Not Evil, Just Hungry: Will Android make it over the long haul?
A bro of mine sent over an email of the above artwork from Google I/O commenting on how scary Google is becoming in this space. Below is my response back.
I keep playing this whole thing out in mind. I’m not sure how long it will take for Android to either have complete mobile dominance or for it to all fall apart. The platform is great for geeks looking to do custom imaging and rooting, flashing to latest builds on the fly, custom apps, etc. — but I just don’t see how consumers are going to become either a) deeply in-love or, b) content-committed to the platform. Both of those traits of course, are true for Apple users.
No one (ok, less than 1% of consumers) go into a store and say: “hey, I want an Android!” I think everyone goes in to buy a media device. If the buyers budget can front an iPhone there isn’t even a dialogue on what to choose; everything else goes to the more accessible Android. But even at the point of sale—as well throughout the entire customer experience—consumers aren’t using an Android; they’re not seeing the OS and deriving any meaningful emotionally attachment to it. All that good stuff goes to the hardware and content. Some may argue that that point is crazy but when someone pulls out an Android device you’ll never hear em say: “Check out Honeycomb OS—Google’s latest release of Android”. Never. However, you will often hear excitement around a dude who just “Got the Nexus S!” or someone else’s brand new shiny HTC Desire.
Everything being wrapped by the Android OS is moot. People aren’t falling in-love with the OS — the hardware and content are what consumers are buying into. You think that is bullshit? Ask any Android user (ok, ok — 99% of them) what phone their using and you’ll always here product name + manufacturer however, rarely prefaced by ‘Android’. This is all reminiscent of the TV manufacturing landscape where, like most of the Android usual suspects (remember Samsung, Sony, LG all came from this world) compete on price, channel-spiffs, promotional-garbage to fight for customers. Again, rarely do consumers associate content enjoyed on their tube with the actual folks who built it. As my marketing colleagues would say pointedly: they have zero brand attachment. Speaking of marketing, just check out all the marketing-comunications that ships with every big Android device for further validation to the whole hardware emphasis. So, if these chumps aren’t slangin’ deep love for their OS to drive repeat customers to sale—maybe the content piece will help drive retention? With Google living in the cloud I suspect this is unlikely.
Google’s philosophy around content lives in the cloud, man. That is the reality of business who’s DNA has the Web etched into it. Chromebook is a perfect example of this ethos. However, look no further than the native Gmail app on any Android device (assuming the manufacturer hasn’t stripped it out and replaced it with their own). It is garbage. Hell, HTC’s Sense mail app trumps it! Make no mistake: this is non-issue for users already bought into that ideal. As we’ve all seen, folks who have already offloaded Email, Chat, Voice, Contacts, etc. to Google are more than happy to go Android. But what about everybody else? I mean all of us fine folks reading this are probably on Gmail — but my Mom isn’t and yours probably isn’t either. I digress, sorry.
My point is: all of Google’s content-commitment from users, will — and probably always will — be accessible from a browser and/or web services. New product offerings like Google new music service is touting the same promise. Thus, without content commitment engrained in the consumer’s experience — they are unlikely to stick with Android for the long haul. Third-party apps will also fail to make the difference here as technologies like HTML5-based mobile frameworks allow developers to target app platforms en masse become increasingly prevalent. If all of this is sounding off-base, just ask yourself why you can’t pull down your iTunes’ content from a browser folks. Apple is supremely competent at driving content-commitment as it often means the difference between you buying one hardware unit versus every release of the iPad. Plus, the fine folks at Apple have got the deeply in-love piece down pat; I mean everyone with an iPhone brings it with them to the can — even girls!
Android’s got big challenges in this space but they also don’t seem to mind that much. Will consumers go back to the carrier and purchase another Android at renewal? Can they effectively differentiate at a content level and drive long haul commitment? I just don’t know. Unlike Apple, I don’t fully understand their objectives. Maybe 400,000 Android activations per day will drive enough impression-base to sustain the business long enough for it not matter that they’ve got low customer retention. We shall see.
