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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."
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.
Because old versions often have bugs, some of which are security holes. Given the frequency with which remotely exploitable bugs appear in the Linux kernel, leaving a large number of devices with an unpatched two-year-old kernel is just asking for someone to build a botnet out of them. A very lucractive botnet, as all it needs to do is make all of the phones make one spurious call to a premium rate number for a minute and the botnet author can retire.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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?
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.
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
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)?
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".
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?
most people wipe the stock image as soon as they get it home and put a better build on it.
I do this, you do this, most people do not.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
A fractured platform is hell for developers and hell for security. By all means, don't worry about it if you don't care about developer relations, having nice apps on your platform, having consistently-behaving apps on your platform, or not giving your CC info to Russian hackers.
That same 90% won't care about upgrading to the next version of Android and may not even know it exists.
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
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.
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?
The iPhone 3G did get software updates, up to the latest version of 4, but it really is just not capable of running iOS5 (it was barely capable of running iOS4)
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.
No, like the 3GS which still got iOS5 even though it came out over two years ago (27months). As opposed to the mentioned Nexus One which only came out 21 months ago. So even though the 3GS came out 6 months BEFORE the Nexus One, it still gets the latest update of iOS5 as opposed to the Nexus One NOT getting ICS
Apple supports $currentPhone $currentPhone-1 and $currentPhone-2 with updates. We can see that is NOT the case with the Nexus Phones from Google.
I know you're trying to be smart, mentioning the iPhone 3G since that didn't get iOS 5, but that also was released before even the first Android phone, so it's not a fair comparison.
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.
The iPhone 3G got iOS 4 alright, but many, many people complained about how awful the performance was.
...And then someone here pointed out that iOS 4 was necessary for Apple's new "iAd" system to work.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Are you arguing against the need for any kind of OS updates? Still running a 10 year old version of Linux/Windows/Mac OS?
New versions often fix bugs, improve security or performance, and sometimes actually do add new features, which may be used by new apps that you might want to use. I'm not going to discuss the relative merits of iOS and Android as OS, but I think it's abundantly clear that Apple supports their phones with software updates, while many Android manufacturers don't. And apparently even Google is not dropping the ball with the Nexus One.
I'm definitely disappointed, because I have always had great hopes about Android, but it seems the companies involved are determined to undermine the customers' trust in their products.
iOS 5: cloud storage, ARC, Storyboards, GLKit, Core Image, twitter, Core Bluetooth
iOS 4.2: Printing, Air Play, Core MIDI
iOS 4.1: Game Center
iOS 4: multitasking, local notifications, event kit, Core Motion, Core Telephony, iAd, high res screen support, AV Foundation, Assets Library, Core Media, Core Video, Blocks, Grand Central Dispatch, Accelerate framework
iOS 3.2: iPad changes, Core Text
iOS 3.1: Video Editing
iOS 3.0: cut/copy/paste, push notifications, accessory framework, in app purchase, game kit, maps api, Core Data, Message UI Framework, Open GL ES 2.0,
That excludes all the updates and enhancements to the existing frameworks.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Hey, I have an iPhone 3G and it's just fine on iOS 4.2.1. I use it every day, run apps as needed including games, and I haven't noticed anything being particularly slow or unuseable.
Examples please?
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.
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!"
It can't in this case. The battery will die from heat before the CPU overheats. Batteries are not generally under any warranty/
You have clearly very little experience with these devices.
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.
More recently, CVE-2011-1076 is less serious but can potentially be used to make man in the middle attacks very easy if you're on a public network. CVE-2011-1776 is not remotely exploitable, but it does mean that any SD card that you plug in to your device may inject code into the kernel. CVE-2011-2723 is another one that lets remote attackers crash the machine. CVE-2011-1576 is probably not applicable to Android, but it's another remotely exploitable Linux kernel hole that allows memory corruption (any memory corruption bug is potentially an arbitrary code execution vulnerability).
That's four that I found in the Linux kernel (not counting any userland stuff) just by looking at the last couple of months of NVD logs. I'm sure you can find more if you check a whole year, let alone the lifetime of a mobile phone.
Sorry, I mean to say: Linux is perfect and has no bugs, certainly not any serious security holes...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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
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?
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."