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Android Policy For Nexus and Google Play Devices Updated To Excuse Carrier Delay
An anonymous reader writes: Google has quietly updated its Android update policy for both Nexus and Google Play edition devices. In short, if you bought either type of smartphone or tablet from a carrier, you may experience delays that result in waiting longer than two weeks to get the latest version. Google has tweaked the "Android updates: Nexus & Google Play edition devices" support page to add, "Based on your carrier, it may take longer than two weeks after release to get an update." It's worth emphasizing this won't stop you from downloading a given Android update directly from Google or your device's manufacturer, and installing it yourself on your device. This is mainly for over-the-air updates, which carriers can choose to delay on their own networks.
It's worth emphasizing this won't stop you from downloading a given Android update directly from Google or your device's manufacturer, and installing it yourself on your device.
Do Google and the devices' manufacturers even make downloadable updates available for CDMA2000 and CDMA2000/LTE devices, such as those used on Verizon, Sprint, and Sprint MVNOs? I thought they were just for devices designed to run on GSM/UMTS/LTE carriers.
You don't want Lollipop at this point. It has created a helluva lot of carnage for Nexus 7 2012 and 2013 users. My Nexus 7 was rendered all but unusable, and even a factory reset has only created moderate improvements.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Since my computer is on their network, will ISPs start delaying Windows Update too?
Was yours a 2013 or a 2012? I haven't updated mine yet (was trying to figure out if it was safe to accept the OTA update if I had rooted it with Towelroot...and I lost my train of thought and the notification disappeared), but now you have me worried.
Bottles.
Oh? What kind of stuff? I have a 2012 Nexus 7 ... at least, I think it's a 2012 version, I've lost track.
I haven't been offered the update, but I'm wondering about the kinds of problems you've had.
I don't want to "upgrade" only to find out I've ended up with a less usable device.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Coward isn't the only one, mine hasn't received it either. My Nexus4 just got it last week.
Though from the sounds of it, it's well advised to wait for a .1 release to come out.
Yup, stagger those updates so the ISPs don't have a big peak. ITS NOT FAIR! How do they choose who must wait UP TO TWO WEEKS? Probably start with the list of those that signed Obama's petition.
I demand action.
Having carriers be in charge of updating smartphone firmware negates any benefit you might get from having a device that often costs more than $500. This is specific to Android, since Apple made sure they had complete control of the OS and the update process on their phones.
Just to name one: security issues are constantly cropping-up in Android, and Google is constantly patching things. Except good luck getting AT&T or Verizon to provide the updates OTA. And if you're stuck with an older phone, says > 1 year. Good luck getting any update at all.
As far as the carrier is concerned, in order to update the firmware, buy a new phone. Except you've now deliberately left millions of people vulnerable to having their accounts compromised because you were too cheap/lazy to provide an update (which Google makes available, btw).
Either Google should unify Android, meaning make one version for all models (or at least models newer than 3 years) and make it available OTA or by download, or license Android to carriers on the strict condition that they provide updates to existing models at least every 6 moths.
This Sig does not Exist.
Well, after the Lollipop update, my 2012 Nexus was all but bricked. Booted up fine, but the minute I went into Chrome it just froze up. It might become somewhat usable after a few minutes, and it was during one of those moments that I managed to do a factory reset. It is working better, but Chrome can still seize up on script-heavy pages. Go to the Google Nexus 7 Product Forums and you will see plenty of tales of woe.
It isn't universal, but there are a helluva lot of Nexus 7 users, both 2012 and 2013, who have had serious problems with Lollipop.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You have to clear the data/cache from within recovery. Look it up, as I use CWM recovery and don't know how to do it in stock recovery.
Get the image straight from Google as TFS suggested and flash it manually.
https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images
I initially did that and it made very little improvement. In the end the factory reset was the only thing that brought the tablet back to life. Mind you, I don't have the Facebook app, and what I've been hearing is that can render Nexus 7 tablets pretty unusable under Lollipop even after a factory reset.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
My 2009 (IIRC) Android phone hasn't been updated since the first year, and is still running 2.somthing, I think. I should really buy a new phone one of these days (the glass has been cracked for a year now), but it seems such a frivolous expense.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Anecdotal evidence:
I bought a Nexus 7 2012 for my wife exactly the day Lollipop was released. It had 4.1 on it, or something. It offered OTA updates for several versions all the way to 4.4.4 that evening, and 3 days later offered a Lollipop update which I promptly accepted. Went on without a hitch, now she has a great, responsive tablet.
Others might have been unlucky, not me.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Let it go. Please.
Every useful site that discusses this already pointed out that these OTA releases are staged to avoid overwhelming networks (even your lame WiFi you steal from your neighbor) and to catch any problems before they blow it all out to every user.
Whiners asking 'why haven't its been so long i never get' apparently did not read any of these. Please go find a site that makes this clear, and stick to it for future useful information. The others, feh.
And, if you have not already seen (which I'm sure you haven't), 5.0.1 is released. Looks like 5.0 had enough problems for a maintenance update already. You should now breath a sigh of relief that you did not get an update, which would have annoyed you with any of the myriad nuisances out there.
My N7 2013 is still waiting also, and I decided not to sideload it. Now I'll wait for 5.0.1 to go through the GPE devices, then through the early update populations, and I bet it goes around pretty quickly. There is evidence that 5.0 had enough bugs that Google convinced the manufacturers to hold off and wait for a minor (?) patch.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Before anyone jumps on my neck about "on a contract does not equal free", you've been paying for your current phone service since 2009. If you had gotten a free phone back in 2012, that contract would have expired by now and you'd be in exactly the same situation as you are currently in, except you would have a new phone. T-mobile I believe is the only big carrier who offers a discount for owning your own phone, so unless you really plan to switch carriers all of the time, it is silly to keep paying the same rate and *not* take advantage of the phone subsidy.
and FWIW, you should be able to keep your old contract terms. Until last week I was on some ancient grandfathered texting plans and another family member was still on unlimited data despite updating our phones multiple times. Discovered last week, that the whole family plan could be ~$30 a month cheaper if we went to shared data between the phones (with a cap greater than our combined usage), and we got switched from limited minutes/texting to unlimited talk/text.
Bottles.
I use T-Mobile, have never had a phone on money, and have a strict "never borrow money" personal policy. But it's not about the amount a phone costs, it's about a strong aversion to spending money on things that aren't really important to me.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
My Nexus 7 2012 wasn't "bricked", but it now takes a LONG time to "wake up" when it's wifi has been shut down, and the tablet is all but unusable for minutes while it recovers. I've taken to "closing" all my applications when I'm done using them (which I've NEVER done), and it seems to help a little. It's the first update I've not been impressed with, and that I think I'd roll back if I could (I haven't checked if I can).
*have never had a phone on contract
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If a factory reset by and large fixes the problem, that likely means there are issues with data and apps previously installed. If you have a brand new tablet, then you are not going to have a lot of cruft hanging around. My tablet is over a year and a half old, never reset during that time, and that seems to be one of the issues coming up.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
At least you're free to downgrade back to a prior version of android. That's my biggest pet peeve with iOS.
I refuse to sign
So where are these update settings on my Nexus 7 and why haven't they prevented me getting KitKat updates? Stupid fucking neckbeard fanbois.
Just clear the Dalvik cache and it's gonna be fine.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
The first issue is that it can take time for updates to roll out over-the-air even once they are available. There are usually ways to manually download and install it if you dont want to wait for OTA.
The second issue (and the more important one) is that for many phones carriers will take sometimes months to approve an update or may not release it all (usually making some claims about some "carrier acceptance testing" BS). In some cases updates for the generic unbranded versions of a phone still get hit with a delay in order to keep the OEMs carrier partners happy.
Apple got it right by controlling all updates for the phone from day one and not giving the carriers any ability to block or hold up updates.
I would like to try it though. my nexus 7 2013 hasn't received it yet. I had to force the kitkat upgrade through manually a month later. Google's update schedules are very strange.
IOS 8 on the other hand asked for the update a day after apple announced it.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Some of your apps aren't going to ever BE lollipop compatible. At least 2 of my apps broke due to deprecated APIs that were removed for security purposes (one had the ability to show widgets on the foreground of other apps, so for example, I could control pandora while having waze open).
It's significant to note that it doesn't matter where you bought your device - even Nexus devices purchased directly from Google Play can be blocked by the carrier.
e.g. The network with the largest market share in Australia, Telstra - is blocking the Lollipop OTA update from all Nexus devices.
And yet Apple manages to make their iOS updates available to all compatible devices on the day of release, dealing with an order of magnitude more devices than Nexus phones and tablets.
My Nexus 10 had to wait 2 weeks for the 5.0 update to be made available to it, and my Nexus 4 took a month. The story has been the same with every single Android update - I read that an update is available, and then don't see it for weeks or months, no matter how many times I check for updates. In contrast on all my iOS devices never have any wait.
In both cases I get to choose if I want to install the update or not.
I don't buy "OTA releases are staged to avoid overwhelming networks", especially since the sales figures for Nexus devices are relatively small. As for "catch any problems", that is much more believable, but it reeks of poor QA. The implication is they have little confidence in the quality of their product.
The reality is that no matter the justification, it's poor customer service. If you loudly tell the world "Android 5 is out for your device" then you should make sure it's out.
You know the answer. Android releases must be adapted to the different makes and models of phones. Apple has to deal with about 6 different phones. Samsung alone has more different models.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
From what I understand, Google hands over bits to the carriers, and the carriers then choose a timetable for automatic updates. The argument that saturating (really, how big are these updates and how many devices that this is a major concern?) networks makes sense here, but the number of models does not. The issues stemming from number of models will be caught by Google's testing before the release bits get sent to the carriers.
Google does not do integration for the carrier-specific bits. Whine to your carrier about their slow progress.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I don't use an Android device, so I have nothing to complain about. I was under the impression that Nexus devices did not have carrier-specific-bits, which is why I was trying to understand the reason for a delay. Network saturation makes no sense, since it's clear that other eco system can handle a release day over the same networks. Testing makes no sense, since Google tests their bits before giving it to carriers. If the carriers want to integrate other bits for other devices, fine, but why delay Nexus updates for that reason?
1. That other eco system doesn't deliver updates to every single device on the same day.
2. Nexus devices are popular enough to be a big enough population to encourage staging updates.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
That other eco system doesn't deliver updates to every single device on the same day.
Well, I don't know what you mean by "every single device", since not all updates are for every device. But, they do *offer* the update to every *eligible* device starting on one single day. If a customer wants the update, they touch a button. If a customer has automatic updates, they'll get it sometime "soon", where "soon" is indeed staggered and might be a day or so later. For people that want it, they get it day 1. For people that don't care or pay attention, they get it anytime from day 1 to day N (where N in my experience has been single digits. For people that don't want it, they never get it.