The rise of Android is phenomenal, after Google acquired Android back in 2005, and from a point of near-obscurity; it achieved over 250 million product activation per year as at 2014. Google had successfully turned a no-name operating system into the world's most popular mobile platform.
But, Android has its woes, as the dominant mobile platform at the moment, there are definitely lots of malicious actors targeting the mobile OS; with over 1.4 billion people using Android smartphone or tablet per day, and the fact that it’s open source, therefore free for manufacturers to use makes it a big deal.
Though, the openness is partly a reason for the dominance, on the other hand, it has led to fragmentation, a situation where most Android phones are not able to get regular update for the latest security patches.
5 Reasons Why Android Operating System Sucks
1. Increase in Android Malware
Google had been serious with the business of keeping Android secure over the years, with security updates being pushed out monthly, but not every smartphone and tablet receives these monthly security updates.
Even Android security team had at one time admitted that roughly half of the devices in use as at the end of 2016 did not receive any update for at least 12 months.
Although the potential risks could be frightening, as the Android fragmentation issue isn't easily solved, which may mean that the question of Android security now comes down to the device.
2. Buggy Apps
The fact that just anyone can submit an app to the Play store, is another ugly side of Android which has led to increase in the amount of crappy apps on the platform.
Also, the Play Store until recently has been poorly regulated leading to truck-loads of buggy apps that could even steal your personal data on your devices.
3. Battery Drain Issues
With the increase in buggy apps, means that there are many apps that can cause Android battery to drain. Particularly some apps downloaded to your phone in a few cases, could be causing unnecessary battery drain without you even knowing about it.
Most of these apps start to cause surprising battery drain after an update and the only solution is to wait for the fix from the developer through another cycle of update.
4. Not All Devices get Software Updates
This is another issue of Android fragmentation, with numerous OEMs saddled with the churning out of devices; for new Android versions, the phone makers had to wait for the chipset vendors to provide the update to processors to update the part of the code related to the hardware.
Although now, with Project Treble, the hardware-specific elements are just a crust, which remains in place for device's lifespan.
5. Lots of Fake Devices
While it is very easy to identify genuine Apple device, but same cannot be said of Android with several fake products bearing the name of popular OEMs that are hard to detect.
The biggest issue with Android is fragmentation, with these numerous OEMs saddled with the churning out of devices, therefore the possibility of getting fake devices is higher with Android.
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