> 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 ?
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.