Here's How Google Can Make Your Android Phone A Whole Lot Better Starting This Week

This is our number one demand.

It's been seven months since Google released Ice Cream Sandwich, the current version of Android. Still, most Android phones are running Gingerbread, the version that was released in late 2010.

That's just absurd.

Google promised last year to support hardware for at least 18 months, but that clearly hasn't happened. Meanwhile, Android users are missing out on the best features Google has to offer.

Android is still an afterthought for many developers. Today, in general, we continue to see the best apps launch on the iPhone first. If an app sees success on iPhone, only then will it make the migration to Android. We saw it on several popular apps like Instagram, Flipboard, and Instapaper. Each of those took years to finally make it to Android.

Moving forward, Google needs to do whatever it can to entice developers to treat Android as an equal to iOS, even if it means helping develop some apps like Microsoft does on Windows Phone.

For the most part, Google tablets have been a flop. It doesn't help that developers aren't making tablet-optimised versions of their apps like they do in iOS. Many Android apps appear as blown-up versions of what you see on the phone. It's just plain ugly.

We'd like to see more focus from Google and other developers on making tablet-friendly apps.

There's a lot of junk in the Google Play store. Yes, the same could be said about all the fart apps, in Apple's App Store, Apple doesn't have a malware problem.

It's pretty easy to for a few bad eggs to sneak malicious apps into the Google Play store. We saw it happen recently with a few fake copies of Angry Birds.

Moving forward, we'd like to see Google do a better job at policing apps in Google Play.

Chrome is arguably the best browser for Android right now. So it's a bit confusing why Google's own product isn't the default browser on Android phones.

We're hoping Google pulls Chrome out of beta soon and finally ditches the stock 'Browser' app.

Easier said than done, right?

The media selection in the Google Play store is way behind what you'll find in the iTunes store.

Google only has rights to music from three of the four major record labels, which means there's a severely limited selection compared to what you'll find on Amazon or iTunes. Video selection isn't much better.

While third-party partners like Samsung offer their own media download services, it'd be nice to see Google Play beef up its offerings.

Don't forget, Google has its own Siri-like assistant called Majel. There's a good chance Google will implement Majel into the next version of Android.

Is that a good thing?

Well, we're not entirely sure. We still don't think voice-controlled assistants like Siri and Samsung's S Voice are any good. We doubt Google's Majel will be significantly smarter and better than Siri.

Click here for our Samsung Galaxy S III review >