New control app for Muso

I have more than a sneaking suspicion...I am pretty much convinced of it! Samsung represents 42% of the Android market. Tizen suggests they are serious about distancing themselves from Google, and embracing a similar "ecosystem" strategy as Apple.

The vast majority of consumers just want things to work, and work well together.  With Apple and Samsung, they will have two alternative proscriptive solutions for accomplishing exactly that.  The rest of the world will fall into the DIY, open systems camp, with greater choice...and potentially greater challenges/rewards.  

Android is Linux, and Google (without Samsung) will be forced to fly the open systems flag higher. They need to do a better job of AOSP support for smaller development partners, as well as sponsoring greater interoperability testing. There are too many Android/Linux devices that don't play well together or, at the very least, take way too much effort for the average person to get working (by comparison to an all-Apple setup).

All just my humble opinion of course.

Hook

Then there's Tim Cooke's quote from last Monday.  "Android fragmentation is turning devices into a toxic hellstew of vulnerabilities."  Obviously he's biased, but the fragmentation can't be a good thing in the long run.

 That's one helluva quote!  

Whilst not a programming guru looking at the problem from a software development point of view could the the fragmentation be overcome by use of generic higher programming languages and then recompiling the programme to the assembly language/machine code for the target platform. As long as the programmer resists the easy short cuts provided by using unique tools for a particular final platform it should be possible to have a pretty solid piece code that can be easily ported to whatever platform is the flavour of the day. 

No one really wants an app that runs everywhere but is, in practice, kludgy upon every platform its runs.  There is a happy balance to be had, agreed (in theory), though (in practice) the big boys have dedicated native app development staffs per platform for a reason....

I agree with David's comments regarding balance and the current approach taken by manufacturers/application providers.

However looking back at earlier comments regarding fragmentation and the expectations of customers how long will it be before manufacturers realise that they are losing out on a whole lot of potential customers because they are not considering the customer requirements. I think some manufacturers are already doing this by delivering "ecosystem agnostic" controllers (or at least covering off the majority of the ecosystems) themselves or putting them out to "open source" where the entusiasts with skills can help. Perhaps not the ideal approach but it gets the public (potential and current customers) looking at their products.

I also hope that one of the benefits of this thread started by Solid Air is to voice some of those wants to Naim who then act on them. So if someone from Naim wants to add a little hint (link in David02' comment refers) then we are all waiting....hopefully not till Sep. 

Scotty, I'm sure there would be plenty of willing volunteers, although frankly, most of the problems are so blindingly obvious they really should be able to see for themselves. If they lack the technical knowhow, they should be able to buy it in very easily.

I'd be happy to assist in any "beta" test group if Naim were to ask.