SOLDIERX.COM Nobody Can Stop Information Insemination

Disclaimer: Like always, the following are the views and opinions of Amp intentionally tuned up to 11 for entertainment purposes. These articles do not truly reflect the views of other members of SX, but does fall under this site's user agreement.

I have recently stated my issues with cell phones, but after getting the opportunity to see current smart-phones in action I have seen how useful they CAN be. However, the fact of the matter is that there are some major issues with smart-phones and in particular the current setup. In particular, most of what I have seen is that these days it is a two horse race between Android and iOS with other solutions really not picking up much steam in comparison. In the case of Android, there are some serious issues with the the platform that are senseless by nature.

First off, why the hell is there so much fragmentation with the user-base? I understand if some of the phones aren't powerful enough to handle the update, but the fact that there are a decent amount of phones that aren't getting an official upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich that are fast enough to handle it raises a red flag. In addition, this fragmentation makes life miserable for developers. Wanna make your program in pure C++ for Android, you can now if you have Gingerbread or newer. Oh wait, many phones DON'T have that so the potential user-base is thinned. This issue is completely and totally unnecessary.

Then there is the matter of how programs are ran. Android uses Dalvik to handle many of the processes as most development is done with Java. This is nice and all, but Dalvik has some major performance issues. One of the best examples of this was the XobotOS project which ported Java code in Android to C# as current tests indicate that this actually had a notable performance increase. A bigger kick in the nuts that I've seen is that many applications on both Android and iOS usually perform BETTER on iOS devices that aren't anywhere near as powerful. While I do hope this puts a fire under the asses of those who develop Android, I'm not holding my breath.

Last, but not least, there is the matter of security. I've heard about the security horror stories and I've seen that Android's security is inferior to iOS by leaps and bounds. What is more disturbing though is that it seems like Android's developers don't give a shit about it. Then there is the overwhelming possibility of infinity day security issues with older Android versions that will most likely never get fixed and that to me just is straight bullshit. As a result, people who want some level of security on their phones will have to root it immediately which shouldn't be the case.

Android has the potential to be good, but the reality is that there is a ton of shit they need to fix. The issues of fragmentation, program execution, and security undermine what could be a good open platform. For that matter, this undermining is at the point where I can't help but feel that Android may have to be drastically redesigned to deal with these issues. This possibility is one that shows me that the developers of Android need to get their head out of their ass.

Note: I did say that I was going to end this series of posts, but the final set are taking a bit longer for me to write due to the content that they cover and this (along with a few other upcoming blasts posts) were inspired by what I've seen from US "mobile" stores. I know that the next blasts will probably cause some heat, but it is my hope that once it is read people will understand what I am talking about and will also remember that this series is intended to parody the "nerd-rage" concept to some extent.