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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, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 06 2015, @06:33PM
Yes, exactly. I had a perfectly functional 3-yr old Nexus 7 tablet that I trustingly, stupidly "upgraded" to Lollipop, which instantly near bricked the damn thing. The performance went into the shitter, with me having to wait 1+ minute for a response to any tap on the screen. And for what? Turned out it was for eye-candy 3D animation effects. Fuck me. So after a longer than should have been amount of time googling after how to unfuck the device, I got to a couple sites that told you how to turn that "feature" off. OK, response time went down to 20 seconds or thereabouts. Plus the navigation iconography had completely changed. Apparently it makes perfect sense to you if you're a 13 year old boy who plays a lot of Playstation, but I have an XBox, not Playstation, and besides I have about 12 other Android devices that all share the previous navigation iconography. Again, it was all done because some Android UI designers thought it would be cute to re-imagine the standard interface as a video game metaphor.
I finally gave up and put CyanogenMod on it.
Google really screwed the pooch on that update, and I for one will not be doing it again. Though I was previously content to stay within their walled garden, because it was one less thing to think about and it was only on the tablets that I use only casually anyway, now I am a believer in fully owning every device down to the metal because it is not worth the aggravation of being at some jackass UI designer's mercy.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday May 06 2015, @08:48PM
I have an old Nexus 7 too, which since the latest update, has been sitting around unused. The battery is probably dead now. The delay in response after touching just causes problems because you figure you need to press the button again. And my favored use for it -- watching poker videos on pokertube as I fall asleep with it attached to a flexible arm by my bed -- is impossible because the videos crap out after 3 or 4 minutes. Thinking it could be some app issue, I even a factory reset on it. Still the same useless results.
I hadn't thought of putting cyanogen mod on it though -- I'll have to figure that out because otherwise, it's just an ugly paperweight at this point.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 07 2015, @02:22AM
Exactly. One more thing to worry about, right? You use it casually for a couple of things and you run through the cost/benefit in your mind of figuring out how to un-fubar the thing, and you're loathe to.
Putting CyanogenMod on it wasn't as painful as I had imagined, and after much searching I got a theme that brought back the original navigation icons, but it certainly is more work than tapping "update" on Google Play.
The whole experience did erase any esteem I had for Google and it did nudge me several more notches in the direction of the FLOSS/Open Hardware universe, but lord there are only so many hours in the day. Should we really have to all build every bit of our hardware and software up from raw ore to be free of the inevitable corporate betrayals?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Sunday May 31 2015, @09:32AM
Should we really have to all build every bit of our hardware and software up from raw ore to be free of the inevitable corporate betrayals?
Well, yes.
Either there is profit into betraying consumers, and they will be betrayed, or there is no profit in betraying consumers, and attention is elsewhere.