Is fragmentation really the issue? I think the issue is quality. Every android phone I've used was very different from the last. My friends G1 isn't a lot like my Vibrant and my Vibrant isn't a lot like my old EVO. Three different GUIs! Heck, Samsung decided to put in their own filesystem on the Vibrant and all Vibrant owners suffer from random lag.
Each phone has a different camera app, different gallery, different everything. Its annoying. They're all more or less phoned in - if you pardon the pun.
What google really needs to do is address its ugly stock GUI and put some shiny on there. Put in a decent media player. Put in lots of Apple-quality apps so that OEMs don't feel the need to completely redo everything because the stock android looks like something a defense contractor would make.
Maybe they can even make custom GUI enhancements run in userspace so that updates don't require redoing them. There should be a skinnable layer on top of system widgets. Heck, once you have that then google can start pushing out its own updates to phones and OEMs won't need to wait 8 months to port them over.
One can dream, I guess. Or I can buy an iphone again or move to Win7. My little Android experiment isn't really going anywhere. Its just as locked down as an iphone in practice and I suffer with Samsung's or HTC's low quality enhancements.
Agreed, the fragmentation might be caused by the semi-quality of apps and looks. But the mess that the hardware makers are forcing upon arent that much better at the moment.
I've been amazed each time i've put on cyanogenmod to replace the default android that comes with the phone with how much more useful it gets. Smoother, better working and less lag.
I would love to see htc(or any other hardware maker) ship their phones with a cyanogenmodversion that will track cyanogenmods updates. That might even save them some work.
Each phone has a different camera app, different gallery, different everything. Its annoying. They're all more or less phoned in - if you pardon the pun.
What google really needs to do is address its ugly stock GUI and put some shiny on there. Put in a decent media player. Put in lots of Apple-quality apps so that OEMs don't feel the need to completely redo everything because the stock android looks like something a defense contractor would make.
Maybe they can even make custom GUI enhancements run in userspace so that updates don't require redoing them. There should be a skinnable layer on top of system widgets. Heck, once you have that then google can start pushing out its own updates to phones and OEMs won't need to wait 8 months to port them over.
One can dream, I guess. Or I can buy an iphone again or move to Win7. My little Android experiment isn't really going anywhere. Its just as locked down as an iphone in practice and I suffer with Samsung's or HTC's low quality enhancements.