Android Skins: Beautiful, or only skin deep?

[gonnadie4thegov]

I have been saying this ever since my G1.

Google needs to stay open with android but hardware specifications need to start being made so that people who simply buy a phone b/c its android stop complaining. The majority of buyers view all smartphones as the iPhone. They believe that the phone ships ready to be used for the full 2 years of their contract. Most android phones are currently out of date after only 5 months and many times far less.

Android is a game changer to say the least but one of the big things that is harder to deal with is the fact that many consumers do not realize what a good processor is, or what internal memory is. They view everything to be like that of the iPhone in the case that it lasts the full term of the contract without upgrades. The iPhone also has updates that go out to every phone at the same time. Android has phones that take 5 months longer to upgrade than others.

Lets say you are a family of 4 and each member of the family wants a different android phone. So you go home from your carriers store with 4 different flavors of android. Now lets say that mom or dad bought a low end android phone that only has a life of about 3 months and then it is not supported. Do you think that that family will probably ever buy another android phone? I have seen this with the Droid Eris many times in my area. Here only Verizon has service and a large number of families bought the Eris to save money instead of the Droid 1 and what they found was that they phone was extremely laggy and had a very short life. Now AT&T is starting service in this area as they now own Alltel here in Ohio. So what is happening? Well many families are buying the iPhone simply for the reason that they feel it will not be outdated and a waste of money after only a few short months.

Hopefully this made sense as it is late and I am simply in complete agreement with the OP. As awesome as Android is it will be hard to survive in the minds of the masses as it currently is. In terms of people who view this site, we know the Eris was a low end phone as with many other phones, however, many people do not know what a processor is or if 400mhz is better than 1ghz.

The only problem with your argument is you are comparing free-$100 phones to the $200 Iphone when you say people didn't/don't/can't afford the $200 Droid.

And look how often Apple updates their OS, maybe once a year? Using the Droid as example since its basically in the same class, Droid shipped with 2.0 last Nov, got 2.0.1 in December, 2.1 in March/April, and then 2.2 in August. So 3 updates and the phone hasn't been out for a year yet.

But you can't compare Apple to Android in the sense of OS updates coming to all phones. All the apple phones are extremely similar (though the updates that go to all versions of the phone are different and older phones dont get all features just like Android) and there are only what, 3 phones? Look at RIM, their phones are scattered with different versions of their OS and some phones that arn't even a year old wont see the new OS update that they just announced and released with the Torch.

 

[alitke]

I have been saying this ever since my G1.

Google needs to stay open with android but hardware specifications need to start being made so that people who simply buy a phone b/c its android stop complaining. The majority of buyers view all smartphones as the iPhone. They believe that the phone ships ready to be used for the full 2 years of their contract. Most android phones are currently out of date after only 5 months and many times far less.

Android is a game changer to say the least but one of the big things that is harder to deal with is the fact that many consumers do not realize what a good processor is, or what internal memory is. They view everything to be like that of the iPhone in the case that it lasts the full term of the contract without upgrades. The iPhone also has updates that go out to every phone at the same time. Android has phones that take 5 months longer to upgrade than others.

Lets say you are a family of 4 and each member of the family wants a different android phone. So you go home from your carriers store with 4 different flavors of android. Now lets say that mom or dad bought a low end android phone that only has a life of about 3 months and then it is not supported. Do you think that that family will probably ever buy another android phone? I have seen this with the Droid Eris many times in my area. Here only Verizon has service and a large number of families bought the Eris to save money instead of the Droid 1 and what they found was that they phone was extremely laggy and had a very short life. Now AT&T is starting service in this area as they now own Alltel here in Ohio. So what is happening? Well many families are buying the iPhone simply for the reason that they feel it will not be outdated and a waste of money after only a few short months.

Hopefully this made sense as it is late and I am simply in complete agreement with the OP. As awesome as Android is it will be hard to survive in the minds of the masses as it currently is. In terms of people who view this site, we know the Eris was a low end phone as with many other phones, however, many people do not know what a processor is or if 400mhz is better than 1ghz.

The only problem with your argument is you are comparing free-$100 phones to the $200 Iphone when you say people didn't/don't/can't afford the $200 Droid.

And look how often Apple updates their OS, maybe once a year? Using the Droid as example since its basically in the same class, Droid shipped with 2.0 last Nov, got 2.0.1 in December, 2.1 in March/April, and then 2.2 in August. So 3 updates and the phone hasn't been out for a year yet.

But you can't compare Apple to Android in the sense of OS updates coming to all phones. All the apple phones are extremely similar (though the updates that go to all versions of the phone are different and older phones dont get all features just like Android) and there are only what, 3 phones? Look at RIM, their phones are scattered with different versions of their OS and some phones that arn't even a year old wont see the new OS update that they just announced and released with the Torch.

I understand we should not compare the two but we must. You can talk about the differences that make them apples and oranges but to the average consumer they are all the same.

How many times have you talked to someone in say Best Buy looking at the iPhone or the Android line up and they have no idea why they are different? My boss gets a discount via Best Buy so he buys from there and he will many times send me to pick things up as needed. I only say all of this as my boss and many coworkers are in this group. They have no idea what makes an Android phone different than an iPhone but they DO know that relatives and friends they know keep an iPhone for 2 years and it is the newest one for those full 2 years. They then look at Android and see 10 different phones with all different specifications and looks and wonder why? With more choices also means more crappy phones. My boss bought an iPhone 4G in his own words "because it is the latest one and it will be the latest one until my contract is up." I tried to explain to him the different options of android and flavors but he was thrown off by one thing that I said and that was that more than one phone comes out every 2 years. He asked if his phone could be outdated before the contract was up and I told him yes that was a possibility and that right there turned him away from Android.

We all need to remember that the majority of consumers do not want to worry about their money being wasted. With all the advertising the iPhone does it makes it look like a great investment that will last. Also think if someone Google's android phones and sees people complaining about their phone being outdated after only 6 months. It would also make them think twice.

I am not trying to sound like a downer at all I just find that I hear this a lot. I think as the younger generations become the bigger consumers you will see more Android users as the younger generations know what a processor is and what makes a devices faster. Who knows though. Only time will tell.

In the meantime :heart: dancedroiddancedroiddancedroiddancedroid:blackdroid::heart:

 

[Codiusprie]

As managing editor of Engadget, Nilay Patel, stated last week during Engadget’s weekly podcast: Do we really have to rely on a launcher created by some guy in his basement to give us the better Android experience than carriers and manufacturers?

To answer Patel, YES, we SHOULD have to rely on a launcher "created by some guy in his basement" - that is the WHOLE spirit of Android, to begin with. Open development. The apps included in the Android OS are designed to provide base functionality, and not much more. If you want something better, you do it yourself; or use something that someone else has created.

I think people are getting too caught up with the iOS type user experience, where basically, WYSIWYG. Stock Android may not offer the best OOB experience, but the customizability is where its true beauty lies.

I agree with you. A lot of people are getting all up in arms about things like Ninjablur and Sense and while I do not like custom skins for many reasons, the ability to put a custom skin over Android is one of the aspects of the OS that makes it so appealing to manufacturers. The more restrictions Google throws on Android the less manufacturers will utilize Android. Also only having the market on Vanilla Android phones is laughable and an excellent way to slow the growth of the App market and Android as a whole.