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Is Kitkat Killing Lollipop Uptake?
BarbaraHudson writes Remember how Windows XP was "good enough" that people took forever to upgrade? The same might be happening with Kitkat vs Lollipop. "According to Google's latest Google Play Store results for early January 2015, less than 0.1 percent of all Android devices were using Lollipop. By comparison, the last major Android release 4.4, KitKat, reached 1.1 percent of its audience in its first month out. In January 2015, almost two months in for Lollipop, KitKat is still number one with 39.1 percent of the market. It's followed by the various Jelly Bean versions, 4.1.x with 19.2 percent; 4.2.x with 20.3 percent, and 4.3 with 6.5 percent. Trailing them is Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.03-04 with 7.8 percent, followed by antique Froyo, 2.2, with 0.4 percent."
recently I saw a microsoft ad that featured a device that always has the most recent OS. Seems google gets some competition. lets hope it aint gonna be MS.
What would using Lollipop do for me that whatever version of Android I'm currently using not? Is there a major benefit?
They haven't pushed the OTA upgrade to my Nexus 5 yet.
Usually jump all over new ROM's, new OS updates, all part of the fun. Though... I'm still not sure about this new Material look to everything. Running on a AMOLED, and rarely go outside, I prefer the black background, holo look. So... the 'xp feel' is spot on, I'm in a good place, everything works, and it looks good.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Yeah that is going to work well for people who don't replace their devices every six months.
... whatever
Or maybe the phone manufacturers are being dog slow at rolling out Lollipop upgrades for their recent phones. We don't all have a Nexus.
------- Mark
My phone (Galaxy S3) doesn't support Lollipop (and it's looking like Cyanogenmod isn't going to support it either).
To be honest, my phone works "good enough" for me. I'll upgrade when it gives up the ghost.
I haven't upgraded my laptop in 8 or so years, because it works "good enough". Same goes for my DVR, even though it doesn't support HD. The only reason I got a new TV was because my old one died (that said, being able to watch YouTube and BBC iPlayer directly through the TV is brilliant).
Summation 2
My own impressions of 5.0 haven't been too good. The lockscreen doesn't give you the unlock input (eg: PIN) without pushing a button to ask for it, the animations have been stepped up -- the kinds of animations you can't turn off from the Dev menu -- and it generally looks copmletely childish. That's not what I personally want.
If you're running 4.4 check out all the new Google apps from the store. That's what you're getting from Lollipop, but also with the launcher, etc. No. No no no. I uninstalled the gmail update as fast as I could.
This is the trend in tech - things become more colourful, flat and generally dumbed down. I don't mean dumbed down from a user knowledge point of view, I mean "UI designed in MS Paint" down.
Remember how Windows XP was "good enough" that people took forever to upgrade?
No, but I do remember that Vista was found to be so wanting that many people went back to XP, and those that had waited heard the horror stories and stayed put.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Kitkat is killing Lollipop uptake the same way cars are killing rocket-car uptake.
There is no Lollipop upgrade available for any of my devices yet.
Apart from Apple fanboys, I don't think anybody is stupid enough to buy a new device just to get a software upgrade.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
No. XP was only "good enough" compared to some of its successors. That was the point.
If you WANT me to upgrade, you have to give me a reason to upgrade. I'm not going to do it for your convenience, or to give you free money, there has to be a tangible benefit to myself.
As such, updating to Lollipop is really a couple of new bells and whistles which most people really couldn't care less about. KitKat is "good enough", as are some previous versions still. But without an incentive to upgrade, why take the risk and suffer the bother to do so, if it's even possible?
Last time I upgraded my Samsung S4, it destroyed my satnav app and stopped me doing a couple of things I'd always done before, lumped more crap in that I could no longer properly hide or uninstall, gave me the inability to stop Location going to Google services without suffering constant badgering, and that's about it.
In terms of what it gave me, it was a couple of rearrangements of the top bar.
Give me a reason to upgrade and I'll consider it.
Well maybe people would upgrade if every new version wasn't slower than the previous version and Chrome wouldn't get buggier and buggier.
Google for goods sake fix all the bugs before pushing out new versions with even more bugs. Do some QA testing for heavens sake, I mean you have the resources. Don't be evil.
Given http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/14/06/11/1747251/new-permission-system-could-make-android-much-less-secure wouldn't the answer be that poeple do not want to upgrade?
Even when they make the upgrade available for my device (planned in march I heard) I won't upgrade untill the XPosed framework is properly functioning on Android 5. And I want to be sure it's rootable. XPosed (with XPrivacy) is too important for me, and indeed 4.4 is running goog enough. I don't care about the new look.
And it includes me. Android is getting bloated more and more with every release. Also, every release is more Google-focused and less user-focused.
.sig: No such file or directory
I don't think the comparison holds up well, because in the case of XP users had control of the upgrade while in the case of phones it's usually the handset maker and to a lesser extent the carrier in charge. Adoption of Lollipop is mainly a function of how many handset models ship with it installed and how quickly people are upgrading to newer models of phones. Most of the flagship models are shipping with some flavor of 4.2 or 4.4 on them, and enough people seem to have bought those models in the last year that it'll probably be summer at the earliest before we see the next cycle of upgrades start in earnest. The only way we'll see Lollipop uptake pick up faster than that is if Google manages to convince the handset makers to roll 5.0 out to phones like the Galaxy S4. It'd also help if carriers stopped insisting on different "models" where the difference is strictly in branding and the actual phone hardware is identical.
If upgrading Android would take something like apt-get full-upgrade from the device or at worst booting some ISO on my PC with the device connected, I'd do it. But devices are locked, I can't upgrade my phone above 4.1 and drivers that would allow me to install bootleg distros are unavailable in source code form. So yeah, I'm sticking with 4.1 as long as my phone works and its battery still keeps me online for 5-6 days.
It mentions that people were not upgrading because XP was good enough but with Lollipop the problem is that for so many (almost all) devices it's still not available.
I would upgrade right away if it would have been available for my phone.
I'll update my Nexus 5 to Lollipop once XPrivacy (http://repo.xposed.info/module/biz.bokhorst.xprivacy) becomes available. XPrivacy is waiting for Xposed to add ART support to the framework.
Alternatively, I would consider installing Cyanogenmod 12 M1 (http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/the-l-is-for-lollipop) which has some of the same capabilities of restricting application permissions as XPrivacy (although less fine-grained).
Very broken. The dialer isn't even reliable. (https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=81593)
Not to mention that the interface is more inconsistent than ever.
OEMs are wise to wait a bit and I now fully realize that as a Nexus owner, I'm a beta tester. I might reconsider my next purchase.
Using Nexus 7 (model 2013) I have upgraded about a month ago, but it turned out to wrong decision. Everything is slower now, I observe more frequent crashes and the Material Design is ridiculous and incomprehensible. I don't understand thinking of Material Design designers, but it seems that while graphics is simplified without respect to intuitive understanding (infamous "triangle, circle, square" comes to mind) , procedures often became more complicated. For example, to access settings, 2 swipes and 1 touch (pull the top menu, expand the top menu, select Settings) are necessary now - quite a regression.
Whoever wrote this piece doesn't have a clue about how Android upgrades actually happen, or thinks everybody buys an unlocked Nexus phone straight from Google. Please go and investigate about how carriers need to certify each upgrade and how also Google has to re-certify them to make sure carriers don't put too much bloatware in them (or at least that's what we've been told). I have a carrier Moto G 2014 and I'm still waiting for the Lollipop rollout. In fact, most of the people lurking in the top Android related sites are in my exact situation, and complaining about it.
Regarding the slowness in Nexus devices after the upgrade, just disable the full device encryption and you'll have similar performance to KK.
No, vendors and carries dragging their feet as usual is what kills Lollipop. Like my good old HTC One S which stopped receiving updates after a year from release.
One man's fragmetation is another man's product differentiation/branding
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Kitkat and Lollipop are firmware construction kits. When I can download Android from Google without telling them exactly which device I will install it on, and it works on my device, and bugfixes are made available and don't require that I reinstall the whole thing and wipe my device, then I'll consider Android an operating system. Come on folks, everybody loves the shiny, but can we please not throw out everything from the last 30 years? When I look at the mobile "operating systems", I feel like I time traveled to the 80s.
I'd update to Lolipop if they'd let me -- Nexus 2012 3G here. Still waiting on the update to be pushed.
Apps crash randomly, slow and apps don't resume from being minimized are the common issues I have on my nexus 4. I don't blame them for staying on kitkat at the moment.
People have to wait for their vendor or carrier to release an update, or use an alternative ROM like Cyanogenmod. In the case of the latter, Cyanogenmod only started releasing official nightlies for a limited range of devices 2 days ago. Prior to that, it has been a case of scouring forums to obtain unofficial releases of alternative ROMs.
Even after the upgrade has been released, people actually need a chance to perform the update. For some people, that may be several months down the road -- e.g. when they know that they'll have a chance to perform the update and get used to the changes. It isn't a matter of being good enough. It is a matter of giving people an opportunity to perform the upgrade.
Its not like the OTA update is just waiting on everyone's phone. This entire article is based on the percentage of people with the newer phones. I have a Note 3 here, 2.3GHz 3GB RAM, Where's my Lollipop?
Part of the problem is that Lollipop offers little new, but does destroy existing functionality. Google Calendar is much less usable than before. Personal and business email is now handled by the same application, making it much more difficult to keep private and business separate. Etc..
In return, we now have fancy animations when you touch the screen, gee, golly, wow. Oh, and existing, well-known icons have been redesigned; just as an example, to go to your home screen you no longer press the house icon, now you press a circle. I'm sure some designer is real proud of that, but they must have forgotten the user-testing.
Lollipop is Google's version of Windows Vista. I'm sure they'll fix it, but in the meantime I wish I could do a rollback to KitKat...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The difference is the large scale of change in the OS. Google have changed the default runtime to ART. Breaking a lot of manufacture skins and bloatware. Obviously this makes porting Lollipop a lot harder then the transition from 4.3 > 4.4. Hence why the slow release from manufacturers.
doh, didn't mean to post that anonumuosly
Probably the best reason to use lollipop is that apps start faster, use less battery and the whole thing feels more responsive. This is due to the new ahead of time compiler. The UI experience is fairly take-it-or-leave-it though - it's slick but it's not hugely better than in 4.x and some stuff like the playstation style abstract buttons are frankly just stupid.
Nah. I'll just wait for the next release 5.0.2.35.32X.s25.22ish "PneumoniaPudding"
And that will solve all my problems.
Several of my friends and I have Nexus 5s. Lollipop basically made them unusable. I turned off animations, which helped, but apps still crash constantly. It's honestly made me think Google has probably jumped the shark.
I'm seriously considering it...
Basically
I switched to Firefox OS.
I had a perfectly functional Nexus 7 before Lollipop. After the upgrade, which I performed in a trusting manner, the performance is horrible, with apps taking forever to load and some functions just gone forever. This has been by far the biggest disappointment I've had since owning Android devices.
Now I've got to figure out how to root the damn thing and either go back to KitKat or find out if I can run some custom ROM on the thing. And I hate dicking around with that kind of stuff. There was just no need for this update.
Further, the UI is much worse. The three little icons at the bottom are way too tiny for a tablet, the screen you go to in order to kill off apps that are running in the background takes forever to load and instead of a simple swipe, I have to find this little "X" in the upper right corner, like in Windows. I hate it, absolutely.
There is not one thing about Lollipop I have found that I think is an improvement in any way. Maybe it's something under the hood that's keeping me safer, but I doubt it.
Now yesterday, there was another update to Lollipop, which made a tiny improvement in the perceived speed, but it's not even close to enough to make my tablet as nice as it was just a few weeks ago. Thanks for nothing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I have Lollipop on my Nexus tablet, and while some apps are noticeably smoother, presumably because of the new precompiled runtime, the OS as a whole is noticeably slower because some common activities requre multiple touches to open multiple windows where before they were just one.
Even if the upgrade is available for a device, there's no clear reason to want it. It still lacks the one thing that I actually want in Android: meaningful control over app permissions.
I'm beginning to think that Android has a real fragmentation problem.
I don't know if you're deliberately taking the piss... you do know people have been saying this for years?
Still, no matter how much it is said it remains to be proved that this is an actual problem rather than an imagined one.
It would be best if Google focuses on offering a top-notch Android experience and - at the same time - alow for Geeks to fiddle with their devices, root them and such.
If Google implements a fixed release cylce and does end-user marketing whilst catering to the geek crows (opinion leaders) at the same time, then they can leapfrog the vendors messing with their own versions of android and allow for more seamless updates. In fact, I think they should offer customisation services for every vendor who want's their own visuals in the launcher and specifically support vendors who stick as close as possible to the mint Android experience.
So this is pretty much what they do do. That freedom to allow 'geeks' to fiddle with their devices is the same freedom the vendors use to customise (and occasionally improve) the experience.
Whatever they do, they have to put some effort into curbing fragmentation, because that's the number 1 thing that bugs Androids attractiveness.
(a) nothing you have suggested helps, you lose the ability to amend the system then you lose the freedom of the system.
(b) perhaps for you, but I doubt most people buying phones are that bothered about upgrades. The missteps that Apple and Google have made in upgrades recently have actually made people not want upgrades. ie, I like the device I bought, please don't change it.
Likewise, if Apple sticks to they minimised choices and manageble line of systems and devices, they'll continue to have the edge in that department and maintain their market, no matter how powerful Google gets in the low- and midrange global markets.
My 2 cents.
The idea that Apple owns the high-end and Android is only mid and low end is hopelessly out-of-date. Perhaps in the US, but the rest of the world Android sits at around 80% share and that is not just mid and low end devices.
I'm not updating my Nexus 4 because I need Xposed framework, and it doesn't work with ART Java VM (the only one available on Lollipop).
"There is no Lollipop upgrade available for any of my devices yet."
There is no Lollipop update for almost all devices!. How the hell should anyone update.
Seriously, do the jack asses that write these articles think that you can just install whatever the heck you want like a PC? I think they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Android ecosystem.
The storage management on 4.4 is a mess, and 5.0 fixes "most" of it. Thought still wish i could give the mediascanner database and the storage access framework the middle finger, as it fixes none of the issues Google claims it fixes...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
if it is that much better, samsung would already be pushing the updates to my more recent devices.
one problem was the timing of the release. they put it out just a month ago, but everybody bought their Christmas toys *2* months ago, and that meant they had to be in the factory *4* months ago. It wasn't out nearly in time to make the 2014 sales, so it has no chance of an upswing until this summer or next Christmas.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Why is early adoption of new software deemed a good thing by BarbaraHudson?
I certainly didn't say that. I'm sticking with Kitkat because, after looking at the developer docs for the new "Material" theme, it looks more like a usability downgrade. I looked at the feature list of Lollypop, which includes a lot of stuff that's designed for TVs and large screens (useless to me on a phone) and there's simply nothing of added value. Kitkat 4.4.4 is "good enough" for me.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
All this candy isn't good, people have to stop at some point.
I've been waiting for Lollipop, especially for my 2012 Nexus 7 which continues to be slow despite clearing the cache partition. I am also still waiting for an update on my Nexus 4, my daughter's Nexus 4, and my other three family members Moto Gs.
My understanding is that 5.0.0 and 5.0.1 both have serious bugs. One of them is especially bad if you are using Canadian French settings. Since I am located in Canada, I wonder if they are slowing down the rollout here out of an abundance of caution.
I wouldn't mind the wait nearly so much if Google was more forthcoming with explanations. Their consumer support leaves much to be desired.
In the meantime, 4.4.4 continues to work perfectly for me.
Actually, to sum up what I said in the linked to article, Lollipop came out with multiple problems and Google was really slow both to get the first OTA and the updates out. It's not because as the person who posted this to /. suggests because people were sticking with KitKat because it was good enough. Now, if Lollipop 5.02 goes no where then that may be a real argument, but it's not one you can make today.
I would think that somewhere, some candy maker's lawyers are getting their panties in a twist about protecting their Trademarks
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
She dislikes the look of the SMS app and I haven't found a 3rd party that's not following the new Material design...
She dislikes the stupidly separated calling and contact management. Can't edit a contact from the dialer list... WHY? Long press does nothing at all so there's no reason it couldn't just keep the original function. Then from the Contacts list it's more presses/steps to make a call or send a text than it used to be.
And so on and so on...
"Them" in this context is the manufacturer not the consumer.
The problem isn't Android fragmentation. It's phone fragmentation. Phones are fragmented between many different incompatible OSes (Android, iOS, WP, BB10, Firefox OS, Maemo, Bada, whatever) Therefore if Apple or Microsoft wanted to reduce phone fragmentation, they would switch to Android.
Nexus 5 with 5.0.1 connected to exchange just fine here.
Google themselves are doing a lackluster job of selling Lollipop as well. Seriously, I see ads all over the place extolling the virtues of the new Nexus phones and tablets, the "first devices designed *for* Lollipop". You know what I don't see on those ads? Any device actually *running* Lollipop. It's always just a black screen. And to all those who say that there *are* device updates, we just haven't gone looking? The average user shouldn't *have* to root their phone. I will argue to the death for their right to do so, but if the manufacturer and carrier doesn't want to commit to a release date for the upgrade, then the average person using that phone is going to keep using KitKat.
Just as soon as there is an official CM12 build for my D855 LG-G3 with accompanying gapps. I was hoping more CM developers were going to hop on this phone.
There is at least one known major memory leak in Lollipop. The planned early upgrades for Nexus and Motorola devices have been halted until it is fixed. There's probably more wrong with it that isn't known yet too. You can't extrapolate adoption rates from an update that isn't available to the vast majority of users.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
That freedom to allow 'geeks' to fiddle with their devices is the same freedom the vendors use to customise (and occasionally improve) the experience.
I don't follow. Geek-type freedom would also allow the user to uncustomize the experience.
The idea that Apple owns the high-end and Android is only mid and low end is hopelessly out-of-date. Perhaps in the US, but the rest of the world Android sits at around 80% share and that is not just mid and low end devices.
Have Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa gone with Android? Or does iOS own the high end throughout the English-speaking world? The answer is important to app developers who speak English and don't yet have the resources to translate an app into the two dozen languages of the European mainland as well as dealing with the #VATMESS.
Apple is in the same boat, but the new "superflat" UIs that are the current fad are horrible. It's rarely intuitive how anything works or what is or is not an interface element. I get that UI developers think buttons, switches, and sliders are ugly, but if you remove all of them it's really hard to use the device. People still aren't trained to swipe randomly all over the screen to try to figure out what mystery gesture does what, they just think the features are removed. Heaven forbid the UI tell you what gestures are available too, that would be cheating. Phones should be like puzzle boxes apparently.
I read the internet for the articles.
I have a Nexus 4. When I check for updates, it still says no update.
Which kills carrier's ability to customize the operating system and thus one of the major reasons carriers liked Android. At that point why wouldn't the carriers push Windows or other OSes harder?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If I want to create a folder I should be able to create a folder. Too much protection. less user control. I'm working on hacking a Micro Center Windows 8.1 tablet to run Linux natively now. If this is the direction Android is taking I am done with it.
My KitKat Nexus 4 was advertising an update for a few weeks. I ignored it, since I'd heard there were some issues with Lollipop.
Now, my Nexus 4 isn't even advertising the update, and it says my system is up-to-date. So I'm not sure why, but apparently the Lollipop update is no longer available to me for some reason. Yes, I'm sure I could go manually download the update and push it to my phone, but frankly I'm not that motivated.
If they want people to upgrade, not only do they need to push the upgrade through carriers to users, but keep it available to those who waited for all the bugs to be worked out!
That's not a crisis, it's the way things should be.
I've been in the business 30 years now, and I've never seen anything like Google's attempt to support older versions of the platform with backports new APIs. In Android you can target an API level like 20 (Lollipop) but support installation on an older API like 16 (early Jelly Bean). On API 16 all the stuff that goes around your app (notifications) and under your app (the VM) will still be "archaic", but the app itself will look modern because of the backports in the support library. Of course you should still *test* on older devices because not everything may work, but getting something to work across the vast majority of devices (> 86% run API 16 or later) is practical for a competent programmer.
So a user who doesn't immediately jump on the upgrade bandwagon can still run the latest version of the vast majority of apps. You miss out on some of Lollipop's bells and whistles, and most importantly on the new VM which reported extends battery life by 1/3 on some devices. You also miss out on all the bleeding edge bugs, of which reportedly there are still quite a few. If your device is perfectly good, it remains practically useful even if it's four years or so behind the bleeding edge.
That's something new. Forced march upgrades have been the norm over my career, but there's no reason to take that stance when you're talking about mobile devices. Most people replace them every two years or so, and in any case the Li-ion batteries soldered into the things begin to lose capacity after three years regardless of use. And with hundreds of independent Android device makers version fragmentation is inevitable, so it's sensible to make it benign.
It makes no sense to wring your hands because everyone isn't jumping on the bleeding edge release when there are so few practical consequences for anyone. It's almost as if the lack of a crisis is perceived as a crisis. People eventually *will* move to Lollipop because they'll eventually replace their old devices. Manufacturers *will* put Lollipop on their devices to get the battery life and performances, but in their own time. In the meantime their customers are OK on KitKat, and so should they be.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
... or it could be the fact that you can't get it on hardly any phones. I've wanted it since release, but since Mfrs take years if ever to update, I still don't have it.
But, from everything I've read, upgrading to Lollypop is a sucker bet.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
All of my 2-3 year old iOS devices can upgrade to iOS8. Before that (DD's iPod Touch from 3 Christmases ago, iPad from 4 years ago) - you're out of luck, and it will never, ever get upgraded.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I have two devices, one on 5.0.1, one on 4.4.2. Why? Not because I'm slowly upgrading or testing, but because that's all I can have. My nVidia Shield got 5 a could weeks after it launched from Google. It popped up an OTA update and I took it.
However my Note 3, no update is available. I can't update it to 5 without rooting it and putting on some unofficial ROM. Samsung hasn't released an update to my carrier and even once they do, who knows how long it'll take my carrier to release it to me.
That's the thing: Mobile upgrades aren't like desktop upgrades. When Microsoft or Redhat releases a new OS, you can upgrade right then. Nothing stops you from getting the latest upgrade and doing it day 1. Well no such luck on a mobile. It has to get released for your device. That means that your device manufacturer first has to release the update, which can take awhile depending on who they are and how much they screw with it. For some devices that is all, but for most that are phones it doesn't go to you, it goes to the carriers. They then have to customize and so on and decide when they want to release it. that can again take time.
So it can be many months to get an update. Sometimes it doesn't get released for your device at all, but even if it does, it can be 3-6 months or more before you have the option.
I actually want to revert to an older version than KitKat where I can actually *use* my SDcard, unlike Google's decision that they can't be used for anything but mp3s and camera pictures.
At the help desk I work at, we have a stream of people complaining about Lollipop's (STUPID!!!) decision to drop Exchange/other mail support in favor of Gmail-only.
I have two Nexus 7 tablets; I upgraded one and am seriously considering downgrading it back to 4.x, even though that's a bunch of fiddling. The new OS is slower, ugly (this is subjective, but their new style doesn't do anything for me), less responsive (especially just as you bring it back up from sleep), and I think lots of the UI is less useful (eg. the drag down system-y menu doesn't immediately have the stuff I want like it used to).
If you search for Android downgrade instructions, you'll find forums full of people with similar complaints who want to go back.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
The new ART compiler that replaces Davilk may be more efficient and fast, but it has some compatibility issues. There are a number of programs that'll run on Davilk but not ART. Some of them warn you on the play store to set 4.4 to use Davilk (since you had a choice there). Well, 5 is ART only so no go there unless the programs upgrade.
My understanding is that the Dalvik optimizations on the newer Android versions tend to lead to faster apps and/or less battery drain.
I currently have a software-unlocked phone. I'll probably update to a newer version of Cyanogenmod with rooted Lollipop eventually, but at the moment I don't want to break my root or end up with a carrier-locked phone I can't use.
I held off on upgrading to Lollipop on my Nexus5 after reading about some of the problems people were having. Shortly before the 5.0.1 update came out, they took down the 5.0 OTA update, so now I'd have to download the files and update manually. I probably won't bother since Kitkat is good enough.
WordPress phone?
Yes. The operating system is written in PHP for security.
Since Lollipop has a lot of bugs and nothing of the new features is any better than the old ones (lockscreen, face recognition, calendar... I hated all new changes), why would you upgrade?
5.1 might be worth it.
I was hoping against hope that might speed it up, because even 4.4.4 sorta sucks on my mine, especially Chrome.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
From what I've read, the Dalvik runtime is going away with Lollipop, and not all apps run correctly (at least yet) with the new ART runtime.
So assuming that Lollipop is even available for your device (and relatively bug-free), will all the applications you use run with ART?
As we know, a shiny new OS does you no good if it won't run your apps.
... Upgrading to Lollipop made stuff worse for me ... I want to go back to KK.
- Lollipop doesn't know how to play a WAV file anymore so I can't listen to my Asterisk voice mail.
- Wireless charging stopped working reliably. My phone pairs with the charger but doesn't seem to charge. It's warm when I pick it up in the morning but battery is almost dead.
- Battery life has gone down. My usage patterns haven't changed but I can no longer make it through the day without a charge...
I find it interesting someone produces a research report on who's running what version of Android as if the consumer (and we are talking about consumers - that mass market they referred to) has any choice. I run whatever Verizon pushes out to my Moto Droid Maxx. Don't tell me no one is using the new OS...tell those who decide what version we use.
never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes
I would update if available, but my S5 may not receive that option for some time; the only new phone with lolipop my carrier offers is the nexus 6, I want a phone- not a tablet
Kitkat itself was pretty bad. Kitkat was the first Android release that crippled your phone with the inability to use your SD card in apps, no matter what your phone maker intended. In order to make KitKat usable, you had to root it. No more phone updates for me, period.
Or my Nexus 7. Come on Google. It's been two and a half months, and the some flagship Nexus devices are still on 4.4.4? What's the point of getting a Nexus device if it doesn't get updates?
What's killing Lolipop is not "good enough", it's availability. And the fact that less people are modding / rooting their phones to allow them to update themselves.
And telcos are exceedingly slow. My S5 will probably never see Lollipop thanks to AT&T.
I just got myself a new Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 a month ago. It came with Kitkat, and there is no option to upgrade. I don't know if this is due to vendors' lazyness or because it takes so long to port the OS to all the different devices that can run it.
To be fair, after a few weeks of using Kitkat, I am perfectly happy and don't lose my sleep over the upgrade.
I have the Galaxy S5, but it will not let me. I just keep getting a message telling me that Andriod 4.4.2 is the latest version for my phone.
Perhaps that is the problem - lack of releases.
Manufacturers aren't going to support every device they've ever made for hundreds of years. You're lucky if your android phone/tablet/sandwich maker is supported for 2-3 years. They move on, and they don't maintain lock-step development of their hardware releases. (if you do get an update, it'll be months later.)
Its better. Its like Windows XP vs. Windows 8.
That's pretty-much it. Few people are on the Google lifeline, getting updates as they happen. Most are tethered to some vendor who is waiting for all of the minor issues in a major update to be ironed out. Expect the big players (Samsung, HTC, LG) to push updates within the next 6 months. Some of us are on lollipop due to third party roms like Cyanogenmod, but even some super popular third party roms like slim aren't there yet. Even with cm, I have lollipop on my tablet (v500) night but not my handset (i9300).
Low uptake is not due to consumers, but rather due to availability.
I have a 2013 Nexus 7, and ended up waiting a month before I received my Lollipop update. This was due to bugs encountered in the original release, which resulted in the rollout being delayed until the 5.0.1 release. I received the 5.0.1 update shortly after it was released.
I have started to experience hard crashes of the OS over that past few days. The UI will lock up wherever I am at (Facebook, VLC, Netflix, home screen, etc.), and after about 20 seconds it will reboot.
I would switch back to KitKat if possible. This is mostly due to the recent rebooting. However, overall UI performance also contributes since nearly all UI operations (especially transitions) lag regularly.