One thing I have found disappointing so far is T-Mobile's involvement in the app process. Their only real involvement to date has been to kill a pretty useful application. They have failed to do anything positive.
I don't know what their contract with Google limits them to, but they could set up an app store on their own. Allow a certain dollar amount of downloads per month to be tacked onto their customers' monthly bills. And keep 30% of the app revenue in exchange for payment handling and store frontage. The thing that I find irritating, and perhaps is a big motivator to the failures that mobile providers experience, is that they want total control of your handset, but they don't want to provide anything useful. On one side, we have AT&T and Apple with a totalitarian system but a ton of useful applications. It's an appliance and people find it useful. There are some signs that Apple is struggling to get control of its app approval process. But, screw the developers over and there's not much to the iPhone. And I would argue that the unlockers and early app developers made that phone a success. On the other side, we have a controlling mobile provider wanting to limit how their customers utilize their services, yet want to participate in the "open source" and "free software" movements because they think it's cool and kitschy (can I use that word?). And Android allows them to do both. They've provided nothing to the advancement of Android. Except a network to allow customers to be locked to for two years to get the device. If the next US carrier to get an Android phone has greater participation in driving the source and provides a great venue for apps, T Mobile could be in a world of hurt. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
