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LG Arbitrarily Denying Android Lollipop Update To the G2 In Canada?
Lirodon writes: Its funky rear-mounted buttons may have left critics divided, but the LG G2 is still a pretty capable Android device. While it has gotten an update to Android 5.0 "Lollipop" in some major markets (including the United States, of course), one major holdout is Canada. Reports are surfacing that LG's Canadian subsidiary has decided not to release the update for unknown reasons. But, what about custom ROMs? Well, they handled that too: they have refused to release Lollipop kernel source for the Canadian variant of the device. It is arbitrary actions like this that cause Android's fragmentation problems. A curious note, LG has not specifically made reference to the bugs other users have been having with the update.
Don't know if parent is trolling or not, but I had a similar thought. I've heard that Canadian carriers are even worse than US carriers when it comes to device freedom (and pricing, and reliability, and just about everything else) and a thought occurred to me that there may be carrier pressure to force the end users to buy a new device.
If so, it wouldn't be a narrative I hadn't heard before. I was on Sprint about 2.5 years ago and they were rather vicious when it came to that kind of thing.
ever since they've been legally mandating two-year contract maximums, the on-contract price of new phones have gotten much more expensive. When the Galaxy Nexus first came out on my carrier, it was $159.99 on a three-year plan with data (later $99.99 when I bought it). The G3 is only $49.99 right now and there's no listing for the G4 yet, but the One M9 is $199 and the S6 is $249.99. But then, the Galaxy Nexus: that one got screwed over real good in Canada too: they forced this model on us that did not get updates right from Google. I was angered: when 4.2 came along, I shifted to custom ROMs instead and got up to 4.3 before I got the G2. At least they learned their lesson with the Nexus 5; it does get Google updates at least.
As a Canadian, I will 100% concur this has a good chance of being the carrier.
My HTC Desire has a lot of stuff which was put on it by the carrier (Rogers) -- some of which I can disable but not delete.
It may well be that LG has decided they don't want to muck around with carrier specific crap. Which is why I think it should be illegal to have carrier specific crap in the first place.
A decade or so ago a co-worker did some testing with his Motorolla Krazr. It turns out the way Rogers had done the internet stuff was to push you through their proxy (with a lot of extra overhead), and which had the net effect of about doubling your data usage so that they could measure you and bill you for it. And this was when data usage was in KB.
Rogers are complete greedy bastards who put a lot of crap on phones to benefit themselves.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Fun question - what if a Canadian bought an unlocked GSM phone off of Amazon, Newegg, or etc?
I just happened to have bought an LG G2 GSM phone just last week, albeit I bought it here in the US off of Amazon (brand new for $210, why not?), and to be honest, it is a *very* capable device in spite of its relative age and lack of a MicroSD slot (and to be honest, I actually like the rear-mounted buttons). I have yet to scrounge the time to root and upgrade the thing just yet, but outside of the carrier, it seems fairly trivial to do ( rooting , upgrading to lollipop ).
Anyrate, at least with an unlocked GSM phone, you're not tied to the carrier, Canadian laws, etc... at least I don't think so. I've always went the GSM/WorldPhone route specifically to avoid being tied to the arbitrary BS of a single carrier, or even nation. It costs a bit more up-front, but at least I'm not paying off a high-interest loan on it (more commonly known as a subsidy) or stuck in a contract.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?