Tuesday, April 3, 2012

(Fist Post) Success of android OS (vs iOS)

Ok, This is my first post. I am currently an 11th grader in high school and recently my english teacher made my class write an english reaserch paper. and I wrote about android's success. I am not so good with grammer and spelling, and especially with MLA, so I am sorry for any errors in my following paper. Enjoy!

ps: Please comment and give feedback. 1. this is a sort of biased paper. 2. I had to say drastic things about apple and others to prove my point. 3. my grade on this paper (not including grammer and spelling) is around a 96.


The Success of Android OS
            Android OS is something we might have heard of but is not that common or popular, but this little critter has grown into a monster giant, crushing anything in its way. The success of Android OS is based on factors such as its growing community of developers and many collaborating companies such as Google Inc., HTC, Motorola, and the OHA (the open handset alliance), which try to bring users a smoother, more user friendly interface on their smartphones. This has a large impact on the world-wide mobile market pushing out Apple, Symbian, and others. The days of the iPhone are coming to an end as the open source Android OS overwhelms the market.
            Android OS is not as common or popular as Apple’s iPhone, But android started before Apple. It started out in 2003 in a Californian city called Palo Alto and then later in 2005, it was acquired by Google Inc. (what is). Later that year, The OHA, or the Open Handset Alliance was formed which was composed of more than 100 companies which include mobile operators, handset makers, semiconductor companies, software developers and commercialization companies (Alliance).
            Android was not made as an individual firmware. It was based on other open source computer software. Android is based on Linux and uses the Linux kernel which runs underneath android. Linux was based on UNIX, really old computer software. And finally UNIX was based on Multics, one of the first computer software in the world (what is). Android, even if it is based on some of the oldest software, has more features than the iPhone. Some of these features are: Bluetooth, Enhancer of mobile networks, 3g and 4g, Wi-Fi, SMS, MMS, touchscreen, multi-touch, video and photo, GPS, a compass, and an accelerometer (what is).
            But all these features have come to android gradually, bit by bit and its growth was not as rapid as the iPhone. There are ten main reasons to android’s success. These factors are: Google Inc., Android 2.2 Froyo, HTC, Motorola, Android’s community, Developers, Carrier Support, Apple’s AT&T based iPhone, Touch Functionality, and Google’s dedication (Androids). Android is owned by Google, and Google is a massive company that the whole world trusts. This makes it easy for Google to gain supporters. Android version 2.2, nicknamed “Froyo”, is the largest competitor to the iPhone. It has the same and even more features than the iPhone. It is also the most widely used version of android, but android 2.3 “Gingerbread” is now gaining speed. HTC and Motorola are the 2 companies that make the best phones in the world; they have large screens and fast processors. These phones are loved by many people because they have been around as long as mobile phones, and just because of their brand and people already desire an android phone. The community of android supporters is massive, and the developers see that there is money to be made on the market and they rush to get their apps out and sold. Also Android based phones are supported by every mobile phone carrier, while the iPhone is used by only AT&T. Also android supports touchscreen, and people like that. Then, Google is not just here to make money; they are defending their popularity using android. They are dedicated to making it better, and bringing it to the market (Androids). These are the top ten reasons for android success.
            But these are not all of the factors driving androids popularity and growth. The competition between Apple’s iOS, and Google’s Android, can be described as a funnel. Apple Starts at the narrow end, limiting the user to apple only products and making more room for the user experience at the other end of the funnel. Android on the other hand starts at the wide end to allow its user a verity of products from a variety of providers. This causes the user experience to not be as smooth as Apple’s. This all brings apple tumbling down as smartphones globalize, Its a lot easier with android’s system of “have it your way”, rather than apple’s “my way, or no way”(Android).
            Another factor of androids success is the method and style of development.
Apple is good at producing great user interface thanks to its top to down, designer centric product development process. But this approach becomes a liability for building scalable network services. For those kinds of tasks, Google’s bottom to top, engineer driven organizational structure works better. (Lee)
But Ahow628 does not think so, he said: “you make it sound like Google cares about smartphone profits. They don’t. They care about what Google always cares about: add revenue. (Lee)”.Apple’s workers are artists that use paint and brush to spice up their user interface, while android’s main goal is to make the system functional by using a hammer and screwdriver. It is not as smooth as iOS, but it certainly works a lot better.
The battle over control of the ballooning smartphone market got personal as Google’s open-source operating system, android, overtook apples iOS, which runs iPhone. Steve Jobs, Apples late CEO, told his official biographer that the search engine giant didn’t play fair and accused Google of ‘grand theft’ of the iPhones concept (among more colorful language). Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt, who once sat on apple’s board, responded by saying ‘the android effort started before the iPhones effort. (Google)
But Apple can complain all it wants, because opinion cannot beat the facts. According to Google Inc.’s blog, android got 10 billion app downloads at the end of 2011, with a recording high of 1 billion downloads per month (10 billion). This is backed up by the fact that “Android will experience the fastest growth of any mobile operating system (Android)”. This also means that most people will have androids and their will soon be not that many people to buy android smartphones.
            The future for android is still to come and what it yields is still sketchy. Recently android has released its latest firmware, version 4.0 nicknamed ice cream sandwich. This is to be a total makeover of android os. It is to come with smoother and easier interface which some say that is actually fun to use, and comes with a new feature, it is called face unlock (Smith). This means that many new phones will need to be made to be able to run such a firmware. Also “the future of the Google android operating system lies in a technology called ‘Android@home’, a system for tying together home devices via Google author protocols and API’s (Hachman)”. This is great, and pretty soon we will all be running android form phone to refrigerator, and computers will become tablets. Since Apple is closed source, it will try to stick to its traditions and change bits of the OS but it will never have a total over haul of the OS like Androids gingerbread to ice-cream sandwich transition. The iPhone, it will simply be put back in a dusty corner of the world and everyone will forget about it soon enough.



Works Cited
"10 Billion Android Market Downloads and Counting." Official Google Blog. Google Inc., 12 June 2011. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. <http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/10-billion-android-market-downloads-and.html>.
"Alliance Members | Open Handset Alliance." Open Handset Alliance. OHA. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. <http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html>.
"Androids Surging Popularity 10 Factors Driving Its Growth 485860." eWeek 9 Dec. 2010. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2012.
"Android Will Rise to No 2 Smartphone Ranking by 2013 Says Study 742057." eWeek 25 Jan. 2010. Academic OneFile. Web. 8 Feb. 2012.
Beavis, Gareth. "A Complete History of Android." TechRadar | Technology News And Reviews. Sponsor: Samsung, 11 Sept. 2008. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/a-complete-history-of-android-470327?artc_pg=1>.
"Google vs. Apple." Maclean's. 12 Dec. 2011: 116. Academic OneFile. Web. 8 Feb. 2012.
Hachman, Mark. "What Is Android@Home? The Future of Android." Pcmag.com Technology. 10 May 2011. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385158,00.asp>.
Lee, Timothy B. "Why Google Is Winning the Smartphone Wars." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 01 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2011/08/01/why-google-is-winning-the-smartphone-wars/>.
"Official Google Blog: 10 Billion Android Market Downloads and Counting." Official Google Blog. Google Inc., 6 Dec. 2011. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. <http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/10-billion-android-market-downloads-and.html>.
Marshall, Gary. "Is Android Screwed?" TechRadar | Technology News And Reviews. Sponsor: Samsung, 20 Sept. 2011. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/is-android-screwed-1027983>.
Smith, Chris. "Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Unveiled | News | TechRadar." TechRadar | Technology News And Reviews. Sponsor: Samsung, 19 Oct. 2011. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/google-android-4-0-ice-cream-sandwich-unveiled-1034844>.
“What Is Android OS?” Enterprise Linux Information, News and Tips – SearchEnterpriseLinux.com. Nov. 2007. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/definition/Android.

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