Two-year-old Nexus 4 issue status changed to obsolete | Hacker News Reader

Two-year-old Nexus 4 issue status changed to obsolete

code.google.com

141 pointsreedlaw85 comments

It's sad no fix was released, but I find it equally sad it was marked obsolete after just 2 years. Obsolete basically means: we don't care about this device anymore, buy a new one instead.

In a world where striving for lower environmental impact should become core business of every company and individual because sustaining the current lifestyle of many is going to severely damage the planet in one way or another, this is not the kind of sign major companies (and they pretty much all do it in the mobile business) should send into the world.

For a lot of people these companies are half gods, and what they do shall be believed in, it becomes part of their education. Making people believe buying devices and throwing them away after a just year or two is standard isn't exactly noble. Yeah yeah I know money is the driving factor behind companies, but that doesn't mean it cannot be combined with sending a 'greener' message into the world.

Google's reputation for poor support and discontinuing things seems quite apt...

A good reason is the zero-bug policy. In my previous company, we introduced this policy to limit the expansion of the backlog. Project Managers have to close issues that they don't actually plan to tackle, which is a very difficult exercise in honesty and transparency, but which provides customers with visibility.

> Project Managers have to close issues that they don't actually plan to tackle, which is a very difficult exercise in honesty and transparency

I understand honesty, but I don't see how closing bugs makes it more transparent for the customers/users. Suppose there is such a bug you do not plan to fix. As a user, I can appreciate you stating that, but that does not mean the bug ceases to exist and should be hidden from the users' eyes.

A few years ago, there were dozens of little bugs in GNU/Linux that appeared only for some people some of the time. NVIDIA driver issues, keyboard backlight support, and so on. These were also of the kind where we couldn't expect an official fix, but still there was a Ubuntu wiki, Debian wiki, Arch wiki, Gentoo wiki and many other places where you could find a workaround for your specific bug.

To me, allowing "the community" to help itself on bugs that you do not plan to fix helps transparency much more than hiding your bug by setting it to "obsolete". It may not apply well to your particular company, but for Google's Android, a Linux distribution, it would be ideal.

Marking them as obsolete doesn't hide them; nor stop them being reopened if they're deemed worthwhile!

How does that work?

You invest some time to fill the bug and then someone decides that it's obsolete. Then, if you still care, you reopen it? Is that right?

Now what message do I get from this besides: "We don't care about your shitty two year old phone. Buy a new one now. It will be shit again in just two years. And don't bother sending bug reports. We're in the business of selling phones not fixing bugs."

Yes, that's the honesty and transparency. The truth is that Google doesn't care; this bug isn't a priority. So the options available are 1) leave the bug open and ignore it or 2) be honest and close it as "obsolete"

Both options have the same result: no bugfix. However option #2 is a lot more transparent. Part of that transparency is your being aware that Google simply does not care.

Yes, the message is transparent - don't buy our devices because we won't support them.

Let's not overreact. This is a bug report on an outdated phone and outdated operating system in a use case that will likely only be experienced by a very small subset of users. Should Google fix this? Probably. But that does't mean that not fixing it is a sign of fundamental problems with Google, the mobile industry, or consumer culture in general.

Skype is a fairly popular application that is nearly unusable on this device because of the echo. I haven't had any of the other issues such as camera reboot. And I'm able to run the latest Android release. Overall I'm pleased with the phone except for this one issue.

Yes maybe I am overreacting, but doesn't the simple fact a phone is considered outdated prove something is fundamentally wrong with mobile consumer 'I must have the latest' culture? There are enough electronics and other branches in which 2 years is merely a fraction of the lifespan of the device or product, and it would be unseen if the company would end support for it that soon.

Sure, I expect my stereo, dishwasher, iron, dryer, electric shaver, alarm clock, and blender to work for more than two years. But how many of those devices would receive an update (or recall) to fix a bug that prevents the use of a single minor feature?

Your Nexus 4 doesn't stop working when it stops receiving updates. The closing of this bug doesn't mean your phone is less functional than it was yesterday. You are free to continue using the Nexus 4 tomorrow exactly as you have been for the last two years. This decision only means that Google is moving on to more pressing issues that either affect more users or have a bigger impact on their bottom line.

> Your Nexus 4 doesn't stop working when it stops receiving updates.

That would be the case if it were an isolated gadget. But a smartphone is a networked gadget; if it stops being updated while the world around it doesn't, it will gradually lose functionality. This could be seen in Ars Technica's long review of every Android version (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/building-android-a-40...).

As an hypothetical example, imagine what if your phone could use only SSLv2, SSLv3, and optionally TLSv1, using a SSLv2-compatible handshake (this is the case with Windows XP, for instance), and a new TLS 1.3 were released which forbids servers from accepting SSLv2 handshakes (this is seriously being considered by the TLS standard developers). As servers upgrade to the new standard, your phone would lose the ability to connect to them.

And that's without considering security vulnerabilities. As time passes, more security vulnerabilities which affect your old phone are discovered and published, and without updates these vulnerabilities won't get fixed.

But we are not talking about such devices. We are talking about something that is nearly a general purpose computer and could have its software updated on millions of devices any time Google wants.

The problem is that there is an incentive for vendors to start ignoring devices when they are not sold anymore. First of all, it reduces maintenance costs. Secondly, it encourages people to buy a new device. However, one could question if this ethical in a time where there is scarcity and where we have to care for the environment. Especially for a device that is still perfectly capable (as I said in another comment, this is a device that is better spec'ed than the currently massively popular Moto G).

It's a bit unfair to pick on Google here, since they are at least providing Lollipop. There are many other two year-old phones that are still stuck on Jellybean. But I think that in general it is an issue that should concern us. I am hoping that at some point the EU will require vendors to provide at least security updates for some period (e.g. three years).

An outdated phone, that is still faster than e.g. Moto Gs that many people got as a Christmas present a week ago. I think it is a sign of fundamental problems with consumer culture if a two years old device that is perfectly capable and probably still used by hundreds of thousands or millions of people is considered obsolete.

Neither the phone nor the OS are obsolete as they're both in use and capable of easily matching any phone released today as far as functionality. Obsolete would be a phone that cannot run current applications due to hardware or software issues or whose functionality is far inferior (like having a VGA camera or similar), neither of which is the case here. It's not a sign of fundamental problems with Google supporting their own products, it's just another example amongst many.

Does the bug still happen on Android 5.x? That is now available for the Nexus 4.

Perhaps it is SIP that is marked as obsolete.

Aren't we as consumers partly to blame as well? We want everything cheaper, and so that's what the corporations have given us.

10 years ago it wouldn't have been out of the question to pay $2000 for a 32" LCD TV, but now even paying $500 would seem steep. Sure costs have gone down due to the technology becoming more mature, but it seems that really people don't want to spend big bucks on anything now.

If Google offered a $1000 phone with guaranteed support and updates for 5 years would you buy it? Or instead buy a $500 phone now and another $500 phone in two years with whatever shiny new technology is available then?

Your post made me cringe because I mentally extrapolated the trend for cheap goods you set up onto everything else. Honestly I don't know if it would be for better or worse without living in such a world, but I cannot fathom disposable computers, high end electronics, or tools.

This also makes me worry about the concept of ownership. If we have no attachment to anything because the price is driven to zero, will that erode our values (craftmanship, upkeep, environmental stewardship, ...)? Sounds like a future full of walled gardens, shovelware, and products headed for the landfill.

You're late to the party there. Computing power is now stupidly cheap, much cheaper than any of the mechanical devices you need to interface with it.

This was most dramatically run home to me by my first Raspberry Pi, which cost me less than any of the peripherals I connect it to. Admittedly this is because I like having decent keyboards etc., but the interface is the hard part of the computing experience. Things that move are harder to build well than a few highly integrated circuits.

So yes, our computers have been disposable for a while already. EC2 delivered the killer blow at the other end of the spectrum.

Aren't we as consumers partly to blame as well? We want everything cheaper, and so that's what the corporations have given us.

That is certainly part of the problem - it's exactly this mentality shift especially in mobile I am considering wrong. But I am sort of biased, an outlier maybe so I cannot objectively tell if it really is wrong in general, or if that is just my opinionated view on it. Because in the last 10 years or so I have bought electronics, tools, components of all sorts for which I explicitely chose to buy the usually more expensive one from a reputable brand because I learned by experience it would not only serve me better but also last much longer, and I never regretted those decisions (just to name some concrete things: woodworking tools like circular saw/sanders/dust extractor, bycicle components, DSLR, music player, kitchen appliances, oscilloscope). But not a phone: too much choice and not enough information available so I cannot possibly tell if I got one it would serve me like 5 years or more. So I just got a rather cheap dumb phone hoping it would last.

It's a bit like asking if I'd want to use an Ipad 1 which is less than 5 years old. If Apple focused on iterating on iOS 5 and kept it running on an iPad 1, and all the developers in the world were developing for the iPad 1, I think we'd be much worse off. We also mustn't forget there's compounding development. i.e. if you have a 1-year release cycle on small updates (4 -> 4S, 5 -> 5S) and a 2-year release cycle for major updates, you compound developments much faster than a 5-year cycle as you can do mini-experiments every year, see how the response is and act on it. Touch ID is a great example, used as an alternative to unlocking with pin on the 5S, well received, then integrated into Apple Pay for in-store payments, appstore payments, paypal payments etc.

Does that mean we're 'to blame'? Well in a way, yes. But I don't really feel it's a big problem. It's a side-effect of something awesome: new technology iterating fast. If you compare mobile tech between 2008 - 2014, I'm pretty amazed. But you offered a pretty extreme 5-year case. I think most obviously would say no to that. But software problems being deprecated on a 2-year old phone (that should have already been resolved anyway) is pretty weak and I don't think it's got much to do with consumers. That's a business choice for which I think enough resources should be made available to fix, unless it's not important. But we're talking a Voip call for a smartphone here, it doesn't get much more elementary than that. It's just bad practice and I don't think we are to blame for that. I wouldn't expect a Voip call to echo madly from an HTC or Apple phone and then not get fixed in the 2 years after.

I know it's not feasible at present, but I'd like to imagine a smartphone that I could consider a high end professional tool. A device like that needs no software or UI changes outside of an occasional patch; hardware fast enough that I couldn't imagine a need for replacing it. A Thinkpad or Nikon, and just as much an extension of my person. Like vim, using the device would feel a bit like playing the piano--something I bend and mold, that also bends and molds me.

I'm not at all satisfied with this stuff yet--not to the level I described. Currently these phones are indespensible (much like trips to the dentist), but what I really want is for them to feel like an extension of my soul (like a fine car). Things are too buggy, too consumer, and moving much too fast. I imagine we'll eventually hit a plateau, because I want that phone.

I'm a bit skeptical that your comparison of to the ipad1 is a good one. After all you just compared (one of?) the first viable tablets from the very start of the tablet market where innovation/iteration was much higher to a smartphone that appeared 5 years into the smartphone era where innovation/cycle is now much lower.

You can still install the latest Android version via aftermarket firmware for the first Samsung Galaxy S1. That phone was released in June 2010, only two years into the smartphone era. It will turn 5 soon and still runs great. Only downside is its small system partitions.

There was a relevant article recently [1], [2] talking about similar issues & maker movement[3]. Also reminds me of camera manufacturers trying to stay on top of innovation by convincing customers to buy higher megapixels.

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/29/the-cure-for-our-disposab...

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/1129892...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_movement

I bought a good used Nexus 4 this week and installed Firefox OS 2.2, works really nice. I love it. This will be my main Phone for the next year(s).

I bought an N4 a few months ago to test Sailfish OS on. Works OK, the SFOS beta release Dec 11th fixed a lot of bugs. My problem is the N4's 3G & wifi reception are inferior compared to my 5yo N900.

I just don't get how Google keeps getting positive press for its Nexus line. The issues with the early devices were written off as teething trouble, but Google has been developing Nexus devices for 5 years now and still they frequently have fundamental technical flaws and go unsupported after just a couple of years, if that in some cases. I honestly don't know what the benefit of getting a Nexus device is anymore.

To those people claiming all Apple does is assemble components and throw out overpriced crap and the iPhone is essentially just a marketing exercise, this is what it looks like when that's actually true.

Reasons I bought (and still use as my daily driver) a Nexus 4:

* It was the phone most likely to get Android updates quickly.

* The bootloader was unlockable.

* It was extremely good value (compared to other phones available at the time)

I agree 100% that these benefits are gone or no longer exclusive to the Nexus line. Frankly my next phone I'll just see what is both good value and well supported by Cyanogen.

The upside to Nexus is that it's pure Android. These days, the downside is that it's pure Android and essentially unsupported by the vendor.

The incentive to purchase Nexus or GPE devices was a lot greater pre-KitKat, but now that a lot of stuff has been abstracted away from the core and into Google Play Services & associated apps, being on the absolute latest core isn't often "necessary".

The elephant in the room is that the vendor overlays (Touchwiz, Sense, etc) are so unique that switching device brands can be very disorienting, even to find straightforward settings and do simple things. I have quite a bit of experience with HTC's Sense, but my father just purchased an LG G3 (at my suggestion) and I had a heck of a time just navigating to and through the settings screens trying to find something easy (how to change the screen timeout).

I am still happy with my GPE HTC One M8 and see 0 need to upgrade devices any time soon, but the next time I do it will probably be to either a Moto or Sony, both of which are minimally skinned, or something like a OnePlus running an alternative ROM.

HTC Samsung LG and Motorola were the manufacturers of the Nexus line not Google.

I bought one of the first Nexus 4's on the market and it still works, I've had very few issues with it. My mother has one, she's had very few issues with it. She also has a Nexus 10 which I'm somewhat jealous of because it's an absolutely phenomenal device she uses it non stop. If you want an Apple device get an Apple device personally I don't like them because I think the OS has been behind for quite a while. I buy Nexus devices because they are being sold as hardware without carrier lock or bloatware, as all phones should be.

I've had n4/n5 and all the iPhones since 3GS. Disagree that iOS is behind overall. It's behind in features yes, but usability I still like iOS more.

Droid: -more os features -more customizability -like the notification centre much better -most apps that aren't in the top echelon of apps, are gross to use and look at. -hate multitasking multi-processes running in background

iOS: -buttery smooth like no other -touch input is much more accurate, somehow it knows -top echelon of apps, are better on iOS than droid

Gave droid a fair shot. To me, important things to get right on mobile is lag-free daily usage, and accurate touch input. Apple nailed both of these. And apps are usually better done on iOS than droid from my experience. For writing apps I prefer Xcode/Cocoa ecosystem over Java/Eclipse.

Generally I think Apple hardware+software is best in industry. And Google makes the best software services (Gmail, drive, play music, youtube, Maps, etc.).

"HTC Samsung LG and Motorola were the manufacturers of the Nexus line not Google"

We're talking about software problems. This is in Google's hands.

Overall I'm very pleased with my Nexus 4 after two years of use. I've also used Apple devices and I've had my share of issues, some of which I consider far worse. Here are some problems I've encountered with the iPad Air:

* Alarm failed to go off leading to a missed international flight. After scouring support it turned out the alarm mute button is independent of the system volume control. [1]

* Failed iOS upgrade lead to loss of all personal data. At the time I wasn't using iCloud for privacy reasons. And I never backed up with iTunes because I run Linux. We lost about a half year of photos. Since then I've started booting up a separate Windows partition in order to make backups.

Some more minor issues:

* Dragging and dropping mp3s to copy them to the iPad via iTunes did not have any noticeable feedback so I tried again resulting in double copies of dozens of songs. After manually deleting the dupes from iTunes, I had to do it again on the iPad.

* No way to delete purchased songs. The best I could do is hide them.

* Overall I find iTunes to be very unintuitive and often surprising in its behavior.

I haven't had nearly as many issues with the Nexus or Android. I can easily root my device and do just about anything with it.

1. https://discussions.apple.com/message/25329458?ac_cid=op1234...

Why would you attempt to upgrade any computer without having a backup? I can understand Joe Six-Pack not knowing that backups are important, but you're posting on HN...

Actually, OS upgrades should not result in loss of data. It's not like your data is part of the OS in any way. If anybody says otherwise he is full of it.

So you normally perform OS upgrades without a valid backup? Care to name your employer so I can avoid their products?

I know right? I'm running my Nexus 7 2012 and I still haven't gotten the Android Lollipop OTA, but then again considering how many people say it makes the device even slower maybe that's a good thing.

Over the last 3 years, I bought three 'google edition' devices (nexus 10, galaxy nexus, htc one m7) and I am less than impressed. I haven't experienced faster updates, and while I appreciate to run the vanilla android. Regressions and overall poor software quality have been my experience with their devices. They must be outsourcing large parts of the software they ship on their devices because I'm absolutely stunned things like this go through QA.

Here's the best-of: - The responsiveness of the nexus 10 tablet has been enjoying enormous spikes since day 1.

- Running into all sorts of problems with 'Mail app' and now 'Gmail app' using a third-party imap server. Lots of message with an HTML body or attachements are displayed blank.

- Skype, hangout, SIP, have been a disaster with all those devices. Sometimes due to horrible software (Skype), sometimes due to the hardware/OS (hangout with htc).

- Finally, lollipop is the freebsd 5.0 of android

"Finally, lollipop is the freebsd 5.0 of android"

What do you mean by this, exactly?

As I remember FreeBSD 5.0 (and 5.1 and 5.2 for that matter) were always labelled -RELEASE (and not -STABLE, that didn't happen until 5.3).

It was a chicken and egg kind of problem, where a lot of stuff in the new kernel was rewritten/redone, among other things to get rid of the GIANT lock and enable SMP support in the kernel. There was also a new threading implementation, a new I/O block layer and all sorts of stuff that needed more exposure.

What I mean by this - out of frustration because I want to love this new release - is that the 5.x release of android, on the couple of devices I upgraded is, buggier, laggier, and less stable than version 4.x. In terms of usability, I also noticed that they removed the ability to only display contacts that have a phone number: I can live with that but I can tell you my dad was furious about this. Another minor annoyance is that switching to a different WIFI network seemingly requires more taps than before. I've owned a few IOS devices in the past - an OS I am not a big fan of - but I am disappointed that Google routinely overlooks those kind of details that Apple certainly wouldn't.

Your comparison is interesting since everybody I know has said exactly the same of iOS 7.

In 5, its two swipes from the top, then tap the name of the WiFi network or the word WiFi (under the signal icon)

Seems pretty good to me.

In 4.4 I swipe down once then press and hold the icon.

Ah, yes, the-gestures-no-one-knows-about-unless-specifically-told.

1. Swiping down with 2 fingers brings you straight to the settings drop-down (vs. the notification drop-down). 2. The WiFi icon and the text beneath it do different things when pressed.

Android doesn't bring in the bacon and the Nexus devices bring in less, they don't care about the little things as long as everyone's devices have Google services installed on them.

I bought a G1, The Google special edition.

It is still a perfectly usable device but gets no love or updates. Apps decay as new versions don't support it. I keep it in my room as an alarm clock with an incoming only Sim in it.

> I haven't experienced faster updates

I thought the Nexus devices were the first to get new updates. Does this not apply to Nexus 10 and Galaxy Nexus?

Among the 3 devices I had, I'd say the nexus 10 was the fastest to get updates, but it did so later than other 'newer' Google devices (e.g nexus 7, nexus 4). As for the other devices, several times, the much longer delays were officially explained as being the fault of HTC/Samsung. I still think google devices are a better choice but the faster updates are largely a myth.

Hmm, how are faster updates a myth? Samsung Galaxy devices don't run Lollipop still, months after release. Most Samsung tablets won't run anything newer than Android 4.2/4.3, even if they were released in 2014.

How are faster updates a myth? O.o

Because it's not always faster and there are always exceptions for some devices.

But still way faster than any non-Google device so not sure I agree that it's a myth.

I guess we are playing with words here. A specific google-device will have its OS update earlier than a similar non-google-device. Catch is, more recent google or non-google devices usually get the update earlier.

Google would like you to believe that you will get your update as soon as a newer version has been released, sort of in an Apple IOS update way. The reality is very different.

Running into all sorts of problems with 'Mail app' and now 'Gmail app' using a third-party imap server. Lots of message with an HTML body or attachements are displayed blank.

Google really, really wants you to use GMail, so the development effort they put into supporting other email setups is of the "just enough to make the sale" variety.

My solution to this specific AOSP issue is to use K9 Mail which (in my experience) is far better than the stock Android Mail app. (It was forked from the AOSP Mail app some years ago IIRC & has an active development community & github repo.)

I don't have any solutions to your other (perfectly reasonable) complaints unfortunately.

I've starred a load of Android bugs in that tracker; and over the last few weeks, loads of them (many tens) have been flagged Obsolete.

Many of them are absolutely not obsolete; they're as relevant in 5.0 as they were when they were raised.

It's great that they're cleaning up the issue tracker as if they might actually use it (or maybe it's preperation to move to GitHub, as many other Google projects have been), but it sucks that they're just blanked fobbing off a load of relevant cases :(

No, they don't clean anything. For me, this is just enterprise in action. They send a clear message that any free work that you did for them will be used as they see fit. That includes sending it to the trash.

So much for 'community'. When it's a company involved, the sense of participation is dissipated by the monetary interests of the shareholders (which you are not one of).

On their defence, who do you think will check any pending fixes for those bugs? Do you take ownership on that? They sure don't. And they are busy with the next release anyway. Why bother with your two year old phone?

As a pretty happy galaxy nexus owner (that I just passed to my teenaged son), I've been pretty disappointed with the price point and apparent lack of commitment to the google phone line. As a consequence I've just bought OnePlus Ones for myself and my family based on their apparent commitment to cyanogen as native-from-the-factory load and a much better price point than the Google 6. It's a bit sad to see Google move away from the Nexus phones as a touchstone for value and 'pure' android, but good to see others (e.g., OnePlus) filling the ecological niche.

It will be interesting to see if OnePlus continues to fill this niche or evolves away from it.

Moto is doing a fine job with this. Guaranteed next update and pure Android experience. All this even on cheaper phones. I am also a part of their 'Soak Test' program. Got to say, they are doing a really good job!

The Moto G is roughly as useful as a brick at this point. Some update they pushed last summer broke the memory management, such that apps would be randomly killed and immediately restarted even with relatively huge amounts of free memory. This is a very widespread issue with hundreds of complaints on Motorola's support forum, and it's just not getting fixed.

So no. Motorola are not doing a fine job with this. Just a shame that they're still able to coast by on the good reviews, from before they broke the otherwise excellent phone.

Yes. This is very annoying. Apparently this is fixed in 5.0.1 according to the few Gen2 Moto G users who got the Lollipop update. Hopefully it will deployed to everyone else sometime this month.

It would seem that the problem is due to overly aggressive memory management that was never properly adjusted for 1GiB RAM. One would hope that the popularity of the G and other small memory Android devices would help push for more efficient memory usage rather than requiring 2GiB+ for a decent experience. For starters, it would be nice if more of the core system was implemented in native code (ART doesn't count).

Sadly it looks like OnePlus is moving away from Cyanogenmod (search Google News for `oneplus cyanogen`). Also the OnePlus One never had the fully open source version of Cyanogenmod 11. It uses a version called 11s (https://cyngn.com/products/oneplusone/) with many proprietary features.

However, they will surely continue making phones at that price on which the pure version of Cyanogenmod can be installed.

Xiaomi seems very promising since they also make phones at that price point with similar specs, and Cyanogenmod ROMs are in development. I know it might be hard to get them in the US, but in Europe they can even be ordered from Amazon.

> Sadly it looks like OnePlus is moving away from Cyanogenmod (search Google News for `oneplus cyanogen`).

Having done the search you recommended, it sounds like the story is best told in the other direction: CyangenMod signed an exclusive deal with one of OnePlus's competitors for the Indian market, totally screwing them over in India, making them forced to release their device there without CyanogenMod. If they are also now dropping support for Cyanogen everywhere due to this (which isn't clear), I honestly could not blame them: a better telling of the story is "sadly it looks like CyanogenMod is moving away from OnePlus".

I didn't mean to imply that OnePlus was the one to blame. Cyanogen, inc. did not act in a fair way while selling something that was mainly a success due to an open source community.

OnePlus (or Micromax) actually very recently announced a replacement for Cyanogenmod 11S: https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/rom-official-5-0-android-...

I somehow still don't understand how they will be able to include Google Apps without being a member of the Open Handset Alliance when shipping an almost exact fork of Android.(http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...)

The bug tracker at https://code.google.com/p/android/ is for AOSP issues. Anything to do with a device specific issue should be reported to the OEM and not logged in that bug tracker.

The reason that this hadn't been closed before is probably the lack of resources to cope with the number of non-AOSP bugs reported in that tracker. The more critical issues will ripple up from OEMs to Google if necessary, and that is unlikely to happen via the community focused AOSP bug tracker you've linked to.

The N4 was explicitly Google branded hardware with Google providing the hardware support (Google handled RMAs, component replacement, etc). It is Google's responsibility to support phones they sell as Google supported devices.

It is no different than when you buy a car. You go to a Ford dealership, they sell you a car, its their responsibility to repair and maintain your car during the agreed upon warranty period. You wouldn't tell someone to "file a ticket" with Ford instead of calling their dealer, would you?

Exactly; You shouldn't file a ticket in this system for specific consumer devices. It's not the right place for those kind of issues, you should find the appropriate consumer support route.

You've misinterpreted me. The AOSP bug tracker is exactly the right place to file bug reports for Google sold devices. Google takes on the responsibility of supporting those devices, hardware and all.

I don't want to make excuses on behalf of Google and LG, but I wouldn't expect this kind of bug to be fixed in any phone, even a Nexus phone that's supposed to have up to date OS releases. Acoustic echo cancellation is subject to hardware limitations and firmware licensing decisions taken at the production planning stage. That puts it a step or three beyond simpler prioritization decisions.

So why didn't Google close this earlier? The media frameworks in Android have changed enough that, maybe, workarounds or fixes could have emerged as new media capabilities were added.

Google has lately gone on a tear of bug list clean-up. When you expose your bug list to end users you'll get a lot of questioning regarding why this or that bug can't be fixed. This one is particularly easy to defend.

My Nexus 4 started to have an issue where using the camera may crash the phone... but only in third-party apps, never in the native camera app. I can't find the link to the bug report right now, but the last I checked Google didn't acknowledge the bug despite dozens or hundreds of reports.

Most irritating that this apparently started with a certain update (4.2.2?), and that the problem seems to be in the closed-source blobs, so you can't fix it yourself (I haven't checked, but that's what I read).

The Nexus 4 has another stupid defect, it has no USB OTG support, that is the ability to use it as a USB host and plug in USB devices. If you look at the kernel source, Google actually removed support just before shipping. The stated reason was that since the USB port doubles as HDMI (Slimport), you can't get 5V out of it. I managed to patch the kernel, and if you use a Y cable (taking 5V from somewhere else), it indeed works. But the interesting thing is, the way it is wired you can actually get 5V out of the slimport itself, IIRC. You just have to set a bit in the kernel. I managed to get it halfway running, but I stopped working on it because I didn't have enough experience and time to give it a polished interface. I was also afraid that I was violating the USB spec and might fry my phone or a USB device :-). In the end I decided that it was just not worth it and I wanted to spend my spare time on other things in my life.

But it makes you wonder, were there really technical reasons, or was it either 1) "stop trying to make that work, we got to get the Nexus 5 out next year!" or 2) "stop trying to make that work, we'd like to sell phones with larger memory (that people won't buy if they can just plug in a pen drive) / our partners would like to sell phones with larger memory / a evil cabal decided that it should be hard to put pirated .mp3 and .mkv on a phone, so we must make it as cumbersome as possible to get files onto there (MTP anybody?)"

Not saying that's what happened, but Googles behavior (intransparency and quickly obsoleting even there flagship devices) erodes trust, and Google was one of the last companies you could have trusted a bit.

Your experience and puzzlement regarding the Nexus 4 is basically identical to mine.

tldr; this was fixed. It just didn't get marked as fixed by Google.

I was following this issue on the Nexus 4 (comment #20 of OP[1]), way back when and even filed a more detailed follow up issue [2].

In short, the APIs needed for echo cancellation, noise suppression and automatic gain adjustment weren't making use of the Nexus 4 hardware (lack of driver, missing code, I don't know why). However, the issue was fixed in the Android 4.3 OTA update.

I can verify this because at the time I was working on a VoIP app and my Nexus 4 was my primary phone and it was driving me mad. But in all fairness, it was fixed by Google.

[1] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=41626#c20

[2] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=42978

This is an issue that has affected my Nexus 4 since I purchased it two years ago. It makes nearly all third-party voice apps unusable. I have not been able use SIP dialers or Skype without the other side hearing echoes. I even considered buying the Nexus 5 just to resolve this issue, but I'm not sure if there are any fatal flaws affecting that phone which won't be resolved either.

CSipSimple's pretty bad on the 5, but Hangouts works okay as long as you don't enable OK Google Everywhere.

I doubt the camera-reboot issue on the 4 will ever get fixed, either.

Camera-reboot issue for anybody curious https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=67113

That is one sad thread. Very embarrassing for Google that they don't seem able to respond and to resolve such issues.

my nexus 4 voice craps out for random reasons. I have to factory reset my phone every 2-3 days.

I've even tried building my own rom, examining logcat to no avail, using Cyanogenmod, using Paranoid Android doesn't matter voice cuts out at seemingly random intervals.

Damn you LG

Having to factory reset every 2-3 days sounds really terrible. You should just get another phone (or go over to the "dark side" of "everything-just-works" iPhones :P).

Same here. Finally I trash the crap Nexus and bought a second hand iPhone4 (2010). Works like a charm.

There's a bug in the system somewhere breaking voice calls altogether on the Nexus 4 which is apparently triggered by a recent change to Google Play Services. Mostly the people affected are using third party ROMs (CyanogenMod et al), but I believe it's also affecting some stock devices. Might be the same problem?

Right now it's a choice between having a working phone with only partially functioning Google Apps or working Google Apps with the phone not being, well, a phone. Hopefully the CM crowd will be able to come up with a bugfix / workaround of some sort that doesn't involve stopping half the Google Apps from working properly.

(CM bug: https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/CYAN-5728 )

Android 5.0.1 seems to have fixed the problem, using factory image will build my own image later to test again

My Nexus 4 was pretty unstable when it got updated to Lollipop. I have one specific memory of trying to use navigate from Point A to Point B on my first day of work at a new job, only to have Google Maps crash about every 3 minutes. It seems to have gotten better with recent updates. At least Google Maps isn't crashing anymore.

For me, buying a Nexus 4 when it was first released meant there were multiple tradeoffs in comparison to other smart phones on the market. The largest was lack of support if anything went wrong with it in return for pure android experience with frequent updates. There were certainly plenty of hardware and software issues as the new device was naturally buggy and acted up upon app or software updates. At the end of the day, tradeoffs are part of the android experience I bought into and I wouldn't go back in time and buy any other phone. Live with the nexus consequences or don't buy it, with technology progressing so quickly in the mobile space every two years you should probably be buying a new device if you are android advocate.

Ever since updating to Lollipop, my Nexus 4 has had sudden restarts a few times a week. It's a very disappointing reduction in quality which makes me question whether to go Android for my next device. If Google can't support its own hardware reliably then I don't see why anyone else should put their trust in it.

It would be interesting to know if these bugs are in core Android or in the Nexus 4 device-tree.

To me it sounds like they could potentially be fixed in third-party forks like Cyanogenmod where Google isn't the only party deciding if a bug gets fixed or not. Or maybe some already are fixed?

Any Nexus 4 owners here willing shed some light on this?

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