Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support
theunderstatement.com
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Note that I of course have no gripes with Android OS/concept itself -- it's a good contender to iOS. My gripe is with the current gouging of consumers by hardware manufacturers/cell phone companies, of the fragmented/poor/outdated hardware coverage in many models, lack of upgrades, et cetera. And don't forget the mandatory "crapware" that carriers pre-install.
This is quite different from buying, say, a Dell/HP PC vs. a Mac -- in both cases do you get a working, upgradeable machine.
ICS supposedly solves this problem but one has to wonder how many low-end Android phones will be sold in the next year (or even two?) that won't support ICS since the N1 won't be getting it.
What? There are still Froyo devices being sold now, as described in the article we are currently discussing:
That’s because every US carrier is still selling - even just now introducing - smartphones that will almost certainly never run Gingerbread and beyond.
Example: http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/huawei-impulse-4g-at/450...
Newer phones are much better off in this regard.
I don't think carriers have realised just how much ill-will their crapware/crippling branding process engenders. In the past, they created a market for tools like Davinci, even though I resent having to use something like that to get MY hardware back into a sane state (and risk bricking it in the process). Now, they're pushing people towards rooting their Android phone. I haven't yet rooted my new (non-contract-encumbered) S2, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. When I do, I'll be sure to install my usual selection of advert-filtering, revenue-denying proxies while I'm at it...
The one bit I'm worried about is if carriers are going to be able to comment out the feature (and the data controls, which I'm far more concerned about getting removed)
Not to mention the uninstallable adware and junkware installed and always running in the background. Does ICS solve this?
Even if the apk is installed in system partition (that means you can't uninstall it), you can mark it hidden and the system will never take it into account at startup, intent broadcast or in other situations. It is as good as removed (except that it physically can't be removed, because you may want to restore the phone to factory settings).
Is there a UI function in the OS(for example by right clicking on the icon) for that or should it be done via a adb shell?
http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/20/bloatware-kill-switch-ice...
TL;DR: if you buy an iOS device you get a consistant user experience. Thanks to the crapware, from Android you do not.
Limiting yes but it's not "preventing" you, it's just a constraint.
I do agree that it's irritating that you can't uninstall certain stuff though. Stocks is the main example which I think a majority of users have little or no interest in and up until iOS5 the Apple weather app was decidedly meh.
I remember apps being rejected based on replicating functionality that already existed in Apple-branded apps. Is this still common?
I have a Desire running Froyo. I don't think I've really missed out on a huge amount by not getting Gingerbread.
Hell yes. Whether they know it or not.
Example: The latest hot Android game is "Wind-up Knight". It supports Android 2.2 and up.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.robotinvader.knigh...
I think most app devs look at the installed base numbers and choose to support 2.1+ or 2.2+. I can't think of any APIs in 2.3 or 3.0 (or even 4.0) that are so wonderful that they are worth cutting off such a large part of the potential customer base.
Also, some developers will write dedicated apps that make full use of new OS or hardware features (like fancy camera apps).
There are many ways to make a new device attractive besides making it incompatible with old devices. Support for new radio standards. Larger, brighter, higher resolution screens. More flash storage, a better camera, more attractive industrial design, more built-in apps, and a more polished UI for built-in apps.
Will this sort of backwards-compatible improvement always be possible? Probably not. Someday all the specs will be maxed out. But for now it's a good strategy.
The difference is that Windows is such an entrenched platform that the third parties are willing to step up to the plate and write the drivers for the PC. Now the question is if Andriod will ever reach that same point.
Can you enlighten me as to what it means to "crossgrade the OS". Native english speaker and I've never heard the term :)
I knew who wrote this comment before I read the name.
Just re-read the posts. I agree. I apologize!
I'd never consider installing a version of Windows an upgrade ;-) Unless it's installing XP over Vista.
And installing stuff on a PC is ingrained into people's psyche, if they can't do it themselves, they get some other folks to do it for them. Upgrading phones? Not so much. My friend never updated her iPhone 4 once. She once used iTunes to transfer songs to it when she bought it and then hated iTunes and didn't listen to music on the phone enough to connect it again. I installed a bunch of apps/games on her phone that she uses/plays, but whenever I see the phone, I see updates to the apps that are never installed from the app store. The other day, 34 apps were pending install on the app store icon!
I know that's unfathomable to us geeks, but that is how much of the general populace is. They wouldn't even know what a ROM means or how to go about finding what's the best one from xda-dev or how or even why they should attempt to install it instead of just using something that "works"(well or not) for now.
These people, even if they know that upgrade is available won't bother. The existing device with it's current firmware works for them, so why change it.
Users are missing security fixes, developers can't use new features in new versions.
1) Developers must invest more time and money in order to support a wider range of firmware revisions, as the user base is more fractured. This leads to less app selection for users, and more buggy behavior on apps that are available. If you're an iOS developer, you can focus on just the last major firmware revision and reach 95%+ of the market, or support the last two major firmware revisions and reach 99%+ of the market, whereas on Android, you're forced to support a few more than that, and the populations stuck at each older revision are much more significant. Read the article for Android stats by revision. Here's an article with a bit more detail on the iOS side:
http://www.marco.org/2011/08/13/instapaper-ios-device-and-ve...
2) Performance and security updates are unavailable, making the user experience sub-optimal, and potentially putting users' personal information at risk.
even on the nexus phones which are arguably the most friendly to installing a custom rom, you have to hook the phone up to a computer, install the android sdk for usb drivers and download a fastboot binary, run "fastboot oem unlock", erase all of your phone's data, then install the custom rom and set everything back up.
on nearly every other phone, the process is much more complicated involving hacks to get around a locked bootloader. i remember doing this on my mytouch 3g and the process involved 2 microsd cards, a hex editor, and a strange website where i had to type in some serial number or something from my phone and download a specially crafted binary for it to put on one of the sd cards.
my nexus one shows as green, yes, i have all the latest software, but no fix yet for the touchscreen issue. That alone would make the nexus one RED since launch on that table for me, as this hints to zero support.
try to use your touch screen for 10min while the device is charging from an empty battery (some other use cases also trigger the bug, but this is 100% reproductible)
if this does not happen to your phone you are in the happy minority of nexus one users.
to the rest of us, while using the touch screen for extended periods of time (shorted if using both fingers and/or charging) it will start to behave erradicaly. Touching one area will register a touch somewhere else. This is also affected by the pressure. the harder you press the less likely to see the bug. It will get worse and affect larger areas until you turn the screen off and on again (lock, unlock and it's back to perfect condition)
worth to mention, this does not happens with some mods. but i haven't rooted my phone as i use it mostly for development and like to test against the stock image.
the car charger+gps app is in fact the worst case, as it will not need touch screen usage to happen. and will happen very fast and all the time. so basically, using the gps for more then 20min, i know i will have to: press power button to turn screen off, press it again to turn screen on, type PIN, press the damn gps button i needed to press 2min ago.
they are different leagues.
The people that consider an android or ios as equals and decide on device color or price won't even know what this table is about.
history is repeating. iOS is a IBM mainframe. with it's golden cuffs. Android is the radio shack PC. with it's "require soldering".
i give that android is still in it's infancy. and that the availability of OSes are few. just like in the beginning of the PC era all you had was BASICshells. all you have now for android is Android and some slighly different shells. but soon an android device will be like a PC. you can choose your linux distro. and then you will have the option of having full control of your mobile, just like you have of your servers.
Anecdotal support: for the Android users I know who fall into this group, it manifests as a vague set of complaints -- certain apps don't run, had to take it into the store a lot, app claiming to be available for Android not available for their phone -- which are all symptoms of having what is called here an orphaned phone.
So yeah, they don't know or care whether they are running version 1.x or 2.y. But they do know that they are generally dissatisfied with their phone.
They don't try to sell product by giving large commissions to the sales people. If you walk into an AT&T store, the sales associates won't recommend an iPhone.
Apple gets smart customers who understand the advantages of what they are buying, not customers who were duped into buying something because some clueless sales associate got a huge commission for selling it to them.
But if you buy phones with unlocked bootloaders, it's just largely the same. As long as there is a device maintainer that has written an overlay for CM, you will get the newer OS updates. Before you jump on me and tell me "consumers shouldn't have to watch out for that", let's just remember the controversy still unraveling regarding Secure Boot with UEFI and Windows 8.
iPhone 3 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
iPhone 4 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nexus one ||||||||||----||||-------
Other ph. ||||||||||||--------
Still, interesting.
EDIT: Just FYI, at 47 minutes this has 9 points.
Google apparently says less than 50% are on Gingerbread, despite way more than 50% of Android phones having been sold since 2.3 shipped.
I do think manufacturers might have gotten a bit better, but I guess we'll see. That's one of the reasons I want to do the next 6 months or so of phones.
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
Currently 45% are on 2.2 with 2.3 approaching around 39%.
- only compares iOS and Android phones, and
- only compares updates from American carriers.
I do plan to provide all that information as a comprehensive list of phones/updates, ideally along with the ability to sort by carrier, manufacturer, etc.
This chart is also skewed a bit and should be based on intervals of releases rather than "years since". I don't recall seeing any iOS5 backports to iPhone 2G or 3G.
(And, no, they don't charge for iPod Touch updates any more - that was technically an accounting regulation issue that the government changed.)
I hear you on the 'Apple didn't have time to get the 3G release right'. That's fine. I have no problem with being stuck on iOS 3.x. Good iOS 4.x would be best... Good iOS 3.x would be almost as good... but bad iOS 4.x is awful. They either should have invested the time to do the release correctly, or just not ship the update to the 3G.
I own a one year old Galaxy S, and lately I have been holding my breath hoping Ice Cream Sandwich will be released for my terminal, whether by Samsung or by Cyanogen.
It'll be interesting to see how much life the skins have left in them in the post-ICS era.
It also seems like you're looking at Android through an Apple lens where the only phone updates come via the OS and having the latest version is the key metric. This means that e.g. any delay in releasing an iOS update has no impact on your graph, but if the Nexus team bust their chops to get an update out early, it makes every other phone look bad in relation.
What would it look like if you charted when the phones last received an update to their Maps, Youtube, or Gmail client apps from Google?. For Maps they would all be green I believe, less so for Youtube which is currently 2.2+ only so 15% of current devices wouldn't be able to get the latest version.
Glancing through the list of new features in iOS5 it seems to be equally split between a) things Android already had (twitter, notifications, no pc required updates), and b) things that are considered Applications, not part of the OS in Android (e.g. To-do apps, email/calendar improvements, e-magazine reader app) so there doesn't seem to be as much reason for Android users to have to upgrade.
So generally, from this point of view, you seem to be a bit loose with equating "support" from Google to mean new OS version e.g. your phrase "tracked down every update that was released for each device" isn't strictly true if you consider a newer version of Maps or the Market an update. And I would imagine the average person in the street would.
I got my Nexus one around 14 months ago. I choose it because its was the official Google developer's phone and so mostly likely to get updated! Except of course we now know that the Android benchmark device that's less than 2 years old will not be getting any more updates.
BTW - I am willing to bet that when ICS source is released someone works out how to get ICS on it. I.e - I doubt that there's any fundamental reason it can't be done?
I also have just got a Nexus One (and have another Android phone). I'm not particularly disappointed that it's not getting ICS. I've not figured out one actual feature I care about that this announcement will deprive me of yet[1] (and as you say, I'll probably be able to put it on anyway. The key sticking point seems to be limited storage space, which custom ROMs have worked around before). Perhaps it'll mean I get better scores on javascript benchmarks with the default browser, but I'm keen to try Firefox anyway now that I have an ARMv7 device. But if the only thing I get is version number bragging rights, I'm not sure I'll even bother with ICS.
[1] Face unlock? No front facing camera on the Nexus One, Android Beam? No NFC chip. Better browser? I'm not sure how much the benchmarks translate into reality. Built in VPN capatablities? actually that's interesting. Folders? We're scraping the barrel now. Different multitasking UI?
The only open issue with Android is security updates. Manufacturers often release minor patch level updates (HTC did recently for their logger fiasco for e.g., My Atrix went 2 minor updates before getting Gingerbread etc.) but that still leaves the phones vulnerable to browser based attacks at least.
With Google making Browser and many other system apps uninstallable/replaceable in ICS may be they can update it like every other app - through market.
With Android 5.0 Google should focus on near complete modularization - all user space apps / libs can be updated by Google independently of the phone just like GMail. This may not be 100% possible but they should do as much as they can practically.
I think you have proven something that many of us have experienced - Android may have a number of technical advantages but its rollout management is unreliable and chaotic and so many non technical users may actually be better off with IOS devices! Technical users may be able to update themselves with some effort (E.g. via XDAdevelopers) if they choose devices carefully and have a bit of luck !
Over the last few months I have been advising my non technically minded friends / family members to "just get an IOS device if you can afford it. Android is great and more flexible but App quality is generally lower and you can't be sure you can EASILY get updates even 6 months after you buy. With IOS you know the device will be supported for around 2 years and maybe even longer. With Android there is no guarantee!"
For me this is sad. I've got both an Android phone (Nexus one) and a tablet (HTC flyer). I am seriously thinking of getting an Iphone for my next personal phone and just accept the few restrictions - BAH !
Also it's not really fair to expect that every phone is going to run the very latest Android code, especially ice cream sandwich, which expects a forward facing camera, doesn't use the navigation buttons and so forth.
I do agree with the general premise that Android carriers/manufactures tend to release and abandon. They have no interest in updating the OS after the sale, which explains the popularity of Cyanogen.
1) Original iphone can't run iOS 4, but it gets green all the way through. Similar issues with 3G and iOS5. EDIT: I see now that the way you've done the timelines makes it confusing, and seems to be done intentionally to make your point rather than clarify what's going on.
2) 2.1 to 2.2 is a minor release. 2.1 to 3.0 is a major release. And Android 3.0 isn't a phone release at all - specifically stated as such. It's impossible for a phone to be "3 major releases behind" when there are only two major releases available.
Go back and remake the graph fairly. It will still show the story you want to tell, but you will be able to claim impartiality - and with it, better authority.
For example, Android 2.2 added huge performance gains, which definitely makes a difference for what app developers can do and what you can run. It also added very useful new features like wifi hotspot that make the device much more useful.
Meanwhile 2.3 had a streamlined UI theme and added a new keyboard, NFC, gyros, WebM/AAC, multiple cameras, etc. Is that just minor?
As an Android user, I feel the graph is pretty representative of the ecosystem and how my experience compares to iPhone users around me.
Yes, I think so.
Compare to this snippet: March 9, 2011 – iOS 4.3 arrived, delivering hotspot functionality, faster browsing, lock switch settings and improvements to AirPlay and Home Sharing. [1]
iOS gets to call hotspot and faster browsing a minor version, why not the same for Android? It's comparing apples and oranges. Similarly, the cycle for Android 2.0 to 2.3 was around a year (well... 14 months) which is equivalent to the cycles for iOS major revs, which are about a year each [2]
I'm currently trying to upgrade a bit of software at the moment at work that's a few minor points out... but those minor points contain some delicious features. Doesn't mean it's not a minor revision upgrade.
[1]http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/06/03/ios-and-iphone-timel... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#Versions
edit: clarifications
That said, the fact even that's off the scale is worrying for Android.
And I'm okay with it because I know Apple has conservative product life cycles and will stick to it. And I know the next iPhone get will be supported for 2-3 years at least, as well.
I think ajanuary is talking about the fact that the 3G was still for sale until right before the iPhone 4 was released (see black rectangle). So people who bought a 3G right before the 4 was released (not necessarily a smart move) got about 10 months of support (support essentially ended in March 2011, with iOS 4.3)
The 3G should have stayed with the 2G in being restricted to iOS 3.1.3, which whilst no speed demon, at least runs reasonably well, even now.
The 3GS is the lowest hardware that should have been given iOS 4.
The only reason why I had iOS 4 on my 3G was app compatibility. I eventually was frustrated enough to go back to 3.1.3 and it was like having a new phone again.
The device is still much slower and less smooth than on 3.1 due to higher base memory requirements (as a result, not only are most applications slower to load some will not load at all on 4.2 and will instead crash due to going OOM and not being able to clear out anything upon receiving an OOM signal).
My own app FemCal, runs pretty well on 3.1.3 on a 2G, but I think almost everything is a struggle for iOS 4 on the 3G.
In particular, the new Facebook app appears to be unusable on the 3G nowadays.
Improve over 4.0, which was completely and utterly unusable. I still have my 3G, so I can see what it is daily. A 4.2.1 3G is generally slow and laggy, but for the most part it works (as far as I'm concerned anyway: all tapbot applications run acceptably, Instapaper, Wikipanion and Terminology work and so do most — though not all — of my games).
Not saying it's great, or even good (compared to 3.1), but that I can use my phone is a net improvement over 4.0, which had essentially killed the bloody thing.
> In particular, the new Facebook app appears to be unusable on the 3G nowadays.
I wouldn't know about that. I have no use for facebook's application.
HTC's Sense, Motorola's Motoblur and co can only introduce an engineering overhead and delays in upgrading. I would much rather they concentrated on making awsome hardware and leaving the UI to Google, rather than attempting to differentiate themselves in this way.
I agree with you that it would be better for the Android ecosystem if they would, though.
- Most people aren't conscious of bundled software or couldn't care less about it.
- A minority actively dislike it and are biased toward buying "Google experience" phones.
The bundled software I'll grant is not really about differentiation - it's still a way to increase margins, though, by selling the right to bundle software on the phone or promoting your own services.
1. Hardware design. Even cosmetic stuff.
2. Good support. You know, being able to call a human being on the phone.
3. Easy OTA updater (No more Kies and god know what else)
4. Write an itunes clone for syncing that isn't terrible. Or license double-twist.
5. Useful crapware apps. Apple differentiates itself with stuff like Siri. Why is Anrdroid crapware like "Buy this 4.99 caller ID service?"
There's so much room for improvement here. Considering ICS has all the eyecandy we need, its time to get out of the whole "Lets build a skin and add lots of crapware" that is turning Android into the smartphone ghetto.
FWIW, its not just Android. I know a lot of iPhone users who have never upgraded the OS and never will. They don't understand the utility of doing so. I'm afraid a lot of this conversation depends on how geeks use their equipment, which is fine, but the hoi polloi isn't clamoring for updates like they should be.
Also: Windows PC manufacturers have always attempted to differentiate themselves in software as much as was feasible. They were never as free to modify the platform as Android manufacturers are, though.
The real issue here is security updates. Google need a way to update core OS component that aren't affected by the manufacturer's UI skinning.
If you extend this chart to 2011 you will notice that the platform is more mature and most of the phones will receive ICS (my wife Galaxy S is a relatively old device and will get it).
Motorola Milestone XT720 released June 2011 (USA: August)
Runs 2.1
No bugfixes
No updates
No upgrades
Buggy as hell. 2.2 upgrades and flash support pledged by Motorola sales/support at the time of release in the US -- later clarified that those employees had been "confused" when the mothballing was made official in late November.
Those Apple green bars look quite nice, but I'm not a fan. Maybe add some Windows phone.
The problem as I see it is that since Android is Open Source, the manufacturers don't abstract their innovations into a HAL. For example, Motorola's FM radio and HDMI support is peppered all over inside the core eclair framework. So, someone has to mix it all together again with each new release. Usually in the FOSS space, we like to believe that the effort of maintaining private forks encourages companies to contribute their efforts back to the open source project. That doesn't work here, because manufacturers like Motorola also have the viable option to simply abandon their forks. Which is even less effort.
Apple has a huge economy of scale--only four or five devices (most very similar) with relatively humongous market share per device. The personnel/device ratio obviously supports a much better customer experience than any Android device can offer (with the exception of perhaps the Android developer phones).
I can only assume Microsoft knows what they are doing and enforces abstractions and barriers that limit the scope of manufacture monkeying.
One of the biggest points that the chart brings out is that by the time most Android phones DO get an upgrade, that upgrade is no longer current. So, while ICS might come to a lot of phones, I sincerely doubt it will happen in a timely manner. One of the biggest flaws in the Android ecosystem is the ridiculous software update cycles. Entire communities have been created to try to fill that gap (rooting & ROMs), but it's something Google needs to address directly.
Note: I have a Samsung Epic (Sprint's Galaxy S), and I've been waiting months for a promised Gingerbread update.
I'm currently torn apart between buying an iPhone 4s and the galaxy nexus, but given that I can expect the iphone to be supported and updated instantly and regulary for a long time, and not with any of the android phones (less than 2 years for the original nexus phone), I think iphone it will be.. despite prefering the openness of android.
1. ricw: I'll buy iPhone because Android has no OS upgrade
2. gbog (me): You can root
3. nasmorn: Mom, dad need you to root, annoying
4. methodin: Mom, dad don't care to upgrade OS
5. loire280: But we care.
It reminds me when a bunch of old trolls tried to play with me on usenet decades ago. No thanks.
That pretty much sums it up.
It is deceptive, and for HTC G1, the first Android device, official support may not be good, but you can painlessly install Froyo on it, because it isn't locked and Froyo works well on it. You can also install Gingerbread for that matter, but CyanogenMod dropped the support for it because of severe hardware limitations.
Basically if you get a Google blessed phone, like the Nexus One, or the Nexus S, or the next Nexus, you will be able to install the latest Android as long as the hardware itself is capable enough.
I do agree that iPhones are a lot more comfortable.
On AT&T, at least, most iPhone customers are eligible for an upgrade after 18 months because of the cost of their plan, so everyone was eligible, by a significant margin, for an upgrade before their phone was droppped.
Supporting phones 24 months after selling them does hold some merit, as that's the upgrade cycle the consumer is contractually incentivized to meet.
I think a good anecdote for my frustrations is navigation. When I first bought the phone, I wasn't able to turn the screen off during navigation. I would turn it off, and it would turn itself back on draining my battery. An update came along and fixed it. For a little while it worked as I expected. Another update came along and now I can turn my screen off when navigating but 50% of the time when I do I have to unlock my screen.
Over time Android and it's core feature set have been consistently inconsistent. At first it's forgiveable because you assume upgrades will fix it, but its hard to call it anything but extremely poor quality at this point.
My next phone will be an iPhone
The ridiculous thing is that these apps relaunch and work fine on the 2nd or 3rd try, so why does Google give me an annoying crash popup instead of relaunching (like Browser is sometimes clever enough to do)
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/26/nexus-one-denied-ice-crea...
I'd much rather see the platform being pushed forward than spending great amounts of time trying to shoehorn it onto extremely old devices used by 2% of people.
2. Anyone who cares about OS updates doesn't keep a phone for longer than 2 years. Most spring for an early upgrade after 1.5. Many (like me) finagle a new one every year or so.
3. My wife has never updated the OS of any of the 3 iPhones she's owned. I believe she is representative.
For instance is my app targets 2.1 it will run on all on 2.1 and above which is currently ~97% of all active devices.
Check out http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve... for the active OS version stats collected by Google in the last 14 days.
Even though they may have an update available (non-eligable devices excluded) not every user knows how or is able to update their device.
http://blog.brightcove.com/sites/all/uploads/image/brightcov...
[1] http://blog.brightcove.com/en/2011/10/brightcove-unveils-next-generation-video-cloud-smart-playerThat chart is terribly cooked. It leaves out important devices like the Nexus S which had good support, and includes a ton of clunkers in lieu of the most popular phones (e.g. no Galaxy S variants) which tended to fare a little better.
That said, the point the post is making is valid and important. But the graphic is sensationalized junk. It's a platform flame masquerading as product research.
Considering no Android device comes even remotely close to three years of support, and three years is well outside the renewal cycles you can generally expect, I don't think that's really cooking anything.
> That chart is terribly cooked. It leaves out important devices like the Nexus S which had good support
The Nexus S is barely 10 months old, and is about phones which had been released as of June 2010, 6 months before the Nexus S appeared...
> That said, the point the post is making is valid and important. But the graphic is sensationalized junk.
It's not ideal in the least, but calling it "sensationalized junk" is pushing it too far by a long shot.
Just yesterday I realized that a long-standing bug is fixed by iOS5, and that since nearly all of our customers will be running 3GS or newer hardware, I can depend on that fix with confidence when we release our next version soon.
Sure, but the graph seems to take user-point considerations foremost (#1), before developer-point considerations.
- You can't assume what's going to be on the phone, software wise. Each maker evidently messes with it, sometimes even changing the interface itself. I've also read stories of bloatware being added.
- You can't be sure how software updates are going to be handled, because that varies depending on maker and carrier, meaning you might not get updates they same time others do (this is also a problem for Windows 7 Phone).
- Crappy cell provider logo plaques on the hardware (I detest that).
- Multiple/competing app stores.
I believe that Android has a lot of promise, but Google really needs to start exhibiting some control over what's going on.
Android's inconsistency is as big problem for Google as it is to the restaurant - if it's inconsistent, I stop going.
I own several Android devices, with the SGS2 being the latest. If it is going to be inconsistent with the update & timing as the rest of them - next time I'm going to the competition, whoever it might be.
Suggesting that people upgrade to a new phone vs. upgrading software is terrible business and environmental practice!
I'm in the UK, and here you can upgrade at any time - you'll just pay more for the phone if you upgrade within your current contract period.
As for environmental practice, there's a number of companies that'll refurbish used phones and sell them on, and they'll even give you a bit of cash for it if it's a reasonably recent phone. Here in the UK most of them will send you a prepaid envelope you can just drop your old phone in, and mail you a check when they receive it.
You can't compare a $100 vs $200 subsidized phone, since that is just hiding the cost in the contract, which can be avoided.
1.5/1.6: 2.5% 2.1: 11.7% 2.2: 45.3% 2.3.x: 38.7% 3.x: 1.9%
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
"7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS." "12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less."
That makes 19 out of 18 phones. That looks like an error. I wonder what other errors there are here?
and to think i switched from a series of Nokia phones (because they loose support every 6mo, to the point you can't even buy a working headset cable or extra charger for them) and bought a nexus one because i thought "spending $700 to buy an OPEN phone directly from google will get updated software for life and consistent use of cables and standards"
the desktop dock and car dock was discontinued what? 4 months after the launch?
HTC only resumed selling 1.5yrs later. During that period the car dock was selling for $200 used on ebay. I have no idea if HTC still sells those now, but wouldn't be surprised if not.
As for "new accessories" i bet most of them will use the near field thingy and be useless for the nexus one.
The desktop dock is still sold by HTC, but the car dock doesn't appear to be. Regardless, they're just a device that holds the phone and charges it. There are plenty of generic docks that still /do/ that (and probably a few third party ones that do it as well).
In the first hypothetical chart, I believe Google's support for Google phones compares acceptably well with Apple's support for Apple phones.