Reality check: Is Eric Schmidt's Android optimism bravado or bull?

Reality check: Is Eric Schmidt's Android optimism bravado or bull?

Google authority (and former CEO) Eric Schmidt is no foreigner to argumentative remarks.  embody suggesting people pierce if they don’t wish to be seen in Google’s Street View, and that Google will eventually get to a indicate where it has a good thought what a users are thinking. This week, vocalization during , Schmidt has lifted eyebrows again with dual assertions: that Android is already brazen of Apple’s iOS, and that Google TV will be on a infancy of new TVs by midst 2012.

These are confidant difference â€" though are they small brag dictated to uncover Schmidt’s joining and faith in Google and a Android platform, or is there something some-more than certainty behind a claims?

Is Android is brazen of a iPhone?

Speaking to a packaged residence during LeWeb â€" a discussion in Paris directed during online entrepreneurs and developers â€" Google Chairman Eric Schmidt responded to a doubt about developers aiming during Apple’s iOS before Android by dogmatic “Android is brazen of a iPhone now.” When a assembly responded with silence, Schmidt went on to explain how he meant that: in terms of “unit volume, Ice Cream Sandwich, a cost is lower, and there are some-more vendors.”

Schmidt conceded that, right now, focus developers are targeting Apple’s iOS initial and Android second, though likely that “six months from now, you’ll contend accurately a opposite.” That is, Schmidt believes developers will increasingly aim Android first.

The doubt was stirred by an assembly member who asked since heading developers of mobile apps like Flipboard creation their apps initial for iOS, during a responsibility of other mobile platforms like Android. (Flipboard is usually one high-profile example: others embody Instagram, Stamped, and Path.) Sometimes, iOS apps even convey a same functionality on a Web and desktop platforms like Windows and Mac OS X. 

Schmidt’s evidence that Android will turn developers’ initial choice of height over a subsequent 6 months is predicated on section volume. He suggests that Google’s “open” proceed encourages mixed manufacturers to rise for a platform. Android is indeed out in front on a hardware side: Companies like HTC, Samsung, and Motorola (being acquired by Google) are churning out a accumulation of Android inclination that, put together, are simply outselling a iPhone (if not a iPad). According to Schmidt, “ultimately applications vendors are driven by volume,” so a perfect series of Android inclination on a marketplace will meant Android â€" utterly once Ice Cream Sandwich gets entirely deployed â€" will turn developers de facto choice for mobile development.

Schmidt punctuated a remarks by observant Ice Cream Sandwich will be developers initial choice possibly they privately like it or not â€" maybe a taciturn acknowledgment of a frustrations many developers have had with Android.

What are a contingency Schmidt’s avowal will reason up? We’ll usually know for certain in Jun 2012, though there seem to be a series of factors station in a way.

The largest emanate would seem to be Android fragmentation. Yes, Google has Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) prepared now, and new handsets are starting to boat with a latest chronicle of a Android OS. But handset makers like and are observant it will be months before their existent ICS-capable handsets see upgrades â€" and that’s presumption carriers are peaceful to play round and support a ascent on a far-reaching operation of existent devices. It’s going to be utterly a while before many stream Android users get their hands on ICS, unless they’re peaceful to take a strike to a wallet and buy a new phone before their existent contracts are up. That means in a subsequent 6 months, developers can’t aim usually Ice Cream Sandwich, during slightest if they’re endangered with volume â€" a crux of Schmidt’s argument. Developers will still have to support prior versions of Android, too.

Another emanate with Android competence be marketplace perception. For many folks, Android is radically a knock-off of Apple’s iOS â€" it’s not an iPhone, though it competence be good adequate and have a reduce cost tag. Regardless of possibly that notice is technically true, it’s been bolstered in new months by a genocide of Steve Jobs and a explanation from Walter Isaacson’s autobiography that Jobs deliberate Android to be a . Google (and Eric Schmidt) have been austere that “Android was founded before a iPhone,” though there is positively no denying that a early pre-iPhone Android bears roughly no similarity to a post-iPhone Android.

Another emanate is a opening of Android devices. Even with smartphones using Ice Cream Sandwich, Android inclination tend to teel indolent and nonchalant compared to iPhones and iPads. The interface lags, controls don’t respond consistently, and a whole knowledge tends to stutter. Android has admittedly taken many strides brazen with a interface given it initial strike a market, and Android is well-spoken adequate now that folks who live in an Android-only universe competence not even notice a issues. But switching between Android and iOS can still be like night and day.

In an engaging technical post, former Android novice (and stream Windows Phone intern) , that means UI work all happens during normal priority with other focus tasks. The same is loyal for Windows Mobile, Symbian, and BlackBerry OS, that all pre-dated a iPhone. In contrast, in iOS all digest is rubbed in a dedicated thread with real-time priority â€" that means a interface takes prevalence to many other tasks, rather than a other proceed around. Unless Android changes a architecture, a usually proceed for Android inclination to compare iOS device opening is to container a heck of a lot some-more (battery-killing) horsepower. Why does Android have such an old-school architecture? Munn creates a engaging indicate that “Android is a usually mobile OS left that existed pre-iPhone.”

Only time will tell possibly Schmidt’s assertions of Android’s prevalence of iOS come true, though we usually have to wait 6 months to find out.

Google TV on many new TVs by mid-2012?

Schmidt’s comments didn’t stop with predictions of Android dominance. He also foresee that by “the summer of 2012, a infancy of televisions we see in stores will have Google TV embedded.”

At this point, many consumers have no thought what Google TV competence be. If they’ve listened about it during all, it’s about a .

A intensity problem with this proceed is that all these manufacturers already have partners and solutions for Internet-delivered content. Some of them even have their possess app stores for supplementing their TV’s functionality. (More than 1,000 third celebration apps are accessible for Samsung’s connected TVs.) For vendors to get on house with Google TV in a large way, they’d possibly have to desert their existent systems, or launch Google TV-enabled systems beside them. The former seems unlikely, and a latter doesn’t seem like it would supplement adult to a “majority” of new TVs by a center of 2012.

Google also hasn’t oral about any resolution to programming issues with Google TV. One of a reasons a Logitech Revue unsuccessful so spectacularly wasn’t usually clunky interface, it was since programming providers sealed Google TV from drumming into giveaway online versions of their programming. Google is substantially going to have to cut deals with programmers to convince them to concede Google TV to entrance their content. Although Google is in a good position to do that (it  does run a huge promotion business, after all, and many programmers are already participating in it) it would make programming around Google TV some-more of a walled garden like Hulu or Netflix, rather than a extensive offering.

Google hasn’t done any announcements about partners for Google TV yet, though January’s CES uncover in Las Vegas would be a judicious place to announce any new partnerships, and try to build movement for a height going into 2012.

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