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On the heels of Microsoft bashing Google's hands-off Android update policy at Ignite 2015, Lucian Armasu at Tom's Hardware has an editorial reaffirming Android's update woes:
Android 5.0 and Android 5.1 (Lollipop) [...] currently represent 9.0 percent and 0.7 percent of the Android market, respectively, for a combined total of 9.7 percent. That's definitely nothing to be proud about, because it could be years by the time the vast majority of users are on the Android 5+ platforms. By then, 10 percent of users could be on Android 8.0.
Because Android is open source and because so many (essentially) OEM-tweaked "forks" of it exist, a "clean" upgrade path is almost impossible. To have a clean standardized update system would mean all the OEMs would have to agree to abide strictly by Google's guidelines for what they can and cannot modify on the platform. However, as soon as Google tries to do something like that, the OEMs usually cry foul that Google is making Android more proprietary and restricting what they can do with it. Google may also not want to upset the OEMs too much by forcing a unified update system on them either, because of the fear that those OEMs could take their business elsewhere, as it were.
When we look at the matter practically, though, we see that some have already tried that (Samsung with Tizen), and it hasn't worked very well. The reality is that Android and iOS are so entrenched in the market right now that it's hard to believe a significant third platform could arise on mobile when it comes to apps. Even Microsoft, after spending billions upon billions trying to make Windows Phone popular, has essentially admitted failure on the app store front, and is now trying to make Android and iOS apps work with Windows instead.
Google also can't and shouldn't leave the responsibility to OEMs and carriers anymore, because so far they've proven themselves to be quite irresponsible from this point of view. At best, we see flagship smartphones being updated for a year and a half, and even that is less than the time most people keep their phones. Even worse, the highest volume phones (lower-end handsets) usually never get an update. If they do it's only one update, and it comes about a year after Google released that update to other phones, giving malicious attackers plenty of time to take advantage of those users.
This update "system," if you can call it that, ends up leaving the vast majority of Android users with security holes in their phones and without the ability to experience new features until they buy new phones (which is sadly a kind of planned obsolescence as well). This can't be an acceptable state of affairs for Google, and it shouldn't be. Google already has a great six-week update system for Chromebooks, and it's time to have Android catch up to that, as well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:23PM
Couldn't Google make it a requirement that for every phone it must be possible to install the original Google version of Android (possibly at the cost of losing carrier-specific features, but not at the cost of features supported by Android by default)? Then a carrier has two options:
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday May 06 2015, @02:38PM
The reality is, Google wants device manufacturers who support Android to pay for the stuff in Google Play. So if Google made a stock Android with Google Play available, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. If they made an Android without Google Play, no one would want it. So Google is sort of hoisting itself on its own petard as far as this goes. They can't supply a stock Android that has the stuff users really want, or they'd be destroying their own business model. Without Google Play, Android is not very exciting. (Ask Amazon how that Kindle app store is going.)
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @05:09PM
They could simply make the update support Google Play only if the previously installed version supported Google Play. Have the Google Play access information/code stored separately from the actual OS, so an OS update neither installs nor destroys it. The original OS doesn't contain enough information to use Google Play, but the OS upgrade with an original version doesn't destroy the information already present on the phone (and paid for by the manufacturer of the phone).
(Score: 1) by pmontra on Wednesday May 06 2015, @05:03PM
Why carriers? Carriers won't do updates themselves. They must ask manufacturers to do it. If a Samsung says it won't update an S3 anymore then what? No more Samsung? I don't believe so.
Then there are many phones not bought on a contract with a carrier but directly from manufacturers. My phone is one of them.
Google started moving many APIs inside the Google Play Services, which get regular updates. See https://developer.android.com/google/play-services/index.html [android.com]
"Devices running Android 2.3 or higher that have the Google Play Store app will automatically receive updates to Google Play services. Enhance your app with the most recent version of Google Play services without worrying about your users' Android version."
A big problem is the stock browser which is only updated with the OS. Google pulled an IE here and it bit them because the stock browser is the one used in the web views inside the apps and old browsers have lots of exploitable security holes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2015, @09:23AM
A big part of it is due to the hardware drivers. They need to be modified/written, debugged, tested and the whole thing recertified. Many Linux fanboys think this lack of interface stability/backward compatibility is a feature, binary blobs are bad and prefer encouraging the recompile/rewrite of drivers for new kernels (whereas with Windows XP you could have been running the same drivers for 10+ years through various updates and service packs, and an ever-growing zoo of malware for even longer ;) ). Well if your old drivers can't "Just Work(TM)" with the new kernel you'll just have to wait till the new ones are written. If the company has lost interest or gone bust well too fucking bad, you can go write them yourself (hey that's what many OSS fanboys keep saying). Keep in mind by the time you've finished writing them there might be a new incompatible kernel release, enjoy ;).
In contrast for stuff like Windows - it's likely that some crappy network card driver supplied by some long gone Taiwanese manufacturer will work as poorly on a fully updated Windows XP SP3 in 2013 as it did in on Windows XP in 2001.
Perhaps Google could teach more of the hardware bunch to do what Nvidia does for Linux (yes it's not perfect, but shows the problem right?), and make it easier.
See also: http://www.htc.com/us/go/htc-software-updates-process/ [htc.com]