If you bought an Android device a couple years ago, like the G1, the system specs and the time frame in which it was released puts the phone behind the curve. However, it is quite possible to have purchased an Android phone in the past year and still find yourself lagging behind. The Motorola Backflip comes to mind, as does Sony’s X10. Neither phone was built to really thrive, both were released with legacy versions of Android and even their updates were to legacy releases. Consumers who bought these phones and were introduced to Android found themselves getting a school of hard knocks education on Android, open source, and the Android ecosystem.

Throw in carrier contract commitments, its a tough pill to swallow.

Worse, even newer phones, like the original Droid, found themselves quickly out of date as Google continued pushing new versions. This is not slightly behind, as in terms of version numbers, but behind in the time it has taken the carriers to implement updates to the new version. Six months or longer, even not at all, this scenario is what sums up the drawbacks of an Android device.

Sure, some new phones updated to Froyo a bit quicker than six months, but manufacturers and the carriers are certainly nowhere close to keeping up with Google’s furious pace. The delay has always been explained in two parts. Most of the phones have custom UI’s, which means any update to Android has to be processed through the unique customization of HTC’s Sense or Motorola’s Blur. Second each update has to be tested independently on the individual pieces of hardware.

Okay.

I really do not buy this explanation.

Turn to the rooted Android Community and you can find roms which update a variety of Android devices, across multiple manufacturers, and with customizations which make the manufacturer’s skins look tame.

MIUI, for instance, is about a complete overhaul as one can get on an Android device. Sure its inspired by Apple’s iPhone to blend the best of both worlds, but it is available on a growing number of devices and will push Gingerbread long before anyone gets around to it officially in the Open Handset Alliance.

Maybe the most popular custom rom, Cyanogenmod, is already pushing Gingerbread nightlies to a wide range of devices. I have it on my Nexus One, and the release candidate is just around the corner. Even Google might succumb to the pace Cyanogen and his team have set, meaning they could finalize a version even before Google pushes Gingerbread officially to the Nexus One.

Oh, and a legacy device like the G1 (HTC Dream), why that can run Gingerbread too with the right rom. Cyanogenmod for instance.

Nope, the only thing that really holds the carriers and manufacturers back is their own bureaucracy and the wish to make proprietor versions. I do not blame them for wanting to make money, but it is just silly to hear reasons which simply do not add up to anything like the truth.

Yahoo offers a nightmare for investors believing the company is capable of being a leader. What it knows how to do, the only the thing it does well, is figure out ways of getting people’s attention. Remember the cowboy rodeo yelping, “YAHOO!” of the 1990’s? Now Yahoo has struck a deal with Starbucks hoping it will help bring people back to the Internet portals homepage.

It is a pipe dream. While the deal itself is bound to create some movement for Yahoo in the short term, the move is a parlor trick. Yahoo continues to do little to solidify its core, falling behind both Google and MSN in what users can expect to be offered with email. Google Docs and Microsoft Web Apps both offer compelling services Yahoo lacks, giving potential users little reason to stick around.

A far bigger problem is Yahoo’s inability to deal with spam. Ten years ago, before “Social Media” was a catch phrase, Yahoo chat was a huge destination for the social hungry web. Today, Yahoo chat rooms still exist, but the rooms are crowded with bots. The user base has shrunk to almost nothing. Just signing up for a new Yahoo email account is an invitation for spam to hit an in box. Who wants to deal with this?

Underneath it all, Yahoo pays little attention to the technology it does produce. Yahoo Messenger might have been a cutting edge idea at its release, but it lacks the quality of service found in competing products like Skype or Google Talk, two services which not only provide messaging but have headed towards WiFi communications with real phone numbers.

This isn’t to say Yahoo lacks the capability to make money. On the web content is king and Yahoo provides a lot of content. Yahoo also provides services independent of a fanatical users base, like ads. However, Yahoo is losing the ability to be thought of as part of the tech elite. Apple, Microsoft, and Google have all found ways to leverage different facets of their core business despite competition among themselves and upstarts like Facebook. Sure, the big companies are mimicking each other too, but they each have unique positions in the market they all secretly envy as well. Microsoft practically own the desktop, Facebook has become the standard for social media, Apple knows how to break in new markets with a brand shouting high standards, and Google is search.

At the end of the day, Yahoo has built the K mart of online networking. The real deal is the company has not taken an honest assessment of itself to provide a vision for the future. While the brand will continue to exist, even make money, it is only a ghetto superstar watching its potential slip through its fingers.

The Gingerbread rumor is beginning to make its way around the web. One blurry photograph and one blurry video. Oh, then there that brief bit regarding native support for video chat and Google Voice finally adding support for true VoIP calling. It is all wrapped up together with a mention of Google’s claim to be focused on the UI. None of these things can actually be seen in the video.

In fact, these leaked images look exactly like the stock UI on Froyo, except for the tail end of the video adding a bit of animation to dazzle the transition of the OS into sleep mode, nothing that would make Android indispensable to a prospective buyer.

Google adding functionality, that I believe. Back on Sept 4th I did a little deductive reasoning and made the prediction for VoIP support with an article I published on Technorati. Adding native support for video chat also makes a lot of sense. After all, Android is built by committee through the Open Handset Alliance, and one thing video chat needs to be successful, beyond any particular phone, is interoperability. It doesn’t matter if its the EVO or the iPhone 4, success in this area goes beyond the needs of a single device if it wants to meet the needs of the consumer.

I own an Android, and I have friends who own Androids as well, but I also have friends that own iPhones. If video chat is being integrated into Androids core, and the idea makes a lot of sense, lets hope it is a solution, not just for Android, but for everyone. Even Apple, with its unquenchable thirst to control its platform, understood the success of video chat depends upon relinquishing control of the underlying technology and made Facetime an open source project.

Now if Android somehow supports Apple’s own Facetime project at the core of the OS, then the smartphone market is going to get really interesting. Especially with Windows 7 Phone being released. Microsoft might have a solid OS in its new platform, but it is already going to be playing catch up in functionality just to gain market share, video chat only adds to the burden. RIM and Nokia will find themselves with the same dilemma, adapt or be destroyed.

Again I am speculating, but Google has never shied away from open source. Thinking Apple’s Facetime could find support inside Gingerbread is not a huge stretch. Of course, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia can all adapt, its just there is nothing out there even to hint video chat is on anyone else’s to do list.

Yes, video phone chat is actually old hat. For decades its been the staple of the imagination rather than reality. The bottom line is that its never really been feasible at a capacity to make it worth adopting. Even the attempts a few short years ago lacked more than just the infrastructure to seriously make it a staple of today’s technology appetite. With the ever decreasing cost of hardware, cameras being integrated into a smartphone platform represent a small cost. This new transition of smartphones becoming the new PC just makes it that much easier to update and port the functionality onto even better hardware solutions as they become available. Being able to present these features through a singular technology like Facetime in a platform agnostic format could give it legs.

Now if all this sounds unreasonable because Steve Jobs has been quoted slamming Android, even ranting beyond the facts, then here are a few things to consider. Android adding video chat support that works with Facetime would stroke Steve’s ego. Even though Apple and Google are competitors in the mobile space, Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft represent three common enemies. In the wisdom of Sun Tzu, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” iOS and Android both represent the future of smartphones and have momentum. Nokia and RIM both have huge shares of the market on a worldwide scale and even if Microsoft’s new WP7 is late to the game, you can’t just ignore Microsoft even with Steve Balmer at the helm. Two platforms capable of working together not only gives consumers a choice, strategically it also takes away other options until they catch up.

Now about that Gingerbread UI. Personally I think Android’s vanilla flavoring is just fine for the most part. I expect Gingerbread to be a bit of refinement, adding a bounce effect when scrolling through menus or home screens, possibly unifying the icons to better blend together. All the elements that make it feel “finished.” Now all this would be nice, I guess, but I what is really on my wish list is a far better form of copy and paste.

I have been sporting the MIUI (9.30) rom on my Nexus One for the past few weeks. Without a doubt, it has been one of the most intriguing custom roms to hit the wild. MIUI comes from the Chinese rooted community. Part of what makes it so incredible is its design goes outside the Android box.

There is an obvious influence from Apple’s iOS. Icons are rendered with rounded corner squares, often designed from the ground up for a specific app. Even if the app is not native to the MIUI rom, it provides a rounded corner background behind an apps icon, creating a uniform look throughout the whole OS.

MIUI might have borrowed from iOS to gain some of its look and feel, but there are plenty of custom elements added to make the whole rom feel unique. The launcher, for instance, has a small bar on top, making it possible to scroll through any number of desktop screens. Making a pinching motion on any desktop will show every desktop in miniature.There is also home icon on the bottom of every screen, making it possible to set a new home desktop in a pinch. A plus sign is also available to add more desktops if needed, and an extra empty desktop can quickly be closed by touching the little x on the right hand corner. Quickly touching anyone of them will zoom in on the desired screen.

Soft, bounce, elements are also evident in the rom. Whether scrolling through a menu or through desktops, there are no abrupt stops.

Holding down on the desktop brings up a unique way of accessing wallpapers and widgets. The desktop itself becomes a grid, making it easy to see how much space is available for any additions wanting to be made. All the desktops on the phone are also available in this mode. The idea is to drag a widget directly to the desktop a user wishes to modify. It is actually a very cool feature that goes a long way towards keeping the OS focused.

Personally, my favorite feature is inside the notifications drop down. Here you can access a ton of settings with simple to use icons. Think of the power bar widget on steroids, but also eloquently refined and unobtrusively in place.

Maybe what has made MIUI so popular has been the addition of an FM Radio. Nexus One owners have long known their handsets had the ability, but it was locked away and never made active on the phone. The FM radio requires Bluetooth to be enabled and users must insert their headphones to act as an antenna. Its an absolutely cool feature that has been a big part of why the rooted community has worked so hard making language packs available in other languages.

And before I forget, there is one other really neat feature on this phone. The ability to take screen shots. Holding down menu button /volume down generates a satisfying click, creating a jpeg image.

With all that makes this rom great, there are a few drawbacks. First, it doesn’t seem to have a great ability to store apps on a SD card. I am certain, like a lot of custom roms, this is an issue that will correct itself over time. Second, the launcher bar takes up a bit more room than normal. Using a widget like Pure Messenger Widget in a full 4×4 size ends up having its bottom portion tucked beneath the launcher. Third, Facebook contact syncing does not work. There is a work around using an app called SyncMyPix, but its not the same.

A lot of folks have gone crazy over the MIUI lockscreen. Personally it is not my favorite feature. But like everything else in this rom, it really is its own entity. I know I will be going back to Cyanogen soon, or even wait to see what Gingerbread offers, but there is a lot this rom offers for anyone looking for a unique experience on their phone. The FM Radio has already been ported over to Cyanogen nightlies, maybe the notification bar will be too.

Android certainly has become a popular platform for smart devices. Its open source nature has inspired a multitude of gadgets, development by a variety of manufacturers, and it is sold by every major wireless carrier. No matter what Droid Does, the one knock on Android has been the issue of fragmentation.

What is fragmentation? In the case of Android, its a combination of Google’s unquenchable thirst for updates and device manufactures creating custom user interfaces which can never keep pace. This means an Android device is often at least one step behind Google’s Sesame Street alphabetical desert naming scheme. Sometimes the gap is even bigger.

Fragmentation in and of itself is normal. After all, Apple’s iPhone now has various versions of itself out in the wild. This is due to hardware architecture and four generations of the device being produced.

Once Froyo was released, aka Android 2.2, part of the speculation regarding the next Android update, aka Gingerbread, was that Google would be focusing on a method to curb fragmentation. Google has already implemented a strategy, moving some of its own default applications to the Android marketplace. This puts some of the functionality of what makes Android Android outside the need for manufacturers to keep pace. It is not a perfect solution because sometimes those application updates still require a certain version of the Android OS in order to function.

Google has also made it clear it will be slowing down its pace at some point. This will definitely benefit manufacturers and consumers both. The production of devices will be more capable of reflecting a generation of the Android OS long before there is buzz circulating the next new new thing.

Beyond this, the details are fuzzy at best. There is a rumor of Google designing a UI too fantastic to change, but i find this highly unlikely. Not that Google cannot produce a spectacular user interface, they did hire Palm’s Matias Duarte as the Android Experience Director. The question is whether manufacturers and carriers will give up their own thirst for brand distinction and other partnerships.

Samsung’s Fascinate for Verizon is a great example of why carriers and manufacturers will not give up their own flavors of Android. TouchWIZ, Samsung’s UI interface on top of Android, and Verizon’s deal with Microsoft to make Bing the phone’s default search and is what makes this phone distinct. Whether that is a good or bad distinction is up to the user. In the end it is about money and Microsoft is providing a lot of money for Verizon to put Bing on Verizon devices.

This will inherently cause confusion. Not everyone is watching the market and knowing what exactly every Android device is capable of. Buying a phone like the Samsung Fascinate will definitely lead to a different experience and a type of fragmentation which is not a normal progression derived from OS updates. Android is open source and there is not a lot Google can do about the choices of those adopting its platform.

On the horizon there looks to be even more separation from Android’s core. Both Verizon and Amazon.com have more than hinted at creating there own versions of the Android Marketplace. Blackweb 2.0 puts this into perspective nicely. With Marketplace options starting to pop up, this puts a bigger burden on app developers to cover more bases, jump through more hoops, just so other companies can figure out a way to get their pound of flesh.

The dilemma of fragmentation for Android is not just the natural progress of an update to the OS. At the root, Android is open source and its implementation will always reflect what is thought to be in the best interest of those who put it to use. While this might give consumers choice, their options are not likely to be spelt out entirely. This is especially true when a deal like the one between Verizon and Microsoft might mean training a sales team to promote devices supporting a lucrative deal over the best interest of the customer.

The end result means Android will never really be one cohesive operating system. It also means just as Android competes alongside other mobile devices, it will always be competing with itself. In the long run, it is probably a good thing. Although consumers are going to likely find themselves disappointed and mislead at times, those drawbacks will only underscore the need for carriers and manufacturers to realize what their consumers expect.

Windows 7 Phone’s launch is right around the corner. Monday, October 11th, Steve Balmer will be in New York City doing his mighty best to make the world forget Microsoft’s mobile past. Hype backed up by half a billion dollars in marketing will be unleashed on consumers heading into the holiday season.

Forget the money being spent on making this mobile platform the next gadget wonder. Microsoft has plenty to offer in terms of familiarity both Apple and Google lack. Deep attachments to corporate enterprise combined with products like Office means offering a device already at home with how people work. Then there is the XBox. Microsoft fully integrates the XBox Live experience and provides tools for developers to easily port their existing titles onto the Windows 7 Phone platform. And don’t forget Zune.

Now think about the money Microsoft is going to pour into marketing. Most consumers are already dependant on Microsoft in one fashion or another. Windows 7 Phone shows every indication of leveraging this pre-existing consumer base with a smartphone full of features aimed to enhance what they already do.

This is why the initial launch of Windows 7 Phone only on AT&T might turn out looking like a prize fight between Gilligan, Barney Fife, and Mike Tyson in his prime. Or Mike Tyson even out of his prime. Microsoft’s new mobile platform could very well be a game changer as it connects the dots between mobile and what is already there.