That misses my point. And also it would not have to be a second hand sale. When an OEM sells a computer with windows XP does not depend on when the OEM copy of windows XP was purchased. I think I even still have an unopened OEM windows XP license somewhere.
That's a fair position to take but in my opinion Google should see the situation and adapt to it by patching the older version especially since many of those phones do lack the capability to run 4.4 (though some may be able to skip 4.4 and run 5.0).
How long should they realistically keep doing this? I know it is common to support some hardware for decades, but people just don't keep cell phones that long. Typically they are kept for the length of a standard contract. The lithium batteries don't last much longer than that.
I think what makes more sense is for google to support older devices in some kind of limited capacity (e.g. turning off certain features or just coming out with an alternate release called "android lite" or something.)
Continually patching older releases may provide some short term good (if the hardware vendors are even willing to push those patches), but it also allows hardware vendors a convenient way to skirt their responsibility to port newer android versions to their phones.
Even an unlocked bootloader isn't going to help you if you don't have a compatible system image, the binary drivers of one version don't necessarily work with the next because of the instability of the kernel ABI.
I know most people aren't capable of rolling their own android version, but if you have a popular phone, chances are that there are people willing to develop custom android versions for your phone. While unlocked bootloaders doesn't magically make compatible software appear, simply not being actively hindered in loading different software is a giant step in the right direction.
What Google should do is force a support requirement through the OHA.
Maybe this would work. But I still think a consumer demand based approach could work just as well or even better. Maybe google could just give out grades to android hardware vendors based on things like releasing phones with unlocked bootloaders and releasing timely OS upgrades.
I also think that a big problem is that a lot of people still buy phones from their carriers. Nobody buys televisions from their cable company. Everything that can be done to disrupt this system will be a step in the right direction.
That fact does remain, but what I am arguing is that the real problem is the hardware vendors not google. They don't have much interest in supporting their products after they are sold, which would not be such a big deal if they didn't also take measures to actively prevent users from loading their own code onto those phones.
Until the hardware vendors change their ways, I think the most reasonable advice is "Don't buy phones with locked bootloaders, and preferably buy nexus phones from the google play store". It's not like apple where every iphone is a quality product. The android market requires you to be a little more tech savvy if you want to get a good product. The only thing that's going to prevent hardware maufacturers from making bad products is if people stop buying them.
XP is a version of Windows. Android 4.3 is a version of Android. They aren't just roughly analogous, they are exactly analogous.
Listen retard, XP is not a version of windows in the same sense that 4.3 is a version of android. When you patch android version 4.3 you get a new number (e.g. 4.3.1, or 4.4). When you patch windows XP you don't necessarily get a new version of windows (i.e. it's still just called XP)
If you bought your desktop from some store (let's say compUSA) and compUSA figured out a way to lock the CPU of the computer so that only executable code signed by compUSA could be run on this computer, and MS came out with a patch for windows XP but compUSA didn't bother signing the new windows XP version executables, you wouldn't be able to upgrade, but it wouldn't be Microsoft's fault, it would be compUSA's fault.
That is easily the dumbest statement I've seen on this thread.
If you don't understand what is being discussed, then your retarded opinion about what is dumb and what isn't is meaningless.
So, people should be smart enough to not buy any phone that works on the Verizon network, any phone sold in an AT&T store as part of a contract, and any phone in a T-Mobile store sold under a purchase plan other than 1-2 models in the US?
Yes
You're basically saying that Android is great as long as you don't buy 99% of the devices on the market.
Yeah sort of like how iphones are great, and 99% of other phones are not.
There are about as many great android phones as iphones, but there are also a bunch of bad android phones.
And even if you guy, eg, a Galaxy Nexus with an unlocked bootloader, the company that sold it to you (Google) only provided support for 1.5 years from the date the device FIRST went on sale.
It was nearly 2 years November 17th 2011 to Octover 31 2013, but yes. And you still have a phone with an unlocked bootloader that can run whatever software you want on it.
MS supports Windows for 10 years after the NEXT version of Windows goes on sale.
Is microsoft going to support windows phones 10 years after they are released? Supporting hardware and supporting software are 2 different things. Microsoft doesn't support very much hardware at all. They pass that duty on to hardware vendors.
That is why 95% of the PCs in businesses are STILL running Windows despite all the talk about the death of the desktop.
There are lots of reasons why microsoft has dominated the PC world. A lot of it has to do with luck.
I don't really have a problem with the death of the desktop, but businesses aren't going to buy into an alternative that isn't supported for a long time.
A lot of businesses use linux because it is better for many tasks. You can pay for support by licensing products through the company selling the product w/ a support package, or you can pay for support by hiring experts to manage products that are otherwise lacking support.
Windows is losing market share, now that more alternatives exist. Their product isn't bad, but it's just not the only game in town anymore.
Sucks for you. Get a new phone. I bought a nexus 4 over 2 years ago, and it runs lollipop. It probably won't run the next major update. I don't expect hardware to be supported forever.
When Obama says "If you like your docotor you can keep your doctor", he's not saying that Obamacare will forcibly prevent your doctor from retiring.
Similarly when I say android upgrades are free, I'm not saying that people without a phone capable of running those upgrades will get such a phone for free in order to keep every aspect of running the latest android completely free.
By this definition of free upgrades, no software upgrades are free unless they provide people with hardware who don't already have it. Linux isn't free to people without computers...
My point was that it would not be microsoft's fault in this scenario, not that this scenario happened often. So maybe in the same way that people are not dumb enough to buy computers from comanies selling computers with windows XP in 2014, they should become smart enough not to buy phones with locked bootloaders (making them dependent on hardware vendors to get android updates).
There are publicly available android images. They are probably not for your phone unless you have a nexus 4 5 or 6, etc.
These images contain some hardware specific code, (that's why there isn't one monolithic android update). It is the job of hardware manufacturers to incorporate what google releases with their own hardware specific code to create an android image for a specific phone.
Google can't make hardware vendors do this. Nor can they make hardware vendors apply patches to 4.3.
My point was that there is a hardware component to every update, even if that update seems like "just software". It is the hardware vendors that must fill that gap. It's easy for apple to do this because they *are* the hardware vendor. It is also easy for Google to do this for the phones they make (the nexus phones), and they do.
My guess is that Google is trying to force vendors to do the work of having to upgrade their phones to a new android version rather than just getting the easy way out and simply applying a patch (which is bad for consumers).
As a software developer I run into this all the time. Our customer wants us to fix a bug in our software, and we tell them it is already fixed in a newer version of our software. But they don't want to upgrade. They just want a patch to their existing software because (they think) it's easier for them. But what they don't realize is that we fixed a bunch of stuff. Rather than issuing 100 patches, it really is just easier to get the latest software.
And in actuality our customer doesn't even want patches. They want us to magically fix the software without making any changes to it. Because changing the software requires them to do more paperwork. So we must continually explain to them that it isn't possible to fix software without changing it.
in theory it could, but in practice not so much, why? see your second point !
It's not my analogy, so I don't intend on defending it. Rather than saying "that's not the reason your analogy is bad" I should have said "That's not the particular problem with your analogy I was referring to (although that is a different reason your analogy is bad)"
As a software engineer whose sick of customers that want me to fix their software problems but not not through software upgrades, I can certainly relate to Google's frustration.
The hardware vendors don't give a shit. They already sold their phone. Is applying a small patch easier than applying a big patch? Yeah probably, but it doesn't matter because both are harder and more expensive than doing nothing.
In terms of batteries causing electronic waste, buying a new battery for an old phone is pretty much the same as receiving a battery with a new phone.
That was my point
My point is that good hardware is being thrown away unnecessarily because manufacturers aren't supporting it for its full useful lifetime.
No one is stopping you from putting whatever software you want on a galaxy nexus, unlike phones from other manufacturers.
I still contend that net electronic waste would decreae if people bought a new phone once every five years, rather than once every two years.
This would artificially limit the demand for new phones and slow technology. If we had implemented this policy at the dawn of mobile phone technology, we'd have probably produced less e-waste and our phones would be terrible compared with what we have now.
Battery technology might also improve more rapidly in this scenario.
I don't think having stagnant markets is a great way to boost improve technology.
So go run CM on your galaxy nexus if you don't want to throw it in a landfill. And if CM isn't good enough, you can write your own software for it. Unlike phones with locked bootloaders, the galaxy nexus is full of endless possibilities.
You have to compare the costs of recycling the devices and making more energy efficient devices with the cost of using the older devices.
You don't need "laws". All you need to do is charge people the true cost of energy and the true cost of e-waste disposal (e.g. an e-waste tax when the item is purchased), and let the market decide).
The bulk of the e-waste is going to be the battery. So manufacturing new batteries for old phones to keep them alive isn't really buying us much.
Furthermore, as far as e-waste goes, phones being relatively small, gives us a very high "bang-for the-buck" in terms of utility:e-waste ratio, compared to desktops, laptops televisions, etc.
The consumer demand for smaller and smaller mobile devices is driving technology of miniaturization, and this technology is benefiting many industries outside of the phone industry.
The faster (and smaller) these devices get, the less e-waste we will produce especially if we are recycling.
What would reduce electronic waste even more is if google never made the galaxy nexus in the first place. We could just keep using our nexus Ss and nexus ones.
As electronics get more efficient, using hardware which requires more energy to make the same computations is not socially responsible. Fixing old cars up is not more socially responsible than buying a new one that is more energy efficient.
It's a valid example: a smartphone is just a shrunk down PC/laptop.
That's not the reason your example is bad. The reason your example is bad is because PC's have the exact same problem. The example doesn't show a problem specific to Google, but all platforms open to 3rd party manufacturers.
True, but we do get OS updates from only one vendor: the OS vendor. If there's a driver bug or hardware bug, we get the driver update from the hardware vendor. This is not a hardware/hardware driver bug, so the update must come from the OS vendor, google.
So this is where maybe a phone is not just a shrunk down PC/laptop. What is preventing you from updating the software on the phone yourself (circumventing the hardware vendor)? Well, it's that the hardware vendor has locked the bootloader of your phone. Not typically done with a PC.
What does a pure software component, WebView, have anything to do with hardware drivers? Nothing. Your argument is baseless.
Well let's assume you are correct. Just go download the publicly available android update and put it on your phone. If it's just a software component like you say, then it should just work.
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Apple and Google have made a very selfish decision to create a "zone of not doing the justice department's job for them".
That misses my point. And also it would not have to be a second hand sale. When an OEM sells a computer with windows XP does not depend on when the OEM copy of windows XP was purchased. I think I even still have an unopened OEM windows XP license somewhere.
That's a fair position to take but in my opinion Google should see the situation and adapt to it by patching the older version especially since many of those phones do lack the capability to run 4.4 (though some may be able to skip 4.4 and run 5.0).
How long should they realistically keep doing this? I know it is common to support some hardware for decades, but people just don't keep cell phones that long. Typically they are kept for the length of a standard contract. The lithium batteries don't last much longer than that.
I think what makes more sense is for google to support older devices in some kind of limited capacity (e.g. turning off certain features or just coming out with an alternate release called "android lite" or something.)
Continually patching older releases may provide some short term good (if the hardware vendors are even willing to push those patches), but it also allows hardware vendors a convenient way to skirt their responsibility to port newer android versions to their phones.
Even an unlocked bootloader isn't going to help you if you don't have a compatible system image, the binary drivers of one version don't necessarily work with the next because of the instability of the kernel ABI.
I know most people aren't capable of rolling their own android version, but if you have a popular phone, chances are that there are people willing to develop custom android versions for your phone. While unlocked bootloaders doesn't magically make compatible software appear, simply not being actively hindered in loading different software is a giant step in the right direction.
What Google should do is force a support requirement through the OHA.
Maybe this would work. But I still think a consumer demand based approach could work just as well or even better. Maybe google could just give out grades to android hardware vendors based on things like releasing phones with unlocked bootloaders and releasing timely OS upgrades.
I also think that a big problem is that a lot of people still buy phones from their carriers. Nobody buys televisions from their cable company. Everything that can be done to disrupt this system will be a step in the right direction.
That fact does remain, but what I am arguing is that the real problem is the hardware vendors not google. They don't have much interest in supporting their products after they are sold, which would not be such a big deal if they didn't also take measures to actively prevent users from loading their own code onto those phones.
Until the hardware vendors change their ways, I think the most reasonable advice is "Don't buy phones with locked bootloaders, and preferably buy nexus phones from the google play store". It's not like apple where every iphone is a quality product. The android market requires you to be a little more tech savvy if you want to get a good product. The only thing that's going to prevent hardware maufacturers from making bad products is if people stop buying them.
XP is a version of Windows. Android 4.3 is a version of Android. They aren't just roughly analogous, they are exactly analogous.
Listen retard, XP is not a version of windows in the same sense that 4.3 is a version of android. When you patch android version 4.3 you get a new number (e.g. 4.3.1, or 4.4). When you patch windows XP you don't necessarily get a new version of windows (i.e. it's still just called XP)
If you bought your desktop from some store (let's say compUSA) and compUSA figured out a way to lock the CPU of the computer so that only executable code signed by compUSA could be run on this computer, and MS came out with a patch for windows XP but compUSA didn't bother signing the new windows XP version executables, you wouldn't be able to upgrade, but it wouldn't be Microsoft's fault, it would be compUSA's fault.
That is easily the dumbest statement I've seen on this thread.
If you don't understand what is being discussed, then your retarded opinion about what is dumb and what isn't is meaningless.
I suspect most phones running 4.3 could have been upgraded to 4.4 if the hardware vendors did the work to port the 4.4 release to their phones.
It's bizarre how popular they are given all the superior alternatives there are /s
Who cares about you?
So, people should be smart enough to not buy any phone that works on the Verizon network, any phone sold in an AT&T store as part of a contract, and any phone in a T-Mobile store sold under a purchase plan other than 1-2 models in the US?
Yes
You're basically saying that Android is great as long as you don't buy 99% of the devices on the market.
Yeah sort of like how iphones are great, and 99% of other phones are not.
There are about as many great android phones as iphones, but there are also a bunch of bad android phones.
And even if you guy, eg, a Galaxy Nexus with an unlocked bootloader, the company that sold it to you (Google) only provided support for 1.5 years from the date the device FIRST went on sale.
It was nearly 2 years November 17th 2011 to Octover 31 2013, but yes. And you still have a phone with an unlocked bootloader that can run whatever software you want on it.
MS supports Windows for 10 years after the NEXT version of Windows goes on sale.
Is microsoft going to support windows phones 10 years after they are released? Supporting hardware and supporting software are 2 different things. Microsoft doesn't support very much hardware at all. They pass that duty on to hardware vendors.
That is why 95% of the PCs in businesses are STILL running Windows despite all the talk about the death of the desktop.
There are lots of reasons why microsoft has dominated the PC world. A lot of it has to do with luck.
I don't really have a problem with the death of the desktop, but businesses aren't going to buy into an alternative that isn't supported for a long time.
A lot of businesses use linux because it is better for many tasks. You can pay for support by licensing products through the company selling the product w/ a support package, or you can pay for support by hiring experts to manage products that are otherwise lacking support.
Windows is losing market share, now that more alternatives exist. Their product isn't bad, but it's just not the only game in town anymore.
Sucks for you. Get a new phone. I bought a nexus 4 over 2 years ago, and it runs lollipop. It probably won't run the next major update. I don't expect hardware to be supported forever.
When Obama says "If you like your docotor you can keep your doctor", he's not saying that Obamacare will forcibly prevent your doctor from retiring.
Similarly when I say android upgrades are free, I'm not saying that people without a phone capable of running those upgrades will get such a phone for free in order to keep every aspect of running the latest android completely free.
By this definition of free upgrades, no software upgrades are free unless they provide people with hardware who don't already have it. Linux isn't free to people without computers...
Don't forget to buy a new battery too.
My point was that it would not be microsoft's fault in this scenario, not that this scenario happened often. So maybe in the same way that people are not dumb enough to buy computers from comanies selling computers with windows XP in 2014, they should become smart enough not to buy phones with locked bootloaders (making them dependent on hardware vendors to get android updates).
It will probably continue to work perfectly indefinitely as long as you keep buying new batteries for it. So when is it time to upgrade?
There are publicly available android images. They are probably not for your phone unless you have a nexus 4 5 or 6, etc.
These images contain some hardware specific code, (that's why there isn't one monolithic android update). It is the job of hardware manufacturers to incorporate what google releases with their own hardware specific code to create an android image for a specific phone.
Google can't make hardware vendors do this. Nor can they make hardware vendors apply patches to 4.3.
My point was that there is a hardware component to every update, even if that update seems like "just software". It is the hardware vendors that must fill that gap. It's easy for apple to do this because they *are* the hardware vendor. It is also easy for Google to do this for the phones they make (the nexus phones), and they do.
My guess is that Google is trying to force vendors to do the work of having to upgrade their phones to a new android version rather than just getting the easy way out and simply applying a patch (which is bad for consumers).
As a software developer I run into this all the time. Our customer wants us to fix a bug in our software, and we tell them it is already fixed in a newer version of our software. But they don't want to upgrade. They just want a patch to their existing software because (they think) it's easier for them. But what they don't realize is that we fixed a bunch of stuff. Rather than issuing 100 patches, it really is just easier to get the latest software.
And in actuality our customer doesn't even want patches. They want us to magically fix the software without making any changes to it. Because changing the software requires them to do more paperwork. So we must continually explain to them that it isn't possible to fix software without changing it.
in theory it could, but in practice not so much, why? see your second point !
It's not my analogy, so I don't intend on defending it. Rather than saying "that's not the reason your analogy is bad" I should have said "That's not the particular problem with your analogy I was referring to (although that is a different reason your analogy is bad)"
As a software engineer whose sick of customers that want me to fix their software problems but not not through software upgrades, I can certainly relate to Google's frustration.
The hardware vendors don't give a shit. They already sold their phone. Is applying a small patch easier than applying a big patch? Yeah probably, but it doesn't matter because both are harder and more expensive than doing nothing.
That's why I put "laws" in quotes.
In terms of batteries causing electronic waste, buying a new battery for an old phone is pretty much the same as receiving a battery with a new phone.
That was my point
My point is that good hardware is being thrown away unnecessarily because manufacturers aren't supporting it for its full useful lifetime.
No one is stopping you from putting whatever software you want on a galaxy nexus, unlike phones from other manufacturers.
I still contend that net electronic waste would decreae if people bought a new phone once every five years, rather than once every two years.
This would artificially limit the demand for new phones and slow technology. If we had implemented this policy at the dawn of mobile phone technology, we'd have probably produced less e-waste and our phones would be terrible compared with what we have now.
Battery technology might also improve more rapidly in this scenario.
I don't think having stagnant markets is a great way to boost improve technology.
So go run CM on your galaxy nexus if you don't want to throw it in a landfill. And if CM isn't good enough, you can write your own software for it. Unlike phones with locked bootloaders, the galaxy nexus is full of endless possibilities.
You have to compare the costs of recycling the devices and making more energy efficient devices with the cost of using the older devices.
You don't need "laws". All you need to do is charge people the true cost of energy and the true cost of e-waste disposal (e.g. an e-waste tax when the item is purchased), and let the market decide).
The bulk of the e-waste is going to be the battery. So manufacturing new batteries for old phones to keep them alive isn't really buying us much.
Furthermore, as far as e-waste goes, phones being relatively small, gives us a very high "bang-for the-buck" in terms of utility:e-waste ratio, compared to desktops, laptops televisions, etc.
The consumer demand for smaller and smaller mobile devices is driving technology of miniaturization, and this technology is benefiting many industries outside of the phone industry.
The faster (and smaller) these devices get, the less e-waste we will produce especially if we are recycling.
What would reduce electronic waste even more is if google never made the galaxy nexus in the first place. We could just keep using our nexus Ss and nexus ones.
As electronics get more efficient, using hardware which requires more energy to make the same computations is not socially responsible. Fixing old cars up is not more socially responsible than buying a new one that is more energy efficient.
It's a valid example: a smartphone is just a shrunk down PC/laptop.
That's not the reason your example is bad. The reason your example is bad is because PC's have the exact same problem. The example doesn't show a problem specific to Google, but all platforms open to 3rd party manufacturers.
True, but we do get OS updates from only one vendor: the OS vendor. If there's a driver bug or hardware bug, we get the driver update from the hardware vendor. This is not a hardware/hardware driver bug, so the update must come from the OS vendor, google.
So this is where maybe a phone is not just a shrunk down PC/laptop. What is preventing you from updating the software on the phone yourself (circumventing the hardware vendor)? Well, it's that the hardware vendor has locked the bootloader of your phone. Not typically done with a PC.
What does a pure software component, WebView, have anything to do with hardware drivers? Nothing. Your argument is baseless.
Well let's assume you are correct. Just go download the publicly available android update and put it on your phone. If it's just a software component like you say, then it should just work.