(easy listening music)
- Android is the most popular smartphone
operating system in the world.
It runs on over 80% of all smartphones.
That's two billion people using it per month.
But after over a decade Android is still full
of a bunch of fundamental flaws
that keep you from a world class experience.
Let's talk about my biggest beef
with Android phones, software updates.
Android phone makers are really bad
about keeping your phone up-to-date
with the latest version of Android from Google.
There are a lot of reasons for this.
When Goggle makes a new version of Android
it sends it off to phone makers who modify it
for their own devices.
Then that has to go through a bunch of testing
before they send it off to carriers for even more testing.
By the time the software update finally hits your phone
months have gone by and Goggle usually has
a new version of Android by then.
And after about a year or so there's very little incentive
for phone makers to keep pushing updates to your phone.
They're already far behind and you're likely ready
for a new device anyway that's running
the fresh new version of Android.
The result, 94% of smart phones out there
are running an outdated version of Android.
The exception, Goggle's own Pixel phones
get Android updates as soon as they're released.
Despite many promises over the years
Goggle has done nothing to ensure all its devices
get timely updates.
Skins and bloatware are also a huge problem.
Android phone makers like coming into
the basic version of Android
and adding different designs for the user interface
and putting in their own apps
for basic functions like web browsing, email and calendar.
When you open up your brand new Android phone
that means you have double the apps that you actually need.
Two email apps, two calendar apps, two web browsers,
that's a confusing experience for a lot of people.
Meanwhile their skins are almost always worse
than the so-called clean version of Android.
It's even worse when carriers get involved.
Here in the U.S. carriers like
adding their own apps and bloatware
to the Android operating system
and you can't delete those apps.
You may be able to hide them
but they're still living on your phone.
All this leads to a bad experience
that can slow down overall performance.
Compare that to iOS and the iPhone
which has a streamlined experience
across all devices with no bloatware.
Then there's tech support.
What do you do when your Android phone breaks down
or you have a problem with it.
It's not like you can run off to the Samsung store
or the LG store, there's nowhere to go
except back to your carrier.
And carriers don't have the best reputation
when it comes to servicing your phone.
Android can also be a security nightmare
because there are so many different versions
of Android out there and phone makers
have a hard time getting them updated in a timely manner.
If and when a vulnerability is found
it can take forever for you to get the patch to update it.
The best example is Stagefright which was
a severe vulnerability found a few years ago
in practically all Android devices.
Major manufacturers rushed to put out patches
to fix the bug but we still don't know
if all of them got the patch.
Today most Android phones might be safe from Stagefright
but there's no guarantee that when the next major flaw
is discovered you'll get the update right away.
Finally, there's privacy.
Android phones run Goggle services by default
and Goggle still makes most of its money
by tracking your personal data and using that
to target ads to you.
Android phones give you very little choice
to get around this.
The same thing happens if you use Google apps
on your iPhone of course, but the thing is,
iPhones don't ship with those apps natively,
you don't have to use them.
None of this means Android is bad or that it sucks.
People still love Android and Android still stands out
when it comes to notifications and syncing better
with your Google services.
But after a full decade of Android
these problems should have been fixed by now.
(clap)
(snap)
Cool.