The few changes at worst do no harm to IT and in some cases may make things a little easier or safer
IT likes systems to be stable and not change, which is why it took a
decade for most enterprises to begin replacing Windows XP with Windows
7, and why Windows 10 may not get widespread enterprise adoption until
2020. But in mobile, the major OSes change every year, and IT has much
less control -- often, no control -- over what OSes are in use.
So, Google's Android M, announced yesterday, is a comforting update for IT. Android M is a minor update to Android 5.0 Lollipop OS
that was announced a year ago, was formally released in November, and
began appearing on mainstream devices only in February. It should have
few, if any, implications to IT when it ships this fall and starts
showing up on mainstream devices next winter.
Overcoming flaws in today's Android
Google says the
focus for Android M (its candy-themed formal name will be revealed this
fall) is on stability and quality. In other words, fixing lots of bugs
and poor design choices. Google hasn't said much about what it will fix,
other than promise to improve battery life for devices in standby mode.
Power efficiency has long been a big weakness in the Android platform.
Giving users more control over app permissions
In terms of functional enhancements, Android M will change its app permissions model
to be like that of Apple's iOS. That means apps will ask for permission
to use resources like the microphone, calendar database, contacts
database, and camera when first needed, when users can better judge
whether to agree to that request.
Earlier Android
versions presented an all-or-nothing list of requested access during app
installation, which meant apps often were granted permissions that
users didn't understand. And that let nefarious apps gain access to information and hardware that could be used to spy on or phish users.
Android M users will be able revoke those privileges once
granted, as they can now in iOS. But it's unclear whether they can grant
and revoke individual access permissions per applications, as iOS
allows.
Directing users more easily between apps and the Web
Another significant change in Android M is the notion of app linking,
which lets developers essentially associate their Google Play Store
apps to the app provider's domain. Then if a user accesses a service
from a link on a Web page, in an e-book for content item, or in an app,
Android will offer the user the chance to open the service on the Web or
to use or install the corresponding app instead.
Both
Android and iOS do some of this app detection now, but Android M will
let developers bake the associations more deeply into Android, to remove
the mental separation between apps and Web services.
For
IT, this could mean more users are prompted to download apps for
services they normally access from the Web, which some might consider a
management problem. (I do not, since IT can still use an MDM tool to manage app access.)
And it could mean users are more easily pointed to a Web service for
apps that aren't installed (or that IT blocks), again threatening IT's
control. But that control is illusory; users can simply use something
else to get what they want, so why drive them out of your visibility?
Moving app backups to users' Google Drive storage
Finally, Android M can back up user data in apps
to users' Google Drive accounts so it can be restored if a device is
wiped, reset, or replaced. Previous Android versions had a different
mechanism to do the same thing; what's different here is that the data
is now backed up to the user's specific storage location at Google, not
to a developer's storage space at Google.
Many IT folks
will get upset by the mention of Google Drive, since many view cloud
storage as evil. But you need a Google account to use Android, so
whether IT likes it or not, users have Google accounts and access to
them.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com
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