
New Phones Still Sold With Old Versions of Android - tvon
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/android-version-confusion/
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melling
This is a big problem and could seriously hurt the brand. It felt great to
upgrade my original iPhone to the latest OS. Google needs to push companies to
allow people to upgrade Android.

~~~
coderdude
It's not that big of a problem. My Droid updated itself to 2.01 and will soon
update to 2.1. The phones can be updated. Maybe this is just a problem for the
older, or cheaper phones running Android.

~~~
melling
It shouldn't matter if you buy a "cheap" $50-$100 phone with a 2 year
contract. Google is building a brand and it needs to keep people excited about
their product. Buying a new phone that is 3 or 4 revs behind will certainly
dishearten people.

~~~
coderdude
If you buy a cheap phone ($50 is just enough to buy a garbage cell phone in
the states) then you shouldn't be upset that the carrier isn't supporting
incremental updates to the phone's operating system. It might not be cost
effective. Most people I know that look for cell phones on the super-cheap do
not know the difference between Android 1.6 and 2.0. They probably couldn't
tell you the difference between 98 and XP.

Edit: In short, I'm saying that if you cannot tell the difference and are a
low-end cell phone consumer, then you can just as well do without voice search
on your $50 phone. Beyond that, the good phones update themselves.

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kgrin
Fair point (for the most part), but the illustration graphic shows a Nexus
One... which was indeed released with 2.1 (the latest and greatest). Not
terribly material, just silly.

Now, on the substance: the reason why many of the phones lag behind is that
the manufacturers and carriers have the ability to customize the system -
sometimes to add features (multi-touch appeared in some HTC phones before the
Android core), sometimes to junk-ify the phone.

Some of this I predict will fade, as manufacturers/carriers find the value of
having the LatestAndGreatest OS will outweigh the perceived benefits of
customization. Some of it probably won't, which is the unfortunate but mostly
unavoidable consequence of producing an open/open-source platform.

My guess is that over time Google will make a greater effort to distinguish
the phones that will be kept up-to-date (because they have few OS
customizations) from the ones that just use the Android OS as the basis for
their own distro (this is the very fine semantic difference between "Android"
and "Android with Google"). How closely consumers will distinguish the two, is
of course another matter entirely.

Edit: As an aside, I've been surprised (though perhaps I shouldn't be) how
many of my non-tech friends don't even really identify "Android" as a brand -
when I tell people we develop for Android, I often get a blank stare - they
don't realize that the Droid, Nexus One, etc. have much of anything in common.
A branding failure, on the one hand - but also an opportunity to correct some
of these other issues.

~~~
tvon
> _Edit: As an aside, I've been surprised (though perhaps I shouldn't be) how
> many of my non-tech friends don't even really identify "Android" as a brand
> - when I tell people we develop for Android, I often get a blank stare -
> they don't realize that the Droid, Nexus One, etc. have much of anything in
> common. A branding failure, on the one hand - but also an opportunity to
> correct some of these other issues._

I think that's a big plus for Google. "Android vs iPhone" doesn't make much
sense since it's a comparison between a platform and a product line (as you
essentially stated earlier), but "Nexus One vs iPhone" is something people can
understand, and something which (right now anyway) tends to favor the Nexus
One (to those who have used neither).

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scorpioxy
So I bought my HTC Hero with version 1.5 and HTC has been promising the
upgrade "this month" ever sense i bought it 5 months ago. I essentially went
with the HTC(which i bought from the US and had it shipped over, by the way)
because they were more developer friendly than the rest.

Sense UI is good looking, but i am not sure if its a good enough reason to
stick to older platforms. Especially when the APIs on the older platform suck.

Having said that, there are a few enhancements that are integrated with the
Sense UI that are not in the mainline release(which makes you wonder why
they're not). So its not a complete loss.

The phone definitely has its faults from a design perspective(who's bright
idea was it to put the speaker on the back) so for my next purchase I will
reconsider where i get my set from.

~~~
usaar333
I too have a hero and updated to android 2.1: <http://forum.xda-
developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=519>

(Obviously, most people won't do it, but at least those of us who visit HN
can).

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metachris
Fyi, this website covers the current shares of each Android version:
[http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-
ve...](http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-
versions.html)

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jonknee
New netbooks are still sold with old versions of Windows. When you're not a
single vendor platform there will be differences among products.

~~~
tvon
I'm not sure that's a correlation that Google would want anyone to make.

~~~
mlinsey
Why not? The whole goal of Android is ostensibly to have more people accessing
the internet on mobile devices that are closely integrated with Google
services. It _wants_ to be what Windows was for the PC.

Windows also didn't really have its poor reputation among mainstream consumers
until XP's many security/malware problems and Vista's flop.

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gamble
We've seen this story before with Windows Mobile, and it doesn't end well.
People who are bothered by the idea that their phone is running an older OS
version should buy a Nexus One. Google has a motivation to ensure their
flagship phone stays up-to-date, whereas history has shown that licensee
handset manufacturers don't.

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Tichy
Conclusion: only buy Android phones from Google directly :-(

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bmelton
I don't necessarily see this as an issue -- the HTC G1 shipped with an older
version of Android, and naturally, its unsold inventory still has that older
version.

It should automatically update (barring the unforeseen) to the most current
level of Android OS it can support, as it has done for all the existing
Android users as new releases became available.

The only thing I can foresee as a problem is that older hardware may not be
able to support the newest Android versions. The HTC G1 doesn't appear to
support Android 2.0, which makes sense, as it's MUCH older than the Droid or
Nexus One. That causes problems more for the developers than for the end users
I suspect, but I think that people are used to the logic with PCs -- I can't
play the new game, need to upgrade.

~~~
vetinari
Actually, HTC G1 runs Android 2.1 just fine. A little bit on the sluggish
side, but fine.

~~~
albemuth
the G1 runs 1.6 kind of sluggish already, how much worse is it?

~~~
vetinari
Somewhat. I know, it is not useful answer. Some things are faster (the
browser, for example), but some are way slower (when launching apps, there is
an uncomfortable delay, the phone app is also very slow, it can take up to one
second to change state on the screen to correspond to the call state).

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stcredzero
At least Apple is motivated to keep their phones up to date. Unfortunately
this is because they want to retain restrictive control.

~~~
barrkel
I think this is true to the degree that updates disable the holes that
jailbreaks use.

