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Hey Google, Want To Fix Android Updates? Hit OEMs Where It Hurts (arstechnica.com)
Yesterday we talked about some of Nexus devices, including 2013's Nexus 5 not receiving an update, because it has been more than two years since the launch of the phone. But as you may know, this commitment to keeping the devices up to date is even worse when you look at what other Android OEMs are doing. ArsTechnica's Ron Amadeo has a solution: Google keeps missing the point when it comes to addressing Android's update situation. It keeps coming up with strategies to make updating "easier" for OEMs, but I don't think the problem is "ease of updating" -- it's creating any incentive for OEMs to update at all. Google seems to think that its partners will update phones because it's The Right Thing To Do by their customers and that handing out gold stars will send them scrambling to produce updates for their devices. I don't think that's ever going to happen. Google actually already tried the "shame" tactic and it didn't work. When Google-owned Motorola, Moto's update speed went through the roof. Motorola was achieving near-Nexus-like update speeds on many of its phones and was definitely putting other manufacturers to shame. But the increased update competition never really spurred other OEMs to start competing on update speeds. The bottom line is that Android partners only care about, well, the bottom line -- money. These companies already have your money, so updating a device that's already been sold is a needless expense. There's also a good argument to be made that updating a device hurts future sales. If your phone isn't updated, it will start to feel old, so you're more likely to buy a new phone sooner.
Captain Obvious Competition. Hope no one's gonna dope.
From my experience, every update removes useful power user features.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
The summary says "If your phone isn't updated, it will start to feel old, so you're more likely to buy a new phone sooner". If you don't make your users happy by keeping them updated, Android isn't tied to one vendor, they can just as easily be driven to another handset vendor the next time. Better to have all your customers update 50% less often than to lose half of them to the company that cares about its customers.
apple and samsung take home virtually all the profits in smartphone sales. most android phone makers take a loss on their sales or break even. android is designed for google to profit before anyone else. why would they spend money post-sale to improve the product when they aren't making any money from it?
Because Apple owns the entire eco-system. So it has an investment in making the customer happy with the product. Google Phones are sold with some software, good or bad, and once the company has your money, as pointed out in the summary, you are out of luck for most updates.
Got bugs or malware? Got security issues? Update!
Oh, if you own a Google phone you update by purchasing new hardware. That's got to be cheaper in the long run than purchasing an iPhone up front, right?
Charge for the non-security feature updates -- maybe even do it through the app store. Customers have to pay for updates one way or the other, so you should be able to sell a competitively priced phone and then make just as much money selling fewer physical phones and more software updates as you would under the status quo. That'd be good for the environment too.
The one sticking point is, as always, the carriers. They'd much rather you trade in your perfectly good phone for another one whose price is rolled into a contract extension. I'm convinced that Verizon on several occasions deliberately botched upgrades to force you to buy a new phone with more RAM.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If Google had designed (? or something?) Android so that updating the base OS was something that could be pushed direct from Google instead of from each manufacturer's bollixed version of the system, there'd be no problem for any of us. Seeing as how Google{sheets, +, play, docs,} and other default apps get updated just fine, why not the OS as well -- without any interaction with the phone vendors?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Yep.
Yes. I have a high-end preamp-processor, updatable over the net. Plenty of bugs. Did they ever fix them, much less add new features? No. Did they release a new model? Yes. I have a high-end camera. Updatable over the net. Plenty of bugs. Did they ever fix them, much less add new features? No. Did they release a new model? Yes. I have a high-end radio transceiver. Updatable over the net. Plenty of bugs. Did they ever fix them, much less add new features? No. Did they release a new model? Yes. And so on.
The whole "we can update your device" bit is a scam (and often, so is the "we can update your software" bit.) The only way a corporation is likely to actually update hardware responsibly is if legislation forces them to. And good luck trying to get THAT in place when corporations outright buy the decisions of the legislatures.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It's worse. They see you as an 'upsell' opportunity. My previous none Nexus phone got quite a number of updates. Nearly all contained more crap to sell their own 'services'.
---
The summary on /. does not actually describe the proposed solution. Here it is, from TFA:
"[P]enalize partners by reducing or eliminating that [ad] revenue sharing if they don't push out updates. If an OEM exceeds the curve and stays up to date, increase the amount of revenue sharing."
I really can't imagine the vendors going for this. I doubt the amount of money involved would be sufficient.
The summary left out the "hurt" part. Maybe as a veiled attempt to encourage people to read the article? Here you go, no need, this is Slashdot.
"We've heard reports that Google shares ad revenue with its partners—if a customer buys a Verizon Samsung phone, performs a Google search, and clicks on an ad, Verizon and Samsung get a portion of that ad revenue. So, penalize partners by reducing or eliminating that revenue sharing if they don't push out updates. If an OEM exceeds the curve and stays up to date, increase the amount of revenue sharing. Threatening to shift the stock price of an OEM by affecting its bottom line is the nuclear option—and, folks, we're at the point where the nuclear option is all that's left."
I really don't want Google to have a stranglehold over Android in the same way Microsoft and Apple have a hold over their platforms, its openness is its biggest advantage. Also, I really don't care if my phone gets the latest bling, so long as it's getting security patches.
So IMO the optimal solution is all or some of the following:
1) Legally compel vendors to make known the minimum date of their phone/tablet's last security patch before the customer buys the product. That way, you'll be able to see that some phone will never receive updates before you buy it.
2) Hit carriers and OEMs that impede upstream security patches (i.e. the ones Google push to AOSP) with massive fines.
3) Make it illegal to sell any devices that don't offer security patches up to at least 1-2 years after they are taken off the shelves.
No shit. Regulate the licensing of Google mobile services to require updates. The GMS apps add a lot to Android, and it's far more likely OEMs will comply with the licensing rather than find a way to replace GMS. Only Amazon really has tried to do that, and most of the OEMs really dont have the ability to do so.
I still think that two years of updates is outrageous forced obsolescence that is prematurely adding electronic garbage to landfills. They should be forced to provide updates for 5 years. I'm seriously considering going back to an iPhone on my next phone upgrade, despite all the concerns I have about them too. They at least support their hardware for around 5 years.
Microsoft has managed to update Windows "over the air" regardless of manufacturers just fine since XP, at least (yes, sometimes they do bork the update, but you have ways to recover).
Debian, RedHat, Gentoo, etc. manage to do this also via their respective package managers. I don't know about the others, but in Debian, this is seamless, unless you are updating between major versions. But, considering that each version is supported for years, this isn't so much of a problem.
But somehow, Multi-Billion dollar Google can't manage to design a system to keep its operating system up to date without having to rely on manufacturers? When everyone else has been doing it for decades? Even between different architectures?
Seems to me that Google is either incompetent or just doesn't care.
If you want me to use the newest version of something with new colors and what-not, then let that be a separate upgrade. I ask that you patch the stuff that's broken. I can't enjoy my phone for what it is because you push out new features on top of bug fixes. It's not a fun experience.
Thanks for sharing. That's a great idea. Old phones not up to date? Penalize the manufacturers in their budget.
...why I'm only going to buy Nexus devices. Almost every other phone I've bought was basically abandoned. If a couple of guys can do alternative roms and update the phone, the manufacturer should be able to do the same.
Apple updates older devices better than most android OEM's and they seem to have little trouble getting people to upgrade.
As the phone company, I fail to see how allowing you to push an update that you've not re-certified to not break our network, over our network is going to lock consumers into a new two year contract every 18 months.
We also fail to see how not incentivizing the purchase of a new contact subsidized phone gets the customer locked into a new two year contract every 18 months.
based on my last couple phones, the last update that my provider pushes out (which I cannot say no to) intentionally wrecks the thing. battery runtime drops like a rock (my Note 4 turns off at 27% battery remainining now), and my Droid 4 became unusably slow and hot-running, taking longer to tell me that someone is calling than is allowed so I could never answer to talk to someone, and apps were unbearably slow, with several no longer even able to load.
With this belief, of course they don't want to be bothered with updating old phones. They've already at some point done their last update with the intention of forcing people to stop using that one to buy a new one. Funcitonal updates at this point are of course not part of the plan at all, let alone security udpates or anything useful.
I need to start rooting and getting "alternative" OS deliveries to see if that helps or not...
I'm an Apple user and currently do not own any Android devices, but the constant force-feeding of updates by Apple might make me jump ship to Android.
I had an iPad 2 that I bought in 2011. It was a great device, very snappy and a pleasure to use. It came with iOS 4. When it upgraded itself to iOS 5, it slowed down a little but was still usable. At this point an alarm went off in my head and I have refused all the pop-ups telling me to update to IOS 6 ever since.
Well lo and behold, in the fullness of time an ignorant member of my family tapped "YES" to the "Update to iOS 6" message. Running iOS 6, the iPad became a complete dog. Launching web browser took 3 seconds whereas it used to be well under a second in iOS 4. Not just the web browser either, doing just about *anything* with the ipad (even viewing photos stored locally) became a lag-fest.
Eventually I upgraded to iOS 7 in hopes that it might help (because Apple does not let you downgrade back to an older iOS version, ever). It did not help. At all. I ended up giving away the iPad because it was pretty much unusable.
But why should it be like that? The iPad's hardware was just as fast in 2015 as it was back in 2011. Aside from the ability to hold a battery charge, it should perform the same.
I would be happy with a setting somewhere that lets you turn off the "Update" pop-ups, but no, Apple does not let you do that. They want you on the latest bloated OS, and if your older hardware can't handle it, buy a new device.
my Note 4 turns off at 27% battery remainining now
That might be a coincidence though. As batteries age it gets harder to judge the capacity. My Nexus 4 has started being really whacky. Actually there's an interesting thing where the GSM chip appears to cut out at a higher voltage than the main phone, so I get a glimpse of the battery voltage when the cell connection dies. That used to happen reliably at 3%. These days it happens anywhere between 1% and 25%.
It's still a perfectly servicable phone and GSM radio for my laptop, so I'm going to replace the battery. Shame it's no longer getting updates.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
There's also a good argument to be made that updating a device hurts future sales. If your phone isn't updated, it will start to feel old, so you're more likely to buy a new phone sooner.
Yes, refusing to provide updates does make phones feel old prematurely, and does make users more likely to upgrade sooner - to OTHER manufacturers' phones! People think, "Oh, jeez, this phone sucks now. I'm not buying another LG, I'll try a Samsung or Motorola (yes, everyone still calls Moto Motorola) this time." So by not providing updates and waiting for users to upgrade when they want to, OEMs are cheapening their own products, and customers notice.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
The Nexus 5 is not receiving the latest updates.
"Hey Google, Want To Fix Android Updates? Hit OEMs Where It Hurts" Implementing this quote would be hypocritical of them given Google isn't updating all of its phones.
With slamming Nexus 5, I received all updates on my current Nexus 5,7, 5x. So I'm not sure where he's gathering his information. The one who DOESN'T update is Samsung. My work Rugby LTE still sitting on original 4.4.1. Even after their promises to update when StageFrieght came out. Nada.
Absolutely no updates in two years to the phone except for the apps. Even worse, the android phones from Cricket have some kind of lock preventing rooting or wiping/installing freshly rooted system.
..is that customers know and care about updates. The real issue is that most customers don't know how serious the lack of updates can be, and/or they don't make update availability/speed a priority when choosing a handset. This is why OEMs don't respond- because it does not help them at all if they spend the resources to keep an older device patched; actually, it may hurt new sales for the reason indicated in TFS. The update issue is important to us as technical people, but not to the public at large.
Google seems to think that its partners will update phones because it's The Right Thing To Do by their customers and that
Seriously? After all the crap they've gone through involving patents, how could they possibly still be this naive?
and then you run your manufacturers out of business and send people flocking to apple to buy phones genius
Confirmed, Nexus 4 is still a great phone. Even if I had to reflash the radio to get LTE back. LG really had it right with nexus 4 and 5.
It is Google. Google is a US Government spy shop.
I have a Verizon account, and a LG phone ( keypad ).
No updates ever.
It did come with a lot of poop installed.
Verizon installed quite a bit of their own apps, most are now uninstalled.
I do have a real issue with pre-installed apps, which I did not ask for or want.
I also have a real issue with telemarketing calls ( I am on the do not call list ).
The cell-phone makers and marketers ( Verizon in this case ) just will not stay off my lawn.
Sue manufacturers AND/OR carriers who withhold security updates for a period of $X years from the date of purchase. Oh, hi Samsung, my device got hacked because YOU refused to apply a patch...sooooo time to cough up some dollars. Or you could go, hi Verizon, that patch Samsung released...you know the one you refused to release...yeah it's time to cough up some dollars.
Do this enough times and they'll get the hint. Destroy their profits and get judgements to go after their assets and then you'll REALLY see the change you want.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If Google designed Android so that they could push out forced updates to the OS, carriers and manufacturers who wanted it Their Own Way would simply take the FOSS version of Android and compile it Their Own Way, like Amazon does. That's the trade-off here. You can make it closed source giving you complete control over the OS and updates (what Apple and Microsoft do) and force carriers and manufacturers to bend to your will. Or you can make it FOSS, but attempts to wield control over updates risks carriers and manufacturers jumping ship and forking their own version. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Google Sheets, Docs, Photos, Plus, etc. are not FOSS. So the carriers and manufacturers (and users) don't have a choice - take it as-is or leave it.
This is the dangerous thing about all these anti-trust lawsuits against Android. Google already makes Android available as FOSS, so anyone can roll their own version of Android without paying Google a dime. If you hate Google but want Android, you can just grab the source and compile your own version. No other company making an OS with significant market share does this. I don't know how much more anti-trust you can get. Google only requires you to install their apps if you want access to the Play store. There are other Android stores out there (Amazon's probably being the biggest, Microsoft for all their complaining about Android is notable in not having one). The EU is playing with fire. If they succeed in their lawsuit, Google may just say "Screw it. We're giving the damn thing away as FOSS and they're still unhappy with it. If they're going to treat us as if we were charging money for it, we'll just make it closed-source and start charging money for it."
From an anti-trust perspective, about the only complaint I have with Android is that Google puts all non-Play stores into a catch-all "unknown sources" category. You can either allow them all, or block them all. They need to change it so you can authorize select stores, while still blocking all others (and side-loading). If there's any monopoly behavior, it's in the store, not the OS. Hell, even Apple could take the Android source code and produce their own version if they wanted.
What's the proposed solution? It's not in the summary.
Even a low end new phone has a better baseband processor than one from 2 years ago.
I know my Upload/Download speeds are not going up with these new phones, I am limited by my carrier. You are paying for a new phone to take up LESS bandwidth on their towers.
You might by a new phone from the carrier and give them that bunch of money, but no mater where you buy the new phone, it will cost the carrier less per byte to have you as a subscriber. No wonder they don't want updates.
Mod parent up!
Quote: "... 30 useless Google applications which try to get updates every month."
Posted this comment yesterday, to another Slashdot story: Google's management quality is degrading rapidly.
Google is allowing phone companies to abuse customers, so the phone companies can make more money. Google is also doing its own abuse, as the parent comment says. My opinion.
I had a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Nice phone for its day. Never got a single major version upgrade, because the VZN variant used a different SOC from the GSM version, and between Verizon and Samsung, they just said, "meh."
Currently, using a Galaxy S5 on AT&T and while ma bell provides regular security updates, I haven't seen an Android version update since I received it last year. Still on Lollipop (5.1), no Marshmallow, let alone plans for Nougat.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Google seems to think that its partners will update phones because it's The Right Thing To Do by their customers
... When has a company ever done something because it is "the right thing to do" instead of "because of money"?
LOL
Problem solved.
A solution involving government regulation would require keys for any OEM/Carrier choosing to lock the bootloader of any phone. After six months without updates, the keys go public.
$1/month ?
$2/month ?
$5/month ?
Lets assume they make $100 per sold phone, adding another $2 over 24month would add another $48. I guess that most (non lowend) phones if possible to upgrade properly would survive for 36-44month.
Yes the GalaxyS2 relesed more then 5years ago is no Highend phone anymore, never the less my spause used it and was happy with it until the start of this year. So while people like me love new features, she loved to actually find what she was looking for in the phone. (This is why iPhones are so popular), the mail problem at the end was lack of ram and with a monthly income on working phones I expect the OEM's to try to get rid of that kind of stupid limitations and ensure SD card and hardware that was somewhat easy to fix/would not break so easy.
Google has a very lengthy set of terms that OEMs must agree to in order to get access to the Google Play store, the Google Play Services middleware layer and various Google apps.
Google could add clauses to these terms such that if OEMs want to be allowed to use the Play store and the other Google software, they must support the device with security updates for a minimum amount of time after the release of the device.
Any OEM that doesn't play ball and follow the rules would risk loosing the right to produce any more devices that contain the Google software.
The laptop/notebook business has been using this model for ages with the only difference being that you don't have to be white-bearded wizard to seek out updates for Windoze on your own. Google needs to cut out the middleman much the same way M$ has recently by forcing OEMs to post drivers to Windows Update. That's right, stop certifying Android devices unless OEMs put sufficient device details into escrow so that Google can keep them updated even if the OEM goes belly up.
...do not cripple your server with slowdown code. RedHat updates include backported security patches for older versions of their distributed software. From the RedHat wiki: "Red Hat does not update the kernel version, but instead backports new features to the same kernel version with which a particular version of RHEL has been released... Consequently, RHEL may use a Linux kernel with a dated version number, yet the kernel is up-to-date regarding not only security fixes, but also certain features."
The Android ecosystem desperately needs RedHat's model for security patches. The FTC should mandate GPL and CentOS updates for all future Android versions. This would have the side benefit of opening up a great deal of the OEM code as well.
Ok, let me get this straight. You have two software companies (Microsoft and Google). Currently, Google is not forcing OEMs to keep their software up-to-date with new features and bug-fixes, and everyone is losing their minds. Currently, Microsoft is forcing everybody to update their software with the latest features and bug-fixes, and everyone is losing their minds. I don't get it. Is it because "mobile" or is it because its MS vs Google?
and then you run your manufacturers out of business and send people flocking to apple to buy phones
We are already in the position of buying either an iphone or some plastic chinese-made horseshit with a $700 price tag. So if manufacturer's can't push quality code (I'm looking squarely at you, Google), let them fail.
After Motorola was sold it went to pot.... I loved Motorola and the fact that they supported their devices. Now NOTHING... It makes me really sad.
They never even release security updates. I would've been happy with that at least.
When you are now having $50 720p IPS quad-core 1GB RAM smartphones, your profit must be really low - why would you waste time & money on upgrading Android there? And you should be sure once 1080p 2GB start hitting $50 level, all major Android vendors are going to collapse so they are now trying to save as much money as possible.
I now use these super cheap smartphones as additions to my other stuff; a navigation/map for my cross bike (on a holder with a robust protective case); a display for the remote controller for DJI Phantom 4; a remote controller for a small humanoid robot from Trossen Robotics; a remote controller for heating/lights in my home.
With a Linux installation and 80GB storage you can compile AOSP for any Nexus and then add as much or as little proprietary googliness as you desire.
I just started using microg to run a current-ish version of Maps without gsf, and I'm using a relatively recent proprietary camera app, but I avoid the rest of the proprietary stuff. I do some other stuff to save battery like a slight undervolt and turning off WiFi away from home, but I still easily see over 3hrs SOT on my Nexus 5 and sometimes as much as 4 hours if I use almost all the battery.
There are guides on XDA and it's actually pretty easy if installing the build environment and copy+pasting a bit isn't above one's skill level. And if you can figure out the right build number / branch tag for your desired version.
Laptops had the problem of OEMs only supporting them while they were actively selling a given SKU and never publishing any updated drivers. Some even took the original driver downloads off their support sites as soon as the machines finished their retail sales run. Microsoft essentially put an end to this when they forced OEMs to supply drivers to Windows Update in order to get their platform logo certified. The Android folks would do well to implement a similar model with phones where all drivers need to be in escrow with Google before a phone can be certified for carrier use in a given region.
Next thing, you're going to tell me Facebook knows users' political affiliations.
This article seems to only go as far as pointing out the problem and hinting at a possible solution. So let's actually throw around some possible solutions:
1. Government to mandate for security reasons that phones being sold in your country must maintain updates for a certain amount of time. Potentially make it illegal to buy non-approved handsets. Draconian yes but would protect your citizens. I guess governments could also legislate that telcos don't connect people unless they are approved handset providers. This would stop the cheap and nasty crap that doesn't get updated.
2. Google to ban old android versions from the app store (once people are banned they will want to know why and assuming the error message is accurate they will flood their handset provider with support requests, if the handset provider doesn't supply updates then they will think carefully about who they purchase a handset from and buying one with updates will become more important). Perhaps this would even lead to other companies selling reverse-engineered updates. Though hopefully not people just bypassing or hacking the version stuff.
3. Google to change android to be more hardware specific and allow for google themselves to push out the updates rather than rely on third parties.
Although the OP is mostly right, it happens that phone suppliers WANT to upgrade their OS but CAN'T... See an example here:
https://fairphone.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201877987-What-is-the-outlook-for-updating-to-Android-4-4-operating-system-
What if the Google Play store didn't actually work if the user didn't update their phone? That forces all the carriers to get their act together lest they be buried by support calls, etc. It puts all the pressure back on OEMs to get 'er done.
And in response to two years of HTC dicking around and not fixing flaws, with the worst being location services in Android 6, I will be moving back to an Iphone in the near future and abandoning the Android OS as unstable, insecure, and not user friendly.
See-ya!