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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
CyanogenMod breathed a whole new life into my 2 year old Nexus one. It was snappier, appeared to get battery life and had a whole host of awesome new features. The only reason I finally upgraded to a newer phone was because the power button broke (again!) and the headphone jack wore out. If you're sitting on an older Android device, consider trying CM. It really turns your phone into a geeksphone.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
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
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
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?
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!
"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.
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.