

HTC One X and One X+ will not receive KitKat; stuck on Android 4.2 forever - derpenxyne
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/01/htc-one-x-and-one-x-will-not-receive-kitkat-stuck-on-android-4-2-forever/

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rogerbinns
By coincidence HTC haven't received a penny from me other than my very first
Android phone on which they took almost a year to upgrade to 2.3. I wouldn't
consider another phone from them until they have a sustained track record of
updates.

Perhaps the most striking turnabout in the Android space is Sony. Outside they
have a reputation for being proprietary, crappy software, quick on the legal
guns etc. Within the Android space they are exemplary. XDA love them, and Sony
keeps stepping up with specs and software releases.

[http://www.xda-developers.com/holiday-guide-2012/oem-of-
the-...](http://www.xda-developers.com/holiday-guide-2012/oem-of-the-year/)

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johnward
I was thinking about getting am HTC One to replace my nexus 4 since my
contract is up. one thing I was worried about was updates. so this helped me
decided not to make the switch.

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malnourish
Can't get the Nexus 5?

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netcraft
I am an ios user but have considered more and more switching to android - but
stuff like this scares me away. I have heard many stories about phones not
being updated or taking a very long time to update, including phones that were
expected to be able to. How can you know which phone to pick that should get
updates for at least 2 years if not longer?

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jusben1369
It's really a non event. So much of what you need is no longer at the OS level
but at the "Google Play" level if you will. iOS trains you to equate "great
new stuff == OS upgrades" but Google has taken a very different route to
ensure customers get the latest and greatest without worrying about OS
fragmentation.

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binarycrusader
It isn't a non-event; you may not get some (or any) security fixes because the
vendor didn't provide the latest Android update.

Given how much many people depend on their phones and how much information
they usually have on them, I think security is pretty important.

That's why I got a Nexus 5; I'm confident I'll continue to see updates for
some time.

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zmmmmm
This is the really important point. We've been protected so far by the fast
evolution of phone hardware and the mass migration of people to smart phones.
It's hard to perceive it but the game is now changing: we're into an iteration
of phones now that the masses are purchasing that they may well hold onto for
5 years+. If security updates stop after 1.5 years, that's a terrifying mass
of insecure phones holding everything from email accounts to bank details.
Google can update a lot of things via the Play Store, but they can't patch
kernel vulnerabilities or driver exploits.

Google really needs to include in their play store agreement some kind of
requirement to ship critical security updates within a defined period of time.
Yes, that's going to hurt - the maintenance burden of shipping an Android
phone is going to rise dramatically if you inherit a burden of 5 years of
updates. But then, critical security updates should be extremely incremental
updates that rarely involve any functional changes to the user.

I'm not sure how the Android ecosystem is sustainable without something like
this. At some point there will be an Android security apocalypse: an exploit
that can't be fixed without a kernel update that affects hundreds of millions
of legacy phones that have been abandoned by their makers.

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pjmlp
HTC has been letting customers down since the days they failed to bring
Android 2.3 to the Desire.

They lost me there.

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zachrose
The article claims "The HTC One X and One X+ are dead!"

The thing to understand about HTC is that from a strategic perspective,
they're trying to stand over a rift that only gets wider every month. On the
one side, they can't afford to develop an operating system, runtime, and
ecosystem on their own. On one other side, they need to somehow "add value" to
the Android experience, either through software (i.e. "extras" or "rethinks")
or through hardware (in which they have plenty of competition) or, at best,
finding overlooked combinations of the two that they can provide (e.g. a power
button that's also an IR remote for your TV.)

They don't have a truly stable platform on which to add these improvements. In
many cases the platform will beat them to whatever it is they want to add, and
they won't have anything "new" to promote as their own.

As (or if) Android matures gets closer to the point where each new version
matters less than the last, then they'll eventually have something like a
stable platform to further focus their efforts on making the smartphone they
want to make. It all depends on how much their users care about new Android.

I don't have any armchair advice this decision, but it's interesting to
consider the trade-offs they're making.

Disclosure: I used to work for HTC.

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justin66
In your estimation, how much would it cost for them to do the KitKat update?

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zachrose
I've no idea. I'm just saying it's a trade-off, and possibly not aligned with
their desired strategy.

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pdubs
The HTC One S (released at the same time as the One X) didn't get anything
past Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. I've taken my money elsewhere.

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sirkneeland
Where this hurts HTC is now people will avoid buying the HTC One because it
probably won't get 4.5 (or whatever the next Android upgrade is).

Although by "people" I mean "tech-savvy people attuned to the existence and
importance of OEM upgrade support"

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farabove
Sad news for the android community and for the environment. What is the safest
handset choice for android and how does it compare to the iPhone when it comes
to updates after it has been discontinued ?

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epaladin
I previously thought that was the Nexus series, but my Galaxy Nexus isn't
getting KitKat either, so even Google's own flagship phone series doesn't even
get their own updates. They made some excuse about TI not being able to
provide new OMAP drivers since they sold off that business...

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farabove
Hmmm, that's just a lame excuse! Should take it for granted that was covered
by the SLA they have with TI.

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sirkneeland
Consider this an inbound marketing opportunity for Cyanogenmod...

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jusben1369
Sounds like a battle over camera software

