Some Benefits of Using Android

The benefits of using Android are numerous and varied, but three stand out from the pack. The biggest benefit of using Android is that it's free. Android is open-source software, which means that as long as you follow the rules of the BSD license it was released under (Naughton, 2011) you need not pay anything. This has allowed hardware manufacturers to reduce the cost of developing Android devices thereby reducing the price for consumers. Another specific benefit of using Android is that unlike most operating systems it is completely customizable. Android's BSD license allows manufacturers, software developers, and hobbyists to change everything and anything about the operating system to suit their particular use. Most often, it's the Android UI which people wish to change. This is evidenced by the use of proprietary UIs on various manufacturers' devices including HTC's Sense UI, Samsung's TouchWiz UI, and Motorola's MotoBlur UI. Along a similar vein, a large independent developer community has cropped up to develop complete replacements for the version of Android being run on a particular device. The most well known of these communities is Cyanogenmod, which has developed its own version of Android which is compatible with a variety of smartphones and tablets. Cyanogenmod completely replaces the original version of Android which came on a device, bringing with it various UI and OS tweaks which have been developed outside of the standard Google source code. The final major benefit of using Android is that it is powerful. Since it was developed from Linux, it has almost the same amount of power as a full-scale desktop OS. This allows Android to support uses originally confined to desktops and laptops such as word processing. It is entirely possible to type an entire news article or term paper strictly on an Android device. By combining the power of a desktop operating, the open-sourced OS code, and the huge development community you get a platform that has laptop mobility, desktop versatility, and more applications than anyone could use in a lifetime. This makes using Android appealing to not only manufacturers, but to consumers as well. Now we'll look at some of the legal/ethical issues that have surfaced since Android became a reality four years ago.