Why am I waiting for smartphones on Android One
The other day, Google held a presentation in India of the new Android One platform, which, however, is more correctly called not a platform, but a concept. Therefore, there will be (and already are) devices that correspond to it. In my opinion, the main reason for creating Android One is an attempt to restore order in the segment of entry-level smartphones. Because now a complete mess is going on there, or, I will venture to use this word from the 90s, outrage.
Sundar Pichai talks about the features of Android One
I'll start from afar. Local brands are beginning to play an increasing role in the smartphone market. This is indicated, for example, by a report.Juniper Research analytical office: they say there are Apple and Samsung, which due to their mega-popular flagships so far feel at ease both in terms of market share and money, and there are others that seem to be serious global corporations (Sony, HTC, LG, Acer, ASUS, etc.), which suffer from local brands offering the same thing, but only noticeably cheaper. In practice, however, everything is a little different: local brands offer the same thing - and even better! - according to the specifications “on paper”, but in practice the level of devices is lower than that of Sony or HTC. But the buyer, especially the ignorant buyer, of which the majority, is buying numbers: cores, gigahertz, inches, megapixels, millimeters, and so on. He buys - and then he encounters a number of problems that translate into tons of hatred towards Android in general. And next time he doesn’t buy a brand new budget Android-smartphone, but a two-year-old iPhone. Is Google interested in this development? Clearly, no.
What problems do I mean? Again, not without a foreword. This or that device can have very average hardware, however, if you have well-written firmware, it will be quite comfortable for you to use it. This is evidenced, for example, by the following fact: I was dealing with two devices on MediaTek MT6589, the same amount of RAM and the same screen resolution; on one, Asphalt 8 worked fine at maximum settings, and on the other, even the Android interface was stupid. Because the comrades from the first software company optimized, and the second scored on him. The second option is found in local brands, alas, much more often. Because the release of updates involves a thorough and scrupulous interaction with a Chinese factory that produced the device of a local Russian brand. Meanwhile, bringing it to the market and forgetting about it is much easier, than "sawing" updates for him. Well, by the way, the organization of an over-the-air update (OTA Update) requires a certain surcharge to the Chinese for creating infrastructure - renting servers and so on. If you do not bother with all this, then the purchase price of a smartphone can be reduced and, as a result, earn more. Well, image losses from a buggy brake smartphone - who thinks about this? This is of little concern to Russian (and not only) businessmen. Yes, some are already on the right track and OTA Update adds support - for example, the corresponding option is in all Highscreen models I have seen, but there are a minority of brands with this approach. If you do not bother with all this, then the purchase price of a smartphone can be reduced and, as a result, earn more. Well, image losses from a buggy brake smartphone - who thinks about this? This is of little concern to Russian (and not only) businessmen. Yes, some are already on the right track and OTA Update adds support - for example, the corresponding option is in all Highscreen models I have seen, but there are a minority of brands with this approach. If you do not bother with all this, then the purchase price of a smartphone can be reduced and, as a result, earn more. Well, image losses from a buggy brake smartphone - who thinks about this? This is of little concern to Russian (and not only) businessmen. Yes, some are already on the right track and OTA Update adds support - for example, the corresponding option is in all Highscreen models I have seen, but there are a minority of brands with this approach.
Therefore, 90% of low-cost smartphones remain with the same versions of Android with which they were sold. But this, as they say, is the little things in life: if any serious glitch is detected in such an apparatus (say, the “Camera” application crashes - I came across this), they will not fix it. Because writing an update costs money, which no one wants to spend. So the user will suffer with this glitch for a year or more until he gets bored. And he will not replace his budget Android-background with ... well, at least with the same used iPhone.
Against this background, Android One offers marvelous prospects: devices of local brands (so far only Indian brands that, like Russian, buy devices in China) will be updated directly from Google. At the same time, of course, chipset manufacturers will take an active part in the process - at first it was only MediaTek, and then Qualcomm. In fact, devices on Android One are such cheap "Nexus" from not too well-known companies. "Nexus" - with all that it implies, such as mandatory updates for a couple of years and the immediate receipt of updates with fresh versions of the OS.
I don’t know how and when Google will bring the Android One concept to the Russian market. But I want to believe that this will happen in the foreseeable future, and domestic brands in total will begin to demonstrate a higher level of stability of their devices than today. The most advanced local brands have already figured out the design - it’s better than it was a year ago, they almost learned to take pictures with such smartphones too, Gorilla Glass, oleophobic coatings and Sharp / LG / Samsung screens are already found in them. It remains a matter of software, with which, it turns out, everything is much more complicated than with iron. Well, perhaps the doctor did come, and his name is Android One. The main thing is that this doctor quickly "catapult" to Russia.
Sundar Pichai talks about the features of Android One
I'll start from afar. Local brands are beginning to play an increasing role in the smartphone market. This is indicated, for example, by a report.Juniper Research analytical office: they say there are Apple and Samsung, which due to their mega-popular flagships so far feel at ease both in terms of market share and money, and there are others that seem to be serious global corporations (Sony, HTC, LG, Acer, ASUS, etc.), which suffer from local brands offering the same thing, but only noticeably cheaper. In practice, however, everything is a little different: local brands offer the same thing - and even better! - according to the specifications “on paper”, but in practice the level of devices is lower than that of Sony or HTC. But the buyer, especially the ignorant buyer, of which the majority, is buying numbers: cores, gigahertz, inches, megapixels, millimeters, and so on. He buys - and then he encounters a number of problems that translate into tons of hatred towards Android in general. And next time he doesn’t buy a brand new budget Android-smartphone, but a two-year-old iPhone. Is Google interested in this development? Clearly, no.
What problems do I mean? Again, not without a foreword. This or that device can have very average hardware, however, if you have well-written firmware, it will be quite comfortable for you to use it. This is evidenced, for example, by the following fact: I was dealing with two devices on MediaTek MT6589, the same amount of RAM and the same screen resolution; on one, Asphalt 8 worked fine at maximum settings, and on the other, even the Android interface was stupid. Because the comrades from the first software company optimized, and the second scored on him. The second option is found in local brands, alas, much more often. Because the release of updates involves a thorough and scrupulous interaction with a Chinese factory that produced the device of a local Russian brand. Meanwhile, bringing it to the market and forgetting about it is much easier, than "sawing" updates for him. Well, by the way, the organization of an over-the-air update (OTA Update) requires a certain surcharge to the Chinese for creating infrastructure - renting servers and so on. If you do not bother with all this, then the purchase price of a smartphone can be reduced and, as a result, earn more. Well, image losses from a buggy brake smartphone - who thinks about this? This is of little concern to Russian (and not only) businessmen. Yes, some are already on the right track and OTA Update adds support - for example, the corresponding option is in all Highscreen models I have seen, but there are a minority of brands with this approach. If you do not bother with all this, then the purchase price of a smartphone can be reduced and, as a result, earn more. Well, image losses from a buggy brake smartphone - who thinks about this? This is of little concern to Russian (and not only) businessmen. Yes, some are already on the right track and OTA Update adds support - for example, the corresponding option is in all Highscreen models I have seen, but there are a minority of brands with this approach. If you do not bother with all this, then the purchase price of a smartphone can be reduced and, as a result, earn more. Well, image losses from a buggy brake smartphone - who thinks about this? This is of little concern to Russian (and not only) businessmen. Yes, some are already on the right track and OTA Update adds support - for example, the corresponding option is in all Highscreen models I have seen, but there are a minority of brands with this approach.
Therefore, 90% of low-cost smartphones remain with the same versions of Android with which they were sold. But this, as they say, is the little things in life: if any serious glitch is detected in such an apparatus (say, the “Camera” application crashes - I came across this), they will not fix it. Because writing an update costs money, which no one wants to spend. So the user will suffer with this glitch for a year or more until he gets bored. And he will not replace his budget Android-background with ... well, at least with the same used iPhone.
Against this background, Android One offers marvelous prospects: devices of local brands (so far only Indian brands that, like Russian, buy devices in China) will be updated directly from Google. At the same time, of course, chipset manufacturers will take an active part in the process - at first it was only MediaTek, and then Qualcomm. In fact, devices on Android One are such cheap "Nexus" from not too well-known companies. "Nexus" - with all that it implies, such as mandatory updates for a couple of years and the immediate receipt of updates with fresh versions of the OS.
I don’t know how and when Google will bring the Android One concept to the Russian market. But I want to believe that this will happen in the foreseeable future, and domestic brands in total will begin to demonstrate a higher level of stability of their devices than today. The most advanced local brands have already figured out the design - it’s better than it was a year ago, they almost learned to take pictures with such smartphones too, Gorilla Glass, oleophobic coatings and Sharp / LG / Samsung screens are already found in them. It remains a matter of software, with which, it turns out, everything is much more complicated than with iron. Well, perhaps the doctor did come, and his name is Android One. The main thing is that this doctor quickly "catapult" to Russia.