DARIEN GRAHAM-SMITH Now Google is king of the web, it needs to grow up.
We use Android to bank and share our private thoughts, yet Google’s approach means it’s insecure
You might not have noticed it, but we’ve just passed a pretty big tech milestone. In March, according to web analytics firm StatCounter, Android became the world’s most widely used internet platform, overtaking Windows for the first time.
To be clear, this doesn’t necessarily mean that more people are using Android than Windows. All it tells us is that more websites were accessed from Android devices than Windows. It could even be an anomaly: perhaps a single person spent the month sitting on his smartphone, hitting Refresh thousands of times a second.
Look back through the historical figures, though, and it’s clear which way the wind’s blowing. Android’s share of internet traffic for the same period in 2012 was 2.2%, while Windows accounted for a whopping 82%. Since then, Android has steadily climbed to 37.93%, while Windows has tumbled to 37.91%. That’s one heck of a turnaround in just five years, and there’s no end in sight. If Android isn’t already the biggest OS in the world, it will be soon.
So, well done Google. And yet, I can’t help feeling uneasy about the idea of Android being the world’s number one computing platform. Yes, I’ve always been a defender of Android; I maintain that it’s the best smartphone OS out there. But let’s face it, it’s the best in a field of two – and even then it wins on points, rather than by knockout. To put it bluntly, Android as a platform has always had some glaring shortcomings, and I’m fed up of apologising for them.
The first big problem is the way that Google allows each manufacturer to put its own spin on the user experience. All this does is confuse people. It’s a joke that, in 2017, I can’t confidently give a friend advice on how to use their phone, because I can’t guess what their homescreen will look like, or how the settings will be arranged, or whether their icons will scroll horizontally or vertically.
I blame Linux. Or more specifically, Android’s Linux background. Back in my student days, the huge diversity of Linux distributions and customisation options was held to be a great strength of the platform. My CompSci friends loved it – as, clearly, did the propellerheads who went on to create Android. However, for the rest of us, it was a needless distraction. We simply wanted to write our essays, check our emails and get on with our lives; we settled on simpler Windows or Mac OS systems, and twenty- plus years later, that’s still what we’re using. There’s an obvious inference here, and it should have dawned on Google long ago.
Then there’s the update situation. When Apple rolls out a new version of iOS, it likes to announce that 95% of its users have upgraded in the first week, or whatever. The implied comparison is obvious: according to Google, just 0.4% of active handsets are running the latest version of Android, more than six months after its release. The most prevalent version is Android 6, released in October 2015, but more than 60% of devices are running something even older than that.
It would be nice to think that this reflected user empowerment. After all, not everybody welcomes updates – we regularly hear complaints that new versions of iOS have crippled features and wrecked performance. We can imagine that some Android users might simply have chosen not to upgrade.
Unfortunately, we all know that’s a fantasy. Unless you’re rocking one of Google’s own-brand Pixel handsets, it’s literally impossible to stay up to date, no matter how much you might want to. Your Huawei, LG or Samsung phone won’t get new updates until the manufacturer has plumbed in and tested all of its customisations; that could take a year, or it might never happen at all. After all, why should the manufacturer invest time and effort into enhancing your existing phone? It’s only going to make you less likely to buy a new one in the future.
It’s a frustrating situation for customers – and it’s not just about swanky new features, but security. We’ve already accepted, if grudgingly, that our laptops and desktops need to be patched on a regular basis; and, as StatCounter shows, our online lives are increasingly moving onto our mobiles. So mobile security is not something to take lightly. In my case I use Android for email, shopping and personal banking, which must be pretty much the holy trinity of targets as far as a hacker is concerned. I do get occasional security updates via Samsung, but they’re neither timely nor comprehensive. It’s ridiculous that, in 2017, every consumer platform has a centrally managed update channel – except for the largest one.
Android has been very lucky to do as well as it has. In an alternate reality, Windows 10 might have fought back strongly with its UWP framework, which lets you run the same apps on your desktop and smartphone. Alas, the concept seems to have fallen by the wayside, not because it was a bad idea, but simply because Windows Phone itself ran out of steam. Android has ended up on top more or less by default.
That’s not a position that can be taken for granted. For too long, Android has been a muddled proposition; that won’t do for a supposedly world-beating platform. More than ever, it needs a proper vision, to turn it into a coherent product that actually deserves to be number one. Otherwise – well, I’m probably one of the most pro-Android people I know, but if Google doesn’t buck its ideas up, I’m ready to switch away as soon as an interesting alternative comes along. We’ve seen how quickly an outsider can turn the market upside-down. It could easily happen again.
It’s ridiculous that, in 2017, every consumer platform has a centrally managed update channel – except for the largest one