The biggest competition to Android may not be Apple or Microsoft but rather the constant onslaught of newer devices being offered by manufacturers causing them to ignore older phones and a large amount of customers. Some manufacturers have vowed to release less models this year. We can only hope the reason for this is to allow them to focus on supporting existing customers in terms of updates.
I bought a Samsung Vibrant shortly after they were released. I did not buy the phone for Eclair 2.1 that it shipped with, nor did I buy it for Touchwiz. I bought the phone for the hardware. My hope was that it would run the OS releases for the next two years. When it hit my hands, that phone was a super phone compared to what was on the market at the time. With a 1GHz CPU and the Super AMOLED screen the phone was the new standard of Android phones. However, I soon found that Samsung was more focused on releasing new phones and less on keeping older models up to date. The subsequent phones that were released were not great improvements over my Vibrant but some did have FroYo and later Gingerbread. Samsung, despite the cries of the customer base ignored the millions of Galaxy S owners asking for OS updates. If you asked any of the Samsung support people on Twitter if they had any update information they told you that the company does not comment on release dates.
When you buy a Nexus phone you are not just buying hardware but also the true Android experience with fast updates to the latest OS. The Nexus line has always been the new standard of hardware and software for the coming year. Many Nexus owners have seen multiple OS versions run on their phones. If I buy a $500-700 smartphone that is not a Nexus I still want it to be on the latest OS until, at the very least, the next OS and Nexus phones are released. In the case of the Vibrant, I bought mine the month that FroYo was released. As a customer, when a year goes by and I still don't have that release on my phone I may have second thoughts about buying another Android phone. For some people buying a Nexus is not what they want. But I think we can agree that most owners would like to get at least one major upgrade regardless of the phone they buy.
Look at Apple for a moment. They upgrade their phones every year. You know it is coming and if you are ok with last years model you can buy that phone at a lower cost. Even buying an older model you will probably get OS updates for a couple of years. If you opt for the new phone it will be the top standard for at least a year. Next year the OS will be updated and you will get it. Two years from now you will be out of contact and can again update to the newest version. Love it or hate it, Apple has a good plan for buyers looking to update their phones.
Looking at my Vibrant, I bought it with Eclair and never got an official OTA update to FroYo. After a year and a half I break my contract and go for a Nexus so that I can get an official ICS phone. Samsung not only released a ton of phones after the Vibrant they have neglected customers in terms of updates. I always felt slighted as a customer. Samsung sold over 30 million Galaxy S phones as of October of last year. That means that most of those customers never saw an update and either A. Abandoned their Galaxy S phone as I did to get official updates, B. Are still stuck with the original OS (or at least FroYo, not Gingerbread) or C. Rooted and put a ROM on the phone. Don't get me wrong, I put a ROM on my phone at day 2 of owning it. I bought it for that purpose. However, most customers did not buy their phones to do that. But even today there is not any source code released of Gingerbread for the Vibrant. Every ROM that is out there running 2.3 is a hacked version. If they had released the source code CyanogenMod would still be supporting it. As it stands, they have dropped official support since Samsung has not released the source and that is how they operate.
HTC and Motorola have agreed to slow down releases. I hope that this is to allow themselves time to support the millions of customers that buy their phones. Samsung is still releasing models one after the other. They are also notorious for not releasing updates. Samsung is not the only company doing this but if they keep releasing phones without supporting existing customers it hurts not only Samsung but the Android community. It sours the customer experience for everyone. The customers who pay their hard earned money for these phones deserve to have OS updates for most of their contract. Apple gives most buyers an upgrade every year, normally for more than two years. I know some will argue that they don't make major upgrades on the hardware or software, but users still get it either way. Google needs to step in somehow and make sure they protect customers from buying a phone that will not be updated for at least a year.
We talk about fragmentation in Android and lawsuits threatening the platform. The biggest threat Android faces may not be from Apple or Microsoft but rather from Android manufacturers themselves. Let us hope that Samsung and the others see that slowing the release schedule and offering better customer experiences for the life of a phone is more important than pushing mass quantities of phones.
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