Slashdot Mirror
Android O Is Now Officially Android Oreo (theverge.com)
Android O is now officially going by the name of Android Oreo. The operating system is available today via Google's Android Open Source Project. OTA rollout is expected to arrive first to Pixel and Nexus devices, with builds currently in carrier testing. The Verge reports: The use of an existing brand makes sense for Google here -- there aren't a ton of good "O" dessert foods out there, and Oreos are pretty much as universally beloved as a cookie can be. There's also precedent for the partnership, as Google had previously teamed up with Nestle and Hershey's to call Android 4.4 KitKat.
Oh, sorry - wrong product placement.
#DeleteChrome
Because they did with KitKat:
https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/03/google-strikes-bizarre-licensing-deal-with-nestle-to-name-next-android-kit-kat/
Hoped they'd go with Orangutan feces, but that's just me.
thats racist!!!!
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The vegan-by-accident cookie operating system.
From the privacy violations, and unpatchable security holes, to the advertisements for junk food, it is truly is something out of a dystopian comedy novel.
The problem with Android today is that there aren't any good phones to run it on. By 'good' I mean phones having a balance between price, form and capability. The Nexus 5 was the last phone like that. The subsequent Nexus phones were too physically large. The Pixel phones are far too expensive. Phones from other vendors are often too locked down, or don't get frequent enough updates. Unfortunately, Android 7, and I assume also Android 8, don't support the Nexus 5. So in my view it's like newer versions of Android exist, but there are no suitable devices to actually run it on! Google should fix this ASAP by releasing a reasonably powerful phone with a reasonable physical size at a reasonable price so that we can actually use these new versions of Android.
Now I'm going to have Weird Al stuck in my head all day.
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh Oreo
The white stuff
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Just look at Debian. I still haven't found a good source to find what stretch, jessie, wheezy, potato, slink, etc. mean. Give us a very so we know, for example, 10 is newer than 9.
Not being from the 4% of the world's population that regards the USA as uiniversal' I used a well-known search engine. Oreo is a biscuit of some sort, possibly synthetic in composition.
For those worrying about unique vs generic ID and the name being lost among other search results, those factors matter much less on other parts of the planet.
Racist.
Including the smiling turd!
Let's be honest, the Nexus 5X was a bad, unreliable, sloppily designed smartphone. One of the biggest disappointments in the history of all of Google Nexus brand. Even ignoring the bootloop issue which was supposed to show up only on 15percent of those phones, they had plenty of other flaws. Only 2GB of RAM (the only smartphone using SD808 SoC with so little RAM) making 5X effectively a single-tasking phone, poor audio quality because of poor shielding from other phone components, the useless included USB-C to USB-C cable which you could not connect to anything besides the charger, yellowing screens, and charging system that can't charge your phone with the screen on.
But despite all those problems, these phones do get swift security and OS updates, which makes them still somewhat interesting at this point.
Orange Sherbet.
Orange Velvet Cake.
Oatmeal Cookie.
Do they not have anyone that can coo- oh wait...
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Which is why Android to me is a toy for cheap devices, because I will never put in $800 to $1,000 on something that won't be supported for more than 24 months, if that.
Orange Sherbet would look too much like 2.2 "FroYo". That's why 4.0 "Ice Cream" was changed to "Ice Cream Sandwich" before release.
They would have to be one of the most disgusting biscuits I've ever tasted.
Must be an American thing.
When I read Oreo, I read high fructose corn syrup, or "poison".
"Oreos are pretty much as universally beloved as a cookie can be" no some people think they taste foul ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Do these jokers not realize that "Oreo" is a slang used in the African American community to describe brothers that sold out to the whitey: uncle toms and "house ni**ers?"
He's an Oreo: black on the outside, white on the inside.
Do you think there is an internal mole that wants to set up Google for one giant lawsuit for discrimination?
Oreo is probably like a expensive exotic car that most people will never own or drive. Its great to look at but you will never drive one. Google has yet to solve a clear path to a sensible upgrade path for devices. Sure a handful of its own devices will get Oreo for sure. The rest? Not so much.
Of course this leads to a muted enthusiasm for something that will never be for many.
What's Nabisco's cut?
The real problem with Android is how users aren't using the new releases.
Only 13.5% of Android users are currently using Android 7.x.
32.3% are still on Android 6.x.
29.2% are still on Android 5.x.
Even 16% are still on Android 4.4!
Maybe it has to do with a lack of decent Android phones.
Maybe it has to do with users hating the new versions.
Maybe it has to do with it being too difficult, or perhaps even impossible, to upgrade to a newer version.
I really can't say for sure what the reasons are.
What I can say, however, is that this poses a huge problem for us app developers.
We're stuck targeting Android 4.4, despite there being Android 5.x, Android 6.x, Android 7.x and now Android 8.x that came after it!
Something is seriously fucked up when there are more users on an ancient release like Android 4.x than there are using Android 7.x, which has itself already been out for almost a year.
This should be a good indication to Google that something is really wrong.
They need to release a phone that people will want to buy, and that people will be able to buy, in order to get more users using a more recent version of Android.
It has more to do w/ the difficulty in upgrading. Before 5.x - Lollipop, it was impossible to upgrade b/w major Android versions. From Lollipop onwards, they ostensibly made it so that one could upgrade from 5 to 6 to 7 to 8, but my Verizon Ellipsis 10 is still stuck on 5.1. I'd love to upgrade to 6 or above, so that I can make my 128GB SD card the primary storage. So far, can't do it!
phone from someone like OnePlus, Motorola, Xaomi or even LG.
Small note: if you go for some relatively known brand (some that are established on the market instead of some fly-by-night noname asian), that releases relatively few different hardware variants (i.e.: keeps the same device for some time - and all the model XyZ have the same internal, maybe except modem due to regional restrictions - instead of selling whatever comes from the workshop at that precise moment - and you end up with 4 completely different chipsets for the same official model),
then you chances of finding a well tested and stable LineageOS custom ROM for it are higher.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
For example, iOS supports back to the iPhone 5s. That is four, soon five generations, back to 2013.
As a side note :
- Jolla released their smartphone back in year 2013 (November)
- as of 2017, it's still receiving updates of SailfishOS (once it exists beta, the next 2.1.1 will also be available for it).
(though as a counter point : the Android compatibility layer used to run Android Apps is still stuck at the un-suported 4.1 Jellybean)
And if you look into it, the reasons are the same :
- Apple has a very small number of hardware platforms ("five generations ago" = means that there are litteraly only five models since then)
(and Jolla has very few platforms that they officially support : Jolla1 smartphone, Jolla/Aigo/Youyota tablet, Jolla C/Intex Aquafish smartphone and the upcoming Sony Xperia-based smartphone).
- Apple is directly in charge of the software that runs on these few platforms they write their update and deploy them to the end users.
Compare the situation with android:
- there are a fuckton of different hardware platforms on the market. Thousands of different Android smartphone.
- Google isn't in charge of developing Android directly for all of them. Google only develops directly for a few of their demonstration platform (the various Google Nexus devices). For the rest, they just develop the base android system and make it available for licensing (or pure opensource usage).
- Very often, specially the small asian no-name, manufacturers aren't even themselves directly in charge of the software running on the phone. Often, they use more or less available component (chipsets and re-usable PCBs) for the chip manufacturer (who generally just forks the kernel used by the current android version and slaps binary-only drivers on it), that the manufacturer only adapts to their final device (i.e.: they pay an intern to quickly recompile the current android du jour on the provided kernel by the chip manufacturer). There's nearly no follow up.
If a newer version of android comes - the manufacturer doesn't necessarily have a newer kernel for that specific chipset (that part of the reason why some platforms can't be upgraded beyond kit-kat even with lineageos. the only available kernel and binary drivers are extremely old and only support up to a certain API level, newer android require newer APIs that simply aren't available on the only drivers).
And the intern isn't working there anymore to do a complete port/recompile of this newer version.
And the manufacturer, if by random chance they still exist after all this time, are busy allocating all their available resources to producing a yet another newer model, based on a completely different chipset (whatever they managed to get cheap in the required quantities).
- And that's without factoring all the asinine weirdness of "carrier-exclusive" that happens in some stupid countries like the US.
There often the carrier themselves act as yet another filter deciding what software is available on the phone. Often they "customize the end-user experience" (=install a boat-load of bloatware to get some extra money) and would need to recustomise any eventual updates.
In other words :
- Apple has an easy job. Just release for the latest 5 models.
- Android on the other hand is a giant clusterfuck where nobody is really in charge and everybody tries to duck responsibility and it's always someone else's fault.
- LineageOS (formely CyanoGen mod) is the closest to an actual player trying to bring a little bit order in this madness. They release regular updates, and there's a community out there further porting to even more devices.
On the other hand, the post-Android era is still a little bit better than what was before.
Nowadays, nearly every mobile chipset manufacturer (Qualcomm, Mediatek, etc.) do release at least a few android-compatible linux kernels.
The base Android it self is opensource.
That enables efforts like LineageOS to make easily custom
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Oh Henry!?