Despite its No 1 status, Google’s Android is facing an unusual threat of fragmentation.
Unlike other OSes, Android has many versions and has handsets in various price categories with different specifications. Though the Android Market has many apps but not all of them can be operated on all the Android devices owing to their hardware and software capabilities.

There are numerous single core devices on which many games just won’t run. Many games don’t even appear in Android Market App in the Android phones, though they do show up in the web based Android Market. This is fragmentation in full force when developers are creating products for certain processors or specific phones only.

There are clear guidelines given by the Android authorities to the app developers on how they can scale the same app to different screen sizes and Pixel densities. Many developers do not pay attention to these guidelines, mostly because it may increase the cost of making of the apps. As a result, some apps even crash on unfamiliar screen types and sizes and others don’t look good.

Talking about the different Android versions, there are several apps in the Android Market which work on certain Android versions only. So the other users with other handsets may be left in the lurch for those apps incompatible with their Android operating system version. The situation becomes even worse if one user has a tablet and the other one has smartphone, as there are numerous tablet specific apps in the Android Market due to rush among the developers to come out with tablet specific apps, they skipped the smartphone apps altogether.

Even when Google brings out new user features for new Android versions, for example faster code compiler and native tethering for Froyo, the users having other Android versions missed out on the fun. Same thing happened when global audio equalizers and efficient memory management came for Gingerbread, but other users could not get these features.

Android operating system, despite its success, has been in the limelight in recent times for numerous bugs it has. Below are few lesser known but interesting bugs that were present in the Android operating system.

The Google Nexus One Touchscreen bug

The Google Nexus One arrived in the market in early 2010 and quickly wowed the users with its AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic light emitting diode) screen but after some time some users realised the touchscreen was not behaving the way it should have been.

One developer came out with a touchscreen application which visually showed the way the touchscreen was behaving. The problem was, when two points were touched and the users crossed the axis or the touched points were too close for comfort, the X and Y axes get flipped.

The basic problem was the quality of touch sensor used in the Google Nexus One. Whenever users moved their fingers on the screen, the touched points were registered by the device in different places other than the point of contact.

The next versions of the phones were launched with better touch sensors, but Google Nexus One still suffers from the same problem.

The Motorola Droid Camera bug

Motorola Droid was launched in 2009 with Android 2.0. At that time, the phone captured the attention of the users but some things were going wrong at the time of launch. The cameras of the Motorola Droid just didn’t focus. Some felt it was the plastic film over the camera lens which was responsible for the problem and that once the film was removed the problem would be fixed.

Others believed just a good cleaning of the glass would solve the problem while many other users were of the opinion it was a hardware problem.

None of them were right. Suddenly the cameras started working fine, and it turned out that the problem was due to a bug which was date dependent. The bug refreshed itself every 24.5 days, so some days the camera worked and some days it didn’t. Just when the camera was about to go back in to the poor focus mode, Google brought an update to fix the problem.

The rogue SMS bug

When the Froyo update arrived in Android, there were numerous improvements in the platform including the Messaging app.

However, it was later found that the messaging App used to send messages to wrong users even while the phones indicated that the message went to the right person.

However, very few users were affected by this bug. The fix for the problem arrived with the Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Those users who didn’t have the Google’s Nexus devices had to wait for quite some time to get their updates.

It’s not just the telecom operators who are seeing a slowdown in new subscriber additions which has dropped from close to 15 million a month to below 5 million, even the mobile brands are seeing a drop in the first time buyers.

To tackle this challenge most Indian and Chinese vendors are focusing on the replacement market by launching costlier but feature rich phones. The first one to announce this shift was Spice Mobile.

BK Modi, chairman of Spice Mobile said, “We are looking at increasing our average selling price of Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,600. We see a rise in the demand for internet enabled phone, which is in line with the fact that most Indian’s will experience internet first on the mobile rather than on PC”.

Another brand to formally accept the change in the strategy is the Chinese brand G’Five, which according to IDC is the second largest brand in the Indian market according to number of handsets sold.

Arshit Pathak, managing director, Kingtech Electronics, a group Company of G’Five International, said ” We will now also focus on mid end segment to tap the growth in replacement market, we will be launching several new phones in this category in the next couple of months. And since the buyer awareness level is higher in this category will also try to be more visible”.

He adds, “The first time buyer connects well with the retailer and it is the retailers’ recommendation that works for them. However, second time buyers are more aware and they rely on media for their research and therefore we will be more visible in the media now”.

Micromax, which is one of the best known Indian brands, is also following a similar strategy. In fact, they are going a step beyond that by launching higher end Android phones like the A85, which they believe will appear to the higher end of the second time buyers who are looking for better but value for money products.

However, not everyone is shifting gears that fast or at least they are not willing to abandon the first time buyers. Even G’Five said very categorically, “We are focusing on the mid segment does not mean we are abandoning the basic segment, we will continue to bring products in Rs 1000 plus range. We believe there is still a market for these phones on the rural belts”.

Shashin Devsare, executive director, Karbonn Mobiles said, “There will be no impact of the slowdown on our sales and product mix”. Though even Karbonn has entered the race of Android phones, they still feel comfortable in the basic phones market as well.

Some in the industry feel that it is a natural progression of the brands – something that has happened in all the industries including automotive. Volkswagen for instance, started with ‘peoples car’ Beetel but now both Beetel (a low cost to begin with a premium now) and Volkswagen are premium brands.

And there will be newer unknown brands that will fill the space that the well established players will vacate when they move up the value ladder.

On this BK Modi says, “Our products will be much cheaper than the MNC brands similar products. So we will still be price conscious, however in a different segment.”
This is something that is common across all the Indian and Chinese brands. For example entry level Android phones from these brands are priced close to Rs 7,000, which have similar specifications as the phones of MNC brands that are priced close to Rs 10,000.

What is of greater interest to the consumer is the fact that this brings to them products with features that were earlier out of their reach.

Also important is the fact that these brands are also entering the tablet space in pursuit of higher margin products bring the price of tablets down, and making internet access affordable as well as enjoyable (due to bigger size of the screen) for the consumer.

However, all this means that the prices of handsets are increasing both because of this shift and due to falling value of Rupee.

The recently launched Motorola will have open bootloader, which will allow users to easily root the device and thereby have full control over the phone.

But what is a bootloader? It is basically a code that is executed before any Operating System starts to run. And having access to it means that you can modify the phone as much as you want.

In a response to technobuffalo Motorola responded “The software version featured on DROID RAZR/ MOTOROLA RAZR was built with an unlockable/ relockable bootloader included. However, whether that feature is enabled is dependent on carrier and operator partner restrictions, as well as our commitment to meet security, safety, and regulatory requirements worldwide.”

Now this means that while in USA and Europe the phone might have locked bootloader as per operator preference, but since in India, operators mostly have no say in devices, it will have the bootloader open.

Which means that techies in India will have a field day modifying their device as per their wish and creativity.