Why the Android native system is a tragedy： this is the reason.

There is no doubt that Android has become the most popular mobile operating system on the planet, with a market share far exceeding that of iOS, which is almost 90%. However, despite the success of Android, for Google, this may still be nothing to celebrate by opening champagne — — Android systems that occupy the whole world are mostly customized versions launched by various manufacturers; The native version of Android that can maximize the use of Google services and maximize Google’s interests is basically rare.

This is a rare situation in other popular operating systems around the world — — It’s hard to imagine that most of the Win systems on the market are customized versions of tomato garden and rainforest wood wind, but this happened to Android.

Why did it become like this? I made a popular operating system for the first time, and found a large number of vendors willing to promote the system for the first time. The combination of two inspiring things should have maximized Google’s interests in the mobile market, and the days when Google services dominated the world were within reach … … However, why did it become like this? Today, let’s talk about why the native Android was given a cold shoulder.

First of all, it should be clear that compared with the manufacturer’s customized ROM, native Android does have great advantages in some aspects. These advantages are as follows.

Performance. Native Android can be called the smoothest Android system. Although the configuration of Nexus/Pixel mobile phone is not as good as some flagships on the market, it is impeccable in fluency.

Stability. There are obviously fewer native Android bugs. After all, other manufacturers’ ROMs are all from native Android magic change, so the more they change, the greater the probability of problems.

Unity of design. The design of App always follows the design language of native Android — — In the era of Android 4.X, App uses Holo, and after 5.X, it follows Material Design. Only native Android can enjoy the perfect collection with App.

Highly playable.Android "artifacts" developed by developers are generally based on native Android (AOSP), such as Xposed framework and so on. If you use a third-party ROM, there may be compatibility problems, and native Android is the most playable ROM.

Upgrade speed and its security. The native Android system can get a system upgrade once a month. In contrast, many Android Roms customized by manufacturers are still in the version of a year ago.

However, although native Android has so many advantages, its promotion rate is still quite poor. For example, last year, Google’s Pixel mobile phone using native Android sold only 552,000 units — — For hundreds of millions of smart phone markets, this number is almost negligible.

Besides Pixel, other vendors rarely use native Android system — — A few Sony, One Plus (Oxygen OS) and so on, which are close to the native system, have not sold well. It is not without reason that the market performance of native Android is so sluggish.

Rigid function.As mentioned earlier, native Android has excellent performance, but in terms of function, it has a great disadvantage. For a long time, native Android lacked the common functions of third-party ROM, especially domestic ROM, such as rights management, background restriction, caller ID and so on.

Function is one of the core competitiveness of Android, and the reason why Android is more popular and more powerful than iOS is also an important reason. It’s convenient here. Native Android is inferior to custom ROM. This is understandable. After all, Google belongs to the founder of Android, and naturally it will not have as much energy as other manufacturers to develop various functions.

The technical follow-up is slow. The market is changing rapidly, and many new technologies of smart phones require a combination of software and hardware. The update of the native Android version and the update of Google’s mobile phones are basically once a year. This cycle is a bit too long for the follow-up of some new technologies.

For example, fingerprint identification was not supported by Google until Nexus 6P/ Android 6.0; Before this, a large number of mobile phone manufacturers have already used fingerprint identification technology — — Obviously, native Android can’t meet the follow-up needs of manufacturers for new technologies.

The upgrade speed is not synchronized. One advantage of native Android with Google’s mobile phone is the upgrade speed. Maybe some friends will think that third-party vendors use native Android, and the upgrade speed can also be synchronized with Google official. But this is not the case. Even if third-party vendors use native Android, they will not upgrade the new version globally like the Win system. The reason is that Android doesn’t have a huge driver library like Win.

Many friends don’t realize how huge the Win system comes with. For example, no matter what graphics card you are using, as long as Win is installed, lighting is definitely no problem — — At this time, there is already a drive at work. Android, on the other hand, doesn’t. The ROM released by Google doesn’t have all kinds of hardware drivers, so major manufacturers need to match it themselves, and users can’t load the drivers themselves. Therefore, the new system pushed by Google and other devices can’t follow up at the first time.

Due to the driving problem, the advantage of fast upgrade becomes smaller. Using native Android can really speed up the upgrade, but it can’t be synchronized, which makes the appeal of native Android much less attractive.

Google is not well managed. Google’s Nexus and Pixel phones,To tell the truth, there is no attractive selling point from the hardware. At the same time, their distribution channels are only Google Play Store, and their influence on the market is too small — — The same is true of GPE phones that Google cooperated with other manufacturers before.

In addition, the last two generations of Google phones have experienced many problems, such as the death restart of Nexus 5X, the sudden battery death of Nexus 6P, and the freezing of Pixel system. Google’s level in hardware manufacturing is really poor, which also makes it difficult for native Android to be promoted through Google mobile phones.

Manufacturers need to build their own ecology. This is an unsolved interest-related problem. Google wants to take advantage of Android and Google services, and everyone doesn’t want to just eat the leftovers left by Google.The biggest motivation for manufacturers to customize ROM is, of course, to integrate their own services. Nowadays, many Roms have developed their own ecology, especially those of domestic manufacturers, so that they can give up their hard work and switch to native Android? Are you kidding me?

Open source. As we all know, Android is an open source system and uses an Apache license. This means that major manufacturers can easily establish branches based on Android. Even if Google tightens the source code of Android and pushes native Android, everyone can develop independently based on the branches, and it is not necessary to follow suit with Google.

Now Google has strengthened its right to speak on Android by moving more and more code from open source AOSP to closed source GMS. The fundamental reason is that open source means that Google will never have a decisive right to speak again.

Native Android does have its unique charm, pure, smooth and safe … … But it can’t meet all the needs of consumers and manufacturers. In addition, Android is an open source system, and everyone can easily customize the version that suits them, so native Android is not the choice of the public.

If Google wants to make native Android popular all over the world, it needs to make its functions overwhelm the third-party ROM, its mobile phone product line and shipment volume evolve greatly, and the system comes with a perfect driver library — — All this is really too difficult. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, native Android will still be a niche in the market.