

Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0 - tilt
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/10/26/once.touted.superphone.lacks.horsepower/

======
ChuckMcM
I've always wondered about this, especially in embedded devices. Amongst the
many mistakes Microsoft made with Vista, first and foremost was allowing the
bloat to get so bad that it wouldn't run at all on machines that ran XP quite
happily. Later Windows 7 could actually run on those old XP machines with
many, if not most, of the features that Vista bragged about.

So here we have Google, arguably a company which can hire all of the worlds
best engineers, why are they succumbing to the code first and ask questions
later philosophy that gave Microsoft such heartburn?

Andy, I know you read HN, tell the team that their bonus depends on Android
4.0 being runnable on a Nexus 1. It isn't about supporting the platform with
the least market share of any Android phone, its about instilling in the team
a philosphy that taking the time to run great on hardware of that capability
pays huge dividends in the phone world.

Many engineers today were brought up in a world where the next PC will be 1.5
- 2x the 'size' of the current PC so bloat is fine, schedule is king. This is
a bad philosophy in the embedded space. That 1.5 - 2x the 'size' phone means
you can't cut your phone costs, you can't grow your market, you are stuck
waiting only the latest / greatest chips which are always in short supply to
ship volume. Help those engineers break the habit, I know they can they are
smart folks. Challenge them, as Ben Horowitz would say use your lead bullets
on this one.

~~~
untog
_taking the time to run great on hardware of that capability pays huge
dividends in the phone world._

It really won't though, that's the problem.

The Nexus One is nearly two years old. It's somewhat of an anomaly because
it'll have a higher than average number of off-contract purchases, but in
general once a person's contact has run for two years they get a new phone.

Two year old phones just aren't that important. Speaking as an N1 owner, I'd
love for them to be. But they aren't.

~~~
anigbrowl
_in general once a person's contact has run for two years they get a new
phone_

That kind of market calculus made sense before the recession. Now the value
proposition has changed, and while people may still buy newer hardware (such
as tablets) they expect better value from their tech purchasing because
increasing wealth is no longer a given. Also, people are more suspicious of
corporations in general, especially ones that are sitting on a large cash
pile. Public sentiment is fickle and can quickly bite a company in the ass -
look at how far the stars of Groupon and Netflix have fallen in just two
quarters.

The idea that everyone should replace their smartphone every two years says
either that your firm is not interested in supplying the less well-off, or
else that it doesn't much care whether its products end up in landfill or not.
Sure, Apple locks down its hardware platform so tightly that maintaining
backwards compatibility is far easier than it is for Google, but note how
Apple products maintain a high resale value and that allows them to sell new
ones at a premium price point without hurting demand. Apple may be hard to
deal with for developers, but Apple consumers feel the firm treats them like
Kings or Queens. Google overlooks this market positioning strategy at its
peril; loyalty is a two-way street, and the firm should know this very well
given its historical disruption of the Yahoo/Altavista/Lycos triumvirate that
dominated search back in ~1998.

~~~
untog
_That kind of market calculus made sense before the recession. Now the value
proposition has changed, and while people may still buy newer hardware (such
as tablets) they expect better value from their tech purchasing because
increasing wealth is no longer a given._

I'm not so sure about that. You can (probably- I'll be honest, I haven't
checked for sure) get a more powerful Android handset than a Nexus One for
free if you sign a new two-year agreement right now. There's very little to
lose there- except having to take on a two year plan. Except...

 _Also, people are more suspicious of corporations in general, especially ones
that are sitting on a large cash pile. Public sentiment is fickle and can
quickly bite a company in the ass - look at how far the stars of Groupon and
Netflix have fallen in just two quarters._

I'm extremely skeptical of the former claim- people's anger is directed
towards banks, not large corporations with hordes of cash (by and large). If
they were, people would _hate_ Apple.

Groupon and Netflix are both things that you can quite conceivably do without.
A cellphone these days is seen as an essential, so signing up for a new two
year term isn't such a friction point. You're going to need cellphone service
from _somewhere_ , after all.

~~~
lurker17
A 2-year contract costs $20/month more than a comparable month-to-month plan.
(T-mobile's Even More /Plus plans make this explicit.) That's where the phone
subsidy comes from.

~~~
untog
That may be the case for T-Mobile but it certainly is not universal. AT&T
offers nothing like that, AFAIK.

~~~
mez77
That would explain why the US version of the Nexus One has T-mobiles 3G band
and not AT&Ts.

------
robterrell
Great. I guess I can stop hitting the "Update" thing every day in the hope
that 4.0 will appear.

I can't help but note that the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch purchased the same
month are already running iOS 5.0 and I haven't noticed any speed issues.

~~~
tejaswiy
My 3GS is almost unusably slow on iOS5.

~~~
robterrell
I've only upgraded one of the 3GS's to iOS 5, and my experiences pretty much
match this:

<http://www.anandtech.com/show/4956/apple-ios-5-review/15>

Basically, as fast or faster than 4.3. But mine is a development-only device
with no music or other content, so maybe that's the difference.

~~~
tejaswiy
This is interesting. I don't know if it's something with my phone
specifically, but the whole thing just lags by a couple of seconds whenever I
try to type something. It's so bad that I'm usually done typing a couple of
words by the time the first characters come up on the screen ..

~~~
protomyth
If you can, take it in to an Apple Store. It really sounds like you have
something going wrong in hardware. Like vondur said, it sounds like bad flash
memory.

------
clhodapp
I imagine that this is not due to the n1 being "underpowered" per se, as the
nexus s has roughly the same specs as the n1, but more internal storage. The
problem is due to the fact that the n1 can't accommodate the ics image, which
google is claiming is about twice as large in size. /speculation

~~~
anigbrowl
I think you're right. running out of onboard space is an issue if I install
too many apps on the N1.

~~~
v21
I am constantly running out of internal space on my N1. It's the worst thing
about it, and the main reason I would upgrade.

------
jkincaid
It's feasible that Cyanogenmod will release a compatible version though, isn't
it?

~~~
nickpp
Do you think ICS can actually run on N1? I do not think so. Otherwise why
wouldn't google provide an update?

Thus, what do you think cyanogen can do to make ICS properly run on the N1
hardware?

~~~
RobAtticus
It might be able to run, but the performance is just so subpar that Google
feels uncomfortable releasing it. I doubt it would go over well if they
release ICS for the N1 and the phone is barely usable.

CM, on the other hand, will appear on any device that somebody is dedicated
enough to bring it to. So if somebody really wants ICS on the N1, then they'll
do it.

------
patrickod
Why are people complaining about the Nexus One not being as great as the
iPhone 4. Look at the release dates and you'll see that the Nexus One has 6
months on the iPhone 4. If anything compare it to the 3GS and you'll see that
it is in fact a much better phone. Google are pushing forward with Android and
the Nexus One is unfortunately being left behind. It remains the best phone
I've ever owned and I'll definitely be buying a Galaxy Nexus to continue
riding the Android wave.

~~~
chugger
the iPhone 3GS is better than Nexus one because it (can) runs iOS 5. your
Nexus One is stuck running an old OS.

~~~
patrickod
Please take your trolling elsewhere. Last I checked HN was a place where
intellectual discussion takes place. Act accordingly.

------
jinushaun
Sad panda... I was really expecting Google to support at least two more
version of Android post Gingerbread for the Nexus One. Guess I'll keep the N1
around as my device for testing apps on Gingerbread/old hardware.

Apple handled this a lot better with iOS 4 and the old iPhone 3G. They simply
took out features that the 3G couldn't handle. My N1 handles Gingerbread
perfectly without any hiccups. Incredibly, every version of Android seemed to
make my N1 _faster_. You couldn't say the same for iOS 3/4 on the 3G, which
got worse, and any reasonable person wouldn't expect Apple to support the 3G
beyond iOS 4. The N1, on the other hand, seemed like it could support at least
two more versions of Android.

------
nickpp
This is EXACTLY what I would expect from HTC. I had their products before and
I got burned this way.

It is one of the reasons I switched to Apple.

~~~
quandrum
How is this different than Apple's iOS5 compatibility list?

Well, besides how much easier it will be for third parties to add ICS to Nexus
One.

~~~
chugger
iOS 5 runs smoothly on a 3GS, a phone older than the Nexus One.

~~~
beej71
But the last official update for the 3G turned it into a dog. I don't think
any company is blameless, here, but I'm far more disappointed to see Google
doing it. Linux still runs on a 386, last time I checked.

~~~
archangel_one
I'm not convinced that you could run a 3.0 kernel image on a 386 without
running out of RAM pretty soon, even if you cut it down to something pretty
minimal. I haven't found any sources where anyone's actually installed modern
Linux on one - they all seem to have used ancient distros because support
actually vanished some time back (see eg. here:
[http://hackaday.com/2011/08/12/installing-linux-
on-a-386-lap...](http://hackaday.com/2011/08/12/installing-linux-
on-a-386-laptop/)).

~~~
beej71
I stand corrected, but you have my curiosity up. Nevertheless, the "decline"
of hardware in the face of software advancement in phones strikes me as
awfully rapid. Is the Nexus One really so underpowered that ICS couldn't be
made to accommodate it?

------
vondur
I have the Nexus one and am not too pleased with this, the phone isn't that
old, and I assumed we would get ICS on it.

------
mrbill
It's sad when a phone that's only 1.5 years old is "too old". I really enjoyed
my N1 with Cyanogenmod, but switched back to iPhone when news of T-Mobile's
acquisition by AT&T started coming out.

------
angryasian
For a site called hackernews, it surprises me that people actually care about
this. There will be so many available roms for ICS with source code release,
and any phone that is at least running CM7 should have no worries. Its almost
impossible to brick a phone during the root process and for a 2 year old phone
to not attempt to root at this point, would not be using your hardware to its
full benefit.

------
spiralpolitik
So by the end of the year Android developers will have 5 different versions
(2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.0 and 4.0) of Android in the wild and over 40% of which are
running a version that's almost 18 months old (2.2) with no upgrade path.

And they say fragmentation isn't an issue...

It's Nokia and Symbian all over again.

------
brudgers
There's no incentive for Google to provide backward compatibility for Android,
hence they don't.

~~~
lreeves
Then what's the incentive for Apple to do just that? IOS5 runs on the iPhone
3GS, which is older than the Nexus One.

~~~
brudgers
People who purchase iOS devices are Apple's customers. People who purchase
Android devices are not Google' s customers

~~~
lurker17
Google sold thousands (millions?) of N1 phones at a significant price. Those
buyers certainly are Google's customers. Well, they were, until Google blew
them off 5 minutes after purchase.

------
citricsquid
I've got both the Nexus One and an iPhone 4 and I can never understand why
anyone would choose the Nexus One over an iPhone, it's such an inferior
product both hardware and software wise. The comparatively poor quality as put
me off anything but iPhones.

~~~
phuff
I started with an N1 and later got an iPad 2. I found I had to turn off all
push notifications and was surprised that apple would put out something that
had such inferior usability when the notification dropdown thing that Android
has is so clearly better. Maybe they didn't want to copy the people they
despised? Or maybe they just couldn't find the engineering time until 5.0? I
dunno. It was unbearable. I had to turn all of the push notifications off
because I just couldn't handle being interrupted by a modal dialog all the
time.

The other thing that really stinks on the iPad compared to the N1 is the non-
multi-tasking of apps. Everytime I switch to a different app it starts all
over again... Really? Really.

In general iOS was really pretty, and really usable. Maybe I was just
aculturated to the android way of handling multi-tasking and notifications,
but those two things alone made me think, "I can't believe people put up with
this stuff..." :)

~~~
masklinn
> I found I had to turn off all push notifications and was surprised that
> apple would put out something that had such inferior usability when the
> notification dropdown thing that Android has is so clearly better.

You may want to note that iOS was released more than a year before Android.
The notifications have been essentially untouched between iPhoneOS 1 and iOS
5.

> The other thing that really stinks on the iPad compared to the N1 is the
> non-multi-tasking of apps. Everytime I switch to a different app it starts
> all over again... Really? Really.

Not really no, you might want to update your iPad _at least_ to the OS
released 16 months ago.

~~~
phuff
The iPad had whatever came with the iPad2 by default, which I assumed was the
latest, maybe it wasn't. Anyway, I haven't upgraded to 5 yet since it has
seemed wrinkly for a lot of people.

Wrt notifications... I just don't understand _why_ they didn't touch it
between iOS1 and iOS5. It was so bad :) I'm sure it's much better now.

~~~
masklinn
> I just don't understand _why_ they didn't touch it between iOS1 and iOS5.

My guess is: limited engineering power and other things they considered more
critical to user-experience (however misguided their consideration was).

------
37prime
Nexus One was released in January 2010. Too soon to be "retired" after only 2
years.

Nexus One was seriously "flawed" for having only 512MB of internal storage. I
had to uninstall tons of applications just to update the built in ones.

~~~
lurker17
This is the killer. Google keeps piling more junkware apps onto internal
storage, and not enabling the SD bit for their apps.

I am constantly making calls of which 1MB non-SD app to evict, while Browser
and Maps and friends pile on 5-10MB each. And there isn't even any
piracy(?)-related reason to make these apps internal-only, like there is for
paid apps.

My N1 is a constant state of "Browser storage full" since the latest round of
app updates.

------
leeoniya
my gf's CDMA Hero (released October 11, 2009 w/Cupcake!) is running
CyanogenMod 7.1 (Gingerbread), runs better than stock HTC sense trash.

"won't run on Nexus One", you say?

it'll run back-to-back Ironman triathlons

------
anigbrowl
Boo. Of course I do not expect all the advanced features or substitutes for
things that are not supported by the older hardware, but Google promoted ICS
strongly as a 'run everywhere' version designed to save developers from the
hardware fragmentation issue. Between me, my wife, and my brothers-in-law, we
have 7 or 8 Android devices in this household, and I was looking forward to a
more unified operating environment.

------
nlanier
Damn. This bums me out.

------
51Cards
The sunset photo as the wallpaper on the phone in the article is appropriate.
Still love my Nexus One.

------
dlikhten
NOOOOOO!!!! HTC EVO 4G NO HAS 4.0 upgrade? Noes!!! NOOOOES!!!!!! I am very sad
now.

As a side note, at these speeds, feels like windows xp has less hardware reqs
than android :P

------
foobarbazetc
Well, this is absolute bullshit.

