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Android Orphans: a Sad History of Platform Abandonment
MBCook writes "After seeing the announcement that Nexus One users won't get ICS, Michael Degusta made a chart to show how current the OS version on Android phones was over time... and the results are not encouraging."
if a device works on a given version of the OS, leave it the hell alone
Why is it that unlike desktops and laptops, mobiles are locked down so tight
I can install virtually any OS on my PC, why cant the same be done with mobiles?
I'm so confused. First of all, this doesn't list the Samsung Galaxy, which has stayed updated. Or the S2 for that matter. Did they specifically pick Android devices that are not being updated (there are many, I don't deny that)?
Second of all, the original iPhone 2G, which I have, is definitely not supported by iOS5, or even iOS4 for that matter. What are they smoking?
I can't help but think this is intentionally skewed for Apple...
Applications designed for newer APIs won't run on devices whose operating system doesn't support those APIs. And as applications get updated to correct security problems and add features, some of them also get updated to use the new APIs.
With iOS there's also the $99 per year tax to run applications from outside the App Store. So why switch to iOS when installing CyanogenMod is just as easy?
Like Apple, we care about legacy handsets. There are still updates coming out for Symbian 9.5 handsets.
That's the beauty of the hacking community. Even with a locked bootloader, my Droid X is running the latest version of Android. (2.3.7)
There are tons of good builds out there for almost every platform. http://www.xda-developers.com/ is a prime spot to start looking. Heck, my phone started as a Windows Mobile 6.5 and I'm running Android on it. http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ runs on a large number of platforms also. Who cares if the vendor continues to support it, most people wipe the stock image as soon as they get it home and put a better build on it. Nothing better than free support.
The real reason: Because unlike Intel and IBM, ARM never managed to specify one standard boot process. Nearly x86 PC since the 1980s has supported BIOS, but every ARM platform has something different.
Look at Apple just releasing new hardware to force you to update! You sheep. Android is a FREE and OPEN platform. Why would anyone be locked down by iOS is beyond me. Keep it up Android and Android hardware suppliers, eventually you'll overrun the dark walled garden that is Apple.
</sarcasm>
(anything else I missed out on the typical Apple Bashing?)
-
My Optimus V doesn't technically have the latest released for it but Cyanogenmod and a root (Mind you rooting it took much longer than jailbreaking my iPod Touch) took care of that. But not everyone is this tech savvy, my girlfriend is still waiting on her update. And this is why people buy iOS devices for themselves, friends or family.
Only if you were dumb enough to buy a locked phone, the rest of us unlocked our phones when we got them and installed CyanogenMod or something similar. And those that were dumb enough to get a locked down phone are still in a better position than with the iPhone as once they do jailbreak it, they can install one of several custom firmwares.
I don't get the chart, the 1st Gen iPhone is stuck @ iOS 3.1.3 - TWO full iOS behind, yet shows current? It can't even run most of the new iOS 4 only apps, much less iOS 5, simply because Apple abandoned it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone
What source have "they" (I presume you mean Google) not published? No phone running ICS has been released. Google has explained why they didn't release Honeycomb and they've committed to releasing the source for ICS soon after phones running ICS have been released. Ignorant troll is Ignorant.
God is imaginary
With iOS there's also the $99 per year tax to run applications from outside the App Store.
Don't forget the 90 day limit before you have to repackage and re-upload the application!
millions of people are.
My wife has never upgraded her HTC Aria to the current OS, while I have. Why hasn't she??? THERE WAS NO NEED TO. Jeez people, get over it. Why did I upgrade?? Because I'm a geek and wanted to. I also had a memory issue with the HTC email program, and I was hoping it would resolve it, which it did. My wife doesn't use her HTC for email. In fact, she hardly uses it for anything except text message, phone calls, and the odd games here and there. Why the hell would she want to upgrade???
Now, if this guy weren't such an obvious Apple fanboy and decided to do some real work instead of just one that shows what he wants it to show, he would track down a sample population and find out how many actually give a fuck.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
The chart is for only the first three years that a device has been available. How long did it take between availability of the iPhone 1 and availability of iOS 4, or between availability of the iPhone 3G and availability of iOS 4.2 or 4.3 (the first to require a 3GS, I forget which)?
Did he leave out all the phones that currently do run the most recent Android OS?
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I don't care about having the latest/greatest Android OS, but I wish the carriers were required to provide warranty support for the full 2 year term of your contract.
My droid 1 stopped working 19 months into my contract. I had bought the WPP wireless protection plan and figured it would have me covered, but when I called Verizon, they said that it only covered accidental damage and that I wouldn't be covered. They did offer to sell me a refurb phone for $150 or something like that, and offered me an early upgrade with a new 2 year contract term. I thought about "accidentally" dropping the phone into the sink and then making a damage claim with WPP, but I found a used one on eBay for a bit less than the WPP deductable.
If the carriers are going to lock me into a 2 year contract that I can't cancel, why aren't they required to make sure that the equipment they sold me works throughout the entire contract?
At the very least, carriers should be required to let me drop the voice/data contract and pay only the phone subsidy ($15 - $20/mo?) if I want to end the contract.
But that would be a non-traditional usage of the word "most".
... android is open source though, port it yourself? this is why google is good and apple/IOS is bad - because with apple you're at the mercy of them making your handset obsolete.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
An original iPhone with iOS4 was slow as hell. An original iPhone with iOS5? I don't even want to think about that.
The Nexus One isn't getting Android 4, because the hardware is too slow for it. While I would love to have Android 4, I don't want it on my Nexus One. I would rather my Nexus One (while I still have it anyway) to actually be reasonably functional.
It is a fair point about the walled garden of the Apple ecosystem, but I'm willing to bet that at least 90% of all Android phone users will never install an App from outside the Android marketplace and will never, ever consider installing CyanogenMod or even know what it is.
The chart doesn't lie; you're failing to read it. The original iPhone and 3G were all able to use the most recent OS release three years after their release date, which is what the chart clearly shows.
iPhone 3G: on sale 7/11/08. Plus 3 years = 7/11/11. At that time, the 3G could use the latest iOS version, 4.2.1.
There is certainly a bias by omission. I would like to see more of the high-profile phones included (like the Galaxy mentioned above). But what I don't understand is this: why are phones being sold new that are already one or two OS versions behind?
Android is a fucking mess. Ridiculous nonsensical names. I mean, Froyo. Honeycomb? Really? Who came up with this shit?
Dessert makers. Doughnut, eclair, frozen yogurt, gingerbread, honey, and ice cream sandwiches are all sweet items associated with dessert. Is it any stranger than naming Mac OS X versions after big cats?
How about version numbers so I know that this version is more or less recent than that version
Alphabetical order. Donut is 1.6, Eclair is 2.0 and 2.1, FroYo is 2.2, Gingerbread is 2.3, Honeycomb is 3.0 and 3.1, and Ice Cream Sandwich is 4.0. It's better than Cheetah (10.0), Puma (10.1), Jaguar (10.2), Panther (10.3), Tiger (10.4), Leopard (10.5), Snow Leopard (10.6), and Lion (10.7), which show no alphabetical progression.
Oh no, you can't use Nutcracker on the Droid Extreme Elvis, that phone will only run Chicken Sandwich. To run Nutcracker you need the Droid Incredible.
Oh no, you can't run iOS 5 on an iPhone 1 or iPhone 3G; you need a 3GS, 4, or 4S.
RTFA again. The article simply shows that the iPhone and the iPhone 3G was supported and were given updates for three years after they were released. This is true.
First hand experience: iPhone 3G running iOS 3.3x is SLOW. Running iOS 4 it's nearly unusable. So while technically newer versions may be supported I would not recommend it. The first couple of releases of iOS 3 is probably where you should stay if you own a 3G.
Sure, all you need is 16 gigs of ram in your workstation, a few hours of time, and access to source that doesn't currently exist and you're good.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Try reading it more carefully.
That same 90% won't care about upgrading to the next version of Android and may not even know it exists.
With iOS there's also the $99 per year tax to run applications from outside the App Store.
Google for Cydia.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one.
Well I was fairly satisfied with my Motorola phone, which came with 2.1. They were very slow getting updates out, so when 2.2 was finally available I loaded it as part of the early "smoke test" group. Motorola and AT&T both included so much useless bloatware as part of the OS update (locked and unable to be removed, of course), that it essentially has no room left for any other apps. So their update left me even LESS happy with the phone, and just 9 months after purchase (and 15 until the contract ends). So, yea, I want another phone, but I'll never buy another from Motorola.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I know it's hard to get a meaningful metric, but this chart makes me wonder about the trustworthiness of the study. There are approximately two major Android releases per year whereas there is only one major iOS upgrade per year. Thus "two major releases behind" means an average of 15 months late for an Android device, whereas "one major release behind" means an average of 18 months late for an iOS device. Yet by the look of the legend, the first one is supposed to be worse than the second one.
God, root, what is difference ?
and a stupid one as well. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding Apple and Android.
Android is an OS. Different compnais put it on different phones. Thnis means different capabilities and corporate plansd
Apple is the entire chain.
SO you can only compare phones running android individually, and not group them as 'Android'.
The advantage of Androids hardware diversity is that competition can happen, and they aren't locked into a 'box' form 3 years ago.
The advantage of Apple is that they will update it even if the update isn't needed for your phone.
The fact that he marks out yellow sections between green sections shows his agenda.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The sad fact is that while of course, the iPhone 3G won't get iOS5, you can roughly expect at least 2 years of updates for an iPhone. Whereas some (but not all) Android devices are given up much quicker.
Steve Ballmer's FUD is insofar correct in that if you want to update your Android-phone after the maker and/or carrier abandoned you, you indeed almost need a CS degree to update it on yourself.
The update process is indeed quite well-done on WP7
the phone manufacturers will never go for that idea.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
My Motorola phone, purchased in July 2011, came with Android 2.2. As of now there are no plans to update it to 2.3 so I went with a custom ROM. Before Gingerbread, the phone was usable. It was OK. Now with a custom ROM it's a much better phone. By comparison to how it functions with 2.3, my phone running 2.2 was terrible. It's battery doesn't die on me by early evening like it used to. I still charge it every night but if needed, I could wait until morning, something I never could do before. Manufacturers are doing no favor to Android by not upgrading every capable phone to the newest OS as quickly as possible. I have a lot of friends with Android phones who are planning on switching to iPhones for precisely this reason. They get Android-based phones initially because of cheaper upfront costs (which is less of an issue now with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S hitting different price points) but then they quickly get fed up with Android and/or the manufacturer and turn to Apple. I do not personally know anyone who has gone from an iPhone to an Android device.
/.) see being able to load custom ROMs as a plus for Android-based phones (it is in some cases) but we should not have to resort to that to get a really functional and more secure phone. Security is the big issue with manufacturers not updating the OS. It's nice to tinker with the phone, it's like building your own computer and installing Linux, but at some point I also want a phone that just works. There is also no way that most people getting smart phones will ever load a custom ROM. As easy as it is, it is beyond the capabilities or interest of most people.
I know some people (many here on
I like Android and I don't mind dealing with ROMs and mods and rooting and all that, but manufacturers should be supporting their own products (some do, most don't very well) or else they will lose out to Apple. There's a reason consumers are more satisfied with iPhones and Apple than any other phone or phone-producing company.
You make it sound like Froyo is really out of date. Granted, Gingerbread should be available, but Honycomb is for tablets only, and Ice Cream Sandwich isn't out for anything at all yet. So you're really only one version behind.
My phone only got updated to Gingerbread in September, and when I bought it Gingerbread had already been out for a few months. It takes time for updates to get pushed out, mainly because of how every phone is different, so there is a lot of testing time involved. But it does happen sooner or later. I think the only reason that an update would never happen is planned obsolescence on the carriers part, not the device manufacturer.
What that chart doesn't show is the several months the iPhone 3G was practically unusable because the iPhone 3 OS didn't work properly on it. Once they finally manage to get an update pushed out that actually work, I stopped updating the darn thing. I would have far preferred they held it back till it worked on that hardware. Google is playing it smart and not causing old hardware to brick or become unusable for people. This is a good thing.
The old Slashdot would have been happy that Android was open source. The new Slashdot thinks it's a bug rather than a feature.
In reality, it's somewhere between feature and bug. It means the manufacturers can make a large number of different phones without a Legion of employees to keep them all up to date and it gives customers choice in both hardware and os. It kinda pushes people to be involved with their phone and to start hacking on their phones. Having said that, it's annoying when you outgrow the capabilities of your cheap phone before you're eligible for an upgrade.
Android should be licensed in such a way that disallows proprietary drivers.
Porting a new version of Android to a certain device is relatively trivial when you have all the source you need.
Many of this devices actually have working images of, say, Gingerbread, but they are unusable because the manufacturer refuses to provide the source of the touchscreen driver, or, most commonly, the video drivers. You get gingerbread working beautifully, but without wifi, no sound, and no video acceleration (and most phones don't have enough processing power to withstand software playback).
I have several tablets that are outdated just because of this.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
it's almost as though the responsible thing to do is to settle on a stable API and then not change it.
Say you had no camera or no compass or a low-resolution display or vertex/pixel shader support whatever in the first version of a device, and in a newer device model, you want to add support for a camera or a compass or a high-resolution display or 3D chip capable of shaders. In order for applications to use these new peripherals, they'll need some sort of API. And in Android-land, that means an API version bump.
A few have already noted that the original iPhone doesn't run iOS 5 - but queried why the bar is all green for that. There's a good reason - the graph shows whether or not the phone could run the latest OS up to three years after release, not whether or not it can run whatever the latest, greatest version is today. Each phone is following an independent timeline on that chart.
So if we look at the original iPhone - released 29 June 2007 - that would qualify for a green bar all the way along provided it could run whatever the latest version was on 29 June 2010. iOS 4 - the first version to drop support for the original iPhone - was released on June 21, 2010. Meaning that strictly speaking there should be a very thin yellow line at the tail end of the bar representing the original iPhone to show that it was a week off being 3 years old when support was dropped.
Similarly for the iPhone 3G - it's OK for the bar to be green all the way across as long as the iPhone 3G could run whatever the latest version was on 11 July 2011. The writing was on the wall for iOS 4 in July 2011 but iOS 5 was not released until 12 October.
The OEM's support for most Android phones, OTOH, usually ends long before buyers are out of contract - and it's quite common to find that a phone is running an out-of-date version of Android from the day it's released. Considering the plethora of locked bootloaders on Android phones, this is much more significant than many make out. Yeah, install Cyanogen. Great. But most manufacturers that provide any sort of rescue mode build it into the bootloader rather than into hardware - which means that unlocking the bootloader is not without risk. Myself, I take the attitude that I don't want dick around with my phone like I had to dick around with my computer fifteen years ago. I have in my pocket my first Android phone, absent a dramatic raising of standards on the part of at least one Android phone manufacturer it will be my last.
Wow, so you can't read then I take it?
How do you manage to write?
It is a hardware issue (although the article says it otherwise). New versions have minimum memory specs for instance. It would be like trying to run Windows 7 on a 10 year old machine.
Every new releases have minimum requirements. These requirements end up limiting which devices can be updated or not. ICS for instance will require 256MB memory and some fancy harware acceleration. It's usually wise to respect this although you will probably be able to update your device using some custom ROM (Just don't get surprised when app Xyz fail to run on your gingerbread cyanogen mod on your 4 year old device).
We could obviously discuss whether this is good or not... as a developer I like this actually. The android fragmentation can be reduced by this minimum specs... you can release your software knowing that you will have a minimum ammount of memory to run and deal with.
I have an iPod Touch 1G and 3G that can't run the latest OS. And guess which OS everyone (including myself0 is re-targeting their apps to?
How long does it take, on average, from when a new iOS version comes out until there's a working untethered jailbreak?
Probably just another pro-Apple troll post. By the time a handset is truly no longer being supported by Android, chances are good that it's out of warranty and you may as well just unlock it and install a custom firmware.
Here we have an answer will satisfy the geek ---
and be absolutely frightening or meaningless to tens or hundreds of millions of others.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over this great Flash game I'm playing on my Android phone.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
At the very least, carriers should be required to let me drop the voice/data contract and pay only the phone subsidy ($15 - $20/mo?) if I want to end the contract.
That's what the prorated ETF is supposed to be for.
The major upgrades to Apple iOS are more equivalent to Android Apps updates than to Android OS updates.
Look at the very latest iOS update. It added twitter or facebook integration to the gallery. This kind of stuff is an app update on Android. Siri?... same thing. Could be accomplished with an application independent of OS version.
android is open source though, port it yourself?
That's exactly what Cyanogen and the rest of Team Douche did when making CyanogenMod. But some of the bootloaders and device drivers needed to get a copy of Android running on a particular device are not open source.
Personally, I think that if they make you sign a two year contract to get the phone, then they should agree to provide updates for two years
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I rooted my Droid Eris only because Verizon stopped updating it
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
You can do it with less ram, it will just take longer. You can start it off before you go to work, and have it done when you comeback, not like you need to watch it.
Really 16GB of ram is not a big hurdle these days. My desktop has 8GB.
All the wireless carriers offer deals that allow you to upgrade your phone every 2 years. Why would I care if my Android is 3 versions behind just as I'm replacing it? Most of the new things that come out are things that I'll either be looking forward to, or reasons I'll be rooting/upgrading my OS. The people who are just buying phones that they can use to 1) play angry birds, 2) get better updated GPS built in and 3) talk on the phone and send txt messages don't care about getting the updated OS. When I shop for phones for my family, my wife has one single requirement: It needs to have a physical full qwerty keyboard.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
In the article it says the original iPhone and iPhone 3G are still receiving software updates, this is just false: The iPhone has been stuck at OS 3.1.3 since that came out years ago, and the iPhone 3G is stuck at 4.2.1, and they will never see another update. This article makes Apple out to be far better than they are.
It doesn't matter if people do or do not install apps outside the Android market. Even inside the market what you can find is way less restrictive than what you have in Apple's app store. You can find, for instance, apps that only work on rooted devices. And if one day Google decide to ask $1000 to continue to have the right to download apps from the market, you can say F*CK YOU I will just go somewhere else instead. This is a sufficient insensitive for Google to never make such an evil move.
With Apple, on the other hand, you are at their mercy. The more market share Apple will have, the more locked down their devices will be and the less freedom you will have. I even heard that on SIM-locked iPhones carriers can decide whether you can tether your phone or not. You can't avoid that without jailbreaking beacause the APN menu is hidden. On Android the carrier doesn't even know if you are tethering or browsing on your phone. And even if they had a different APN for tethering, nothing stops you from changing the APN.
Even if I had an iPhone I would thank everyone who doesn't have any Apple device for keeping Apple from taking too much of my freedom.
The problem with these stories is that they're written with the default understanding that Apple is God of the Universe. Walled garden with one line of phone maintained centrally is the way of the universe. Android phones are carrier-maintained. You don't buy a platform, you buy a phone from a carrier, who may or may not update your device. Another way to out that is you have the *choice* of where to get Android, and carriers have the *choice* of how to support it. As an aside I can also choose what kinds of apps I can install and run on my device. I may choose the wrong carrier or device or apps, but I enjoy actually having a choice at all, and that's why Apple will never get my money.
Like when they made Siri unavailable for anything but iPhone 4S despite it having been in the app store for all iPhones released at that point before? (Yes, I realize it wasn't as nicely integrated and perhaps that same level of integration is impossible in older devices. No, I don't think that means killing it off altogether for the older devices was an inevitable consequence.)
But that market is the masses, and the masses in general don't really care if they get an upgrade to ICS or not as long as they can still play their favorite games, use their favorite apps, etc. Of course if their device runs very slowly then they might look at competing devices - including the iPhone - if they find that an update that may relieve the issue is not available for their device. But that doesn't destroy the market for Android devices.. it destroys the market for that one particular device. If there were an issue with Android in general - either real or perceived - then there would be more of a problem for Android devices.
when you violate Rule #1 of the Rules of IT that Should Never Be Broken: Never let programmers program your applications.
When you let programmers program your applications, you get "Ooooh, shiny!" instead of something easy to use.
But look, you get all these shiny, glowing buttons who bounce on the screen! See, see! What, you want to use this? Easily? I'm sorry, we are programmers, we don't do that sort of thing.*
Programmers need to be kept on a short leash and given clear, concise and explicit instructions on what needs to be done. Not how, that's micromanaging, but what. You won't get shiny, but you will get usable.
*My apologies to Sneakers for bastardizing one of the best lines of the entire movie.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I'm willing to bet everything I own that 100% of your "statistic" is bullshit. Do you know how many users from ATT had to figure this out and how big the public backlash was? ATT had all phones locked from the third party thing, and people ran into issues almost immediately due to the amazon market + "tough shit, you can't get amazon market" from AT&T android phones.
That's just one carrier, let alone people who saw the news. Roms aren't just popular in an isolated group, either. Way to marginalize a large community as a tiny one though! That's pretty much doublespeak that we'd normally expect from a ceo of a large corporation during a giant fuckup or a shill.
Google has explained why they didn't release Honeycomb and they've committed to releasing the source for ICS soon after phones running ICS have been released. Ignorant troll is Ignorant.
Excuses are just that, excuses, the point is they haven't released it.
I may forgive them if and when they release ICS, in the meantime, I'm not a troll. I'm a noid.
Your stuff is 4 years old at this point, they're talking about devices that lose support after a month or two in the article. No one is claiming that Apple support old devices forever, just far longer than most (probably all, but I can't really support that statement) Android manufacturers. Especially with mobile hardware (where devices are gaining power almost exponentially fast) there's gotta be a "this no longer works" cut off point.
The same thing used to be the case with PC hardware 10 years ago, though now a days you can usually use the same PC hardware for 5-7 years if you're careful. This is largely because PCs became "powerful enough" to do most common tasks. You still want more power for newer games, or for development, graphics, or scientific work, but most people can do most tasks they need to with fairly old hardware. Phones haven't reached that point yet
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
My understanding is that while Android is open source, Google doesn't accept upstream contributions to the source code. Each time a manufacturer gets the current version of Android to work on their hardware, they need to make some tweaks to the code. Since Google doesn't accept source contributions, as soon as a new version of Android comes out, the hardware manufacturers have to repeat the entire process for the new version, plus make any additional adjustments needed for compatibility with Google's new code.
This puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on hardware manufacturers within a skill-set they don't necessarily want to maintain or excel at (operating system development).
If Google accepted upstream contributions to the source code, then conceivably, when a new version of Android was released, a manufacturer's prior contributions (fixes, etc.) would already be in the code. At least then, the manufacturers wouldn't need to figure out how to re-apply changes they've already made to a prior version of Android.
If anyone has more information on this, and how Google is collaborating (or not collaborating) with the open source community, I'd be very curious to know.
What does a new version of Android do that an older version couldn't? It's not like you're missing a whole lot with an older version of Android, especially considering that most apps out there aren't version specific. How often does Apple screw consumers with upgrades? Old apps cease working in newer versions of their OS's and very quickly new apps come along that wont run in older versions of the same OS. And from what I've seen people have generally encountered decreased performance by upgrading iOS.
That said, I do agree that there are problems. Because Google is unwilling or unable to standardize the OS we're left to the whim of the hardware maker and, even worse, the carrier. Of course, the option to root the phone exists, but I think that's an unreasonable expectation for the average person. The iPhone is desirable enough that the carriers accepts sticking with a generation for a year or longer. With Android, however, the carriers and presumably hardware makers as well, seem fixated on offering new devices in quick succession. That pretty much ensures no legacy support because all they want to consumer to upgrade to a new phone.
Still, unless you've got a fixation on having the latest and greatest, Android, even an older version of the system, easily offers a better experience than iOS.
It would be pushed by their carrier. Mine was upgraded by the carrier OTA from 1.6 to 2.1 just before 2.2 came out, and then forever abandoned.
Never had an iphone, never wanted one, but, that being said, they have the OS update thingy correct! Control the OS update at the vendor level, NOT the carrier level. It just isn't in the "best" interest of the carriers to put the latest & greatest OS on the phones. Makes it much easier to talk sheep into extending their contract by saying the old phone doesn't have the new stuff, but this shiny new phone does. I wish google would take the apple approach to the OS updates and control it from THEIR end, not allowing the carriers to bloat it & cripple it, THEN, if you are lucky, release it.
Yeah I just bought my girlfriend an iPod from the Apple online store because she wanted one. The thing is being shipped directly from Suzhou, China to her door. I'm so glad I supported an American company like Apple. /sarcasm, because most appletards won't even get it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
By most he is confining himself to the set of "people who give a shit what the difference between Android 2.2 and 2.3 is". Apple's fanfare (and iTunes lock-in) basically requires that the user be intimately aware of what version they are running. If they are behind, they will feel emptiness inside (and they wont have access to app updates and new iTunes downloads). Android, on the other hand, just "works".
More effort than it is worth. No one should have to dance with a security system that is working against them to do as they wish on their own devices.
Apple can declare whatever version they choose to be "current". If all versions of their phone run the same OS, then they'll always be running the current version, even if they have a much more advanced development version. What is "current"
Also, "major version" is pretty arbitrary. Google could have considered Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich to be incremental upgrades to Gingerbread. A better comparison would be the age of the current release rather than count of major version.
A big issue is Android phone manufacturers pump out all different "levels" of phones to reach as many people as possible. Apple makes one phone (two or three if you wanna get picky) and reaches as many people as possible with that.
In other words with Android you have: HTC, Motorola, Samsung each producing 5+ models per year resulting in 15+ different Android phones for a current year. When my HTC EVO 4G was brand new, it was $200 but I could have purchased the HTC Hero for less. However, I knew that in a year or so, that Hero would be so old and out-dated that it wouldn't be worth my time and money. I forked over the extra cash knowing I was buying a phone that would live much longer.
With Apple you have one. They release roughly one phone per year. If you wan an "Apple phone" you buy the most recent or maybe a version behind, but really, who's buying the iPhone 4 right now when you can get the 4s?
The problem people get into is they buy Android phones that are already on their way out. The EVO is still available from Sprint, but there is no way I would buy that now. It's substantially cheaper than any other Android phone Sprint offers (maybe with the exception of a few free with contract options) but why would I buy a phone that's going on two years old?
Android manufacturers need to step up their game and stop pumping out as many different phones as they can. Focus that "creative" energy into developing a couple powerful and sharp phones per year. I've had no issues with my HTC phone, but with how fragmented the HTC line-up is currently, I don't think I even know what the "best" available phone they offer is... I'll likely be going to the Galaxy Nexus assuming it comes to Sprint.
Isaac
Agreed. I am due to upgrade from my current non-smart phone in Dec, and I think this has just changed my choices. I was going to go Android - partly to compare with my iPad: have one from either side. But I want something with proper and timely updates.
And I could, no doubt, root it and install some better software. But my phone is a phone, not a workbench. I spend enough of my day fighting cranky systems. I want my phone/web/email system to Just Work. And it sounds like Apple is doing that far better than Android. Certainly the iPad just Works.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
And what has to do the fact that no phone has ever been released to publish the source? Nobody has released the next version of Linux, but I can access the source code already. Same for webkit, Mozilla, KDE, and what not. That's the way it is in open source project.
Doing things you don't like, doesn't mean it's evil.
They released Android under an apache license.
As of version 3.0 they have said they are releasing under a closed license, at least that's whet the Wikipedia page says.
Yes, the Apache model allows that, but the point is, it's no longer open source. So as of now they have left the party. Promises aren't worth spit. The fact of the matter is that at this point in time Google is not developing an open source phone operating system.
I bought a nexus one because they said they were. And now I'm pissed, yes.
They did for iphone.
Google just has to say NO.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Surprisingly enough, Apple not wanting people to stop buying their hardware can be incentive enough.
Gee, it's almost like newer, faster hardware can do more things?!?! Who knew!
Can the iPhone 3Gs camera do macro? No. Did Apple disable it? No, because it wasn't capable of it. How is that any different than Siri running acceptably on the A5 chip, but not acceptably on the A4 chip? It's not.
You can go to Samsung and update to 2.3.3 (Samsung Android Update), but its really hard to find what version the carriers have over the air for those not willing or able or aware of this procedure.
And it shipped with 2.1 when 2.2 was already out. So although excluding the Samsung Galaxy line is annoying (it might be more recent than the 15 month cutoff in the analysis), the Samsung Galaxy line seems to suffer the same problems of other Android phones.
And this is, in fact, why I didn't buy an Android phone: you have to assume they are software EOL'ed the moment you walk home with the phone (if not before!)
Test your net with Netalyzr
People look at the upfront cost, not the data-plan cost (which dwarfs the cost of the phone over 2 years) when buying smartphones.
Thus people see the $100 or even "free" Android phones and buy them. How many Android phones are still >$200 9 months after release?
This is why Apple has kept the 3GS in production, so they have a "free" phone to sell for AT&T.
Test your net with Netalyzr
i thought on manufacturers did this, not google. this is why its great that you can root. I have a G1/dream. apparantly it can't run >1.6 I have 2.2
Nope, I think most people who buy a smartphone use it as a status symbol or buy it because it is "cool" or "the best phone available" or whatever. Few people use anything else than voice, text messages and occasional browse through the web. My wife has a Galaxy S, and she has never installed or used any of the apps, nor written an email (except via gmail via browser). Hell, most people still cannot set clocks on their VCR, let alone use advanced features on a phone.
--Coder
Hat a good 2 years run, that is more or less the standard for updates nowadays. Apple also supports its iDevices mostly only two years.
I was aware of this when I bought the N1 1 1/2 years ago and I am fine with it.
Lets see what the modders can do, but for now I am perfectly happy with it running on Cyanogen Mod 7 and if that one is the last Android version the device will get, then I am perfectly happy with it.
(Btw. the Nexus s is currently dirt cheap for people who want to upgrade)
But that would be a non-traditional usage of the word "most".
Non-traditional meaning wrong.
As in, "Most people earn more than $350,000 per year". Right?
I think the comparison shows that time and frequency of Android updates do not look good. It's one thing for a manufacturer to stop updating a product after a while like after 2 years. The chart shows that many manufacturers/carriers did not update their phone much during the first two years. There were a few that had no updates at all. While the reasoning behind it isn't clear, the author speculates that the manufacturers want consumers to buy new phones by making them unhappy with their current phone whereas Apple takes the opposite approach by getting more repeat customers by keeping current ones happy. I don't know if I attach that much malice to their intentions; I just think that once they made the sale to the carrier, most manufacturers just don't care.
Rule of Acquisition #1: Once you have their money, never give it back.
And Rule of Acquisition #3: Never pay more for an acquisition than you have to.
But forgetting #57: Good customers are as rare as lantinum--treasure them
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I have a Nexus One, the orphaned device. I bought it because it was an open phone with an open OS, released under the Apache license. As of 3.0 the OS is proprietary. I guess I won't be updating it any more since the only dev team is under NDA working on closed source.
BTW how long do you think handset makers and carriers should be forced to update phone software for?
Let's start with the length of the cell phone contract and work from there. If they're going to sell 2-year contracts, you should reasonably expect that the phone you buy will receive updates during that time. Once the contract expires, people can base their decision to get a new phone or switch carriers on the lack of updates. But when you're still under contract, you've got no choice but to accept the crappy situation, and that's not right.
This story is pointing out a legitimate problem with Android. As of yet, not one single iPhone has been sold that has not been supported for the entire 2-year contract. Meanwhile, 7 of the listed Android phones never ran the latest version of the OS, even when they were sold. I don't really take sides in the Android vs. iOS argument, but this is an area that Google really needs to address.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Like speed and stability and security improvements. Isn't that why there are Linux updates coming out all the time?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
EG, on Verizon, the Fascinate didn't receive 2.2 until April 2011, or 5 months after the general release for the Galaxy line, while their Continuum variant, which is still being sold as new, has never been updated and remains on 2.1 .
You can try to manually update through Samsung's updater program to 2.3.3, but really, even for the Galaxy line, as deployed by US carriers, the thesis holds: Android phones are practically EOL'ed the moment you walk out the door with it.
Test your net with Netalyzr
A lot of the phones listed as abandoned now comprise an ever-shrinking part of the Android market. Many of them are first-gen devices on-par with the G1, the first Android phone. Most 2nd and 3rd gen Android phones have been getting updates to FroYo and Gingerbread from the manufacturers because they learned a lot from those 1st gen devices. For reference, consider Google's numbers on which OS each active phone is running: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
The reality is that a developer can likely create an app for FroYo and up that will still be mass market. People running Eclair, Donut, or Cupcake are in an every-shrinking segment of the Android ecosystem. And honestly? Those of us who bought those 1st gen devices kind of knew what we were getting into or probably should have known better. I have a Moment and recognize that I'm bleeding a bit for being an early adopter. (That said, the updates from SDX for FroYo have been awesome. They're also working on Gingerbread.)
Current Android phones are better able to handle updates than their predecessors, so they get better updates. This article is kind of a non-news item.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
Typical consumers don't know or care what OS they are running, muchless what it means. If they can make phone calls, get email and check a website or two, they are happy.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
at least as long as they have agreed to a bound contract with you.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
My wife has a Galaxy S, and she has never installed or used any of the apps, nor written an email (except via gmail via browser).
You can't generalise from that. Whilst I think there a a lot of Android phones sold to people who don't do those things, in my experience iPhone users usually do.
Lots of Androids are sold because they are "free" with a contract. People spending the extra to get an iPhone usually do so because they want to run these apps they've been hearing about.
Now the iPhone GS is free with a contract, that might change for the future.
Which is dumb when you think about it. If your application doesn't require all the latest features and a lot of CPU/GPU power, why cut yourself from potential sales? There's a lot of iOS3 devices out there.
So the list only needs to go back to phones introduced within that period to do a study of Android.
For comparison it includes iPhones going back even further than that. But if you want to include the original iPhone, let's build the chart line for it.
It was on the current phone version of the OS for almost exactly three years (released June 2007, incompatible iOS 4 released June 2010), which would make it green through the chart just like the rest of the iPhones. The last update for it was Februrary 2010 with 3.1.3, so the squiggly line goes a touch over halfway through year 3. IIRC, Apple stopped sales of the original iPhone when the 3G was released, so the square only goes up to the first year.
Still looks very good compared to any Android phone on the list.
Now let's reconstruct the Galaxy S, which was launched in the US right around the author's cutoff date for his survey. The problem here is different US carriers had releases and updates at different times, but I'll go with the most favorable.
Launch June 2010 with Android 2.1. Android 2.2 was also released at this time, which made the Galaxy behind from the beginning. The first evidence of US Galaxy customers getting 2.2 was in January 2011. Android 2.3 showed up on US phones in December 2010 with the Nexus S. The first US release of 2.3 for the Galaxy is this month. Android 4.0 was released this month.
So, the Galaxy S gets released yellow, then:
I don't think its inclusion would have helped Android's case. The Galaxy S2 was released far too late for the survey.
This looks MUCH worse if you go with the Verizon Continuum. It was released in November 2010 with 2.1, so it started yellow, then went orange the next month. That lasted until April 2011 with the 2.2 update, when it went yellow. Then this month it turned orange again. The squiggly went through April 2011, only six months of support, and it's still being sold. It's not likely to get Gingerbread.
He kinda cherry picked what phones he used to make the point he wanted to make.
When I switched off my original Motorola Droid a few months ago it was up to date and had gone through two major upgrades in the time I had it..
With Android being so diverse and wide a market I say picking your MFG is the important part. And what I see in that list.. HTC is the brand to avoid. But I already knew that. Motorola or Samsung for me please.
BTW how long do you think handset makers and carriers should be forced to update phone software for?
They should commit to a support period when they produce the phone so that you know what you're getting.
Although what I'd love to see (but pigs will fly sooner) is open hardware (so no farting about with binary blobs) and some generic android distributions with a nice shiny installer that will install on *any* device, much like I can install popular Linux distros on any computer. Obviously this is subject to hardware limitations - i.e. I wouldn't really expect (or want) to be able to install the latest Android on my HTC Dream with its 96MB of RAM, just as I wouldn't expect to install a desktop OS on an ancient PC.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Internet explorder 9 who really gives a sh!7 about the big blue E anyway
Web developers who want to make sure that their web site or web application runs on 30 percent of desktops.
But here's the thing that Apple fans are leaving out -- Apple is PAINFUL when it comes to their Mac OS X and what hardware it will (easily) install to. I recall back when G4 and G5 were new and which versions of Mac OS X would work on what hardware.
You're comparing installing a modern desktop OS on, in what that case was, a three year old computer with installing a modern cellphone OS on an 11-month old handset.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
It's just what happens when you have one party supplying the hardware and another party supplying the software, and both with different priorities.
The Android scenario is closer to the PC scenario in the bad old days before "Windows Update" etc.For example the old computers might still be running an old version of Windows. Is that a problem? Yes. Did Dell/HP/etc care? No. Did Microsoft care? Not back then. Did most users care? No. Not until something goes wrong.
As a recent article says, Apple of today is focused on Product not Profit: http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/10/25/2246209/how-steve-jobs-solved-the-innovators-dilemma
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/23/steve-jobs-failure_n_1025732.html
"My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products," Jobs told Isaacson. "[T]he products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything."
When you have separate companies treating the software and hardware as different products, with different vision and priorities, the "whole product" is less likely to be as great.
While I will concede the data in the chart is technically correct, it is designed to make it look like all iPhone models were up to date 3 years after release (through creative use if the term "major version"), which simply isn't true, the last version of iOS with support for the iPhone 3G came out just over 2 years after it was released, and even then it was running a crippled down version with no support for multitasking APIs.
Apple is clear and upfront with all customers about the walled garden. Just like Disney is pretty clear when you buy a ticket to Disneyworld that you are going to be restricted in what you can do within their walls. People who go to Disneyworld want to have a child-friendly environment and therefore don't mind that there aren't liquor stores and strip clubs within; you can always go somewhere else if you want those things.
Similarly, if you want a malware-infested fragmented cesspool in then you can buy a different phone.
Wouldn't be surprised if they actually meant "any phone that was released with 2.3".
But that would be a non-traditional usage of the word "most".
Yes, non-traditional as in: When reading the GP, replace the word "most" with "a tiny percentage of".
#DeleteChrome
Of course the whole thing shows how we have given up on software / device quality.
If I sell a device that has a promised functionality, and just works the way it's supposed to, then there would be no real need for "updates".
My old TV ran ~25 years without any update, and I still was able to watch all the new programs, before it broke.
My C64 ran ~10 years without any update, and still could run every software sold for the C64, before it broke.
Companies pushing updates all the time don't make me happy, companies that ship a product that I don't need to update do.
...some x86 PCs are locked down..
Really? (Genuinely curious if you have a link for that...)
For example, see "Xbox" on Wikipedia.
Newer phones that will supposedly support ICS have embedded MMC (eMMC) which comes in much larger capacities
I haven't heard of eMMC until now, but let me guess: eMMC isn't too different from a microSD card soldered onto the motherboard. Would that be remotely accurate?
Strange how that all gets muddied up when Android is being touted as "open".
I suppose it should come with a disclaimer or something.
Because the carriers see you as a bag full of nickels with feet. Their object ive is to tie your feet together
What will tying up my feet accomplish?
and empty you out (if necessary, one nickel at a time).
I'd be willing to give the carriers my money one nickel at a time if they were to charge me, say, a nickel per MB for 3G or even EDGE data the way they charge per minute on prepaid cell phones. Then they'd get their nickels even with a phone as open as goat man. But last night in Walmart, I've seen crap like $15 for one day of access. Until smartphone plans are compelling enough to get me to switch from my current $5/mo dumbphone plan on Virgin Mobile USA, carriers won't get my nickels.
a private media company
Among the major commercial TV news channels, only CBS is privately held by the Redstones. ABC, NBC, Fox, and CNN are all publicly traded on NYSE or NASDAQ.
should be allowed to promote or ignore whatever candidates they want without government interference.
Exclusive rights in radio spectrum are government interference.
Consider it this way...suppose you built a blog on your own web site.
After five blogs are available to a city, would the federal government step in and say "nope, spectrum is too crowded, no new blogs"? If not, bad analogy.
Bu leaving out the Verizon iPhone 4, the chart makes Apple look much better than it is. Verizon never really upgraded its iPhone until IOS 5 came out. It provided security patches only.
That particularly bugged me since there were a couple of features I had really wanted.
Apparently, they didn't bother with the feature upgrades until the code that forked for CDMA got merged in 5.
In the C64 era there were two things that reduced the number of updates.
1) These devices were far simpler. A low-end Sndroid phone has far greater utility and capabilities than a C64.
2) There were in fact updates in the form of revisions made to chips in later units. Replacing a ROM was not cheap, so generally it'd only be done for something serious that can't easily be worked around in software.
It's like comparing an Epson LX 86 9 pin dot matrix with a LaserWriter 8500, wondering why the latter is more complicated to service?
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Let's start with the length of the cell phone contract and work from there. If they're going to sell 2-year contracts, you should reasonably expect that the phone you buy will receive updates during that time.
Here's my definitive answer:
Locked bootloader? No contract.
Unlocked bootloader? Contract acceptable.
Locked bootloader with $CONTRACT_DURATION guarantee of security updates with a 90 day window before the carrier is forced to release the contract? Contract acceptable.
Honestly, and I rarely say something like this due to lobbyists ability to fuck up good intentions, this kind of stuff should probably be legislated.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
This chart is only useful if you define what a major version of android is. It seems that everyone is taking 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 to be three different major versions of Android. That doesn't mesh with my concept of version numbering. It seems to me there would be 4 major versions. 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x. If this chart even attempted to use 3.x as a major version for phones, it is horribly biased as that version was never, and probably will never be, used on phones.
If you're concerned that a phone is not being supported to go from 2.1 -> 2.3, what exactly are you worried about, enhanced copy/paste functionality? Support for the barometer sensors that your phone doesn't have?
I used to own an iPhone 3g. When iOS 4 came out and I updated, the phone slowed to a CRAWL. This was apparently a common thing, as the iOS 4 was more geared towards the hardware in the iPhone 4 or possibly the 3GS. So, it now took noticeably longer to open ANY app, even the ones built into the phone, answering calls was laggy, it was not good. With no way to "legitimately" downgrade to a previous version, I ended up feeling like I HAD to jailbreak, just to retain the performance of the previous version! So, the chart suggesting that the 3g is still being "supported" with new updates is entirely misleading. New updates are that are designed for better hardware are being FORCED on it. I like Windows 7, but I wouldn't want to be all but forced to put it on a 10 year old computer that still runs XP just fine, that would be counter productive. (For those who try to say you aren't "Forced." If your iPhone ever crashes and you have to do a restore, it'll demand you go to the latest iOS. It happened to me.)
Well the newest version on an Aria for instance is 2.2.2. You can root it and put Gingerbread on there but it's just not really a good experience with that, however, they should do security updates via OTA. It's just a matter of waiting a few months and it seems 4.0 has everything you would want. Those Apples are pretty expensive for a 3.5" screen and an Android IS better than a Blackberry or Windows phone.
239.101.51.4 Yes, I do have multicast enabled. Thanks for asking.
The Master (Angelo Rossitto) in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, "Not shit, energy!"
Technically the original iPhone got 3 years not 2.5. The clock doesn't stop when 3.1.3 was released. It stops when 4.0 was released, the first incompatible update. So the chart does seem accurate, at least for this device. I didn't look up any others.
I had CyanogenMod 7 on my Atrix within a day of getting it. It never even occurred to me to let the carrier update my phone whenever they wanted.
Learn about Photography Basics.
For a regular consumer a question is what will support be like if he buys an Android phone? What is this like vs. buying a phone with the competition's operating system, iOS?
These are rational questions for a regular customer, and they are answered quite well. It even helps answer a third question: If I buy an Android phone, which brands have the best history of support?
... that is messed up. It's the Mobile Business.
Every single mobile manufacturer are doing now (with or without Android) what they always had done in the past.
The bad ones abandon the device the sooner they can, the good ones offers support for sometime, and the pristine ones back their users until the end of times.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Thus I am missing, according to Wikipedia, these things:
My phone's pretty slow, so all of the speed and memory optimizations, and JIT, would be extremely useful to me. It also has little onboard memory, constantly running out despite relatively few apps on it, so installing apps to the SD card would be very useful.
Basically, all of this seriously extends the useful life of the phone, which the carrier and manufacturer obviously don't want. They want me to buy a new one.
Right, because Apple is the only company based in the US with overseas manufacturing!
Oh, wait, damned near every mass-market company with manufactured products does this, especially those making electronics. But please, keep up with HURR DURR APPLETARDS because Apple is certainly a unique case!
If you want a great example of poor customer support within the android community take my HTC Desire, within 8 months of purchasing said handset brand new HTC decided to cease releasing any updates. Meanwhile my co-worker has a Nokia N series handset that is three years old that is still getting updates.
The device (phone/tablet) vendor may not actually have the source. I've personally had to deal with sub-device vendors that only provide the driver in binary form. The only thing I can think of is that they're terrified someone will steal the code and make a cheap clone of their hardware.
Alternately, the drivers may be licensed from a third party and the device vendor may not have the legal right to redistribute the source.
...I had the EU version of the Droid, the Motorola Milestone, over here in the UK. The most poorly supported phone I've ever had, and when they finally got around to releasing Android 2.2 for it, a full SEVEN MONTHS after the phone's identical American version, the Droid, got it, it made my phone so slow and unresponsive that I stopped using it... (and yes, this was even after a factory reset and formatting my SD card...)
In addition, 2.3 had been out for a number of months before this point too. The chart quite clearly shows that Motorola are consistently releasing these products but without the support required to keep their customer base happy into the second half of their phone contracts......
Releasing too many phones with too little difference among them was a mortal mistake Nokia made for many years. About two years ago, when I was thinking of buying a new phone, I looked at the available Nokia offerings. There were maybe more than 20 different Nokia phones at the time. 20! And from a distance most of them looked just the same. Their four digit model numbers made things more confusing. Once I decided NOT to buy a Nokia phone, life was much simpler. There is a big lesson Android vendors need to learn here. With Apple's iPhone lineup, it is very easy for a customer to decide which iPhone to buy. With Samsung, HTC, Motorola or Sony, it is a much more complicated and potentially frustrating shopping experience.
Because there is a big world beyond US borders, and some countries like Canada have 3 year contracts.
As of yet, not one single iPhone has been sold that has not been supported for the entire 2-year contract.
Not true. The iPhone 3G was being sold internationally until superceded by the 3GS in June-August 2009. The last 3G update was November 2010. That's 15 to 17 months of updates for people who bought in the month before the 3GS was released. If they bought on a 24 month contract they were out of luck.
iPhone 3GS: "It was released in the U.S., Canada and six European countries on June 19, 2009,[3] in Australia and Japan on June 26, and internationally in July and August 2009."
iPhone 3G: "The last release of iOS to support the 3G was 4.2.1, which was released on November 22, 2010."
You do realize it is very easy to tell which android version is more current then the other right? It is called the Alphabet ... and it has a specific order. I leave the rest as an exercise for the reader.
And yet the iOS is being ousold by the Android OS ... hmmm
Mind you I'm still pissed at the current official android update ecosystem because I think it is a shitty way to run it. Then again I am pleased as peach that I'm able to take matters into my own hands and update my phone with CyanogenMod. But damn it I want my cake AND I want to eat it too ;-)
If you can't be good, be good at it!
Most of those updates aren't for Linux (which is just the kernel), they're for things running on top of Linux. In Android, and I presume iOS, you can have your apps update themselves automatically, or choose to confirm updates. Most security holes will be in the applications themselves. If you're installing malicious software manually, there isn't even a need for an application to utilise a kernel exploit to do what it wants on your phone.
which is totally what she said
Its a pity I cant see what I have been modded
It's a defect in Slashdot's CSS. To work around it, click "Parent" a few times until all comments from the top-level on up are visible.
TVs not being updated has been a disaster for programming. We could have switched over to universal high-def by the mid 1980s, most shows are still mainly regular definition.
See, you people all blame Google, when it's far from Google's fault at all. Not to mention Apple has total, complete control over the OS, the phone, and updates. Google does not have that, and I don't really think the providers would allow that to change. It let's them customize their phones for their network. Up until recently, AT&T was the only one with the iPhone.
Google has no way to push updates on it's own, and even if it did, the providers would likely block that. If they did come up with a way, you can bet your breakfast, lunch, dinner, and car that Apple would go berserker over it. Lawsuits everywhere. I mean, they're already doing that anyway. It's the Providers who are at fault, here, not Google. Plus, you do have to realize that like a computer OS, they keep getting more powerful, then computers need more power to run them. The same goes for phones. The newer the OS, the stronger the phone must be, no exceptions.
An older computer cannot run Windows 7, or 8(requires at least 1GB of memory), likewise, older phones cannot run stuff like Gingerbread, Honeycomb, ICS. The only way is to build a special version of that OS for that phone. Apple, as they have only about 7 phones, only 4 of which are currently supported, can do that. The teams for CyanogenMod do exactly what they do, make that special version. Apple has the resources, time to do that. Not to mention they handle the phones themselves. Google doesn't. HTC, Samsung, Nokia, LG...they all handle their phones themselves.
Don't blame Google for this. You cannot expect a company to manage that many different phones that need that many different ROMs for those phones. Gotta be at least 151 different Android phones out there, not even APPLE could handle that. 4 is something not bad. Pokemon-levels is not.
But what I don't understand is this: why are phones being sold new that are already one or two OS versions behind?
Because it's what the hardware was tested with, or in the case of cheap underpowered handsets, it's all the hardware can handle.
I am trolling
Which is dumb when you think about it. If your application doesn't require all the latest features and a lot of CPU/GPU power, why cut yourself from potential sales? There's a lot of iOS3 devices out there.
As an example, ARC requires iOS 4.
And since ARC simplifies memory management considerably, there is a strong incentive to drop support for iOS 3.
Is that iPod Touch third gen or iPhone 3G?
The iPod Touch third gen can run iOS 5.
Not if it was the smallest model. That one had actually 2nd gen hardware, even though is was sold alongside it's 3rd gen siblings.
Care to provide evidence to back up your assertion? The author surely did. I have a Moto Droid, so I know he was honest about that.
Exclusive rights in radio spectrum are government interference.
CNN, for example, is a cable/satellite *only* channel. Does the principle still apply?
For one thing, It applied back when CNN's parent company also owned the WB network, and it still applies with CNN's parent company in an equal partnership with CBS to run the CW network. For one thing, exclusive rights in radio spectrum in satellite bands are government interference.
Maybe. But when I look at the chart I see the major Android offerings from the major smartphone makers. These phones should be getting updates, especially when it's the position of the manufacturer and the carrier that rooting your phone and updating it yourself is something that will void your warranty.
This is absolutely an area that android needs to address: I have had both iphone and android devices, and I am still on android now. The apple way wasn't perfect, because there is no way of downgrading your os to the one you were happy with, but at least you knew that you were in line for updates. I've got the first dual core android phone, and it still didn't come with the current android on it, or available from the manufacturer. Now that ICS is underway, I doubt I'm going to get an official update. And that really is kicking consumers in the teeth.
"With iOS there's also the $99 per year tax to run applications from outside the App Store."
There's a $99 per year fee to DEVELOP applications. Are you an iOS developer?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
So 90% of Android users are clueless? After only being out for a few weeks, iOS 5 is now installed on 1 out of 3 compatible Apple devices.
Just saying...
http://www.slashgear.com/ios-5-is-now-installed-on-1-out-of-3-compatible-apple-devices-17188562/
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
In order to run applications not obtained through the App Store without jailbreaking, you have to register as a developer despite not being one.
...until they try to install an app that requires a newer version of Android. Then they'll care a whole lot.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
You just bought an iPod and then refer to others as "appletards"?? REALLY?
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
....for 10 minutes until it exhausts your battery.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
You mean every iPhone is the same? Of course, they're all made by apple. HTC or Samsung want to be able to differentiate their phones from the other android phones out there.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
My laptop has 8 gig. The ice cream sandwich source code is not yet out, and neither is honeycomb.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I had an HTC Magic, it was a really good phone when I got it, ran Android 1.5, and I enjoyed using it, upgrade to Android 1.6 came out, and it was still great. As Android was going under rapid change at that point though, I saw Android 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2 come out and wondered why Vodafone wouldn't give me 2.2. Eventually, quite late on they finally bowed to customer demand and complaints for us, and releases 2.2. Well, it wasn't pretty. The phone became painfully slow, and half the apps I wanted Android 2.2 for couldn't run well enough on it anyway like Angry Birds.
I ended up buying a ZTE Blade for £90 with no contract, because they're that cheap. I could install 2.2 on it, ran Angry Birds etc. okay, and really, I still paid less than I would've for an iPhone 3GS at contract start yet still had a better phone because with it's AMOLED screen etc. and the 3GS' older processor it was just better specced in most ways.
I used to think there should be a fixed period on Android upgrades too like 2 years, but it just wont work. Android is such a varied ecosystem, you just can't do that. Upgrades should only be available if they're comfortable enough to use on the device and that criteria is good enough, otherwise customers get lumped with unusable handsets.
So yeah, I used to agree with you, I had my phone and wondered why I wasn't getting upgrades for it, I bitched and moaned with everyone else at Vodafone and they relented and gave us it, it was a waste of time anyway because all it did is made me realise I needed a new phone.
Stuck in a 2 year contract? yeah, that's shitty, but personally I'd never be stupid enough to sign up to a 2 year contract, it's just too long. I don't even go for 18months if I can help it, but then, perhaps this is because I've been buying smartphones since the Nokia 7650 came out in 2002, and normal phones since long before that, and 12 months has always been the norm for me.
How well your cellphone is going to age and if you'll need to replace it before then is something you should factor into whether you sign for a 2 year contract in the first place. That's particularly important with the speed the market is moving currently. Phone companies are sharks, simply guaranteeing upgrades for the length of the contract wont save people, what about the idiot that signs up to a 2 year contract choosing a last gen near end of line phone because they thought it was "cute" and had no idea about how under specced it was to alternatives they could've picked? Should even they be supported even though their phone probably wont be fit to run the latest and greatest even almost at the point of sale? The phone company wont warn you, they just see a small fortune they can milk out of you because you're going to be paying them a few hundred quid in profit because you chose a £100 phone instead of a £500 phone.
We need to be careful companies aren't just shirking their responsibility to provide upgrades where they work, but in my experience if they aren't releasing an upgrade there's generally good reason for it. It is in their interests for you to have the latest features where it's feasible after all, because the more you can do with your phone, the more you will use it, and the more profit they'll rack up out of your voice and data usage.
If they got the offer to upgrade automatically they might well appreciate the new version.
This is what happens for apple users.
The problem here is not Google, rather the handset makers who would rather you buy a new phone and networks who like enticing you with a new phone to get you to Pay over the odds for line rental.
Google could have been more proactive at pushing these companies though. Apple's greatest achievement was convincing carriers to give up of lots of crap In order to get the iPhone.
Cyanogenmod targets a surprisingly limited number of devices, and they tend to be the same high-end "flagship" models that get official updates anyway.
At least, that's my experience as a user of a Samsung Intercept -- a phone that's very popular because it was the first Android available on a prepaid plan, but which (AFAIK) still isn't supported by Cyanogenmod.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
First Slashdot response in maybe five years here. Wow, that chart is misleading. My girlfriend bought a 3G from an Apple store. Support died in her SECOND year. It's not "years since initial release" that counts; it's "years since last unit sold retail", which is *enormously* more telling. Apple sucks at this, while all of the Android devices I know have gotten 2+ years support from last retail date.
Windows gets blamed for keeping so much antiquated code, to be able to run across such a wide range of platforms.
CPU manufacturers get shit for keeping their chips backward compatible.
Apple gets major shit for tying everything together into one microverse.
And now we are upset that we can't have both.
Please tell me how the fuck we can:
1) Keep the CPU die small
while
2) Keeping backward compatibility
while
3) Allowing forward compatibility
while
4) Providing an OS framework that will work on devices made years ago
Please... I'm fairly certain there's a business model in there. Then I can take it, get rich and become /s
one of the uncaring fucks that make up the 1%.
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
Most vendors love and [ab]use techniques of artificial obsolescence which, shockingly, includes most vendors of hardware with Android who shamelessly stuff it up with incompatible, bloated and/or locked versions ?
Who would have thought of such a thing ?!
Actually, no corporation wants users of its products to use them at their full potential or to uncover more of such in them as if those users owned the products (which they do, but to have some rights over them those rights have to be upheld. which they, universally, don't). Especially, not after designated product life-time is up which doesn't come from product qualities so much as from business planning.
And all those excuses about "ARM boards being oh-so much different and software quirks for them being oh-so much incompatible" are bullshit. On "Oh-So Big Problem" pedestal this kind of picture looks laughable. If those companies really would want to overcome this they have would done it in a blink of an eye.
How many international organizations and foundations are out there where all or most of those ARM-board vendors have membership in ? And they are not capable of coming up with basic hardware enumeration standard and universal portable BIOS concept if they'd wanted to ? Bullshit.
Whole concept of Artificial Obsolescence is ugly, unethical crap. This is not okay. Too bad that, apparently, writers of the article don't have much problem with it. Instead they are not happy about support being dropped even before the end of presumable commercial life-time of these devices.
who dares wins