Weaknesses of Android: Are there any?

Z

Zaid W

New member
In the news and even by me Android is been hyped the whole last weeks.

But in the last days I tried to become more realistic but to be honest I haven't found weaknesses of Android. But I must say, that my experience with Android is not the best.

So I want to ask you: Where do you see (possible) weaknesses of Android in comparison to other Smartphone OS?
 
i think that advertisement is weak (not really androids fault) but when i see an iphone commercial they show some pretty cool stuff and i have yet to see a commercial of the MT3G

and right now they arent throwing any good hardware into the mix
 
The browser is the only weakness I've found (compared to other OS's) alot of it though is dependent on hardware. Since Android is open source then there are no limits on what can be accomplished (with the right hardware) So these smartphone makers (HTC, Samsung, etc.) should step up processor speed, camera quality, hdd capacity, and screen resolution
 
The biggest weakness I see in android is the dalvik vm. The way apps are run is horrible use of memory and resources. Every app runs its own vm. A simple app like battery status takes 12M+ memory to run. Just put that in perspective, the whole linux kernel that android runs requires less memory (minus page cache and other filesystem) than it takes to run a battery status app. I know these days all developers use the excuse of memory is cheap. But memory in small devices are not that cheap, and there is no reason to run multiple vms, if the vm is implemented correctly.
 
like i said HARDWARE is the biggest weakness of android right now

i mean the hero is a fail to me because it has such a small processor for what the phone does!
 
Then technically this "weakness" is not android's weakness, it is the phone manufacturer's weakness?

Therefore Android has no major flaws!

No?
 
Yeah, I think the original question is about Android, not the hardware it runs on.

As far as the question, Android is making a huge impact, I wouldn't be surprised to see a desktop Android OS soon.

I personally find it extremely easy to use and love the way it performs.
 
ok if we are talkin about the actual OS flaws then it has to be the dialer/when the phone rings


i hate when the phone rings and i have to wait like 3-5 rings before it shows who it is calling
 
I still think there are some minor inconsistencies within the UI. For example when I switch to Messaging and a conversation is currently open, clicking the hardware back button sends me to the previous application or to the desktop. I have to click Messaging again to view all threads. I'm not sure if that's the OS or the application, but some apps always seem to capture the back button properly.
 
i know this isn't a thread about rooting, but if you root and install the advanced mms.apk this is an option to turn off or on, it comes standard on cyans roms as well.


on topic. i find the stock music player highly lacking. and there are some other inconsistancies however for a brand new os, just starting to approach it's first year, i'm not to concerned that these "wrinkles" will be ironed out.
 
I love Android all the way! But as you guys mention the hardware is the greatest limitation, not the software. This will be fixed within a year or sooner. Memory and CPU shouldn't be an issue in 2009, I think, but it is... However, phone manufacturers will hopefully realize this and to remain competitive they will have to deliver greater hardware products to be able to run all the android applications and fancy ui smoothly. That is the only thing holding the Android OS back.
 
The main issues I have stumbled upon for stock G1 users are:

No apps2sd
Music widget needs to have a back button and have controls on the headset!
Internal Memory could be bigger
Adding birthdays to contacts would be nice
Inability to remove pre-installed but unused apps.
Option to make the browser clear it's cache etc on close instead of having to manually do it.

And yes I know that some of these issues can be fixed by rooting, but why should we have to? Not everyone is comfortable going down that road.

Also I have noticed that it doesn't always uninstall apps completely. When I first got the phone I filled it with random stuff, uninstalled it and then settled on the apps I wanted to keep. My internal memory was around 55mb used. I did a factory reset, put back all the apps I wanted to use and the internal memory use was down to 22mb.

fin
 
why would you need apps2sd? i mean thats more of a hardware issue of the phones not having enough internal memory


and about the factory reset, when you wipe your phone it wipes everything including data that apps might have saved on the phone so thats why u saw a difference
 
I see nothing wrong with the hardware on the Galaxy or the Hero, so that's not the problem. Here are some whack things about android:
*no full bluetooth file transfer support
*apps can only go onto internal memory only (don't bring up apps2sd, that is only for rooted users, a very small percentage of android users)
*the browser isn't as good as iPhone/Pre
*Stock android UI isn't as polished as iPhone/Pre/Hero
*the Market isn't efficiently organized
 
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