The issues I bumped into were: - The handset mfgrs and the carriers all wanted to piss all over Android, primarily the UI. The handset folks built UIs that were to distinguish them from others, but succeeded only in having their version of android have worse battery life. - So I wanted vanilla android. That should be easy, right? Well, apparently the carriers didn't want that, so I was forced into their upgrade schedule. Also there were claims that the handset makers wanted more control over things like the camera .. the standard android wasn't good enough. - A ray of hope appeared with CyanogenMod which gave ninja users the ability to upgrade their firmware, but looking deeper into them, they too had lots of problems keeping up with the latest drivers.
Now I realize I could become a phone sys admin and hacker ninja, but I got tired of that keeping my initial iPhone running on TMo via unlock hacks. Annoying and time consuming. So it appeared weird to me. Why would the open phone platform, which showed so much initial promise, seem to be backing away from being free (both beer and speech). So the control you don't have is the initial promise of - Carrier independence .. they still own you and have absurd contracts. - OS independence .. the handset folks have "improve" android and its hard to go back to vanilla and the firmware you'd prefer. Maybe I was just expecting too much: a great hacker phone os that would work on lots of phones and release me fron contracts, absurd plans, limits on networking (tethering, limits, huge over-run costs). In short, I though the evil trinity would be broken and google would be a hero. No. I guess my next best hope is that the Moto buy, plus maybe something like buying Tmo, could let Google control the initial android dream. I feel a bit like the Obama "Yes You Can" ripoff. -- Owen On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 12:38 PM, glen <g...@ropella.name> wrote: > Owen Densmore wrote circa 12-01-10 10:48 AM: > > We have had several phone chats. I kept finding Android a bit difficult > > to deal with, mainly because of the new trinity: Phone Makers, Cellular > > Carriers, and Mobile OSs. I found the evil trios not providing what I > > wanted and kept thinking I was being painted into a corner. > > > > This post discusses part of the problem. No, its not an iPhone vs > > Android rant, but interesting history on Android and its loss of control. > > http://parislemon.com/post/15604811641/why-i-hate-android > > I suppose I'm just dense and should keep my mouth shut. But my very > density prevents me from keeping my mouth shut. ;-) > > Precisely what control does an android user _not_ have? I seem to have > control over every aspect of my android device (Droid 2 Global), > including which carrier I use. > > -- > glen > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
