Hey Sony: This is how you lose Android customers. Article copyright 2011 JR Raphael. All rights reserved. Sony Ericsson is busy showing off its latest Android device, the Xperia Arc, at CES this week -- but a new twist surrounding the company's last Android effort may soon steal some of the thunder. As we reported in our Android 2.2 upgrade list earlier today, Sony Ericsson has confirmed to multiple publications that its Xperia X10 line of phones won't be getting Froyo.
The reason? According to an interview with a Sony exec published in TechRadar this morning, the company's integrated UI modifications have made the devices too difficult to upgrade. (This, by the way, is precisely why I continue to argue that it's time for the baked-in Android UI to die. It's a pretty pitiful proclamation, no doubt, particularly when you consider that the Xperia X10 launched just last August -- three months after Froyo's debut.
Um, right, Sony. So what to make of this disappointing development from an increasingly prominent Android player? Android upgrades: Which manufacturers can you trust? Article copyright 2011 JR Raphael. All rights reserved. For most smartphone users, Google's Android upgrades are both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, each upgrade opens the door to exciting new features and functions for a phone. On the other hand, the updates don't arrive instantly -- and the wait to receive them can often be long and filled with uncertainty or disappointment. The Android upgrade frustration has never been more evident than with the rollout of Google's Android 2.2 upgrade, best known as Froyo. So who can you trust to provide timely Android upgrades, and whose track record is less than impressive? Here's what I discovered. Android Upgrades: Calculating the Scores First, a few quick notes on my methodology: For the purposes of this analysis, I included only phones released by major manufacturers and tied to one of the four main U.S. carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon).
There are a million ways you could analyze Android upgrades. Some conclusions: 2011's here -- so where's your Froyo already? Article copyright 2011 JR Raphael. All rights reserved. 2011 promises to be the year of Android -- again. Google's latest release, Android Gingerbread, is out in the wild; some exciting new dual-core devices are on the way; and the first Honeycomb-powered Android tablet will likely be revealed later this week.
Things are happening, and they're happening fast. Despite the progress, however, hoards of users are feeling left behind. Now, plenty of manufacturers did make good on their promises to deliver Froyo before the end of 2010. The most noteworthy example is Samsung, with its seemingly ubiquitous Galaxy S line of Android devices. So what's going on? "We are working to make the Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade available to all U.S. That "unique functionality" likely refers to the proprietary TouchWiz interface Samsung installs on all of its Galaxy S devices. Even given that factor, though, there's no excuse for Samsung to be dragging its feet this long. Comparing smartphone operating systems. Apple's announcement of iOS 4 and the in just the last three months shows that the smartphone wars aren't cooling yet.
Just consider everything that has happened in the space of the last year. Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 is a top-to-bottom overhaul of the Windows Mobile OS, and Google continues to aggressively roll out updates to Android. Palm hasn't been quite as active in the news recently, but we're not discounting its WebOS quite yet. The following chart compares popular features from the smartphone operating system that have been most active this year.
Note that we left RIM off because the manufacturer has not issued major updates in the past 12 months. A quick look at the chart demonstrates just how competitive the OS battle has become. As each company fires a shot, you can expect its competitors to respond in force. Smartphone wars - OS is the key | Mobile Phones. The mobile industry has seen a galore of models with several price ranges from the outnumbered manufacturing companies in the world. The never ending catalog of cell phones with the features people ever wished has flashed their stylish lifestyles and catered their all social needs as well. The associated high price tags may have limited the initial market structure of the cell phones being only confined to the wealthiest, but combining versatility and low cost for targeting the global market, the companies have managed to reach the bottom of the economic pyramid too. The initial step in the field may have generated from the Zero generation back in 1908 but as technology paved its way breaking the shackles of extreme heavy weight and recalling base station addresses, Motorola finally launched the first hand held wireless mobile phone in 1973.
Well sitting down to define the term in one sentence would never reach a consensus. Image Source: Arstechnica. La crisi di Symbian: il punto di vista di uno sviluppatore. Pubblichiamo un guest post di Antonio Barba I fatti parlano chiaro: Nokia sta perdendo notevoli quote di mercato, mentre Apple avanza, Google galoppa e RIM rosicchia la fascia alta del mercato. Microsoft per il momento sta ancora scaldando le gomme. Sto parlando chiaramente della diffusione dei rispettivi sistemi operativi in ambito mobile. In tutto questo non si sa che fine abbia fatto WebOS di Palm, ai tempi dominatore assoluto del mercato PDA con il famosissimo e apprezzato PalmOS. Probabilmente farà capolino su qualche stampante multifunzione HP (se n’è parlato qui). Da un lato, questo fenomeno può trovare numerose spiegazioni tecniche, di marketing, economiche, che sono state più volte discusse e sono sotto gli occhi di tutti.
Una di queste ragioni va ricercata nelle tanto discusse applicazioni, la seconda la troviamo nei tanto sottovalutati videogame. A questo aggiungiamo che il Publisher ID può essere richiesto soltanto da aziende, e non da sviluppatori privati. Symbian - Smartphone - Telefonia - High Tech - Attualità.