Google’s Android platform arrived in Oct. 2008 with just a single handset on one carrier: The G1 for T-Mobile. Since then, however, the mobile operating system has spawned over 1,000 Android smartphones and tablets around the world. This rapid expansion has been the best and the worst thing for Google when it comes to mobile: Android has quickly become the most used platform, but, as has been much discussed, the sheer amount of varying hardware it runs on has created problems for developers, carriers and consumers alike.
But the one entity that has the power to fix it — Google itself — doesn’t appear to think the OS is broken. And Google isn’t likely to “fix” Android anytime soon, because despite the fragmentation problem, the company is getting what it wants: massive amounts of user data. And besides, at this point, Android may be beyond repair, unless Google takes drastic actions in light of closed platforms gaining ground.
Android is a winner . . . depending on whom you ask
From Google’s perspective, Android looks like a relative winner, at least on the surface. Here in the U.S., Android phones started outselling Apple iPhones in Aug. 2010, and they still continue to best the iPhone, as of comScore’s data from February. No single Android device can beat the iPhone head-on in sales, of course, but Google doesn’t care about that. As long as the number of Android devices combined exceeds the number of iPhones, Google is putting its services in more hands.
And unlike most companies that profit on sales of software or hardware, Google’s currency is information. All the Android device sales put more of this power into Google’s hands for lucrative advertising and future products.
Google isn’t yet seeing the same success in tablets, but the market is young, and far more smartphones than tablets are sold each year. So far, Apple’s iPad is the top-selling tablet, accounting for 62 percent of all tablet sales in 2011. Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook tablet, both built on Android 2.3, are the best competition to the iPad, but since both have custom user interfaces and software, Google gains little data, no software sales and a limited amount of search information. But maybe Google isn’t ready to try to win the tablet war. And besides, it could claim its overarching strategy isn’t impacted by this mediocre showing in the tablet market.
So why doesn’t Google think Android is broken?
With Android as the most widely used smartphone platform, everything must be great for Google, right? Perhaps, but it’s not yet clear if its Android investment is paying off financially. A recent estimate by the Guardian (see disclosure below) suggests Google has only earned an estimated $550 million from Android between 2008 and 2011. That’s far less than the estimated $25 billion in iPhone and iPad revenue Apple saw in the final quarter of 2011 alone.
But money may not be the reason Android exists. My GigaOM colleague Tom Krazit argues Google is trying to stay relevant into the future with Android as a defensive play; it can’t simply give away the mobile market to Apple, Microsoft and others. I would add that it is happy to gather as much information as it can for future products and ads, as opposed to instant gratification on mobile ad revenues. And how does it gather this information? To get the maximum benefit from Android, users need a Google account, which syncs data between the phone and Google’s servers. All of that data quickly adds up: Google says it is now activating 850,000 devices per day.
From Google’s perspective, then, Android is working out well. From the Android users’ point of view, it’s a different story.
Android is a mess for device makers and developers . . .
The best aspect of Android — its ability to be used by anyone as they see fit — is a double-edged sword. Without a licensing fee for Android (although there is a fee for Google apps) device makers have found an alternative to compete against Apple without having to pay for the platform. There are are more than 1,000 different Android devices built by more than 55 hardware makers running on 300 networks around the world.
As a result, the Android experience varies wildly by device: not