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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."
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
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?)
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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.
Because every ARM board is unique, and there is no universal means for an OS to determine hardware capabilities and peripherals.
On the PC we have the BIOS, PCI, ACPI, and a number of other facilities that work well enough that the OS can automatically enumerate the hardware and configure itself to operate on the platform. With ARM devices, even between two boards with the same SoC you'll have peripherals connected via different GPIOs, interrupts on different pins, a wide array of voltage regulators (some more, some less, all connected differently.)
And since everything is stored in a flash chip at a custom location, working with the kernel and bootloader is a lot like working with the BIOS on your pc- if you mess it up, your device is screwed (unless it can cold flash, has a hard ROM for flashing, or accessible JTAG, all of which are extremely rare on consumer level devices.)
But even if you have all of the above taken care of, the complete lack of effort on behalf of Google and the hardware vendors to getting their changes upstream in the kernel generally means that porting newer versions of Android to older devices is a pain in the ass due to needing to rework or sometimes rewrite the drivers. Normally they would be updated and tested by people as the kernel moved forward, but instead they rot in tarballs and zip files out on vendor websites.
Never mind Google's wacky reworking of the file system. I'm sure devices like the Nexus One have plenty of space to store ICS. But their broken layout and insistence on storing applications on that NAND instead of having a higher capacity internal NAND or only storing applications on the SD card is a large part of this problem as well.
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
That same 90% won't care about upgrading to the next version of Android and may not even know it exists.
She might not want to upgrade, but she *needs* to upgrade, to fix security vulnerabilities.
That's the #1 problem here.
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)
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.
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.
This is sad, but this is true.
If you watch Triumph of the Nerds, you'll have an idea, why PCs are so open: because IBM tried to rush the product out of the door and open interface and interchangeable parts from different manufactures was their only option. IIRC, Larry Ellison calls this decision to basically open everything "the huge business mistake" in this very movie too.
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!"