It't not "legacy software" if most people still use it and most applications still specifically target it. Google can't withdraw support for it because they don't offer it in the first place,
Look at MS and their legacy releases of Windows. They can use license agreements to force manufacturers to stop installing them on new hardware They can stop providing support and stop issuing security patches to pressure users to upgrade. And yet every move they've made to ditch XP has been met with enormous pushback. They win in the end, but it's a big hassle for them. And Google doesn't have the leverage over the Android ecosystem that MS has over the Windows ecosystem.
The real question is why they haven't switched already, and the answer is likely that it takes time to design and produce entry-level phones.
They don't design a phone to run a specific version of Android. They design a phone within the general Android specs and then adapt Android to it. That in itself is not hard, but they also spend a lot of time coding customizations and proprietary applications. (Users see this as unnecessary bling, but to the vendor they're an essential way to distinguish their product from the competitors.) If they stick with Gingerbread, they can gradually "improve" their changes, but if they upgrade to 4.x, where the APIs are a lot different, they have to start over — and that costs.
The last time I used an iPod, the only way to get MP3s onto the iPod was through iTunes. If that's changed, I'll certainly be more open to using iDevices in the future.
The problem here is not that the example was unrepresentative. The problem here is that the example was bogus. Somebody who accumulates a few million dollars in personal assets through their own work is certainly not in the top 1% of wealth. That would be somebody's whose disposable income amounts to that much in a week.
Hackers can unbrick their devices and install their favorite OS. Most Slashdotters are hackers, but most everybody else is not. Build a cheap consumer device that comes with an OS people don't want, and you won't sell enough of them to turn a profit.
Maybe, except they'd have a hard time competing with netbooks running Window 7 Starter. Small, light, stupendous battery life, and only cost about $250.
The kind of device you';re talking about surely doesn't need any more juice than a common MP3 player. I keep a cigarette lighter to USB adapter in my car, and it supplies my phone with more power than it needs indefinitely. I don't suppose helicopters have cigarette lighters, but you must have some equivalent.
Or maybe not. A little while back I watched Generation Kill, in which Recon Marines invading Iraq are always running short of batteries for their night vision goggles. Can anyone explain to me why HUMVs don't come with battery chargers?
Was 4) about Linux? Because in the Windows world, I don't see a lot third-party OS developers jumping in on this kind of issue. Maybe they do in the Linux community, but isn't that the way all Linux problems get solved?
When you get a lot of different companies and people working together to keep a platform alive (Linux, Apache), then you do get a lot of people stepping up to solve random problems. Not the case when the platform basically belongs to one company, even when that platform is open source.
Most developers are using a API that was supposed to be phased out 2 years ago, and most new phones still have that same 2-year-old API? How is that not stuck?
Before you start questioning other people's intelligence, learn some math. The 1% isn't somebody who owns a business worth a few million. It's the CEO or banker or other high-flyer who earns that much money in a week.
You make a lot of good points (I disagree with you on 4) but I don't seem them as central to the problem. Which is: that most phones are being sold with Gingerbread, If these could be magically upgraded to 4.whatever, the problems you cite wouldn't matter so much.
Speak for yourself. I like a having a hackable smartphone or tablet that lives outside the Apple walled garden. I do not like that developers are being forced to code to an API that Google froze as obsolete almost two years ago. Nor do I like the fact that a few braver developers are writing cool apps for the current API, but IU can't run them because phones I can afford are stuck on Gingerbread.
Android phone sales may be fine now, but technology is a grow-or-die marketplace. No matter how well it's doing now, Android doesn't have a future if it's stuck like this.
An ARM laptop? Dare I ask which OS? There might be a market for Windows RT, but I can't see anybody wanting an Android tablet.
Some of the products you link to do look intriguing. I've often wanted an Android tablet. I actually bought a no-name Chinese ICS tablet a few months ago. Had nice specs, including a 10" screen. Alas, the design was very cheap, with a digitizer that required a special stylus and a screen that brook in a few days. It seems that building a reasonably sturdy tablet at a reasonable price isn't that easy.
Uh, the Pi is meant an educational and hobby platform. It has a bunch of slots and connectors. This thing is obviously a commercial product without a lot of slots or connectors that's meant to be embedded in a larger product.
Not being an embedded systems person, I'd be grateful if somebody linked examples of the kind of system that uses this kind of CPU card.
The only case I know of where Bain actually grew the company was Staples. And that was more venture capitalism than equity capitalism. The took a small but successful office supply chain, give them a bucket of cash, then cashed out when the investment produced massive growth. Venture capitalism is great and I have no problem with Bain getting rich by taking investment risks. But it's hardly evidence of their management skills.
The claim that they save dying companies seems to be so much bunk. There may be a case of Bain actually turning a company around, but none have actually come to my attention. Mostly the companies are even worse off than before, while Bain has made big bucks by raiding assets and charging management fees.
Wait a minute...so exactly what do you call a conversation then? You tell me your opinion, and then I just say nothing and accept it?
No. I tell you my opinion then you do the Wikipedia thing and assume good faith. You do some constructive listening. You start from the premise that I'm a reasonably intelligent human being, and that my opinions have some kind of rational basis, even when they conflict with yours. Most of all, you try to act with civility, not just because it's the polite thing to do, but because it gets you in the habit of giving the other person's ideas a fair chance.
Believe it or not, I actually have friendly conversations with people whose views are far to the right of mine. Sometimes they even manage to change my opinions. (And, shock of shocks, sometimes I change theirs.) But that doesn't happen unless both parties go into the conversation open to the possibility that they will have to put their ego to one side and admit to being wrong.
When the point of the conversation is to simply demonstrate that the other side is a fool, it's not actual conversation. It's just mutual verbal masturbation.
One can humorously speak the truth, and I often do. I totally buy your claim that Apple's muttitouch works betters. It's consistent with their long history of putting a lot of work into making their products easy to use.
I can honestly acknowledge Apple's achievements without being an Apple fan. That's because every encounter I've had with their technology has demonstrated that it's not for me. Cost, paternalistic ecosystems, key applications (mainly iTunes) that they have somehow overlooked in their usability Jihad, stupidity about media formats... Mind you, they don't totally suck. I've even suggested to technically non-savvy users that they might be happier using a Mac. But it's just not an option for me.
Slashdot Mirror
It't not "legacy software" if most people still use it and most applications still specifically target it. Google can't withdraw support for it because they don't offer it in the first place,
Look at MS and their legacy releases of Windows. They can use license agreements to force manufacturers to stop installing them on new hardware They can stop providing support and stop issuing security patches to pressure users to upgrade. And yet every move they've made to ditch XP has been met with enormous pushback. They win in the end, but it's a big hassle for them. And Google doesn't have the leverage over the Android ecosystem that MS has over the Windows ecosystem.
The real question is why they haven't switched already, and the answer is likely that it takes time to design and produce entry-level phones.
They don't design a phone to run a specific version of Android. They design a phone within the general Android specs and then adapt Android to it. That in itself is not hard, but they also spend a lot of time coding customizations and proprietary applications. (Users see this as unnecessary bling, but to the vendor they're an essential way to distinguish their product from the competitors.) If they stick with Gingerbread, they can gradually "improve" their changes, but if they upgrade to 4.x, where the APIs are a lot different, they have to start over — and that costs.
The last time I used an iPod, the only way to get MP3s onto the iPod was through iTunes. If that's changed, I'll certainly be more open to using iDevices in the future.
The problem here is not that the example was unrepresentative. The problem here is that the example was bogus. Somebody who accumulates a few million dollars in personal assets through their own work is certainly not in the top 1% of wealth. That would be somebody's whose disposable income amounts to that much in a week.
To download content and applications to to my iWhatever?
ou'll probably find cheap 4.x phones in Q1 2013.
Why? What incentives to upgrade will vendors have next year that they don't have now?
Hackers can unbrick their devices and install their favorite OS. Most Slashdotters are hackers, but most everybody else is not. Build a cheap consumer device that comes with an OS people don't want, and you won't sell enough of them to turn a profit.
If your "frree" upgrade now isn't the latest and greatest now, what makes you think it will be in 2 years?
Oh right, somebody who can't drop $500 for a device that'll be obsolete in a year is "poor and broke" Full of yourself much?
Poor is a feature phone. Broke is a landline. Poor and broke is bad English.
Maybe, except they'd have a hard time competing with netbooks running Window 7 Starter. Small, light, stupendous battery life, and only cost about $250.
The kind of device you';re talking about surely doesn't need any more juice than a common MP3 player. I keep a cigarette lighter to USB adapter in my car, and it supplies my phone with more power than it needs indefinitely. I don't suppose helicopters have cigarette lighters, but you must have some equivalent.
Or maybe not. A little while back I watched Generation Kill, in which Recon Marines invading Iraq are always running short of batteries for their night vision goggles. Can anyone explain to me why HUMVs don't come with battery chargers?
Was 4) about Linux? Because in the Windows world, I don't see a lot third-party OS developers jumping in on this kind of issue. Maybe they do in the Linux community, but isn't that the way all Linux problems get solved?
When you get a lot of different companies and people working together to keep a platform alive (Linux, Apache), then you do get a lot of people stepping up to solve random problems. Not the case when the platform basically belongs to one company, even when that platform is open source.
Most developers are using a API that was supposed to be phased out 2 years ago, and most new phones still have that same 2-year-old API? How is that not stuck?
Before you start questioning other people's intelligence, learn some math. The 1% isn't somebody who owns a business worth a few million. It's the CEO or banker or other high-flyer who earns that much money in a week.
You make a lot of good points (I disagree with you on 4) but I don't seem them as central to the problem. Which is: that most phones are being sold with Gingerbread, If these could be magically upgraded to 4.whatever, the problems you cite wouldn't matter so much.
Try reading the last sentence in my post again, assuming you read it the first time.
Oh please. It's the developer's fault that most people don't want to spend $500 for a phone?
Nobody's saying you should. The problem is not people hanging onto their old phones, it's vendors hanging onto old OS versions.
Speak for yourself. I like a having a hackable smartphone or tablet that lives outside the Apple walled garden. I do not like that developers are being forced to code to an API that Google froze as obsolete almost two years ago. Nor do I like the fact that a few braver developers are writing cool apps for the current API, but IU can't run them because phones I can afford are stuck on Gingerbread.
Android phone sales may be fine now, but technology is a grow-or-die marketplace. No matter how well it's doing now, Android doesn't have a future if it's stuck like this.
An ARM laptop? Dare I ask which OS? There might be a market for Windows RT, but I can't see anybody wanting an Android tablet.
Some of the products you link to do look intriguing. I've often wanted an Android tablet. I actually bought a no-name Chinese ICS tablet a few months ago. Had nice specs, including a 10" screen. Alas, the design was very cheap, with a digitizer that required a special stylus and a screen that brook in a few days. It seems that building a reasonably sturdy tablet at a reasonable price isn't that easy.
Uh, the Pi is meant an educational and hobby platform. It has a bunch of slots and connectors. This thing is obviously a commercial product without a lot of slots or connectors that's meant to be embedded in a larger product.
Not being an embedded systems person, I'd be grateful if somebody linked examples of the kind of system that uses this kind of CPU card.
Uh, you mean like Ampad
The only case I know of where Bain actually grew the company was Staples. And that was more venture capitalism than equity capitalism. The took a small but successful office supply chain, give them a bucket of cash, then cashed out when the investment produced massive growth. Venture capitalism is great and I have no problem with Bain getting rich by taking investment risks. But it's hardly evidence of their management skills.
The claim that they save dying companies seems to be so much bunk. There may be a case of Bain actually turning a company around, but none have actually come to my attention. Mostly the companies are even worse off than before, while Bain has made big bucks by raiding assets and charging management fees.
Alas, my mileage most certainly does not vary.
Wait a minute...so exactly what do you call a conversation then? You tell me your opinion, and then I just say nothing and accept it?
No. I tell you my opinion then you do the Wikipedia thing and assume good faith. You do some constructive listening. You start from the premise that I'm a reasonably intelligent human being, and that my opinions have some kind of rational basis, even when they conflict with yours. Most of all, you try to act with civility, not just because it's the polite thing to do, but because it gets you in the habit of giving the other person's ideas a fair chance.
Believe it or not, I actually have friendly conversations with people whose views are far to the right of mine. Sometimes they even manage to change my opinions. (And, shock of shocks, sometimes I change theirs.) But that doesn't happen unless both parties go into the conversation open to the possibility that they will have to put their ego to one side and admit to being wrong.
When the point of the conversation is to simply demonstrate that the other side is a fool, it's not actual conversation. It's just mutual verbal masturbation.
One can humorously speak the truth, and I often do. I totally buy your claim that Apple's muttitouch works betters. It's consistent with their long history of putting a lot of work into making their products easy to use.
I can honestly acknowledge Apple's achievements without being an Apple fan. That's because every encounter I've had with their technology has demonstrated that it's not for me. Cost, paternalistic ecosystems, key applications (mainly iTunes) that they have somehow overlooked in their usability Jihad, stupidity about media formats... Mind you, they don't totally suck. I've even suggested to technically non-savvy users that they might be happier using a Mac. But it's just not an option for me.
They just said that to confuse me.