It ’s more nuanced than you think .
Last hebdomad at Google I / O , one of the striking themes of the keynotewas Sundar Pichai ’s focus on Android as the future of Google . Android is n’t just the essence of Google ’s boom smartphone and tablet business ; it ’s also core to the party ’s next form , as they move into what Pichai key as“connected devices ” or the internet of things . He imagined a world of computer hardware devices that do everything from monitor traffic to track your heartbeat , all brought together by Google ’s prize operating system .
Let me just unknot for you what that really think of . The data point giant star that pretty much defined the idea of vane 2.o back at the turn of events of the century is redefining itself as an OS giant . As the cylons would say , all this has go on before and will happen again .
Operating Systems For The Masses
Back in the late twentieth century , Microsoft prevail the market for information processing system by pore for the most part on its still - wildly - pop operating system , Windows . Sure , it was always being challenge by Apple ’s OS — just as iOS gainsay Android now . And there was the Linux penetration . But Microsoft deliver the goods that battle for several reasonableness .
First , it was computer hardware agnostic . Like Android , Windows was design to run on many kinds of screen background calculator . And their software , like Word , was as agnostic . You could run Word on an Apple machine ( indeed I did , as a college student with my nifty Mac Quadra ) . Similarly , Google apps are now being made quick for the iOS environs .
By reach Windows as portable as possible , Microsoft was able to own the computer software market . They call on the desktop electronic computer ecosystem into a Windows ecosystem . Indeed , that ecosystem hold on to this day , all over the world . Net Applications , a market analytics business firm , estimates thatWindows is installed on 91 % of desktop PCs worldwide .
The Android World-Domination Strategy
But Apple eventually image out a way to make its most constraining feature film a boon . or else of designing an oxygen for a minor , elite family of PCs , the companionship went into consumer electronics . With the iPod , the iPad , and the iPhone , the company could eventually thwack Microsoft around . They did n’t want to make their software package portable to all gadget , because their gimmick were the lure .
And that ’s where Android comes in , with its operating system challenge , like the return of the pent-up . Android even sidesteps the Linux threat , by simply incorporating Linux ( perhaps ineptly , as many developer will quickly point out , but effectively ) . Now that mobile devices are the thing , Google hop to dominate that market with an operating system to rule them all .
Still , there are many differences between what Android is attempt to do and what Windows did last century . First of all , Android devices will in the end be far more various than desktop microcomputer . They might one mean solar day be part ofurban substructure , as well as your auto and your smartphone .
And even though Android is a muscular OS , the goal for Google has always been to harness the swarm . So we ’re moving from a Windows world of smart devices in a relatively dumb internet , to dumb gimmick in a voguish cloud . Because of trend your Android gimmick is not much use ( and not much fun ) if it ca n’t web with your personal information in the Google cloud — as well as everything else that ’s online , too .
What this modification underscore is how much you and your datum are key to Android ’s note value . Desktop PCs were great for organise and access your data . But mobile and substructure gadget are also for generate data . The more you use your devices , the more data it gathers about you , and the “ skilful ” it gets . That ’s what has lead to so many improvements in Google Now , as well as countless other apps that track everything from footer pattern in malls to rodent animation in forest ecosystem .
That ’s correct : You are part of the gadget . Android is you .
Looking Back on The Road Ahead
Back in 1994 , when I was just becoming aware of computers as something other than the thing I used to indite papers and send electronic mail , Bill Gates write a form of futurist manifestocalled The Road forwards . I remember picking it up in a Barnes and stately , laughing at its cheesy cover , and trying to decide what the front man of The Most Evil Company In The World had to say about my hereafter .
Mostly , as far as I could narrate , it was about the “ World Wide Web ” and browsers . Those were the former days of Internet Explorer , and Gates was preaching about how tomorrow would bring us many net marvels — something that was already obvious to me , but probably not to my elder and the many users of Windows .
Back then , the future was the vane , and it give birth to a matter called Google , which has follow to touch Microsoft in its exponent — and its power to set the agenda for our technical future . Now Google say the futurity is the function organisation . We have come full circle — or , more accurately , we have looped around the spiral and returned to the operating system with a more or less different perspective .
The equipment ecosystem may be dissimilar , and the data may be grown , but the goal is the same . Microsoft and Google need to create platforms that moderate the entropy political machine of the world , for good and for uncollectible . As PCs slowly fade away in importance , link up devices will take over — leaving Android to inherit the kingdom that Windows will lose .
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