Thomas Fox-Brewster, Forbes:

Android smartphone owners who aren’t running the latest version of their operating system might get some nasty surprises from malicious hackers in 2015. That’s because one of the core components of their phones won’t be getting any security updates from Google, the owner of the Android operating system. Without openly warning any of the 939 million affected, Google has decided to stop pushing out security updates for the WebView tool within Android to those on Android 4.3, better known as Jelly Bean, or below, according to appalled security researchers. That means two-thirds of users won’t receive cover from Google, the researchers noted.

The WebView piece of the messy Android jigsaw allows apps to display web pages without having to open another application. Many apps and ad networks use the component, which the Google Android team even advocates in its developer documentation on rendering web pages. It’s also the favored vector for attack for nearly any remote code execution vulnerability in the mobile OS, according to Rapid7 engineering manager Tod Beardsley. “WebView, for many, many attackers, is Android, just as Internet Explorer [Microsoft's browser] is usually the best vector for attackers who want to compromise Windows client desktops,” he told Forbes.

Software weaknesses have repeatedly been uncovered in Android and WebView, making the lack of updates even more dangerous. Rapid7 has added numerous exploits to its penetration testing kit Metasploit. The most recent version comes with 11 different WebView exploits bundled in, meaning both ethical and criminal hackers could easily exploit the tool and subsequently Android operating systems.

This is the part that really sucks about having such an open platform. Too many hardware choices = too much hardware diversity = too many devices running different versions of the software = too much fragmentation to maintain a secure and consistent experience.

Open doesn't always win.

AppleInsider:

Now Android fans are probably already thinking, "well with an Android device, I can add an SD Card for more storage!" In fact, that's what Samsung itself recommended Galaxy S4 users do in early 2013 to make up for the fact that Android and bundled apps were wasting nearly half the available advertised storage.

However, SD Cards don't work like built-in storage; they're more like a floppy drive. They offer no security because they use Microsoft's FAT file system, which does not support file or user permissions, enabling any rogue app to read and steal personal data and making it far more difficult for end users or enterprises to secure their devices.

SD Card's lack of file and user account security—along with the related problems of potentially removable storage in a mobile device (there are many)—prompted Apple to never rely upon SD Cards for memory expansion on its iPods and iOS devices, even though it did make it possible to use external SD Cards with iPods, Macs and iOS devices via USB.

Google initially supported internal SD Card slots to help make Android devices cheaper, but the security and usability issues finally prompted Google to remove SD Card support in its 2013 release of Android 4.4 KitKat.

After installing KitKat, Android users found that their SD Cards no longer work, or can only be used in very specific ways, not as general purpose storage for things like apps and the user's photo library. Users who bought a Galaxy S4 and took Samsung's advice to make up for lost storage via SD Cards were subsequently left SD-out of luck.

I remember constantly hearing two arguments against Apple for omitting SD cards:

• "Apple is greedy and just scams everyone into buying the more expensive models!"
• "Apple doesn't innovate! They can't even put SD cards in their phones!"

The reality that these deaf ears refuse to understand: Apple always has and always will prioritize battery life and security for their mobile devices.

Thanks to Gruber for pointing out this gem from April 2011:

Importantly, it's not a question of which platform [Android or iPhone] is "better." (This is irrelevant.) It's a question of which platform everyone else uses. And increasingly, in the smartphone market, barring a radical change in trend, that's Android.

So that's why Android's gains matter. And, yes, Apple fans should be scared to death about them.

Fast forward 3.5 years to today. Re/code:

While Android continued to gain market share in the global smartphone market, it saw a significant drop on another key metric: Profits.

Analyst Chetan Sharma estimates that global profits in the Android hardware market for 2014 were down by half from the prior year — the first year that there has been any significant drop.

And then Sharma nails it home:

“It is important for Google that the ecosystem stays healthy and balanced. Without profitability, some of these players will eventually disappear and it will primarily become a Samsung + Chinese OEMs ecosystem, which is probably not what Google wants.”

Moral of the story: market share is a superficial number that doesn't tell the whole story. What's the point of gaining market share if it doesn't help your business sustain itself?

I'm really excited for Google's new design language. One glaring annoyance that's bugged me since I got my first Android is the design inconsistency of the icons. Another thing that's bugged me is the default Halo theme that feels so cold and lifeless.

Material Design on the other hand looks fun, playful and full of personality. It looks like a joy to use, much like my beloved (and iOS-exclusive) Tweetbot app.

Android fans have always boasted how Android is open. But when it was completely open, Android's lack of design guidance resulted in a chaotic mess of garbage apps that showed very little unity or consistency.

From a user experience standpoint, I'm really glad Google is tightening ship and leading the way for the Android developer community. Google's designers are fantastic and I hope all Android users upgrade to Lollipop soon.

Gigaom:

One of the arguably best features of Android is getting friendly with third-party apps. Simply by adding a few lines of code, Android apps can take advantage of the “OK Google” voice command that’s become prevalent on Android devices and Android Wear smartwatches. Once apps are updated, users can use specific apps in their voice commands. For example, you could speak “Ok Google, search for hotels in Maui on TripAdvisor” to have the voice search use the TripAdvisor app instead of returning a generic Google search, boosting app engagement. Google says the new support is only available on English locale devices running Android Jelly Bean or higher.

This is a big deal for the future of mobile, wearable devices, and any non-traditional computing device that will be connected to the internet.

I've been hoping Apple would offer this with Siri 2.0 but Google is the only company in the world that can truly pioneer this right now.

FastCompany:

But after two years on the market, Google Wallet has made little to no progress in replacing paper cash, plastic cards, and leather wallets. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, the Wallet app has seen a paltry amount of downloads for a company of Google's scale, and Bedier has since left the company. Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported that Google Wallet is "leaking money" and that "it’s reconsidering or has abandoned projects designed to broaden Wallet’s appeal." What went wrong? Jonathan Wall, the founding engineer of Google Wallet, puts it bluntly: "With Google Wallet, we had one point of failure--the carriers." [...]

"Ultimately, the carriers perceived this to be their opportunity and use the necessity of hardware to really block the product." Sprint remains the only major U.S. carrier to support the service; AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have instead decided to support Isis, a competing mobile payments service, effectively denying their customers access to Google Wallet (or vice versa).

Android did NFC payments first and failed. Let's wait and see how NFC payments pan out with Apple Pay and its partnerships with major credit cards, banks, and merchants.

Arstechnica has a great (somewhat technical) rundown of how iOS 8's implementation is much smarter and more secure than Android's.

Benedict Evans:

That's a perfectly legitimate question to ask, and Christmas was one big A-B test as to what tablet proposition people actually want. However, what does it tell you if someone says 'I want to save $100 and get the cheap-looking one with no apps'? Are they a good target for any publisher or developer? This is at the root of the staggeringly low engagement on Android tablets that all publishers report - under 5% of what they see on the iPad: self-selection by the users. People who buy cheap tablets are effectively declaring that they value the saving over the apps.

There will always be some piece of the market for consumers that have very little expectations and needs from a device. But for everyone else, there is so much more to consider.

The question should never be limited to "which smartphone/tablet/computer has the best specs and price right now?" The real question is:

Which platform/ecosystem has the best future to invest in?

For that past couple years, I've felt that I could totally be happy with an Android as my phone and an iPad as my secondary mobile device. I felt the smartphone should be for communication and the iPad should be for everything else. So for Christmas, I decided it was time to step outside of my Apple bubble.

I bought the Moto G.

"Why did you switch??"

Let me clarify: I didn't switch. I'm still a very happy and loyal iPhone user. But there are two reasons why I bought my first Android.

Mobile Web Development

For most of my career, I've worked at marketing agencies where my job was to pump out as many sites as quickly as possible. But now that I'm an in-house web developer, all my projects are ongoing and long-term. For the first time in my career, I finally have the opportunity/responsibility to optimize my sites to be as fast as they can be.

As the mobile internet continues to grow, I need to be able to stay on top of both Android and iOS.

Google

When it comes to web services, nothing beats Google. And to be frank, I don't trust iCloud. I don't use iCal, iMessage, @iCloud.com email, iChat, or Safari. Instead, I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Hangouts, Google Drive, Google Voice, and Chrome.

To me, investing in Android doesn't mean "switching sides." Rather, I see it as moving myself closer to Google, a company that I've always loved for their web services.

"Why'd you pick the Moto G??"

For an unlocked smartphone with the latest OS, you simply cannot beat $179. And because it's manufactured by Motorola, a Google company, I have faith the device will have great support for OS updates in the future.

As a budget phone, the Moto G does have its shortcomings. The camera sucks, there is no LTE support, and it's only 16 GB…but none of those matter to me! I only need to be able to test my sites in the web browser. Anything else is a bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, the Moto G comes with 50 GB of complimentary Google Drive space.

To me, the Moto G is the iPod touch of Android that just happens to have phone capabilities.

What I Love About Android

• App Defaults & Intents — One specific problem for me is finding the right video player that works with all my cloud/network drives. On iOS, I'd constantly be making trade-offs. I'd find a video player with a great interface…but had shitty cloud integration. Or I'd find a video player with great cloud integration…but a shitty interface. With Android, I can easily pick an episode of Modern Family from my Dropbox and open it in MX Player Pro.
• LED notifications — It's smart, simple, and saves a lot of battery by not lighting up the touchscreen everytime a push notification comes in. If they had this for iPhone, I'd use this to notify me of unread messages from certain people. (But then again, maybe smartphone LED notifications will be overshadowed by push-enabled iWatch/smartwatches.)
• Launcher & Lock Screen customization — This has a lot of potential. Aviate, Cover, and Facebook Home are all playing with some innovative ideas but I'm still waiting to see one launcher/lock screen app that really nails it.
• Bigger screens are awesome for reading and watching videos. The two most-used apps on my iPad mini are Netflix and Instapaper. Being able to do these on a large-screen phone is pretty damn nice.

What I Don't Like About Android

• Inconsistency of the Back button — This thing drives me NUTS. Sometimes, it's just intuitive to be able to jump back to the previous app with a tap of the Back button. Other times, when I expect to get to an app's main screen, the Back button just throws me back to the homescreen.
• Shitty interactions — Overall, the Android interface is good enough to do its job but it's the lack of the fun, interactive bouncing and physics that sets it a notch lower than iOS.
• Inconsistency of icon design. The homescreen just looks so damn ugly on Android because all of the app icons look completely different. Icon gradients, sizes, shapes, and even the rounded corners are just all over the place.
• Big screens are annoying for one-handed use. While I really love having the extra pixels for reading and watching videos, it's annoying to navigate around the phone with just one hand. I constantly have to change my grip to navigate around.
• Mini-USB is annoying after being spoiled by Apple's Lighting connector. "Did I plug it in the right way? Nope. Okay, lemme flip it over. Hmm, that didn't work either. Lemme flip it over again. Okay, there we go."
• I have yet to find an Android-exclusive app that I really love.

"What would it take for you to switch to Android?"

I quickly learned 90% of the iOS apps I really care about have an Android counterpart (e.g. Chrome, Circa, Dropbox, Feedly, Google Hangouts, Instapaper, Netflix, Simplenote). But there are few things that iOS does better than Android for me:

Syncing Twitter between Desktop and Mobile

Twitter is huge for me. I use Twitter Lists to stay on top of four things: tech news sites, tech bloggers, friends, and basketball.

Tweetbot for Mac/iOS syncs timeline positions across devices seamlessly. It's an underrated killer feature that separates Tweetbot from all other Twitter apps.

In addition to timeline syncing, Tweetbot also does an amazing job of syncing mute options. #NFLteams, #NHLteams, #TVshows, #horoscopes, tumblr.co, instagr.am, etc…all that shit is off my Twitter timelines, both on my iPhone and Mac. Mute once, muted everywhere.

Maintaining My 10 Year Old Music Library

This coming April, my iTunes library turns ten. That's ten years of obsessively organizing, rating, and tagging over 6,500 songs. With each song properly tagged, I'm able to dynamically create really awesome Smart Playlists.

Amazon Music, Google Music, and Spotify are not compelling enough for me to throw away my 10-year investment in iTunes.

Take Great Photos

The iPhone 5s' burst mode is totally the underrated killer feature. When I take action photos of my niece and nephews running around, I never miss a moment because I can take 10 shots/second and full resolution.

To be fair, I have yet to play with the cameras of other Androids.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, after a month of owning the Moto G, I've found that Android is really good…but it's not great. I like it…but I don't love it. I really like how Android gives me a ton of customization options…but I don't love any of the options.

(Sidenote: When iOS 7 came out, a lot of Apple haters cried out "Apple copied Android!" I have no fucking clue what the fuck they were talking about; iOS 7 is nothing like Android.)

The Android ecosystem has come a long way these past two years and I can confidently say it satisfies 90% of my app needs. The phablet form factor is something that's growing on me, especially because my vision has degraded from cataract and eye surgery.

If I were to seriously consider switching from iOS to Android, it'd basically come down to one simple question:

Which solves my computing problems more: tighter integration with Google services or tighter integration with Mac apps?

For now, I'll have to stick with the latter.

Maybe over time, things will change. Maybe my interest in Twitter will diminish. Maybe an iTunes competitor will invent a smarter, more automated way to organize my music. Maybe Google will conquer the next era of computing — wearable computers, smart TVs, smart car displays, and home automation.

Until any of that happens, I plan on keeping the iPhone as my daily driver while having the Moto G riding shotgun.

Update: After less than a month of getting my first Android, I've decided to return my Moto G. I also recycled my iPad mini at Gazelle.com and used the money from both to purchase a 32 GB Nexus 5 (Google Play Edition).

While the iPhone 5s is still my best option as a primary mobile device, the Moto G worked out so well as a secondary mobile device (for reading, streaming, and mobile web development) I decided to consolidate my iPad mini and Moto G into one legit Android.