[snowmanwithahat]

Originally Posted by slaWter

Google is actually pretty fast, maybe too fast. The problem (delayed OS updates) has more to do with the manufacturers. Most are/were mainly hardware companies so they don't have a good experience of what it means to take care of your customers in a software way. They still think that a super highly clocked multi-core CPU or a big ass screen matters more than proper and timely software updates and enhancements and long term customer bindings (if that's the right word )...

This is where I see the problems caused by fragmentation:
-For end users: really long delays for OS updates, if they're coming at.
-For manufacturers: lots of different OS versions to support (security updates, front end customization,...) during a product life cycle. And the amount of different devices doesn't make it easier (hardware fragmentation).
-For developers: lots of different SDKs for different target platforms, limitations of older (but still widely used) OS/SDKs, a lot of different screen sizes and hardware configurations. It simply requires more time to get an app (or an iOS port) running on Android because of this. And in the end, the Android Market doesn't really accept paid apps that well. Most customers think/expect that software is free.

Have you ever developed for iOS and Android? It's like night and day, even for simple apps.
Android provides a good but clumsy way of developing relative layouts. That's why most "normal" apps scale very nicely on all those different screens. However, once you start using more graphical UI elements or even full screen images, things get complicated/annoying quickly. It's not impossible to do it but it requires a lot more effort than for iOS.

This is not meant as an Android hater post. It's just my opinion and based on my experience.
I know you like the openness of Android but exactly that can also cause major headaches for the involved parties




No doubt. I'm not saying they're only the victims here. They responsible as well by producing so many different devices and custom front-ends.

But Google is also partially responsible by making the OS so open and hammering out the major releases so quickly. By the time most devices will finally get Android 4, the next version will be out already

Agreed, coming from a software related field I can tell you that Google moves "too fast" for any of the handset manufacturers to keep up with the updates. The industry in general has a hard time keeping up with Google's pace and innovation. This whole update schedule argument between apple vs android is dumb, so it really should just be dropped. It's an apples to oranges thing.

As far as the OP, it's a very cool feature. I'm looking forward to what it can bring. It really does come down to it being an android feature though because the ability exists and freedom exists within the OS to allow control of inputs and displays like that. It's not a feature in iOS because Apple hasn't made given companies (like canonical) the appropriate opportunities.

I'm excited to see where this goes. It should make the windows 8 tablet vs android market a real fiasco if you give full desktop abilities to both tablets when docked in the proper environment.