SPHERE OF INFLUENCE, INC. – software designers

Thad Scheer

Android is a great mobile operating system. I’ve owned a couple of Android devices (yes, I also own Apple products), and my appetite for tech coolness is completely satisfied by the core Android experience. Are there issues? Yes, there are issues. Are there bugs? Sure, but not bad. There are a few big ticket items on my “bugsme” list, but that's always the case.

Android is a great mobile OS. The hardware (I currently have a Motorola) is smartly designed and full of great features. The signal carriers are…well…all of the above. What’s not to like?

This is where the fun ends.

First up is OEM free-ranging. For example, Motorola ships its phones with Blur, god-awful software that you cannot disable or remove. Blur isn’t an app, it’s a cheesy replacement for the awesome core Android user experience. Blur replaces your mail client, settings, calendar, and just about everything else. It creates a completely depleting user experience compared to stock Android and there is nothing short of rooting the phone that a consumer can do about it. The flexibility OEM’s have to modify, re-skin, and essentially screw up the core operating system is a serious problem.

That said, consumers may ultimately triumph because, after all, in free markets the competition will take care of horrible demand-deadening decisions like Blur. The real problem with the platform, and where it will ultimately meet its demise, is the apps.

Downloading from the Android Marketplace is like going to a really bad part of town for a drug fix. The neighborhood is full of prostitutes, addicts, pickpockets, and beggars of all kinds wondering the streets. One visit and you want to roll up your windows, lock the doors, and program the GPS to “avoid this area of town”. Yes, it’s that bad.

Let me be more blunt. If you install apps shopped from the Marketplace then you officially have a risky lifestyle. Just assume that a server in China or Eastern Europe is syncing your full list of personal contacts, recording your movements, tracking your browser history, and in some cases making secret recordings of your life and conversations. It’s beyond the Wild West in there. If you have a sensitive job, say with high-tech or doing government work…then just assume that a foreign intelligence service already has your full list of contacts, gets alerted when you enter or leave certain facilities, opens your mail, and records conversations. Security firms like Lookout are just now beginning to assess the extent of the problem.

This creates a great opportunity for Windows Phone 7, provided Microsoft doesn’t screw it up. If they can thread that needle between being open to 3rd party innovation, carrier choice, and other options without compromising the integrity of the user experience then they can kick Android where it counts. User Experience BTW (for you designer types out there) is more than the pixels, plastics, and interactivity; it includes the experience in the eco system, which means the Marketplace.

Microsoft plans to launch WP7 with a sealed experience for the basic operating system, so no Blur type garbage from OEMs. The tech stack also forces app developers to run in an isolated sandbox, in an arguably more secure way than what Android does. Code won’t be allowed to "thunk" its way into core OS features (via P/Invoke or any other mechanism)…so there should be fewer worries about surveillanceware.

Of course, Microsoft has recently been doing great by developers – it’s their users who need to worry. Can the guys and gals at the big house in Redmond make WP7 current and relevant to a youth oriented culture? Already they failed with the naming of the platform…”Windows Phone 7” hardly rolls off the tongue. Too bad the visionary marketing genius types didn’t come up with something simple like “Phone7” or just “7”. So, if they aren’t hip enough to come up with a good name…can they compete in a sector led by the ultra-hip Apple product line? I don’t know, but Android is making it easy for them.

While the average teenager consumer doesn’t care, as things stand today, I do consider Android a counter intelligence bonanza…for foreign intelligence services. It’s not that you can’t live a secure life on Android, it’s that it doesn’t make it very easy.