Exclusive: Android Froyo to take a serious shot at stemming platform fragmentation
By Chris Ziegler 
posted March 29th 2010 11:16AM
posted March 29th 2010 11:16AM
Thing is, in light of our CTIA conversations, we didn't have an idea of how Google planned on fixing this -- until now. We've been given reason to believe that the company will start by decoupling many of Android's standard applications and components from the platform's core and making them downloadable and updatable through the Market, much the same as they've already done with Maps. In all likelihood, this process will take place over two major Android versions, starting with Froyo and continuing through Gingerbread. Notice that we said apps and components, meaning that some core elements of Android -- input methods, for instance -- should get this treatment. This way, just because Google rolls out an awesome new browser doesn't mean you need to wait for HTC, Samsung, or whomever made your phone to roll it into a firmware update, and for your carrier to approve it -- almost all of the juicy user-facing stuff will happen through the Market.
The second part of this doubled-edged attack on platform fragmentation comes from a simple reality: we're hearing that Google may be nearing the end of its breakneck development pace on Android's core and shifting attention to apps and features. By the time we get to Froyo, the underlying platform -- and the API that devs need to target -- will be reaching legitimate maturity for the first time, which means we should have far fewer tasty treat-themed code names to worry about over the course of an average year. We like awesome new software as much as the next guy, but Google's been moving so fast lately that they've created a near constant culture of obsolescence anxiety among the hardcore user base -- and in turn, that leads to paralysis at the sales counter.
How much of this strategy actually materializes -- and how effective it is at changing the direction of the platform at large -- remains to be seen, but it sounds like a promising turn of events. Considering it's been a solid five months since the Eclair SDK premiered, that's an eternity in Google years; time to shake things up a bit, we reckon.
I love this fragmentation buzz word, its like making a mountain out of a mole hill.
@fpad77
I think it's a slightly bigger deal than you make it out to be, it leaves developers with problems and customers feeling like they've been left in the cold when the next big thing comes along and their phone can't keep up software-wise. This wouldn't be such a big deal were it not for the constant updates that Androids less fragmented competitors receive (Palm Pre, iPhone etc.) It's not that it's necessarily a huge problem now, but fragmentation is the sort of thing that can cause problems in the long-run.
Anyway, I see this as a double-edge sword as one of the complaints aimed at Android at the moment is the interface inconsistency between apps, and I worry that this could serve to aggravate that. On the other hand, it does mean that individual apps can be updated more frequently rather than having to update the core OS.
@fpad77 It's not really making a mountain out of a mole hill. A co-worker watched as his MyTouch 3G was superceded by the DROID, Nexus One, and a tweaked versions of the MyTouch 3G in a matter of weeks after he bought it.
The hardware can't be helped, but on the software side, Apple showed that the OS could be free of the whims of carriers.
I myself have been on the fence about an entry level phone I've been eyeing because it still has 1.5 with vague back and forth between the carrier and manufacturer about if, when and how it will get an upgrade.
If money grubbers like Apple can get it, why can't the PhD brain trust at Google have had that sorted from day one?
I've been saying this. I literally predicted this piece of "news" ages ago in the comments, but who listens to Engadget commenters?
@wingedLegionary
"Anyway, I see this as a double-edge sword as one of the complaints aimed at Android at the moment is the interface inconsistency between apps, and I worry that this could serve to aggravate that."
Hit the nail on the head there!
@Dale P It seems what your co-worker was experiencing was technology. You refer to the iPhone, which is under the control of a single manufacturer so of course, this type of 'fragmentation' as it were can occur in terms of what a device is capable of as opposed to what the OS can offer. Whilst I certainly don't deny that fragmentation could become an issue and it needs constant attention, right now it seems more like a way to say 'screw you choice, you bring me nothing but problems, human kind will be perfect I tell you and my single unambiguous product is the only way forward. CONFORM!', as opposed to something that completely ruins user experience.
Uh??? I dont get it. So your co worker would be fine should no further development take place after his phone was created? Are you saying the world should come to a stop just because he doesnt want to be outdated.
Point is, his phone works and it works great.
@fpad77
The fragmentation issue is overstated a lot here. It essentially affects games and applications which are using new (not present in a previous version) api features.
Currently there are issues with different hardware setups which need to be sorted out at the OS level as well but that's not something developers should be worrying about (I say should though because bugs are forcing workarounds at the moment). Eventually as android matures it should become an OS like windows where different hardware is abstracted away through the API and devs only have to worry about catering for different resolutions, like developing for the myriad of PCs running windows out there, or even PCs in general with Java (though java had similar problems earlier, not so much now, where java apps did very different things on *nix to windows to OSX).
@fpad77
keepin it smart and simple
@Bratyr
Actually, that's call Windows Phone 7. Microsoft require all the phones to meet a certain requirements and OEM cannot modify the software for this reason.
@pitnefor
Everythings relative. This isn't about whether or not the phone will continue to carry out it's functions. It's about whether or not phone a will have greater long term longevity than phone b. If I was on the fence I definately wouldn't choose an android phone which may or may not be completely obsolete in a year while an iPhone will still be running the most recent version of the os and will have access to all the new apps which reqire that os version.
Still waiting for sprint to pull their thumb out and give me the 2.1 Android update FOR MY HERO! :|
@One Love Right, so that's the point of this article. Rather than waiting for Google to release a new Android core, and then waiting for HTC to update Sense, and then waiting for Sprint to network test and approve the entire release, this approach would (in theory) allow Google to update the core, and then HTC could update Sense as a component.
Thus, it wouldn't necessarily be incumbent upon Sprint to perform a whole battery of tests, just incremental testing on the core.
Seems like a good approach.
@Steve Jobs Clone
No that's the opposite of what it should become. There shouldn't be a hardware limitation. If the hardware manufacturer comes out with new hardware then they should just be able to provide the drivers necessary for it to work with the current OS just like it is with computers right now.
@fpad77
You have to understand what's happened is in the last year Google has released the equivalent to Windows 3.1, 98, XP, and 7. Wouldn't you be a little upset if you bought the latest computer less then a year ago and were stuck with Windows 3.1 (the best at the time) and now theirs windows 7 available and there's not enough difference in hardware to prevent you from running it but you can't because the device manufacturer will not come out with the update to let you? The answer is that it shouldn't be the device manufacturer that's having to come out with the update. The OS should be compatible with the use of drivers with a much wider range of hardware.
@Dale P You cant really compare Android to the iphone in that sense. Android is designed to be a open sourced OS for anyone to take and do with what they want. Iphone is designed and built to Apples specific specification clearly to completely different models. Apple doesnt have to worry about carriers trying to brand their phone you take it as it is. Microsoft is going down the same route. Neither is bad but have their flaws. Google is able to reach more users but have more to worry about such as fragmentation. As for Microsoft and Apple they have less to worry about on the OS but wont be able to reach as many users.
@Invader Par
Let me get this right: You predicted that a fragmented OS was eventually going to iron itself out back into a singular entity? Is that your 'told you so' moment?
Gee, how did you ever come to that prediction? Maybe after a year of reading blogs and commentary criticizing the fragmented world of Android?
But if it makes you feel better... thanks Invader, for coming to a conclusion that pretty much everyone else knew was coming as well. You'll have to keep patting your own back though, I'm not gonna.
@fpad77 As a developer, the fragmentation is massive. The differences in API's between 1.5 and 2.1 are rather large. Let alone the hardware fragmentation is the worst problem. I just received a Nexus One from Google from the Developer Seeding Program (thanks Google), and realized my app which I had tested on my G1 was completely borked on the N1. The images were fuzzy from the higher dpi screen, the app was being forced into a compatibility mode (had no idea there was one), etc.
They need to start reducing how fragmented both the hardware and the software is. Getting the software up to the latest version across the board would be wonderful. At least I can then use the latest URI's and similar to accomplish things more efficiently.
@fpad77
Fragmentation. I don't buy it either. Oh, and "...that leads to paralysis at the sales counter." Link to the data? Seein' how Android sales are accelerating, that doesn't hold much water. The average Joe/Jane doesn't care about 1.6 vs. 2.0, and any techie worth his beans doesn't need to wait for an over-the-air update.
@Dale P I too want android to be a big success, I wont buy an iphone, and dont like most of their tactics, and yes I know android is about open source, But google has go to get some control over this. if apple can get people to not touch their o.s. why cant google. I dont see yahoo search and at&t bloatware on the iphone, why is google letting at&t and others do this? Im not a communist, and I dont like apple, but damn I want android to be at the top.
@geoken
Obsolete? do you mean that it will no longer function, make calls, do all the things it did when bought? Is the original iPhone obsolete?
I'm going to have to come down on the mountain/molehill side here. This is how technology works: new developments occur. Got a non-intel mac anyone? Lots of fun, right?
Besides, with android there's the opportunity to go elsewhere for system updates/upgrades.
@One Love
Same here, I ended up just rooting the phone and installing a 2.1 rom from xda forum....its very nice. Still has one or 2 little bugs (i.e. visual voicemail not working) but other then that the google navigation is cool and the HTC widgets all got an update with added features.
@fpad77
I think that regardless of how outdated the hardware on the Mobile device is the OS should backwards support that same device for a while much like how PC OS's do; my example is Windows XP this OS has been out for a very long time, over that time it had to go though several Service packs and hardware compatibility to meet the demands of the average people just to keep the average people still using XP.
@fpad77: Here's my exclusive: You want customization? Choke on it, cakeheads.
@Bratyr I couldn't have said it better myself.
@Bratyr
not to mention the real issue is apps and the market is censored by phone accessing it. If the dev makes the app available for download on every phone that is his or her own fault if they know their product has compatibility issues.
@wingedLegionary I agree, No other info has been given on Froyo (like when we can expect it what version of Android it will be… 2.x maybe even 3.0..) so for now the name will just have to suffice. First: http://bit.ly/froyo-android-viewed
@pitnefor Sure, but consumers are human beings too. A platform that may possibly lock you out of future updates (unless you buy a new phone) is a huge disincentive to customers, especially when they have no way of knowing until it's too late.
@Hate Everything
No, actually, I predicted that fragmentation is just a result of the old open source model of release fast and release early and people were getting way to worried about fragmentation, as if Android was going to get to version 17.3 by the end of next year.
If you read between the lines, this article is not about Google "fixing" the fragmentation issue (something I believe is very hard to actually 'fix' without breaking compatibility, which eventually to more fragmentation). Rather this article is about the fact that the fragmentation is coming to an end: "Google may be nearing the end of its breakneck development pace on Android's core".
I should've guessed nobody would understand this. I guess that's why nobody listens to Engadget commenters.
@Scythe A lot of this is fallout from the HTCClassAction thing where Qualcomm held back on drivers on hardware access for a lot across WM and Android. Going through the Android source repo shows a lot of this access was hidden for a long time. This means Android was initially really abstract and had to support the crappiest level of hardware meaning no GPU, no FPU.
Notice both platforms finally got performing OpenGL ES access and API after SnapDragon while all the MSM72xx machines are still basically hosed. This is another reason why the OS was rev'd to 2.x and not really backwards compatible. There's still residue meaning GPU usage is not pervasive, and FPU usage is still missing.
Only mobile OS X, and possibly webOS, is a full-feature OS that uses all the hardware to the hilt.
@Bratyr Being platform independent means being half-baked in this world. Unforuntately. That was one of the reasons of WM platform failed. They wanted to port WM to as many headsets as they could. As result we had many badly implemented version of WM based phones. Even HTC with all tweaks, home written software could not release flawless products. The best effort was Diamond and Diamond 2, but it had its own issues. Many programs were lagging badly, old games could not adjust to screen resolution, video playback not always used hardware acceleration etc. Other HTC products were even worse. Remember Tilt AKA Kaiser phones. They could not even write hardware accelerated OGL and DirectX drivers regardless all promises and efforts! Having few hundreds developers and millions of $'s in bank they could not do that.
That's why fragmentation is so hurting Android market now too. I don't what kind of Kool-Aid Google drunk when they promised that Java based API will solve all compatibility issues and make OS completely hardware independent. As result we have a zoo of partially compatible phones, faulty hardware, slow software because of poor implementation of Java VM and so on.
Apple knows what it's doing. Right, modern mobile CPU's have 100's of MHz under belt, but they're still limited in performance. That's why it's important to optimize API and OS to death and squeeze every cycle and byte from available resources. That's why apps written in C/Obj-C are still much faster than counterparts written in crippled Java implementation where developers are limited in terms of optimization and have to deal with VM overhead. That's why Google started porting API's to native code.
I love android!
cant wait to get my incredible that looks as edible as the incredible edible egg :)
@aleis You're weird.
@aleis But I chuckled.
I totally agree with this. They need to start running everything through the market so that we can all enjoy them.
@victorstuber I would like to see all updates run thru the market and all android o.s updated at the same time thru google. they need to cut back and just pick a manufacture or 2. and set some rules like, this is a google o.s. no yahoo default or non removable bloatware. I know that sounds appleish, but damn I dont want to see android destroyed. I want to see android kick apple.
In completely irrelevant news, I was just speaking to my Mum and she knows what Android is! She's 50 - and not exactly a tech guru! If that's not a sign of Google's success with this OS then I don't know what is.
@Nickedynick
...when a 60 year old toothless illiterate tribal who has never seen a real phone (leave alone a PC) knows about how to use the the cellphone (happened in case of Nokia).
@Kinte Kunta most people I talk to don't know of smartphones. They just know about the iPhone, and they know about Blackberries. People are just now starting to know about the Droid.
@Nickedynick
Yeah, finally people are starting to know the Droid like they know the iPhone due to Verizons great marketing strategy. I personally would rather have a N1 but w/e. I like the Droid simply because it was well marketed and now has the Android name out there.
This is GREAT news!!!!!
I knew they could fix this. Way to go Google!
That's a good way to finally get all Android devices on the same page.
The application launcher should be an app too so devices can get the drawer or the Nexus One style launcher too.
Finally! Now lets see how Google executes it. In case of fragmentation, proof of the pudding is in its eating.
This was the only thing that has stopped me going to Android so far, buying the handset that won't get upgraded/does but is really late etc.
Time to sell the N900 & SE Aino (NEVER buy one) and go Android.
@Forphucsake i had a hard time switching too because of fragmentation but I finally sold my 3Gs and made the move to jump ship to the Nexus one. I couldn't be happier with my choice. This is a slick phone and to tell you the truth I have fallen in love with the interface more in one week then I did in three years with the iPhone. Sure there are little things that I miss (like more polished apps, a little better touch sensibility, and especially how I own a MacBook pro, imac, and Mac mini and how easy it was to use all together.) But I am extremely happy with my decision and I will most likely be android for life. I love the openness (I always thought so what if its open), but this means a lot for the consumer. I can do things with my phone that I couldn't of dreamed of even with jailbreaking my iPhone. Android has matured into a stellar OS that really can't be touched by anything that is put right now. Another thing is how amazing the hardware world (especially HTC) is innovating and keeping android unique. This phone screen is gorgeous and now that android has multitouch and especially multitasking no one can compete, well at least in my opinion. If I was you I would make the jump. Its an exciting time to be on the Android train. HTC EVO 4G anyone?
@angermeans I also had the iphone and got a nexus one and i swear it's like night and day, i love it. And i'll take an Evo please!
@The Geek
no wonder Apple is suing HTC since they are afraid of more people defecting over to Android.
@angermeans
I'm waiting a few paychecks to get my Nexus one, i'm tired of my iPhone 2G.
@DeFlanko Since I'm in Australia and the EVO is more then just a dream away :( I'm going for the Desire myself, I like the option of pretty much having a N1 but with Sense on it as well. If I don't like Sense then it'll just get switched off. Best of both worlds.