Naturally people are going to compare it to iOS, where updates are free and rapidly disseminated. The difference there is that there definitely is something in it for Apple -- they're getting a cut of every app you buy, every song you download, etc. They're a middleman, so it's just a cost of doing business.
I wish we could get to a point where Android updates cost money. I would happily pay $30 or whatever for each major update if it motivated the vendor to have an interest in keeping it up to date.
The reality is a lot more depressing; the vendors actually want you to buy a new phone.
If your current phone can run the latest version of Android - why would you bother ... ?
- Brand loyalty. Apple's fans are die-hard partly because Apple doesn't (often) screw their users. You can expect timely (even major) updates to your iPhone for quite some time after release. When's the last time someone reported that they won't buy anything but LG/Samsung/Motorola?
- Apple also loves having you on the upgrade cycle. The difference is that these have been largely driven with hardware changes. Retina display, new styling, front-facing camera, GPS unit, 3G connectivity... etc.
There's no reason why Samsung, LG, Motorola et al cannot follow this model.
And of course there's the march of progress, and the nexus one of one year ago is now outmatched by almost all devices with better screens, dual cameras, coming dual core processors and much better GPUs, etc.
That would just be a different user-hostile incentive. The path forward is for Android to actually become consumer open source (GPL3). Let device manufacturers concentrate on shipping hardware and adding any new device drivers to a public repository. Updates can then be directly applied by eager users, or eventually pushed out by carriers with minimal integration effort. Proprietary "value adds" like SenseUI can still be done through the package system.
How so? It aligns interests in virtually every way.
Then stop locking the bootloader and let me put the latest version of CM on my phone. I'm not going to buy Motorola and I'm not going to buy Samsung. Samsung won't release their kernel modifications for Froyo which are needed by the CM team to get CM7 running on the Galaxy S devices... Motorola is keeping the bootloader (and thus kernel) on their phones restricted. They're also not even close to timely on their updates. My D1 is running Gingerbread fairly stably, especially considering it's ONE maintainer disappeared two weeks ago due to personal financial concerns. OTOH, only one device is running GB from the manufacturer/carrier and that is Google's own phone.
Let me use my damn phone, I'll take care of the updates. I don't know how much simpler we can make installing CM7 and I know there are some/many/random-number people who have gone CM just to get the latest Android version.
> Samsung won't release their kernel modifications for
> Froyo which are needed by the CM team to get CM7 running
> on the Galaxy S devices
Latest release announcement here: http://eb-productions.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=samsungs...
Video overview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCKsiH0wWgg
Aside from simply having technical insight into the individual ROMs, you needn't look further than the disaster that has been Sony Erricson and Dell's Android entrants to see the truth in this -- those vendors came out with devices running dated Android versions, turning possible winners into catastrophic losers, eviscerating sales of the Streak and X10.
If they could have just done a merge and they were done, obviously they would have.
So now we're getting to the point where it seems that makers like Motorola and HTC have started to build up a significant Android talent pool, and that bodes well. Despite the constant incantations that Android is free, I wouldn't be surprised if the in-house development costs rivaled or exceeded what something like Windows Mobile cost to license.
I wonder how much of those costs go into Sense, Motoblur, Touchwiz, etc. Shipping stock android is surely less labor-intensive.
That implies that Windows Mobile doesn't require similar in-house effort, on top of the OEM license fees. Windows phones still require the same hardware driver development effort, and WM7 is already starting to receive the carrier-bastardization treatment. I'd say Android's licensing being free is the only difference.
When both carrier and manufacturer neglect to offer explanation or consideration for their collective failure to deliver, they must collectively be held responsible. This means switching carriers when possible and buying from different handset manufacturers. This approach has teeth, but only in large numbers. That's why it's so important to set this silliness aside and focus on real and tangible things the average consumer can do. Focusing on fantastical stories of employees clandestinely posting anonomyous accounts of shady contract terms makes for great drama, but still leaves us without resolution. And quite honestly if it took this story to urge you to action then you weren't all that disappointed in AT&T and Samsung's failure in the first place.
As a consumer, this is very useful even without confirmation. If it's true: it explains why some carrier-shipped phones aren't updated. If it's entirely made-up and speculative ... it still might suggest a business reason why carrier-shipped phones aren't updated.
Reminds me of this quote by Thomas Kean:
I remember going over a whole report the FBI gave me, 300 pages, "Classified" stamps all over it. I read the whole thing, 300 pages, with an FBI guy looking over my shoulder. After I was finished I turned to him, [and] I said: "I've read all this in the press! Why is it classified?" And he looked at me and said, "But you didn't know it was true." That was his answer.
Maybe you already know, but you can get an unofficial Froyo rom from xda-developers. And before people jump on me about how it won't work for their mom or next-door neighbor - this is just a tip for fellow HNers, in case they didn't know already.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/17649/android_upgrades
http://blogs.computerworld.com/17650/android_upgrades_carrie...
tl;dr, Your best bet for upgrades is a high-end HTC phone on Verizon. If you go with Samsung or AT&T, you're out of luck.
Your best bet is a phone that's designed to be rootable. Why put something like that in the hands of the user-hostile carriers?
No, you can only hold the organization that you have a business relationship with responsible.
It isn't just the OS itself-- several of Google's own apps are getting buggier and buggier. Voice worked fine when I first got my Droid a year or so ago, but has had a lot of bugs-- including dialing random numbers instead of the one I wanted. (Just yesterday, I tried to send a text message to XXX-XXXX and it truncated the last digit of the first group and complained that it couldn't send a text to XX-XXXX. Nothing I did could stop it from doing this except using the web-based version). Google Listen has stopped refreshing for huge numbers of people, and my wife's new Galaxy S won't even accept subscriptions. Not a word from Google on either issue, even though both show up in searches for the problem.
I had to install Launcher Pro to get any kind of performance out of my Droid, and even then it occasionally locks up on the home screen. Sometimes calls come in and the touch interface freezes, which means that I can't answer the phone. The Droid also will occasionally decide that there is no data connection when it has full 3G service according to the indicators.
I don't use it, but the stock SMS app has apparently has its own problems too-- at least Google has acknowledged those and is working on a fix, but as a whole, Android has gone from less technologically interesting (no wi-fi hotspots, etc) and stable to exciting and really buggy. Combine that with this kind of politicking, and I'm getting less and less enthusiastic about Android every day.
That's of little comfort. The bug report was dismissed and deprioritized for a long time before pressure from the public/internet forced Google to prioritize it and ship a fix.
If Google can't even prioritize and fix critical bugs like this without the blogosphere getting all up in their business... what hope does Android have?
http://groups.google.com/group/listen-discuss/browse_thread/...
I think Listen's bugginess would only be mildly irritating if more critical (and official) Google apps like Voice didn't have almost-dealbreakers cropping up so often.
This makes it seem like they're hiring Marketers and MBAs who think the best plan is to try to squeeze as much as they can out of their contract customers (the cell carriers) rather than put as much Samsung awesomeness as possible into the hands of actual happy users. Short-term thinking never gets old.
Maybe it's time to look at HTC.
Imagine this situation Verizon says, "Our Samsung Galaxy S phone must get 2.2" while Sprint says, "No need". Should Sprint have to pay for what Verizon is getting?
The issue is that you're going to pay, whether its Samsung or HTC. Some companies will build the price into the phone, others will price it in some other way (or some companies could eat the cost -- but that's probably not sustainable).
Charging directly to the end user seems like the best way to do it. If I want 2.2, then I should pay for it, and if I'm happy with 2.1 why should I pay for other people to get 2.2? But short of that, charging the carriers makes sense.
They don't. Samsung is an 800lb Gorilla in the CE space. They are the biggest seller of HDTV's in the US (though Vizio is closing fast) and the second largest manufacturer of cell phones worldwide.
Samsung is also starting to throw its weight around a lot.
Maybe with Swype on an Evo I wouldn't miss the physical keyboard.
Oh damn - here comes the apocalypse, lions lying down with lambs, rivers of blood, oceans of fire - Canadians getting good deals on a cellphone.
Samsung released Froyo in November, and you can install it on any Galaxy S phone bought here. The update isn't over the air though; you have to connect your phone to your pc, and which auto-updates it. In any case, the carriers have nothing to do with this update so any delays are purely Samsung's fault.
So, iOS 4 has 90 percent share amongst iOS device owners. What about Android 2.3? 0.4 percent, as of a couple weeks ago. Yes, that’s zero point four percent.
But for the sake of this being slightly more fair, let’s compare iOS 4 to Android 2.2 — an OS which came out well before iOS 4. The adoption rate there? 51.8 percent. That’s still pretty pathetic.
Although I'm sure Samsung has every right to charge however much they want, perhaps Google could step in and remind them that if they Samsung wants to be greedy they can always use Bada
At least until I decide to crack it and do the upgrade myself. As soon as I find a 1.6+ or 2.x image that pleases me.
Also judging by the updates trickling in, there is still a lot of work being put in by Samsung to makes these ROMs stable. Almost every leaked ROM has issues. lag fixes and gps fixes on XDA seem to be the norm to work around them