What were they thinking?

By now, you'll read that they blinked. 'They' being Vodafone, who pushed out an Android update to UK owners of the HTC Desire that wasn't quite what the proud phone owners expected.

Well, Vodafone have pulled that update and apologised. Not before time, mind you. You can read the Vodafone forums for details on the update, which, amongst other things, foisted 'Vodafone 360' software onto users which couldn't be uninstalled, and added bookmarks to - of all things - adult sites like Flirtomatic. So great was the outrage, the story got quite a bit of coverage within the news media. Not the sort of publicity that Vodafone wanted, surely.

What were they thinking?. I know what they were thinking.

They were thinking:-

1. Users will think this is the new 2.2 Froyo update so we'll get lots of uptake
2. They're all at the start of 18 or 24 month contracts, so what can they do?. Just whinge and suck it up.

I'm quite sure Vodafone knew *exactly* what it was doing here and calculated, rather cynically, that the fuss would die down pretty quickly. Unfortunately (for them) they miscalculated and, presumably, someone at a VERY senior level eventually had to put a stop to it.

It's interesting to look up a certain Wikipedia article and find this definition .... an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct ....

It's part of the definition of a psychopath. Yes, what we have here is corporate psychopathy. It's a scary thought. A complete and utter contempt for its customers, coupled with a cynical determination to extract as much money from them as possible.

Meanwhile the whole affair has shed further light on one of the great weaknesses of the Android platform; the irresistible urge by both the handset vendors and the carriers to tinker with the stock Android releases.

Now, certainly, many of the handset vendor enhancements have arguably added value - HTC's sense UI and their keyboard are certainly an improvement over the standard Android functionality - but these customisations are bad, in the long run, because they fragment the Android market.

Consider the release schedule. Google release Froyo. HTC (or whoever is the handset vendor) port their enhancements and test them. The carriers all personalise the HTC stock release - and it looks like HTC do this for them, in most cases. Finally the poor consumer - if they're lucky - gets the upgrade.

This is an expensive and time-consuming process and it can't continue for many more iterations. Imagine if your PC could only run Windows 7 after Dell had produced a special 'Dell Windows' version.

So we're back in the dark ages of the early PC. All those vendors who took MS-DOS and then produced special versions of it for incompatible machines with different hardware etc. Remember that?. Well, I do. Apple have managed to lock down the iPhone experience and any carrier trying to personalise the iPhone would simply get their knuckles broken. Unless Google start taking a much harder line, Android users are going to continue to experience - if they're lucky - frustrating delays before each and every Google Dessert gets served to their phone. If they're unlucky, well, Vodafone have shown them what they'll get. A turd on a plate.