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Even New Phones Are No Longer Guaranteed To Have the Latest Version of Android (theverge.com)
Vlad Savov, writing for The Verge: The OnePlus 5T and Razer Phone
are two fundamentally different devices, which are nonetheless united by one unfortunate downside: both of them are going on sale this month without the latest version of Android on board. OnePlus will tell you that this issue is down to its extremely stringent testing process, while Razer offers a similar boilerplate about working as fast as possible to deliver Android Oreo. But we're now three months removed from Google's grand Oreo launch, timed to coincide with this summer's total eclipse, and all of these excuses are starting to ring hollow. Why do Android companies think they can ship new devices without the latest and best version of the operating system on board? The notorious fragmentation problem with Android has always been that not every device gets the latest update at the same time, and many devices get stuck on older software without ever seeing an update at all. What's changed now is that the "one version behind the newest and best" phenomenon is starting to infect brand new phones as well. The 5T and Razer Phone are just two examples; there's also Xiaomi, which just launched its Mi Mix 2 in Spain with 2016's Android Nougat as the operating system.
The latest version is not necessarily the best version. Just look at iOS11!
Say what you will about Apple and their devices, but I always have access to the latest version of macOS and iOS.
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I don't think its knowledge, Google has some limitations due to antitrust laws but really its the lack of incentives. You are not the manufacturers customer - the carrier is, and the carrier doesn't give a shit about security vulnerabilities affecting the user. Even when updates are issued for older devices often the updates affect performance negatively, this includes Google itself and from what I understand Apple.
Even if it is news, does it really matter? Consumers seem to be perfectly fine with an older version of the OS or they don't actually care at all. If consumers don't care, then manufacturers don't have a lot of incentive to spend resources on something that won't improve sales.
It's not as though you're stuck with that option as is the case with iPhones. There are still Android variants that cater to the people who want the latest version and longer support for upgrades. That those devices tend not to sell as well suggests that most consumers don't care or have much higher priorities when it comes to making purchasing decisions.
So... from what you'+re saying I understand that if Apple does it, you don't need a law about it.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
not a problem if older version is getting regular patches, reliability with security is the best, not "the bleeding edge".
That kind of thinking is not "infecting" anything, it's proper.
why did the summary use loaded words like "unfortunate"?
Making phone calls is not the primary purpose for my cell phone at all. I probably make/receive about a dozen calls a month, but I use my phone heavily every day.
I think people are mistakenly equating being on the latest release with being "up to date".
As long as the version you are on is still getting security updates you are on the latest version of your release line. This is all we need, and what we need to push vendors to support. If your hardware is good enough to support the latest release, you should be pushing your vendor for an update, but it's not wholly necessary.
New phones were never "Guaranteed To Have the Latest Version of Android." In fact, it is actually rather common for new phones to ship with an older version of Android and understandably so: the manufacturers need time to get the new drivers from the chipset manufacturers, pack the new version of Android full of their crapware, run it through their QA, fix the bugs that are not considered features etc - and that takes time so a manufacturers own Android version lags at least a few months beyond Google's Android.
It is stupid and should be fixed, but that's how it is and how it basically always was.
Real life is overrated.
It won't surprise me if OEMs are a little slower to roll out Oreo than they have previous dessert releases, because Project Treble is an enormous change for them. With Treble, Google is drawing a hard line between the Android system and the underlying hardware. Because OEMs have in the past been accustomed to being able to change things at all levels of the stack -- as long as the compatibility test suite passes and associated non-functional requirements are met -- this change is requiring them to restructure their customizations.
Further, since the hardware API is now well-defined, Google is testing it. That couldn't be done before. It's a good thing for the ecosystem and for future compatibility, but it requires work. For example, I wrote a suite for the hardware API that I own and found that the Google Pixel couldn't pass it, because the implementation (from Qualcomm) on the Pixel didn't actually meet the specification in many small ways. Not ways that actually produced observably-incorrect functionality at the higher layers, but it was wrong. It took Qualcomm a couple of months to fix the problems and deliver a version that could pass the new test suite.
So, Oreo has created a lot of new work for component vendors and OEMs, and it's going to take them time to work through it.
In the long run, of course, this should be great for the ecosystem. It should actually allow a vanilla AOSP build to be be flashed onto any device (assuming locked bootloaders and verified boot don't stop you). And once everyone is accustomed to the new structure, it should actually make it much easier for OEMs to get new versions out faster, not only for updates, but on new devices as well.
In the short term, I'm not surprised to see OEMs choosing to launch with Nougat, where they don't have to meet Oreo's requirements. This isn't because they don't want to, but because they have product launch deadlines to hit. By next year's launches they'll have had time to get squared away and I expect things to start moving faster than in the past.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
If you mean "different OSes" then say so. I use Android devices with Nougat, Marshmallow and Kitkat all the time and I don't have to change the way I use them. They're all the same. There are minor changes to appearance and the newer ones have some stuff I never use (multiple windows..on a 5 inch screen? great. Power saving - I charge them when I need to, in the evening, so it just means plugging something in every 2 days instead of every day). Which apps can I not use on Kitkat? They all seem to work for me.
Newsflash... This is how Open Source works. Debian, Fedora, thousands of other Linux distributions, and The various hardware from routers to phones use different versions. That's how it works. That's how it is supposed to work. Heterogeneity is a plus, not a weakness.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Itâ(TM)s not. The Verge is just trolling for clicks. Itâ(TM)s been the rule (not the exception) that new Android devices that ship in Q4 feature the prior OS release, since Android has had a tendency to ship their new releases in late Q3 or early Q4, giving vendors little into no time to test and certify with it before shipping a new device in the same time period.
Well there are two main classes of abuses consumer protection laws are supposed to address:
1. When an entire industry decides to make standard terms that are grossly unfavorable to the consumer and largely rely on the consumer's ignorance or indifference until the issue comes up..
2. When bad actors try to sell goods and services that are of much lower quality and more harmful than people reasonably could expect. This is a floating scale from sub-standard to outright scams and frauds.
That Apple delivers many years of security updates is an argument against the first one, consumers got choices. It's not an argument against the second, like that the government can shut down restaurants that have unhygienic conditions regardless of how whether the market is buying it. A lot of people simply think that stupid people should be allowed to do stupid things, self-determination trumps all. Like you want to live in this condemned building, your choice. It's tough either way, on the one side it's the essence of being a free man. On the other hand, some genuinely need protection from themselves. Or rather the bad men and women who'd play them like a fiddle.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
On what basis?
Play Services makes most of the APIs available to older versions of Android. Most OEM customizations of Android include security-only patches. On a sidebar on this topic, while carrier-damaging hacks typically involve tower-side security measures and can be implemented that way, data-siphoning security issues that would actually harm consumers are considered 'core functionality' of the OS.
This "fragmentation" battle cry makes no sense, since monolithic install bases are relatively new and almost exclusive to iOS. Windows hasn't had it, Linux hasn't had it, and OSX only recently started doing it (and only on 'blessed' hardware models).
Despite this, software developers managed to write and support software for nearly three decades before the notion of "everyone running the same OS" was a meaningful notion. To this day, millions of desktops run the near-decade-old Windows 7, which happily keeps their hardware running and their applications starting.
So, I pose the question: why is fragmentation such a terrible thing? How do consumers lose out by not running Android Oreo? How is this such a terrible fate that it requires Google to adopt Apple's iron fist on the mobile market? Because personally, if I had my druthers, I'd be running Jelly Bean, or maybe Kitkat, on my phone.
Really, shouldn't the argument be that phones should be able to run a bit more like PCs, with more standardized OS installs that would allow consumers to choose which version to run, without needing to do all kinds of rooting and warranty-voiding operations in the process? I sincerely do not understand the reason why so many are of the persuasion that the ideal environment for computing devices is a monoculture.
Thanks for explaining your terms. I'll rephrase my opinion based on them:
People are content to purchase devices that support the Consumer role but not the Creator role. In a Discord text chat I'm in, I often see excuses being made: "sorry, can't; on mobile and don't have a PC". I find this unfortunate because it dissuades people from performing the Creator role much if at all.