GAME OF PHONES
According to Andy Rubin, the modern mobile ecosystem is broken. He should know: He helped break it.
When Rubin, the inventor of the Android operating system and godfather of the smartphone market, surveys the industry today, he sees squandered opportunities everywhere. The open-source platform he brought to the masses while at Google, which commands roughly 85% of the market, is overwhelmed with “bad user experiences,” he says. Devices from makers such as LG and Huawei are uninspired. Samsung has been too often content with fast following: “Who at Samsung is responsible for your device’s look and UI? It’s a nameless, faceless machine.” And Apple? “The world’s biggest and most successful company doesn’t have a human side to it,” Rubin argues. “The incumbents have lost track of why they exist, why they’re building products, and what they mean in people’s lives.”
From consumers and tech insiders, you hear similar complaints: Why can’t new mobile devices deliver
