Android Phones Amazing Evolution
The Android platform has been creating at an nearly dizzying pace lately. The variety of new releases in a brief time frame has lead many to warn that fragmentation has grow to be a severe hazard to Android. Google’s Android team has responded saying that the Android fragmentation is a myth. Is fragmentation of Android a fable or is it something that should concern Android builders?
Fragmentation has affected Linux and different open source programs within the past. It happens when a system has a number of variations with very completely different components. For instance, Linux distributions have their very own file system arrangements, different window managers and totally different packaging systems. This makes it difficult for software builders to create purposes for Linux on the expectation that sure components will exist or be in the identical location.
Causes of Fragmentation
Android has suffered from a few of the basic causes of fragmentation. First, there are huge variations in the capabilities of the hardware devices on which Android runs. While in many techniques, this might simply lead to severe fragmentation, Android has not been as affected by this. Android is, nevertheless, being very quickly developed. Every new version of Android has added capabilities. Handsets available on the market are running as many as five totally different variations of the Android working system. This is where the greatest danger of fragmentation lies. Finally, completely different producers have been dressing up Android with varied add-ons and custom person interfaces. These variations in how Android seems to be and feels may lead to fragmentation.
Google has responded to the many experiences of Android fragmentation by calling it a “fantasy”. They’ve put in place some techniques and a plan that should help deal with the issue of fragmentation. Google is so sure of those plans that they believe fragmentation does not exist.
Fragmentation Prevention
One approach that Google is taking to prevent fragmentation is slowing down the event of Android. The speedy development allowed Google so as to add new performance to Android and reach a stage of maturity that makes Android competitive with different smartphone platforms. Now that Android is totally featured, the development can slow back down.
Together with slowing down the development of Android, Google has developed a plan to make Android more modular. It will allow customers of Android primarily based techniques to replace particular person components of the Android system even when their service has not moved to an extra moderen model of Android. For example, if a model new version of Gmail is launched, customers can resolve to improve Gmail on their phones. This modularity is being applied to varied methods including gadgets like the keyboard.
Another approach that Google has taken to try to stop fragmentation of Android is to undertake a series of standards that have to be followed to achieve access to the Android market. These requirements outline minimal functionality that a handset must have in order for the carrier to ship the Android market with the phone. By controlling the market, Google has ensured that these requirements will most likely be adhered to. These standards generally take care of hardware and embody issues like every Android handset should have a camera. Through the use of these standards, Google can assure builders that certain functionality will always be obtainable on an Android phone.
Intents are one other kind of ordinary that Google makes use of to keep away from functionality. An intent is a kind of interface that Android uses. For instance, an application that sends e-mail will use an intent to launch an an electronic mail composition window. By utilizing intents, it’s potential to replace the default electronic mail consumer with another utility and nonetheless have the expected habits from other functions that write email.
Customized Consumer Interfaces
Whereas these systems certainly seem to help reduce the risk of fragmentation, calling it a fable appears to be a bit daring on Google’s part. The most important source of potential fragmentation seems to be custom person interfaces being utilized to Android by numerous cellphone makers. It isn’t unusual to see updates to functions within the Android market geared in the course of fixing a bug with a manufacturer’s custom UI. After all, utilizing anecdotal evidence from the Android market to determine if custom person interfaces are fragmenting Android will not be a very stable approach. It seems cheap, nevertheless, that heavy customization of how Android appears to be like and feels will fragment the platform.
This menace goes beyond simply creating issues for developers. End customers will not be able to select up any Android handset and count on it to work in the identical way. Varied custom Androids begin to current a learning curve for the end customers which can reduce the uptake of Android.
Google says that fragmentation of Android is a fantasy based on the programs that they’ve in place to fight fragmentation. Nonetheless, it does seem from searching the market that builders are struggling considerably with supporting the various variations of Android, the totally different handsets and particularly the numerous customized consumer interfaces. Is fragmentation really a fable? Post a comment along with your ideas, especially if you’re creating for Android and have encountered compatibility points with a custom person interface.
Smartphones primarily based on Android have shortly outsold their rivals. Each provider seems to be adding a phone based mostly upon Android to their system line up. The number of applications out there for Android has exploded and fed the popularity of the platform. What does the future of Android hold? Is the future of Android cloudy?
For the most half, Android’s future prospects are fairly bright. Android has outsold the iPhone. The variety of accessible applications for Android keep growing. Android can be shifting into different arenas besides smartphones. Samsung lately revealed an Android based mostly pill to compete with Apple’s iPad and plans are beneath means for Google TV, a set high field platform primarily based on Android.
While adoption of Android is speedily picking up, one cloud was just lately cast upon Android’s future. Oracle, who acquired Sun Microsystems not too long ago, has filed a patent lawsuit in opposition to Android. This lawsuit claims that Dalvik infringes on quite a few Java patents which Oracle acquired from Sun. This lawsuit has solid a cloud not only over the method forward for the Android platform but even the approach forward for Java itself. It has additionally led to a quantity of former Solar open source projects being forked because the open supply group flees from Oracle.
When discussing whether Android’s future looks cloudy, we also wants to think about one other interpretation of “cloudy”. Android is unique among smartphone platforms. Its main competitors have been built largely as extensions of a desktop operating system. Home windows CE and Windows Mobile are designed to sync with a desktop PC so that information and e mail from a desktop system will be “cellular”. The iPhone relies on a MacOS and is basically a cell extension of a Mac based computer. Android, then again, was designed from the beginning with the Web in mind. Because of this, Android relies heavily on cloud computing to store its data. This creates a sort of ubiquitous data storage that resides “in the clouds”. I can add a contact to my Android cellphone and see it on my desktop Gmail. If I replace my phone, I enter my username and password and all my contacts and information are just there. It’s because they exist within the cloud – not on my telephone or desktop.
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