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Android Update Alliance Already Struggling
adeelarshad82 writes "Earlier this year many Android phone vendors and U.S. wireless carriers made a long-awaited promise, which was to push timely OS updates to all new Android phones. Seven months in and especially with the release of Google Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), PCMag decided to reach out to all those vendors and wireless carriers to see how things were coming along. Brace yourselves Android fans, you're not going to like the responses."
Android is dead!
Call social services because Google seems unfit to be an unfit parent. A very wealthy, unfit parent.
Why is anyone surprised? A pledge, not backed up by, say, a money-back guarantee, is meaningless. If these people could get a refund for their phones if they weren't updated, the "pledge" would have teeth. This is why nobody trusts companies who pledge not to sue over patents. This is why people didn't trust AT&T about their merger pledges. Pledges are just for PR and they mean nothing.
Android is more like a collection of related but not entirely compatible operating systems. The inability to have a consistent version of the operating system across current smartphones is really surprising for something that's supposed to be an open source project, but one of the big drawbacks of Android is how much control Google gives the carriers over your phone.
eventually hacks and other methods will allow you to update your android device but if you wanted a seamless experience you shouldve got an iphone. multi vendor ecosystems dont support monolithic upgrades.
you knew that when you bought it anyway.
Why do you think Steve Jobs pushed to hard with AT&T and demanded full control over the OS? So shit like this wouldn't happen with the iPhone platform.
Money grubbing cell carriers would rather have your device locked down, so if you want the latest features, you buy a new phone.
And yet people are still surprised that Android is becoming more fragmented every day. The drawing has been on the wall since the launch of the the OS.
It seems to me that phone vendors have not changed their mindset from the pre-smartphone era. Back then, no one cared about OS or version. You got an integrated product and it never changed. Today, it feels like phone makers still think "we put it together and ship it - this idea of later changing or upgrading the software is kind of weird to us."
To them, a phone is complete and unchangeable one it leaves the factory. Alas for their mindset, consumers see phones as customizable, upgradeable devices. If they were $50 each, sure, just replace it, but at $500+ (even if it's stretched over two years), people are making a more significant investment and don't want to be left behind.
Looking for a job in Portland, Oregon?
Still Android 2.3.4, just some crappy system Verizon version 5.5.893.XT75.Verizon.en.US
I was so hopeful.
All the phones I've owned, at least 10 of them have been obsolete before I had them. I don't have the expectation that my phone has the latest OS. I am currently using a work-issued blackberry curve 9300. People chuckle at it, but it is functional enough I don't spring for a second phone.
I was hoping Google would be good about backwards-compatible updates but I am not surprised. Hardware changes so much it seems hard to make the OS compatible across all platforms. I don't get why people are so worked up about it. Your phone does what it does when you were all excited about it a few months ago, what's the big deal?
Man, you really need that seminar!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
(Posting AC from work)
It's simple - if you want a (smart)phone that will have a regularly-updated OS and new features as they become available, then the only choice is the iPhone. If you don't want an iPhone and don't mind an OS that will probably be out of date the day you buy the phone, then Android is the only viable choice (I'm certainly not going to suggest a Blackberry or a Windows phone...). Seriously, there are many reasons for it but the simple reality is that an Android phone is almost certainly going to be out of date very quickly and will almost certainly never be upgraded to the latest OS (if it ever gets upgraded at all) while the iPhone OS _will_ remain current for 3 years after the device's launch at which point it will start lagging but very few people use 3-year-old phones so that doesn't really matter to most users...
* All of that is covered under the implied caveat of "short of you jailbreaking/rooting your device and doing whatever you want with it...:"
dont start posts saying "the main problem is.."
because there is no problem. You wouldn;'t be that surprised
about the 'delays' when you know how much time it takes before
any product reaches it final consumers when multiple components are
involved in the supply chain. The problem is with the everyone setting unrealistic
expectations comparing with Apple. Google releasing the OS is equivalent to NVIDIA/Intel
saying on its website about their newest processor - which you wont be finding in your
laptop/phone until a year later.
And this is the main reason why my next smartphone will be another iPhone. I have a bit of lock-in because of my existing apps, but that's less than $100, so I would not mind switching to something more free. Currently I'm still on my 2.5 years old iPhone 3GS, for as least as long as it still gets updates and the battery is good.
Stories like this give me very little in Android, Google might lose to Microsoft what it gained the last couple of years very quickly.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
I'm replacing my Droid Incredible next month, and this very issue is steering me towards an iPhone 4S even though I'm generally happy with other aspects of Android.
If I'm locked into a contract for 2 years for a phone, I don't think it's incredibly unreasonable to expect updates (especially ones that relate to security, stability, or performance) for at least 18 months.
i mean, there are just so many clones! who knows what bus you use, is it ISA? EISA? PCI? what kind of memory does it use, EMS or XMS? which version of DOS do you want, 4 or 5? what about Windows -- windows 3 or WFW?
there are just too many choices, too many options. the X86 based PC platform is dead. and so is the x86 processor.
this is 1986 for crying out loud. people want stuff that is easy to use. not junk that you have to fiddle around with.
Screw their pledge, just let us root our phones easily. CyanogenMod has treated me better than any carrier or handset maker, and it will never ever come with Carrier IQ: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/blog/cyanogenmod-will-never-have-carrier-iq
They plan Ice Cream Sandwich via CM9 for almost any CM7 (current version of CM) compatible phone they already support, except for really old models like the G1.
I8-D
My favorite part of posting on Slashdot over the years has been getting accused of being other people by angry, anonymous neckbeards. The tally of other people I'm supposed to be at this point must number in the dozens.
To answer your question, I don't care enough about smartphone operating systems to post angry, anonymous messages about them. I do, however, care about the fact that Linux once had a non-trivial chance at gaining desktop marketshare and squandered it. You can't create a stable long-term platform while embracing chaos. It's incompatible.
Who is responsible for updating or providing updates, the manufactures of the phone or the carriers? With the iPhone we know its the manufactures job to update the phone, which Apple does for all phones that can run the latests update. This article goes into asking manufactures and carriers what they are going to do specifically for each phone. Ultimately it has to be one or the other that needs to be doing updates for the phones. I would figure it would be the manufactures that would be doing most of the lifting in this case with the carriers adding their interfaces and other stuff later on causing only a small delay in pushing the updates out. I don't think it looks horrible on Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T when something isn't running the latest OS, but it does on the manufactures in my eye. Because the Carrier in my mind is really only responsible for phone and data on the phone, the software that runs on the phone it is the manufactures responsibility.
Still crying over how Apple destroyed any profit in the non-Apple cellphone market?
Owning 30% of the market while only selling two generation models at any one time is hardly a failure for Apple. Considering that there are dozens upon dozens of different Android models it's only natural they'd have more market share.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence If you can understand French this video explains a bit more : http://rzr.online.fr/q/obsolete
-- http://rzr.online.fr/
New commercial- Bunch of geeks waiting in line in front of a brick wall. Hot chick (barista?) walks by. One geek goes "Whoah, whats that?". Hot chick shows them her iPhone and says "My phone just updated this morning, third update since I bought it!". "Wow," says one nerd, "we've been in line for an update over a year now!". One nerd uncomfortably slouches off out of the line... Etc.
This is why I always recommend sticking to the google controlled nexus series. google has complete control, carriers or the manufacturers themselves can't even lock it. Its the reference platform for apps and to top it all off, updates come quick.
My Nexus one always had timely updates, it still competes with modern day non-nexus phones and iPhone wasn't even a competitor for what Nexus One offered.
Just upgraded to Galaxy Nexus and its is a good phone, real good.
I work heavily with Android devices. I'm not surprised carriers and manufacturers are not keeping their devices up to date. It is a little hard to do that when Google keeps changing the fundamental design of the platform every major release.
Why would you move from 2.x to say 3.x or 4.x if that means that the buttons on your device are now redundant, and the screen real estate has shrunken because of a new application bar that cannot be disabled via apps unless the device is rooted?
Companies are doing exactly what my company is doing, sticking with 2.x and just modifying it ourselves for new stuff we need. It is Open Source, so if companies don't like the horrid design mistakes of 3.x and 4.x, then they are just going to stick with 2.x. Most of the newer additions aren't that impressive anyway.
...says the bitter Android humping teen who won't be getting the Ice Cream Sandwich mom promised him...
I am looking to buy my first smartphone. The #1 reason I heard to get the Nexus Galaxy from Verizon and Best Buy was it has Ice Cream Sandwich. It shouldn't be a point of advertisement. #2 was that Nexus is Google's phone so it will always receive updates first. I'm not sure if that's actually true.
One more reason why our industry fucking sucks. I hate America. I don't hate the people, I hate everything that runs our country, which gets 100% say on what happens in and outside our country. This is why I support Occupy.. if only they would get themselves organized before Obama co-opts the movement.
...and iOS 5.0 supports my two-and-a-half year old iPhone 3GS.
Can someone tell me if any Android-based phone of that age is still supported by any vendor? Rail against Apple all you want, but the fact is that iPhones are supported longer than any Android-based phones. It's not iPhone buyers that are compelled to rush to the store to buy the newest model. It's Android-based phone users that are flavor-of-the-week... because they have no choice.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
At least the 3rd Google smearing article on slashdot today.
What is the practical impact of ICS not being pushed to your phone? Would your phone be better with ICS? Are you sure?
Must we have a "news" story every time somebody at Google, or a Google partner, farts? As in: "OMFG!!! SOMEBODY AT GOOGLE FARTED!!! EVIL!!!!! JUST PLAIN EVIL!!!! IM GOING WITH MS/APPLE NOW!!!! IM SICK OF THIS BULLSHIT!!!"
To be clear: I am *NOT* an Apple fan. In fact, I won't own an iThing... well I have a Mac mini collecting dust but that's all.
Apple CONTROLS its phones. From the beginning, it used its exclusivity with AT&T as a means to assure that AT&T would let them (mostly) have their way with the user experience of the device. And since the variety of the devices are very limited, making updates to the OS of the device is a bit more simple and is user controlled through iTunes. (Can iThings even get OTA updates?)
Android manufacturers and the carriers are otherwise DOING IT WRONG. Between the two, they each blame the other for delays and these delays cause frustration for the users but also end up as additional new sales of new devices which is seemingly the only way to get "updates" these days if at all.
So why do the makers want to delay?
1. take developer time away from "new" things
2. encourage the sale of new devices
So why do carriers want to delay?
1. they want to keep shopping for new and creative ways to resell their customers by adding new bloatware and spying apps
2. encourage the sale of new devices and extended subscriber commitments
Of course they won't admit to any of these reasons but they should be obvious to anyone paying attention.
Um, Verizon blocked Google Wallet, as they are working on a propriety - and no doubt to be a crap and insecure - competing service.
Maybe it was just my 3GS, but it's inability to get reception was frightening. I would regularly have to walk outside my flat and down the road just to get a signal, and when it cut out on me during a telephone interview, I knew it had to go.
Whenever it cut off when I was talking to a recruitment agent I would simply say "Sorry, I have an iPhone" and they sympathised.
I now have a Desire S and will never go back to Apple. Sure, it might have just been that I had a dodgy phone, but I wasn't prepared to lock myself into another 24 month contract just to find out.
Android is open source so if you don't like it, download the code, build it, root your phone, and flash it on yourself. Nobody even really needs updates anyway, most cellphone customers are idiots and just text and play angry birds and don't know what an OS version even is. This is just FUD spread by Apple fanbois jealous of a device that doesnt require you to beg permission and fellate $teve Jobs' corpse before installing anything.
Yes. Thats why Apple release Siri for older phones. Its because they dont want you to buy the latest iProduct.
No, that's because Siri is beta and they want to tune the thing with a reasonable amount of load before they push it out to all iOS5 owners.
I'm sure there's some degree of marketing behind the choice as well, but the fact is that it's a technically sound choice with a good reason behind it as long as Siri eventually makes it to all iOS5 owners.
I expect we'll see that mid-year, though it may not support the 3GS (that may lack the CPU to handle the audio encoding fast enough to get it to the server in a reasonable time).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can understand an update if your device costs real money, but I don't expect they will upgrade a $100 (or less) device, it's not commercial sense. They do zero upgrades because it keeps the device cost-competitive.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Google is the new Microsoft creating a platform of ass and reaping billions for it in spite of themselves
hmm, except for the whole open source, free license, unlocked bootloaders, etc......
jsut for mentioning VLB i think you should get a $500 christmas present
It handles it quite well in the FaceTime app while also encoding video, Voice Recorder app, and the [hacked] Siri app before it was pulled during the iPhone 4S launch.
Possibly, but I think you discounting the possibility Apple is doing extra analysis client side before sending.
All of that is irrelevant to my main argument though, that the reason Siri is only on the 4s at the moment is they are managing server load before a wider rollout. Now they have a much better idea how much server processing power they really need to enable Siri for all iOS5 devices that can support it.
I loved my iPhone 3GS, and my iPhone 4, but I recognize the writing on the wall. And that writing is starting to say, "no Siri,"
Siri is too big a marketing draw for Apple to keep it off at least the iPhone 4 if possible. That is why I am pretty sure we'll see Siri rolled into wider iOS5 support in an update.
Siri is a brand new thing for Apple and I think we owe them a little leeway to get the thing worked out properly before we start declaring it's only market that is controlling Siri not being on the iPhone 4.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It was actually *three* chances at gaining market share -
1. the squandered time while XP was getting long in the tooth and virus-encrusted;
2. the missed opportunity that Vista gave all competitors - Apple sure made hay with their "I'm a PC - I'm a Mac" ads in 2007;
3. the upcoming XP EOL date - anyone wanting to capture that business (and there ARE businesses who are stuck on XP and would be willing to pay $$$) would have to get serious about making something (much) better than WINE and crossover. Instead, everyone's tinkering with the desktop UIs, chasing after the sexier (if you're trying to create an "exit strategy" to recoup some of your investment in a money-losing distro) but far less profitable (unless you're an iPad manufacturer or Samsung - just ask RIM and HP) tablet market.
Funny how the only serious competition to Windows is based on the "dying" *BSD. For the over $1 billion that HP blew on Palm and WebOS, they could have made a much better bsd-based system that would have, because it could be closed off, allowed them to dictate that vendors maintain compatibility. Because Apple sure didn't spend a billion on developing Darwin.
A reliable list of android devices and companies that are upgradable and not would help.
Funny, I thought it was "the entire lineup of dozens of phones" made / powered by Google that was just eking out a win over "the single version of a single model of phone that Apple is currently selling."
When you look at it that way, it sounds more like Google and their partners are just flooding the market with crap handsets that barely work and get shit long-term support, and calling it a "major win" while Apple continues to rake in the vast majority of profits.
Or did I miss something where Google was making billions off of Android?
We are talking about phones here. Relax, kid.
I've always really wanted Android to be great. The ideas are pretty solid, and when each new version comes out, it does compete pretty well with the current version of IOS. Unfortunately, by the time I buy the phone, the Android is almost GUARANTEED to be out of date. And from the carrier's point of view, "You already bought the damn phone, what do I care if you get to update to the newest version?" Not to mention that with all the different hardware that supports Android, there's not telling which phones will even support the newest version (in it's entirety at least.)
On this front, I must concede that Apple got it right. By narrowing down the options, but trying to make an overall solid product, I am more likely to go for an iPhone / Ipod over anything else, especially if I'm a normal consumer.
That being said, over either previous option, I would rather have and Android phone with CyanogenMod. But most consumers don't want to deal with jailbreaking and installing roms and such.
nexus and G phones, even the ones bought from google, are not immune to this.
They are as good as any other unlocked phone. that is, you pay $700 for the privilege of installing CyanogenMod
Samsung said galaxy phones.. then they state about phones that werent answered for... which are galaxy phones.....
At home depot it means that they'll meet (or beat) a lower price from another store on an identical item.
It really wouldn't bloat things all that badly, it's just that the way the ARM arch is set up in the kernel source it's hard to build in support for many different types of hardware simultaneously. This is partly due to how wacky a lot of the embedded stuff is in order to save a few cents on the hardware.
Linus has actually complained about this and the manufacturers are slowly starting to agree on "standard" ways of doing things.
Just spent an hour on the phone with Verizon, speaking with
Verizon Wireless - Katie (refused to give either last name or her employee ID)
Katie had absolutely no information on the next version releases, nor did she have any way to send request for this to be implemented. She called Motorola support @ 800-734-5870 with me on the line:
@Motorola: Kent, employee #352669 created a case ref # 111217-009859
No information yet except for the models provided, supervisor refused to speak with me on the phone.
Apparently just a run-around, without any info. I'm thinking of switching to another carrier/manufacturer.
so that people can upgrade the OS themselves.
Upgrade it with what exactly? There are several phones on the market with a completely unlocked bootloader. Yet it took an immense amount of work from a significant group of hackers for various versions of Android to run acceptably on such unlocked phones. A phone is not a computer. You don't install an OS then go download drivers from the internet to make all you bits work. Each operating system for a phone need a specific driver set provided for that phone only because the OS can work. It's absurd to the point where Samsung Captivate kernels won't work on a Vibrant or the Galaxy S international even though from the outside they appear to be the same phone just for different vendors.
That is the fundamental problem, not locked down phones. It's also those drivers which the manufacturers are painfully slow to provide.
Just like how the thousands of linux distributions have flooded windows out of the market!
Did you reach out to them (were they sat next to you?), or did you email them?
Google did not destroy Apple's place in the market. The big loser to Android was Symbian, which was phased out by Nokia and held the top spot when Android came out, not iOS.
You must also keep in mind that all iPhones are high-end smartphones whereas Android powers quite a number of budget devices.
Finally, Google has admitted that 2/3 of its mobile hits come from iOS devices. I think that means a lot more about the platforms' real success than their market shares, and let us not even get started with app store revenues!
"eFuse strikes again...
ADK requires Android 2.3.4 & after nearly a year of waiting, Motorola only recently graced me with Android 2.3.3...
Unless the new Google ownership is interested in righting past wrongs, it looks like I'm gonna need a different development phone. Guess which brand name I won't be buying it from?
Motorola has permanently lost this customer.
-If you are looking for a phone to watch youtube, feel free to buy their products.
-If you want a phone which isn't artificially obsolete the day after you buy it & allows you to keep pace with changing technology, I'd encourage you to run as far and fast away from Motorola as possible.
Who knows? APM Ground Control station may someday be released as an Android app.
Imagine the feeling when you find out the phone you bought less than 1 month ago won't run it because it requires a kernel version +0.0.1 higher than Motorola has decided to let you have.
For the next 2 years your shiny new phone is a bitter reminder of the miserable customer service you received when you called asking for information.
Warn friends & family:
"Motorola: the brand of disappointment and helplessness."
Buyer's remorse? Despair is more like it."
http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/phonedrone-android-interface-board-now-available?xg_source=activity&id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A732882&page=3#comments
Considering that there are dozens upon dozens of different Android models it's only natural they'd have more market share.
There really is no logical causation between having many models and marketshare, no matter how often it is repeated.
If there were, everyone would just release more models.
There are many models of tablets that run non-Apple operating systems. Apple out sells them combined by 2-1.
He was right in one way that fragmentation of the android market is hurting android devices, owners, and longevity of the product. Unfourtunatly, i think its too far gone now...
Is what should be done with Android, is that google maintains the core of the OS, including UI. Than like a proper computer, handset manufacturers would simply load drivers ontop of core of the OS to support features of the device, much like a PC. Of course since its based on linux, it would be hard to do since anyone could compile and butcher the code as they please and bypass google if they so desired, i suppose.
Google did not destroy Apple's place in the market. The big loser to Android was Symbian, which was phased out by Nokia and held the top spot when Android came out, not iOS.
You must also keep in mind that all iPhones are high-end smartphones whereas Android powers quite a number of budget devices.
this.
android wants to compete with iphone, but actually it is in the process of squeezing out low and mid tier cellphones. while iphone reigns supreme at the high end.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Android is pretty much becoming a joke. Phones are too expensive for half baked software from companies (including Google) who don't like supporting customers.
was that the predge only applied for 4.x and onwards. That is, 2.x devices where not covered by the pledge but 4.x not only had the pledge but also had technical changes done to make it easier to push updates.
But the main problem is using Apple products as the template for how things should be. This because Apple has the ability to work on something under cover until they are ready to release. In contrast the Google way is not that dissimilar from the Microsoft way regarding windows. How long has Microsoft been talking about Windows 8 now? That Google announce a new Android version do not mean the same as when Apple announce a new iOS version. It will be much healthier mentally if one think of Android in the same way as one do Windows. And i suspect the time between Android versions will grow longer as Google runs out of low handing fruits to include, much like the multiple years between Windows releases.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Worked with 3 ipads this week from friends and family.. Not one was running iOS 5.. Fragmentation is everywhere, none of them even knew what it was, only that apps were no longer avail for their devices because :-)
It's not actually even 30% for iPhone, at least the sales seem to be about 15% of all the new phones (and dropping quarter by quarter compared to other phones)
Source: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1848514