At first glance the way Google was paving for its operating system was quite simple and logical. More features at every new upgrade, more fun and joy for users, smartphones becoming more and more powerful, more and more new smartphones coming from different mobile companies, some of them reaching the top ranks of the gadget category, the market share growing, the profits rising and Apple beginning to feel concerned with the success of the former market underdog.
But that pleasurable picture was already hazardously endangered by some quite thoroughly hidden issues. The problem was publicly disclosed by the companyӳ management this spring but lots of analysts had warned about it even prior. The thing is that the Android platform was and is used by gadget manufacturers not entirely in the way it has been designed for some marketing and advertising reasons. Smartphone manufacturers are determined to lure customers and in order to reach that objective create their own User Interface layers which are designed specifically to make their phones look different from their competitors. The idea is quite reasonable as otherwise most Android smartphones would look like total clones though even now they are quite similar in some aspects. But the taken decision poses quite a difficulty for the system upgrade when a new Android version is released. Third-party layers usually need some time to fit into the new upgrade and it takes a good deal of time before users get the upgraded Android OS.
All that fosters the situation when at the market there are 4 different Android OS versions and their market share is quite significant. So the system is really endangered by the fragmentation issue which is even more challenging as supposedly Honeycomb will not allow the upgrade for versions prior to Froyo.
In addition, Googleӳ representatives stated that the current version of the OS is not suitable for tablets although a range of tablet computers has been delivered to the market, including products from such manufacturers as Samsung, Toshiba, Cisco, Dell and Motorola. Itӳ quite funny but the announcement appeared only after the tablets from Samsung and Toshiba had been presented at the show in Berlin. Maybe applying such a cunning strategy Google is preparing for the release of its own tablet, which should not follow the destiny of the notorious Google phone overshadowed by more successful gadgets from third-party manufacturers like HTC and Motorola.