Learn to understand semantics ... and business ethics.

Having a de facto monopoly is not synonymous with being a monopoliser, which is something quite deliberate (and usually underhand).

It's good enough for me (and Google apparently) for there to simply be the choice of Android (and whatever else), since I happen to like the power of choice through diversity.

Apple OTOH, like to try to kill choice, by e.g. coercing developers to support the iPhone exclusively, with Draconian policies on development tools, which preclude multi-platform development.

Similarly, Microsoft like to kill choice with their nefarious contracts, which coerce their "Channel Partners" into excluding competing operating systems from prebuilt PCs.

BEING a monopoliser is something entirely pro-active, something designed to exclude competition by contract ... not the condition of merely winning a greater market share through fair competition.

So tell me, how does Google pro-actively forbid competition?

"Monopoliser" so if you are saying you will never buy a monopoliser's product, you are being a hypocrit.

All these "droid" fanboys screaming they hate apple because of how they are a monopoly or some evil corporation need to learn a little more about google quickly. Hell Al mr. "I invented the internet" sits on their board of directors... That's enough right there to keep me from buying their products.

Bottom line, they are as bad or worse than apple or MS.

I have to agree with others here that the whole premise of "fragmentation" is nothing but ill-conceived FUD.

"Fragmentation" is just the "glass is half empty" equivalent of DIVERSITY ... something which is absolutely vital for a truly free market.

The only alternative is consolidation (i.e. monopoly), which only benefits the monopoliser ... not the consumer.

Typically the only people who harp on about "fragmentation" are those with a vested interest in trying to inhibit competition to some dominant player (e.g. Apple).

Well I'm sorry, but my message to all the "fragmentation" FUDsters is ... I LIKE DIVERSITY (or what you call "fragmentation"). I like it. I need it. In fact I absolutely DEMAND it. And I have zero intention of buying any given monopoliser's products ... ever. Period. So you might as well give up with your "fragmentation" bullsh*t.

The release of Android is the best thing that happen to the smartphone world, it keep getting better everyday.

It is true that the dependence on operators for the deployment of updates is a mistake IMHO. This should be left to the phone developer.

Beside that I think that Google is doing OK with Android. It is true that the variety of hardware makes it a little bit more difficult to support, but it also allows devices to be sold a different price points. Here in Belgium phones subsidies are illegal. This means that the cheapest iPhone cost €579 (around $800) while you can get a tatoo or a magic for under 300€. This means that a lot of people that are not able to afford an iPhone can purchase an Android device.

The other problem with Apple way of working is that there is no guarantee that the applications you want will be allowed to enter or stay in the App store. For example the people who purchased an iPhone primarily because they could get "sexy apps" now have a pretty useless device. Yes, it still does make calls, but so do a €50 Nokia.

these people consider the fact that the I phone is the only thing apple has to work on.

Err, yes actually i have tried Win 7 on a PIII, and considering the age gap it works quite well, lets see OSx do that on a G4! oh wait a sec it won’t work.

I think you guys are missing the point on this, it’s not so much the OS that will course Android to have issues its the software/hardware around it.

For example, take the desktop market, there are so many different distros of Linux many of which are all slightly different, software has to be designed to work on many of them or it will not work, unless you are skilled at fiddling with the OS, most users are not skilled at this, and support sites seem to have an air of arrogance about them which can put people off.

This stops the vast majority of "users" from switching, Windows by and large simply works, users can understand this, OSx doesn’t have the issue because it’s their way or no way, you get what you get an you can forget pretty much anything else, Linux has "openness" which is inviting but is so open its hard for average users to come to terms with the complexities of it.

There is an answer, in fact there is two, both however go against the idea of Linux.

OSs are regulated to conform to standards.

Software is regulated in a similar fashion to Apples program distribution service.

On a side note to all you windows Bashers, Windows including WM, works very well at working with different software and hardware at the expense of stability and speed. You can’t have openness, usability, stability, speed and application availability all under one roof.

Well, yet another article on Android's fragmentation. Has any of these authors speak to Android developers?

Microsoft has done this on Windows for years. I have a 7" Windows netbook with 800x600 screen and a 24" screen desktop with with resolution higher than an HDTV. I have a Windows developer friend with a 42" screen with extremely high res. graphics card. The list goes on and on. With so many competing processors, chipsets, and hardware manufacturers, fragmentation issues on Windows is well, a non-issue. It has been done before for many years and it is being tackle now on Android.

The open source nature of Android has helped it evolved quite rapidly. It is only natural to see some older phones not being able to run certain updates (latest and greatest) because of hardware limitation. MacOS has a much bigger issue with some programs that does not run on Leopard. Here we are talking about same hardware manufacturer. I'm not skirting this issue entirely because I admit that it can happen. By the way, has anyone tried running Windows 7 on their Pentium-III PC with 128MB of RAM? Well, you see the picture.

How rapid is Android's progress? Here is a brief snapshot of it - http://androidcompare.com/time-l.html

A know a lot of people who rooted their iPhones. No OS upgrades possible after that. It's a lot worse than Android actually, since Apple doesn't care at all about older versions.

Android is the best at the moment. Fragmentation is not a problem, price is.

I wish nvidia would stop attacking android. Everyone is after it, it's the best thing ever. Android has more apps then nvidia, and is the number one selling phone of all time. You can buy songs and load it right to your android phone with itunes. Google did an amazing job developing itunes eco system for it's android phones.

Nvidia's iphone is junk! MS can try all they want but their HTC phone is not going to go anywhere.

Very good article, but I must disagree with the screen size issue. Google go to great lengths in both the API's and documentation to emphasise screen size independence. For me, the biggest issue is phone manufacturers and networks holding back on updates, google should have mandated some kind of upgrade policy in their agreements with carriers and manufacturers.

Please please stop taking about fragmentation problem, this is a myth as any app developer can tell you, 2 seconds is all it takes to adapt an app for a version of android. People buy a new phone every couple of years anyway so 90 percent of android users will be on 2.1 within a year. Android is a great system,its young and has plenty of time to perfect itself.

My job depends on it :-)
Can I plug www.airplaysdk.com ?

Google should stay away from ARM ecosystem. Too many competitors with rubbish products because of ARM based processors. I hope that Google will embrace Intel Moorestown and going to support Intel ecosystem exclusively, so Intel will help google with its powerful marketing power.

...I'm really sick of people saying other software is better than M$ because M$ is insecure.

It sucks that Android is being targeted, but on the other hand I'd rather hear people say things like 'Ubuntu is great ebcause it's free and easy to use and has pretty good driver support', instead of 'M$ sucks because it gets malware!'

No, the people coding malware are the ones who suck.