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Android Oreo Passes 1 Percent Adoption After 5 Months, Nougat Finally Takes First Place (venturebeat.com)
According to Google's Platform Versions page, Android 8.0 Oreo mobile operating system finally has 1.1 percent adoption. Like Android Nougat before it, Android Oreo took five months to pass the 1 percent adoption mark. VentureBeat reports: On the bright side, Nougat this month has passed Marshmallow, meaning the second newest Android version is now the most widely used. The latest version of Android typically takes more than a year to become the most-used release, and so far it doesn't look like Oreo's story will be any different. Google's Platform Versions tool uses data gathered from the Google Play Store app, which requires Android 2.2 and above. This means devices running older versions are not included, nor are devices that don't have Google Play installed (such as many Android phones and tablets in China, Amazon's Fire line, and so on). Also, Android versions that have less than 0.1 percent adoption, such as Android 3.0 Honeycomb and Android 2.2 Froyo, are not listed. The two next-oldest Android versions are thus set to drop off the list sometime this year. The Android adoption order now stands as follows: Nougat in first place, Marshmallow in second place, Lollipop in third, KitKat in fourth, Jelly Bean in fifth, Oreo in sixth, ICS in seventh, and Gingerbread in last. All eyes are now on Oreo to see how slowly it can climb the ranks.
I'm one of the one percent! Kneel before me Nougat deplorables!
There is nothing new to see here folks.
There's some evidence to suggest the issue still lies with google:
https://twitter.com/essential/...
I'm sure Apple will joke about it during their next phone related event, again. Microsoft would joke about it also if they would have ever had an offering in the mobile space.
That is because every major update of android pretty much requires new hardware. Either because they are lazy to support old hardware, don't bother trying to allow major software updates, or just rely on the manufacturer (which is obviously lame).
Regardless you are pretty much stuck with whatever major revision came with your end product because only new hardware sales drive adoption of these major releases. Android is a make-it-and-forget-it product, it is the epitome of built-in obsolescence.
Not Google's fault. Upgrade distribution is controlled by the cellular phone company that sold you the phone--and they mostly refuse to push the upgrades, because their slipshod "customization" makes it difficult, and because they want you to upgrade by buying a new phone.
that passing 1% is a milestone?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Yet my Nokia 8 has had 8.0 since December, 8.1 late January; HMD > Essential?
How many android devices are there, versus how many apple devices? Apple, is "one" phone per year or so released, yes they sell millions, but android is on 3,105,592 different phones every year. Granted, Google wanted adoption, made it open, so the manufacturers & carriers were responsible for the updates (if any) and in their business model, it's not worth the time since people just toss their phones away about every 12-24 months, and, other than security patches, for me, android has been pretty stable, nothing "really" Earth shattering new, since Jelly Bean. Perhaps going forward, past Oreo, if more manufacturers adopt the project Treble, which splits the core OS from the UI/bloat, Google can get the updates to the core of the system faster, through the play store, and let the manufacturers/carriers screw with the UI if they want. Also will make flashing to a non OEM rom easier...that is if you believe the press. I got Oreo on my Huawei USA Mate 9 in early November, and the latest patch/update last Monday.
My Lumia 640 packed it in recently so I tried Android (ZTE 7 Plus, Marshmallow). Dear dog, I hated it so much - didn't give a shit about the apps, and the UI experience was so bad. Found a 950 XL in excellent shape on Gumtree, awesome phone and a pleasure to use. Calls, texts, messaging, email, browsing all work perfectly.
And *still* getting regular updates from MS.
That's an entertaining story, but they're still producing updates for the 4 year old Nexus 5, if you can find one that doesn't boot loop.
There's a string of manufacturers that abandon their products, looking at you Samsung, but that's not Google's problem.
Just as soon as you find an off-brand Apple phone, we can make some kind of "support life-cycle" comparison.
I think the issue lies with Android not really having any one entity fully in charge or at least with enough power to dictate terms. Device manufacturers certainly don't mind killing updates, especially since it helps them sell new devices. The carriers also want you to buy a new device so that they can lock you into monthly contract for another two years. Google certainly would prefer that whatever phone you're using has an updated version of Android, but they're not going to make more money as a result as their profitability doesn't depend on selling devices so there's not enough financial motive for Google to really press the issue. They probably care even less because if none of the other manufacturers are selling devices that have upgrades readily available, it makes it possible for Google to carve out a tiny bit of extra business for themselves by being the ones to sell the devices that do get those speedy updates. Only a tiny percentage of Android customers really care about stuff like that, so the other manufacturers aren't going to get angry at Google or feel threatened by them selling those devices.
My 2012 Samsung Galaxy Note II, a flagship model in its time, hasn't received a version update since 2014 (it runs KitKat). However it still got a security/stability firmware upgrade in 2017, and does get "Security Policy" updates (guessing these are SELinux changes). This isn't ideal for anyone who wants new features, but 5 years of security and stability patches is not so bad.
Yep. That's because it's a Google phone. Easy to make updates when you own the OS. The vast majority of Android phones aren't Nexus phones. It's kind of like suggesting all vehicles get 40 mpg because your 10 year old Honda Civic gets 40 mpg.
make a direct comparison now: iphone 5s was released on Sept. 10, 2013 and is currently supported by ios11 releases. iPhone 5 was released Sept. 13, 2012 and support ends at the end of February when 32 bit processors are deprecated by Apple.
According to Google's Platform Versions page, Android 8.0 Oreo mobile operating system finally has 1.1 percent adoption. Like Android Nougat before it, Android Oreo took five months to pass the 1 percent adoption mark.
Linked as it appears in TFS.
With trillions of unpatched holes. Maybe one day they will invent Windows Update.
Yep. That's because it's a Google phone. Easy to make updates when you own the OS. The vast majority of Android phones aren't Nexus phones. It's kind of like suggesting all vehicles get 40 mpg because your 10 year old Honda Civic gets 40 mpg.
And Apple phones aren't a closed ecosystem where they control the OS and the hardware? What's your point?
Why would I care? If you buy a Apple phone you get updates, if you buy a Google phone you get updates, otherwise you need to be talking to whoever makes your phone. If your smart TV running embedded Linux doesn't get updates, are you moaning at Linus?
Pathetic effort from Google and their software developers. Stop pointing fingers at manufacturers, and solve the upgrade mess.
they're still producing updates for the 4 year old Nexus 5
Google hasn't released an update for the Nexus 5 since Dec 2016. https://developers.google.com/android/ota#hammerhead
So how is it Apple (and even Microsoft back with Windows Phone) manages to get updates out to all their handsets on all the carriers at once?
Both. It's also Google's fault for allowing the ecosystem to get into this terrible state leaving who knows how many people vulnerable to malware. I don't have to wait for the retailer to push out Dell's version of Windows to my laptop, I get it from Microsoft.
That's true. As other responders have pointed out, Apple maintains such strict control over their ecosystem that they don't have this problem, Of course, they're able to do this because they leverage the Apple fanbase.
Both platforms are crap for different reasons. I use an Apple phone because I want regular updates and a phone under 5" but sometimes I miss the flexibility of Android. I'm not a fanboi of either.
so the manufacturers & carriers were responsible for
the updates (if any) and in their business model, it's not worth the time since people
just toss their phones away about every 12-24 months,
It's more precisely the business model that they *wish* to have.
Reality is a bit different. Some old phone remain for use much more longer, usually changing hand several time (second hand market) and eventually ending up in third-world countries.
To everybody can actually afford to re-buy a brand new shining phone every other year. And not a lot of manufacturer can cater to poorer markets with modestly speced phone at bargain bin prices.
But meanwhile, the money that the manufacturer could have made has already been made eons ago (at purchase time), and the manufacturer have no financial incentive to keep spending engineer's salaries to support extremely old phone that won't bring in any penny more.
Better direct those engineer to making the next "shiny gadget phone stuff" that you can persuade people to fork money on because the previous one is "so outdated"
(It's so last year! Buy the one! Now 0.1 mm even thiner ! you can finally cut cheese with it ! - DISCLAIMER: and break it when sitting with it in your pant's back pocket. )
So planed obsolescence more or less invite itself on the scene due to how the market is organized.
Hope fully some modularity will help against it :
Perhaps going forward, past Oreo, if more manufacturers adopt the project Treble, which splits the core OS from the UI/bloat, Google can get the updates to the core of the system faster, through the play store
(Cue in the "I have a 32GiB smartphone, but only 18GiB of actually free space, because a massive amount of space is lost to a gazillion of different partitions" typical android-phone complaint...)
Yup, indeed, I hope that it help getting fixes easier in the future.
(Google can easily update the core. And with their insisting on kernels to be at a minimum (LTS) version, there's a chance that the community might also be able to churn out update to the non-blob part - see partition above - of the Linux kernel)
As a side note : That's also an advantage of some full blown GNU/Linux smartphone OS - like Sailfish OS.
The "mer" core of the OS is shared among all phones. So whenever Sailfish OS gets an update (e.g.: Sailfish X recently made available for Sony Xperia X in partnet ship with Sony's Opendevice program), all the older devices all the way back to 2013's Jolla 1 smartphone can benefit from it, even if the kernel is stuck to some antique 3.2 version due to Qualcom not releasing any blob update.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Android Oreo took five months to pass the 1 percent adoption mark.
Yup, indeed, wrong link (about Telegram being pulled out of the appstore due to Child pornography).
Speaking of which :
- How did Apple check the existence of Child pornography ? Wasn't Telegram supposed to be exclusively using end-to-end encryption ? Or did they ask investigating police officers to start chat with CP-distributors ?... (read the Wikipedia article...) Ah okay. end-to-end encryption isn't default and users need to initiate "secret chat" to enable it.
- Telegram is only a communication service enabling end user to exchange message. It shouldn't be liable for what the end-users are exchanging. (Just as the ISP isn't responsible for the internet use of their client).
- Also given that the suspected criminals are stupid enough to NOT use the end-to-end encryption and be easily checked by Apple, it should be easy to prosecute *them* directly.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I actually like the fact they don't keep pushing new updates which will only inevitably slow down the performance of the phone. My Xperia Z3 came with 5.0 and was updated to 5.1.1 around a year later. Now 3 years on, its still performing decently for me, albeit needing a battery replacement in the next year if I want it to be able to continue lasting an entire day without recharge. Meanwhile my Droid Bionic before that started with 2.3 and was eventually updated to 4.0 and 4.1 ... by which time it was essentially unusable: Even with restricting the system to less background processes, it would still often lock up for a minute at a time even when running only one browser tab.
I think the issue lies with Android not really having any one entity fully in charge or at least with enough power to dictate terms. Device manufacturers certainly don't mind killing updates, especially since it helps them sell new devices. The carriers also want you to buy a new device so that they can lock you into monthly contract for another two years.
And this, my friends, is the reason why Android tablets flopped and Google is now putting all bets on Chrome OS for their netbooks (Chromebooks) and new tablets. I mean, technically porting a regular Chrome browser to Android (for tablets/netbooks) would probably be easier than implementing an Android VM on Chrome OS to run Android apps on those things, but at least Google can now deliver timely updates.
Really? My phone is a first-gen Moto G. It was a budget phone at release and I got it because I expected to get updates for a long time from a Google-owned manufacturer. Google sold Motorola a few months later, so that didn't work out - I got updates for about a year and the occasional security fix for another year or two (it took six months for them to push out an update for Stagefright, for example).
The phone is now running LineageOS, and is quite happy with an Android install based on 7.1.2. Improvements to the ART compiler infrastructure mean that a number of the apps that I run are noticeable faster than they were on the older version (not an amazing achievement - they started with a pretty crappy compiler). I expect it to get an update to 8.x as soon as a volunteer-run project gets around to it (a few people have managed to boot it, but not everything works yet).
Are you saying that a handful of volunteers are able to do something that a large company isn't, or is it more accurate to say that companies that sell handsets have no incentive to make your existing handset last longer?
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My 2012 Samsung Galaxy Note II, a flagship model in its time, hasn't received a version update since 2014 (it runs KitKat). However it still got a security/stability firmware upgrade in 2017, and does get "Security Policy" updates (guessing these are SELinux changes). This isn't ideal for anyone who wants new features, but 5 years of security and stability patches is not so bad.
This is really what we should be expecting - we buy a device with a particular featureset, and to get more is a bonus, but assuming and expecting is unreasonable. What we should get is regular security fixes for the reasonable lifetime of the device.
Many times, major software updates on anaemic hardware is a bad thing for the usability of the device (looking hard at Apple...)
Tablets in general have flopped- sales are tanking (more than 20M fewer sold in 2017 vs 2016). This is the 3rd straight year of declining sales. Android tablets aren't doing any worse than the rest of the market. Tablets are rarely updated, and never really interested the majority of the market.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
nougat on my tablet can only charge once per boot. apparently when the mtp daemon crashes that stops charging and i have to reboot. every time i unplug it XD
So how is it Apple (and even Microsoft back with Windows Phone) manages to get updates out to all their handsets on all the carriers at once?
The same way Google gets updates out to all their handsets?
No, they don't. Despite a variety of models across an array of carriers globally Apple manages to get their updates out to everybody at the same time, Google's updates even to the phones they themselves market as Google phones are staggered depending on what phone, what region and what carrier you are on.
You are correct, they only guarantee 3 years, I'd confused it w/ the 5X on the updates page.
TBH I've never had a Google phone last longer than their patch cycle, but I guess that's just the price of (relatively) cheap phones. I've spent the equivalent of 1 iPhone for my last 4 android phones which lasted me a lot longer than 1 iPhone would, particularly since 2 of the androids died due to dropping...
The âtook five months..." link actually links to https://venturebeat.com/2018/0...