Too Many Android Phones On The Market? Here Are The Reasons

Most notably, the mobile operating system business is owned by two giants: Google with Android, and Apple with iOS.

Apple has kept a tight rule regarding its operating system since its first inception in 2007 with the original iPhone. This makes the OS a proprietary or "closed" software. For a good reason, it makes the OS less vulnerable to hacks by users who want to tinker with it.

Although enthusiasts and fans do create software to jailbreak iPhones and there is little Apple can do about it, the company always frowns on people that have done it.

On the other hand, Android from Google, took another approach which is totally the opposite of iOS. It welcomes everybody with open hands.

Read: Google And Apple, The Two Giants That Control The Mobile Internet

Android army

Since its debut in 2008, Android that was originally the brainchild of Andy Rubin, is largely an open-source software. What this means, manufacturers and developers can customize the OS to their own needs. With its open-source nature, people can take the basic system software and adapts it to whatever they want.

For example, Samsung can make their own version of Android interface, Amazon can create an Android spinoff called Fire OS and many more. Developers can have a deeper access to the system to enhance the capabilities on their apps, which otherwise is more restricted (or impossible on iOS).

Google has introduced the original "unthemed" bare Android with its Nexus devices. Then using the Pixel phones, Google introduced the unadulterated version that Google called "stock" or "pure" Android because it lacks the add-ons and modifications made by others for their own specific gadgets. But still, there are customization that Pixel phones have that others don't.

Android has more than many options, which are meant to blend with the needs of anyone who has their hands on it.

The next reason is because Google allows manufacturers to use Android on their phones. This is unlike iOS which is designed to run only on Apple devices.

With many manufacturers having the ability to use Android and customizing it according to their needs (and the demand of consumers), the OS has a lot of flavors to choose from. And because manufactures are no more bound by Licenses, the development of Android is a lot easier for developers.

So here, Android boasts flexibility. And that flexibility makes the OS extremely popular among mobile phone manufacturer.

Then there is Apple's role in making Android a success:

Apple and Android together

Apple's iOS played an indirect role in Android’s popularity. This happened after the original iPhone was launched, and also after the rise of 4G technology. At that time, the demand for smartphones was increasing, and iPhones were too expensive and beyond most people's reach.

This is considering the ruler at that time was Nokia with Symbian, which had the cost of their high-end phones fraction the price of iPhones.

Android came at the right time. When Symbian struggled, Android entered the market using low-tier and mid-tier smartphones with price that was lower than iPhones. Because creating a mobile OS is not an easy task, as many have failed, Google in allowing manufacturers to use its Android, quickly garnered manufacturers' attention. They took this opportunity to enter the young and growing market with Google as their helper.

And since Google gave less restrictions to manufacturers in using Android, and also with the help of hardware vendors like Qualcomm and Mediatek, mobile manufacturers were able to get their devices to market in shorter time. As a result, they were able to release different models targeting different customer segments and regions.

This helped Android in capturing the market share.

Android was successfully able to translate its worth to everyone. Consumers have a wide variety of choices.

But this advantage has led to one biggest Android problem: fragmentation.

Google typically releases one major update to the Android system each year, with each version using desert-themed codename (instead of numbers Apple uses).

Each year, major changes introduce new feature, capabilities, interface, security and more. However, the fragmentation of Android makes it virtually impossible for Google to keep up. Most Android phones get updates up to two or three years after the device's release.

Fragmented Android

Most notably, even Google does not guarantee that its own hardware will get the newest versions of the system after about two years from the purchase date.

While Google continues to release minor updates to their devices to a longer period, the updates has to go through carriers and manufacturers, before reaching end users. This makes Android phones in having delayed updates, preventing older phones to get security updates they need.

Platform diversification makes it difficult for Google to properly address and fix security flaws, putting consumers, marketers, and developers at risk.

Diversity also slows down the uptake of new versions of Android, and lengthening the cycle upgrade.

The severe fragmentation of the Android platform highlights the benefits of Apple's proprietary or "closed" software ecosystem. Because Apple controls both the hardware and software, it’s easier for the company to roll out iOS updates.

As a result, most Apple devices in the market run the two most recent versions of iOS. In comparison, Android has at least eight major versions in circulation.

To manage this fragmentation, Google has decoupled many Android core features from the OS, and moving to update them through the Play Store. This makes certain apps able to get their updates without having to pass through carriers and manufacturers to get their updates. The company has promotes Play Services as a means of rolling out mission-critical security patches faster, as this strategy can make apps to be updated independently of the OS as a whole. Then Google has separated many of the core features of Android from manufacturer add-ins and customization on the back-end, which allows the OS to be updated with a lot less trouble.

There is also Project Treble with was launched alonogside Android 8.0 Oreo. This should help Android device makers and carriers to roll out updates to new Android versions a lot faster. However, this has its own disadvantage since device makers need to meet certain requirements to enable it.

So here, fragmentation did make Android reached its success. But at the same time, it's also a consistent and persistent problem that will always be its disadvantage.

And here, Google standing at the end of the string, tries to get rid of the mess. As a venture towards a more controlled OS, Google Fuchsia is one of the ways for the company to relieve its headache.