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Comment by icey | Hacker News Reader

I just wish there was a "main" android phone, or one that was a clear leader. So far, it's felt like "the" android phone to have is whatever is next in the pipeline.

I understand that the Nexus One is probably the nicest piece of hardware out there right now; but it's hard to decide to jump to it when it constantly sounds like there's going to be something even better just around the corner.

I guess my complaint is that I feel like the Android ecosystem is still too volatile to want to spend money on a phone.

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I was frustrated by the same aspect of the Android ecosystem, until I had this minor revelation: it's not really about "the" phone, it's about the phone that works best for you. The nice thing about Android is that you can pick the carrier, form factor, and price point that work for you.

Want a keyboard and like Verizon? Get a Droid. Like Verizon but don't need a keyboard? Get an HTC Incredible later this month. Like the Nexus One but want the freedom of a SIM card? Use it on T-Mobile or AT&T. Want a cheaper phone with a keyboard? Get one of the new Motorola models that are coming out for just about every carrier.

You can think of it as confusing, or you can think of it as having options. Both are probably true :)

Right. Hardly anybody asks themselves "which is the Official Best Windows Computer?"

Android is not a single, tightly-controlled product line. It's an OS. Buy whatever hardware you think you'd like to run it on.

It's just a different approach than Apple's, and one that has worked well in PCs.

Has it really worked well in PCs? The average PC manufacturer is hardly rolling in money, unlike Apple. Nor is the average PC user likely to be too happy with their computer. Meanwhile in the Apple ecosystem both the normal user and the supplier seem to be rather happy. There is something to be said for tight integration of hardware and software in providing a good user experience.

(That said, personally I hate my MacBook Pro from work with the fire of a thousand suns, and have only used an iPhone for playing music on long plane trips since getting a Nexus 1.)

I know many happy PC users and (call me crazy) I tend to think that due to Jobs' cultish following that a lot of Apple shortcomings go unreported.

> Has it really worked well in PCs? The average PC manufacturer is hardly rolling in money, unlike Apple.

Assuming we are segmenting the Mac market from the PC market, it is much better to be in the PC market whether you are consumer or a producer. For manufacturers, it sucks to be in Apple's market if you are not Apple (PsyStar?). For consumers, they get a wider selection of products at lower price points, though they do not get the design cachet.

To make a belabored car analogy, would you rather be in the market for Italian supercars or that of the rest of the world? Both producers and consumers tend to choose the latter.

For consumers, they get a wider selection of products at lower price points

Lower price points, but a Windows PC is cheaper than a Mac only if your time and frustration is worth nothing.

Actually, if you want a quality desktop (quality meaning zippy specs and at least a 27" 2500x1500 bright high quality monitor) you might find Apple cheaper.

Nobody else is really in Apple's market right now because selling high quality hardware and a great experience is impossible when you're wedded to Microsoft garbage. It's probably a worthwhile market, though, if you could get the millions necessary to start up.

Even though Apple was in trouble in the 90's, it was and is and has been since the 1970's the most profitable computer manufacturer in the world almost every year.

Your argument doesn't make sense here.

Most consumers would choose to be at the luxury end of almost every product. It's just not a choice for almost everyone.

As to producers, it isn't inherently better to be a luxury market or a general market -- it's highly dependent on your product, market, and competitors.

For consumers, they get a wider selection of products at lower price points, though they do not get the design cachet.

That's a kind way of saying that consumers have a very diverse pile of crap to choose from.

Some people are just rich and can buy whatever they want.

But other people buy fancy houses, fancy cars, fancy computers, fancy holidays, fancy clothes etc. by virtue of choosing what is important to them and spending less on everything else. You can't spend more than average on everything unless you have more than average money. On average, people don't.

> The average PC manufacturer is hardly rolling in money, unlike Apple.

How much of that money is coming from iPods, iTunes, and the iPhone?

Huh? I think you're making the wrong comparison. It worked well for Microsoft, the creator of Windows, not for PC manufacturers.

I think a lot of Apple's recent success comes from how nice their computers and products look. The iMac has one cord. Compare that to a Dell. Ugh. The PC market contains inexpensive computers that look cheap.

>>Has it really worked well in PCs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...

90-10 in favour of windows.

Buy one that has the features you want today. This is technology; there is always something better just around the corner.

(Personally I rather like the fact Android affords some choice in prices, features, and form factors, rather than locking you into /the/ one.)

Part of what icey may be talking about is development; the wide variety of Android hardware does make for a major pain point that doesn't exist in the Apple ecosystem (though with the iPad and the new resolution on the next iPhone, it might be getting there).

Yeah, this is mostly the case. If you look at what's out there right now you have some phones that run Android 2, some that are still on Android 1.6 out of the box, some that run the HTC modifications to Android, some that are on the standard Android interface. After that, you have to consider the processors and memory available in every device - will most phones have enough power to run application X? Will this look like crap in these various phones because the hardware sucks?

It just feels like a very fractured ecosystem. I hate developing for a platform that makes it feel like there are a lot of unknowns - how many test phones should I need to keep around if developing on Android? I know that it should be only 1, but is that really the case? How long will that remain the case for?

Maybe wishing for "the" canonical Android phone is the wrong approach; but it would be nice if Google came out with some hardware guidelines that said "You can at least expect to have these things be true on every Android device."

That's a valid sentiment. The problem is that freedom from such issues is very rare in general-purpose computing. Certainly on x86 it's always an issue (EDIT: except on very specialized OSes, I suppose), as it is on J2ME (and I'd guess Symbian). Dedicated game consoles are pretty much the only place I can think of where your application will always run on absolutely known hardware.

I agree, both as a user and as a programmer, that the mess with Android 1.6 sticking around for essentially political reasons needs to improve fast. Minimal specs are nice, although they will necessarily change as the time progresses, and you will have to make a cut-off yourself. Support only Android phones released in the past two years (as an example, obviously not a useful guideline right now) and you will know what your lowest common denominator is.

On the other hand, even Apple's halcyon days of single-device uniformity are coming to an end. You now have two resolutions in iPhone OS to deal with, and if rumours are true, you'll have a third one in June (though that one's less of an issue since doubling should work acceptably). OSes 3.2 and 4.0 force you to consider both hardware and software keyboards. The iPhone 3G has less RAM available to an app than the 3GS and the iPad. CPU speeds are different on every release and I believe graphics performance differs too. New hardware features have been introduced that you have to check for. Between June and November-ish, you'll have to support 3.2 for iPad and 4.0 for iPhone (and 3.0 for older iPhones, if you even want to).

Based on my experience with the iPhone OS, you don't really have to check for any of that unless you want to use that particular feature. For the vast majority of simpler apps, all of that is transparent. If CPU speed is an issue (games, mainly), it does help to have a pre-3GS around to serve as a baseline, but I think that the process is much less daunting than you try to make it seem in trying to play down the uncertainties of dealing with Android's fractured ecosystem.

the wide variety of Android hardware does make for a major pain point

Right now the overwhelming majority of Android phones have 320x480 (iPhoney) resolution or 480x800 or 480x854 (Droid). That's just two densities and really only two sets of art assets to program for. iPhone will soon have two densities and iPad, which is really neither better nor worse. iPhone apps are easily targeted at a particular resolution with interface Builder while Android apps have a cumbersome and ugly system of trying to achieve resolution independent layout that most developers don't understand or use correctly. There's no saying what will happen to Interface Builder when it faces the challenges Android set itself with varied device standards.

But for now iPhone has a significant advantage in ease of development here.

On the plus side for Android now is that higher density resolution makes websites a pleasure unimaginable in my iPhone. On the minus side, I keep getting user requests to support their trackballs and other exotic hardware.

Get a Nexus One unless you have a compelling reason not to (such as having to be on Verizon or needing a physical keyboard). None of the upcoming phones are significantly better, and being from Google the N1 is virtually guaranteed to get updates in a timely manner. Also since it's unlocked out of the box, it should retain decent resale value if you want to upgrade in the future.

Motorola Droid probably is the clear leader when you consider it's sales. The Nexus One is basically the current generation Android reference platform, just like Dream (G1) and Ion (MyTouch). Note that the Incredible and Desire are basically variants of the N1 and aren't really anything that different.

Basically your choice comes down to a hardware keyboard (Motorola Droid) or better specs (Nexus + variants).

I wonder if there's a business opportunity here? What would it cost to tool up an Android app testing shop? A bunch of phones wouldn't be that expensive.

Like DeviceAnywhere? Or do you mean a service that actually tests and reviews your app's functionality on different devices for you?

it's hard to decide to jump to it when it constantly sounds like there's going to be something even better just around the corner.

Welcome to the computer industry. That there's something better just around the corner hasn't stopped people who have wanted Apple products for the past 20 years from buying them, to the point where Apple even ends up giving late adopters refunds if they buy something that Apple drops the price on within some limited amount of time after they purchase it.

The Motorala Droid is pretty much the one as far as I can tell.

Not in Europe (or at least Scandinavia). Every Android phone I've seen in the wild is either an HTC (roughly 70-80%) or a Samsung (20-30%). I don't think I've ever seen anyone using a Motorola Android phone.

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