back to article Google to tame Android's Wild Wild West to please suits

Google is recruiting Android app authors to help tame Mountain View’s Wild, Wild West mobile platform for businesses. Mountain View has opened Android for Work to build secure and sandboxed apps running on Android-powered smartphones and tablets. Android for Work apps will use dedicated work profiles on Android-powered …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    The biggest problem with Android in the business...

    is there is no dammed consistency.

    What may work on a Samsung S3, may not work on a S4, but may sort of work on M8 with a bit of effort, but will break after 10 mins on a Z3 before bombing out, but on a Z1 a section will work, but not another bit.

    1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

      Re: The biggest problem with Android in the business...

      Yep, and although Google might patch security or stability bugs, you have to wait for .....never.......for your operator/manufacturer to let you have the update.

      1. Crazy Operations Guy

        "your operator/manufacturer to let you have the update"

        With how cheap phones are nowadays, I figure that the carriers are relying on your just buying a new phone and get OS updates that way rather than pushing them down the pipe.

    2. Bob Vistakin
      FAIL

      Re: The biggest problem with Android in the business...

      Sadly true.

      Oh for the good old days of J2ME.

    3. DNTP

      Re: Consistency

      I think the "damned consistency" problem is a subset of a greater BYOD problem, which is companies wanting something for nothing. They see BYOD policy as a way to avoid the expense and trouble of issuing company devices, complain about lack of standardization, security, and control they have over people's personal devices, and then run off to Google crying for new "business friendly" Android developments. Which basically means they want you to, as an employee: BYOD and then surrender it and all your privacy even outside of work over to the company.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Consistency

        "they want you to, as an employee: BYOD and then surrender it and all your privacy even outside of work over to the company."

        They'll see me walk rather than unroot my phone, more as a point of principle about the intrusion, but definitely partly because unrooted phones are basically crippled.

      2. Tom 13

        Re: Consistency

        Where I work the employer is willing to pay for the phones. It's the employees who don't want to be issued the phone because they're already carrying around one they like. Same for most of the people I know. Only the Dilberts carry three cell phones, two fondle slabs, and a laptop.

  2. RyokuMas
    Stop

    If it first you don't succeed...

    From the Google for Work Blog:

    "With a group of partners, we're helping businesses bring more devices to work by securing, managing and innovating on the Android platform"

    Hmmm... "securing and managing" - I wonder if this will be as popular with handset manufacturers as Android Silver was...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Androids and iPhones are great for big businesses...

    ...especially the ones that want to listen in on their employees' every communication and track their every move. Both on the job and in their personal lives.

    Must be so much easier now for HR departments to build a case to fire an employee. Just print out a copy of their smartphone tracking log. "What's this? You visited your grandmother in the hospital for 10 minutes when you said you were traveling to a customer's office? Terminated!"

    1. Tom 35

      Re: Androids and iPhones are great for big businesses...

      No it uses profiles included in Android 5. You will have a work profile where you can only run approved work apps, and a personal profile where you can install angry birds. Work will be sandboxed from the personal stuff.

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: Androids and iPhones are great for big businesses...

        "Work will be sandboxed from the personal stuff."

        Ah, but will personal stuff be safe from work?

        Note his example: "Just print out a copy of their smartphone tracking log. "What's this? You visited your grandmother in the hospital for 10 minutes when you said you were traveling to a customer's office? Terminated!"

        No personal data accessed, just his personal activities tracked by the work app.

        Privacy's a bit more than 'don't look in this box', it's also not tracking someone's every move.

    2. Terry Barnes

      Re: Androids and iPhones are great for big businesses...

      " "What's this? You visited your grandmother in the hospital for 10 minutes when you said you were traveling to a customer's office? Terminated!""

      Good luck with that in court. The Data Protection Act makes that kind of thing illegal. Has the employee given their informed consent to have their device used to track their movements?

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: Androids and iPhones are great for big businesses...

        Has the employee given their informed consent to have their device used to track their movements?

        I would imagine that in being issued the hypothetical phone, the hypothetical employee signed a hypothetical document that acknowledged the hypothetical employee had read and agreed to the hypothetical rules of its hypothetical use, including that its hypothetical location would be hypothetically tracked. Of course, your mileage may vary based on your legal jurisdiction.

  4. Palpy

    Yep -- Android rodeo

    Microsoft issues Windows updates, Apple issues iOS and OSX updates, mainstream Linux distros issue their own updates. As mentioned, Google can patch and innovate with Android until icicles form in Hell's kitchen, but the device manufacturers are the ones sending out patches and updates. And, in most cases, they just don't bother.

    So until Android grows up in that respect, it will continue to be a little OS rodeo with bullshit and clowns and all.

    1. Crazy Operations Guy
      Headmaster

      Re: Yep -- Android rodeo

      Totally agree with your post, except one thing:

      Hell's Kitchen is a neighborhood in New York City and gets icicles every winter, which is by far more often an occurrence than an Android update making it to an end-user.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh, sure..

    So, here is an OS provider who has:

    a - never bothered about security before (QED by the way apps behave and the permission regime), so it now has to retrofit security (and we know what a fun exercise that is - better start again)

    b - is basically the largest collector on the planet of personal and profiling information (although I'm not sure if Facebook is 1st and Google 2nd in that list or the other way around).

    Is it just me or is there not a trust issue?

  6. Crazy Operations Guy

    What about us mere mortals?

    Is Google just to let us get screwed over by all the malware and fraudulent apps lurking about in their app store?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When the OS's entire point is to haemorrhage data back to Google, it really doesn't matter how secure the apps on it are.

  8. phil dude
    WTF?

    they lost me at....

    Will support Notes?

    P.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good. Maybe this is the kick in the pants Apple needs to get their shit together.

    For all the problems with Android, Apple is no better. Sadly I now pine for the days when we standardized on Blackberry. They had actual Enterprise Management for their devices.

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