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Deja Vu All Over Again: Motorola Making Microsoft’s Mistake

Posted by Zealot on October 7, 2009 – 2:32 pm  Share

moto_broken_heart1 I find it very ironic that Motorola, in completely scorning Windows Mobile and embracing Android with their dying breath as a handset maker, is doing the same thing to Android that Microsoft allowed to happen to WinMo. Namely they are ruining any chance for developers to make a single app for the OS, forcing them to make apps on a device by device basis, just as happened to Windows Mobile. Of course this is only one of the problems that Microsoft has had to deal with in their Mobile OS (even Steve Ballmer admits that)…but development chaos is certainly not the smallest.

In Motorola’s recent announcement concerning Ecosystem partners, they made clear that these third party software producers, such as QuickOffice and Quickplay Media aren’t making apps for Android, they are making apps for the Motorola Cliq and it’s MotoBlur environment…and that is a very bad thing for Android as an operating system.

You see, Microsoft let vendors do the same thing way back when…they let them commission applications for the Omnia or the Kaiser or the Diamond Pro or the Treo rather then for ALL Windows Mobile phones. That means that, sure, that one vendor increases their chances that the next hot app or UI replacement will only run on THEIR phone, but it hamstrings the operating system and pisses off the developers who now need to make many different versions of the same software. Microsoft let vendors cover up problems with their devices, and yes, with the OS overall, by custom tweaking their own applications and GUI. This may have gotten the phones out but it didn’t do anything to force MS or the vendors to FIX the problems themselves…and that spelled long term doom.

It is companies like Motorola and HTC who are publically abandoning Windows Mobile who caused much of the problem themselves by requiring and demanding so many unique tweaks for their often sub-standard early handsets. They scarified real quality for  quick fixes and cosmetic makeovers and Microsoft, to it’s shame, let them. They also destroyed any unified look and feel for Windows Mobile and stripped the OS of identity in favor of each unique handset. That may have been good for the handsets, but it proved bad for the OS.

Motorola is now forcing (or seducing) Android developers to do the same thing for their Cliq handset. If Motorola has their way, I am quite sure these MotoBlur applications won’t work on any other Android phone, only the Cliq. This goes totally against the spirit of the Open Source movement and will weaken Android when faced with more unified operating systems, like the Apple Mobile OS or Symbian S60.

Moto may be making the best choice for short term returns with their “Cliq” (I love the irony of that name considering this news)…after all, they need a hit phone soon or it is “GoodBye, Moto”…but in the long run they aren’t doing themselves, or Android users, any favors.

(Graphic Credit: Androidguys)

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Zealot (469 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).


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  • First of all, regarding MotoBlur, AndroidGuys got the same feeling I did and have statements from Motorola to prove it. MotoBlur is not just a UI, but according to Moto is part of a derivitive version of Android.

    Here is their report...(http://www.androidguys.com/2009/09/25/motorolas-derivative-version-of-android/)

    ------

    Jason Warren, part of Motorola’s software product management team, talked about the Cliq and in general about what Moto is doing with Android. He said the Cliq is “the first device that’s running the first version of not only Motoblur, but also the first version of our derivative version of Android.” He went on to say that “it’ll be great to get developers … using some of the new APIs we’ve added on top of what’s in Cupcake.”

    I’d been under the impression that Motoblur was just UI that sits on top of standard-issue Cupcake, but Jason makes pretty clear that Motorola is using its own tweaked build of Android itself, Motoblur notwithstanding.

    It almost sounded like apps developed for Moto-flavored Android might not work with other flavors. I checked in with MOTODEV on Twitter and they assured me that ”we created a derivative that is 100% compatible with the ‘reference’ vers. of Android.”

    -----

    So Motorola says their derivitive is 100 percent compatible with the reference version...but will it be compatible with the next companies derivitive? Will it stay that way? Warren said clearly they would be getting devs working with THEIR APIs above abd beyond Android. Sounds like that 100 percent compatibility may need to be taken on a "wait and see" basis.

    Also other writers share my fears of a WinMo style fragmentation based on Moto's plan. Here is what Olga Kharif at Business Week has to say about it...(http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/10/will_moto_fract.html)

    -----

    Moto’s signature apps foretell the beginning of a new trend, of handset makers encouraging developers to create Android apps specifically for their devices. Motorola, for instance, promises developers early access to its phones and software tools, and promotion in its ads. The idea is to encourage developers to create apps that work extremely well with Motorola’s new phones. But chances are, these apps won’t work so well on its rivals’ Android phones.

    Here’s why that’s a problem: One idea behind Android Market was to create a single pool of apps that work on devices from all handset manufacturers, including Android pioneer HTC, Motorola and Samsung. This gave developers a chance to create one app that worked on millions of devices without having to be tweaked – which is what developers had to do in the past. In the past, third-party software makers have had to make hundreds of versions of the same application, and that made development extremely difficult and expensive. The Android initiative was to do away with that problem, and to help participating handset makers to better compete with Apple, which has been super-successful in luring developers to its iPhone.

    -----

    So I may certainly be wrong, I have been before and I admit my knowledge of Android is highly limited....but I won't be wrong alone.

























  • So Motorola says their derivitive is 100 percent compatible with the reference version...but will it be compatible with the next companies derivitive? Will it stay that way?

    I assume that "100% compatibility" claim means that apps written for the base Android OS will work perfectly on Motorola's derivative.

    However, the reverse is obviously unlikely to be true. If an app is written that uses a Motorola-specific API, it's doubtful that it will work on any other Android phone.

    It would be similar to saying "WM 6.5 is 100% compatible with WM 6" (which may not be true, but this is an analogy). Apps written on WM 6 would work fine on WM 6.5, but apps using WM 6.5-specific features obviously wouldn't run on WM 6.

    As for what Olga Kharif said:

    Here’s why that’s a problem: One idea behind Android Market was to create a single pool of apps that work on devices from all handset manufacturers, including Android pioneer HTC, Motorola and Samsung. This gave developers a chance to create one app that worked on millions of devices without having to be tweaked – which is what developers had to do in the past. In the past, third-party software makers have had to make hundreds of versions of the same application, and that made development extremely difficult and expensive. The Android initiative was to do away with that problem, and to help participating handset makers to better compete with Apple, which has been super-successful in luring developers to its iPhone.

    First, I think most software developers will know that's a joke. Java was supposed to be "write once, run anywhere" but didn't turn out that way.

    With extremely good development practices, you can code your app to run on a variety of screen resolutions and orientations, but it's more difficult. (You can do that on Windows Mobile, too. For example, applications that look good on the Redfly did, applications that don't take advantage of the screen probably didn't.)

    However, as I mentioned before, if you want to take advantage of unique hardware (like light sensors, gravity sensors, trackpads, whatevers), you'll need custom coding. Users of fancy devices want software to make use of the premium features, not LCDware (Lowest Common Denominator). Writing to the LCD may be fine for some things, like calculators, but probably not for others, like games.

    Second, making Android open source almost guarantees that somebody will tweak it, making software for that fork incompatible with the base. If Google and the Open Handset Alliance wanted a "write once, run anywhere" OS, they should have licensed it with lots of terms and conditions.

    Steve
  • Name
    Looks like the author doesn't have a clear understanding of what he's talking about... Blur is a part of the platform. Inseparable. It's not meant to work on any other devices... And it doesn't expose any API so it's just not possible for a 3rd party to create a Blur dependent app. Any 3rd party android app created with standard Google SDK (whether it's written for Cliq or anything else) will be working on any android devices without any restrictions.
  • Looks like the author doesn't have a clear understanding of what he's talking about... Blur is a part of the platform. Inseparable. It's not meant to work on any other devices... And it doesn't expose any API so it's just not possible for a 3rd party to create a Blur dependent app.

    There must be some way to create MotoBlur-dependent apps, because Motorola announced the Cliq would have apps from partners there, right? (I assume Motorla didn't create the MySpace, Barnes & Noble, Amazon MP3, etc. apps themselves.) Whether there's a public API or not is irrelevant.

    Zealot's point, though, is that creating Android apps that only run on one device (or devices from one OEM) because they use a specific feature on that device (in this case MotoBlur) is a bad idea.

    Personally, while I might rather have the apps available for all devices, I don't see much difference between writing MotoBlur apps or writing Windows Mobile apps that require a gravity sensor that only some devices have. If you can't write apps that take advantage of the unique capabilities of a device, everything is written for the lowest common denominator. That's a trade-off the software developer has to make.

    Steve
  • It is companies like Motorola and HTC who are publically abandoning Windows Mobile[....]

    Did I miss a press release somewhere? This is the second time you've mentioned HTC dumping Windows Mobile, but when did HTC announce they were doing that?

    Yes, they've said they were going to increase their Android development, but that's not the same as Motorola not releasing any WM 6.5 handsets and dissing Windows Mobile (even if they really will release WM 7 devices).

    Also, I have to disagree with the implicit argument that Microsoft "allowed" vendors to develop device-specific software. That may have happened, but I suspect it's more because Microsoft didn't explicitly prohibit it than that they made some decision to allow it.

    Furthermore, I think that your analogy is a bit off. Microsoft just licenses the OS to vendors; Motorola actually builds devices. A better analogy might be saying that Google is allowing OEMs to build device-specific software and Motorola is just taking advantage of that freedom with MotoBlur (as is HTC with Sense and I suspect Samsung will do with TouchWiz and Sony Ericsson will do with their panel interface).

    Finally, while I agree somewhat that shells aren't a great idea for the reasons you listed, do we really want Microsoft dictating what kind of software OEMs should be allowed to include? That smacks more of Apple's App Store process than an "open" market.

    Microsoft can set policies on their app store, of course, but prohibiting vendors from including certain apps seems like a bad thing for a few reasons:

    * First, if a vendor wants to differentiate their handset from the competition, one good way (maybe the best) to do that is by including extra software. Why should the OEM be forced to develop for every device? Would you really expect HTC to offer its custom WM software for download on other WM devices?

    * Second, software developers don't have to develop for the "enhanced" platforms and I doubt that the OEM can force them to. I suspect Motorola offered some quid pro quo to the developers to get them to develop MotoBlur software (if not cash outright, then publicity at the least).

    * Third, developing multi-device software is harder. The software developer may not have to worry about things like different screen resolutions, different input methods (QWERTY keyboards vs. virtual ones, directional buttons vs. trackballs, etc.), different storage mechanisms (removable memory vs. fixed memory), etc. And that doesn't even take into account something like WM Professional (with touchscreens) vs. WM Standard (without touchscreens) which have other differences.

    That may be why developers like Apple. Their one-size-fits-all iPhone is probably easier to develop for than Windows Mobile or Android, which have wide varieties of form factors. Developing for a specific device running Android (or Windows Mobile, etc.) may well be easier.

    Steve




















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