In the end, it's our fault for electing people that refuse to regulate the cell phone carriers properly. Or, it's our fault for doing business with them. There are some countries where carriers are not allowed to include un-uninstallable apps. But not the US. Why? Because consumers in the US don't care about anything but a low, low price.
Right now, Android is the only popular mobile OS that you can clone from git, build, and install on some piece of hardware. All hardware? Nope. But some? Yes. This means it's basically open. Just because someone sells you a box you're not allowed to open doesn't mean that all boxes are un-openable, after all.
I had no trouble hacking my EVO 4G, deleting the stock OS with HTC and Sprint crapware, and installing a build with 100% open code. While it's not possible to do this with every Android phone ever made, it's not possible to do it with any iOS or Symbian or WebOS device. This makes Android the most open; and after the industry has been closed tight for 20+ years, it is quite refreshing. We haven't achieved perfection yet, but Android is the only software stack bringing us closer.
(Remember commercial UNIXes? Neither do I. Linux and Free/Open/NetBSD relegated them to a very tiny niche market. Android is the beginning of this for mobile; you don't just wake up one day, free of the oppression of closed hardware and proprietary software. It takes time and effort, and Google is leading the way right now. Someone else will build on this in the future, and things will become even more open.)
I think the beef some of us have with Google is that they seem to have left their balls at the door. However much Google is or isn't living up to "don't be evil" these days, I suspect most of us can agree that we'd rather have their rules than Verizon's or AT&T's. Why aren't they being stronger? They've had the only really credible alternative to the iPhone for a long time now -- why aren't they using that fact to make the carriers play ball?
Nerds love to rag on Apple for their controlling ways, but seem to forget how completely locked down -- and utterly, horribly, greedily tacky -- the mobile universe was before the iPhone. Apple, through, I don't know, sheer force of will, cracked a huge hole in the status quo. Google could have landed a deathblow if they'd just stuck to their guns. Oh well.
jrockway, I hope you're right, and this is the beginning. I fear that the best window of opportunity is already past. Sensible regulation would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. Irony of ironies, perhaps it will be Microsoft that comes in and forms the second leg.
Android may be a credible alternative to the iPhone now but that wasn't originally the case nor was it guaranteed. Many carriers had essentially anointed the iPhone the One True Smartphone. The US is a special case with the AT&T exclusivity but carriers in other countries even built out new GSM networks just for the iPhone. The first version of Android was nothing special, so Google did what they needed to do: give the carriers and manufacturers everything they wanted and more.
Manufacturers want to be able to customize the UI and software to distinguish themselves and not just be commodity hardware provider for Google's OS -- Google allowed that. To get the carriers on board, Google gives them the app store revenue (minus transaction charges). They also give both carriers and manufacturers a cut of the search revenue. Google has done everything possible to ensure that the carriers will have a reason to promote Android. One of the reasons they do promote Android is that they can load it up with NASCAR apps.
It's taken that much to get Android to the point where it as credible alternative to the iPhone. Trying to undo that now is like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.
Telus and Bell switched to GSM because their old networks were falling apart, and because they were missing out on roaming fees from international customers. On top of that, there were a bundle of phones that they couldn't get, or which showed up later on CDMA.
Bell and Telus spending billions of dollars to get the iPhone is a ridiculous notion. Bell and Telus spending billions of dollars to get a new, next-gen 3G network, with higher speeds and the ability to use data while a voice call is in progress.
Your point is valid but the fact remains that both companies offer and heavily promote only one GSM phone: the iPhone. That was all I was trying to get at.
I get the impression that carriers like Android devices better than iPhones. Analogies are fraught with danger but this looks similar to the early Mac vs PC days. I predict Apple can keep a decent minority market share as long as they execute well. Android or something like it will probably dominate the rest of the market. The network effects are strong.
with Google is that they seem to have left their balls at the door.
From what I've heard from Google, I think with Android they're already sensitive about the perception that they're the "500 pound gorilla in the room" and they're keen to reassure the carriers and the phone manufacturers that they're not taking full control of their businesses.
Even though I think many people at Google would like to see things unfold differently, they also want to see Android adopted widely as its path to success (breadth instead of depth.) The art of compromise.
I think if you buy a N1 then you can still have a "google-centric" Android experience, though. For now.
Another possibility is that this is as open as Android is ever going to be. The original Droid was a high-water mark for openness and standardization on Android. Subsequent phones have been progressively more customized and locked down.
Examples: AT&T banning sideloading, Motorola phones taking a more aggressive approach toward hacking, Verizon signing exclusive deals like Skype and moving toward a proprietary app store, Google deferring to carriers on tethering, Verizon's forcing Bing on users, etc.
"I can always hack it" isn't a solution, unless you'd accept that hacking is also a solution to Apple's App Store censorship. Android's fans are so focused on how evil Apple is that they're ignoring the way Android itself is becoming less open. I'm not entirely happy with Apple, but I'll take their curation over the carrier's vision of a new walled garden based on Android any day.
Another possibility is that this is as open as Android is ever going to be.
This is a great point. Many of us are imagining a hypothetical alternate world where Google forced all Android phones to be non-evil, but maybe that world can't exist. Maybe if Google was fascist about openness, the carriers would just ship Symbian and WinMo instead.
The original Droid was a high-water mark for openness and standardization on Android.
I would say the Nexus One is the high-water mark, although apparently many people never even knew that it existed due to the lack of marketing.
We can't do an all-out attack on the carriers since they will fortify their positions and we need the carriers to move data for us.
So we will take them by stealth and guerilla warfare, a little bit at a time, forcing them to be dumb bit-movers.
Google could move faster than they do right now. I think they already have the infrastructure and applications on Android to make a worldwide Skype alternative which is free. But the carriers would scream if Google does that. Hence, they slowly morph the Android system into their vision over time. A carrier can't complain on each of the small steps -- but take all the steps together and their power is dwindling.
"Open" is not a discrete thing. You can be "more open" than another handset or operating system. But "not being open" does not imply being "closed". The positive thing about Android is that we are seeing the most open devices ever. And this signals the slow but sure death of the carrier conglomerates.
"I had no trouble hacking my EVO 4G, deleting the stock OS with HTC and Sprint crapware, and installing a build with 100% open code."
100% open code? So this means your not running any of the gmail/gtalk/gvoice/g... ? None of those are open code, and quite frankly, they are the most used applications on my android phone.
I would also argue that the android OS is one of the least 'open' open source mobile OSes available. When you compare android's development practices to companies like Nokia with their N900 and Intel with Meego, both companies who are actively concerned with making sure their changes get back upstream, and then you'll see that the openness of android is more of a facade.
Android is 100% open source. Things like Maps are just third-party applications that you can install as it pleases you. (And yes, I did install those apps after replacing the OS.)
The whole point of open source is that you can do what you want with it - you're under no obligation to give your changes back if you don't want to. At least, that's how it is under the less restrictive licenses.
OTOH, free software is not about protecting the rights of programmers - it's about the rights of users.
In that sense, a restrictive license is one that allows programmers to make the once free and open code closed and secret, restricting what users can do with it.
I am a programmer, but I am also a user. I really appreciate the rights what you call "restrictive licenses" give me and find the rights they take away (mainly the right to abuse my users) a fair price for my freedom.
You keep repeating this bullshit about protecting users over and over again.
Sorry, but the only interested users of the source code are programmers, so restrictive licenses do hurt true users of the product. As for non-programmer users they don't give a damn about openness or closeness of the code, lip service at most. The thing either works or it does not, period.
I believe there are lot of those who chose Android because they heard it is open. Now ask, how many did see the single line of Android code.
How did Android being "100%" open help those poor solus have skype and tethering on their phones.
Yeah but we're not talking about less restrictive licenses, we're talking about linux and the gpl and the fact that zero of the changes from android have made it back upstream into the kernel.
Dirk Hohndel from MeeGo made a good point at OSCON this year that open source is not just about releasing patches to code you changed, but oepn source is about engaging with the upstream projects that you're using, and that is something that android has not done well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfQTaIGPxP8
Don't get me wrong, I still think android is great, I've been using android phones since just after the G1 was released, and its a great platform, but there are definitely a lot of open issues with it that could be handled better.
> Yeah but we're not talking about less restrictive licenses, we're talking about linux and the gpl and the fact that zero of the changes from android have made it back upstream into the kernel.
Sure they have. The kernel developers deemed most of the changes unsuitable for upstream. That's a shame, but it's their prerogative to reject the changes, and Google's prerogative to still want to do things their way.
> Dirk Hohndel from MeeGo made a good point at OSCON this year that open source is not just about releasing patches to code you changed, but oepn source is about engaging with the upstream projects that you're using...
So now some guy who I've never heard of has an opinion on what open source "is," and that's canonical? I don't think so, and I don't agree (as an open source developer-in-hiatus myself).
Open source is whatever you damn well care to make of it (as long as you're honoring the relevant licenses). That's why it's so awesome.
Jailbreaking your phone is legal (as opposed to illegal), but I haven't seen anything saying that jailbreakability is a requirement for phones. If it were, it wouldn't be difficult to apply that to things like game consoles and phones, which is a precedent no one (except consumers) have any interest in doing.
The ruling simply says that you can't be arrested for jailbreaking phones; it doesn't require that a given phone be jailbreakable.
What are you running on your EVO? I toyed with Cyanogenmod a few weeks ago, but gave up because it had some rough edges compared to Sense (like two text messages coming with every voicemail). However after a day of tinkering with various home replacements just to make the phone more usable sideways, I'm thinking I may have given up on the open source option too soon. It'd be nice to have a de-facto community distribution to repave the various carrier-specific installs, but I didn't get the impression that Cyanogenmod was there yet. Should I give it (or something else) a second look?
The two text messages for incoming voicemails is fixable. Basically, sprint just text messages your phone with a special text message to say there is a new visual voicemail. You can either block those messages from making through to handcent/chomp/whatever (which doesn't block it from visual voicemail), or you can do what I, and many others, did and use Google Voice for your voicemail instead.
With Google Voice for voicemail, I can at least, you know, get a friggin phone number for the person calling me and not just their pre-recorded greeting name.
This is very close to a previous article blaming Google for turning us back into the days of strong carrier control. (can't remember the link, but it was here on HN).
And I agree, though I don't think Google did it on purpose. Their main aim---I think---was just to avoid Apple (or Blackberry) becoming too powerful. They wanted to commoditise the smartphone market. And they have succeeded.
And to me it doesn't look like the hardware manufacturers got a great deal either. It's turning into a cut-throat market, where all phones are pretty much identical (and interchangeable), and your revenues come from economy of scale. Basically like the PC market.
Normally (e.g PC market) this would mean that the customer can shop for the best deal, which is great. However the "customer" here are the carriers: they buy from the manufacturers and resell to the real customer. And indeed they got all the power: they can ask this or that company to lock or modify the phone under threat of taking their business elsewhere.
The real customer, however, is only dealing with the carriers, and Google hasn't commoditise these. If anything we are getting even more market concentration.
So yeah, it seems to me to be pretty much what economics theory would suggest.
The only alternative would to get an unlocked phone but then the manufacturer would lose the massive subsidise and most users seem to prefer those to the hassle of getting a closed system from their carriers.
Saying back into the days of strong carrier control assumes that you ever left those days behind in the U.S. Since the great white hope for this happening was the iPhone, which is still only available on one single carrier, this seems somewhat naive.
Either Apple couldn't get any concessions from the other carriers or they accepted a big bag of cash to give one carrier an advantage over the others. Either way carriers are in control. All you get is a slightly different set of consumer hostile activities that affect different demographics.
At best you could argue that Apple is demonstrating a better way to do things on the AT&T network and customer pressure will force other carriers to emulate (if/when allowed by whatever contract binds Apple and AT&T), but exactly the same could be said about Android. And similar could be argued across mobile OSes too e.g. with Android pressuring Apple into relaxing its arbitrary developer tool restrictions and iPhones showing a market for unbranded (by carriers at least) phones.
Apple's iPhone is still unique in its niche. Of course Android is commoditising the smartphone market, so if you are in the market for a smartphone then iPhone/Android/WebOS/etc... are all comparable.
But if someone actually wants an iPhone or an Android in particular then the view is different. In that case the carrier can get any manufacturer to build what they want or they'll choose a different manufacturer for their Android phone. But you can't get the iPhone anywhere else than Apple.
Apple does not need to bow to carrier pressure because they are the only game in town (if you want an iPhone, if you don't care about the OS then I agree with you).
It sounds like you think there was (is?) a time when carriers in the U.S. had no power and the customer reigned supreme, but this only applied to people on AT&T who wanted an iPhone (and didn't want tethering or Skype over 3G for the first few years etc.)
If Google have betrayed us all by destroying this tiny, short-lived, half-hearted, single-network, sub-national niche of telecoms utopia then I'm not sure I can bring myself to care, particularly if they've opened up various other niches in exchange.
The real customer, however, is only dealing with the carriers, and Google hasn't commoditise these. If anything we are getting even more market concentration.
Not yet, anyway. But the carriers have to be the next target. The huge capital requirements to build a network is their main barrier to entry, but that's unlikely to stop Google.
I wonder if they realize this (they probably do), and if so, what they are going to about it.
Google don't want to be in the phone market - they want to be in the selling ads on search market.
Their worry was a closed iPhone with an Apple only browser might go to an Apple/ATT only search page with Apple/ATT ads - or they might simply replace all the Google ads with their own before sending pages to the phone
And once people accepted this on iPhone they might also accept it on all the other phones then on all the home cable connections - like BT/Phorn.
I don't think Google is ever going to be willing to enter the carrier business. Although they hinted 1 or 2 years ago to a system where the global carrier would lose most of there power. It was phones that would operate on unlicensed frequencies or locally licensed frequencies. The phone could register with what is locally available by having a GPS and a database of operators by locations. It was a neat idea and I could see Google pushing this as a standard to be implemented by different operators. Sadly, I can't find a reference to the post I saw back then. Google certainly doesn't seem to be pushing this solution currently.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.)
I did find that until very recently, spectrum rights were non-transferable. And they are still single use; a central planning commission decides which parts of the spectrum will be used for which purposes, and the owners of the spectrum aren't allowed to deviate from this. The central planning commission has a long history of snubbing new uses of the spectrum in response to lobbying from existing companies (ex. TV companies used the FCC to torment FM radio startups in the 40s, pushing back its adoption).
I'm as free market as they come, but when companies are using a limited public resource (the spectrum) they need to be regulated. The limited spectrum provides a nearly impassable barrier to entry for newcomers and thus competition can't effectively regulate the market.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think there's a third concept as well which is where most of the "openness" hype stems which is the ability to replace entire parts of the platform. Don't like the homescreen, dialer, camera app, keyboard? Just replace it with something you do like.
That's what I find most compelling about the Android platform. As long as I have access to the Android Market and the ability to install apps directly from the internet, most of the problems mentioned in the article can be sidestepped. With that being said, I do find the trend mentioned in the article to be somewhat alarming. Removing those two features really cripples the phone, but I expect most Android phones to leave those enabled.
Again, just like Windows Mobile. This is why I think the "openness" hype is undeserving. Yes, in comparison to the iPhone this all significant, but the iPhone wasn't even the original smartphone OS.
Very true. For me, it's both. I've installed arbitrary non-Market apps on my N1, and I'm happy with that. As soon as CyanogenMod 6 goes gold, I'll be reflashing my phone.
(I'm a bit stricter with stability on a device like my phone, else I'd try the RCs.)
it's not just the carriers. It's the manufacturers too - I know of no phone (aside of the Google developer phones) that would allow you to freely install your own build of the OS or even just remove "value added" software that has been installed for "your" "convenience".
Unless you exploit security holes in the vendors crappy security systems. The fact that they don't even invest enough resources into a quality security framework (which helps increasing their revenue) speaks volumes of the quality of the other "improvements" they make to stock android.
Totally agree, after all Android is just an OS, there's no guaranteed quality or user experience across different carriers and manufacturers are the same just because they are all "Android phones". This could totally ruin the Android brand since there is too much uncertainty about what people will get.
Unlocked Nokia N900 allow you to do that. Available on Aamazon for $400. It runs maemo, but people are trying to port android over to it. I myself own the N900 and I am quite happy with it.
On a side note, I like the Nokia's hardware over Apple's.
But that is because of the carriers. Why do you think Motorola implemented a signed multistage boot process? I'm sure they didn't say, "We want to limit our customers and waste engineering resources on a problem that voids the warranty anyway and doesn't matter to us".
Nitpick: regardless of what the scare-message says when you unlock your N1's bootloader, changing the software on a device cannot (by law, in the US) void the warranty on the hardware, unless it is demonstrable that the software modification actually damaged the hardware.
why then is the Milestone (international Droid) locked down even worse even though the phone is sold in multiple countries without any carrier lock or even just carrier branding?
The key here is the unavailability of non-carrier branded unrestricted Android phones in the US. If I get subsidized by the carrier when purchasing the phone, dealing with crapware and restriction is part of the cost of getting $400 or so off the price of the phone at purchase time.
Ideally I could make a choice to buy an Andriod phone from a manufacturer with no branding and no restrictions, pay full price for it, and accept that the additional cost is what I'm willing to pay for an unrestricted, unbranded phone. The inability to purchase a phone like that is the real problem, not the restrictions placed on carrier subsidized phones.
Two years ago I bought an unrestricted HTC Diamond with Winmo 6.1. I paid over $600 for the phone and the privilege of being able to do whatever I want with the phone. The $400 extra over a branded/restricted phone, spread out over 24 months, is $17/month for the privilege of being able to doink around with a phone.
Having done that once, I'm leaning toward putting up with the crapware and restrictions and saving the $400. I figure that in two years, I probably only really used a couple of third party apps. Most of the rest that I tried were annoying memory leaks and crashes waiting to happen - barely better than carrier provided crapware.
If you own your phone, T-mobile smartphone plans are $20/month cheaper. That's $480 over a 24-month contract, it doesn't pay to get the subsidized phone. (Yeah, unless you get an N1, it's still a branded phone with some crapware, but they will unlock it immediately and you can change your plan at any time.)
T-mobile, in my experience, is on the right side of almost everything in this argument. Of course they probably have to be given their relative size compared to the other big players.
I gave up T-mobile a couple of years ago due to call quality issues here in Denver. I'm hoping they've fixed it.
This has been the case since october of 2008. There has always been an unlocked option for developers/users. Consumers can buy those too, but they'd obviously rather purchase carrier related phones to save money on the phone purchase.
Does Siegler ever make any points or does he always ramble on like this? Is he upset that people are buying android based phones or is it that the carriers are customizing the os too much and google won't force any strict guidelines? That was the appeal of android from the beginning. Basically anyone could take the os as a starting point and do some cool stuff with it. The fact that the carriers are using their monopoly to force certain conditions on their users is not really the fault of whoever produced the os which happens to be google in this case.
Where does Seigler say that it was Google's fault? Let me quote:
"Maybe if Google had their way, the system would be truly open. But they don’t. Sadly, they have to deal with a very big roadblock: the carriers."
At the end of the day, Siegler understands that for end users, it doesn't matter whose fault the whole mess is, all that matters is that users are once more being herded into operator-controlled ghettos, much as they were pre-iPhone.
He is saying google is complicit in some kind of act he finds distasteful so google is partly to blame. Is that spelled out enough for you to see why I said he is blaming google?
The Android 2.2 Froyo marketshare number he quotes/links (5%) is five weeks out of date. That may not sound like much but the previous version 2.1 took 25% in just two weeks and climbed by nearly 8% every two weeks since.
I've been checking that page recently because of the absolute storm of Android updates, new devices and sales increases announced recently and I expect a big shift in the stats.
this is especially significant because the original Motorola Droid received its 2.2 OTA update recently, and that phone accounts for a huge percentage of US Android handsets.
Sadly, the Canadian version of the Droid (Milestone) isn't scheduled to get 2.2 until "Q1 2011"... It's the same hardware, I don't know why we have to wait 6 months.
I believe it is because the Milestone is on more than one carrier. Verizon and Motorola Worked together on the Droid's software and they streamlined the process because the Droid is only through Verizon, but the milestone is, for the most part, carrier independent. Even though it isn't to one single carrier I believe Motorola still works with carriers to make sure the phone updates don't brake anything. Also, Motorola have done their part with the Milestone by selling it, and they probably dont make any money with ongoing support, unlike verizon, who want to keep their contracted users happy.
Thats my opinion of it anyway. and i own a UK Milestone.
Seems like we are a bit more lucky in the UK. You can buy virtualy any model android that is not carrier locked on pay as you go or just signup to a pay monthly plan with any of the 5 major carriers:
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/smartphones/android
In the US I can understand your points.... how is such a large market so controlled by the carriers? How is there not someone like carphone warehouse that sells all phones unlocked and carrier free? I mean here I bought even my iPhone from the Apple UK store unlocked and chose my own carrier, would do the same with an Android - no crapware any time.
>any model android that is not carrier locked on pay as you go
That's wrong. All PAYG phones are carrier locked - they have to be for the sake of the business. You can buy SIM-free phones easily (say from expansys).
The only way to get an unlocked phone from a carrier is to get a pay monthly plan, and that's only on some carriers (IIRC, only O2 gives you an unlocked phone, and on T-Mobile you have to request an unlock code and they give it to you 28 days later). The reseller Carphone Warehouse told me that all their pay-monthly deals, regardless of carrier, come with unlocked phones.
You can buy a phone outright and go on a pay monthly plan without a contract. That is what I am currently doing with my iPhone - I paid ¬£440 for the phone outright and pay £20/month on O2 for 300 minutes, unlimited text and unlimited data.
I got my N900 from Vodafone UK on contract and it is not locked. And it is paid via contract, not bought separately. (i.e. I did not pay the full price of the phone, only 30£ or so at the beginning)
Thanks for the info. Haven't talked with Vodafone for a while because their data prices always seemed high. T-Mobile and O2 were cheaper, hence me knowing a bit more about them.
I think the author is a little unclear of the definition of "open." Specifically, what "open source," which is the "open" in question, really means. The carriers can pull these shenanigans precisely because they have access to the source for the OS. If they didn't they'd have to go through Google or pick another option.
I think he's very clear. The ironic point he is trying to make is that people are citing "openness" as their reason for purchasing Android phones when it has no benefit for them at all.
How is it not a benefit? If a carrier's actions really disgust me, I can just switch to a different carrier and still have access to a platform that is substantially the same. I'm not necessarily locked in to a carrier, unlike, say, someone who just has to have their iPhone.
At the beginning of the article, he specifically mentioned the assumption that "if it’s not the iPhone/AT&T deal". In other words, assuming iPhone is available on multiple carriers.
Here in Norway, and probably in most other parts of Europe, you can buy unlocked version of all phones, be it HTC, Samsung, iPhone (sold unlocked directly from http://apple.no).
I did. Because by the time that I want to switch carriers, I'll be ready for a new phone anyhow. I might as well take the discount on the phone. If I don't take the discount, I still pay the same rates monthly anyhow.
T-mobile gives you a $20/month discount. I agree that it doesn't make sense with the other carriers. An important issue is that the carriers operate on different bands so your phone is still tied to a specific carrier (if you want 3G to work).
Just as a note to people wanting to buy an unlocked Android phone: I'm not entirely sure, but AFAIK you still can't put a custom rom on those machines without going through some hoops. You'll have to root your HTC Desire first (even though you bought it unlocked). That differs from e.g. the Nexus One, which you are able to setup with a custom bootrom without having to hack your phone.
That phone only has 3G on the 900 and 2100 bands, meaning that it will not be compatible with either AT&T's or T-Mobile 3G networks in the US. While HTC Desires with AT&T compatible 3G exist, you would have to drive to Canada to buy one: http://www.telusmobility.com/en/ON/htc_desire/index.shtml
All of this only applies if you buy a subsidized phone from the carriers. Until the carriers can legally forbid non-branded phones from being on the network, they only have the power that their customers, who apparently like giving up their freedom of choice for a low upfront phone price, voluntarily give them.
I was just about to write a blog post complaining about this very same problem. My 2.1 update was 6 month late and I can't root my phone, which was exactly why I wanted an Android.
I will buy an iPhone next time. If I have the choice of bending over in front of Apple or T-Mobile, I'd rather have Apple.
If I can put debian on my phone then I guess I could also put crapware free android if I wished. Also probably there is some method of uninstalling crapware without reinstalling whole system and eventually people will find out what it is.
What points? That Android itself being open doesn't guarantee that every piece of software, every piece of hardware, and every carrier is going to be totally open?
That's an asinine, utterly idiotic argument. It's a juvenile strawman ("Gosh, and I thought Android was open...but look I can't install Skype on my Sprint phone").
MG Siegler has seldom said anything that had any merit or added to the argument in any meaningful way. Which isn't a suprise, as TechCrunch is a trollbait emporium: They know that posting such asinine nonsense gets them hits, so they'll keep doing it. It is, absolutely, feeding the trolls.
The article answers this line of thought (see below)... and instead you offer no arguments.
"And before all of you pros storm the comments with how great it is to root your Android phones, consider the average consumers here. They are the ones being screwed by this exploitation of “open.” Anyone with the desire to do so can fairly easily hack an iPhone too."
I have to particularly laugh at the Skype comment he added (a drum that Gruber has banged on in his dismissively sarcastic manner): That has NOTHING to do with Android. Skype, the company, decided to get in bed with Verizon and limit their app to certain handsets under certain conditions. What does that have to do with anything beyond perhaps "Skype and Verizon have a business relationship"?
Android, the platform, is open, although that of course doesn't mean that every piece of hardware, software, or carrier will be open. Nonetheless, it's open enough that if you don't want Verizon crapware you can get a phone elsewhere. The advantage of Android being everywhere, unlike say the iPhone in the US, is that you can get a phone from another vendor or another handset maker if someone gets abusive, as Verizon is becoming.
I decided to stop reading MG Siegler's Android-related posts. His articles about Android are just absurd. The last straw for me was when he wrote that Android is only surging because Apple is letting them too.
He's the ultimate fanboy that just cannot accept that the IPhone will not be the dominant smartphone in the near future. I don't think Apple loses sleep that they will be outsold by Android since they will still be taking massive profits.
It's really unfortunate that a writer like him gets a voice in an influential blog like Techcrunch. I hope he just post things like these on his personal blog.
Google/OHA is making progress on opening different parts of the development process/tree..the android sdk tools including the Adt plugin are now developed out in the open..ie no closed master tree of code..
Author IS CONFUSING US Telecom Mobile Operator situation with openness of he Android platform
Even in the worst case scenario, it's more open than it's competitors and every single problem in the article can clearly be attributed to the carrier. Send a message by buying phones that aren't locked down. Thus far, HTC has left their stock Android phones fairly "hackable". Granted, the Nexus One was the last stock Android device we've seen. I'm hopeful that their slider qwerty super phone coming to VZW will run stock Gingerbread, and thus will be open to running a CM release.
In lieu of that, I hope Google gets back into the phone market (I know, I know, they said they won't) with a Nexus Two before all of the CM resources jump ship to Meego or whatever up and coming platform presents itself as more "truly" open (at least until the carriers monetize and lock it down as well).
Right now, Android is the only popular mobile OS that you can clone from git, build, and install on some piece of hardware. All hardware? Nope. But some? Yes. This means it's basically open. Just because someone sells you a box you're not allowed to open doesn't mean that all boxes are un-openable, after all.
I had no trouble hacking my EVO 4G, deleting the stock OS with HTC and Sprint crapware, and installing a build with 100% open code. While it's not possible to do this with every Android phone ever made, it's not possible to do it with any iOS or Symbian or WebOS device. This makes Android the most open; and after the industry has been closed tight for 20+ years, it is quite refreshing. We haven't achieved perfection yet, but Android is the only software stack bringing us closer.
(Remember commercial UNIXes? Neither do I. Linux and Free/Open/NetBSD relegated them to a very tiny niche market. Android is the beginning of this for mobile; you don't just wake up one day, free of the oppression of closed hardware and proprietary software. It takes time and effort, and Google is leading the way right now. Someone else will build on this in the future, and things will become even more open.)