Every Man Is An Island: The Fragmentation of Android

As a working system, Android has had some terrific achievements over the past few years. For a while, Android producers took a back seat to Apple; Android became excellent. However, the critics stated that iOS was higher. Over the previous couple of years, Android’s success has critics seeing the Apple enemy in an entirely new mild, with some suggesting that the destiny of the phone industry lies with Android producers and not with the Apple Corporation – a corporation that many as soon as a concept becomes invincible and beyond fail.

Android’s success was supposed to be an amazing factor; it became speculated that it would assist Android producers in seeing the fulfillment they may acquire and propel them to heights of which they’d by no means dreamed. Android’s fulfillment changed into purported to be the inducement and impact its manufacturers had to surpass Apple and iOS. I fear the worst, however: with Android’s rising fulfillment, its manufacturers are beginning to see their personal man or woman organizations as “superstars,” dividing Android, once a cohesive entire, into individual portions or fragments. We are getting ready for the fragmentation of Android.

Before you place this article down and walk away, earlier this week at the International CES, LG Electronics announced that the Nexus 4 turned into the first of collaborative efforts with Google:

“Through our collaboration with Google, we launched the LG Nexus four telephone. This is the primary of many gadgets to return from our developing partnership with this very selective business enterprise” (underline mine).

What this indicates is that we can stay up for a Nexus 5 and six, in all likelihood a “Nexus 9” or “Nexus Eleven” one in all in recent times (depending on how the Nexus smartphones are named, in contrast to the Nexus pills). Sometime after LG made this statement, however, the International Business Times claimed that “the Nexus 4 manufacturing ‘is said to have [been] halted,’ with LG interested in building its next-gen devices” (Chris Smith, “Nexus four production reportedly halted, as LG is specializing in destiny smartphones, Nexus five blanketed?”).

What does this mean? To be blunt, LG has determined to abandon the Nexus Four in favor of its smartphones. The LG Optimus G has made the enterprise grow confident in shifting forward to develop its motive. As for its assignment with Google? Well, LG appears to paint with them in the future, but no time has been given for when the two organizations will come together. Consumers who desire to get their palms on a Nexus Four are left watching for the subsequent Nexus venture (in 12 months or two).

In an article on the Google X Phone, I said it would not be wise for Google to push Samsung out of the manner. I assumed that Samsung would need to live within the Android manufacturing organization. While Samsung’s phones have made Android the OS to be envied, Samsung has also been working on an OS of its own: Tizen. Reports have surfaced within the past two weeks that Samsung will produce more Tizen phones this year than ever. This indicates that Samsung, which has never gone public about its “OS inside the wings,” intends to sell its personal OS in its hardware this 12 months. Some say that this is in reaction to Google’s plans to create an X telephone; thinking that Google posted its declaration first, I might no longer be amazed if Samsung’s selection to press forward has something to do with Google’s preference to rule Android (and Samsung’s desire to rule Tizen).

Now, LG has advanced and made the same pass as Google, determined to put its paintings ahead of the partnership between itself and Google. LG’s pass can also be a political reaction to Google’s X telephone assertion: given that Google is moving ahead with its cellphone, LG seems to do the same. Unlike Google or Samsung, it no longer has the monetary resources to preserve generating one line of smartphones even as it is working on a new line, so it has decided to tug its resources and start on some other phone (past the LG Optimus G and Nexus 4). This tells the client: “While LG and Google produced a first-class smartphone collectively, nothing topics more than our cell phone line and organization called. If left to pick out between our telephones and a partnership cellphone, the companion phone challenge may be the primary to head.” This no longer bode properly for a corporation that became unknown for its cellphone collections until the Optimus G and Nexus Four became unknown.

With Google’s flow to create hundred Google phones, Samsung’s move to have its independent Tizen OS, and LG’s withdrawal from its Google project to pursue its very own line, we have the start of what’s referred to as “the fragmentation of Android.” This curious assertion refers to the breakdown of a unified OS, a group of cellphone and software program manufacturers who, once unified, are determined to head their separate ways and create their own Android flavors that stick out from the relaxation. The fragmentation of Android refers to the breakdown of a unified OS into personal businesses and their tech achievements. In other phrases, businesses that once said, “It is approximately we” (a couple of producers) will now say, “It’s approximately me” (our one enterprise)!

This mindset, lamentably, will be detrimental to Android as a whole. Android has grown to be a hit through not only its cohesion but also its diversity. The variety of the Android atmosphere, operating together with the settlement of its hardware producers, has stored the running device collectively – even though the times while it struggled to compete with Apple’s iOS. There is team spirit in variety and diversity in unity, and these concepts have made Android what it is today. Unfortunately, Android producers are beginning to agree that there can be no variety in team spirit (handiest in the department); this mindset will allow Apple to divide and overcome its method to remain on the pinnacle within the international phone.

Apple has made its success happen with a dictatorial, special approach. The organization produces its personal OS console, controls its companies, and plans sternly. It does the whole lot for itself, and it does what it wants. Samsung had already shown in 2012, while it beat Apple within the closing sector ($8.3 billion vs. Apple’s $eight.2 billion), working with Google has been a successful challenge, as opposed to going on the tech industry by myself. Now that Samsung has verified that “there may be no ‘I’ in ‘crew,'” Android manufacturers must do what they can to push their economic earnings above Apple’s. This year, Android producers are starting to think they can accomplish more independently than they can collaborate with others. This is a dangerous attitude, but it is a good way to depart a route of destruction in the back effectively. The fact is in the sales: If consumers are compelled to choose between organizations in place of operating systems, Google and Samsung will rack up income while businesses consisting of HTC, LG, and other lesser-regarded names will lose within the smartphone warfare.

Englishman John Donne once wrote the statement, “No man is an island,” and if that is true, Donne’s phrases could not be truer than in the current Android situation. Android’s achievement has come via its collaboration and innovation—a mixture rather than isolation. Take away one of the two elements of the equation, and the Android “I-land” will become nothing in any respect.

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