
Android 3.0 tablets allegedly delayed due to low hopes - Flemlord
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/04/15/android.3.tablet.designers.said.delaying.launches/
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ShabbyDoo
I am afraid of buying an Android tablet (and, for that matter, I am leery of
buying another Android phone) because I am beholden to the device
manufacturers for OS updates. The track record of most hardware manufacturers
for driver/software support is abysmal. A few years ago, I threw away a
perfectly good scanner because the manufacturer-provided software did not work
with Windows XP SP2, and the manufacturer explicitly stated that it did not
intent to fix the problem. I have a Thinkpad T42 sitting on the floor of my
office (make me an offer, I'll sell it cheap :) ) because the ATI video
hardware does not have Windows 7 driver support. [Yes, I could probably use
Linux, but that's another issue entirely]. My Droid phone (original Droid) is
running a 3rd party firmware which is quite buggy but not as bad as the last
official release from Verizon/Motorola.

Why do hardware manufacturers not see their products as solutions to problems
and optimize their product definitions accordingly? There's the old quote
along the lines of, "No one has ever needed a quarter-inch drill bit -- he
needed quarter-inch holes." I would love to buy an Android tablet with the
promise of Android OS updates for N years, even if N was only two or three.
For that matter, I would love to buy a laptop where all the components were
guaranteed to work well with the current version of Windows for some period of
time. Furthermore, why are drivers so proprietary? Why not reduce risk by open
sourcing drivers, even for Windows? One can purchase a Bluetooth dongle for
less than a dollar, but, without driver support, it's entirely worthless. I
had to figure out which ones had a particular Broadcomm chip and find a
manufacturer which guaranteed that its dongle had that particular one inside.

This is no fun. I'm likely in the to 1% of the US population in my ability to
work through such issues, but I still feel quite inept. One would think Apple
would be a shining beacon of light to the world indicating that people are
willing to pay a premium for "it just works" and "it will continue to work for
longer than you care about it working."

~~~
Pewpewarrows
For reference, this is what happens when you try to put new versions of iOS on
older iPhones:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdk2cJpSXLg&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdk2cJpSXLg&feature=player_embedded)

I think you have your argument reversed. You're beholden to Apple for all your
product updates. With an Android phone you're free to update with whatever ROM
you feel like (official from the manufacturer or not).

