Android going through tough times?

Posted by brittonberkan on March 15, 2013 09:17 am 42

As someone who's been a huge android fan from day one, i can't help but feel that android is going through tough times at the moment.

1. The newly introduced hardware isn't overwhelming so far, nothing i could wholeheartedly recommend to anyone. That's a shame, because it really wouldn't be so hard to make a great device IMO. Why not just leave the spec race aside (Seriously, hardly anyone needs full HD on his phone, but almost everyone would like his phone to fit in his pocket) and make a good-looking phone with high-quality materials that fits well in an average hand.
2. The Operating System, let's face it, is still stuttery even after Project Butter (it's acceptable on the Nexus 4, annoying on the N7). Is there really no way to fix this?! By now, every other OS is smoother than android. If they could fix that, there wouldn't be a lot to hate left in android.
3. Apps for tablets and apps for smartphones are mostly inferior to their iOS counterparts, although this is getting better. Even Google's own android apps somehow look&perform worse than their iOS counterparts (on the iPhone 5, on the iPhone 4 Gmail is pretty slow)
4. Accessories for android phones are hard to get, mainly cause no phone is selling quite as many units as the iPhone.

There's still a lot to love about android and I'm not planning on jumping to a different System, but so far it's not been the year for android IMO.
I guess Google could solve all these problems by releasing a perfect lag-free Android 5.0 together with a brilliantly designed Motorola XPhone (and accessories) at a competitive price, and i hope they go for just that, even if they alienate other hardware partners...