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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.
But the doom-saying is inappropriate:
FTA: "Otherwise, it risks having users (slowly but surely) switch to more secure platforms that do give them updates in a timely manner."
Among the problems with this conclusion, the most egregious seems to be: Android is used in a way that Windows and IOS are not. People use it for lower-grade hardware that they are still manufacturing today. Go buy a $39 "unlocked" phone at your local Fry's (search for a brand like Blu). What will it be running? Android 2.3. Which is wonderful. They are calling this "fragmentation," but it's really people who could never spend the money for a $400 dollar phone finally getting access to one to what was a $400 phone 5 years ago. It can't run the latest O/S, but that's fine. The 2.x series phones (like my beloved Motorola Cliq) were really quite functional.
Dear Lucian (article author): Not everyone in the world is rich. That does not mean there is a "critical problem" that Google needs to address.
Yes. It would be great if Android kept major version trees alive and patched, like we do with the Linux kernel, and if all the manufacturers built their their complete phone stack from Puppet scripts, so they could get an Android update, rebuild against it, retest against real hardware and reissue the complete O/S for scant money in a few days.
They don't. If you want to make this happen it won't come from Google. It will come from us, the consumers walking into [insert generic carrier name] and asking which phone manufacturer got the greatest number of updates, after launch, for their top end phone. If the number is 3 refuse to buy from them.
When the stores know that is a selling point, they'll push back. Right now the people in that store and the manufacturer benefit most by selling you a new phone as soon as the old one is paid off. Until we change that evolutionary pressure, they will remain correctly adapted to our behaviour.
Seriously. This is the only sentence in TFS that matters:
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.
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.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Relying on the carrier for updates is truly the worst thing about Android - then there's the premium-seeking apps compiled into the base rom that generate evil warnings of how the system may become unstable if they're uninstalled. WTF does my phone need with NFL whatever baked in and threatening to become unstable if I dare disable it?? At least with some OEM Windows computer this kind of crap can be uninstalled. I wouldn't mind them putting in default apps to try to upsell service if I could remove them.
And then there's carrier hardware support decisions baked into the rom. A Galaxy Note 2's radio chip isn't accessible when sold by Verizon because their rom has that disabled. They want you to use your data plan to stream radio; they don't even provide a streaming radio app but they want to at least try to get you to pay for more data allowance.
> Technically 5.1 is out and there's supposed to be an update coming for my Moto G, but it hasn't arrived yet. Arguably this is Moto's fault more than Google's.
And that's a serious problem.
When there's a new version of iOS, I get it the day it's released.
When there's a new version of Windows, I get it the day it's released.
When there's a new version of Ubuntu, I get it the day it's released.
When there's a new version of Android, I get it when I buy a new phone.
Which OS has the problem?
Yes, it is Google's fault. My Nexus 7 2013 got 5.0 OTA three months after it's release. That's the *Google branded* device. And it was buggy.
5.1 came much faster - took a few weeks, and it's much better.
When iOS 8 was released, it was available on our iPad Air the next day.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
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.
This seems to be more a carrier problem than a Google or manufacturer problem. Google has the base OS updates available quickly. The manufacturers have to handle the hardware-related stuff, making sure firmware blobs for their hardware are compatible and such, but that doesn't seem to be that hard a problem what with a lot of phones sharing common hardware. I've commonly seen LG and Samsung have updates available within a week or two. The big delay always seems to be my carrier not letting my phone update because they haven't finished doing all the modifications they do for locked built-in apps, custom apps (eg. LG uses a custom calendar app instead of plain Google Calendar), UI customization/branding and so on.
It seems remarkable similar to Internet access, where ISPs always want to sell you not just Internet access but a whole wrapped-up package that includes them controlling what content you get and how you get it so they can steer you to content they control or get paid for. And as with net neutrality, the cel-phone carriers are going to strongly resist being relegated to the role of mere sellers of a pipe without any control over the device and the "user experience" that goes with it and allows them to steer users towards stuff the carrier gets paid for.
This shit is why I wont buy anything other than a Nexus.
Also other manufacturers like to make a total mess of the android UI
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.
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.
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.
This difference is a matter of when information is published, not anything to do with technology.
The reason you got iOS 8 the day after it was released is because Apple didn't announce the release until it was ready to push to your iPad. Google must release Android updates to the OEMs many months before they can get it delivered to devices. The only way Google could provide the same instant update experience is to finish and release it to OEMs then embargo the release information for months until the OEMs were ready to go. There's no way that embargo would hold. Way too many people and way too many companies.
Google could arrange for the instant-update experience with Nexus devices easily enough, but only at the expense of pissing off all the OEMs.
The lag between announcement and availability is an unavoidable result of Android being an ecosystem, rather than a product.
(I'm an Android engineer, but I'm not speaking for Google. The above is my own perception, not an official statement.)
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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.
After a career of working on Linux OS development, from embedded to cloud I decided to give Android a try. I recently started at a company where my task was to bring up Android on a new hardware platform. One of the first things I learned is that the hardware manufacture has to get their source code for Android from their SoC provided. If you go with AOSP they refuse to support you in any way if you have issues with their drivers. They do incredible hacks to get their hardware working. As someone who has submitted patches to the mainline Linux kernel I die a little inside every time I see what they do to it. Their own section for thier own hardware. No integration into the mainline kernel and I won't even begin to speak of the code quality. Google themselves force you to use an Androidized kernel with specific patches from them. There is a project to mainline these but Google has been resistant to working with the mainline kernel guys in changing things. One of the things I really don't understand is why Google had to throw everything out thats standard in every Linux distro and do their own thing. Android throws out the entire Linux filesystem heirarchy and uses its own thing which is undocumented and a huge mess. They have their own init manager, logger, use busybox AND toolbox for some reason. The source tree itself is managed by a tool called repo which manages about 100 git repositories, each a project which is a part of Android. The SoC vendors often make small changes to things like bluedroid. Like the kernel changes they have no intention of ever upstreaming any of this to the open source projects or Google. This collection of projects are built with Androids own Make build system, where they heavily hack up Make. If Google wants Android users to all be up to date they need to take a standard distro like Fedora or Debian and make it run its own window manager which is Android and its GUI. They need to get vendors to focus on upstreaming their changes and maintaining high quality code. Ideally Android should be a Linux distro you run on your phone with full package manager with updates from Google. Google has the power to do this. No one else can because it will cause Google's CTS tool to fail verifying which won't allow you to ship with Google Play.
True, but on the other hand many, if not most, OEMs never update their Android phones.
The major OEMs usually deliver one or two upgrades, and all of them do some number of updates for security fixes. But I'm quibbling, because while your statement isn't literally true it is essentially true. Devices stop getting upgrades and updates way too quickly, and none of the OEMs have any official policy stating even as much as they do, so you really have no idea (to be fair, Apple also has no official upgrade or update policy, though they do a better job).
And a lot of phones are shipped with an out of date OS!
Especially at the low end. There are a lot of very cheap phones being sold with Gingerbread, at least in terms of number of models. I don't think volume is actually very high.
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.
The Android Ones phones are a push toward solving the problem in one market. They're low-end phones that are shipped with the most current OS and updated directly by Google. That project is still in its infancy, though, and may never come to the "first world". For the developed world, Nexus is the line Google uses to shame the OEMs, but the story has been less than stellar there, though better than most OEMs do. Nexus 4 and above have all gotten Lollipop but that only takes us back to 2012. I think Galaxy Nexus would probably also have gotten Lollipop, but the SoC vendor leaving the business made it impossible to upgrade it past Jelly Bean. The 2012 Nexus 7 got the upgrade, but runs so poorly with it that many people prefer to go back. And Google also has no official upgrade or update policy.
So, absolutely there's a problem. But it's not the lag between announcement and upgrade, it's the rapidity with which devices fall out of support and the lack of any committed support policies from OEMs that customers could use to ensure they won't have that problem (and to motivate OEMs to provide support for longer periods of time).
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