The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 will be coming to Rogers soon, along with a number of new Android handsets (we’ve discussed it before) and Android fans have been hammering Sony Ericsson (SE) for their decision to release a phone with Android 1.6 and no guarantee of an update to 2.0 or 2.1 on the Rogers network.
Yesterday, official SE blogger Sumit Malhotra (possibly also the SE Twitterer? not sure) posted a lengthy “rebuttal” of sorts to all of the criticism and questions leveled at the X10 on the “inter-webs”. He is very polite throughout, and does his best to offer us some reassurance, the problem is that his post drips of marketing and PR drivel, and simply demonstrates yet again that the manufacturers (and carriers) are stuck in a very old cell-phone mind set, and that they simply don’t understand Android or Android users.
Specifically the biggest criticism made about the X10 is that despite its powerful hardware, it will be “crippled” upon its release because of literally out-of-date software. When the X10 debuts on Rogers’ network, it will be sporting Android 1.6. Now, you may be wondering why I’m complaining about that, given that the name of this blog is “I Want My One Point Six” (it was catchy, and I don’t really want to pay for another domain name now. 
)? The problem is, Android is already up to 2.1!
The day the X10 launches with Android 1.6, it will be competing against the Motorola Milestone (Android 2.0) on Telus, not to mention the Acer Liquid E (Android 2.1) on Rogers network itself! Oh, and don’t forget that even my HTC Magic will be getting 2.1 (provided Rogers and HTC keep their promise). We asked the question before, which would you rather have, slightly better hardware, or the latest OS? This highlights the misunderstanding amongst the manufacturers and carriers about what Android is, and what users want from an Android “experience”.
IT’S ABOUT THE APPS, STUPID!
ATTENTION MANUFACTURERS AND CARRIERS: You obviously haven’t got this message yet… Android phones are, in fact, Mini-Computers. I know that may be hard for you to wrap your pretty heads around, you’re so used to “dumb” phones that don’t do much other than make calls, send text messages, and maybe take photos at 1.5 MP, and render some web pages poorly on tiny screens. I have an HTC Magic, and I occasionally use it to make phone calls. Mostly I use it as a replacement for my PDA, and for productivity when pulling put my lap top would be difficult. I use it for email, I use it to text, but I also use it to take notes, make to-do lists, check my calendar, play games (wish we had games like they have on the iPhone!), listen to music, watch videos on YouTube, and even create WORD, EXCEL, and POWERPOINT documents with the awesome Documents To Go from DataViz (no, they did NOT pay me to say that).
Here’s something else Manufacturers don’t seem to “get”; when new versions of the Android OS are released, the “Devs” (those are people who make “apps” for our phones) use the newest APIs (thats what lets them make apps that “work” with Android) to make their apps. Newer OS and newer API means access to new functions, new powers, new awesome. There are already hundreds apps (or more possibly) that require Android 1.6 and up, Android 2.0 and up, and Android 2.1 and up. It’s hard to be sure because if you don’t have the version necessary to run an app, you can’t see it in the Market Place, and as far as I know, no one yet has created a database of which apps work only with specific versions.
This problem of “App version” is compounded by the fact that when devs create newer versions of existing apps, they often remove the old version from the market place. I’ve asked Devs about this. Many of them were surprised to hear that Canadians were still stuck on 1.5! They also told me that keeping older versions of the app in the market is problematic because it can be difficult to support older versions on top of newer versions when they can’t make a newer version “backwards compatible”. The potential outcome is obvious; if Devs remove older versions from the market, and we don’t get the OS updates, we will have even fewer apps available to us in the market place! Add to that the fact that we don’t yet have paid apps (Hey, Google, where’s that “announcement” you promised was coming this week?!) and there is little incentive for people to choose Android over the iPhone.
SO, WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH “BRANDING”
If our fight with Rogers and HTC has taught us anything it’s that “carrier-branded” and “Custom UI” phones are BAD!!!! (Oh yeah, and buying a phone on contract sucks too). Where the HTC Magic and Dream were concerned, Rogers had HTC customized the OS to include Rogers branding, Rogers icons, Exchange mail support, and some other stuff they wouldn’t tell us, but insisted “made it work on the network”. Apparently they had no intention of updating us beyond Android 1.5 (HTC even tried to tell us that 1.5 is an Awesome User Experience! Maybe it will even cure cancer and end war?!) until we pushed and pushed as hard as possible. In the end, Rogers “convinced” them to give us 2.1 for the Magic, and… nothing, for the Dream. True, Dream owners were offered free Magics, so, there’s that.
Meanwhile in the US of A, proud owners of the HTC G1 (Dream) and the MyTouch (Magic) were merrily receiving new OS updates to 1.6 and beyond OTA (Over the Air) as if they were much much better than we. When asked about this, Rogers kept parroting that they couldn’t comment on the phones of other carriers, and HTC kept spewing the drivel that the G1 and the MyTouch are “Google-Experience” phones, and thus they’re not the same. They are apparently “special”.
It comes down to this… the Rogers-Branded phones had customized versions of the OS. HTC had to do extra work to spit them out. Obviously doing extra work costs money and time. Rogers and HTC refused to answer our questions about money. We asked repeatedly if Rogers had to pay for customization or future updates, but it stands to reason that if producing the Rogers-branded updates was easy and or free to do, they would have provided them. The Google-Experience phones apparently don’t require that extra customization, so, as HTC likes to tell it, the updates come right from Google over the magic air waves.
Now comes the SE Xperia X10 with its Android 1.6, and its UXP UI (Thanks to Cooldavee for the correction). A UI is a “User Interface”. The thing about the Android OS is that it can be customized. That has proven to be both a boon and a curse. For those that don’t really know what a UI is, it’s the fancy interface that is put over Android to make it look different from other Android phones, to make its functions look slick and cool, and to generally give it some shine. When you see the fancy videos on the manufactures web sites of their Android phones in action, if they are using a custom UI you will see it in the way they handle the address book, or email, or music. They try to “pretty it up”. The HTC Hero (and now the Magic) have the HTC “Sense UI”, while the X10 has the UXP UI. It looks nice… the problem is, if an Android phone has a custom UI, it means that the Android OS was customized!
Now we’re back in HTC-update-land. If the OS has been customized with a unique UI, it means that every time a new version of Android is released, it too must be customized with the fancy-shmancy UI. This takes an investment of time and money on the part of the manufacturer, and assumes that their fancy-shmancy UI will even work with the new version of the OS! These fancy UI’s can cause the system to slow down, malfunction, or even crash (as we’ve seen with the HTC Magic after it got Sense UI). If you have a phone with a custom UI, that has also been customized for the carrier… look out! Double-whammy!
In a nut shell, the X10 has a custom UI, which means any future updates will require SE to make their UI work with the new OS before releasing it. SE has been rather cagey about this. They’ve told us repeatedly (and Rogers parrots it) that the X10’s UI has the ability to “evolve” to 2.0, but they won’t actually confirm if it will be updated to 2.0, or even if Rogers customers will get it if/when it does “evolve”. They’ve also said that 2.1 is “beyond” them at the moment.
This is where we come back to Malhotra’s blog post. He kindly tells us just how awesome the X10’s UI is, and why he loves it, and why we should love it. He says,
Interestingly enough the focus on OS version changes over course of a minute or so. Demonstrating the generic Android capabilities with our graphical enhancements is a starting point. The home screen, the immediate responsiveness of the big capacitive screen, the true multitasking that Android allows, the easy and rich access to Google services like maps and android market. All that is there and for me that is the base functionality, which I really appreciate and use on a day to day basis.
Then I introduce the signature applications; Sony Ericsson TimescapeTM and Mediascape and the focus of the discussion shifts from talking about this layer on top of Android, that I refer to as the Sony Ericsson User Experience platform. I now find myself discussing the total experience rather the OS version in isolation with a great appreciation about what we are bringing to the table. Then the interest of the User Experience platform future roadmap gets to be the talking point instead. What I hope to get across to you all, is that there will be a software update for Xperia X10 that will upgrade the complete Sony Ericsson User Experience Platform based on newer version of the Android OS.
In other words, people ask him about the OS version, and he says to them “Yeah, but look at this… see? Shiny!” SE doesn’t get it. They came up with something that looks cool, but if it can’t do what we want it to do, namely, run the latest, greatest apps, then shiny is dumb. Just because you can fool people with the “awesome UI” into forgetting their questions about the OS version doesn’t mean you have a great product, it just means that a few months down the road many of those customers will be cursing you when they can’t get the latest features Google has released for Android.
Then he says,
I have probably painted a positive picture, but I am sharing the discussions I have had and my take outs from them. I am not trying to hide from the fact that there are platform upgrades between android 1.6 and 2.1, if utilized can enhance the experience for developers and users. Having that said, I have had discussions with carriers that are very sensitive and concerned generally about taking on devices in their range that are not competetive [sic] enough. I have faced head to head comparisons between Xperia X10 and generic 2.1 Android devices (as well as other OS) and carriers have concluded that we still stand strong in comparison. This because of the layer that we ad on top of the generic OS.
Let me translate for you… what he’s really saying is, “OMFG I LOVE WORKING FOR SONY ERICSSON AND THIS PHONE LOOKS PRETTY!” He acknowledges the fact that there are OS upgrades, and that carriers are obviously feeling the pressure to have those updates, but apparently SE has used a Jedi mind trick to convince the carriers that they can also disregard any concern over Android OS upgrades because the X10 is pretty!!!
Near the end he says,
I will not be able to fully understand a developers take on this discussion (and we do have a dedicated community for that), but I would be very interested to hear you feedback. Reading the posts, it ranges from time to market, concerns about whether the product is “future proof” etc, but what are your biggest concerns when it comes to usage? What benefits from the 2.1 release are you most interested in?
You can’t understand? Then why are we talking to you? Why are you talking to us? Why don’t you hire one or two Devs and ASK THEM!!!! What benefits from the 2.1 release interest us? How about ALL OF THEM! Do you get it yet? If there weren’t new benefits to an updated OS, Google wouldn’t release an update. We want everything 2.1 can do, and we want to be able to use the apps that require 2.1. I’ll say it again… these aren’t phones, they are mini-computers!
Malhotra does say that “an update is coming” but not what that update is, or when it’s coming, or even to whom it’s coming. Unless something has changed since my Twitter conversation with SE, the “update” will likely be to 2.0, but not 2.1. Also, given what we experienced with Rogers and HTC, if the X10 is also a “Rogers-Branded” phone on top of having a custom UI, we might not get the update here in Canada, unless Rogers and SE have an agreement to give us that update with any Rogers customizations.
A NOTE TO CARRIERS… ROGERS, ARE YOU LISTENING?
If carriers want to sell Android phones, and be competitive, they need to realize what these custom UIs and carrier-customizations really mean. They mean limited choice and limited appeal. If you have a manufacturer customize Android for you, you might have to pay more for updates to the phone later, and if you’re not willing to do that, you are going to piss off a lot of customers. There are benefits to having a “Google-Branded” or “Google-Experience” phone, chief among them, that the users will get the updates, and will thank you for not leaving them stranded with an obsolete phone after only a few months.
Carriers think that by customizing the OS with their branding and (non-functional) icons they are serving some greater PR purpose should realize there is a better way…. apps! Do what T-Mobile did, hire a few Devs, and have them create some amazing, official T-Mobile apps! When T-Mobile launched the MyTouch, they had some custom apps created, and pre-loaded, for their users. These apps in some cases are actually pretty awesome. Myself, I am using T-Mobile’s “Fresh Face” to skin my Magic and get extra Home screens. If Rogers did this, they could have those apps preloaded, along with some of their wallpapers, but not need to customize the OS ROM. They still get their PR in, and we get a Google-Experience phone that will get updates.
The Telus Motorola Milestone has the “with Google” logo on the back, not the Telus logo. I played with one in the store, vanilla Android 2.0. We’re still waiting for confirmation, but it would seem that this might mean it is, in fact, a Google-Experience phone, and that, pending approval from Telus (?) users will get the updates Google releases, just like Droid owners in the US (the Droid is the US version of the Milestone). This is, in my humble opinion, an advantage for Telus.
Hey, Rogers, we want our Google-Experience phones! I don’t know about the Acer Liquid E yet, whether or not it will have a custom UI, or be customized by Rogers, but I’d much rather have consistent OS updates than a shiny, flashy UI.
