[georgemcbay]

"The fact is that Google has handled the Android ecosystem poorly and reflects where their motivation lies."

Google has handled the Android ecosystem neutrally, not poorly. It is the device makers and the carriers that are responsible for the situation you're talking about with updates.

It is in Google's interest for device makers to support updates to the latest Android release so long as the hardware is capable of supporting the newest versions (of course, limits to this sort of backward compatibility would always exist, just as they do in the iOS world).

[Karunamon]

>It is the device makers and the carriers that are responsible for the situation you're talking about with updates.

Google could have just as easily bargained for the same kind of terms that Apple gets on iOS devices with carriers. No pack-in garbage, no mucking about with the OS. If not with the G1, certainly with the later releases.

Their desire to have Android be "open" is also its greatest weakness.

[chrismsnz]

> Google could have just as easily bargained for the same kind of terms that Apple gets on iOS devices with carriers.

Right, and what about the hundreds of other manufacturers of Android phones?

[2muchcoffeeman]

I think Kuranamon is suggesting that they could have dropped the openness or prevented others from calling their phones "Android phones".

[Karunamon]

Exactly. As I said, the openness is also its greatest weakness. Fragmentation is still a huge issue (look at the average Market app for one star reviews of the format "Force Closes on $device")

I see what they were going for, but their execution frankly sucked.