That's on top of the fact that my carrier refuses to stay on top of updates for my device anyway.
That's on top of the fact that my carrier refuses to stay on top of updates for my device anyway.
I don't get why the carrier has to be involved at all. It has nothing to do with them at all so why do they even get a say in when a phone gets an update ?
Carriers want (demand, even) that their online portals, customer support apps and (most importantly) ringtone shops be pre-loaded on devices, and have always tied that to critical firmware drops for network defaults, radio compatibility testing, and a lot of other (truly critical) functionality that only actually exists on the device's radio baseband and has zero to do with the handset OS these days.
Source: I was one of the program managers for the flying circus that was Vodafone 360, when we tried to work with Samsung to build a vertically integrated handset like the iPhone. This sank (mercifully) without a trace, and to this day I summarise what happened by explaining that Samsung actually had two engineering v-teams: the Galaxy team and... everyone else.
And we got everyone else. It doesn't excuse a lot of what was decided, but it was instrumental in killing the service.
When we started discussing customisation with Apple, all they ever allowed us to do was add a default bookmark to Safari. Period. Finito.
Looking back, that was the sanest thing any handset manufacturer ever did for the entire industry.
Edit: Name, not logo
This is why Android moved as much as possible to the core Google Play services app instead of the OS.