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Android Fragmentation: FUD and Facts

How do you create an open platform that can be used by dozens of hardware vendors and hundreds of software developers without some fragmentation? You don't. Yet to hear all the complaints about Android fragmentation, you would think that Google must either lock down its OS like Apple does with its iOS or try to run it as a Linux-like free-software collective. The former certainly works for Apple, but it doesn't really play to Google's strengths. The latter is pure folly. Instead, Google is trying to walk a middle road here, and, whatever the pitfalls, it seems to be doing a pretty good job so far. Android has 33 percent of the U.S. smartphone market share; not bad for a fragmented OS.

Android fragmentation has been an issue since the platform launched, but it became newsworthy again this week because of a report from Robert W. Baird & Co. In a survey of 250 Android developers, 55 percent of Android developers found OS fragmentation to be a meaningful or huge problem. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say I can't code a lick. And yet, from a developer's perspective, I can certainly understand the issue. Multiple screen resolutions, hardware configurations, and OS versions must be a pain. At the very least, they present a challenge.

Is AOL Scamming Old People?

 

Image via CrunchBase

The decline and fall of AOL is one of the great stories of the digital age. At its peak, AOL was a subscription service and Internet gateway for more than 35 million Americans. Then the Web took off, telcos started delivering broadband services, and AOL got left with the ruins off its ill-considered marriage to Time Warner. Today, AOL has just 4 million subscribers. But here is the kicker—those people are still paying.

AOL.com, of course, is free. It used to be a pay service, but has been free for years. You can access the AOL.com, read all of its content, and check your aol.com e-mail without paying a dime. If you already pay for an account, however, AOL will continue to bill you. And evidently, that makes AOL a LOT of money.

Ready More at PCMag.com.

The Apple iPad is Winning

Apple launched the iPad 2 today amidst the predictable buzz and hype. The technical improvements are relatively modest, but that won't matter much. The real story is that one year after the iPad's launch, the rest of the industry still has nothing that can touch it in terms of usability, platform strength, or even price. Yes, there will be a LOT of tablets hitting the market this year. The HP TouchPad, BlackBerry Playbook, and Honeycomb-based devices, like the Motorola Xoom, are all seem very promising. But don't kid yourself, as Charlie Sheen would say: the iPad is Winning.

Just to recap today's new: faster, thinner and the same price. The new A5 CPU will be twice as fast, the device will be 33% thinner, and the WiFi version will start at $500. The addition of Verizon as a carrier is nice, but otherwise there isn't a ton new hardware here. Front and back cameras will enable FaceTime—a feature everyone wants and nobody will use. The most important detail we got was that the iPad will go on sale March 11—that is when Apple can start collecting cash en masse again.

Sub Warfare: Google and Apple Offer Rival Subscription Payment Plans

People still think of Apple as a hardware company that builds MacBooks and iPhones, but the subscription payment plan announcement shows its real value is as an e-commerce platform. Likewise, Google may be the first and last word in search, but the company can't seem to help sprawling into everything from robotic cars to digital book making. So it only makes sense that it would offer a rival payment system, called Google One Pass. Both moves are great news for consumers—it is about to get a lot easier to buy everything from newspapers and magazines to software and services online. For companies that make all that digital media, the prospects are a lot grimmer. It may not yet be time to "go to the mattresses," but it is definitely time to pull out the calculators.

Apple's Jobs Jabs at Android & RIM

Image via CrunchBase

Apple reported a quarterly income of more than $20 billion yesterday, which, for most CEOs, would make for a very good day. Not Steve Jobs. In an uncharacteristic move, Jobs jumped on the analyst call and proceeded to trash his smartphone competitors, including RIM and Google. I can't think of another industry where a CEO would pull a move like this, but it makes perfect sense in the technology business. For Apple, selling hardware and software is about selling ideas. And, despite its leading position in in the mobile market, Apple is still in a pitched battle with RIM and Google for hearts and minds.

Read more on PCMag.com..

Related articles

• Apple and RIM shares rise as new products near release - but is the former a bubble and the latter a lost cause? (techvibes.com)
• Will 2011 Ring in an iPad Killer? (inc.com)
• Why you should buy shares in Research in Motion right now (techvibes.com)

Even Closed Facebook Groups Aren't Private

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook announced Groups this week to "make it easier to share things with a small group of friends." After all, it is great to connect with co-workers, industry contacts and family members on Facebook, but each social network is different--my mom doesn't care about this new Android phone and my boss doesn't need to know about my sister's dog in Australia. Facebook Groups go a long way toward solving this problem. Just don't kid yourself that Groups makes sharing on Facebook any more private or secure.

Read more on PCMag.com

Old Spice, Fast Company, and the Fallacy of Social Influence

The last few weeks saw two attempts to game the messy business that is social media influence: one by forward-thinking business magazine, Fast Company, and the other by a venerable packaged goods manufacturer, Proctor & Gamble. As a regular reader and fan of Fast Company, it's clear that the magazine should have the upper hand in this. Unfortunately, its Influence Project comes across as literal, artificial, and self-serving. P&G's Old Spice commercial, other hand, seems certain to become a landmark in interactive advertising. All because the Old Spice Guy brought the funny.

Read the rest of this column at PCMag.com...

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• Courtney Boyd Myers: Fast Company's Influence Project Is About to Burst Every "Social Media Guru's" Bubble (huffingtonpost.com)
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What is Google TV?

Facebook: Privacy Enemy Number One?

Facebook's notable announcements this week range from a holistic vision of a seamless, semantically-enabled Web of human relationships, to a simple "Like" button, which will soon be omnipresent on the Internet. The moves are ambitious, giving even fast-moving rivals like Twitter reason to worry. Still, the simple fact that gets lost in the rush towards ubiquitous social connectivity is that Facebook users still don't know what they are sharing, with whom, or why it matters. In short: Facebook remains a privacy minefield.

Read more on PCMag.com

• Facebook Privacy: 8 Ways to Protect Yourself

What You Missed at SXSW Interactive

 

The Walkmen at the annual Digg bash, at Stubbs BBQ in Austin

This year's SWSW Interactive was more crowded than ever—15,000 attendees, at least 600 of which were technology press. The event consisted of five days of discussion on innovation, privacy, geo-location, self-promotion, CMS platform development, content monetization, music licensing, the perils of software lock-in, and Ashton Kutcher. Coming back from a show like this, every journalist is asked the same thing: What did you learn? Expense budgets being what they are, it is certainly a fair question. I wrote a lot about the show when I was down in Austin, but here is the executive digest. Continue reading...

Check out my other stories from SXSW 2010 here.