Android running on a Nexus one smartphone. Photo: Robert Galbraith/ReutersMy latest revision of Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1 Android tablet awakened an unfortunate and inevitable round of OS advocacy and such, with the Apple and both Android lovers baying like wounded members of persecuted religious minorities, arguing about which OS is most worthy of our love and affection.
For me no love or affection caused by an operating system or a gadget.
I am enough of an old technology hand to know that any love we of harbour for our gadgets are unrequited and tragic in General – not least because you are not intended to have a long-term love affair with your gizmos, as they will be semi-obsolete in a year or two.
Don't get me wrong. I know that some devices, apps and systems can work well – they can make it easier to do something that was hard, or impossible to do something that was impossible. That is why we all use this stuff. But I think how well a system works is only half the picture: the other half is how badly it fails.
Because technology will fail all the time. Network-based, general-purpose computing units have so many different failure modes that can hardly be counted. Your phone or tablet may have problems performing something as abstract as poor maximum transfer unit sizes in its network connection or as concrete fell and trodden on by your toddler.
A program that runs flawless one day can be derailed by another program, or an OS update or a mysterious configuration problem – hence the old "Rename folder preferences and restart" diagnostic procedure.
The General technology is split; There are not so different from other complex systems, as well as technology's users. You may have lost a pre-beach vacation service thanks to diet and exercise, only to get a spot on your cheek, bad traffic on the road to the airport, a number with your spouse, and a jammed limit from your suitcase handle. People who can soldier and remain happy and functional over adversity is said to be "robust", which means that they are not good.
It is not good, will be the world's happiest, best-adjusted, best person if you fall to pieces minutes you will get a paper clip. And this goes double Interpersonal systems: any pair can be satisfied when all goes right, but no marriage can survive unless both of its participants are capable of soldiering, when things go pear-shaped.
I use not Android tablets and phones because I hate Apple; I certainly do not use them because I love Google. And I do not prefer Android to iOS, because it works better than Apple — in some aspects, it allows, in some aspects, it is not.
I use Android because don't trust Google. Sure, I trust and like to individual Googlers and admire many of the things the company has managed – but I just don't believe that Google's management makes its decisions in order to make me happy, fulfilled and free.
I think there are good days when Google's management may think, to help me achieve these ends would make more money, but if it were to believe that make me miserable would enrich shareholders without alienating too many of its key personnel and partners, my happiness would cease to issue at least.
Why use so Android? Since it requires less confidence in Google than using iOS requires you to trust Apple. iOS has one official repository, and it is illegal in most places to buy and install apps except through this store. If you and Apple differs on what apps you need, you need to break the law to iPhone or your iPad to run the app, Apple, rejected.
Jailbroken iOS devices has sometimes been addressed by Apple security updates, to make them inoperable, and jailbreakers have a reputation for not keeping their devices updated.
On the other hand, allows you to run Android apps from any store you choose. Google still rejects lots of apps submitted to its inventory, but if you don't like Google's choice, you can decide to do some of your own.
There is no good.
Several of iOS internal work is secret than their corresponding work places in the Android world. Apple's operating system is running multiple DRM processes that are designed to allow code to run as treats you as opposed to unreliable and refuses to accept your commands. Apple has not least, to run all these processes, designed to stop you from choosing to use an app, Apple not blessed (and collected 30% Commission on).
I prefer Android because it's relative openness means more people can and inspect its places of work to ensure it does what Google claims it makes. I prefer Android, because when Google decides to omit a feature, users might want – such as tethering – people that make alternative operating systems to the platform stick this function in and shame Google in adding it in subsequent versions.
My mobile phone can track where I go. It can detect my voice and image, and the voices and images of those around me. It can trickle e-mail, voicemail, texts and passwords. In time, since I have received a mobile phone, has yearly passes meant that I rely on my phone for several things, and I don't expect it to change.
Android and iOS fails both of their users in the coming years. Not much, but often enough, or dramatic enough that it's worth ensuring that error, as minimal as possible.
I would like an official Android version without DRM, with complete source code, and generally greater transparency in the device and its ecosystem. I like to alternate Android OS, CyanogenMod, because it has many of these things. Functionally, a CyanogenMod Android phone and a stock Android Phone work much the same way, but the CyanogenMod phones fail better.
Our relationship with technology is this: we have trapped us in cockpits for supersonic aircraft which is being constantly redesigned as they continue around the planet, dangerously close to everyone else's supersonic jet. It is good to be aware of how fast our jets going, and how comfortable upholstery is, but what we really need to keep the eyes are what happens when the crack, when their navigation systems go wrong, and when they get a bad upgrade.
When you are moving is quick, with so much at stake, the lack of much more important than success.
No comments:
Post a Comment