Android Devices Crave Google's Attention
Android's smartphone army is at least 20 phones strong, plus a ragtag rear guard of e-book readers, tablets and set-top boxes. — But those oddball devices bringing up the rear are running into an unexpected challenge: neglect by Google.
Context & Ripple Effects
Six weeks after TechCrunch argued Android's openness was being invoked as a cover story — the boy who cried wolf pattern where every version announcement promised unity that never arrived — Wired's Gadget Lab narrows the complaint to a specific casualty list. The smartphone army is at least 20 devices strong, but the e-book readers, tablets and set-top boxes trailing behind it are running into neglect from Google itself.
The timing matters: sources describe the next Android release, Froyo, as an unconfirmed effort to stem severe platform fragmentation, yet Google's attention is reportedly concentrated on phones while the non-phone rear guard ships without equivalent support. A platform expanding across device categories faster than its maintainer supports them is the exact condition under which forks and incompatible variants emerge.
First-order effects
- Hardware makers shipping Android e-book readers, tablets and set-top boxes get no committed upgrade path or engineering attention from Google, leaving them to maintain builds on their own.
- Google's partner relations split into two tiers: the 20-plus phone OEMs inside the inner circle, and non-phone licensees effectively self-servicing.
Second-order effects
- Neglected device makers face a choice between shipping stale software, investing in their own maintenance teams, or drifting toward modified Android variants — each option deepening the fragmentation the platform already suffers from.
- Rival platforms courting the emerging tablet and e-reader categories can pitch manufacturers on vendor support that Android's phone-first priorities leave uncovered.
Third-order effects
- If Google keeps allocating engineering resources by device-class revenue rather than by ecosystem health, an open-source mobile OS nominally unified under one brand structurally fragments into supported and abandoned strata — with the 'open' label doing less work as a guarantee of compatibility.
- The episode previews a governance question every successful open platform eventually faces: who maintains the long tail when the maintainer optimizes for the head.
The trend: Android's expansion beyond smartphones is outpacing Google's willingness to support every device class, setting up the fragmentation-versus-control struggle that will define the platform's next phase.