#open os

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Ford is really at something new this time. With the ever increasing popularity and creativity of social networking, automakers are starting to get on board. This opens many new doors for consumers, automakers, advertisers, social media outlets, and hackers alike. Let's hope Ford stays true to its open source concept and let's the car/computer enthusiasts express their creativity too.

After touting the advantages of their Android operating system and its’ open architecture, Google is finally starting to see the darker side of open systems. The mere fact that Android is open means that anyone can implement it in any manner. This can get very frustrating to the consumer (and the manufacturers when you take it away). Most consumers don’t have the time to figure out what hardware spec they need nor do they want to have to. They believe that if they go and pick up a pre-paid android phone from the local grocery store that it should run all the same apps and have the same experience as the HTC Thunderbolt (or whatever is top of the line by the time I finish writing this). Google is starting to see that users are getting frustrated by the fact that buying an Android phone does not guarantee the same experience across all Android devices. Recently, Google completely closed the Android Honeycomb Tablet OS and is now starting to put restrictions on phone manufacturers. This is in addition to an "anti-fragmentation tool" they released about a month ago. I talked about this in a previous entry because it is painfully obvious to developers like us that have lived through a decade of mobile development that if you don’t set limits you can’t guarantee a consistent experience for your users. And for that, your users will leave for something more reliable. Hopefully, Google is learning from the fragmentation mistakes of others. Microsoft, Nokia, we're looking in your direction.