The best comment I've heard on this news came from John Gruber:
"Here’s the list of Android phones you can buy today other than the Nexus One which support Android version 2.2: {}."
"Here’s the list of Android phones you can buy today other than the Nexus One which support Android version 2.2: {}."
Incidentally, 2.2 (via the CM6 test) runs just fine on my Sapphire. The joy of Free Software is that I can fix my own device that is no longer the flavor of the month. T-Mobile will never give that device an Android > 2.0. But the community can, and it works much better than the stock image.
(Android 2.2 sort of works on my EVO 4G. The 4G doesn't work, but then again, since the EVO came out, Sprint's 4G hasn't worked in Chicago anyway. So I guess 2.2 works fine on the EVO, actually.)
Anyway, it all comes down to how you define supported. If you mean, "in the form of a bloatware ROM filled with ads for your carrier", you're right, Android 2.2 is not supported by anything. If you mean, "I can check it out from git, compile it, and load it onto my phone", well, pretty much everything supports 2.2 now. Pretty awesome, if you ask me.
Froyo, aka Android 2.2, was released on May 20. It's now July 19th, almost two months later. The fact that only one phone will support an OS for more than two months is a problem.
I'm sure some people are frustrated by it, but following "publish early and often", and all that goes with it, is how open source works.
It should mean "this is an Android phone that is built with Google's blessing and with Google's support, so lean back and don't worry".
I don't think your statement is correct.
It turns out that the Google mark really is meaningless.
Myself and most of my friends who I recommended the Nexus One to on the basis of first updates and vanilla software, we are now all running CM6.
Maybe it's not the majority of phones then, but my point still stands that the stamp is fairly meaningless.
Why you (or Mr. Gruber) would consider it a problem that one phone model would receive updates sooner than others is something of a mystery to me, particularly on such a short timescale. It's not even out for the Nexus One in my country yet.
edit: US rollout began 28th June, and phased in with most users getting an update notification within that first week, http://googlenexusoneboard.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-android-...
How about something that just works?
In the real world, the perfect balance lies somewhere between the two. For every Android phone I have owned, there is always a middle ground. On one side, is the carrier ROM with their ads removed. On the other side, is a community-supported open-source build, like Cyanogen Mod. These are the sort of possibilities alluded to by my posts, without worrying the reader about concrete problems (like how the first is copyright infringement, and the second can be unstable).
Oh well, next time I will just write a computer program to unambiguously represent the set of possible meanings, so nobody will have to do any thinking on their own.
Like you said, typical users such as your parents have no idea what software their phone is running; they just want it to work. Android 2.1 works perfectly well, and the fact that 2.2 has been announced but is not yet commercially available is no hindrance to people who don't care for such matters.
The only people who really seem to be getting up in arms about Android 2.2 not being available right now are the Apple fanatics.
Some phones will be updated, and some will not. Some won't get the update because:
1. The hardware is too old/slow/underpowered/too little RAM for the new OS
2. The manufacturer/carrier doesn't give a damn and doesn't feel like pouring money into an old phone when doing so doesn't give them any new revenue.
Either way, your complaint isn't with Android or Google.
So your comparison is not adequate.
The fact that unlocked multi-carrier phones aren't readily available is a problem with how the carriers and wireless service works, and has nothing to do with Android, or iOS, for that matter.
That is a problem with the structure of the Android ecosystem, which by extension is a complaint with Android itself.
Apple has, what... 8 devices (4 generations of iPhone, 3 of iPod Touch, and the iPad) out? Hell, at least that many new Android phones have or will come out this year alone!
And even Apple can't keep all their devices up-to-date: people with the iPhone 3G are reporting slowness and instability with iOS 4. I imagine the 1st-gen iPod Touch (and maybe even 2nd-gen) would have trouble as well. And last I read, iOS 4 isn't available yet for the iPad. So Apple's track record is (on the generous side) that 50% of their potentially-capable devices work with iOS 4.
There's an easy way to solve the "what version of Android does this phone I'm considering buying have on it?" problem -- ask a salesperson. If they don't know, ask the manufacturer. Or just google for it. I'm sure someone else has the phone and has noted it somewhere, or some reviewer has gotten a review unit and has noted the version.
And how do you know if it's going to get upgrades? You go by the manufacturer's past record with such things. The interwebs can tell you all this, and more.
This is the same problem we had in the past, but it is more of an issue now. This is what Apple freed us from, no matter what carrier it is on in the world, I can upgrade my phone.
Android do a lot of things right, this is not one of them.
Huh? We're not talking about the laptop (phone) you bought today. We're talking about the one you bought a year (or more) ago.
And the laptop comparison is limited: new laptops generally have more than enough power to run the current OS and apps. Embedded devices usually have just enough and not much more. People don't like to buy $1000 phones, so we get a single-core 1GHz Snapdragon with 512MB of RAM instead of a dual-core 1GHz Tegra2 with 1GB of RAM.
> This is the same problem we had in the past, but it is more of an issue now. This is what Apple freed us from, no matter what carrier it is on in the world, I can upgrade my phone.
Well, unless you have an iPhone 3G -- reports are that iOS4 is unstable and slow as hell.
And I have a Nexus One, and I can use it on whatever carrier I like, and upgrade it to whatever software I like. Granted, custom Android mods aren't for your average consumer, but I expect (ok, wishfully hope) that to change in the next few years.
Some support cutoff point for old models makes sense.
It's not a problem, it's a trade-off. Given the rapid advancement of Android lately, it can be argued that it's an appropriate one. Pick your poison, eh?
And that's kind of a tautology. You're tied to one manufacturer and one carrier. I can walk into the Verizon store and purchase the most expensive HTC phone and I know that I have the latest HTC on Verizon just like you know you have the latest Apple device on AT&T. A lack of choice doesn't mean you automatically have something better in your hands.
Company handsets no longer make up 99% of smartphone, if at all they ever did.
Just wow.
Now, to be fair, the non-enterprise developer program lets you distribute your app to 100 devices too, but you need to pre-enter those devices's IDs beforehand. There's no way to hit between 100-500 devices.
Most customers don't know, much less care about, the exact version number of their phone's operating system. They care about what the operating system can do for them. But I suppose if Gruber were to compare the actual capabilities of currently available Android systems vs. iOS 4, he would have much less to be snarky about on Apple's behalf.
actual capabilities of currently available Android
systems vs. iOS 4
I buy an android phone, and it doesn't have built in mifi, I am going to be annoyed (I am ok, I have a nexus one).
An even better questions is... who cares? I have an N1 with 2.2 on it. I was happy with it with 2.1 on it. I'm slightly happier with 2.2 on it. I know people with Droids with whatever is on it, and they're happy with it. I know people with Droid Incredibles, and they're happy with what's on that.
Why do you assume that the average smartphone user is always chasing the most recent version of software that may or may not be available for their particular handset? It's all just hypocritical argumentation. On one hand we have the people who say "well you can install CyanogenMod on it" get shot down by others who say "your average user won't install CM," while these same "others" claim that the average user actually gives a damn that they don't have 2.2 yet. I don't think they do. And I think minority who actually does will be informed enough to decide if they want to take the leap and install CM. Probably most won't, but that's their choice.
I have no idea how many of those devices shipped with 1.x and were upgraded, or shipped with 2.1 installed.
Browser runs like crap. Try loading a page with a bunch of graphics and text. It will run like a flip book cartoon.
The music player is laughable. It doesn't even match up to an ipod classic.
The exchange syncing does not work correctly, especially calendar syncing.
And a laundry list of other 'features' which exist in Android but are woefully inadequate.
I would switch back to an iPhone in a heartbeat if it wasn't on ATT.
- Free turn by turn navigation that's better than any dedicated gps device.
- Wifi or bluetooth tethering. I recently was travelling with my girlfriend, and we both could access the internet on our laptops routed over WiFi through my phone. The hotel even had free wifi, but it was easier to not bother with figuring out how to set that up, and just use my phone.
- Fully integrated Google Voice.
Other than the turn by turn every other feature you said is available with jail broken ios. So you get the best of both worlds: slick usabe interface and powerful features.
I honestly don't know why more people don't jailbreak their iPhones.
- Wifi or bluetooth tethering.
Biggest for me is file browsers, being able to copy content onto the device from across the network, not needing to deal with iTunes.
I've replaced the default media browser, video player etc.
And I can use my phone in bed with auto rotate disabled without having to jailbreak.
To me, the primitive nature of iOS stands out. It has a lot of polish, but it is simply less functional, less useful.
It isn't about using the phone as a mass storage device, dummy! It's about being able to e.g. add and remove music, movies, photos etc. to and from the device and a network location, over the air, without ever having to plug into another computer.
I don't have one, can anyone confirm?
And it makes sense - why would one need the same phone to appear more than once?
http://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/2.7.html#python-3-1-feat...
Sadly, I am stuck with 2.4~2.6 for now. Can't wait.