In mid 2007, the release of the iPhone catalysed the long overdue transition from desktop to mobile. Mobile quickly became the holy grail resulting in a mobile platform war with iOS leading the charge. Out of all the platforms that fought it out over the next 3 years, all but iOS and Blackberry OS carried the Open Source badge. MeeGo, WebOS, Qtopia, OpenMoko, Android, Bada, Limo and even Symbian OS all tried to capitalize on the many advantages of pre-existing Open Source assets, methodology or brand. Even though iOS is the anti-thesis of Open Source, it is nonetheless based on the BSD kernel.
By 2010, the tablet form factor was introduced to the mobile world with the release of the iPad and two clear victors began to emerge from the battlefield, iOS and Android. Through its use of an Open Source license, closed governance model and strong service offering, Google was able to take a dominant position in this space as OEMs rushed to integrate Android into their latest mobile and tablet offerings. By Q3 2012, 73% of smartphones sold are running Android whilst 14% are iOS based, the tablet market is split halfway between the two and Samsung dethroned Nokia to emerge as new king of the mobile world (thanks Android). The first battle of the war has ended and the winners are reaping the rewards.
Looking back, it is clear that Android was a success because it was adopted by every single OEM out there. The OEMs jumped all over Android because it was free, competitive and most importantly, wasn’t owned or controlled by a competitor. It didn’t bother the OEMs that Google controlled Android and they cheerfully ignored the fact that they became a conduit for Google services, as that doesn’t constitute their core business anyway. They needed Android to fight Apple and Google gave it to them.
Looking forward, what future do Android OEMs have? By using Android, they have consciously forfeit their right to sell their own services. This obviously doesn’t bode well with the operators or for those more ambitious OEMs. On the software and user experience side, as demonstrated by HTC, the closed governance model of Android makes it extremely difficult and expensive to differentiate. So what’s left for the OEMs? Hardware. Unfortunately, with the recent release of the Nexus 10, Google now has a full product offering that competes directly with the OEM’s brands, sells cheaper, has hardware value-add and runs the latest and greatest Android release (which Google gleefully keeps for itself). Ironically, even Amazon, a service company that competes directly with Google, is using Android. But that has been a difficult and treacherous path for them, how long can they keep it up? I bet not long.
For these reason, a new battle in the war of the mobile world is looming in the horizon. New players are already making an entrance; Microsoft is on the attack with Windows 8, its deal with Nokia and the release of its very confused Surface tablet. RIM are soon unveiling their new QNX based BlackBerry platform with talks of potentially offering to license it out to OEMs. Samsung’s first true Tizen product is long overdue. Mozilla are running full steam ahead with FirefoxOS. ChromeOS is starting to mature. Will WebOS make a come back through HP’s new strategy? Will Amazon reveal a new platform, fork Android or keep using it as is? Will new Open Source based platforms be revealed?
I believe there is a demand for a new platform; something neutral, customizable and free. I believe there is a good opportunity ahead for GNOME. Can it finally become a relevant platform in the mobile space? I think now is an interesting time to ask and come up with answers to that question…
s/stream/steam/
All the UI simplifications which have happened in GNOME in the last few years can help it leap to tablets, indeed. But I don’t think that having the same UI for tablets and PCs would lead to a great product in either devices.
IMHO, GNOME needs a QML-like UI language in order to be competitive in all fronts of mobile and PC world. GNOME has all the right pieces of technology to get in all kind of devices, but UI development with bare Gtk/Clutter is just too slow.
There needs to be a clear decision in GNOME to either go desktop/keyboard/mouse or mobile/touchscreen/(keyboard). It can decide to go both ways, but then there will need to be 2 shells and 2 sets of applications.
I think you’re missing that the Operators really pushed for Android too, because it is very customizable for the types of things they care about. You can add your own market, you can add crappy applications for your partners, etc. We should also mention that Android (since 4.1) and iOS (since 1.0) have an important technical ability, their toolkit doesn’t react to input events not from the main thread, but froma dedicated thread.. Which means that the interaction is always smooth. None of the non-Android Open source toolkits do that, and that means that they are not in any way… Read more »
Sure, they can customize, but it’s hard and expensive to keep that up. As long as the services being offered by the operators are marginal, Google will just let it be. But if the operator is a bit ambitious, it becomes a problem…
As for the technical threading issue, yes, I agree 100%. Let’s do that in GNOME shall we?
My understanding about Android’s current design (last time I had an indepth look was around 3.0) is that all the Google integration is 100% optional and not actually embedded into the stock OS. If an OEM wants to strip all the Google stuff and run their own services, Android fully supports that. In my experience though, none of the OEMs seem to have the engineering capacity to be able to build something that can really compete with Google’s offerings. My partner recently got a Galaxy SIII, which is manufactured by Samsung and has a handful of samsung and t-mobile custom… Read more »
“I don’t think OEMs are forfeiting their right to sell their own services by picking Android. They are more than welcome to and the Android API allows for some super tight integration if they chose to do it.”
As long as they are worst than Google’s services and don’t pose a threat to them? :) Don’t mistake Google for a non-profit organization… Technically it might be possible, but in the end Google control Android and won’t let it be used as a tool to hurt their business.
Hey Philippe, This is Sheldon! I’m leaving tomorrow and thought I’d email you. Stumbled upon your site and found it quite interesting. Can’t help but leave comment. Writing in 2014, it looks like the field is left with only iOS and Android. BBRY, WebOS, WindowsPhone, FirefoxPhone hardly made a dent on iOS/Android’s dominance. With the benefit of hindsight, I think it mainly comes down to apps/ecosystem. Consumers care minimal about whether it’s open/closed system, html5/native. Except maybe the most tech-savvy ones. Regular Joe just want their app to work, phone to look good. The moment you put detailed info on… Read more »