Narrative: Android is Hard
Each narrative page (like this) has a page describing and evaluating the narrative, followed by all the posts on the site tagged with that narrative. Scroll down beyond the introduction to see the posts.
Google Announces Modular Android Base to Simplify OEM Upgrades (May 12, 2017)
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LG’s Smartphone Business Shows Decent Growth, but Still No Profits (May 1, 2017)
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Google Announces Pixel Isn’t Guaranteed Software Updates After Two Years (Apr 28, 2017)
Android is notorious for its poor track record in supporting older devices, but one of the supposed advantages of the old Nexus program and the new Pixel devices was supposed to be solving that issue by removing the carrier and OEM middlemen from the process of OS updates. However, Google has officially stated that the Pixel devices aren’t guaranteed to get further OS updates beyond two years from their launch, while they will receive security patches for another year after that. Given that these are Google’s current and only devices, the idea that someone would buy one today with no guarantee of OS updates after 18 months is a bit much, especially given that average upgrade cycles are lengthening towards three years. Bear in mind, for example, that all iPhones back to the iPhone 5 (now four and a half years old) run iOS 10. For Google to offer such limited upgrade support even on its own devices is baffling and a sign that it’s not yet taking its first party hardware seriously enough. My guess is that these are bare minimum timeframes and that it may end up prolonging support beyond these official dates, but the message it’s sending here isn’t great.
LG G6 review: LG’s “personal best” still can’t compare to Samsung – Ars Technica (Apr 5, 2017)
The Ars Technica view I’m linking to here is fairly negative on LG’s new flagship, while the Verge review also linked below is a little more positive. Both note that this is really the first widely available flagship phone to go down the “much smaller bezels” route, but while the Verge review focuses on that fact, the Ars review suggests that it will quickly be overshadowed by the Samsung Galaxy S8. The fact that this phone is launching to the public a week after the Samsung event certainly doesn’t help – almost anyone considering it has to at least be thinking about the S8 as an alternative – but until reviews are out, writing off the G6 so quickly feels premature. At least some early indications suggest that there may be one or two concerns with the S8, though I’ll withhold judgment until more thorough reviews are out. Both of these G6 reviews, though, highlight some flaws, notably some odd design choices in the hardware (poorly rounded display corners, tricky home button/sensor placement and size) and counter-productive software customizations on top of stock Android. This definitely looks like a better phone than last year’s G5, but I’m not convinced it’s going to help LG have a much better year this year than last as a result. One more thing worth noting – it seems LG has a version it’s selling in Korea with an integrated DAC which dramatically improves audio quality, but that won’t be available in the US, an odd decision.
via Ars Technica (see also the Verge review)
Xiaomi Billionaire CEO Is Doubling Smartphone Bet on India – Bloomberg (Mar 31, 2017)
The first part of this article gives too much credence to Xiaomi’s CEO’s projections about its future growth, taking them as given even though Xiaomi has struggled to meet its targets for smartphone shipments and growth for the last several years. But the rest of the article is interesting for what it says about where Xiaomi’s focus will be geographically going forward. Importantly, whereas one of the biggest questions about Xiaomi in recent years has been when it would come to the US, it seems to be moving in the opposite direction, doubling down on emerging markets like India rather than pushing into more mature markets. That will limit both its overall addressable market and the average selling price of its phones, given the disposable incomes in those markets and its product focus there, so Xiaomi’s future certainly won’t look very much like the one it projected a number of years ago, as a premium Android-based alternative to the iPhone.
via Bloomberg
Google releases Android O to developers, promising better battery life and notifications – The Verge (Mar 21, 2017)
There’s an increasing dichotomy between the way the world’s two big mobile operating systems are run. On the one hand, you have Apple, which updates not just iOS but many of the apps that live in it once a year, announcing new versions in the summer at its developer conference and releasing them in the fall to consumers, with smaller updates through the year, and consumer adoption reaching a majority of the base within weeks. On the other, you have Google, which now announces new versions of the OS in a blog post, provides more detail at its developer event, and makes it available to OEMs in the fall, with consumer adoption typically taking a year to reach significant numbers and never reaching a majority of the base for any single version. However, individual apps are now mostly updated separately, making even full releases like the Android O version announced today relatively minor updates, focused on back-end developer features and a handful of consumer-facing features. That’s to some extent an inevitability when Google has so little ability to get new versions out to consumers quickly, but some have argued (with some merit) that Google’s approach actually pushes app-level features out more quickly and more regularly than Apple’s. The focus of this update for consumers is on notifications and battery life, with the former bringing Android’s power management more in line with iOS, while the latter could extend Android’s lead in an area where Apple has been making some mistakes recently. But by far the more interesting and important updates will be happening in individual app updates which will reach users much more quickly.
via The Verge
Huawei Watch 2 review: No time for this half-baked sequel – Android Central (Mar 14, 2017)
I linked to reviews of Android Wear 2.0 and the LG watches that launched at the same time a few weeks ago, and those were pretty negative. Now, here we have another entry from a major Android vendor and it seems to be at least as bad as LG’s. At this point, it feels like some Android vendors have given up on the platform entirely, while others seem to have given up trying to make a smartwatch competitive with the Apple Watch but are still putting what they do have out into the market. None of this is going to help Android Wear or smartwatches in general. I’ve said before that I think it will take a Pixel-style first party entry from Google to give this platform the boost it needs, because for now Android Wear continues to be more or less irrelevant in the smartwatch and broader wearable market. Even if Google does get into this market directly, however, it continues to be far smaller and narrower than many people originally thought, and it’s currently dominated by Apple.
via Android Central
Lenovo is Re-emphasizing the Motorola Brand, Doubling Down on Mods – CNET (Mar 1, 2017)
I’ve changed the headline here to reflect two key points from the article: that Lenovo has done an about face and decided to re-enshrine the Motorola brand as the main brand for its phones globally, rather than de-emphasize it as previously planned; and that the company is doubling down on its Moto Mods concept, rather than abandoning it as LG has. The branding decision is a no-brainer: it always seemed odd to take an iconic brand like Motorola and retire it in favor of the Lenovo brand, which has far less (and less positive) recognition among smartphone buyers globally. The Mods decision is an interesting one – this article has one of the first numbers I’ve seen on how well they’re selling – it sounds like roughly half of Moto Z phones are bought with at least one Mod, which is actually a pretty decent attach rate (no pun intended). But Lenovo’s latest financial results say the Z is on track for just 3 million shipments in its first year, relative to Lenovo’s 51 million total smartphone shipments in 2016, so this flagship is still a tiny fraction of its total sales. And that’s a problem, because the rest of Lenovo’s sales haven’t been going nearly as well, and those that have been are very low-end focused. That’s not a great recipe for eventual profitability in smartphones, something that’s remained elusive for Lenovo since it bought Motorola.
via CNET
Moto G5 + Moto G5 Plus hands-on: A little less convention, a little more action – Android Central (Feb 27, 2017)
Lenovo’s Moto G range is one of its most popular, providing a pretty nice Android experience at fairly competitive prices, and at MWC it got some nice upgrades. This part of Lenovo’s portfolio has performed much better than the rest at a time when its smartphone sales overall and in China in particular have been collapsing. Those sales have been strong in markets like Latin America, where low-cost Android is a good fit. This is yet another example of the various strategies Android OEMs will have to pursue to find workable market niches – Sony is going up market, Samsung and Huawei rely on large scale in very different segments, and Lenovo/Motorola is finding some success in this low-mid range although not elsewhere.
via Android Central
Sony Launches Xperia XZ Premium and Xperia XZs Phones For US Market – AnandTech (Feb 27, 2017)
Sony’s focus on premium continues with these new phones announced at MWC, one of which has been priced at $699, above the base price for other premium phones in the US, with the other not yet priced but featuring a higher end processor and therefore likely to go for even more. These devices also seem to continue the Sony design language of thin, relatively squared-off devices with lots of glass, which is still somewhat distinctive relative to other Android devices, but can make them seem fragile and also often makes them a little uncomfortable to hold. It looks like there’s some clever stuff with the camera, which will continually take shots when you open the camera app so that there’s literally zero lag when you press the shutter button. The big problem here is that what’s ostensibly the flagship, the XZ Premium, won’t launch for months, so any buzz generated now will die down entirely or be channeled into the less premium device instead. It’s also unclear from the reporting which US carriers will actually sell the phone, which is critical because Sony has had a tough time getting US carrier support for years now.
via AnandTech (more on Techmeme)