Android

Android by Google is their proprietary mobile platform which has grown to become the market leader in just a few short years. It's astounding how well received Android has been by so many users that it's accepted as an industry authority and standard right along side Apple. And this seemed to happen relatively quickly in their market in my opinion. The extensibility of Android is one of it's strongest features. It's open source so anyone can use or modify the original code to create and adapt the software to suit very specific needs. Unlike Apple which is the opposite. The cross platform nature of Android makes it available in every mobile device with the exception of Apple. It's the go to platform for LG, Samsung and now available in Blackberry mobile phones too. The cultural ecosystem of Android is much more open than Apple because of the freedom to add apps to their software. You can install Android apps from other sources than the app store such as from a third party app store or a flash memory car which enables them to be much more accessible and freely available compared to Apple apps generally speaking. I'm a heavy Gmail user along with a few of there other apps. I use sheets and docs almost every day also so the fact that Google uses Android it makes good sense that I benefit from using Android devices for the incredible accessibility and overall easy use of Google tools. There is so much value in the platform and it's suite of tools it awesome. You can get a very good smartphone with Android installed quite affordably. But it's also available in premium flagship phones by Samsung, HTC, LG and many others. The Google store is great too. I like the availability of my favorite music and books in Android devices.

It can be great to have so much freedom when creating your hardware with the ability to adapt Android to suit your developmental needs, but it can be something of a hassle to experience such varied customization of the core functionality from device to device. There is risk in the open source nature of third party apps. They can't be as secured when there is not as much regulation of merchants and their usage. It would be cool to have a common core setup across devices available in addition to the custom versions of different mobile devices. Google has acquired Songza.com recently and transitioned it into Google Play; the Google streaming music service. Songza was free because it was ad based so I was curious what the official business model of Google Play will be. Though it's free and plays ads every so often which I accept, once in a while it stops during these ads when I am at the gym listening, so I have to close down the app and restart it about once per hour. And this only started happening in the last month or so; hopefully it's fixed in a forthcoming update. I've known four people who've had battery issues with their Android devices. Some of it was the charger cords and for another is was the device itself. I'm familiar with both though haven't had issues in this regard but overall it doesn't seem to last as long as my iPhone.

I find the overall use of Android to be a bit more cumbersome than Apple but it makes up for it with the integration of Google tools natively and the amount of quality apps available overall make it a great option for a smartphone or mobile device. Android also has a ton of resources available to help you learn it and a huge, vibrant community as well which is great to utilize as well. I use my Samsung Galaxy S6 every day and love it.