Dear Google and Microsoft, we have a problem. Even though both of your mobile OS products are outperforming expectations, respectively, both platforms suffer one critical flaw that is holding you back.
For some strange reason you allow carriers to dictate when updates happen as well as give them the ability to block updates, preventing users from upgrading the device for simple things like critical security updates (at least with Android).
Honestly while this hasn’t slowed down the adoption of your devices, it gives people one more reason to choose iPhone over Android and Windows Phone 7.
While it’s a fact that you have to work with the carriers in order to create the phones, you should not be putting their desires ahead of the needs of your users, especially when it comes to updating the phone to the latest OS.
Instead of letting carriers dictate when, how, and why select phones need updates, how about providing a way for users to update their smartphones that they’ve purchased with their money over their computers or (better yet) via WiFi signal.
Apple does this with the iPhone (on the computer that is), which is one of the reasons why the company doesn’t have to worry about fragmentation unlike most (if not all) of their rivals.
Doing so would not only help your respective platforms become more competitive against Apple, but enable developers to create apps for one specific OS instead of 2-5 (which is a nightmare).
So how about providing a centralize location for users to upgrade their phones manually? You may find that doing so will not only make users more excited about your devices, but also allow you to catch up (if not surpass) iOS.
Originally posted on March 15, 2011 @ 2:56 pm