Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years.
is that Google has been releasing "major" upgrades too quickly for phone makers to keep up with. You can't expect a company like HTC to put out a new image every 2-3 months to keep up with Google's changes. I think that's why the device manufacturers are pushing for a more regular schedule, like once a year. Which Google seemed to recognize when they pulled the wraps of Froyo.
I'm all for new features but when you make it such a pain to keep up with, free suddenly isn't free. And when Google is making a company like HTC look bad by saying "we put out the code, talk to HTC as to why you don't have it yet" I can see why some companies wouldn't be terribly happy about it.
When the iPhone gets an update it’s a Hollywood production. The media makes it a big Biden-ing deal. Reporters who wouldn’t know a bug from a feature rush for front row seats.
It’s a real top-down production.
When the Android platform goes through a major upgrade, as it did yesterday with the update code-named Froyo, things are a little different. The code is simply dropped, a blog post is written describing it. The closest thing to an event, Oscon, rolls on in Portland, not a cup of coffee spilled.
It’s bottom-up by design. It’s the hardware that runs the software which gets the star treatment. Users buy hardware, and phone contracts, so this is where the press runs to.
But it’s the code which determines what the hardware will do. The code should be the story, and users should be demanding the latest code in order to maintain compatibility across the Android ecosystem.
What’s clear in reading the post of Jean-Baptiste Queru (above, from the Android Developers Blog) is that his job is becoming as complex as that of Linus Torvalds himself. Over two months his team had to review and make decisions on adding over 1,000 changes, accepting 20 every business day.
Queru notes that developer tools are being created in the open alongside the code, and the Compatibility Test Suite was upgraded in concert with the code. This is important in trying to assure compatibility.
If Google wanted to I’m sure they could make Queru a star. He’s French, don’t you know, and sports the neatest ponytail in open source since Jonathan Schwartz went into the Sun set.
In time I think they should. Speeding the movement of the latest software into all Android hardware is what will make Steve Jobs sweat. And, being my age, he can’t grow a ponytail any more.
