. Music fanatic. Spent several months marketing pubic lice in the financial sector. Spent 2002-2008 supervising the production of ice cream in Africa. Had some great experience developing robotic shrimp in the aftermarket. Spent several years getting my feet wet with puppets in Miami, FL. Was quite successful at supervising the production of corncob pipes worldwide. What gets me going now is working with electric trains in Mexico.