Investigating Openness of an "Open" Mobile Operating System ...
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ESST
The European InterUniversity
Association on Society, Science and Technology
http://www.esst.eu
The ESST MA
University of East London
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
MA Innovation Studies
Investigating Openness of an “Open” Mobile Operating System:
the Case of Android
Karel Svačina
University of East London / Maastricht University
Technological Culture
September 10th, 2009
Word Count: 19, 906
SynopsisThis thesis investigates some aspects of the development of Android, an open source platform for mobile devices. It looks at Android as a technological innovation in three different places: on the official website of the platform, in shops where Androidbased devices are sold, and in online communities of Android users. The goal is to trace different notions of openness of the platform, and to see how these notions change between the three places. In addition, special attention is given to the role of users in coconstructing the platform. Thus, the empirical research done for this thesis is threefold: a rhetorical analysis of the official Android website, participant observation in mobile operators' shops, and virtual ethnography of online Android communities. The main conclusions of this work are, first, that the meanings and interpretations of the Android platform and of its openness change between different contexts, second, that the openness of the platform is relational, and third, that Android users are largely heterogeneous and play an important role in coconstructing the Android platform, which the platform's designers and the mobile operators do not seem to fully acknowledge.
Karel Svač[email protected] 10th, 2009
The ESST M.A.Specialization: Technological Culture
1st semester university: University of East London2nd semester university: Maastricht University
Supervisor: Dr. Anique Hommels, Maastricht University
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Acknowledgements
I would like to greatly thank my supervisor, Dr Anique Hommels, for insightful and critical comments during her supervision of this thesis. Her help has been invaluable.
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Table of contentsSynopsis................................................................................................................................................2Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................................31. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................5
1.1 Introducing Android as a topic for an STS thesis.......................................................................51.2 The openness of Android...........................................................................................................81.3 Research questions.....................................................................................................................91.4 Methods and thesis structure....................................................................................................10
2. Android created by Google – rhetorical analysis of Android.com.................................................132.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................132.2 De Wilde's Critical Method.....................................................................................................132.3 Step 1 – Rhetorical analysis.....................................................................................................142.4 Step 2 – Normative choices......................................................................................................182.5 Step 3 – Incongruities and paradoxes.......................................................................................212.6 Step 4 – Practices.....................................................................................................................242.7 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................28
3. Android delivered by mobile operators..........................................................................................293.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................293.2 Method – carrying out shop inquiries......................................................................................303.3 The Android platform within a heterogeneous network...........................................................313.4 Android devices in shops – Android exceptional?...................................................................333.5 Android under contracts...........................................................................................................353.6 Android described by shop assistants......................................................................................363.7 Android within the hierarchy of phones..................................................................................393.8 Conclusions – openness of Android in TMobile and Vodafone shops...................................41
4. Android constructed in online communities.................................................................................454.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................454.2 Doing a virtual ethnography of Android communities............................................................454.3 Relevant social groups of users on Androidforums.com / Phandroid.com..............................504.4 Conclusions and some further observations............................................................................59
5. Conclusions – The changing openness of Android........................................................................62Appendix A – “What is Andriod?” Screenshot of Android.com, the official Android website........66Appendix B – List of shop inquiries...................................................................................................67Appendix C – Structure of Androidforums.com................................................................................68References...........................................................................................................................................69
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1. Introduction
1.1 Introducing Android as a topic for an STS thesis
Mobile phones play an increasingly important role in our lives. Whereas a few years ago, a mobile
phone was used almost exclusively for making calls, today it is perhaps one of the most versatile and
most used technological artefacts of daily use. It has been a while now since mobile phones started
waking us up and freed our wrists from watches. It has also been a while since they made us forget
all about punctuation, made our thumbs stronger and quicker, and taught us to articulate anything in
less than some one hundred and sixty characters. Compared to those times, mobile phones are
trying to spoil us these days – they let us use all the punctuation we could ever want; they remind us
about when to see our dentist; they do not wake us up with an annoying sound of an alarm clock,
but they let us drift off again with the pleasant hum heard from a seashell. They bring all the world's
news onto their little screen. They let students record lectures while watching YouTube videos and
chatting with friends. They let us take pictures of foolish things and post them straight away on the
Internet. They tell us where to go, where not to go, what to buy, and what not to buy. They even tell
us that there are stars in the sky, and they can tell us their names. That is, if we let them to do so. In
any case, the number of ways in which we interact with our mobile devices is ever increasing. Using
mobile phones has certainly changed how people do a number of things, from making appointments
to shopping. Therefore, mobile phones are an important subject for scientific research.
This thesis is an STS (Science and Technology Studies) case study of an innovation in
mobile phones. It investigates some aspects of the development of Android, an open source software
platform for mobile devices pursued by Google, Inc. and the Open Handset Alliance. Android
comprises of an operating system, middleware1, and some key applications necessary to run a
1 Middleware is a piece of software which functions as an intermediary between operating system and applications. The Java Virtual Machine is a typical example of middleware which is often found in personal computers.
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mobile device (Android.com). Furthermore, it provides application programming interfaces (APIs)2
and a software development kit (SDK)3 for application developers to be able to create new
applications for Android. In practice, Android aims to be used in a number of different kinds of
devices, but the most straightforward use is in those which are commonly referred to as
“smartphones”. These are advanced mobile phones with some computerlike capabilities. A typical
smartphone has a relatively large colour screen, sometimes a qwerty keyboard, and an internal
architecture similar to that of a personal computer. In terms of software, it has a computerlike
operating system, on top of which there are applications such as a personal organizer, a web
browser, or an email client. In addition, a smartphone often has hardware and software capabilities
to play music and take pictures or record videos with a builtin camera.
The following table (Table 1) shows an overview of Android development. It shows that it
took about one year from the first announcement of Android to the first Android device. It also
shows that during this year, Android was not being developed as open source. It was made open
source only later: the Android Open Source Project made Android publicly accessible at around the
same time when the first Android device went on sale.
2 APIs are predefined ways in which an application program may access operating system or other services (cf. “Application Progam Interface” on Free OnLine Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC.org 2009).
3 SDK is a set of software tools for creating new applications. In case of Android, the SDK is provided for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems.
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Table 1: A history of the Android platform (Android.com, Android Developers Blog)
Android announced by the Open Handset AllianceEarly look SDK releasedAndroid developer challenge IAndroid Market announcedAndroid SDK 1.0 available to developersAndroid Open Source Project launchedTMobile G1 goes on sale in the USA and the UK (other European countries followed)
end of April 2009 Android SDK 1.5 (“Cupcake”) releasedApril – May 2009 HTC Magic goes on sale through Vodafone (UK and later in Spain)May 2009 Android developer challenge II announced (users are included this time!)
Android NDK 1.5 released
August 2009Android developer challenge II deadline
November 5th, 2007November 12th, 2007April 17th, 2008August 28th, 2008September 23rd, 2008October 21st, 2008October 22nd, 2008
June 25th, 2009Samsung Galaxy available in O
2 in Germany and in the UK
August 31st 2009
Currently, there are three Android devices on the market. The first commercially available
Android device was the HTC Dream, which is sold by TMobile under the name “TMobile G1”. It
went on sale in September 2008 in the United States and in the United Kingdom, followed by some
other European countries. The second device was the HTC Magic, which went on sale by Vodafone
in April 2009 in the UK and in May 2009 in Spain. As of August 2009, there is another device, the
Samsung Galaxy, which is being sold by O2 in Germany and the United Kingdom. Thus, at the time
of our practical investigations, which took place during May and June 2009, the TMobile G1 had
been on sale for at least a few months, the HTC Magic had recently gone on sale, while the
Samsung Galaxy had not been available yet.
It is important to note, however, that Android is not the only mobile platform in the market –
there is Symbian, Apple iPhone OS, and Microsoft Windows Mobile, for instance. Why study
Android, then? There are several reasons why studying Android from an STS perspective seems to
be especially worthwhile. First, Android is a relatively new project. As of summer 2009, it is still
very much a “technology in the making”. Second, Android is an open source project on the one
hand, but on the other hand it is backed and pursued by a very powerful company, Google.
Moreover, its success depends on the cooperation of Google developers with the open source
community as well as with device manufacturers, mobile operators, and users. The groups that are
involved with Android are very diverse, and therefore the outcome of this development is very
unclear. Third, there are a lot of claims around Android, many of which are associated with the
“openness” of Android. Android claims to be open in a number of ways, and there are promises and
expectations associated with this openness. However, there may be some inconsistencies within
these claims, and it is important to critically address them. Moreover, it seems that to capture the
complexities of this technological development, a single discipline may not be enough. That is why
Android is a good subject for an interdisciplinary STS study.
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1.2 The openness of Android
Android is an open source project. This means that rather than being developed behind the firewalls
of a single company, the source code of the software is publicly available and anyone is welcome to
see what is inside, and to contribute their own bug fixes or new features. However, “open source”
does not end with this rather technical description. Various studies show that open source relates not
only to a method of making software; it also relates to collaboration practices in a wider sense
(Ghosh, 2005), to the understanding of intellectual property ownership (Lessig, 2006), to business
models (Feller, 2005; Goldmann and Gabriel, 2005), and to modernity, culture, and freedom
(Lessig, 2004; O'Reilly, 2005; Stallman, 2002).
Therefore, when Android claims to be open, this claim relates not only to the software
development model. It also relates to the platform's openness towards new applications, new devices
and new uses. By saying that it is open, Android implies that it is suitable and desirable for a wide
variety of uses. This is a strong claim made by the proponents of the platform, and it extends well
beyond the technical. It implies promises on the part of the technology (for instance that it is of a
better quality than a “closed” technology), as well as expectations on the part of the users (for
instance that it will be more easily accessible). However, similarly to claims and promises of
“smart” technologies (addressed for instance by De Wilde, 2000), these promises and expectations
are not something intrinsic to the technology. They are a part of a wider discourse around the
technology. As such they are contested, and they may contain tensions and inconsistencies (cf. Van
Lente, 1993, 2000). Therefore, they call for a critical assessment to show their rhetorical structure as
well as the intentions and effects behind them. Due to their sociotechnical nature, the STS
perspective is a good starting point to carry out this critical assessment. Thus, the main aim of this
thesis is to provide a critical and reflexive account of the claims made about new technologies, and
Android in particular.
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1.3 Research questions
The main aim articulated above is still a rather broad area of interest which needs to be narrowed
down to a suitable thesis research topic. Most STS researchers as well as authors of books on
methodology agree that the researcher needs to draw a line between what will be included in the
research, and what will need to be left out (cf. Booth et al., 2008; Van Lente, 1993, pp. 810; Hine
2000). This choice necessarily has consequences for the particular research, for instance about the
claims on objectivity and neutrality that the research may want to make. At the same time, as Hine
(2000) argues, giving an account “based on ideas of strategic relevance” (2000, p. 65) may be much
more worthwhile than trying to give one based on “faithful representations of objective realities.”
(Ibid.)
The short description of Android given in the previous section suggested that there is a large
number of different groups involved in Android development. This thesis will focus primarily on
three of them: first, on those who create and promote Android as a mobile platform, that is Google,
Inc. and the Open Handset Alliance. These shall be called the “designers”. Second, on those who
sell Androidbased devices together with services, and who advertise them. These shall be called
“mobile operators”. And third, those who buy Android devices and who use them. These shall be
called “users”. Each of these three groups participates in the development of Android in their own
specific way, and they may articulate different meanings around the platform. Therefore, seeing
Android from the three different perspectives may reveal the rhetorical structure of claims around
the platform as well as their contested nature. Thus, having sketched the line of what to include in
the research and what to leave out, as well as having said that the openness of the Android platform
is subject to interpretation and construction rather than an intrinsic quality of the technology, the
main research question of this thesis is:
• How is the openness of Android constructed by its designers, operators and users?
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This main research question splits into several subquestions:
• Which meanings, promises and expectations do designers, operators and users attach to
Android?
• How do they interpret its openness?
• Are there any tensions or inconsistencies within or between these interpretations?
• If so, what can be the implications of the different interpretations for the future (success) of
this platform?
1.4 Methods and thesis structure
The research questions indicate that this thesis will investigate Android in three different contexts.
The goal is to follow various social groups involved in Android development and to see how their
interpretations and meanings around Android, and especially those of openness, change between the
three contexts. This goal has several theoretical and methodological implications. First, it assumes
that meanings of a technology are constructed and contested, and it makes them the subject of the
investigation. Next, it focuses on various social groups involved with Android. Therefore, this
research draws on constructivist traditions within STS, most particularly Social Construction of
Technology (SCOT) (Pinch and Bijker, 1987; Bijker, 1993; Bijker, 1995).
Studying Android in three different contexts calls for three different methods: first, a
rhetorical analysis of the official Android website will be carried out. This step will focus on the
designers of the platform and their claims about the platform. The analysis will closely follow a
critical method articulated by Dutch philosopher Rein de Wilde (2000) to scrutinize the rhetorical
structure of the designers' discourse, with particular attention to normative choices, paradoxes and
tensions within the discourse.
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Second, shop inquiries will be carried out to see how Android is presented in shops of
mobile operators. This step will focus on the environment in which Android devices find themselves
in the shops of mobile operators. It will pay attention to how mobile operators describe Android
devices, what they do to make them more attractive to customers, and what they do to make
Android devices fit with their business and marketing strategies. Despite social constructivism
being the overarching theoretical standpoint, this part will do a little theoretical swerve from SCOT.
It will borrow two notions from semiotic approaches to studying technology development, namely
the notion of “heterogeneous networks” (Law, 1987; Akrich, 1992) and “user configuration”
(Woolgar, 1991; Mackay et al., 2000) to better capture how Android becomes entrenched in a very
specific environment, and how this environment works together to construct a specific kind of
presupposed user.
Third, virtual ethnography (Hine, 2000) will be employed to investigate relevant social
groups (Pinch and Bijker, 1987) of users in online communities around Android. Again, the focus is
on the meanings and interpretations of Android, but this time, users are given special attention:
different groups of users will be identified in a SCOTlike manner and their own meanings and
interpretations of Android will be analysed.
The following table shows a summary of the methods employed, indicating the main foci of
each step.
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The table also shows that each of the steps will occupy a separate chapter: Chapter Two will carry
out the rhetorical analysis of the official Android website. Chapter Three will present the outcomes
of the shop inquiries, and Chapter Four will present the findings of the virtual ethnography of
Android communities. The three chapters will be followed by a concluding chapter, which will
summarize the findings of this work. In addition, it will try to point to implications of the findings,
and suggest further research in this area.
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Table 2: The three methods used in this thesis with focus in each step.
Theoretical standpoints Method Focus
Rhetorical analysis
Chapter 3 – Shop inquiriesParticipant observation
Virtual ethnography
Chapter 2 – Rhetorical analysis of Android.com
Sociology of promises and expectations (Van Lente 1993,
2000, Borup et al. 2006)
Rhetorical structure of the designers' discourse and its implications
Semiotic approaches(Law 1987, Akrich 1992, Woolgar
1991, Mackay et al. 2000)
Entrenchment of Android devices in a heterogenenous network
Chapter 4 – Virtual ethnography of online communities
Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) (Pinch and Bijker 1987,
Bijker 1993, Bijker 1995)
Relevant social groups of Android users
2. Android created by Google – rhetorical analysis of Android.com
2.1 Introduction
This chapter represents the first of the three different parts of research carried out in this thesis. The
purpose of this part is to analyse the way in which Android is presented on its official website,
Android.com. More specifically, I will employ the critical method proposed in De Wilde's De
Voorspellers (2000), to see what kinds of “openness” are presented in the discourse on
Android.com. Furthermore, I will look for normative choices, paradoxes and tensions within this
discourse. In this chapter I argue that the discourse on Android.com is strongly futureoriented, and
that there are normative assumptions and paradoxes within the text. Furthermore, there are
incongruities between the discourse presented on the website and actual practices around the
platform.
2.2 De Wilde's Critical Method
In De Voorspellers (English translation is The Forecasters), Dutch philosopher Rein De
Wilde proposes a critical method to address future visions presented by the “futures industry” (De
Wilde, 2000, pp. 2041). De Wilde observes that the future has recently become central to our
society's thinking, and, perhaps as a result, there is what seems to be almost “a separate branch of
business, the 'futures industry,' a venture that supplies us with what we increasingly ask for:
projections, predictions, trend reports, concrete scenarios, as well as holistic visions of the future”
(p. 3). De Wilde points out that although the predictions of the futures industry may have little
scientific value, they “may have great political ramifications” (p. 5). Therefore, he argues, it is
important for social scientists and philosophers of science to critically assess the discourse of the
futures industry. To this end, De Wilde proposes a critical method, whose purpose is to avoid
unstructured debates about and critiques of the futures industry. The method consists in asking a set
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of questions, which De Wilde believes will help one understand the meanings and implications of
future visions (p. 20). This set of questions is split into four steps of the critical method – rhetorical
analysis, explaining norms and assumptions, identifying paradoxes, and analysing social practices.
The method seems to be very suitable also for the purposes of this chapter. Preliminary
observations suggest that the discourse on Android.com is strongly futureoriented, and it closely
resembles future visions analysed by De Wilde. In addition, the present aim is to analyse tensions
and inconsistencies within and between the discourses around the Android platform. De Wilde's
method also seeks tensions and inconsistencies, and therefore it is suitable to ask De Wilde's
questions when studying Android.
Before employing De Wilde's critical method, it should be noted that De Wilde is not the
only one who came up with this kind of critical approach. Harro van Lente (2000) uses a very
similar approach to analyse the “forceful” nature of technological futures (Van Lente, 2000).
Similarly to De Wilde, Van Lente also starts with a rhetorical analysis of central concepts, then
moves to normative choices, and to “the implications for the dynamics of concrete technological
developments” (Van Lente, 2000, p. 60). When compared side by side, the two methods are very
similar. The main difference seems to be that Van Lente perhaps used it merely for his particular
research task, while De Wilde formulated it explicitly as a method to be further used by others. For
this reason, this thesis will follow De Wilde's articulation of the method.
2.3 Step 1 – Rhetorical analysis
“Begin with a rhetorical analysis of the central concepts and arguments that
speakers use to support what they consider a likely or desirable future.” (De Wilde,
2000, p. 21)
The first step of De Wilde's critical method deals largely with identifying ideographs which
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speakers use in their predictions about the future. The concept of ideograph was introduced by
linguist McGee to refer to “an ordinary language term … a high order abstraction, representing
collective commitment to a particular but equivocal and illdefined normative goal” (McGee, 1980,
in Van Lente, 2000, p. 45). McGee's definition suggests several important characteristics of
ideographs: firstly, they are ordinary language terms, which means that they are familiar to wide
public and that a majority of people associate them with some meaning. Secondly, they represent a
collective commitment, which means that they bind people to do something or to act in a certain
way. Thirdly, they are normative, but their normative goal is not clearly defined, and therefore the
interpretation of this goal may change. A typical example of an ideograph is “freedom” – on the one
hand, everyone understands the term, but on the other hand, the interpretation of what it really
means varies. At the same time, freedom is often normative and represents a collective
commitment: for instance, we are told that we have to preserve and defend our freedoms. In the field
of technology studies, Van Lente showed how the notion of “technical progress” works as an
ideograph (Van Lente, 2000, pp. 4649). Similarly, De Wilde shows that “smartness” may also act
as an ideograph in the words of those who speak about bright technological futures (De Wilde,
2000, pp. 2123).
Ideographs are important because they are rhetorically very powerful and they can do a
number of different things. Not only is each ideograph normative and carries a collective obligation,
but it can also easily connect to other ideographs – for instance, De Wilde shows how “smartness”
can often link to other ideographs such as safety, progress, or speed (2000, p. 22). In sum, the
rhetorical power of ideographs is in that they imply a commitment (Van Lente, 2000, p. 45), they
can mobilise support (Ibid.), and they can link ideals with products (De Wilde, 2000, p. 22).
Thus, the present goal is to find one or more ideographs which appear on Android.com and
to see what other notions, values or connotations these ideographs link Android with. One page of
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the Android.com website will serve as a starting point. The page is called “What is Android?” and it
gives an overview of the main characteristics of the platform. The page is reproduced in Appendix
A. There are four short paragraphs on the page, whose headings are: “Open”, “All applications are
equal”, “Breaking down application boundaries,” and “Fast & easy application development.” Each
of these four headings is an ideograph: “openness”, “equality”, “breaking down boundaries”, and
“easy work with fast results” are all concepts which are vague, are widely used and have positive
connotations. Not only Android, but for instance also some politicians tell us that they are working
towards society which is open, equal, with little barriers and with easy and comfortable life.
This thesis concerns the openness of the Android platform. Therefore, I will primarily
investigate the ideograph of “openness”. The other ideographs present will be mentioned only in
relation to that of openness. The goal is to see what the ideograph of openness connects Android to,
what other ideographs are called, and what connotations are brought up. In other words, the goal is
to see what kind of Android is being constructed on the website, and what meanings, values and
preferences are associated with the platform.
2.3.1 Openness on Android.com
Openness is used on the “What is Android?” page a number of times, and in a number of different
ways. Firstly, the website says that Android was developed by the Open Handset Alliance. The word
“open” in this name plays an ambiguous role – it is not clear whether it refers to the handset, to the
alliance, or to both. In any case, it brings positive connotations to both the organization behind
Android and its product. An “open” organization sounds better than a “closed” one – for instance,
open may refer to transparency, so that the public can see what is happening within the organization.
In terms of free and open source software, open may refer to the fact that the organization works
with the public for their mutual benefit (cf. Ghosh, 2005; Goldman and Gabriel, 2005; Sowe et al.,
2008). Therefore, identifying the organization as open brings positive connotations about it.
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“Open” in Open Handset Alliance also suggests that the handset may be open. Indeed, the
alliance states its goal as “to accelerate innovation in mobile and offer consumers a richer, less
expensive, and better mobile experience” by creating an open and free mobile platform
(OpenHandsetAlliance.com). The Alliance's website also explains why an open platform is good for
consumers, mobile operators, handset manufacturers, semiconductor companies, software
companies as well as software developers. In this way, the concept of an “open handset” helps
Android draw on all the advantages that are explained on the website, and tries to establish
superiority over those platforms that are not open. In addition, by explaining the usefulness of the
open platform for various actors or groups, the ideograph of openness tries to create interest and
mobilise support of these actors (cf. Van Lente, 2000, p. 45, Borup et al., 2006, p. 289).
Secondly, the reader learns that “Android brings Internetstyle innovation and openness to
mobile phones.” (Android.com) This time, “openness” links Android to the Internet. But what is the
“Internetstyle openness”? Internet itself is a very vague term, which can refer to a number of
different things4. But being an ideograph, the “Internetstyle openness” does not have to be anything
specific. The ideograph of openness links Android with Internet and its connotations, which include
easy access to large amounts of information and a broad spectrum of services.
Thirdly, the paragraph titled “Open” begins by saying that “Android was built from the
ground up to enable developers to create compelling mobile applications that take full advantage of
all a handset has to offer. It was built to be truly open.” (Android.com) What kind of openness is
being meant here? The paragraph talks about enabling developers to be able to create new kinds of
applications. In this sense, the openness refers to the device itself and to what a developer can do
with it. However, this characteristic also extends towards the user, because it allows developers to
create applications that are “compelling” to the users. Therefore, this openness also makes a link
4 It can refer for instance to the hardware which runs it, the software protocols, the content of websites, social applications, services which one can use or order, or business which is done through it. (cf. Moody 2001)
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between the developer and the user, suggesting ease of work for the former and benefit for the latter.
Next, we learn that Android is open source and that it “is built on the open Linux Kernel”
(Android.com). In this case, Android is linked to an increasingly popular way of creating software
(cf. Goldman and Gabriel, 2005; O'Reilly, 2001), and to a particular open source project which is
perhaps the most well known and successful of its kind. Step four of our method will deal with the
disputes of the open source nature of Android on the practical level, but for now, it is important to
see that rhetorically, “openness” helps Android draw on the success of other software projects.
Last but not least, the ideograph of openness is reinforced by several other ideographs. The
reader learns that with Android, all applications are created equal, that the boundaries between them
are broken down, and that development of new applications is fast and easy (Android.com). The
notions of equality, breaking barriers and fast and easy work themselves hold as ideographs. They
reinforce the ideograph of openness, because they create more links around Android and more
reasons why Android is superior to other platforms.
To summarize, the official Android website sketches the platform's “openness” in a number
of ways: it refers to the organization of the project, to the final device, to the internal design of the
software, to the Internet, as well as to a tradition that the Android project endorses. “Openness”
works as an ideograph here: it is a vague and illdefined general language term. The links that it
makes are rather vague, and therefore they leave space for one's own interpretation. Nevertheless,
the meanings that the ideograph connotes are generally positive: on Android.com, openness shows
the superiority of Android over other platforms.
2.4 Step 2 – Normative choices
“Try to make the underlying normative choices explicit.” (De Wilde, 2000, p. 26)
According to De Wilde (2000), concrete future visions carry normative assumptions with them.
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These normative assumptions may sometimes be less obvious or difficult to identify, and therefore
the goal of the second step of the critical method is to make them visible. De Wilde says: “What
matters specifically is what we [philosophers or analysts of future discourses] believe to be the
proper meaning of the concepts used in descriptions of enticing futures, rather than to identify what
others may have in mind when relying on those same concepts.” (p. 24) Thus, it is now time to have
a closer look at some of the concepts which appear in the text, and the normative assumptions that
they carry. Again, a particular attention will be given to the notion of openness.
2.4.1 Open towards the future
The first step showed several dimensions of openness articulated on Android.com. One of these
dimensions is of particular interest due to its normative character. The website says that as a result
of being open source, the platform can not only be “liberally extended”, but moreover, it “will
continue to evolve as the developer community works together to build innovative mobile
applications.” (Android.com) There is an assumption that the platform will be further developed and
advanced, which also implies that in a way, the platform is not finalized yet and it is not intended to
be. Therefore, the notion of openness is futureoriented and carries a number of normative
assumptions: first, that Android will never be complete, second, that new technologies shall emerge,
third, that Android will be able to incorporate them quickly and easily, and fourth, that all of these
are desirable. In other words, openness helps to formulate the potential and the promise of Android.
Harro van Lente (1993, 2000) shows that in technology development, there is only a small
step from promise to requirement. He compares the dynamics of some technological developments
to an “unstoppable train” (2000, p. 57), in which technologists have a dual mandate: on the one
hand, they enjoy freedom to work on new discoveries, but on the other hand, they have to “take care
of the territory” (p. 54). They have to speak in the mandate that they have, which means that they
have to speak for 'technological progress' as a force which is inevitable and desirable. Van Lente
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argues that subsequently, “once technical promises are shared they demand action, and appear as a
necessity for technologists to develop, and for others to support them” (p. 58). In other words, once
a technical promise becomes widely accepted, it easily turns into a requirement. Similarly, Android's
openness towards the future implies an obligation that the developers will keep working on the
platform. This openness works as a guarantee that the platform can never be finished or completed.
2.4.2 Defining innovative applications and more relevant user experience
The text on Android.com includes several claims about the kind of applications that the platform
will foster. For instance, it says that “Android breaks down the barriers between applications to
building new and innovative applications,” which will provide “a more relevant user experience.”
(Android.com) Although it is not clear what the applications and the user experience are like, these
claims carry several normative assumptions. Firstly, it is assumed that creating “new and innovative
applications” is desirable. It is desirable, because the users will benefit from it – they will have a
“more relevant experience.” Secondly, in order to build these “new and innovative applications,”
Android “breaks down the barriers” between applications. Breaking down the barriers is thus
legitimized for the sake of user benefit.
Now, what is meant by these “new and innovative applications”? The text explains that these
are applications that can “combine information from the web with data on an individual's mobile
phone.” The text goes on to give an example:
With Android, a developer can build an application that enables users to view
the location of their friends and be alerted when they are in the vicinity giving
them a chance to connect. (Android.com)
This example shows that innovative applications are those which allow users to “keep in touch” and
share information with each other – very much like “social applications” on the Internet. This
assumption about what an innovative application means also gives meaning to the notion of “more
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relevant user experience”: being able to see what one's friends are doing, and in turn giving out
information about oneself is seen as a “relevant” use of an Android device. Thus, describing
“relevant” use in this way is normative, because it assumes certain kind of users – those who want
to share information about themselves. Those, who may actually want to keep their information to
themselves, are not spoken of.
To sum up, the second step of the critical method showed that the discourse on Android.com
carries a number of normative assumptions. First, it was shown that the discourse is futureoriented,
and that Android's openness towards the future plays an important role in articulating the potential
and the promise of Android. Second, it was shown that the rhetoric on Android.com assumes a
certain kind of user: one who is enthusiastic about innovations, and at the same time one who is not
too concerned about privacy and is happy to give out information about oneself. Whether or how the
real users accept this setting will be a question for the following chapters of this thesis.
2.5 Step 3 – Incongruities and paradoxes
“Try to identify incongruities or paradoxes in discourses about concrete futures.”
(De Wilde, 2000, p. 26)
De Wilde points out that myths about futures “have a paradoxical structure in the sense that they
contain inner contradictions that are hardly visible at first sight.” (2000, p. 27) The goal of this step
is to identify these contradictions in the texts studied. De Wilde identifies four paradoxes within
future discourses: “the knowledge paradox”, “the convenience paradox”, “the interaction paradox”,
and “the expansion paradox”. The second and the third of these are also present on Android.com.
2.5.1 The convenience paradox
The argument of the “convenience paradox” is that while smart technology may make our lives
more convenient in a number of ways, at the same time it will make our lives more complex and
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pressured (p. 30). For instance, a laptop with Internet connection makes it possible for a person who
works on a computer to work almost anywhere, while at the same time it may imply an obligation
that the person should work everywhere.5 As a result, De Wilde argues that our desire for
convenience will grow even stronger, without our lives actually becoming more convenient overall
(Ibid.).
Similarly, Android claims to offer a lot, but it asks for a lot, too – both from application
developers and from its users. As for the developers, on the one hand, Android claims to offer fast
and easy application development. By this claim, it promises an easy and rewarding developer's life.
On the other hand, we now know that Android is not intended to be finalized: the platform is
supposed to evolve and to include “new cutting edge technologies as they emerge.” (Android.com)
For the developers, this promise means that they will have to keep learning these new technologies.
In other words, this is a hidden message to the developers that they should never expect to enter the
nirvana of having mastered the complete platform.
From the users' perspective, Android gives a promise of more exciting and convenient life:
for instance, users who use an Android device will be able to instantly see where their friends are,
and they will be able to easily stay in touch with them. However, what happens if this promise is
turned the other way round? Android users may start to expect that their other Android friends will
keep their own information up to date and always readily available. What if this everlasting keeping
in touch becomes a norm, something that is expected and that one needs to keep doing in order not
to be socially excluded? An exciting feature becomes a burden. Thus, the convenience paradox
shows that more options and possibilities may in fact mean more things to worry about.
5 Speaking of computers which make life more convenient, an anecdote says that computers make easier the kind of work which, without computers, would not exist in the first place.
22
2.5.2 The interaction paradox
The argument of the interaction paradox is that technology which offers too little resistance is in the
end difficult to notice at all, and therefore it is not “suitable as a partner in a lasting relationship”
(De Wilde, 2000, p. 31). In other words, if a piece of technology is made too “unobtrusive”, it may
lead to it being overlooked and neglected – if users are shown little or no resistance, they will not
create any lasting relationship towards their artefacts. (Ibid.) The way Android is described on
Android.com suggests this possibility. Most of the focus is on the software, and when hardware is
mentioned, it always works in a seamless way with the software. Therefore, the physical device is
not so important. It is easily replaceable, and the user is supposed to create relationship towards the
software rather than the hardware. This may have consequences to how users treat or consume the
devices as material objects.
The interaction paradox is present yet at another, perhaps even more important level: it also
relates to how users interact with other users. The use of Android devices which is implied on
Android.com encourages one to interact with any of their friends quickly, instantly and at any time.
The possibility of interaction is always at hand and very easy. Indeed, the description of “Loopt”,
one of the social applications for Android, says: “Turn your phone into a social compass and never
be bored or lonely again!” (Android.com). This promise may sound nice and convenient, but De
Wilde's “interaction paradox” should warn us against the possibility of too easy an interaction.
Following De Wilde's argument and extending it from technological artefacts to people, it may in
fact become so easy to connect with anyone that one may cease to care about particular
relationships, and about putting effort into building lasting relationships. There is always someone
to connect with, which implies that if one of our friends is not available, we can always connect
with someone else. This phenomenon could perhaps also be called an “inflation of relationships”:
the number of people that we share personal information with is ever increasing, but in turn, the
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relationships necessarily become more and more shallow.
2.6 Step 4 – Practices
“Move beyond the level of the language and analyse the actual practices in which
concrete futures will be situated.” (De Wilde, 2000, p. 36)
The third step looked at Android as text on a website. Now the goal is to move further and see what
is actually happening around Android. Thus, I will return to some notions of openness from the
previous steps and see how they hold up in practice.
2.6.1 Open source, or free software?
Step One showed that Android is presented as open source and that it draws on the popularity of
Linux. At a practical level, these claims are somehow problematic. Although the ideograph of
openness connects Android to Linux, Android is not open in the same way as Linux is. Android is
defined as an “open source” project rather than a “free software” project. Although free and open
source software is often talked about as one phenomenon, there is a difference between the notion of
free software and open source software.
Free software is a movement initiated mainly by Richard Stallman and his Free Software
Foundation (FSF). FSF defines free software as one that “gives you the user the freedom to share,
study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free.” (FSF, 2009) Thus, FSF
stresses the freedom of the user to see how a program works, to modify it and to share it. In an age
when computers hold many personal information and structure our lives, FSF believes that this
freedom is a fundamental requirement for a free society. Having the source code accessible is means
towards assuring this freedom. Therefore, free software relates largely to a political belief.
In contrast, the concept of open source does not point so much towards the idea of a free
society, as to the way of developing software. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) describes open
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source as a method for developing software that takes advantage of peer review and transparency of
the development process (OSI, 2009). In this point of view, an open development process can attract
very large numbers of developers, who bring more creativity, talent and resources that a company
producing proprietary software would never be able to afford. As a result, OSI argues, open source
software gives a promise of “better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end
to predatory vendor lockin” (2009). Therefore, open source relates to the way of creating software
and doing business rather than to political beliefs.
Thus, the emphasis within OSI is somewhere else than in case of FSF: while FSF
emphasizes the need for individual freedom, OSI emphasizes the potential of higher quality
software and more effective development process. Android takes sides with OSI: openness is
mentioned on Android.com very often, but freedom is not mentioned there at all. At a practical
level, the openness of Android seems to be of a pragmatic origin rather than of an ideological one –
it is supposed to give Android a competitive advantage on the market (cf. Goldman and Gabriel,
2005). In this respect, Android stands ideologically in a different place than Linux, which is
historically closer to FSF. Nevertheless, Android.com tries to make links with the success and
reputation of Linux.
2.6.2 The openness of the Android Open Source Project
Some of the contributors to the Android Open Source Project are concerned about “how much”
open source Android is. For example, there are complaints on the Android Open Source Project
(AOSP) discussion forums that the platform as such is being developed by Google's developers
“behind the closed doors,” and only “thrown out” as open source once in a while. There are also
complaints about not having proper roadmap and open discussions about the further development of
the platform. (Android Open Source platform mailing list, 2009)
25
On the one hand, this critique is legitimate. Compared to some successful open source
community projects such as Mozilla Firefox, Android really lacks in fully employing the “good
practices” of open source. On the other hand, the Android project is in many ways unique and
difficult to compare to projects such as Mozilla Firefox. Being an operating system for mobile
phones, Android is “tightly coupled” with other actors in the business, such as device manufacturers
and mobile carriers. As a result, there is a number of issues with patents and business interests of
various actors, which makes it extremely difficult for the project to be open in the same way as
some other open source projects (cf. e.g. posts by JeanBaptiste Queru in “Who know [sic] the
current status of Donut development” on Android Open Source platform mailing list).
2.6.3 Licensing Android – open to be closed?
Licensing is an important part of software distribution, because it delineates the ways in which a
piece of software may (not) be used. Therefore, a licence may also indicate how open software is.
Free and open source software licences may be divided into “permissive” and “nonpermissive”
ones. A permissive licence means that a derivative of a work originally licensed under this licence
may be licensed using a more restrictive licence. On the contrary, once a nonpermissive (also
known as “copyleft”) licence is applied to a piece of software, it also has to be applied to all its
derivatives, and it is not possible to apply more restriction on that piece of software. In practice, this
means that once someone creates some software under a nonpermissive licence, it is illegal for
anyone to take it, change it, and sell it as a commercial software. However, this is not the case with
Android. For the most part, Android is licensed under the “Apache licence”, which is a permissive
free software licence. In contrast to nonpermissive licences, it allows one to take a piece of
software licensed under this licence, modify it, and sell it as a commercial software.
The particular licence which has been chosen for Android has significant implications for
the openness of the platform. The story about openness on Android.com talks about easy life for the
26
developers, and it talks about the possibilities and potential of rich user experience, but it does not
talk about what the mobile operators can do with the platform. Due to the way Android is licensed,
it is not only the users, but also the carriers who may “tailor the phone to their interests”
(Android.com). They may take the Android platform, make modifications to it, and use the
modified version of the software in their devices, while not licensing the software as open any more.
Therefore, there is a paradox in the way Android is open – the openness of the platform
makes it possible for various actors involved in the development of an Android device to close down
the software. On the one hand, it makes perfect sense: for instance, a mobile phone manufacturer
may want to include a special feature into the operating system of their Android device. This feature
may be patented. Now, if Android was licensed under a “nonpermissive” license, the manufacturer
would not be able to protect their patent or knowhow: they would have to keep the technology,
including the modifications, open. If this was the case, the manufacturer may well just use some
other platform. Therefore, from the point of view of commercial viability of Android, it makes
perfect sense to license it in the way that it is licensed.
On the other hand, the paradox of openness is there: for example, various resources (Dean
and Yamaguchi, 2009; Geng, 2009) reported that China Mobile took the Android source code and is
customizing it for their own purposes. The result will be marketed in China Mobile's network as
“Open Mobile System.” Now, it is known that China uses “the Great China Firewall” to block some
Internet content to Chinese citizens (cf. e.g. The Open Society Institute, 2009). Similarly, the state
owned China Mobile may be interested in controlling the content that is accessible from their
mobile devices. With the way Android is licensed, it is legal for China Mobile to take the open
Android platform and make changes to the platform which will effectively cut off China Mobile's
subscribers who use a Chinese Android device from some Internet content or services.6 Thus, this
6 In contrast to this development, the negotiations of China Mobile with Apple, Inc. to market Apple's iPhone in China Mobile's network have failed. Some say that the failure was due to the fact that Apple wanted the carrier to
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openness of the Android platform is relational – what is open for someone (e.g. a mobile operator)
in one context (implementing their services), may not be so open for someone else (a customer) in
some other context (using the device).
2.7 Conclusion
The goal of this chapter was to analyse the way in which the Android platform is presented on its
official website, Android.com. De Wilde's (2000) method for rhetorical analysis was used. The first
step of the method showed that the website employs a number of ideographs, where openness is one
of them. Most significantly, it was shown that the ideograph of openness refers to the organization
of the project, to the final device, to the internal design of the software, to the Internet, as well as to
a tradition that the Android project endorses. In addition, it creates links with other ideographs such
as equality, breaking barriers, and easy work. The second step showed some normative assumptions
present in the text. It was shown that the openness of Android is futureoriented, which implies
obligations on the part of the developers. Further, it was shown that the discourse on Android.com
assumes a certain kind of users, namely those who want to use online services and share personal
information. The third step identified two paradoxes within the discourse on Android.com: the
convenience paradox, which threatens that what seems to be a fun and exciting feature will become
a norm and a burden, and the interaction paradox with looming inflation of interpersonal
relationships. Finally, the fourth step pointed to the difference between free and open source
software and to the position that Android takes here, as well as to some concerns about the
development process of the platform and a hidden danger of closing down the open platform.
Thus, this chapter showed that the official rhetoric on Android.com sees the openness of the
pay them a percentage of its profit from selling iPhone and related services, while others say that it was due to the fact that Apple wanted to retain control of the applications which would be available for iPhone in China Mobile's Network, which the carrier refused. (Apple iPhone is in many ways a device similar to an Android device, but in terms of software licensing and distribution, it is the exact opposite – the operating system is proprietary and it is strictly forbidden to change the software or the hardware of the device in any way.)
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Android platform in that it is open towards the future, and that it is open towards new applications.
However, the rhetoric pays attention only to certain kinds of applications. Furthermore, it only pays
attention to users who want to use these kinds of applications. As a result, the official rhetoric sees
users as a rather homogeneous group. Moreover, the openness of the platform in practice seems to
extend much more to the mobile operators, who seem to have the real power to modify the platform.
All in all, this chapter looked at Android mainly as text written by the designers of the platform. It is
now time to follow Android to an altogether different place: it is time to go to shops where the
Android devices are sold, and see what meanings and interpretations are being constructed in this
environment.
3. Android delivered by mobile operators
3.1 Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to move from the official presentation of the Android platform on
Android.com to another stage in Android's lifetime. It will look at what happens when an Android
device has been manufactured, packed and bundled with services, and is marketed in the shops of
mobile companies. Whereas the first chapter looked largely at Android as a futureoriented text
charged with prophecies, promises and normative statements, this chapter will see Android as an
element in a much larger network of actors, including the actual devices, shops, shop assistants,
contracts, and business strategies of mobile companies. In particular, I want to focus on how this
network in which Android becomes embedded changes the openness of the platform. This chapter
argues that the openness of Android which was articulated on Android.com is not much present in
the shops any more. As Android becomes embedded into a much larger heterogeneous network, its
notions of openness change, while projected users are “configured”.
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3.2 Method – carrying out shop inquiries
The empirical research for this chapter was carried out by means of shop inquiries. Thirteen
different shops were visited during May and June 2009. Seven of them were TMobile, six were
Vodafone. The TMobile shops were located in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. The
Vodafone shops were located in Spain. The selection of shops was based on availability – I
happened to be in these three countries at that time, and TMobile and Vodafone were then the only
operators selling Android devices.
I did not make clear to the shop assistants that I was doing academic research about Android.
Instead, I introduced myself as a customer who has heard about “a Google phone,” the “TMobile
G1,” or the “HTC Magic,” and is interested in it and would like to learn more. I did not ask about
any specific things in the beginning of the conversation, because I wanted to see what the shop
assistants would start to talk about, and what they would associate the device with. Later on in the
conversation, I would ask more specific questions about Android, about use of the device, and about
comparison to other platforms and devices. Sometimes I also asked explicitly about the openness of
the device, refering to having read that the device was “based on an open platform.” In addition, I
tried to pay attention to how the Android devices were presented in shops – if they were on show,
whether they occupied any special position, if there was any advertising directly addressing these
devices, and so on. I took field notes after each shop inquiry.
There proved to be some limitations with this approach. Firstly, this research cannot be taken
as representing all shops selling Android devices, and it cannot try to give an 'objective' account. On
the other hand, even this limited selection has its meaning and value: the purpose of this exercise is
not to give an overview of all shops and an assessment of their employees. The purpose is to find
some meanings around the Android platform that are constructed in shops where the Android
devices are sold. I believe that this approach is appropriate for this purpose. Moreover, the
30
appearance and setting of this kind of shops are largely standardized, and therefore even findings
from such a limited selection might have some wider validity.
Secondly and notwithstanding the standardized character of the shops in question, it turned
out that the responses of the shop assistants greatly varied – individual shop assistants apparently
had different knowledge from one another about the Android devices and the Android platform7. As
a result, it was sometimes difficult to draw clear conclusions from this part of research.
Nevertheless, there were a number of common themes in the shops visited, and there are some
meanings, preferences and interpretations of the Android platform which were found in a majority
of shops visited. The following paragraphs will address these common themes and meanings. But
first of all, I will try to sketch an appropriate theoretical framework for them.
3.3 The Android platform within a heterogeneous network
The previous chapter looked at the Android platform mainly as text – it was a critical rhetorical
analysis of the official Android presentation on the Internet, with some references to actual practices
around the platform in the last step of the analysis. This chapter is another, quite different take on
the meanings of openness around the Android platform. It looks at the platform at a different stage
of its life, and in a radically different setting. The official website is an environment which is largely
controlled by those who create the content of the website. Thus, they can easily create a nice and
smooth story about Android, with not much interference from the “outside world”. In contrast, this
chapter deals with the Android platform in a radically different and much more complex setting.
What happened with Android between the previous chapter and this one? It was acquired by
a mobile phone manufacturer. It might have been adapted to the manufacturer's liking. It was
implemented into an actual device. The manufacturer signed a contract with a mobile operator for
7 It should perhaps be noted that at the time of the inquiries, all of the TMobile shops had been selling the TMobile G1 for at least a few months. The inquiries in Spanish Vodafone, however, were carried out in the first few weeks after the HTC Magic was put on sale there. This relative time shift may have influenced the shop assistants' familiarity with Android and therefore also their responses.
31
an exclusive distribution. The mobile operator also may have asked to make changes to the software.
The implementation was tested, and finally the device was manufactured and loaded with Android.
It was packed in a box and shipped to the mobile operator's shop. Meanwhile, the mobile operator
created an advertising campaign for the device, including Internet presentation, leaflets, posters,
stickers, and so on. They also created a business plan – how the device would be sold, for what
price, with which contracts, and under what conditions. The shop assistants were told that there was
a new phone coming. Some shops put posters with the device in their windows, some even put up
special showcase pedestals with a number of the phones on show.
Thus, the Android platform came a long way from Android.com to the shops – it was
“squeezed” into a device, it was perhaps altered to meet additional demands, it was packed and
shipped halfway around the world, where it was unpacked again, and put on a table or behind a glass
window. In addition, it was portrayed in posters, leaflets and magazines. It was also assigned a
particular place in the hierarchy of other devices and services. Thus, there is a vast number of things
which now more or less directly interact with Android. Some of these are material things (such as
packaging), while others are regulations, images, virtual structures, or people. They all interact with
Android in one way or another, and they all participate in contesting meanings around the platform.
In order to better understand this assembly of material and nonmaterial things, humans and
nonhumans, this chapter will borrow the notion of a “heterogeneous network” (Law, 1987; Akrich,
1992) from semiotic approaches to studying technology. The advantage of this approach is that it
does not make a priori distinctions between human and nonhuman influences in technological
development, and it does not make assumptions about a backdrop of social, economic, or technical
factors (cf. Bijker and Law, 1992, p. 13). For instance, Madeleine Akrich (1992) says that
heterogeneous networks “bring together actants of all types and sizes, whether human or
nonhuman” (p. 206). This neutrality offers an advantage for the purpose here, because it does not set
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categories where a researcher may not need them. In case of studying the openness of the Android
platform in shops, it is not so important to distinguish all these categories. Instead, the purpose is to
observe the heterogeneity of the network around the Android platform, and to see how the various
elements participate in contesting the meanings of the platform.
Furthermore, this chapter will use Steve Woolgar's (1991) concept of “configuring the user”.
Woolgar argues that as designers design technological artefacts, they “configure” users by “defining
the identity of putative users, and setting constraints upon their likely future actions” (p. 59). In
other words, Woolgar sees a technological artefact as text, and users as readers who read this text.
There is some interpretative flexibility of the text, but still, it is the designers and engineers who
delimit this flexibility (Oudshoorn and Pinch, 2003, pp. 78). The problem with Woolgar's approach
is that he gives too much agency to designers, and too little to users. Luckily, Woolgar's notion of
configuration has been successfully extended by Mackay et al. (2000), who argue that as much as
designers configure users, they themselves are configured by users as well as by other influences.
Moreover, Mackay et al. argue that the boundary between designers and users is itself “fluid and,
indeed, configured” (Mackay et al., 2000, p. 737). This chapter will use this extended notion of
configuration, keeping in mind the points made by Mackay et al. (2000). We shall start unravelling
the heterogeneous networks in mobile operators' shops by looking at how the Android devices are
officially presented in shops.
3.4 Android devices in shops – Android exceptional?
Observations showed that both the TMobile G1 in TMobile and the HTC Magic in Vodafone were
regarded as important products worth special attention. Even a few months after the G1 went on
sale, many TMobile shops were advertising the device using large posters inside the shop. A
majority of the shops visited had one or two devices “on show” for the customers to try out. One
shop in Amsterdam even had a special “pedestal” featuring four of these devices. Similarly, Spanish
33
Vodafone paid a lot of attention to making the HTC Magic visible. Their Internet site featured a
countdown to the moment when the device would be put on sale. In the first few weeks of selling
the HTC Magic, nearly each of the visited shops had a large poster with the device in their window.
As a matter of fact, some of them had not got the device yet, but the advertising was there.
Thus, both operators tried to establish the Android devices as special and exceptional. What
do operators find exceptional about Android devices? Firstly, TMobile's advertisements say that the
G1 is “a phone built for the Internet”. This slogan suggests that what is important or exceptional
about an Android device is that it lets one use the Internet more or perhaps in different ways than
other devices. Secondly, a shop assistant in the Amsterdam shop which featured the G1 “pedestal”
told me that they created it because the G1 was the first device with a new operating system by
Google called Android. His reply suggests that what he finds exceptional about the device is that it
is the first of its kind, and that the operating system is by Google, a well known, powerful, and
successful company. Similarly, Vodafone's website says that Android is “a spectacular operating
system by Google. You have never seen anything like it.” (Vodafone, 2009) Vodafone also refers to
Google and to the fact that Android is something new and, in this case, spectacular.
Therefore, according to the way Android devices are presented in advertising and in shops,
the mobile operators try to establish them as something exceptional. However, this uniqueness does
not stem out of the Android software as such, but from the fact that the devices are supposed to be
something new, and they give a promise of allowing the user to do something new. This also
suggests the kind of user that is being configured for Android: it is a user who wants to be able to do
new things with her mobile device, rather than doing old things better, for instance. It is also a user
who is interested in having the latest and newest artefacts.
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3.5 Android under contracts
Contracts are another element which play a significant role in contesting Android in mobile
operator's shops. Both TMobile and Vodafone bundle their Android devices with contracts. It is
impossible to buy an Android device from the operators without signing a one or twoyear contract.
Moreover, Vodafone requires customers to sign up to an additional 12€/month data plan, and it locks
the Magic only to Vodafone network. TMobile does not require the data plan, although it strongly
recommends it, and it does not lock the G1 to TMobile network.
The contracts are very much present in the shops. Most of the devices on show were
accompanied by leaflets with information about some of the offered contracts. The shop assistants
also often talked about contracts – perhaps due to the mandatory data plan, all of the shop assistants
in Spanish Vodafone shops talked about contracts as one of the first things. TMobile shop assistants
also talked about contracts, but only some of them mentioned them in the very beginning. Most of
them strongly recommended the additional data plan.
These observations suggest that mobile operators consider contracts to be an important part
of an Android device. Both Vodafone and TMobile require contracts, while Vodafone even requires
an additional data plan. Moreover, Vodafone locks the device so that it can only be used with their
SIM cards. This practice may relate to the fact that Android devices are still new: supposing that the
Android platform is successful and will be adopted by more manufacturers and thus become more
common, it is possible that some of the devices will not be so strongly tied to mobile operators'
contracts. Nevertheless, it is a way of “closing” the device, which the mobile operators employ for
their own benefit. They advertise Android devices as exceptional, but in turn, they make the
customers stay with them and pay a premium. Thus, these practices “configure” a user who is a
loyal customer and who is willing to pay extra money.
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3.6 Android described by shop assistants
Notwithstanding official advertising and standardized appearance of mobile operators' shops, shop
assistants and what they say about the devices and services play a crucial role in contesting
meanings around these products: they advise the customer, make her wait, introduce the devices and
services, and make an impression of what is a good deal and what is not. Therefore, this section will
look at how shop assistants describe Android devices, what qualities they emphasize, and what
preferences they articulate or imply.
3.6.1 Describing an Android device – Android commodified
A large part of the shop assistants described the Android devices primarily according to what they
look like and what physical features they have got. Characteristics which mattered to most of them
were features such as the touch screen, the camera, and, in case of the G1, the physical “qwerty”
keyboard. In addition, they often described the devices in general terms such as “really good”, or
“one of the top”.
Thus, many shop assistants did not find anything special about the software of Android
devices. They did not talk explicitly about Android. When asked what one can actually do with an
Android device, the shop assistants usually refered to its Internet capabilities. They often said that
the users can go on the Internet, and “do anything they want”. When asked what this “anything”
was, some shop assistants seemed to find the question stupid, and some said that it meant that one
can view any website she wants.
The fact that a large part of the shop assistants did not regard the particular operating system
of a device important may be related to the phenomenon of “commodification8 of software” (cf.
O'Reilly, 2005; Stutz, 2004). The notion of commodification describes a process during which one
part of an industry becomes to a large extent stabilized and its products become standardized. As a
8 Both words “commodification” and “commoditization” are used in this context, and they seem to mean the same. Some authors (e.g. O'Reilly 2005) even use both of them interchangeably in one piece of writing.
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result, the key profitmaking value within the industry shifts from the newly stabilized part into
another segment of the industry. At the same time, product prices in the stabilized segment
decrease, and differences between products of different companies blur. Therefore, consumers cease
to care about the particular producer of a product that they buy, nor do they care about what is
inside of the product, as long as the product works in the way they expect it to work.
O'Reilly (2005) and Stutz (2004) argue that whereas in the 1980s, computer hardware
became commodified and the key value of the industry shifted to creating software, a similar shift
has been happening in recent years with software: software is becoming commodified, and the core
value shifts from creating software to providing online services. Following this argument and
assuming that software is becoming commodified, it is not so surprising that a large number of the
shop assistants in TMobile and Vodafone shops did not address the particular operating system that
a mobile device is using. From this perspective, software becomes “less visible” to the user, and it
does not matter so much what operating system the device is using. What matters is what the device
looks like and what it promises to be able to do. In this case, what “counts” is that the device has a
large colour touch screen, and that one can access Internetbased services9.
3.6.2 Android device – a fun tool, or an office in the pocket?
Picking up on the notion that one can “do anything they want” with an Android device, I was
interested what kinds of uses shop assistants associate with Android devices. Some of them
suggested that an Android device is like “a little computer”. Does that mean that one can use it in
the way computers are commonly used, for instance to work with office documents or with PDF
files? I set out to inquire about this question: is it possible to open PDF files and work with office
documents on Android?
9 The notion of commodification also points to a likely motivation of companies such as Google to invest their resources into an open source operating system – the software is supposed to serve as an “intermediary”, through which the users will want to access the companies' online services. These services are what really generates the companies' profit.
37
Some shop assistants were able to give a wellinformed account on this topic10. On the other
hand, many others were taken by surprise with this question. One shop assistant in Brno did not
know what PDF files were. Nevertheless, she convincingly replied that with Android, one can do
anything on the Internet, and therefore one can open any file that one can download. Another shop
assistant in Brno said that he was not sure if the TMobile G1 could open PDF or office documents,
and he set out to find out on the Internet. After a few minutes, he concluded that he could not find
any evidence that the device had these capabilities. Nevertheless, he said that in his opinion, a
device like this one should be able to do that. Therefore, instead of giving a piece of information, he
gave me his own belief, which fuelled my hopes as a potential customer. These two responses give
an account of a notion which is being created around the Android devices in shops – a notion that
one can do “anything”. However, this “anything” is often very unclear and illdefined.
To summarize, many shop assistants were not sure about the capabilities of opening a PDF
file or an office document, and concluded that it was not possible. Sometimes they clearly did not
expect this kind of question. The explanation may be that they do not associate a mobile phone with
tasks such as viewing and editing documents. Rather, they see mobile phones as devices which are
used for entertainment and leisure activities, such as listening to music, taking photographs, or in
case of Android, using popular Internet services such as YouTube or Facebook. Thus, the meanings
which are ascribed to Android devices in shops are those of an entertainment device rather than a
work tool. Similarly, the users who are projected through these meanings and preferences are those
who want to spend time on the Internet and have fun, rather than those who would like to be able to
work or read electronic books.
10 For instance, one of the Vodafone shop assistants in Spain said that currently, there were no Android applications to handle PDF or Word documents, but that he believed that someone was already working on them, and that they would be sooner or later available. As a matter of fact, it seems that this prediction has turned out to be true: at that time (May 2009), there were no applications on the Android Market to handle PDF or Word documents. As of now, there is a number of PDF viewers (both free and paid), as well as a paid application called “Documents to go”, which can handle both Microsoft Word and Excel files.
38
3.7 Android within the hierarchy of phones
The previous step showed how shop assistants describe the Android devices. The present step will
look at another element within the network in mobile operators' shops, which participates in
contesting Android. We will see what position Android occupies within the hierarchy of phones
offered, and what implications this hierarchy has for the meanings and preferences around Android.
3.7.1 An Android device versus competition
To inquire about the position of Android devices within the hierarchy of phones, I asked the shop
assistants to compare an Android device to other, seemingly similar devices. A few shop assistants
pointed out that the TMobile G1 or HTC Magic had a new operating system. Some of them even
mentioned the open source model behind Android. However, many others did not mention Android
at all. As a matter of fact, one shop assistant in Vic, Spain, said that the HTC Magic “had
Windows.” More often, the comparison related to physical features of the phone, which goes in line
with the preference for physical features and commodification of software addressed above.
Another shop assistant in Amsterdam was asked to compare the TMobile G1 to Apple's
iPhone. She said that these two devices were not similar. She did not see any difference between the
two devices in terms of software11 or hardware12. Rather, she said that the iPhone was “a music
phone”, while the G1 was “an Internet phone”. Although she admitted that one can also listen to
music on the G1 and go on the Internet on the iPhone, she insisted on the distinction of “a music
phone” and “an Internet phone”. This observation shows that the meanings created around
individual devices in shops create clear differences between the interpretations of each device, but at
the same time, the origin of these meanings and interpretations (for instance, “a music phone”) is in
fact quite arbitrary.
11 They have different operating systems – open source Android, and proprietary iPhone OS, respectively.12 They differ in terms of physical features quite a lot: the TMobile G1 has a touch screen with qwerty keyboard,
additional buttons and a touch pad, while the iPhone only has touch screen – this is one of the most important points in iPhone's advertising.
39
3.7.2 Mobile devices as a commodity
Thus, in the eyes of shop assistants, Android, Symbian, Apple, or Windows Mobile devices are all
similar on the on hand, but on the other hand, they differ in many characteristics: one has an eight
megapixel camera while another one only has two. One has longer battery life, while another one
has a larger screen with better image. The offer is wide, and it is up to the customer to choose. Shop
assistants hardly ever recommend one device – rather, they overwhelm the customer with a range of
devices, and it is up to her to make the decision. The offer is so wide that one has to decide.
In this perspective, the G1 or the Magic are just another phones in the wide range of devices
that the mobile operators offer. The operating system that they use is just one of their characteristics,
and being a commodity, it is not so important as long as the phone works. Thus, while some shop
assistants did describe the Androidbased devices as something new and perhaps exceptional, this
status was related to the perceived overall quality and range of features of the devices: for most of
them, they are phones which are good, because they have a good mix of features, and they seem to
work well. Some shop assistants said that the G1 or the Magic are good, simply because “they have
everything”. By everything they meant all the features that fancy new phones have.
Consequently, it can be concluded that while on Android.com, the Android platform was
quite directly competing with other platforms, in shops they work together in that they all help to
create a wide offer of devices from which the customer has to choose. Keeping this in mind, it is
interesting to look at the official advertising of mobile operators, which in some ways renders
Android as exceptional, but at the same time, it does not compare different platforms or devices
directly – it is not desirable to know which one is better than the others, but it is important to know
why each one of them is a good choice for the customer.
Thus, on the one hand, mobile operators advertise the Android devices as something new
and special, but on the other hand, many shop assistants see them just as one of the “better” phones
40
in the hierarchy. Some examples are worth mentioning: one shop assistant in Amsterdam was quite
excited about the G1. He knew about Android being open source, and described the G1 as a device
which is very convenient and pointed out some applications which are unique to the Android
platform. However, when I asked about comparison with other phones, he said that the G1 was good
and “had everything”, but he also added that they are all similar, and that I should go on the Internet
and compare them myself. Even more surprisingly, one of the shop assistants in Barcelona knew
that the HTC Magic had a new operating system, but she was apparently annoyed by a customer
asking about it. When asked about what the Android system is like, she replied: “go on the Internet
and see yourself. Look how many phones we have got here. If we had to know each one of them, we
would go crazy.” This is perhaps an extreme example, but it shows that from the perspective of shop
assistants, an Android device is just another phone. Last but not least, when I asked a shop assistant
in Brno to compare the G1 with other phones, she thought for a while, and then replied with
sincerity in her voice: “they are all toys, you know.”
3.8 Conclusions – openness of Android in TMobile and Vodafone shops
This chapter looked at Android in two devices in TMobile and Vodafone shops in Spain, the
Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. It showed that in shops, Android becomes a part of a
heterogeneous network (Law, 1987; Akrich, 1992), whose elements play a significant role in
contesting meanings and preferences around the platform. Thus, Android is not just a promising
software project, it is a part of a larger ecosystem of different actors, groups, artefacts, rules,
hierarchies and interests.
In particular, this chapter started with investigating how mobile operators present Android
officially. It was showed that official advertising portrays Android as exceptional. However, this
uniqueness does not stem from the software itself or its openness, but from the connection with
Google and from the promise that Android will provide a “better user experience.” Next, it was
41
shown that Android devices are firmly entrenched in a system of contracts, and in this way they
serve the business interests of mobile operators. The investigation then moved to see how shop
assistants describe Android devices. It was shown that many of them emphasize physical features
over software. This fact may relate to the phenomenon of software commodification (O'Reilly, 2005;
Stutz, 2004). In this respect, many shop assistants did not regard the operating system of a mobile
device to be much important.
Further, the research proved that various elements of the heterogeneous network around
Android devices work towards understanding them as devices for entertainment rather than work
tools. Moreover, it was shown that the presented uniqueness of Android is somehow limited:
Android devices have a specific place in hierarchy of phones that the mobile operators sell, and they
can only be exceptional as much as their position allows them. Consequently, some shop assistants
found the Android devices to be “yet another, rather expensive phones (or toys).”
The openness which was being articulated on Android.com does not seem to be present in
mobile operators' shops. Moreover, the fact that Android is open source does not make much
difference in shops. Except for one shop assistant in Amsterdam, who concluded that open source
was good for the quality of the software, no one suggested any practical benefits for the end users
stemming from Android being open source. Nevertheless, the shop assistants often identified two
other kinds of openness. Firstly, they often said that with an Android device the user “can do
anything on the Internet.” Secondly, they often saw the openness of Android in the Android
Market13: they said that the openness of Android consists in the possibility to download new
applications.
These two notions of openness are legitimate, but they contain some tensions. Firstly, they
13 Android Market is a website where Android developers can offer their applications for users to download. The applications can be paid or free, depending on the developer's decision and her geographical location (it is not possible to post paid applications from some countries).
42
do not seem to relate to the fact that Android is open source: as for the first one, one may argue that
with Microsoft Internet Explorer14, you can do as many things on the Internet as with Android; as
for the second one, the concept of an online application store was first introduced by Apple, Inc. for
their strictly proprietary iPhone. Secondly, as the shop assistants say, you can do anything on the
Internet, but you have to have a Google account. Getting a Google account is easy and it is for free,
but it has a strong potential for shaping the users' behaviour. Combined with the fact that Google
services are very well integrated into Android devices, there is a good prospect that new users may
think, “well, now that I have created a Google account and I have all these services on my phone, I
may just as well start using them.” Strictly speaking, this practice is not closing the platform, but
certainly it is shaping it in a specific way – Google services are given a head start.
Lastly, the investigation also showed that the way Android is being contested in mobile
operators' shops assumes, or “configures” a certain kind of users: users who are interested in new
technologies and technological artefacts, those who are loyal customers willing to pay a premium
price, and those who want to use their mobile phone mainly as an entertainment device, rather than
a work tool. All in all, users do not really play much of an active role in the shops, although they are
given the responsibility of choosing their device and services. Apart from that, everything is set for
them, and it is set in a specific way.
To sum up, the investigation showed a number of different meanings, associations and
interpretations of the openness of Android platform in TMobile and Vodafone shops. Most
importantly, the inquiry proved that the openness can hardly be regarded as of solely technical
nature. In contrast, the fact that Android is open source does not play any crucial role in the shops.
What seems to count is a heterogeneous network of elements such as shop assistants, business
policies, layout of the shops, or advertisements, all of which contest the meanings of Android in
14 Microsoft Internet Explorer is a proprietary web browser made by the Microsoft corporation.
43
shops. What is less present in this network, though, are the users. The network assumes a certain
kind of users, who are expected to come to the shop, and fit into the prepared scenario. Is that going
to happen? That is a question for the next chapter.
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4. Android constructed in online communities
4.1 Introduction
This chapter is another take on Android – after having analysed the official rhetoric and promises
around the platform and the entrenchment of Android in shops, the focus will now turn to the users.
The goal of this chapter is to see what meanings some of the Android users articulate about the
platform, what their expectations are, and how they understand the openness of the platform. Virtual
ethnography (Hine, 2000) will be used to this goal. In this chapter I argue that Android users are a
heterogenenous group, and that they play an important role in constructing the meanings around the
Android platform. Consequently, the sharp distinction between users and designers no longer holds
true.
4.2 Doing a virtual ethnography of Android communities
The Android platform is strongly Internetoriented, and so are the devices based on it. It can be
inferred that the users of Androidbased devices, too, use the Internet often and are familiar with
this environment. Therefore, this thesis will carry out a “virtual ethnography” (Hine, 2000; 2005) of
online Android communities to investigate the users' interpretations and expectations around the
Android platform. It could have been otherwise: for instance, personal interviews or focus groups
could have been carried out. Thus, this is a methodological choice, which will have implications for
the research. This section will address some of these implications. It will also explain the method
and show why this approach is the most appropriate for the present aims.
4.2.1 Sites of inquiry
Preliminary observations showed that there is a number of Internet community sites around the
Android platform15. They are mostly concerned with developments around the platform, with new
15 For instance Phandroid.com, Androidforums.com, AndroidCommunity.com, TalkAndroid.com, or AndroidWorld.nl.
45
devices, applications and services, as well as with troubleshooting the devices. As such, these sites
are an important resource for users who want some information or help with Android. Moreover,
they also serve as meeting places for Android users. Their discussion forums contain a variety of
topics more or less related to Android, and some users spend a lot of time on them. Therefore, it
seems worthwhile to investigate these community sites as places where users of Android articulate
their meanings and expectations of the platform.
Most of the sites are very similar in nature and they share a lot of information. Therefore, it
seems appropriate to select one or two as typical examples and focus the research on them (cf.
Flyvbjerg, 2006, pp. 224228). I chose to carry out the research on two such sites,
www.phandroid.com and www.androidforums.com. Preliminary observations suggested that these
sites would provide enough material. They are ones of the first of their kind, and they seem to have
a stable and active community around them.
The two sites are run by the same people and in a way they complement each other:
Phandroid.com reports news around Android, while Androidforums.com are discussion forums
related to the platform. The forums deal with Android news and rumours, the use of the devices and
software, troubleshooting, as well as developing Android applications16. The two sites are linked in
several ways. Firstly, they look very similar – they use the same visual styles. Secondly, articles that
are published on Phandroid.com are often subsequently discussed on the forums. And thirdly,
people who post messages to the forums often also comment on the articles, and conversely, the
article authors post messages to the forums. Thus, the sites closely complement each other, and
therefore they are both included in the research.
There are a few more points mentioning about the sites. Firstly, all of the people who
contribute articles to the news site seem to be (according to their profiles) young men. Secondly, the
16 The structure of the forums with the topics studied in more detail is reproduced in Appendix C.
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news are mostly compilations from other websites concerned with mobile phones or computer
technologies. Thirdly, the news site is strongly futureoriented: most of the news are rumours about
Android devices, the Android platform, or related services. Lastly, being a fan site, most of the news
reported about Android is good news.
4.2.2 Method
Christine Hine (2000, 2005) is one of the pioneers of researching virtual environments and of using
virtual methods in research. In Virtual Ethnography (Hine, 2000), she provides some
methodological guidelines of carrying out ethnographic studies of the Internet (seeing the Internet
as a a cultural artefact (p. 32)), as well as on the Internet (seeing the Internet as culture (p. 21)).
However, she does not give any specific methodology on how to do a virtual ethnography. She says
that “ethnography is strengthened by the lack of recipes for doing it. … Ethnography is a lived craft
rather than a protocol which can be separated from the particular study or the person carrying it
out.” (p. 13). Therefore, it is the researcher's task to capture the specificities and complexities of the
phenomena studied; there is no 'how to do it' guide for this task. This is an encouraging statement as
well as a burdening one.
Thus, what did I do? I started out with reading articles and article comments on
Phandroid.com which were published roughly between December 2008 and May 200917, and
browsed through the discussion forums on Androidforums.com. After having a general sense of
what the discussions look like, I set out to try to find and identify relevant social groups (RSGs)
which come up in these discussions, in order to see different interpretations and expectations of the
platform and of the devices that these groups express. This step will be explained in the following
section (4.3.1).
Except for focusing on the two sites, I did not make any specific decision about narrowing
17 The site releases around 50 articles a month.
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down the data available. After having a general overview of what is going on in the discussions, I
was trying to spot places where inconsistencies and tensions in expectations as well as discussions
about the openness of Android might occur. Some threads or topics (such as “The Lounge” and
“Android News & Talk”) seemed to be more likely to show these, but experience proved that
interesting (from this work's point of view) discussions may occur in almost any category of threads.
Therefore, I did not limit my data as to which categories to read and which of them not to read; I
was rather trying to spot interesting discussions anywhere they may occur. When I found an
interesting discussion, I saved it for closer reading and for reference. In addition, I was keeping a
research diary with fieldwork notes from the observations.
4.2.3 Challenges of virtual ethnography
Doing ethnography on the Internet poses some challenges to traditional notions of doing
ethnography. Firstly, traditional anthropological fieldwork narrative sees the site of ethnographic
inquiry as a faraway village where the ethnographer goes to live with indigenous population (Hess,
2001). This notion no longer holds true – STS ethnographies are hardly ever carried out in such a
place (Ibid.). Moreover, doing ethnography on the Internet entails physical displacement: the notion
of a particular physical site where the ethnography is carried out ceases to exist. This is unsurprising
to Hine, because “if culture and community are not selfevidently located in place, neither is
ethnography” (2000, p. 64).
Next, Hine points out that virtual ethnography is necessarily partial (p. 65). This knowledge
should not prevent the researcher from doing it, but it should make her aware that giving an account
“based on ideas of strategic relevance” (Ibid.) will be much more worthwhile than trying to give one
based on “faithful representations of objective realities.” (Ibid.) Following this argument, this study
focuses on a certain subset of Android users, namely those who play an active role in contesting and
negotiating the Android platform in online environments, and it aims to see the meanings,
48
interpretations and preferences that these users articulate. In other words, it aims to give an account
“based on ideas of strategic relevance” about a particular bit of Android development. (On this
issue, cf. also Flyvbjerg, 2006 or Bijker, 1993, p. 119).
Further, Hine calls attention to some practical issues with virtual ethnography. Firstly,
ethnography needs to protect the informants' privacy, and online ethnography should not be an
exception. As a result, Hine suggests that in some cases, it may be advisable to anonymise
participants' online nicknames (2000, p. 24). Nevertheless, I did not do so. The reason is that none
of the statements published here were confidential. On the contrary, all of them were parts of
discussions on publicly accessible discussion forums, and it was the participants' choice to identify
themselves in the way they did. Therefore, I decided to keep their original nicknames as they
appeared on the forums.
Secondly, it is often difficult to infer the participants' gender in online environments. This is
also the case with Android communities. Nevertheless, the sites seem like a predominantly male
environment: all of the article authors were men, and the implied gender in most of the discussions
was male as well18. Therefore, due to the environment being predominantly male, I shall retreat to
calling those participants whose gender is not clear as men.
Last but not least, Hine stresses that it is important for the researcher to decide and make
clear what role she takes while doing the fieldwork. Will the researcher only observe, or is she
going to participate as well? In case of this study, I only observed and read through discussion
archives. I did not rule out participation in advance, but it turned out that the archives contained
enough resources for the purposes of this work.
18 Due to the predominantly male culture, it is possible that some women find it difficult to participate in these discussion forums, or that others do not make their gender explicit. It would indeed be worthwhile to investigate how Android is gendered, but unfortunately it goes beyond the scope of this research.
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4.3 Relevant social groups of users on Androidforums.com / Phandroid.com
4.3.1 Why relevant social groups?
This chapter focuses on users and their role in Android development. So far, the rhetorical analysis
as well as the shop inquiries showed that users are often seen – both by the designers and by the
mobile operators – as a homogeneous group. In contrast, the observations carried out on
Androidforums.com and Phandroid.com showed that users give Android different meanings and
interpret it in different ways. For instance, Android users often strongly disagreed about matters
such as what hardware features an Android device should have, or to what extent the user should be
able to control the operating system. In other words, the observations showed that Android users are
a heterogeneous group.
In order to be able to address this heterogeneity, this chapter will use the concepts of relevant
social groups (RSG) and interpretative flexibility used in Social Construction of Technology
(SCOT) approach (Pinch and Bijker, 1987; Bijker, 1993; Bijker, 1995). Relevant social groups are
groups of people, users as well as nonusers of a technology, which are delimited by a shared set of
meanings attached to this technology (Pinch and Bijker, 1987, p. 30). Thus, what constitutes a
relevant social group is common understanding of a technological artefact. At the same time, the
concept of relevant social groups implies that different meanings can be attributed to one artefact.
This characteristic is in SCOT called “interpretative flexibility” (Pinch and Bijker, 1987, pp. 4043;
Bijker, 1993, pp. 117119). In this respect, Bijker argues that “one seemingly unambiguous 'thing' …
is better understood as several different artefacts.” (Bijker, 1993, p. 118) These can be traced by
following the different interpretations of relevant social groups (Ibid.). Thus, interpretative
flexibility and relevant social groups are two sides of the same coin: interpretative flexibility makes
room for different meanings to be associated with one artefact, and conversely, relevant social
groups bring out the interpretative flexibility of the artefact (Pinch and Bijker, 1987, p. 40).
50
The notions of relevant social groups and interpretative flexibility bring the role of users
(and nonusers) on the agenda of technology studies. In this sense, they are means to counter
technological determinism, because they say that there is more to technological development than
some kind of inner logic in the technology itself, and they make technological development a
legitimate subject to social analysis (Bijker, 1993, p. 118). Nevertheless, these two concepts are only
a starting point in SCOT analysis. After identifying relevant social groups, SCOT analysis goes on
to describe them in more detail “in order to define better the function of the artefact with respect to
each group” (Pinch and Bijker, 1987, p. 34). This description should focus on problems and
solutions that each RSG sees with respect to the artefact (Bijker, 1993, p. 119), because describing
them better reveals the degree to which the artefact is stabilized (Ibid.). Furthermore, concepts such
as “technological frame” and “sociotechnical ensembles” (Bijker, 1993) may be used to further
describe the setting and possible choices around the artefact.
The SCOT approach proved to be very useful in a number of cases (Pinch and Bijker, 1987;
Bijker, 1993; Bijker, 1995); however, it is most suitable to studying the history of technological
development. It assumes that an artefact will reach the state of stabilization and closure. This state is
not necessarily terminal – the artefact may be “destabilized” and opened for interpretation once
again, but the full SCOT analysis is best done retrospectively. In case of Android, this is impossible
at the moment. Android is technology in the making, and although it is being sold and advertised as
a readymade product, the technology is far from being stabilized. Therefore, this work will employ
only the first steps of SCOT analysis – it will identify RSGs within Android users, and by showing
their different understandings of Android, it will show the interpretative flexibility of the platform.
The observations showed that there are at least three relevant social groups of users on the
online discussion forums. These are Android fans, Other technological enthusiasts, and Daily users.
Each of these three groups is delimited by common interpretations of the Android platform. The
51
following paragraphs will describe each of the three groups separately.
4.3.2 Android fans
Android fans are the most visible and active group on Androidforums.com and Phandroid.com.
After all, the sites are run by Android fans. They are enthusiastic about new technologies, and
mobile phones especially: “I'm Dave. I'm obsessed with cell phones. I belong here,” says shivers316.
What makes Android fans a relevant social group is that they are particularly enthusiastic about
Android. They are convinced that Android is the best mobile platform. For instance, one Android
fan welcomes a new member who switched from another platform, saying:
Welcome to the forum … The possibilities with what the G1 can do are nearly
endless, the only limit is the imagination. You have made a wise choice in
migrating from the BB, Google is the future. (Ageless Stranger)
More specifically, Android fans are convinced about the potential of Android:
By next year i can assure you the number of android phones would be in the
millions. (chuksy)
Look at how huge its installed base is now…less than one year and its already
growing so much. Give it time people….give it time. (N3TWORK BURN3R)
Android will inherently, over time, be found on more phones and more carriers
than the iPhone… that is plain and simple fact. (Rob Jackson)
These statements show that Android fans acknowledge that Android may be struggling to be
commercially successful, but they are convinced that over time, Android will dominate. At the same
time, they believe that the superiority of Android is “inherent” in the platform, which means that it
is of technical nature. Moreover, the Android fans see themselves as those who noticed the potential
of Android before others – they often talk about themselves as “early adopters,” and they identify
themselves with the platform. They belong to Android, and they are a part of Android development.
52
As a result, they consider it to be their task to help Android proliferate. They try to be helpful to
those who are interested in Android and who need help with it. Android fans see themselves as
experts on using Android, and they are willing to help and share their expert knowledge. On the
other hand, they can be very unfriendly to those who are critical of Android. For instance, Phil's
response to Jon, an unhappy Android user who is going to substitute Android with iPhone, is
following:
If you love iphone so much, get off an android news site! Don’t tell me that
you don’t love the Android if you’re on this website (Phil)
Let us now turn to see what meanings, preferences and expectations Android fans articulate about
Android. In terms of physical preferences, Android fans mostly prefer a device which resembles a
very small laptop. For instance, johnkzin describes his imaginary perfect device:
HTC Touch Pro 2 (Rhodium 100) with 5 row keyboard and tilt screen. Increase
the size so that it has a 4.8″ 800×480 screen, dpad on the face, and the 5
android buttons on the face. 3.5mm headset port and miniUSB or microUSB
charging/data port (both at the midpoint of one of the long sides of the device,
not where you’d hold it when typing). (johnkzin)
Johnkzin's view is characteristic of Android fans. They do not mind that some people may find the
TMobile G1 ugly, they like it because it is “functional”. Android fans say that they prefer
“functionality over fanciness:” in a different place of the discussion forums, johnkzin says:
I don't mind the style [of the G-1] … sure, the Rhodium is more stylish and
sexy, which I appreciate … but I don't need a stylish/sexy phone. I need a
functional phone. I choose function over fashion any day :-} … (johnkzin)
This “functionality” also extends to software. In terms of software, the Android fans expect an
environment which they will be able to control. This control can have several different levels. One
of them is “theming” the operating system. Theming means that the user is able to modify what the
53
environment looks and sounds like, and how it responds to various actions such as pressing buttons.
Rainbowblack says about his new Android device: “I cant wait to theme it once i feel comfortable
enough to give it a shot. (sic.)” In this way, the Android fans expect a certain kind of openness of
the software – openness towards user configuration and preferences. Still, there is another level of
controlling the device. N3TWORK BURN3R replies to rainbowblack:
Welcome to AF! I always enjoy the first few moments of owning a new tech
item. But they best part is when you finally decided its not a baby and want to
hack and root the machine...THEN the real fun begins. Enjoy your stay!
(N3TWORK BURN3R) (sic.)
“Theming” is not enough of a control for N3TWORK BURN3R. He talks about “hacking and
rooting” the device. The Android operating system includes a system of user accounts which prevent
regular users from carrying out some administrative tasks. “Rooting” the device means taking
control over a supervisor or “root” account in the device, which is normally not accessible to users.
As a result, the user gains full control of the device, which means that she can access any part of the
file system, modify any parts of the operating system, and so on.
Thus, N3TWORK BURN3R is pointing to another level of controlling the device, one in
which the user takes full control of the device and can tinker with the core parts of the software,
which a regular user can use, but not modify or configure. As much as this possibility may seem
useless for many other users, Android fans regard “rooting” an important activity and one through
which they really master the device. It seems that in some respects, Android fans resemble computer
hackers. As a technique which requires a special kind of knowledge and one which was not intended
to be done by regular user, “rooting” can be seen as a particular kind of hacking. Moreover, Android
fans seem to find pleasure in having a sense of control over their Android devices. This is similar to
Håpnes's (1996) observation that for hackers, “success also involves a feeling of control [over the
54
machine].” (p. 139) Nevertheless, despite the ambiguous meaning of a “hacker” (p. 122), Android
fans cannot be called hackers as a group, because they do not generally exhibit profound technical
expertise over Android.19
In any case, rooting Android shows another level of openness of the platform20. Thus, there
are at least two levels of openness of the Android platform which the Android fans seem to expect
and appreciate. Both of these levels are related to the user having control over the device. Still, there
is yet another kind of openness which the Android fans sometimes articulate, but in this case they
are not quite united. The Android platform as such was designed in order to be able to be used in a
number of different types of devices, from smartphones to netbooks to car systems to home
appliances. However, only some Android fans acknowledge this. For instance Ageless Stranger
points to the difference in hardware preferences of Android users, when he says that
Smartphone lovers are divided over whether a device should be slim, stylish
and elegant over those who prefer a miniature pc in their pocket complete
with keyboard.
Ageless Stranger continues by saying: “I am so glad that both groups of people will be satisfied with
Android when the new devices are launched.” However, not all Android fans share this opinion. At
several points in the discussion forums, they get into a quarrel over seemingly unimportant hardware
features, for instance whether an Android device should have a physical keyboard or whether it
should have a trackball. Therefore, as much as the Android fans expect Android to be open to their
liking, they themselves are sometimes not so open towards other interpretations of what an Android
device is.
19 One may then ask, how come they can “root” their devices? “Rooting” can be described as a “hack”, because one needs a lot of technical knowledge and wit to find out how to do it. However, there is a number of stepbystep guides on the Internet, which only need one to follow them carefully.
20 It should perhaps be noted that on the one hand, rooting is not recommended either by Google or by mobile carriers, and they do not give any guidelines how to do it. Nevertheless, they do not forbid rooting Android devices, and they tolerate it (Android TMobile forums, 2009). This is in contrast with iPhone, where rooting the iPhone device was identified by Apple, Inc. as illegal, and the manufacturer threatens the users to be sent to court for rooting their device (Keizer and Gregg, 2009).
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To sum up, Android fans are technological enthusiasts who believe in Android. In their
opinion, Android has a great potential and a bright future. They identify themselves with Android,
and they have a sense of a common mission in spreading its popularity. They see themselves as
“early adopters” and a part of Android development. In terms of hardware, they prefer the Android
devices to look like little computers. They say that they prefer functionality over fanciness – they
like to have a sense of control over the device. This control can be present at several different levels,
from “theming” the device to “rooting” it. That is where they see the openness of Android. At the
same time, though, many Android fans express hostility towards people with different expectations
of the Android platform.
4.3.3 Other technological enthusiasts
Other technological enthusiasts are very similar to the Android fans. They may share many
characteristics of the first group, except for one: they are not Android fans. Similarly to Android
fans, they are interested in cuttingedge technologies, but they do not believe in the potential of the
Android platform. Since Androidforums.com and Phandroid.com are sites run by Android fans,
other technological enthusiasts are in minority here. Moreover, they themselves are no doubt a
heterogeneous group. Nevertheless, this work will treat them as one group, defined by its scepticism
towards Android.
Other technological enthusiasts often question the Android fans' unbiased view of Android.
From this perspective, they are important in negotiating the meanings of the Android platform –
although often nonusers of the particular technology, they bring up questions and criticism which
may not occur to Android fans. The following example shows an actual Android user who is very
disappointed with the TMobile G1 after having it for seven months. Jon is a technological
enthusiast: he bought the G1 on the very first day it was available. After seven months, he is not
happy with it and is considering leaving Android for another platform:
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I had the G1 since the first day of its release, and it’s been a disappointing
seven months or so. I like the idea of open-source market, but it’s being
cluttered with crappy wallpaper apps and such. I gave up checking the market
altogether as a result. Now I’m left with a phone that is marginal at best. I’m
sick and tired of talking about potential, and waiting for an update that is
taking forever to arrive. The HTC Magic should have been the first Android
phone… I don’t see why they rushed an unfinished product. … (Jon)
Jon seems to have been an Android fan. He, too, was excited about the potential of Android,
otherwise he would not have bought the G1 the first day it was on sale. But his patience has come to
an end. He now says that he is sick and tired of talking about potential, and he is unhappy about
having a phone which is “marginal”. In his view, the potential of Android never really materialised.
Android fans expect that eventually, Android will be successful. They enjoy the fact that it is
technology in the making and they see themselves as important contributors to this making. On the
contrary, technological enthusiasts such as Jon expect Android to work; they do not want to buy an
“unfinished product”. They want to consume the technology rather than create it.
In sum, we have seen that there are technological enthusiasts who are sceptical about the
Android platform. They may share many characteristics of the Android fans, except for one – they
are not fans of Android. Android does not fulfil their expectations of a ready made technological
product. They do not share the discourse of being “early adopters” who contribute to the making of
the technology. To them, Android is an unfinished marginal product.
4.3.4 Daily users
Daily users are the third relevant social group identified in this investigation. They are people who
are not especially interested in new technological artefacts, at least not in the way Android fans are.
They may want to use a smartphone for a number of reasons – to have mobile Internet access, to
have a phone with a large display, or just to have “that cool little thing” that their friends have. Daily
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users do not use the technological artefact for the sake of using it. They are not especially interested
in “fiddling” with the device, although they may like the device to look stylish. And for the most
part, they are likely not to care what kind of operating system their phone has – if it is Android,
Symbian, or Windows.
Daily users play a significant role in Androidforums.com. They join the online communities
because they want to get to know more about the platform – either because they are considering
buying an Android device, or because they already have the device and want to find out more about
what it can do. They are not necessarily technological enthusiasts, but they may find these devices
appealing in one way or the other. Thus, they do not have any specific expectations about the
“technicalities” of their Android device. What seems to be most important to them is that the device
should “work out of the box.” For instance, Sergey writes about the G1 device:
Hardware- it's too big and has no style. But I'm sure I am the minority with this
opinion here. And battery life is an issue, but I don't know if that's because the
battery is too small or if it's a software issue. Regardless, this is something
that should have been addressed before it was released.
Software- it wasn't polished and there were lots of bugs. As much as Android
1.5 is about new features, it's also about bug fixes. As an example, daily resets
are not my idea of a finished product or a solution to a problem.
I'm looking at Android as a consumer who will want the phone to look cool and
for things to work out of the box, not a developer or a user who will want to
root, install a Haykuro ROM, or install an early version of cupcake. (Sergey)
In contrast to the preferences of many Android fans, Sergey actually finds the G1 Android device
too big, and he is not happy with the design. Unlike for an average Android fan, “unfinished”
software is an issue for Sergey – he wants “things to work out of the box”. He does not want to
“fiddle” with the device.
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When talking about the Android fans, we came across the notion of “functionality”.
Johnkzin, an Android fan, said that he needed a functional phone, and that he would choose
“function over fashion any day”. Now, Sergey says that he wants things to work out of the box –
does not he want the device to function as well? Of course he does. But johnkzin's “function” is not
the same as Sergey's function. Johnkzin and the Android fans relate functionality of an Android
device to having a physical keyboard and resembling a little laptop: they want to have control over
what is happening “inside”, and they want to be able to tinker with the device. If they can do that,
then the device is “functional”. In contrast, Sergey wants the device to be small enough, have a long
battery life, work seamlessly, and look cool. Perhaps he wants to be able to carry it in his pocket,
impress his friends, without worrying about recharging the batteries or doing “daily restarts”. If he
is able to do that, then the device is functional for him. Thus, there is a tension between what the
Android fans expect from an Android device, and what daily users expect from an Android device.
Notwithstanding the tension between the expectations of Android fans and the daily users,
these two groups live together on the forums quite peacefully. Daily users mostly ask practical
questions about the devices, services, and the platform in general. Android fans try to be helpful to
the daily users, and they welcome them in their community. This practice can be looked at as yet
another level of openness of the platform, one which is important for the daily users. Rather than
“rooting and hacking,” what is important for the Daily users is that there are open communities
around Android. In this sense, the meaning of openness of the Android platform from the
perspective of the daily users is quite different from that of the Android fans.
4.4 Conclusions and some further observations
The purpose of this chapter was to see how some groups of users interpret the Android platform,
what expectations they have of Android devices, and how they articulate them. The empirical
research was carried out as virtual ethnography (Hine, 2000) on an Android fan site and on online
59
discussion forums associated with this site. It was shown that Android users are indeed a
heterogeneous group. The ethnography revealed three relevant social groups (Pinch and Bijker,
1987; Bijker, 1993, 1995) of Android users present on the forums – Android fans, Other
technological enthusiasts, and Daily users.
These three groups have different expectations of Android, they interpret the platform in
different ways, and they attach different meanings to it. Whereas Android fans see Android as the
best operating system for mobile devices, Other technological enthusiasts see it as an unfinished
product. Similarly, while Android fans regard Android as a part of their identity, Daily users may
not even be aware of Android being on their phone. Similarly, while Android fans seek the openness
of Android in being able to control the software at several different levels, Daily users appreciate a
completely different kind of openness – that of open communities of Android users, who are happy
to help and share their knowledge.
Thus, these different interpretations of Android show that there is nothing like a “typical” or
“average” Android user (cf. Johnson, 2007; Oudshoorn et al., 2004). This heterogeneity of users has
at least two significant implications: first, it shows that users play an important role in contesting the
meanings of Android. The Android devices that for instance Android fans present are quite different
from those that the Daily users present. In this sense, the users are producing their own Android
devices, and therefore it can be concluded that the boundary between users and producers is blurred
and is itself a subject to negotiation (cf. Mackay et al., 2000). Second, the heterogeneity of users
contradicts the findings of the two previous chapters, where the designers and the mobile operators
often saw users as a homogeneous group. Therefore, it can be concluded that there are tensions
between what the designers and mobile operators expect from their users, and what the users
actually are like.
This chapter was the last stop on our journey with Android. Perhaps most importantly, it
60
showed users in a different light than the two previous stops. Thus, it is now time to look back,
revise the particular observations and try to make some sense of them altogether.
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5. Conclusions – The changing openness of AndroidHaving investigated Android created by Google, delivered by TMobile and Vodafone, and
constructed in online communities, it is now time to go back to the research questions of this thesis.
The main research question was:
• How is the openness of Android constructed by its designers, operators and users?
This main research question was split into several subquestions:
• Which meanings, promises and expectations do designers, operators and users attach to
Android?
• How do they interpret its openness?
• Are there any tensions or inconsistencies within or between these interpretations?
• If so, what can be the implications of the different interpretations for the future (success) of
this platform?
Did the research address these questions? The rhetorical analysis of Android.com showed that the
official rhetoric of the designers uses a number of ideographs when describing Android. These
ideographs also represent the designers' promises – that Android is open, that it gives equal
opportunities, that it breaks boundaries and that it is easy to work with. At the same time, the
normative choices within the discourse assume a certain kind of users, namely those who want to
use online services and who are willing to share their personal information with others.
Android.com presents the Android platform as open in several ways: firstly, it is open
towards the future in that it is not intended to be finalized and it welcomes new applications and
technologies, and secondly, it is open towards the developers in that they get a full suite of
developer's tools and they can see “what is inside” Android. Perhaps more importantly, though, it is
62
also open towards the mobile operators, who are free to take the Android source code, modify it,
and close it down. However, this kind of openness is not explicitly spoken of on the website.
Further, the critical method showed some tensions present within the discourse on
Android.com: it showed the convenience paradox, which threatens that what seems to be a fun and
exciting feature will become a norm and a burden, and the interaction paradox with looming
inflation of interpersonal relationships. It also showed some inconsistencies between the official
rhetoric and actual practices around Android, for instance in that the Android development process
is often criticized for not being open enough, or in the above mentioned possibility of closing the
particular platform implementations.
The shop inquiries showed that Android devices are presented in the mobile operators' shops
as exceptional. However, their uniqueness does not stem from the software itself or its openness, but
from the connection with Google and from the promise that Android will provide a “better user
experience.” It was also shown that the shop assistants often emphasize physical features of the
devices over software features, which perhaps indicates that software, including operating systems,
is becoming commodified. Furthermore, the observations showed that the preferred interpretation of
Android devices in shops is that they are devices for entertainment rather than work tools. In this
sense, the openness of Android which was articulated in shops mostly related to the users being able
to use Internet services, and being able to download new applications for the Android device.
There proved to be some tensions within the meanings and interpretations attached to
Android in shops. First, despite being portrayed as exceptional, the Android devices have a specific
place in hierarchy of phones that the mobile operators sell, and they can only be exceptional as
much as their position allows them. Consequently, some of the shop assistants saw the Android
devices just as “another rather expensive phones.” Second, some inconsistencies within the
openness of Android presented in Android shops were found. It was found that despite the platform
63
being open to any applications, Google applications are given a head start in the devices. Finally, the
inquiries showed that the network in which Android is entrenched in shops configures a certain kind
of users, namely those who are loyal customers willing to pay a premium price, and those who want
to use their mobile phone mainly as an entertainment device, rather than a work tool.
The virtual ethnography of Android communities showed that Android users are
heterogeneous. There are different groups of users with different meanings and expectations around
Android. For instance, Android fans believe in the potential of Android, and are convinced that it is,
or soon will become, the best platform for mobile devices. In contrast, Other technological
enthusiasts see the Android platform as an unfinished product, and they are disappointed with it.
Daily users are not too concerned about the particular operating system in their phone, as long as
the phone works. As for the openness, while Android fans seek the openness of Android in being
able to control the software at several different levels, Daily users appreciate a completely different
kind of openness – that of open communities of Android users, who are happy to help and share
their knowledge. Since Other technological enthusiasts do not really accept Android, its openness is
not an issue for them.
Comparing the findings of the three parts of the empirical research shows that there are not
only tensions and inconsistencies in meanings and expectations within each of the environment
studied, but also between them. Whereas the official discourse on Android.com portrays the
Android platform as exceptional, it turns out that for many shop assistants as well as users, the
particular operating system on a device does not really matter. Whereas the openness of Android on
Android.com stems from the platform itself and is directed towards the developers and, in fact, to
the mobile operators, in shops this openness is made into the possibility for the users to go online
and to download applications. Still, many users seek other kinds of openness, for instance the
openness of the devices towards control, or openness of the communities around the platform.
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Thus, this thesis showed that not only the meanings and interpretations of the Android
platform change between different contexts, but also the interpretations and expectations of the
platform's openness change. It was shown that the openness which is present in the discourse on
Android.com is quite different from that in shops, which is still quite different from that which users
of the platform appreciate and expect. Moreover, the research showed that openness is relational –
what seems to be “open” for one social group, may mean something quite different for another
social group. For instance, we saw that Android is open for mobile operators in that they can make
changes to the platform, but at the same time, taken from the perspective of users, these very
changes may in fact mean “closing” the platform.
Last but not least, this thesis showed that users of Android are heterogeneous, and there is
nothing like a “typical” user. In contrast to this observation, users projected on Android.com as well
as users configured in shops were seen as homogeneous. In fact, there was not a great difference
between these two projections, but the virtual ethnography showed that there is a large gap between
the two projections and the actual users. In other words, there are tensions between what the
designers and mobile operators expect from their users, and what the users actually are like. This is
an important finding, because on the one hand, it was shown that perhaps the most important kind
of openness of Android is in that it is indeed open for various interpretations. However, the social
groups which were analysed in this thesis fail to fully acknowledge this openness: not only do the
designers and mobile operators expect the users to be homogeneous, but also some actual users fail
to acknowledge their heterogeneity: the virtual ethnography showed that Android fans are often
hostile to those who are critical of Android. Thus, acknowledging this openness of Android towards
various interpretations may perhaps play an important role in the success of Android. Assessing this
will be a task for further research.
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Appendix A – “What is Andriod?” Screenshot of Android.com, the official Android website
66
"What is Android?" <http://www.android.com/about/>
Appendix B – List of shop inquiries
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Mobile operator Place DateVodafone Rambla del Passeig, Vic, SpainVodafone Girona, SpainVodafone Girona, SpainVodafone Barcelona, SpainVodafone Barcelona, SpainVodafone Barcelona, SpainTMobile Nieuwendijk, Amsterdam, the NetherlandsTMobile Kalverstraat, Amsterdam, the NetherlandsTMobile Rokin, Amsterdam, the NetherlandsTMobile Kleine Staat, Maastricht, the NetherlandsTMobile Náměstí Svobody, Brno, Czech RepublicTMobile Vaňkovka, Brno, Czech RepublicTMobile Horní náměstí, Olomouc, Czech Republic
14th May 200915th May 200915th May 200918th May 200918th May 200918th May 200929th May 200929th May 200929th May 200930th May 200912th June 200912th June 200913th June 2009
Appendix C – Structure of Androidforums.comThe structure of the forums on Androidforums.com is following (the categories that were investigated more closely are in bold):
• Android Community◦ Introductions◦ The Lounge
• Android Discussion◦ Android News & Talk◦ Updates and Cupcakes◦ Android Tips & Tricks◦ Android Applications◦ Android Games◦ Android Media◦ Android Themes◦ Android Developers
• Android Phones◦ HTC Magic◦ Kogan Agora Pro◦ Samsung i7500◦ TMobile G1
• Android Carriers◦ TMobile
• Community Info & Talk◦ FAQs◦ Site Updates & Announcements◦ Suggestion Box & Feedback
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