Minert.com

With the release of the Droid Razr, HTC Rezound, and the impending release of the Galaxy Nexus (these are just the latest Verizon phones), we're seeing three high-end Android devices released within several weeks of each other. Motorola also has the Droid Bionic, Droid 3, Droid X2, and we're already seeing leaks of the Droid 4 (again, just on Verizon). HTC and Samsung, while a little less crazy, still have several mainstream devices available. When you add in Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile, there are dozens of Android phones launched in the last couple months.

While many may see the variety as a good thing - giving customers a wide variety of devices to choose from, it means less support for every device out there. This goes for both the community developers who create mods and custom ROMs for devices as well as the phone manufacturers themselves. With new versions of Android coming out every 6-9 months, these companies have to build updates for as many as a dozen devices. Rather than having just a couple devices to maintain, they've gone to flooding the market, and then having to fight off the questions of "when/will my device will be updated to the next dessert?" Since Ice Cream Sandwich just launched, everyone is asking those questions - in fact many current devices may never see the update - or we may see 5.0 before they get 4.0. If each manufacturer only had a couple devices to update, we'd know what to expect, and we'd see everything updated much faster. Of course I also wonder just how hard these companies are working on the updates. I would about guarantee we'll see stable versions of ICS built by the community long before we see official updates. I know there is more testing and QA required for an official build, but full-time paid developers should move faster than volunteers working in their spare time.

As an enthusiast who runs a custom ROM, I have to watch what devices the top developers are buying in order to decide what I will use. Buying a phone that isn't well supported is a frustrating experience. With so many new phones, the developers are jumping to new devices almost monthly, so very few devices are actually well supported. I know the manufacturers think they could care less about this, but. If they looked at it more closely, they'd see that a device that's well supported by developers means more sales. The original Motorola Droid was a huge seller, even almost a year after it launched - this had a lot to do with the development community support.

For everyone else, when they hear rumors of the next "gotta have" device, it makes it harder to pull the trigger on one that's already out there. Manufuacturers need to slow down and space out their launches to no more than 3 per year to give their current devices a chance to grab market hold. HTC did this with the original EVO 4G - leaving it as the flagship device on Sprint for quite awhile, and it's still a big seller. People tend to buy what their friends/family already have, so if devices stayed as "new" for longer, carriers and manufacturers would make more money, rather than discounting the device mere weeks after launch.

Don't get me wrong, I like the flexibility that comes with choosing an Android device, rather than being limited to one form-factor that changes once per year. I just wish the companies would wise up and slow down a bit - it would be better for everyone involved.