I’ve always thought calling Android “open” did not adequately describe how it works in practice. With many Android devices (including Google’s own Nexus phones and Motorola’s Android devices), if you want to tinker with them, you have to jailbreak them. If it interferes with its plans, Google does dictate to application vendors how they have to write their apps, in a manner reminiscent of Apple. Furthermore, Android’s “open” has the negative consequences of carriers changing the software to their liking and vendors adding their own ugly user interface layers. The Android Market would also benefit from less openness and more control, when it comes to avoiding useless apps and crooked schemes.
There is one instance where Android really is more (positively) open, at least more open than Apple’s iOS: Android has more open source libraries for developers than iOS. Presumably, because iOS developers always try to sell something and are lured to iOS by the commercial opportunities of the platform. This is a definite advantage of Android, as it makes development more fun and simpler for hobbyists. [Thanks to Korbinian Moßandl for pointing this out to me.]
I’ve always been intrigued by the “freedom versus control” debate and how smartphone operating systems such as Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 7 position themselves between the extremes regarding various issues. As far as I am concerned, each one does some things right and others I don’t like.
Related reading:
- Apple changes in-app purchase policies: an analysis
- The positive side of Apple’s tight control of the iOS app store
- Android openness withering as Google withholds Honeycomb code
- HTC locks down Incredible S against custom ROMs too, starts a fight with its best friends
4 comments:
> If you really want to tinker with your Android device, you still have to jail-break it.
Not true in general. Most vendors lock their devices but some do not. See ZTE Blade for example - no rooting required for putting custom firmware on it plus its kernel sources have been made available by ZTE (as required by GPL).
> Furthermore, “open” often means “easier for carriers to change the software to their liking”
Sure. What's the point? Programmers can also easily download the sources of for example the SMS or Calendar application and play with it.
With open source distributions such as Cyanogen the community provides nice and clean alternatives to vendor firmwares that are also pretty much supported indefinitely.
> The Android Market would also sometimes benefit from more control from Google
It seems like you are mixing up "openness" with "good/controlled user experience".
> It seems like you are mixing up "openness" with "good/controlled user experience".
Semantics is tricky in this case, because everyone understands something different when they hear “open”. For me, the core debate is about “control” versus “freedom”. Each side has several pros and cons. Ironically, even open source, being very open, does not always give you complete freedom (e.g. to develop commercial software).
I’ve edited the post to make my point of view clearer.
In order to put custom firmware on the Nexus, you do not have to root or jailbreak it (the latter is an iPhone-only term really and AFAIK also technically something slightly different from Android rooting). The Nexus features the standard fastboot engineering mode. However, it has to be enabled explicitely - using official fastboot commands. No backdoors or vulnerabilities need to be used in the process.
I’ve read both “jailbreak” and “root”. My choice of the former term was arbitrary.
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