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Comment by dannyr | Hacker News Reader

"But Google has — publicly, at least — always seemed to think that Android is the best at everything and its dominance everywhere is inevitable. I wonder: do the higher-ups at Google really not see the flaws in their products? ... Google seems to think they don’t need to change anything"

Wow. Cannot disagree more. The past year has seen Android 2.3, 3.0 & 4.0.

Google is changing at a faster pace than its competition.

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3.0 onwards might as well not exist since some 95% of the market is excluded from those versions.

It's not even really fair to call it change when nothing changed and nothing is about to change for almost every Android user.

The international version of the Samsung Galaxy S II, themost popular Android handset last year, will receive the ICS update on March 10 (tomorrow). All the major Android OEMs have promised updates to the their most popular phones. It's not happening as fast as users would like but it's a bit misleading to say 95% of the market have been "excluded" from those versions.

The 95% comes from Google themselves - http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...

AppBrain puts the SII at a staggering 11% marketshare... so tomorrow only 84% to 95% of Android users will be excluded.

http://www.appbrain.com/stats/top-android-phones

It is fair to say that Google hasn't solved the more difficult issues in the Android ecosystem, but it is totally unreasonable to say "nothing changed".

Even if you discount the updates that are about to start (as Fruntal highlights), the next generation of Android phones has been completely transformed by ICS. That is clearly the low-hanging fruit, but it is still real, meaningful change.

Interesting, how pointing this out does not go well there. Really, just compare numbers of iOS5 and ICS on the devices in users hands. Both came out about the same time, but difference is immense. Of course, there are real and valid reasons why it is so with ICS, but at the end we still have what we have.

One can even get the impression that everybody is allying against Google these days. Their acqustion of Motrola was kind of a wake-up call, Google geared up for the IP wars going on. And since there are only three major players in that field, Apple, Microsoft and Google, it seems the first two try to single out the last one and change the game by eliminating competition. The reputation of "Don't be Evil" Google cultivated is making things more complicated, Google simply can't ba as agressive as the former two. On the other, if combined with the proper PR, it make life difficult for others.

Your argument would have carried a lot more weight if, instead of talking about the new versions of Android (that only further the fragmentation of the installed base), you'd offered up their purchase of Motorola Mobility and hardware business (which will reduce fragmentation, at least for direct customers).

We still don't know how Google will use Motorola to improve Android.

According to Google, Motorola will still run independently.

Stop and think about your argument and you see one of the biggest gripes people have with Android: the inability to actually upgrade their devices to the latest and greatest.

Why hasn't Google learned this from their competitors yet?

I just got Android 2.3 for my Samsung Galaxy S and don't expect to EVER see 4.0 on this phone, even though it's only 18 months old and no doubt plenty powerful enough to run it.

If I had gone with an iPhone4, I'd have iOS 5.1 right now. I wouldn't have to wait 9-12 months after release to get it.

This is a HUGE weakness of Android devices. HUGE.

No, Google is not entirely to blame, but they don't seem to even be trying to fix it. They seem to be perfectly fine with this gaping flaw.

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