Facebook Home: A Job Well Done

Facebook has recently released Facebook Home for select Android devices, and it represents a smart move by the social media giant. For months, if not years, the tech community has speculated whether Facebook would release their own Facebook built and branded phone. Poorly executed devices like the HTC ChaCha indicated that the market was not necessarily interested in a Facebook phone per se, yet the fact that 40% of Facebook use comes from mobile phones meant that the company could not simply ignore it. In order to capitalize on a growing market that incessantly uses Facebook on high end smart phones, Facebook created Home.

Facebook Home is an application that presently runs on selected Android devices, including the announced HTC First, and is effectively an Android skin. If you haven’t seen it in action yet, click here to see how it replaces your phone’s existing operating system with a Facebook focused one. For Facebook, Home is an ingenious move as it gains the company access into a market that has extremely high barriers to entry with relative ease and low costs. By creating a software solution rather than a hardware one, Facebook are able to enter the mobile market without having to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung. Furthermore, with Home being an App that can be downloaded, it allows Facebook to get their unique user interface into infinitely more devices than if it were to introduce its own device to the market.

What Facebook have demonstrated with Facebook Home is that they understand mobile. They understand their demographic, they understand what they want and they understand how they use their devices. With Home, Facebook have promised monthly updates which means that the company can swiftly and effectively bring to market the most up to date experience with great ease, which marks a shift away from the annual cycle of updates that we are used seeing to from tech’s big payers. Facebook Home is an innovative, easy to use and highly effective skin to Android that will cement the company’s presence on mobile devices for the foreseeable future.

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Google, Android and Samsung: A Love Affair?

Contrary to popular belief the Android operating system, which powers a variety of mobile phones and tablets (in addition to a host of other hardware peripherals) is not the cash cow for Google that many think that it is. In fact, in 2012 Android accounted for paltry $550m of Google’s $5.5bn 2012 turnover. So why does Google continue to invest in a product which in comparison to its core business seems like a commercial failure? Furthermore, should Google be worried that a single handset manufacturer continues to dominate the vast majority of all Android handset sales?

One only needs to look at the origins of Android in order to realize that it was never directly meant to create a massive new revenue stream for the company; after all, it was designed in order to be freely distributed. Google’s aim was to benefit financially from the selling of advertising, which would become increasingly personalized, based on the data that the company could obtain from users of its Android operating systems. Therefore, if Google’s aim was to get Android in the hands of as many consumers as possible in order to push its other services and deliver more bespoke advertising then it would appear that they succeeded, because by Q4 2012 Android accounted for 70% of the global mobile market. It is unlikely however that Google would have anticipated that the growth of Android’s market share would be to the potential detriment Android itself.

Until 2010 Google was content with simply providing the software that was powering the growing mobile handset market, after all the company remained an advertising business and Android facilitated that. However, seeing that other companies were altering the Android experience, and thus potentially Google’s source of data, the company got into the hardware business and introduced its Nexus series. The Nexus series are handsets that were designed by Google alongside 3^rd party handset manufacturers (HTC, Samsung and LG respectively), which run Android without any software tweaks. This is important for Google as it gives them control over what services and applications the end user engages with. The problem that Google faced is that the Nexus brand has always been a sub-genre of phones that never gained mainstream popularity. Whilst the Nexus phones have failed to make a dent in the market, the success of Samsung’s Galaxy series has propelled the company to the top manufacturer in the world with 30.3% of the mobile market share. Samsung realized that it was not in their interest to be too heavily reliant on Android (lest it be taken away from them) and therefore opted to heavily skin their Android phones so that they don’t resemble a pure vanilla Android experience. On top of that, in order to mitigate any further evidence of Google’s influence, they add a plethora of ‘S’ services that look to replace Google’s native applications. The effect Samsung’s self-branding is that people don’t by a Samsung phone because it runs Android, they buy an Android because it’s a Samsung. Samsung have been able to ride the success of the open source Android operating system, offer an outstanding alternative to the iPhone, and are now in a position where they are not beholden to Google’s Android, as Google want it to be used. Google now finds itself in a situation where Android’s greatest advocate has becomes its greatest commercial threat.

As it stands today Google is in a bit of a pickle. At its inception, Android needed OEMs to push the hardware side of the Android ecosystem. As the software became more advanced and more popular it became a bit of a poison chalice for Google, as manufacturers began to put their own spin on it to differentiate themselves within an increasingly competitive market. This has left Google with two options. This first would be to clamp down on how Android is implemented, but this is unlikely as it is wholly against what he open source nature of the operating system stands for. The second is to continue to invest in their Nexus branded phones and ship to a broader market at prices that undercut their competitors; a strategy that has worked well with the Nexus 4. Furthermore, with the existing pipeline of phones that were already in place when Google acquired Motorola in 2011 coming to an end, we can expect a Google influenced and Motorola built phone come out market soon which will allow Android, in its purest form, to stand out on its own in a very real and very compelling way. With Google I/O around the corner, many of these uncertainties ought to be made clear.

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Android’s beauty is skin deep, but cracks have started to show

The Android operating system has never really hit the mainstream the way its prettier, slicker and more popular iOS cousin has. Apple’s success is down to its ability to produce industry leading software designed specifically for outrageously-stunning hardware. As a result, Apple’s products are both immediately identifiable and intuitive as the mobile operating system works in perfect harmony with the hardware. In contrast, it is Android’s open philosophy which has meant that it has failed to offer consumers both a uniform software and hardware experience. Unlike Apple which runs a tight ship and is in control of every aspect of its ecosystem, Android promotes openness. Openness in who can use the software and openness as to how that software is then tweeked and applied to a manufacturer's hardware. Consequently, it has never been easy for the average consumer to be able to identify or use an Android phone.

Any manufacturer who decides to use the Android operating system as the basis for a handset is allowed to pretty much do what ever they want to it before bringing it to market. This allows them to differentiate what is ostensibly a very similar product to what their competitors are offering. The adaptation of the operating system is known as skinning, and is best explained with the following analogy: Imagine that Android is a delicious sponge cake made by Google HQ and delivered for free to all the bakers that ask for it. Although all the bakers have a truly delicious cake, they are all selling the same product and will thus struggle to pull customers away from neighbouring bakeries. In order to generate business, each baker decides to make their cakes look unique by adding their own style of icings and toppings. Within a few days consumers suddenly have a choice of loads of different cakes, which although taste the same, look completely different. This is precisely what happened with the Android platform, as handset manufacturers flooded the market with their own tweeked versions of Android, leaving consumers without a clear understanding of what Android actually was.

Now you may rightly  be thinking “who cares if anyone knows what cake they are eating? After all, its all the same!” Well this is partly true. The analogy stays pretty clear-cut when Google HQ only make one type of cake. What happens if Google decides to improve their recipe and make a newer, bigger and yummier cake? When this happens the bakers experience mixed emotions. On one hand they are getting an even better cake, but on the other hand, all of the tools that they used to make the old cake special have become obsolete, as the new cake requires different equipment. As a result, they need to invest in new tools which takes time and costs money, whilst simultaneously, word on the street is that there is a new cake in town and it is all that anyone wants. All of a sudden, you have a street full of bakeries where some have rushed out their new half-finished cakes to meet demand, whilst others have taken so long that by the time they are ready, Google HQ has already released a new one! When this happens you get fragmentation. This is what has happened in the past few years, as handset manufacturers have been unable to effectively keep up with newer versions of Android. Consequently, consumers do not benefit from a uniform user experience or the most up to date software. This is particularly problematic for the Apps that run on Android as developers have had no clue how each iteration of the software would affect their App, as sometimes Apps that used to work on one version of Android, would not work the same on a newer version. Whilst Apps that run perfectly on a 3.5 inch screen may not scale up well to a 4 inch screen. In contrast, Apple provide developers with a consistent platform for which to develop Apps, and that is why in general their Apps are cleaner, prettier and follow a more consistent design.

So what now? Google has recently taken a new direction with its Android operating system, one that will please consumers but anger manufacturers. Google’s newest version of Android is Ice Cream Sandwich (note that all versions are named after a dessert) and is the company’s prettiest and most feature-filled version to date. What this means is bakers are being delivered a cake that is pretty much as tasty as can be, and there is little they can add to make customers buy their own specially-designed cakes. In turn, customers may choose to buy their cakes straight from Google HQ instead, as this way they are guaranteed the tastiest cakes as soon as they arrive. What this means for the manufacturer, is that the market has become significantly more competitive as demand for their skins will continue to decrease as Google’s natural version of Android slowly becomes the first choice for Android fans. In turn users will get a consistent experience and Android will for the first time have its own identifiable look, feel and touch.

The truth about Mount Sinai and the two tablets...

An often sited problem with religion is that relies too heavily on oral transmission of information. In the absence of devices that enable the accurate recording of events as they happen, history is subject to fabrications and miscommunications. In fact, one of the gravest and most propagated fallacies is that Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai receiving the Bible from G-d and inscribing ten commandments into two pieces of stone. In reality, this is only partly true. Yes Moses and G-d were having a serious chin-wag, but it was not concerning the laws that would guide the future of the Israelites, it was about a far more pressing issue, and one that would continue to divide the world until this very day. Apple or Android... which is better? So serious was the debate on Sinai that G-d sent Moses down the mountain with two working tablets, each running a competing software, with the view that the people below would help end the debate. However, this mission did not achieve its objectives. So pertinent was the debate that the Israelites began to question the very existence of an almighty G-d. If there was a G-d, why would He force his disciples to make such difficult decisions? Debate turned to anger, and anger turned to violence, and propelled by the storm of emotions below him, Moses slammed the two tablets into the mountain’s side. It was only as the last pixel dissipated from the shattered glass beneath his feet that the gravity of his actions hit him... for the next forty years the Israelites would be lost:

Exodus 34:1:

“And as Moses didith slameth’d the tablets onto the side of Sinai didst he see the error of his ways. For he had preinstalled the route to the land of Milk and Honey on his Google maps. So Moses did turnith to the Lord and he said ‘EPIC FAIL,’ and the Lord did turn his face unto Moses and said ‘LMFAO’. ”