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Google Can't Ignore the Android Update Problem Any Longer
An anonymous reader writes: An editorial at Tom's Hardware makes the case that Google's Android fragmentation problem has gotten too big to ignore any longer. Android 5.0 Lollipop and its successor 5.1 have seen very low adoption rates — 9.0% and 0.7% respectively. Almost 40% of users are still on KitKat. 6% lag far behind on Gingerbread and Froyo. The article points out that even Microsoft is now making efforts to both streamline Windows upgrades and adapt Android (and iOS) apps to run on Windows.
If Google doesn't adapt, "it risks having users (slowly but surely) switch to more secure platforms that do give them updates in a timely manner. And if users want those platforms, OEMs will have no choice but to switch to them too, leaving Google with less and less Android adoption." The author also says OEMs and carriers can no longer be trusted to handle operating system updates, because they've proven themselves quite incapable of doing so in a reasonable manner.
If Google doesn't adapt, "it risks having users (slowly but surely) switch to more secure platforms that do give them updates in a timely manner. And if users want those platforms, OEMs will have no choice but to switch to them too, leaving Google with less and less Android adoption." The author also says OEMs and carriers can no longer be trusted to handle operating system updates, because they've proven themselves quite incapable of doing so in a reasonable manner.
In a nutshell, this shows one reason why the iPhone (and iOS) are so popular.
I have an iPhone and I'm happy with it, but if Apple disappeared tomorrow, I could easily move to the Android ecosystem. The differences in usability between iOS and Android aren't that compelling.
But one thing I absolutely refuse to do is buy a phone where the manufacturer washes its hands of it, and forces me to either root the phone, or deal with the carrier to get updates. No. I'm done with that. I learned my lesson back when I owned Palm OS phones, and I'm not going back again.
Android fragmentation exists because manufacturers refuse to maintain their phones. Pushing that job onto the carriers is a recipe for customer dissatisfaction and security breaches. If Google wants to solve this problem, they need to force the manufacturers to accept responsibility for updating their own hardware.
My z10 is now two years old. It runs better than it did when I first bought it. It now runs almost all Android apps without issue. I pretty much only charge it when I notice it running low -- I can't remember the last time it died overnight. The battery lasts at least 24 hours even with regular use. In an hour on the charger it is almost back to full charge. Then there's the security, BlackBerry Blend, the fact that if I lose it or it gets stolen it is a brick to whomever ends up with it.
For the life of me I do not understand all the BlackBerry hate on slashdot.
I finally downgraded my 2012 Nexus 7 today back to KitKat. It was essentially unusable running Lollipop.
Unless Google can make their new versions perform well on older hardware, of course you're going to have a lot of people on the older OS versions. I'm not going to buy a new phone/tablet every time Google releases an update to their OS.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I became fed-up with the constant nagging to upgrade from 4.4.4 on my N5 earlier today so did the update - however I immediately wanted to rage quit and go back as I lost the aitplane mode switch when I hold down the power button, but alas I can't go back. If Google starts forcing users to upgrade, it would be nice if they didn't take away popular features entirely (as I understand there is no way to get this option back despite the terrible battery life on my N5).
I'm certain that I'll be leapt upon as a shill for saying it, but Windows phone is running on similar low end hardware as Android, it's definitely not a "low end hardware" issue. It's an overly customized and fragmented software image problem, brought about by all of the players involved, Google, phone OEMs and carriers, none of whom have any interest in maintaining the existing installed base beyond the basic phone operation. Even winphone has problems here at the OEM and carrier level in blocking updates, even with the limited customization of the OS image the MS allows. Only Apple gets special treatment here with respect to distributing updates, and that is because of near zero or extremely limited customization of the software image on the device by the carriers and a single phone hardware OEM with a very well defined hardware platform.
This has nothing to do with Google. Maybe Google is at fault for not making updates mandatory, but that would have been a completely different set of issues.
Actually, it does.
The Android partner model is to snapshot the tree, and then the OEM productizes the snapshot, adding hardware driver support, their own apps and UI changes, and then they do a deal with the carrier for badging and more apps -- like pointing by default to the OEM or carrier's app store, in order to monetize the device further.
This model exists to avoid disclosing information between OEMs and different carriers, since Google does not do the actual productization.
Because of this, pretty much every Android device, other than the ones which were Google-badged as "buy them from Samsung, resell them under the Google name", is a one-off with a one-off version of the OS. In order to update the OS, it'd be necessary to (effectively) re-do the port of the OS to the device for each new version.
On top of that, there's really not a lot of incentive for the carrier to have the versions of the OS an Android phone is running changing on them, since each new one requires recertification, and, depending on the degree of changes made to things like the baseband and changes in electronic noise due to changes in the software, FCC recertification, or whatever the local equivalent happens to be in your home country.
It's like building a whole new phone, except you're not getting paid for it, and theres no upsell to get you back under contract for the next 18 months.
In other words, it's a lose for everyone involved, due to the way the Android/OEM/Carrier relationship is structured, and there's no product continuity upsell like you have with the various iPhone models.
Fragmentation???? What about product destruction. My Nexus 7 and many hundreds or thousands are now junk from the 5.0.2 update. My Nexus 7 2013 32 gb is bricked, and all I did was charge it and turn it on. Now its totally bricked and dead. Think I am the only one, Nope!!!!! I really like android, and the nexus 7. But I never expected it to kill my tab. I have talked to both google and nexus, and the only answer is send it in to Asus and pay 200 dollars for a new logic board. I can buy a used one for 100 on ebay. What about the tab I had that was working fine until the update killed it. https://productforums.google.c... Google this is how you ruin a brand. davidpbrausntein@gmail.com
" it was available on our iPad Air the next day"
Nice! Can I get an illegal copy your U2 mp3s? Personally, my daughter had to offload MANY apps from her iPodpad to make room for that "next day update" which we installed some many months later, I suspect.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
It is a carrier problem. Carriers are, to put it frankly, fucking evil. Look no further than their efforts to stop net neutrality and force their way in to being a middleman for contactless phone payments.
Apple's biggest innovation was prying the phone out of the hands of the carrier. When the iphone was introduced it was standard practice for a company to take a phone, disable it's features, then try to sell them back to you. So many of you kid's don't remember the bad old days of crippled phones. (Or you grew up on Europe where this nonsense never happened because of sane wireless regulation)
Look at an iphone. No un-removable carrier shitware or ripoff carrier app/media stores. You get updates the day they're released. You have an easy upgrade path to a new device. (Literally connect to wifi and log in with your apple ID. Everything comes back to your new device. Music, apps, ringtones, phonebook, settings, wallpaper, text history. Everything)
An apple device is an apple device, not an ATT device, not a Verizon device. You may not like Apple that much, but they're a whole other universe better than your carrier.
No, it definitely is Google's problem. Firmware blobs have nothing to do with how Browser works, but holdups in one leave the other as a giant security hole. Every piece of code that is exposed to data from the internet needs to be updateable on the same timescale as zero-days. Google has the dead-worst architecture and distribution setup for keeping Android users safe. Apple seems to solve problems in about 2 weeks, unfortunately they seem to be moving towards bundling more into the OS blob rather than less. Windows Phone seems to be the most sane, with finely broken up OS modules that are easy to update.
The Android fragmentation boogeyman.
What nobody's ever explained to my satisfaction is why I should give a flying f*ck. As far as I can see "fragmentation" is simply the result of users and developers not all being forced to upgrade to the latest and greatest when the platform vendor demands it. This is actually a *good* thing.
It means I can find a $40 Android tablet running KitKat, which is perfectly fine for things I want to use a $40 tablet for. I'm out of the developer business now, but I still dabble to keep up with developments, and far as I can see the Google tools do a really nice job of allowing developers to target a range of platforms and still look up to date on the latest and greatest. So I don't have to shut out people who bought a smartphone last year if I want to use Material Design (which is cartoony for my taste but does a nice job setting out consistent UI guidelines).
If this is fragmentation hell, all I can say is come on in, the the lava is fine. Sure it would be *nice* if the adoption rate for the latest and greatest was higher, but as a long time user and developer I have to say that not being pushed over the upgrade cliff on the platform vendor's orders is nice too.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I believe that's what it is called. I didn't read TFA but it sounds like they are claiming that Google is not doing anything about the problem. Not true. They have started putting things you might expect in the OS in a downloadable app. Then when it needs to be upgraded, they put a new version in the store and you get it. You do not need to wait for your carrier/manufacturer to provide an upgrade.
They are also unbundling stuff from the OS like the browser. Several years ago the browser was part of the OS and recently a security issue was uncovered in it. Google declined to fix it knowing the possibility that manufacturers and carriers would roll out an OS update. Today the browser is Chrome and it can be updated separately from the OS.
Both strategies allow Google to bring new features to older phones regardless of the lack of diligence on the part of the carriers.
True, but on the other hand many, if not most, OEMs never update their Android phones. A delay while OEMs work out details and stuff would be acceptable, if not ideal. But in practice the updates just don't exist unless you buy a new device - and then only if you buy a phone with a more recent version of the OS. (And a lot of phones are shipped with an out of date OS!)
It has gotten a bit better - especially for 'flagship' devices - but it's still not good. I thought the 'Google One' edition phones were a good push towards trying to solve the problem (if only by shaming the OEMs), but they've died off.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
In other words, it's a lose for everyone involved, due to the way the Android/OEM/Carrier relationship is structured, and there's no product continuity upsell like you have with the various iPhone models.
This is only true as long as consumers don't prioritize upgrades at point of purchase. If we could get OEMs to begin making binding upgrade and update support commitments, and get consumers looking at and comparing devices on that basis, then OEMs would be motivated to provide updates.
They can prioritize all they want, but no one wants to pay for the carrier certification of thee modified SDRs, particularly when using a T-Zone on a Snapdragon chip in order to run the baseband, and the FCC demands that the SDR be certified as a unit (software + hardware). That's a carrier certifiiation per carrier, per country, per device, per version update.
Also no carrier using a contract lock-in revenue model is going to provide an update that doesn't lock you into a new contract, and a version update won't do that unless there's a charge for the update, based on FAS (Federal Accounting Standard) rules, since without an exchange of consideration, there is no contract. This is why Apple charged for the WiFi software update on iPods, and non-cellular network iPads, but didn't charge for cellular connected iPads and iPhones. It had to do with realization of revenue over time, versus a one time sale, and adding features to the device via software.
You should also be aware that the image that's shipped by the OEM is often not even buildable by Google engineers; apart from the fact that the devices used during development are generally signature neutered, and it's impossible to cryptographically sign the image for the given device without it either being neutered like that, or signing code that they device manufacturer generally does not share due to it containing a signing key they don't want out there... they entirety of the board file is generally not committed back to the Google maintained Android source tree. Nor is it maintained going forward so that it's up to date, nor is the remainder of the OS productization standardized across all the OEMs. They are trying to differentiate their products, after all, and my Samsung device looking and feeling exactly like a non-Samsung device is not in Samsung's interest: it makes them into a commodity, which is a quick race to the bottom on margin.
Google has significant dictatorial powers when it comes to Chromebooks, which are not available to the Android folks, even if they had the ability to code sign, and could dictate a code cut, the Android in the tree is pretty raw, and never productized.
Finally, Android lacks a uniform app ecosystem; this is a more or less direct consequence of having allowed third party stores, without a strong compatibility for the apps across all devices.
Seriously, one of the smartest things that Apple did was keep the baseband processor separate from the application processor so that there was no telecom recertification required, unless they were explicitly hacking the baseband for some reason (e.g. the carrier lock they did by re-doing the SIM/IMEI handshake when doing a hand-off between cell towers in order to intentionally break SuperSIMs and similar techniques for hardware carrier unlocks).
Without the app ecosystem and the continuity of app and other content going forward on Android -- which it doesn't -- I don't see a means of enforcing carrier lock-in to support that economic model, particularly if you started supporting software updates.