I don't think anybody would care about buying a device with a slightly out-of-date OS if they knew updates would be coming.
True that. Actually, Apple gets the best of both worlds. If your iOS device isn't up to date enough, then you're forced at that point to upgrade. So Apple wins on both ends: newer hardware is bought with a degree of comfort, and those who hold on are motivated to pony up for new kit.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/26/the-nexus-one-isnt-invited-...
The iPad 1 will be (conservatively guessing) 2.5 years old when iOS 6 is actually released. The Nexus One was less than 2 years old when ICS was released.
iOS 6 does support the iPhone 3GS, which will be over 3 years old when iOS 6 is released.
I'm not sure what the discontinuation date matters; if you bought your Nexus One in the short window of time Google sold it, you got less than 2 years support. If you bought your 3GS in its first year, it's still supported today, and will be in Fall as well.
I mean, is the complaint that Google almost supported the Nexus One long enough and everybody would have been satisfied if it had gotten that one additional upgrade? Because my impression is that people would have felt it was short either way — just like the iPhone 1 owners did.
Google no longer supports old hardware to a certain extent. I had to upgrade phones from a Nexus One because they wouldn't be pushing ICS to it. I'm guessing that this will be the case eventually with tablets.
I particularly only purchase Nexus branded devices because of the support for the most current OS from Google.
(Just noticed you said 'for at least a couple of years')
The end result, however, is that iOS devices become obsolete much more slowly than Android devices. What do I care about the reading of tea leaves as to whether some company plans something or not?
Since we can’t read minds it’s definitely akin to reading tea leaves when you want to find out whether “planned obsolescence” plays any role for Apple.
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/12/new-features-in-ios-6-re...
(I'm not complaining about the average lifetime of my Apple devices here, the iPad 1 and iPhone 3G were abysmal but my laptop & Mac Mini made up for it. I actually think that's why they have to add stronger, artificial incentives.)
The real world consequence, however, is this: if you want to be able to update your device for as long as possible you should get an iOS device. I'm talking consequences, not so much intentions.
But I haven't seen anyone argue that Apple's feature cut-off is hardware-bound. This is not reading tea leaves by a far margin. It's a business decision (like many) that goes against the interests of users. No harm in keeping that in mind.
Fixed that for you. The Nexus (minus the G1) line of phones gets regular updates - my old Nexus One was always updated within a few weeks of a new version of android coming out. If you want updated OS software on your phone, be smart about which droid phone you get. Ain't goog's fault Samsung won't allow updates to Phone #4123.
> be smart about which droid phone you get
My solution to this problem is to get an iPhone. Even the phones Google makes don't have the kind of update longevity Apple's do. The Nexus One did not get ICS, much less Jellybean. The 3GS is getting iOS 6.
Also, everything you said in this comment applies likewise when I get a laptop with Windows installed by an OEM. Are you prepared to argue that a Windows computer is in no part a Microsoft product and that Microsoft would not be responsible if the OS failed to update on my laptop?
Yes, I am prepared to argue that you have no direct business relationship with Microsoft when you purchase a PC. In fact, if you read your license agreement you will see that -- the first line in fact reads: "These license terms are an agreement between you and the computer manufacturer that distributes the software with the computer". According to the license the manufacturer accepts all responsibility for defects in Windows (including updates) for the warranty period.
If you choose to install a version of Windows purchased directly from Microsoft, that's under completely different terms.
I am slightly curious as to your personal opinion, but in the main it simply doesn't matter what an individual hacker knowledgable about the business aspects of the ecosystem thinks. I'd be willing to stake up to a hundred dollars that if you find five random Windows users on the street and ask them "If Windows stopped updating on your machine, would you consider Microsoft responsible for that?" five of them would say yes (assuming they know that Windows updates at all :P). Whether you technically have a business relationship with Microsoft is totally uninteresting to most consumers, as is also true in this case with Google. What matters is the expectations created by marketing, branding, and UI. That's really all I have to say about this subject.
Yes, I did edit it in, but I thought I had done it so quickly that you would not have seen the original comment. My apologies.
Is it wrong that Microsoft doesn't provide free versions of Windows 8 to everyone who bought a Windows 7 PC? Because that's what you're comparing it to. Obviously nobody on the street would think that's reasonable.
> If Windows stopped updating on your machine, would you consider Microsoft responsible for that?
Microsoft has no moral obligation to provide updates and updates are really a relatively new invention. They do, in fact, stop providing updates to their software all the time.
> What matters is the expectations created by marketing, branding, and UI.
So what really matters is a bunch of subjective crap? Honestly? No where does Google say they'll update your device. Not in the marketing, not the branding, not even really in the UI.
More like, "Would it be wrong if Windows 8 would not install on a computer I bought this year?"
> So what really matters is a bunch of subjective crap?
Yes. I'm human. "Subjective crap" and the expectations created by it matter to me, as they do to most of us.
So now you think Microsoft is morally obligated to design their software so that it runs on older hardware? Your expectations are clearly pretty extreme.
The interesting point here is that Google's software does work on the hardware we're talking about. So is Google or Microsoft obligated to give you software for free? Obviously they are not. But even more interesting, Google's software is already free and available! So the question then becomes are the manufacturers obligated to modify it to run on your hardware and give it to you? Well are they? If they are, take it up with them. I'm not sure what Google has to do with it.
They are the expectations of typical users of Windows and Android software. I am not sure what you mean by extreme but whatever it is, it's not what I typically think of when I hear the word.
Why would it be? I'd like to know the thinking behind this. Are all software makers similarly constrained? Is Valve obligated to make games that run on computers I bought this year? In fact, are they obligated to make games that run on my crappy netbook too?
Is Microsoft obligated to give you Windows 8 for free? Install it for you? Provide all the drivers? Exactly how much free shit do you want?
> Would you like to address that or are you going to concede it?
It is not a sword duel you know? Between this and throwing "I don't care's" around you really come off argumentative
For the most part, the extent of this with Android is providing drivers and firmware for an individual phone's hardware, plus a few crapware apps to run on the desktop. This happens all the time in the Windows ecosystem too. I think the analogy is holding up just fine.
I am argumentative, so it is reasonable for me to come off this way, although you're right that I should chill a little. I dislike the double standards that people have with respect to Google and other companies on this subject.
The thing is, this happens all the time. My Dell laptop came with Vista and it doesn't "support" Windows 7. You can't get 7 drivers directly from them. It runs 7 just fine (in fact better) but you're on your own to get it working.
You and I are using different meanings of this word. Presumably you are referring to a legal obligation, or a moral one. I don't recognize the existence of morality and I suspect that, unless they have a "Windows 8 Ready" tag on the machine, no legal obligation would exist either.
The "obligation" I am speaking of is an expectation formed in the minds of average consumers to the point where they consider it a fault on the part of the software manufacturer when the expectation is not met.
> Dell ...
How old was the machine? There's a big difference in most consumers' expectations between failing to support N-year old devices and devices that are currently selling.
Obligation is a legal or moral term -- you can't use that term otherwise. An expectation is not an obligation. If you expect free cookies from me because I've been giving you free cookies every day for the past week, that's fine. But I'm not obligated to give you free cookies today. If Bob gives you free cookies and I'm now sitting in Bob's desk, you might expect free cookies but I'm not obligated to give them to you.
Microsoft provides updates out of the goodness of their heart. You might expect them to continue giving updates forever. They're not obligated to do that. And because they give updates, Google isn't obligated to do it too.
If you'd like your expectations to be met, find Bob and he might give you some cookies.
Also, IMO, the term social obligation is pretty well understood. It's an expectation of your behavior by others.
You make it seem like Google want this but I seriously doubt that they do. They simply don't have any say in the matter. They gave the carriers and the manufacturers everything they wanted to get into the market and now they can't close the barn door after the horses have run out. So instead they have their Nexus devices.
> social obligation is pretty well understood
Social obligation is also a moral term and it means more than just doing what people expect you to do because they are spoiled.
I don't want a Ferrari that is not leaving its potential.
And Joe Average Consumer doesn't care what OS version his phone is running, as long as he can play Angry Birds and get email and Facebook. I wish that wasn't true, because then carriers and manufacturers who fail to provide updates would be punished by the market, but it is.
"You didn't buy it from Google, so it's your own fault" is probably not a great marketing tactic for the platform.
Android is, in several ways, dependent on the goodwill and word-of-mouth promotion of people who care about things like getting their device's OS upgraded within a couple years of when the new OS is released. Losing that goodwill (which is surprisingly difficult when we consider all the different ways Google's basically said "fuck you" to the people who promoted Android for them) would probably be a major blow for the platform.
I would love to have a tablet where I could easily add memory, processor, screen, etc. So instead of buying a new one every year, I can just upgrade and extend the hardware myself and still run the latest software.
E.g.: just to have a removable battery, you have to put a protective case on the battery as well as an internal "case" to receive the battery inside the device (generally, another layer of plastic. Even on laptops that is becoming prohibitively bulks; on tablets, it's a non-starter (see the recent MacBook Pro redesign). You just can't pack the parts together tight enough and still have them be user-replaceable.
I love the idea of a modular mobile device as well, but it's pretty clear things are headed in the other direction: thinner, sleeker, longer-battery-life products sell better than bulky but more customizable products.
Your complaint isn't that buying now would force you to use an outdated operating system, it's that you would use an outdated operating system for a little longer than you normally would.
But none can predict what's future proof, mainly because it's what companies make their money off. They NEED you to buy a new tablet, phone, etc, every year.
They'd make car breaks and need complete replacement every year if they could as well.
So, while it can happen that a product is "future proof" for a couple of years instead of one, it's rare.
Heck, even clothes are made to break quickly.
Of course, that's not very ecological, and certainly not cheap for the customer ;-)
Regarding tablets, I would think that locking people into a particular app ecosystem would be a higher priority than achieving a high tablet turnover rate. Seems like the money is in the apps, not the hardware.
So for example, Samsung, etc, (but mostly Samsung here) see a benefit in having the hardware expire as fast as possible (while keeping the balance of 'not having the customer complain about reliability or performance' and 'not letting the competition get ahead, or too much ahead')
Almost a black art ;-)
As long as the tablet continues to do what it's supposed to do , it shouldn't really matter that there's a newer OS out there.
As compared to the Kindle fire, which was never any good at doing what it was supposed to do. It wasn't even present-proof.
I think it's held up pretty well, it doesn't get apps or features that require the camera, but aside from that it still gets updates and can run stuff.
Andriod tablets can run new apps but not the operating system upgrades? I don't have any experience to know.
It's the other Android manufacturers - Samsung, HTC, etc - and the mobile carriers that approve each OTA update that often don't fulfill their promises.
Maybe it's not Google's fault, but that seems like it's skirting the issue: a year after ICS was announced, something like 7.5% of devices are using it, and now we're moving on to JB. We can sit around and blame Samsung and HTC all day, but Google is the steward company of Android and this fragmentation is a real problem that affects developers. If it's creating a shitty situation for developers, it's creating a shitty situation for users.
There's no such thing, the iPad won't save you. Apple just deprecated the iPad1 at just over 2 years of lifespan. Even if they didn't the battery would die. We're in a 'disposable device' era now.
I got an iPad 3, it is like reading eInk with fast page changes, so I can browse documentation and not only read literature (cough, out of sunlight of course).
(I'm a bit color blind, so I don't really care that much about the good graphics and color reproduction :-) )
I'd pay good money for a 2-3" larger iPad 3.
Edit: If it wasn't clear -- if you want to read real documents that can't be reflowed, it might have 0 value for the money for you (unless your eyes are < 35 years old.)
Perhaps you'll get a few years of updates out of it?
It's like saying "I was waiting for an Android tablet that could make me breakfast and transport me through time, but I can't wait any longer, iPad!"