Android One was a program that Google announced last year at I/O, supposedly bringing the best Android smartphone experience to developing markets. Since then, it could be argued that it hasn’t quite succeeded. Josh is joined once again by Andrew Grush, Joe Hindy, and Jonathan Feist to discuss all of this. Later in the show, they also go on a small rant about Lollipop!
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Contrary to what you believe the economic state of the Philippines based on your relatives here, @***** , a great majority of us Filipinos can and have possession of a smartphone (some even have 2 but the advent of the dual SIM have reduced the number). Prepaid is the preferred method of acquiring data as this is the cheapest and most hassle free method. We're still the texting capital of the world because SMS is the most ubiquitous method of communication; you don't have to worry if the person you want to send a message to has the same particular messaging platform that you have. Yes, I take offense on what you said; that we are an economically and infrastructurally challenged country, although I know you mean well. But don't generalize us based on the microcosm that is your relatives. As the saying goes here in the RP, third world country, first world amenities.
Android One, speaking as a user :
In general :
I think Google's main goal behind it was to get people on Android, and aware of vanilla Android. Also, I think this was a response to the criticism they have got in the past where it's been shown that a large percentage of Android users are still using old versions of the OS. So, something like the Android One program is a good way for Google themselves to control the update process and get all the phones running the latest version.
Availability :
They said the phones were only available online, but I've seen them in stores, in-fact I bought mine from a store. They are hard to find though, some stores one have 1 or 2 models, there was only store that only had the white Micromax A1 and nothing else, so you have to hunt around a bit.
You don't need a credit card to shop online in India. All online stores have a cash on delivery option, so I don't think that was a drawback. Online shopping is really hot right now in India, and I can understand why Google choose to go down that way. Motorola does the same thing, in-fact it's far more restrictive because Motorola phones are only available on Flipkart, and absolutely nowhere else. And yet the Moto G and the Moto E sell really well here.
Where it failed :
Where Google failed was where it always fails, it just doesn't do enough marketing, and it just doesn't make vanilla Android look fashionable. The average person doesn't know what vanilla Android is and doesn't even care, they would much prefer to buy a Samsung phone. Seriously, I know so many people who have budget Samsung phones with higher price tags than Android One devices and lower specs.
Another big failure on Google's part was updates, they promised fast updates but that just didn't happen. I have no idea why the updates where late, but I'm guessing it was to do with the bugs in Lollipop, still, it would have helped sales if these phones had fast updates. I got my Android 5.1 update now, in March.
Sure there are other brands trying to make affordable smartphones, with similar specs to those of the Android One devices. But how does Google make a difference here? By providing prompt OS update, which other manufacturers aren't providing. That is the only point where Google could have made a difference, but they seem to have messed up by delaying the long awaited update. What is more frustrating is that India and Bangladesh were the 1st two countries to receive Android One device, but Indonesia and Philippines are getting Lollipop 5.1 earlier than us. Google should have made Lollipop 5.1 update available for all Android One device of all countries at the same time, so that no one should feel they have been cheated with or not given preference.
Can you guys talk about how Google is basically copying Apple's iOS tablet strategy? They're foolishly making a single UI for both phones and tablets to be just as crappy as Apple at the tablet experience. I think this might be to push Chromebooks and ChromeOS. Google needs to either go back to a separate tablet-specific Android like Honeycomb, or make ChromeOS compatible with Android and bring it to tablets. Android tablets are in a sad state of affairs compared to iPad and Surface.
Can you please let me know why it was such a bad call? they did that play 4 times and made it 4 times and the whole league did it just over 100 times and it never got intercepted
Please give timestamps by subjects.
i own xiaomi redmi 1s and i was planning to buy android one but now i had rooted redmi 1s and flashed cm 11 so best of both world
Another Google failure. The list continues to grow. I'm ditching Android and heading for iOS finally, as Apple offers better security on their devices by default. What ever happened to Factory Reset Protection? No sign of it on my unlocked HTC One M8 currently running Lollipop 5.0.1.
Hello Android Authority. It's not like we don't have Credit Cards and Debit cards in India. We do. But it seems that Google only accepts Credit Cards in India. And we are a deeply savings based economy. Only one credit card of one bank namely ICICI Bank works and that too the elite business credit card. Indians mostly use Debit Cards. Even the poorest have debit cards these days. For some reason Google and RBI (equivalent to American Federal Bank) have not had a proper converstaion over this. Because of the same reason we have problems with PayPal too.
Not had any problems with Lollipop. Nothing wrong with Windows 8. You know Google products have been upgraded and aren't in beta – working fine. You sure you guys know what you're doing? This technology thing might be a step too far…maybe keep with the Fisher Price stuff for now 🙂
If you think about it. The fact that only certain devices have lollipop as of now gives incentive to purchase the higher end devices. Happy accident.
Hey guys, check out my YouTube channel! I make Top 5 videos about Android
Budget windows phones look better than the same price Android One devices. And the average guy who doesn't understand much about the OS will trust Nokia over a same price Android One device. I use a lumia, still I wanted to buy an Android One device as a possible replacement for my Lumia or as a secondary device since I needed to work with some apps that are not available in Windows store. The retailer I was talking with in this regard told they have problems with Micromax agent. So I bought an Android tablet.
About the credit card thing, the website that sells the android phones in India accepts cash on delivery. The problem I see is that Indians do not like their phones locked on a single carrier. That's the main problem.
what's the point in putting this on youtube without a video? Just keep it as a podcast if you don't put video on it via hangouts or something… just my thought though w/e
Can anyone find an Android One that isn't using a Mediatek MT6582 SoC?
I love lollipop and all the changes. It's more fluid and the animations are beautiful. At first all the white took some time to adjust to but overall I'm totally enjoying lollipop on my Nexus 6.
The latest Friday Debate Podcast with @***** @Andrew Grush @Jonathan Feist and myself is live!
Okay it was live hours ago but I have been occupied today 😛
Don't forget, we're also on iTunes, Stitcher, and pretty much any app that scrapes iTunes and Stitcher (most of them, including Pocket Casts). Hope you enjoy it!
So Someone feels like I do. I feel Lollipop Sucks. Google is great with software and all, but until now I was OK with it. Ever since I have put Lollipop on my OnePlus One, I am missing all the awesome features that Android got because of other developers. Material design looks great. But KitKat is more stable. Then Google releases a phone with 6 inches screen but there is nothing it does to utilize that screen size. We give a lot of smack to Samsung for making TouchWiz but we can not deny they know what to do with a big screen better than Google.
You people just repeat the same shit over and over. You call this a discussion?
No! in India most of the people don't have credit card to purchase on play store. Because most people use cash instead of card. Google should bring (gift card) like things to market to every mobile shop so every person can purchase the application
Guys, need to make one point. In India ALL phones are unlocked. When I say ALL i mean ALL. Carriers have no say here.
well i would chose android one because those company have more service center around india then redmi
When the Galaxy S4 GT-I9505 will have an update for the Android 5.0? Or an update for the Android 4.4.4? Help me, please 🙂
Listening to how much problems do you have with software I have to ask you, why not switching to more stable platform?
In India, I think Android One is really a nice Phone (Two of My Friends Own them) but no one knows about it, people know other smart Phones (from ads on TV and stuff) and would buy them rather than android one , why?? unavailability of it offline ,no Ads and no publicity 🙁
Samsung Galaxy Light affordable! BAM!
Here in India roughly 40%of the population has access to internet and the only way u can get these phones is via flipkart website. The people to whom these phones are targeted towards don't have access to the internet itself at all and even the normal 3g connection is pretty costly.
I went back to KitKat as soon as I noticed that it takes me more touches on lollipop to get somewhere than it takes me on KitKat. E.G Settings … funny thing is it doesn't even take more touches it just feels much slower because of all the animations and stuff. KitKat is just much more productive and useful, whereas lollipop feels like a childish, dumbed-down version of android.
Just my 2 cents…
I think that Android One would be beneficial here in the Philippines. We have local smartphone manufacturers that provide phones with decent specs with very competitive prices. With Google providing stock Android to these phones, I think that would be great!
I'm currently using an Android One device (Spice Dream Uno) as my primary because I'm impressed with it so much that I couldn't let it go. I mean it's probably one of the fastest phone I've ever used (that includes S5 and iPhone 5s). It has 1700 mah battery, but it lasts for 7 hours when watching YouTube videos continuously. And I haven't got lollipop update yet (which should bring more performance). PROBABLY WORLD'S ONLY PHONE WITH SUCH A PERFECT BLEND OF SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE.
Android one is a brilliant masterstroke by google and it provides an awesome platform for hardware manufacturers. Despite the puny hardware that has come by, android one has managed to sell like hot cakes, just give it a few more months and let there be more powerful and attractive handsets and then it will be a big hit in india. Offcourse there have been hiccups like delayed release of lollipop but hey, android one will probably be among the first ones to get android 5.1 and I am happy about it.
Here is why android one devices failed in india-
1. All the 3 A1 devices were launched online and in india not all people have internet access.
2. they fear shopping online because they dont know what the device would actually feel, they dont dig down youtube vids cuz internet is not cheap in india people r still using 2g internet.
3. Poor advertisements,
4. Offline seller refused selling A1 devices because they were not happy about it first being launched online and leftovers being sent to them.
5. The looks of the phone was not appealing, in all the 3 manufacturers, micromax is the only company that people trust a bit but its A1 device looked horrible,
Well in my view it is the best budget device, i bought it for my father who never used android before. He is satisfied with it and says that he once checked out samsung galaxy grand (around $300) and he felt android one is as fast as this one, he is not a heavy user though, but guys a heavy user wont even think of buying it
They should bring Android One to New Zealand.
The Friday Debate Podcast is a good concept but the format suck's. Would be much better with video feeds from the people taking part so we can see who's talking.
Why don't you make it with video for You-Tube? You can still release audio only Pod-cast's for RSS feeds etc.
Your discussion about phones for developing countries would have been better if at least a couple of you had done some descant research on the topic. Like look at the availability/coverage of mobile/wi-fi and broadband in these area's.
Jon.
Lollipop is a step back, performance wise.
I own two nexus devices , a N7 2012 and a N5.
I updated the N7 twice to lollipop (from 4.4.4 to 5.0 then back to 4.4.4 and again to 5.0.2 only to return finaly back to 4.4.4 ). The only time my tablet felt really updated was when i went back to kitkat. The performance is not even comparable. There are some heavy games that barely can be played with lolipop but in kitkat they play flawlessly. The change from dalvik to art theoreticaly should have speed up the performance but i guess it had the oposite effect.
In my N5 things are a bit more beareble but stil not better than in kitkat. Even with 2gb ram i must restart my device every other day to free some ram . If this is how lollipop behaves in nexus devices a can't imagine how worser it would bit in samsung devices with the heavy bloated touch ui.
Kit Kat in my opinion is the best OS to date for android because it was fast even on older devices ( i have it in the first generation galaxy s from 2010 (cm11) working just fine)
Lollipop is only good for phone manufacturers, because you must buy a new phone with better hardware to keep up with android evolution or should i say "devolution".
Android one its pretty good device for Indian people but the main problem is maximum people don't know about it or xiomi they think that Samsung is the the best company although its a s*** on producing low end device but still they are blind about it!! Like grand , grand prime etc….. Anyway google also promised that its first to get update like nexus line up! Which make the people buy this device! But in reality we are waiting for like 3 months for lollipop!!! Ow BTW I'm listing this podcast on my Android one device form India The Spice dream uno!😹
I am from India and after listing to podcast i have mixed feelings… Some of the things were true and some were not for example why did android one fail in India? – the answer is simple and right, android one devices are being used usually by teenagers/students and as secondary phones. As Most of the population in the cities can afford high end flagship devices… But thr places like villages in india people can't even afford a smartphone…when they can android one devices are not targeted towards that population as people in villages can't go online and make a purchases…and most of the ecommerce sites won't even have the facility to deliver that phone there. That's the biggest issue why android one has failed as in cities people can look at many other options for secondary and student devices which are cheaper and more powerful then android one devices.
How is Android one in performance?
Well looking at you guys talking about comparing it with devices like moto g, in performance android one devices beats devices like moto g and even moto g2 in benchmarks as well as real time performance…i can say that coz I've used all these devices. Android one devices are no matter low – mid end devices….neither are moto g and g2 mid end devices they come under low-mid end devices too and they still lag behind many devices like android one, xiaomi note, yureka yu and many other.
I don't say that mediatek are better than qualcomm…mediatek are bastards…seriously…
But looking at the range we are talking about there is no competition in the chipsets….maybe its because google optimized it! And as a developer its hard developing for it even though sources are open.
*With custom kernels android one rocks antutu scores of – 21000+
*With Stock It Rocks 18500+
Which are way higher than moto g and g2, asus zenfone 4, 4.5 devices in that price range. As i own them too!
Looking at the device from the front it looks like a nexus device flat black without any buttons and that circle earhole like in n5. The difference is the back panels…
Well this podcast was awesome and issues discussed were also great.
.
And yeah for now i would also prefer kitkat over lollipop seriously…!
josh im just like you with the little hiccup things. Some of my friends and family will freak out if an app says it crashed and i just dont understand it.
Last
when is lollipop comeimg out for the s5 come on is been a long time already
Huh
Can you put time in the description for all topics.
Welcome to the 301+ club , how tough are ya?
awesome!