The Android operating system seems to be a very successful platform. It powers 85 percent of new smartphones released and, along with iOS, has effectively shut out all competition.
But Android is plagued by persistent problems that Google can't seem to solve. First of all, there's the issue of fragmentation.
What does that mean?
Developers have to develop software that works reliably on hundreds of different devices from dozens of manufacturers. So developers focus only on devices from the big players.
Then there's the issue of updates. Google has a yearly Android update schedule (unless there's a 0day that forces the company to release a critical update), but update adoption within a year can be as low as 10 percent. Imagine how long it takes for a universal update to be implemented.
While Google seems to be pretty quick to release updates to its Nexus devices, it can take months for owners of other Android devices (from other manufacturers) to receive the update.
In fact, unless you own a Nexus device, the easiest way to get a new version of Android is to buy a new device.
From the above it is clear that Android is facing some extremely serious problems.
Many of the problems the platform faces are because it's open source. Android is relatively open, which means that as soon as Google releases a new version, OEMs get to work adding to it, as you can imagine. This then results in both fragmentation and all sorts of update issues as Google updates can't be installed on OEMs' tweaked Android.
Another problem with Android is that it is based on Linux, and Linux is notoriously plagued by legal issues.
Legal issues, and especially intellectual property licensing issues, are a very serious problem for Android manufacturers. Companies like Microsoft earn billions of dollars in patent licensing fees from Android hardware OEMs.
So a completely new operating system, developed from scratch, could free OEMs from the cost of patent licensing.
Google, as we mentioned in a previous post, is reportedly experimenting with new platforms. Take, for example, Project Fuchsia. Sure, it's too early to talk about it, but it's clear that Google is looking to an era beyond the Linux kernel, and the end of the Linux kernel essentially means the end of Android.
This operating system could not only be built from scratch to be optimized for today's devices, laptops, smartphones or even small IoT devices – allowing for a truly unified platform.
Google could license this platform to hardware developers, as opposed to using the open source model.
And licensing from Google means the company will have more control over the hardware and devices. No one will be allowed to litter the operating system with apps, and updates will come as they are released by the company. Yes, a platform for the 21st century.
But don't expect to see it anytime soon as all operating systems take time to develop.
Android has some serious shortcomings that Google is well aware of, and the fact that it has made no effort to fix these issues is perhaps the strongest evidence – along with the company's interest in developing new platforms – that something is afoot.
ZDNet
