andy rubin

Showing 14 posts tagged andy rubin

A Changing Of The Android Guard

Andy Rubin is out, Sundar Pichai is in.

This is a fascinating and surprising move given all the success Android has seen in recent months. I won’t attempt to speculate as to why this change is happening now — I’m sure we’ll get plenty of that over the next few days. What I do know is that Sundar Pichai, the Google executive who has been leading Chrome (and will continue to lead Chrome as well as Android — read into that what you will), is a great choice to take over.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet Pichai a number of times over the years — thanks mainly, I can only assume, to my obsession with tracking Chrome in my writing days — and found him to be one of the most thoughtful and open-minded execs I have ever met.

This genuinely makes me excited about the future of Android — even if you’ll still have to pry my iPhone from my cold, dead hands.

Samsung Sparks Anxiety at Google

Amir Efrati for WSJ:

But Mr. Rubin also said Samsung could become a threat if it gains more ground among mobile-device makers that use Android, the person said. Mr. Rubin said Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which makes Android-based smartphones and tablets, served as a kind of insurance policy against a manufacturer such as Samsung gaining too much power over Android, the person said. Google said Mr. Rubin wasn’t available for an interview.

I mean, how much more ground would Samsung have to gain? It absolutely dominates the Android landscape right now:

Samsung has increased its lead in Android-based smartphones, claiming 40.2% of the market in the fourth quarter, up from 38.7% a year earlier, according to IDC. Huawei Technologies Co. was in second place, with 6.6%, the same as a year earlier.

Basically everything in this article is the opposite of what Google has said publicly on the matter, but none of it should be surprising. 

Winning! Duh!

“2012 is going to be the year that we double down and make sure we’re winning in that space.”

That was Andy Rubin talking about Android’s tablet strategy at Mobile World Congress, as relayed by The Verge. 

Across all the various OEMs that make Android tablets, 12 million have been sold in total. Ever. For context, Apple sold 15 million iPads last quarter.

Obviously, Google needs to do better in the space. And they should be able to. Quite honestly, it would be hard to do much worse given the interest in the space (thanks mainly to the aforementioned iPad) on both a consumer and OEM level. But Rubin’s excuse as to why the Android tablets are selling so poorly is suspect at best. 

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"Works Fine"

When discussing whether or not there should be apps built specifically for tablets, Android chief Andy Rubin noted that “the Twitter phone app works fine on a tablet.”

In this case, I can’t determine if “works fine” is code for “looks like shit” or “‘meh’ is good enough”. Either is absolutely the wrong attitude and perhaps speaks a bit to why Android is doing so poorly in the tablet space.

iPhone apps running on the iPad also “work fine” but I think everyone will agree that they look like shit. If the iPad only ran iPhone apps scaled-up, there’s no question in my mind that sales would be a fraction of what they are. It’s the apps that are custom tailored for the new form factor that make it magical. 

While the ability of a tablet to run any app is a nice fallback, it’s more of a marketing ploy. It was a genius way to get people buying the iPad originally (“look, I have all these apps that already work!”), but Apple was quick to make sure that developers got on board with building custom iPad apps as well.

Again, those are the key. It sure doesn’t seem like Rubin gets that. Of course, he’s in a tough position since there are so many different form factors for Android. Big tablets, small tablets, mini tablets, big phones, small phones, huge ass phones. How does one custom tailor for all those sizes?

They don’t. 

But I’m sorry, “meh” isn’t good enough. “Works fine” isn’t good enough. 

"Following"

Hugo Miller:

Direct discussions between the two companies about the future of Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio had begun in early July following Google’s failed bid to buy Nortel Networks Corp.’s patents, according to the document.

But wait, I thought the whole Nortel thing was a ruse, a rope-a-dope. It simply could not have been the catalyst of this deal. Motorola must be lying in their regulatory filing. They were conspiring with Google for years to make Apple look foolish and spend billions on patents for no reason.

Also, the notion that Andy Rubin was brought in at the last second is bullshit. As Miller’s report suggests, he led this deal. 

The Andyroid

The Macalope:

Somehow, in the early 1990s Apple bred a mobile technology killer robot. Cyborg.

No, wait… android. Andy Rubin.

Andyroid.

We’re through the looking glass here, people. It was staring us right in the face the whole time. All the pieces are starting to fall into place.

OK, so Apple makes this Andyroid and, through the mismanagement endemic to the company at the time, it’s released into the wild. Years later, the Andyroid is caught by Microsoft, which reprogrammed and re-released it into the wild—but deliberately. It then gets hired by Google and acts as a Manchurian candidate within the company to funnel millions of dollars to Microsoft for doing jack squat.

Ingenious. The Macalope tips his antlers toward Redmond.

Well, OK, maybe that’s not what happened. But it pretty much worked out that way anyway.

Brilliant.