Things are quiet on the Western front.
It won’t so about this time last year.
Last January everyone (and I mean everyone) was writing about “Android Fragmentation” (Android Fragmentation – What, Google Worry?) Remember the proliferation of Android revs, and devices? I didn’t see as a big deal back then, and still don’t today – though it did cause some developer heartburn.
Ice Cream Sandwich was big news, but as I wrote back then Google rolled it out every so slowly. Actually, to be fair, it was the carriers (AT&T, T-Mo, Verizon) that rolled it out slowly. QA of new releases, and the aforementioned fragmentation conspired to slow the release of the new operating system. Unlike Apple and its new iOS releases, consumers had to wait eons to see a new OS version on their phone. The best option was often to just upgrade the handset (carriers like that!).
Samsung’s new Galaxy Nexus (only available on Verizon at that point, the unlocked i9250 version would hit Google Play over the summer) was all the rage – running ICS, it was a huge leap forward for Android usability. Plus it had that sexy, curved glass, and at 4.7-inches what was then considered a large screen (oh, how naive we were). Motorola’s RAZR Maxx brought battery life to the fight, and perhaps forever changed our expectations of smartphone endurance.
But that was then.
If the beginning of 2012 was a whirlwind of Android news that lit up thousands of blogs, then this January is a light breeze of activity by comparison.
Maybe, dare I say, the rockin’ green robot is actually maturing?
Every day, like a lot of you, I scan the Android headlines, read articles of interest, check my RSS reader (Google), and see what’s happening on Twitter.
So far 2013 is a pretty quiet.
We’ve heard rumors of Key Lime Pie, Google’s X Phone and a refreshed Nexus 10 tablet. There’s some nice new handsets from Sony, and even Lenovo – not sure if we’ll ever see those stateside though. There’s been grumblings of Google abandoning the Nexus 4 and concentrating on the next rev. That, however, contracts what Larry said during yesterday’s earnings call (that management would focus on supply chain issues) and doesn’t follow the normal pattern of a Q4 Nexus release.
Meanwhile the Android headlines this morning are quite dull: Malware (could reach 1 million by year’s end), RIM’s desperate attempt to get back into the mobile platform race and catch iOS, Android (38% of developers according to one report say they use BlackBerry as they’re main platform – I find that extremely hard to believe), and a piece by USA Today on how Androids can take a picture of a phone thief (I’m sure we’ll see the viral results shortly on Mashable). Does the fact that Google is sending me a Nexus 4 to replace my broken one (GPS failing) qualify as breaking news?
Well, there’s always Windows Phone. Maybe I should start covering Microsoft, the Surface Pro, and WP8. Wait?! This coffee definitely doesn’t taste right…