This Window: Close It

What keeps nearly every Android device and OS release from being truly great are deep-rooted issues that have no apparent solution for the foreseeable future. The device manufacturers aren’t very good at software, yet they keep writing their own. The OS has no consistent hardware platform to target. The manufacturers produce devices with inconsistent build quality (the Droid’s battery door, the Nexus One’s button misalignment) and lots of why-is-this-here moments (the Droid’s keyboard, the Nexus One’s trackball). The current must-have Android phone changes every few months, and they’re often radically different from each other, making it difficult for consumers, developers, the press, and the carriers to build loyalty toward any of them or entrench them in the market. The OS needs to be updated over the air with three involved parties, only one of whom is motivated to update it. Features are added when they can be, not when (or if) they should be, or if they can be done well. Nearly every usability detail appears to be an afterthought, as if “design” is relegated to a coat of paint at the end of the development cycle rather than a deep-rooted philosophy throughout it.

How many of these problems will be significantly alleviated or eliminated in three months? How about in three years?

The Android ecosystem doesn’t seem capable of producing devices that are great on day one. Yet Apple consistently pulls it off.

I never make technology-buying decisions based on future promises, rumors, or potential. I let other people be the bleeding-edge extremely early adopters, and I stick with what I know will work and stay out of my way. I don’t buy things that are “getting better”, because they usually don’t. Whatever caused them to be lacking in their current release will usually prevent them from being great in future releases.

I buy things that are great today. They’re usually things that have been great since day one. And, more often than not, they’re Apple products.

While I am more adventurous than Marco about being an early adopter, I agree with the general sentiment.

Recently I had an argument with some Android developers after I publicly considered buying an EVO and then backing off from it and they both used a word that I’ve come to associate with people who Do Not Care About User Experience: “The only difference between the iPhone and an Android fan is skinning.” To even use that word to describe the difference, dismissing it out of hand, is exactly the problem the Android developer community is stricken with; a pathological disdain for anything that is not pure code.

I’m always so disappointed when I hear these people talk this way. They’re craftsmen who care deeply about their craft, but they refuse to make their work accessible. It’d be like an Architect making every building a maze where only a blueprint guarantees successful navigation.