Reception
Android received a lukewarm reaction when it was unveiled in 2007. Although analysts were impressed with the respected technology companies that had partnered with Google to form the Open Handset Alliance, it was unclear whether mobile phone manufacturers would be willing to replace their existing operating systems with Android. The idea of an open source, Linux-based development platform sparked interest, but there were additional worries about Android facing strong competition from established players in the smartphone market, such as Nokia and Microsoft, and rival Linux mobile operating systems that were in development. These established players were skeptical: Nokia was quoted as saying "we don't see this as a threat," and a member of Microsoft's Windows Mobile team stated "I don't understand the impact that they are going to have."
Since then Android has grown to become the most widely used smartphone operating system and "one of the fastest mobile experiences available." Reviewers have highlighted the open source nature of the operating system as one of its defining strengths, allowing companies such as Amazon (Kindle Fire), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Ouya, Baidu, and others to fork the software and release hardware running their own customised version of Android. As a result, it has been described by technology website Ars Technica as "practically the default operating system for launching new hardware" for companies without their own mobile platforms. This openness and flexibility is also present at the level of the end user: Android allows extensive customisation of devices by their owners and apps are freely available from non-Google app stores and third party websites. These have been cited as among the main advantages of Android phones over others.
Despite its success on smartphones, Android tablet adoption has been slow. This is primarily blamed on a chicken or the egg situation where consumers are hesitant to buy an Android tablet due to a lack of high quality tablet apps, but developers are hesitant to spend time and resources developing tablet apps until there's a significant market for them. Other factors included high prices and the dominance of Apple's iPad. This began to change in 2012 with the release of the successful Nexus 7 and a push by Google for developers to write better tablet apps. Android tablets are expected to overtake the iPad within a few years.
Read more about this topic: Android (operating System)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)