Android Orphans: a Sad History of Platform Abandonment 770
MBCook writes "After seeing the announcement that Nexus One users won't get ICS, Michael Degusta made a chart to show how current the OS version on Android phones was over time... and the results are not encouraging."
Like PC's (Score:4, Insightful)
I can install virtually any OS on my PC, why cant the same be done with mobiles?
No standard boot process on ARM (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Like PC's (Score:4, Informative)
Because the PC was designed in the early days of micro-computers and IBM made a couple of mistakes.
Re:Like PC's (Score:4, Interesting)
This is sad, but this is true.
If you watch Triumph of the Nerds [wikipedia.org], you'll have an idea, why PCs are so open: because IBM tried to rush the product out of the door and open interface and interchangeable parts from different manufactures was their only option. IIRC, Larry Ellison calls this decision to basically open everything "the huge business mistake" in this very movie too.
Re: (Score:3)
Ahem [xda-developers.com].
Mobiles are often locked down, similar to consoles. Both can be cracked. Of course, depending on the competence of the security and the competence of any crackers who want to open up the platform, not all will be.
Re:Like PC's (Score:5, Insightful)
Because every ARM board is unique, and there is no universal means for an OS to determine hardware capabilities and peripherals.
On the PC we have the BIOS, PCI, ACPI, and a number of other facilities that work well enough that the OS can automatically enumerate the hardware and configure itself to operate on the platform. With ARM devices, even between two boards with the same SoC you'll have peripherals connected via different GPIOs, interrupts on different pins, a wide array of voltage regulators (some more, some less, all connected differently.)
And since everything is stored in a flash chip at a custom location, working with the kernel and bootloader is a lot like working with the BIOS on your pc- if you mess it up, your device is screwed (unless it can cold flash, has a hard ROM for flashing, or accessible JTAG, all of which are extremely rare on consumer level devices.)
But even if you have all of the above taken care of, the complete lack of effort on behalf of Google and the hardware vendors to getting their changes upstream in the kernel generally means that porting newer versions of Android to older devices is a pain in the ass due to needing to rework or sometimes rewrite the drivers. Normally they would be updated and tested by people as the kernel moved forward, but instead they rot in tarballs and zip files out on vendor websites.
Never mind Google's wacky reworking of the file system. I'm sure devices like the Nexus One have plenty of space to store ICS. But their broken layout and insistence on storing applications on that NAND instead of having a higher capacity internal NAND or only storing applications on the SD card is a large part of this problem as well.
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I think that storage is exactly the reason why this isn't being supported on the Nexus One. It has 256MB of NAND, which might sound like a lot. However, Android needs some amount of user writable storage on non-removeable media for user settings and applications. Even with Gingerbread, the Nexus One is already severely cramped in this respect.
Newer phones that will supposedly support ICS have embedded MMC (eMMC) which comes in much larger capacities, making this a non-issue.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm so confused. First of all, this doesn't list the Samsung Galaxy, which has stayed updated. Or the S2 for that matter. Did they specifically pick Android devices that are not being updated (there are many, I don't deny that)?
Second of all, the original iPhone 2G, which I have, is definitely not supported by iOS5, or even iOS4 for that matter. What are they smoking?
I can't help but think this is intentionally skewed for Apple...
Re: (Score:2)
As for the iPhone 2G, the graph clearly does not indicate that it has current support updates. This is NOT a timeline, it is a bar graph, so read it appropriately. The support was terminated shortly after the second year, which was early 2010. It is now late 2011 - so support updates for it have been missing for over a year and a half.
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It does seem a bit skewed towards Apple with the exclusion of the Samsung Galaxy.
As for the iPhone 2G, the graph clearly does not indicate that it has current support updates. This is NOT a timeline, it is a bar graph, so read it appropriately. The support was terminated shortly after the second year, which was early 2010. It is now late 2011 - so support updates for it have been missing for over a year and a half.
Given that the SGS and SGS2 represent a HUGE portion of the installbase, as well as the Droid 2, Droid X, (and other handsets too numerous to mention) this whole "expose" is basically ad advertisement for the Apple software update process, which to their credit is quite comprehensive (but to put it in perspective they have exactly 3 hardware builds for 3 years of sales.) What they don't mention is that every "wonderful new software update" by Apple came (until after the new iOS 5 release) in the form of a
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
I think it should read "highest available version at that time" rather than "current major version" - i.e. for the first three years of the original iPhone's life, it was possible to run what was, at the time, the highest available version of iOS on it.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
"Second of all, the original iPhone 2G, which I have, is definitely not supported by iOS5, or even iOS4 for that matter. What are they smoking?"
They are simply stating that the iPhone 2G was supported and up to date for the first three years of its life. This is true. Support was dropped with iOS 4.0 which came out nearly exactly three years after the original iPhone.
The same goes for the iPhone 3G. Support and updates was dropped three years after it came out.
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The chart stops at June 2010 and it follows phones for the first three years of their life, so an IP2G had the latest OS three years after its release.
Perhaps you should read the chart?
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Not to mention they don't cover the fact that while the 3G was updated, the updates (particularly iOS4) left it barely useable. Tap camera... wait 30s... shutter opens. Tap Maps... wait 1 min... maps crashes. Tap it again... another crash... phone starting to heat up now. At first I thought it was faulty hardware, but my wife's had essentially the same problems.
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I smell Troll (article) just as you did. I did some quick research and one of the "worst" Android phones on the list, the HTC Hero, and checked Cyanogen Mod for compatibility, and guess what, it runs the current CM 7.1 just fine. While it is true that HTC and/or Sprint won't maintain it, doesn't mean it isn't supported.
http://download.cyanogenmod.com/?type=stable&device=heroc [cyanogenmod.com]
Yes, you have to "root" your phone, yes it isn't "supported" by HTC or Sprint, but so freakin what.
And if you HTC, Motorola or Sam
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I'm so confused. First of all, this doesn't list the Samsung Galaxy, which has stayed updated.
Looking for information on the Samsung Galaxy S, it doesn't seem to be that straight forward, according to Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S [wikipedia.org]
Depending on what carrier your on, and what country you're in, it might arrive at different times, via different processes. And this is a phone only 18 months old. iPhone updates all arrive the same day of release, and carry on for at least 3 years.
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My just-purchased Galaxy S 4G (T-Mobile) is a version behind (but only in N. America--Europe has apparently had 2.3 for months)
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
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You think? He actually include this point - I shit you not:
Along similar lines, a very small but perhaps telling point: the price of every single Android phone I looked at ended with 99 cents - something Apple has never done (the iPhone is $199, not $199.99). It’s almost like a warning sign: you’re buying a platform that will nickel-and-dime you with ads and undeletable bloatware, and it starts with those 99 cents. And that dam
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you were dumb enough to get a phone that was tightly locked down with a custom UI, in which case it kind of serves you right.
Yes because the majority of consumers clearly should have to concern themselves with researching the concepts of bootloaders and the effects of custom UIs on the inner workings of the OS and impact it will have on future software updates. The only dumb people around here are those with your attitude.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you were dumb enough to get a phone that was tightly locked down with a custom UI, in which case it kind of serves you right.
Yes because the majority of consumers clearly should have to concern themselves with researching the concepts of bootloaders and the effects of custom UIs on the inner workings of the OS and impact it will have on future software updates. The only dumb people around here are those with your attitude.
If you aren't concerned with bootloaders, root exploits, and all the trappings of low level android device operation then why exactly would you give two shits if your handset had an official 2.3 release or if it was "abandoned" on version 2.2? Trying to map the Android software world over to Apple's is amazingly disingenuous, to the point of being a complete troll (and anyone in this thread here to point that out is pretty trollish by relation.) Where are these huge gaps in features, stability, or security that have come from not running the very latest code from Google?
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of people who have never seen a line of source code and have no idea what a bootloader is, that still know enough to be interested in updates to the OSes of both their PCs and mobile devices. Information about major Android releases are found in fairly mainstream tech and news sites.
Example:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/top-10-features-in-android-23-gingerbread/2143 [zdnet.com]
"User features
1. New on-screen keyboard. The standard keyboard has been greatly improved in Android 2.3, with faster input and more intuitive typing. Even cut-and-paste got a makeover.
2. Streamlined user interface. New color schemes and various UI changes and polish make Android more consistent and simpler to use.
3. Application and power management. Android 2.3 provides better insight into what is running in the background, how much memory and CPU time it is using, and even lets you kill misbehaving apps. Yes, after months of telling us we don’t need a task killer, they give us a task killer. Enjoy your chuckle, iPhone fans.
4. SIP Internet calling. Voice over IP is integrated directly into Android 2.3. Unfortunately you’ll have to get a SIP account from a third party, and the ability might be curtailed on some carriers.
5. Download management. All your downloads from your browser, email, and other apps, can now be viewed and controlled from one place."
You don't have to know about rooting, bootloaders, open-source, or coding to have some understanding of the above points and potentially be interested. There are many levels of technical ability between "I compile my own Android builds for fun!" and "Does this here phone thing have the GeeBees and the Why-Fis and play them Angry Birds"
"I am not a geek." (Score:3)
Probably just another pro-Apple troll post. By the time a handset is truly no longer being supported by Android, chances are good that it's out of warranty and you may as well just unlock it and install a custom firmware.
Here we have an answer will satisfy the geek ---
and be absolutely frightening or meaningless to tens or hundreds of millions of others.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably just another pro-Apple troll post. By the time a handset is truly no longer being supported by Android, chances are good that it's out of warranty and you may as well just unlock it and install a custom firmware.
Unless you were dumb enough to get a phone that was tightly locked down with a custom UI, in which case it kind of serves you right.
Yeah, only a troll would suggest that it's reasonable for a vendor to support a phone for the entire length of the two-year contract you signed to get it.
Jeeeeezus is Slashdot out of touch with reality. Unlock it and install custom firmware? Seriously? You want to tell your Mom that she has to pay $200 for a phone, then pay $70 a month for the next two years, but after ten months she has to go find and install firmware herself? And anyone who doesn't think that's reasonable is a troll? BUUUUULLLLSHITTT.
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Probably just another pro-Apple troll post. By the time a handset is truly no longer being supported by Android, chances are good that it's out of warranty and you may as well just unlock it and install a custom firmware.
Unless you were dumb enough to get a phone that was tightly locked down with a custom UI, in which case it kind of serves you right.
Yeah, only a troll would suggest that it's reasonable for a vendor to support a phone for the entire length of the two-year contract you signed to get it.
Jeeeeezus is Slashdot out of touch with reality. Unlock it and install custom firmware? Seriously? You want to tell your Mom that she has to pay $200 for a phone, then pay $70 a month for the next two years, but after ten months she has to go find and install firmware herself? And anyone who doesn't think that's reasonable is a troll? BUUUUULLLLSHITTT.
No, actually, for all the mothers out there who bought an Android phone there is precisely 0 chance they give a flying **** whether or not their phone is running android 4.0 or 9.0 or cyborg 2.7 or whatever. After ten months, the phone is still a phone that still does all the things the phone has always done. If she wants to get on a forum and brag about how her rooted rommed phone runs android 2.4.6.8 then yes, she will need to do the downloading her self. Otherwise, she will just keep using the phone l
This ignores hobbiest support (Score:2, Informative)
If by most people you mean 1% (Score:5, Informative)
But that would be a non-traditional usage of the word "most".
Re:This ignores hobbiest support (Score:5, Insightful)
most people wipe the stock image as soon as they get it home and put a better build on it.
I do this, you do this, most people do not.
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It can't in this case. The battery will die from heat before the CPU overheats. Batteries are not generally under any warranty/
You have clearly very little experience with these devices.
Silly fanboys. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at Apple just releasing new hardware to force you to update! You sheep. Android is a FREE and OPEN platform. Why would anyone be locked down by iOS is beyond me. Keep it up Android and Android hardware suppliers, eventually you'll overrun the dark walled garden that is Apple.
</sarcasm>
(anything else I missed out on the typical Apple Bashing?)
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My Optimus V doesn't technically have the latest released for it but Cyanogenmod and a root (Mind you rooting it took much longer than jailbreaking my iPod Touch) took care of that. But not everyone is this tech savvy, my girlfriend is still waiting on her update. And this is why people buy iOS devices for themselves, friends or family.
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People buy iPhones because they don't want to wait for OS updates? Bullshit. Most people think ICS is something in their freezer. OS updates only matter to tech savvy users, and they can root and install a new version if it's really bothering them.
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Gingerbread was released Dec 2010.
What a stupid us of statistics (Score:3)
Now, if this guy weren't such an obvious Apple fanboy and decided to do some real work instead of just one that shows what he wants it to show, he would track down a sample population and find out how many actually give a fuck.
Re:What a stupid us of statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
She might not want to upgrade, but she *needs* to upgrade, to fix security vulnerabilities.
That's the #1 problem here.
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I'll just stick with XP with no service packs and IE6, then?
No need to upgrade!
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My wife has never upgraded her HTC Aria to the current OS, while I have. Why hasn't she??? THERE WAS NO NEED TO.
On the individual basis there might not be a need to upgrade for a lot of people, but it's terrible if you're looking at Android from the standpoint of the developer. Want Fragments UI? Want low-latency audio? Want to integrate NFC beaming? Want to integrate with the calendar or visual vociemail? Or anything else? [thisismynext.com]
If your app wants to merely use any of these, you'll have to maintain separate versions, builds, and perhaps even codebases. If your app would require any of these to do its magic, you're go
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nexus One currently has tons of bugs:
- Clock drift (as much as 5 minutes/week!)
- WiFI/network switchover. When I leave home, I have to enter airplane mode and turn it back off, or else my 2G/3G data will not work simply because the phone liked my home WiFI so much.
- Headphone jack sometimes goes nuts. If you get an incoming call while listening to music, there's no way of predicting if sound will go to headphones or the speaker. Once this resulted in all calls going to headphones, even when they were discon
Re:What a stupid us of statistics (Score:4, Insightful)
missing phones? (Score:2)
How about warranty support? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't care about having the latest/greatest Android OS, but I wish the carriers were required to provide warranty support for the full 2 year term of your contract.
My droid 1 stopped working 19 months into my contract. I had bought the WPP wireless protection plan and figured it would have me covered, but when I called Verizon, they said that it only covered accidental damage and that I wouldn't be covered. They did offer to sell me a refurb phone for $150 or something like that, and offered me an early upgrade with a new 2 year contract term. I thought about "accidentally" dropping the phone into the sink and then making a damage claim with WPP, but I found a used one on eBay for a bit less than the WPP deductable.
If the carriers are going to lock me into a 2 year contract that I can't cancel, why aren't they required to make sure that the equipment they sold me works throughout the entire contract?
At the very least, carriers should be required to let me drop the voice/data contract and pay only the phone subsidy ($15 - $20/mo?) if I want to end the contract.
but... (Score:2)
Original iPhone (Score:2)
An original iPhone with iOS4 was slow as hell. An original iPhone with iOS5? I don't even want to think about that.
The Nexus One isn't getting Android 4, because the hardware is too slow for it. While I would love to have Android 4, I don't want it on my Nexus One. I would rather my Nexus One (while I still have it anyway) to actually be reasonably functional.
Android dissatisfaction (Score:2)
apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one.
Well I was fairly satisfied with my Motorola phone, which came with 2.1. They were very slow getting updates out, so when 2.2 was finally available I loaded it as part of the early "smoke test" group. Motorola and AT&T both included so much useless bloatware as part of the OS update (locked and unable to be removed, of course), that it essentially has no room left for any other apps. So their update left me even LESS happy with the phone, and just 9 months after purchase (and 15 until the contra
Disturbing and possibly misleading metric (Score:2)
I know it's hard to get a meaningful metric, but this chart makes me wonder about the trustworthiness of the study. There are approximately two major Android releases per year whereas there is only one major iOS upgrade per year. Thus "two major releases behind" means an average of 15 months late for an Android device, whereas "one major release behind" means an average of 18 months late for an iOS device. Yet by the look of the legend, the first one is supposed to be worse than the second one.
False comparison (Score:3)
and a stupid one as well. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding Apple and Android.
Android is an OS. Different compnais put it on different phones. Thnis means different capabilities and corporate plansd
Apple is the entire chain.
SO you can only compare phones running android individually, and not group them as 'Android'.
The advantage of Androids hardware diversity is that competition can happen, and they aren't locked into a 'box' form 3 years ago.
The advantage of Apple is that they will update it even if the update isn't needed for your phone.
The fact that he marks out yellow sections between green sections shows his agenda.
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SO you can only compare phones running android individually, and not group them as 'Android'.
So iPhone does have the largest market share then?
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The problem with this isn't Apple---you're right that they a) own the stack, and b) don't take shit from the carriers----it's Windows Phone. Microsoft has stated---and we'll more or less have to see---that the mess of updates/maybe/yes/no/depends that hurt BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile and (ostensibly) Android is not going to be a factor with Windows Phone. It's supposed to get OTA updates regardless of vendor or carrier.
Now, the average end-user doesn't really care about the OS version and what it
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The way I see it, updates include new features that users can take advantage of, and providing updates to users long after they purchased a device is a way of increasing the value of the product. While Android manufacturers are indeed separate from one another, the value of their products is directly related to how well they sell and how well they are perceived by their users. That not a single Android device is close to Apple's record of updates, despite the variety and number of manufacturers making Andro
True comparison for the right questions (Score:4, Insightful)
For a regular consumer a question is what will support be like if he buys an Android phone? What is this like vs. buying a phone with the competition's operating system, iOS?
These are rational questions for a regular customer, and they are answered quite well. It even helps answer a third question: If I buy an Android phone, which brands have the best history of support?
Updates are Android's weak point (Score:2)
Steve Ballmer's FUD is insofar correct in that if you want to update your Android-phone after the maker and/or carrier abandoned you, you indeed almost need a CS degree to update it on yourself.
The update process is indeed quite well-done on WP7
Understand the chart, folks. (Score:3)
A few have already noted that the original iPhone doesn't run iOS 5 - but queried why the bar is all green for that. There's a good reason - the graph shows whether or not the phone could run the latest OS up to three years after release, not whether or not it can run whatever the latest, greatest version is today. Each phone is following an independent timeline on that chart.
So if we look at the original iPhone - released 29 June 2007 - that would qualify for a green bar all the way along provided it could run whatever the latest version was on 29 June 2010. iOS 4 - the first version to drop support for the original iPhone - was released on June 21, 2010. Meaning that strictly speaking there should be a very thin yellow line at the tail end of the bar representing the original iPhone to show that it was a week off being 3 years old when support was dropped.
Similarly for the iPhone 3G - it's OK for the bar to be green all the way across as long as the iPhone 3G could run whatever the latest version was on 11 July 2011. The writing was on the wall for iOS 4 in July 2011 but iOS 5 was not released until 12 October.
The OEM's support for most Android phones, OTOH, usually ends long before buyers are out of contract - and it's quite common to find that a phone is running an out-of-date version of Android from the day it's released. Considering the plethora of locked bootloaders on Android phones, this is much more significant than many make out. Yeah, install Cyanogen. Great. But most manufacturers that provide any sort of rescue mode build it into the bootloader rather than into hardware - which means that unlocking the bootloader is not without risk. Myself, I take the attitude that I don't want dick around with my phone like I had to dick around with my computer fifteen years ago. I have in my pocket my first Android phone, absent a dramatic raising of standards on the part of at least one Android phone manufacturer it will be my last.
Upgrades. (Score:3)
What does a new version of Android do that an older version couldn't? It's not like you're missing a whole lot with an older version of Android, especially considering that most apps out there aren't version specific. How often does Apple screw consumers with upgrades? Old apps cease working in newer versions of their OS's and very quickly new apps come along that wont run in older versions of the same OS. And from what I've seen people have generally encountered decreased performance by upgrading iOS.
That said, I do agree that there are problems. Because Google is unwilling or unable to standardize the OS we're left to the whim of the hardware maker and, even worse, the carrier. Of course, the option to root the phone exists, but I think that's an unreasonable expectation for the average person. The iPhone is desirable enough that the carriers accepts sticking with a generation for a year or longer. With Android, however, the carriers and presumably hardware makers as well, seem fixated on offering new devices in quick succession. That pretty much ensures no legacy support because all they want to consumer to upgrade to a new phone.
Still, unless you've got a fixation on having the latest and greatest, Android, even an older version of the system, easily offers a better experience than iOS.
Apple has that one right! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Amen. Don't buy it if you aren't happy with it the way it is, or it's a flagship model that is basically guaranteed to get the updates you're hoping for. Updates are a bonus, not a guarantee.
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Mine is running 2.3.7, last updated a week or two ago.
CM7.1 FTW!
Re:what's the obsession with the latest version (Score:5, Interesting)
The iPhone 3G did get software updates, up to the latest version of 4, but it really is just not capable of running iOS5 (it was barely capable of running iOS4)
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...And then someone here pointed out that iOS 4 was necessary for Apple's new "iAd" system to work.
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I think the comparison shows that time and frequency of Android updates do not look good. It's one thing for a manufacturer to stop updating a product after a while like after 2 years. The chart shows that many manufacturers/carriers did not update their phone much during the first two years. There were a few that had no updates at all. While the reasoning behind it isn't clear, the author speculates that the manufacturers want consumers to buy new phones by making them unhappy with their current phone
Re:Cyanogenmod (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just what happens when you have one party supplying the hardware and another party supplying the software, and both with different priorities.
The Android scenario is closer to the PC scenario in the bad old days before "Windows Update" etc.For example the old computers might still be running an old version of Windows. Is that a problem? Yes. Did Dell/HP/etc care? No. Did Microsoft care? Not back then. Did most users care? No. Not until something goes wrong.
As a recent article says, Apple of today is focused on Product not Profit: http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/10/25/2246209/how-steve-jobs-solved-the-innovators-dilemma [slashdot.org]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/23/steve-jobs-failure_n_1025732.html [huffingtonpost.com]
"My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products," Jobs told Isaacson. "[T]he products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything."
When you have separate companies treating the software and hardware as different products, with different vision and priorities, the "whole product" is less likely to be as great.
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In the C64 era there were two things that reduced the number of updates.
1) These devices were far simpler. A low-end Sndroid phone has far greater utility and capabilities than a C64.
2) There were in fact updates in the form of revisions made to chips in later units. Replacing a ROM was not cheap, so generally it'd only be done for something serious that can't easily be worked around in software.
It's like comparing an Epson LX 86 9 pin dot matrix with a LaserWriter 8500, wondering why the latter is more com
Re:Cyanogenmod (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW how long do you think handset makers and carriers should be forced to update phone software for?
Let's start with the length of the cell phone contract and work from there. If they're going to sell 2-year contracts, you should reasonably expect that the phone you buy will receive updates during that time. Once the contract expires, people can base their decision to get a new phone or switch carriers on the lack of updates. But when you're still under contract, you've got no choice but to accept the crappy situation, and that's not right.
This story is pointing out a legitimate problem with Android. As of yet, not one single iPhone has been sold that has not been supported for the entire 2-year contract. Meanwhile, 7 of the listed Android phones never ran the latest version of the OS, even when they were sold. I don't really take sides in the Android vs. iOS argument, but this is an area that Google really needs to address.
Not true - no updates for iPhone 3G (Score:3)
As of yet, not one single iPhone has been sold that has not been supported for the entire 2-year contract.
Not true. The iPhone 3G was being sold internationally until superceded by the 3GS in June-August 2009. The last 3G update was November 2010. That's 15 to 17 months of updates for people who bought in the month before the 3GS was released. If they bought on a 24 month contract they were out of luck.
iPhone 3GS: [wikipedia.org] "It was released in the U.S., Canada and six European countries on June 19, 2009,[3] in Australia and Japan on June 26, and internationally in July and August 2009."
iPhone 3G: [wikipedia.org] "The last release
Re:what's the obsession with the latest version (Score:4, Insightful)
No, like the 3GS which still got iOS5 even though it came out over two years ago (27months). As opposed to the mentioned Nexus One which only came out 21 months ago. So even though the 3GS came out 6 months BEFORE the Nexus One, it still gets the latest update of iOS5 as opposed to the Nexus One NOT getting ICS
Apple supports $currentPhone $currentPhone-1 and $currentPhone-2 with updates. We can see that is NOT the case with the Nexus Phones from Google.
I know you're trying to be smart, mentioning the iPhone 3G since that didn't get iOS 5, but that also was released before even the first Android phone, so it's not a fair comparison.
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Are you arguing against the need for any kind of OS updates? Still running a 10 year old version of Linux/Windows/Mac OS?
New versions often fix bugs, improve security or performance, and sometimes actually do add new features, which may be used by new apps that you might want to use. I'm not going to discuss the relative merits of iOS and Android as OS, but I think it's abundantly clear that Apple supports their phones with software updates, while many Android manufacturers don't. And apparently even Google
If there are no more apps for your device (Score:5, Insightful)
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Can you give an example where an Android phone was unable to run any modern apps because its OS was outdated?
I sincerely doubt it. There are tons of apps that work just fine on Froyo or Eclair, just as most programs work just fine on Windows XP. You don't need to update to Vista or 7, and you don't need to update to ICS.
This is a fictional problem, invented by Apple fanbois trying to convince themselves that their choice was the "right" one. The notion that both products can be good, and that not everyth
Re: (Score:3)
Google Talk video support (requires Gingerbread)
Google Maps Navigation (for those very rare devices that didn't see 2.x in any form)
However, the N1 not getting ICS doesn't seem that bad to me - the N1 is a fairly old device at this point and likely just isn't powerful enough for ICS.
Forcing an OS upgrade into a device too slow to support it isn't a good idea - look at how owners of the non-S iPhone 3 units got screwed when they updated IOS - the phone became slow to the point of being almost unusable.
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the N1 is a fairly old device at this point
Well, Google was selling it to carriers as little as 6 months ago, so users that bought their device from a carrier like Videotron or Mobilicity are finding themselves without updates a mere 6 months later.
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No, that's an easy thing to do, but not necessarily responsible. If your goal is to provide users the best possible experience, then you do want to give them access to new features, but in a way that keeps everything working as smoothly as you originally intended. Apple does this, Android manufacturers don't.
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Face it, hardware gets better and older hardware can't run the latest bells and whistles. That said, most of these early phones are just fine and work just as well as when they were new. If you have to be on the bleeding edge of technology with the latest shiny gadget, you'll just have to pay yearly for the privilege and buy the latest hardware. The rest of the world can probably get by with old
Not changing the API to allow new peripherals (Score:3)
it's almost as though the responsible thing to do is to settle on a stable API and then not change it.
Say you had no camera or no compass or a low-resolution display or vertex/pixel shader support whatever in the first version of a device, and in a newer device model, you want to add support for a camera or a compass or a high-resolution display or 3D chip capable of shaders. In order for applications to use these new peripherals, they'll need some sort of API. And in Android-land, that means an API version bump.
Re:what's the obsession with the latest version (Score:5, Insightful)
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More recently, CVE-2011-1076 is less serious but can potentially be used to ma
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I don't think that Google ever unlocked the last functionality built into the Nexus One handset. I haven't run stock firmware for a while because Google wasn't providing support for hardware that I paid for. It took them quite a while to provide the color notifications, and ultimately didn't provide the user with a way of changing the colors, and I'm not sure that stock firmware allows the user to use the built in FM receiver.
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My Android phone was more than capable of handling the new OS when I began getting cross at my provider and HTC. I know, I rooted it. I rooted the next and had some minor root issues. My issue was my phone's internal memory was squat for apps. The Kindle app filled it up to the point of headache. All I wanted was the ability to run my apps off of my SD card, but my phone was deemed obsolete to encourage new model buying.
This is why I went to the iPhone. Say what you will about Apple and their closed g
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A fractured platform is hell for developers and hell for security. By all means, don't worry about it if you don't care about developer relations, having nice apps on your platform, having consistently-behaving apps on your platform, or not giving your CC info to Russian hackers.
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apple actually gives you a lot of value with new versions of iOS. iOS 4 was a huge camera improvement. iOS 5 is free texting to any iOS device.
the free 3GS phones have iOS 5 so that a family can buy the good ones for mom and dad and the cheapo ones for the kids and kill the texting plan
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With iOS there's also the $99 per year tax to run applications from outside the App Store.
Don't forget the 90 day limit before you have to repackage and re-upload the application!
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More effort than it is worth. No one should have to dance with a security system that is working against them to do as they wish on their own devices.
$0 tax if you are happy with App Store apps (Score:3, Insightful)
millions of people are.
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And many slaves were happy being slaves, and long term prison inmate loose track of what life is like outside the walls.
It's fine liking apple apps, being forced to only that choice is a well,. false choice.
Re:Buy Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a fair point about the walled garden of the Apple ecosystem, but I'm willing to bet that at least 90% of all Android phone users will never install an App from outside the Android marketplace and will never, ever consider installing CyanogenMod or even know what it is.
Re:Buy Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
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With iOS there's also the $99 per year tax to run applications from outside the App Store.
Google for Cydia.
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Only if you were dumb enough to buy a locked phone, the rest of us unlocked our phones when we got them and installed CyanogenMod or something similar. And those that were dumb enough to get a locked down phone are still in a better position than with the iPhone as once they do jailbreak it, they can install one of several custom firmwares.
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I have an iPod Touch 1G and 3G that can't run the latest OS. And guess which OS everyone (including myself0 is re-targeting their apps to?
Re:If they would publish the damned source (Score:4, Insightful)
What source have "they" (I presume you mean Google) not published? No phone running ICS has been released. Google has explained why they didn't release Honeycomb and they've committed to releasing the source for ICS soon after phones running ICS have been released. Ignorant troll is Ignorant.
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Google has explained why they didn't release Honeycomb and they've committed to releasing the source for ICS soon after phones running ICS have been released. Ignorant troll is Ignorant.
Excuses are just that, excuses, the point is they haven't released it.
I may forgive them if and when they release ICS, in the meantime, I'm not a troll. I'm a noid.
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Re:iOS5 won't run on iPhone 1st gen or 3G (Score:5, Informative)
iPhone 3G: on sale 7/11/08. Plus 3 years = 7/11/11. At that time, the 3G could use the latest iOS version, 4.2.1.
There is certainly a bias by omission. I would like to see more of the high-profile phones included (like the Galaxy mentioned above). But what I don't understand is this: why are phones being sold new that are already one or two OS versions behind?
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RTFA again. The article simply shows that the iPhone and the iPhone 3G was supported and were given updates for three years after they were released. This is true.
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Android desserts vs. Mac OS X big cats (Score:2, Informative)
Android is a fucking mess. Ridiculous nonsensical names. I mean, Froyo. Honeycomb? Really? Who came up with this shit?
Dessert makers. Doughnut, eclair, frozen yogurt, gingerbread, honey, and ice cream sandwiches are all sweet items associated with dessert. Is it any stranger than naming Mac OS X versions after big cats?
How about version numbers so I know that this version is more or less recent than that version
Alphabetical order. Donut is 1.6, Eclair is 2.0 and 2.1, FroYo is 2.2, Gingerbread is 2.3, Honeycomb is 3.0 and 3.1, and Ice Cream Sandwich is 4.0. It's better than Cheetah (10.0), Puma (10.1), Jaguar (10.2), Panther (10.3), Tiger (10.4), Leopard (10.5), Snow Leopard (10.6), and Lion (10.7), which show no al
You are right, you don't understand the chart. (Score:2)
Try reading it more carefully.
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Hey, I have an iPhone 3G and it's just fine on iOS 4.2.1. I use it every day, run apps as needed including games, and I haven't noticed anything being particularly slow or unuseable.
Examples please?