maha::software

What's Eating Google Android?

Whats-eating-gilbert-grape

So earlier today I came across a great article by Caleb Elston on deciphering Android's woes.  I commented on his post and thought I would share and expand on that here.

Since I wrote a post about Apple the other day in terms of Jurassic Park philosophy, I thought I'd find a movie to relate Google Android to.  The first one that came to mind: What's Eating Gilbert Grape.  A really beautiful movie, and one of my favorites.  Other than the title, though, I'm not sure there's much in common with the movie and Google Android.  Oh well.  Here are a few lines of dialogue from the movie just for kicks:

Becky: I love the sky. It's so limitless.  
Gilbert: It is big. It's very big. 
Becky: Big doesn't even sum it up, right? That word big is so small. 

Gilbert: God Arnie, you're getting so big. Pretty soon I ain't gonna be able to carry you no more.  
Arnie Grape: No, you're getting littler Gilbert. You're getting littler, you're shrinking! You're shrinking Gilbert, you're shrinking! Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking! 

Becky: Tell me what you want as fast as it comes to you.  
Gilbert: I wanna be a good person. 
 
Anyhoo... back to the subject at hand.  Successful products and successful platforms think about: customer, customer, customer.  I ask myself-- what is Google thinking about? I think it's: search, search, search. (And, as a corollary: ads, ads, ads). Google's core motivation is to be the search platform for mobile. They want to be the way that everybody finds anything from their phone. They will probably get there. The result of this focus shows in the really innovative things that Google is doing with voice search and image search (Google Goggles). 

When Android first came out, I told people that this was just like the old desktop OS battles between Apple and Microsoft.  Apple = control of the stack; Microsoft = decouple software from hardware.  Microsoft came out on top.  The analogy to today is clearly: Apple = control of the stack; Google = decouple software from hardware.  I then told people that's why Android would eventually overtake iPhone OS.  I don't believe that anymore.  Microsoft wanted to make a better product, and arguably, in many ways they did.  Without a doubt, they wanted to dominate the desktop OS.

I don't think Google's real focus, or their strength, is in executing a platform like Android well. They don't want to dominate the mobile OS.  Not as much as Apple does.  And I think this spells doom, or worse, mediocrity, for Android.