Perhaps the biggest point of friction for Android is the same thing that led to its success. Because Google makes its software available free to a range of phone manufacturers, there are dozens of different Android-compatible devices on the market, each with different screen sizes, memory capacities, processor speeds and graphics capabilities. An app that works beautifully on, say, a Motorola Droid might suffer from glitches on a phone made by HTC. IPhone developers, meanwhile, need to worry about only a few devices: iPhones, iPods and iPads.
Talking about Android momentum is very much in fashion at the moment, and it is a good thing to have some competition for Apple, but Jenna Wortham hits the Android nail on the head in today’s NYT Technology Section – this platform is barely controlled chaos and the kludgy results appeal to only the geekiest of users.
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