Android Device Makers Keep Pretending That Android Doesn’t Exist

Vlad Savov:

I’ve been at IFA, Europe’s biggest tech show, for three days now and I’ve had my eyes filled with a parade of all the shiny, beautiful new technology coming to an Amazon delivery drone near you. Much of that technology is powered by Google’s omnipresent Android software, but you wouldn’t know it from the way the new devices are presented. Android has become many tech companies’ original sin: fundamental to their identity and the character of their products, but buried under a thick veneer of insecure puffery, denial, and evasion.

This is inevitable with a commodity platform like Android. Just like how PC makers can’t brag about running Windows because everyone else runs Windows, the phone makers can’t brag about Android. Even worse, most new Android phones are at least a year behind the latest version. Only Apple can truly promote its software as a differentiating advantage.

★ Monday, 5 September 2016