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For Android Users, 2012 Is Still the Year of Gingerbread
First time accepted submitter brocket66 writes with this excerpt from BGR: "Three major revisions of Google's Android operating system have launched since the company released Android 2.3 more than 21 months ago in December 2010, but Gingerbread is still the most widely used version of Android by a wide margin. A study conducted early this year by graphic designer Chris Sauve projected that based on Android adoption trends up to that point, Android 2.3 Gingerbread would be the dominant version of Android in 2012 despite the fact that Android 3.0 Honeycomb and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich had already been released. Now, as the fourth quarter of 2012 approaches, data from Google's Android version distribution tracker confirms once again that those projections were accurate."
1.3 million Android activations a day. I guess we like it this way.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
But I paid hard earned money for my phone. I'm not ready to buy a new one yet. Now maybe if more Android phones were upgradeable to newer operating systems, I might run some newer software on my phone.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
http://www.cyanogenmod.com/devices
You have to root and upgrade yourself, but the devices can handle it just fine. So back to lazy phone carriers not working with device manufacturers on year old handsets.
captcha: suspend
Why mess with a good thing? Most users do not need or want to upgrade. If the phone works, then an upgrade presents real danger of making it worse, not better.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
honeycomb is only for tablets, not cell phones, so it makes sense. Blame the cell carriers/ 3rd parties for the holdup 4.0 is not even being rolled out to some 90% of phones that are already out there, therefore it only makes sense that 2.3 is the dominant flavor
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I've been assuming the reason there are lots of 1.x and 2.x phones out there just had to do with the fact there are a lot of low-end Android phones for sale. I figured ICS and JB had fairly stiff hardware requirements. Is that not correct?
#DeleteChrome
On the consumer side, 90% of smart phone customers don't use even 15% of what their devices are capable of doing. For most consumers, the questions, "Can it go online?", "Can it make phone calls and send texts?", "Does it have some stupid little games I can put on it to pass the time when I'm bored?", and "Does it work reasonably well without being too confusing for me to figure out" are all they care about. That functionality has been available long before android 2.3 even hit the scene, never mind 4.0.
The average consumer doesn't understand nor care about the differences between OS versions on really anything, computers, smartphones, whatever. As long as it does that one thing(s) that they want, most are satisfied. Now if they're exposed to a new feature from a new version they might grow to like it and use it, but chances are unless they're already a techie and looking into that sort of thing, most users won't care about it until there's some game/app/thing they want to do with their current device/OS and can't. Plus, unless they happen to be fairly tech savvy and aren't afraid of voiding warranties and what not the consumer is at the whim of their device manufacturers and carriers to get them updated software. So it's no surprise most people just stick with what they have if it works 'good enough'
From a manufacturer point of view they've already sold the product, maintaining updates costs them money, so they're disinclined to spend money on a product that's already sold. There's some work done on flagship products, and maybe a little bit just to earn enough goodwill with their customers that they'll keep coming back, but like all corporations they balance expenses for 'customer service' very carefully. For most corporations, customer service isn't about doing what's right for the customer, it's about doing enough to keep most of the customers happy, but not cost the company a fortune.
There's a little more incentive on the carrier's end to keep things updated, since their customers are paying for a service, not for hardware, and I'm sure that there's some push from the carriers to get their devices updated. But even then that costs money, so it's really only going to be their most popular devices that get attention, and less popular ones will fall by the wayside.
Tl;dr most people figure if it ain't broke, don't fix it
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Cyanogenmod is available for maybe 25% of android devices sold in models, probably less than 10% in number. For my android device, there are severe trouble with the phone/wifi firmware (wifi sometimes doesn't work when you have a SIM inserted) and camera (not supported by native camera app). There is no support for that from the CM team since it's an unofficial port and obviously, the hardware vendor and telco don't support it either.
Apple supports firmware updates including full hardware support for about 3 years at least. You may not always get all new features, but at least you get the security updates. Google does not mandate any such term from their vendors, they are fine with "fire and forget". In practice, this makes devices with the same quality and features in hardware less worth if they're not running iOS. You may not want to spend iOS money on a device, but if you have to add in the security risk and frustration about the lack of support and McGyvering you will probably be subjected to, the price difference may suddenly not be that big anymore.
Android vendors get away with putting on their own "improved" UI, which usually isn't that much of an improvement, but makes it harder for people to switch phone because the UI is different. There's no signature "it works this way and looks that way" OS on Android phones, making it harder to market them.
If Google wants to really get ahead, for Android 5 they should mandate 3 years upgrade support from vendors and telco's (within 1 month after general release) and no customization apart from optional addons that can be switched off by the user. People that spend a lot of money on a device or a "sponsored" telco deal should be able to enjoy their device a whole lot better and marketing the devices would be a lot easier as well, making it more justifiable to pay top dollar for such a device.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Probably, in numbers, the amount of devices still sold with Android 2.2 and 2.3 is still higher than the amount of devices sold with 4.X. Even tablets are usually sold with either 2.X or 4.X, not with 3.0. So no, it doesn't make sense, new devices are being sold in the millions with known vulnerable software on them.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
My Galaxy S2 got an update to 4.0, but it wasn't available OTA, only by connecting the phone to Samsung's KIES software.
My wifes's Motorola phone got an update to 2.3 just a couple of month's ago (yes, 2.3, not 4.0), but again, it wasn't available OTA -- only by using Motorola's software on a PC.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Google sells bare phones direct to consumers. Really good, well supported models with lots of high end features. Consumers have the choice to buy these, or defer the large upfront cost of the phone over a year by paying higher monthly rates. I've had my Nexus S for almost three years and it's paid for itself (actually I'm about $60 ahead at this point) by choosing a plan that reflects my up front purchase cost. Telcos are taking advantage of lazy consumers, but there are also competitors in the market who are serving more informed consumers. There's nothing to worry about here.
moox. for a new generation.
could they stop naming the operating system to appeal to six-year-old girls? That is probably not their best target demographic.
"Three major revisions of Google's Android operating system have launched..."
Really? I thought it was just one major revision.
"Android 3.0" was for tablets only. Perhaps, they should just have called it "Android 2.0 Tablet edition", which was really what it was. Take "Windows XP 32bit" users for example, it's not like they complained when "Windows XP for Netbook" came out, or when "Windows XP 64bit" came out.
And Jellybeans is just Android 4.1. That's not a major revision, that's a just minor one, hence the ".1" and the minor number of changes compared to Ice Cream Sandwich version - Android 4.0.
While not officially supported, many phones have working, mostly working, or partially working builds of ICS and JB. I was on a Droid2 before I decided to get a Galaxy Nexus for the fact it has an unlocked bootloader, even over the SIII, but the Droid2 ran ICS like a top, though some hardware acceleration issues existed. The ICS build by some user on RootzWiki was still far better, smoother, faster, and had better battery life than the GB build that came on it by motorola.
See XDA and RootzWiki with your GB phones, and see about getting a better build on there...of course, I roll my own anymore, and run JB on my Gnex, even though it's not been released yet officially for my phone (vzw).
Perhaps the fact that we cannot ourselves (easily) update our tablets and phones says something about how much control we've lost on our devices? That scares me. If i buy one of the new style of laptop-tablet hybrid, can I expect the same? Will this not easily cut years of value off these things, and slow down the software ecosystem?
I had an _expensive_ Window Phone. Then Microsoft told me I could not upgrade my 6 months old phone to WP8. I felt so cheated, and still do. I will never buy another. It is such a disrespect for the customer.
I'm not aware of any data from Apple, but several devs publish their stats. Bloggers periodically aggregate the whole thing and make pretty graphs. Here's what things looked like last March:
http://pxldot.com/18754186750
Amazing! That's almost two years!! How can they stand to use anything so ancient?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Samsung Galaxy Player.
I would buy an Android powered Blackberry curve in a second. I loved my Blackberry to death, but using it made me feel like I had an Apple II in my pocket, when everyone else had a sparcstation. Dat keyboard.... to this day I'm still slower (even with Swype, Swiftkey, etc... I've tried them all) on a touchscreen than I ever was on my physical keyboard blackberry. Sadly the only android phones that come with a physical keyboard are marketed towards teenagers and thus manufactured as one grade up from trash.
moox. for a new generation.
1)Too many versions too quickly.
Thus is life in the mobile world...
That's not how it should be. iPhone releases 1 phone per year, which includes 1 major OS upgrade to all prior phones of the past 2+ years (covering all carrier contract timeframes). All other mnaufacturers release so many phones that they can't keep up on software upgrades, and by the time that 1-2 year timeframe hits, that phone feels ancient. It's not exactly an optimal customer experience.
As a customer I specifically make phone purchases based on the odds of getting new android updates. At first I thought Samsung would do it, they failed me. Then I thought HTC would, and they failed too. Now I'm back to Samsung, and frankly the situation is even worse... even the Google branded phones have serious upgrade lag. Manufacturers blame it on the carrier, carriers blame it on the manufacturer. In the U.S. anyway, I've resigned to a best case scenario of getting a single upgrade in the first 6 months of the phones existence then spend the next 18 months watching several new Android releases come and do without being able to experience any more upgrades until my contract finally expires. It's just a big stalemate.
My phone came with 2.2 and I have upgraded all the way to the latest Jelly Bean. Here's a hint: only buy Samsung or straight from Google. Maybe Motorola will finally stop being jerks now that Google owns them and have an upgrade path, but my next device will be a Nexus 7 straight from Google.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.