[smacktoward]

The problem is that ICS is the only Android version for phones that includes any of Duarte's magic, and getting ICS out to the huge population of users of existing Android devices is a major problem. Most won't get it at all, and the few devices that will get it are getting it verrrrry slowly. And even if you go to buy a new device today, odds are that it won't come with ICS, and there are few guarantees that it will even get an upgrade later on.

That's not really Google's fault -- it has much more to do with the various (crappy) carrier- and device-manufacturer specific customizations having to all be carted over to ICS -- but it does mean that for the vast majority of users the "Android experience" is going to be stuck at 2.x quality until 2013 at least. Which is a shame.

Edit: clarified that first sentence refers to versions of Android available for phones. You know, the versions of Android people actually care about.

[oflannabhra]

I agree with most of what you said, except "That's not really Google's fault".

I think it is Google's fault, they created the ecosystem that allowed carriers and manufacturers to lazily update devices (or not do it at all), and all of Google's stern talk about timely updates seems to have not affected the system at all. A secondary result of that ecosystem is the lively ROM community, but that seems like a poor gap-fill to me.

I think Google made too many concessions (or gave too much power) to carriers and manufacturers and is now paying the price in a fractured OS landscape.

[MatthewPhillips]

> I think Google made too many concessions (or gave too much power) to carriers and manufacturers and is now paying the price in a fractured OS landscape.

How are they paying the price?

[oflannabhra]

By having the latest version of their OS running on 1.12%[1] of Android devices?

1. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400206,00.asp

[MatthewPhillips]

In what way does this negatively affect Google?

[cpeterso]

> ICS is the only Android version that includes any of Duarte's magic

Wikipedia says "Honeycomb was the first release with a major element of his design influence."

[smacktoward]

Point the first -- I was talking about Android-on-phones, not Android-on-tablets. Honeycomb was tablet-only. (Given how anemic sales of Android tablets that aren't labeled "Kindle" have been, that seemed like a safe omission.)

Point the second -- I thought Duarte was pretty clear on his feelings regarding how Honeycomb turned out in his ICS launch interview with The Verge (http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/18/exclusive-matias-duarte-i...):

He starts with a qualifier. "Honeycomb was kind of that emergency landing," he says, "You get there, 'phew, okay survived that,' and when we finished that we said 'what's next?'" ...

Matias explains further, "Honeycomb was like: we need to get tablet support out there. We need to build not just the product, but even more than the product, the building blocks so that people stop doing silly things like taking a phone UI and stretching it out to a 10-inch tablet." It's obvious that products like the original Galaxy Tab, with a bastardized version of Android for phones, annoyed him.

"So that was the mission, and it was a time-boxed mission. Any corner we could cut to get that thing out the door, we had to."