

Would Paying for OS Updates Solve the Android Spreading Latency? - RaduTyrsina
http://techpp.com/2012/10/05/would-paying-for-os-updates-solve-the-android-spreading-latency/

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randomchars
> "After two, or even one year, this device becomes too old in Google’s eyes
> and it refuses to make a newer Android version compatible for the gadget"

What? It's not Google but the carriers and the manufacturers who don't update.
Google doesn't earn money (at least not much) from device sales. They make
money from app sales and ads. So Google would benefit from updating the
devices.

I haven't seen this site before but I'm definitely not going back if their
writers are incompetent like that.

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talmand
Haven't you realized that Google gets all the blame for problems created by
the carriers? It's the same old blame game that happened with Microsoft for
problems created by their vendors.

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steevdave
Microsoft got most of the grief because of security issues, which weren't
dependent on specific hardware configurations ( at least, not always). Sure
the BSOD was "normally" caused by a bad driver and Microsoft took flack for
that, but on my single Windows machine that I have, I can't recall the last
time I saw a BSOD.

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bsimpson
Most of the people I know who have Android phones don't care what version of
the OS they're running. In fact, the UI changed so much between Donut and ICS,
they might prefer their phones not to be updated.

The amount that people in our circles care about phone software is much, much
higher than most people who go into Verizon every two years to get a new
handset with a fresh battery.

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eli
I totally 100% agree with you, but the counterargument would be that people
are very unhappy when they go to download a new game and it doesn't run on
their phone or it runs badly.

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tomschlick
Or... google could crack down and force the carriers to make their
"customizations" add-ons which would be installed after an os update and could
be removed if they were incompatible / the user didn't want them. This way
every user could have the latest and greatest from google while still allowing
the carrier to add their craptastic customizations on top of the standard OS.

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wmf
I think the UI customizations are less of a problem than drivers.

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georgemcbay
Yeah, this. If it were just about the OS customization Google could release a
PC/Mac tool which would flash the latest build of Android onto any phone with
an unlocked bootloader (which is most of them these days). The user could
choose to continue with the phone manufacture's default build or get the
latest "pure" Android.

Where this idea falls apart quickly is drivers for custom hardware. There's
just no way Google could take on the driver development for every phone (both
because it is just too much work and also because lots of phones have
proprietary drivers running against hardware that isn't publicly documented).

~~~
fpgeek
Absolutely. From what I understand, one of the big reasons ICS updates have
been so much more difficult than Gingerbread ones is that the driver
interfaces changed for a lot more things in that jump (exacerbated by the
tablet-only Honeycomb in between).

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Someone
I fear that, for most Android devices, that $5 per device or $20 lifetime
upgrade cost would not make economical sense.

Reason: if paying for the upgrade is optional, few users will choose to pay
that money ($20 for a $100 or 'free with your subscription' phone?), meaning
that the cost of making the firmware update may be larger than the revenue.
And no, releasing new firmware is not 'just compiling'; there likely is quite
some extra work to make the updated OS, targeted at more powerful hardware,
work even reasonably well on that 'old' phone.

Charging all your users that $20 only works if you are Apple, Microsoft, or
Blackberry. If you sell cheap or midrange Android devices, your users would
likely just run to your competitors (it may be possible to prevent that for
high end Android devices, but it is harder if you cannot differentiate on your
OS; Samsung may have cracked that's but I am not sure about that)

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gtaylor
I used to get really irritated with whatever phone manufacturer I bought from
was holding out on updates. However, we now have enough data to have a good
idea of the tendencies with each carrier/manufacturer. For example, if you
choose Verizon, you know you're going to be waiting a while. My next phone
will not be with Verizon.

I definitely understand that some people only get decent service from one or
two carriers in their area (and don't have as much as a choice), so this is
probably more aimed at those who have a few options to choose from: I really
do think it's time to vote with our feet.

If updates are a priority for you, pick a manufacturer and carrier that have a
decent update record (if you have the choice). If you don't have a choice,
complain publicly and loudly about your carrier's update practices, and maybe
someone will hear one of us.

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mtgx
Updates as part of customer support _after_ you make the sale should really be
common sense and something all manufacturers should do during the average time
of owning a smartphone, which is probably around 2 years.

Unfortunately, since most manufacturers are used to releasing a new model
every 2 weeks, they just don't care about stuff as much as they should. Paying
money for upgrades might give them an extra incentive to do it, but I'm not
sure it will work. Would they offer the upgrades for 2 years even if they sell
200,000 units of a certain model and only 2,000 people pay for those upgrades?
But as I said, it shouldn't even be needed.

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fpgeek
While I agree manufacturer ADD is a problem, I reject the idea that every
phone should come with two years of support. Those of us who buy high-end
phones on-contract forget that off-contract Android phones can get very, very
cheap. Sub $100 isn't hard to find and I've heard of devices as cheap as $50.
If not providing updates is what helps make what would have been a $100 phone
into an $80 one, I think that is a reasonable tradeoff for a manufacturer and
their customers to make.

Today that no-updates line is being drawn in the wrong place and it really
shouldn't apply to phones sold on-contract, but that doesn't mean the
possibility should be banned entirely.

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2muchcoffeeman
That's fine if manufacturers state _upfront_ what you are getting when you
purchase. If they won't push major software updates, just say so, so I can
make an informed decision.

Edit: Strange use of personal pronouns.

