An article from 2011: Not betting on Android yet

 

I love the news that Android has overtaken Symbian as the mobile OS. It is, in principle, the victory of the open source.

 

But am not betting on Android just yet. Because, Android is yet to face and successfully deflect a major challenge. And that, is the acid test of a victor. An unchallenged victor is not a victor – merely a figure of preponderance.

 

Sample this: An Android app is created. it appears to be a simple stress buster app that allows you to knock a hammer virtually when you are stressed. Great. A few million downloads happen over a time unit – say a month or so. Its a viral app that is promoted by online word of mouth and because its free, the download is easy.

 

What we do not know is, that underneath the hammer code is another code – malware. It could be anything – a code that surreptitiously handles your data – either obliterating it systematically, or acting like a virus and moving to other phones (not the app section, just the virus section, or monitoring all your connections and forwarding your emails to another address in bcc without telling you, or using your phone to participate in a DDOS attack .. anything at all.

 

The 2 things that stack up against Android as against other OSs are:

1. The easy implementation and the much higher “Viral” impact possible.

2. The more the no. of connected Android smartphones, the greater the temptation for a malware creator.

 

I’d love to see the victory of the Android.. because it puts the power in the hands of the user – because it allows people to contribute and use .. creating a community of producers and consumers. 

 

Which is why, its important for Android to anticipate at least some of the growth pangs, and to plan for it by creating security apps that can be downloaded by users. Am sure someone has thought of it already and its in process somewhere.. just wish we non geeks knew about it.

 

And before we place that Victor crown of olive branches on the Android head, Android will have to prove that it can quash more than one malware challenge. It will take one, exactly one major application based attack to completely kill the Android credibility. And thats one chink in the armour that some competition is waiting to exploit.

 

As i write this, there is, am sure, a programmer somewhere, writing such a malware and smiling to themselves, and there is somewhere, a programmer writing a code that will take care of phone security on Android. Like the African Giraffe and Lion story, we just have to wait and see which one runs faster.