Android Lollipop is out, but almost no one is using it | Hacker News Reader

Android Lollipop is out, but almost no one is using it

zdnet.com

30 pointsAshleysBrain55 comments

This is not surprising and this hit-job of an article implies it has something to do with the quality of Lollipop rather than the real reason: When Google first released Android, it was a major underdog to iOS. As part of the negotiations to get the carriers to... um... carry phones with Android, Google sacrificed the ability to push out Android updates. That ability rests with the cell providers and they always take their sweet time with it.

Note: I have no particular love for Google. Just the truth.

An ET visiting this planet might think that cell phone carriers and Internet providers are for some obscure reason doing their utmost, with full conscious intent and purpose, to become hated by their own customers. Which would be a puzzle difficult to solve for the visiting alien.

> That ability rests with the cell providers and they always take their sweet time with it.

Can't just blame the carriers, it's manufacturers too. I have a Xperia Z3 Compact direct from Sony, which is a practically brand new mini-flagship. US release in early November, but no sign of Lollipop.

From what I've read, maybe it gets updated in February?

Granted the carrier locked versions will be even slower, but having just switched to this from an iPhone it feels pretty absurd.

Sony's still actively working on the Z3 Compact, they've posted some demos but I think your February estimate is probably a bit optimistic unfortunately, judging by the rate of commits on Github.

What does iOS have to do with the popularity of one version of Android over another?

I think he is saying that android was in such a weak position compared to IOS at the outset that google could not bargain with carriers to give them any sort of control.

They sold carriers on this platform that they could customize and manipulate(i.e revenue generating crapware and custom features) and deploy on a very diverse set of hardware. But the trade-off is that any software updates are blocked by massive cooperation by the carriers and OEMs.

This is all in contrast to IOS which is often touted as having near instant uptake of upgrades, and only needs to support about a dozen devices.

Well, its fairly unstable and the OEMs know it. The much publicized memory leak hasn't been fixed, performance is poor, battery life isn't good, and big changes like Volta and ART aren't being well utilized by app developers yet.

I imagine 5.0.2 isn't enough of an incentive for hesitant OEMs to push out just yet. Maybe 5.0.3? 5.1? Who knows when a lion's share of the new bugs will be fixed. I imagine the memory leak is a dealbreaker as it breaks the GUI. Clearly, 5.0 was pushed out early for the N6 launch event, which is bothersome, but that's just how google does business now I guess.

Not to mention, even under ideal circumstances with a solid version of android, there's a 12 month lag before the newest version breaks 50% of installed devices. Lollipop isn't changing that. I used to joke that owning a Nexus was like being a beta tester, but honestly, its pretty close to the truth.

ART is transparent to app developers. BUT ART is less of an improvement than many would think. Almost all the heavy computing in Android is below the Java layer, or in app level native code, or in RenderScript. So, except for grossly un-optimized app code, ART is going to be hard to notice. TL;DR: Andoid wasn't slow. ART won't make it fast.

On non flagship devices, you feel the difference between dalvik and ART. The latter having less overhead and reaching lower latency, but it comes in spikes which is a regression in terms of UX (I prefer less fast but predictable).

Native code produced by ART is going to have a larger footprint than Dalvik bytecode, which is very compact compared to Java bytecode, never mind native code. The inconsistent, or even regressed performance is, if not predictable at least not a surprise since the system might be having to reap whole runtime instances more often to free up memory for what are now larger heaps, using ART. Especially on low end devices with less RAM. ART will work best in devices with plentiful RAM.

Well, I wouldn't have installed Android L if I knew how it was going to (1) slow my tablet down, (2) have problems with WiFi, and (3) look awful.

There's a reason why they ran ads for the Nexus devices last month that only showed the devices turned off.

You didn't mention the lack of backwards compatibility. Broke Kindle, for example.

Meh, apps had more than enough time in order to adapt to Lollipop changes and almost all of them were explained from the first preview.

The source didn't get published until long afterwards. Firefox got broken because of this - and also because the previews had several other bugs that prevented it from starting up in the first place and detecting more problems.

My Samsung tablet runs 4.4.2 and since I rooted it, it tells me "this device has been modified and cannot be updated". Sounds like I'm not missing out on much!

You are, I have a very old galaxy tab that runs lollipop and it's much faster than previous versions.

This might just be Samsung's "take" on the update. I have an old rooted Nexus 7 (2012), and it updated to Lollipop just fine. Performance is quite poor, but the update process itself was perfectly smooth.

Was the performance on your 2012 Nexus 7 already very poor before L? I had read that the missing trim stuff came in kitkat, but my Nexus 7 2012 is painfully slow.

And it's a shame because it's the fastest/prettiest version of Android I've ever used. I have a Nexus 5 as a test device and using it with Lollipop makes me consider switching from iOS.

My Nexus 4 phone is now often, not an actual phone, since I often lose phone audio until I reboot. This is a known bug introduced and not yet fixed with Lollipop, so it's a good reason to not upgrade.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/j74JlSh...

Which is pretty poor, it's like the iPhone 5 (released slightly before the N4) not being able to run iOS 8. I mean it's a different price range, sure, but you'd expect to install software updates 2 years later without it breaking a core feature like making a phone call.

Fastest? I disagree, Kitkat was much better CM is infinitely better than anything performance wise.

Not really a fan of it. My Nexus 4 updated to it and is really buggy. Sometimes I'll go back to the home screen and there are no icons until I swipe away and back. Wish I could just turn off all the new gratuitous animations since they are broken and buggy anyway and they slow down using the thing.

Triangle instead of home seems really obscure and bizarre to me too. I don't even remember what that circle thing is supposed to be any more. Wish they would stick to meaningful icons. I'm glad some graphics designer at Google probably got a promotion for screwing up the OS and changing everything, but hopefully the next graphics designer gets a promotion for fixing it.

Triangle is back, circle is home, square is list/switch apps. They're in the same places and have the same functionality as Android 4.x.

Triangle is "back", actually; the circle is "home". And the square thing is the app switcher history thingie. More evidence, I suppose, that the new icons aren't very intuitive.

On the other hand, floppy disks haven't been used for anything for a couple of decades now but they're pretty universally understandable as save icons. Most of our icon vocabulary has meanings that we learn by rote memorization more than inferrence from their pictographic representations. I'm not sure that the difference between a "good" and a "bad" icon (as long as they're used consistently) really matters that much beyond first-use experience.

I saw some of those bugs before the first maintenance release. It seems to have solved them on my Nexus 5.

You can turn the animations off in Lollipop...

"...if you are not fond of the animations, you can either turn them off completely or increase their speed. To do this, you will first have to enable Developer options by going into Settings -> About Phone and tapping on Build number 7 times. Then jump into Developer options from the Settings menu and change the Window animation, Transition animation and Animator duration scale to Off, or .5x to increase its speed."

http://www.androidbeat.com/2014/11/top-10-android-5-lollipop...

I'd recommend moving back to CM11. That's what I did when 4.4.0 broke a tonne of stuff on my N4.

I've been getting two issues more and more recently running CM11 M12 on my m7vzw:

- random reboots - lack of signal (while the icon in the notification bar shows connection)

I've been considering moving to CM12 when M1 is released, or perhaps trying out OmniRom.

Now I'm starting to think that maybe just wiping and starting with a fresh CM11 M12 could be the better option...

Thoughts?

Can't really comment. I tried to update CM11 nightly and accidentally flashed CM12 (they moved CM12 to nightly a few days ago). Seems tolerable but doesn't feel like Cyano yet.

"less than 0.1 percent of all Android devices were using Lollipop"

I'm surprised by this figure, with the number of Nexus devices that should have auto-upgraded by now. I assume OP is basing this on "Any versions with less than 0.1% distribution are not shown" and Lollipop not being shown, but it seems more likely it hasn't been added yet.

I'm seeing ~7% usage on current installs of my app. It might be disproportionate for some reason, but it's not a new app and I can't imagine it's that skewed.

Users are most likely to go out seeking new apps after a major upgrade or buying a new phone. Users with older phones are much less likely to seek new apps

This is an assumption?

Interesting. Makes sense, but are you aware of any data to back this up?

Only from my own apps. New android versions are always much more likely to install my apps than their actual percentage of devices out there.

But even if you don't install new apps, phones still call the play store regularly at least to ask for updates of the OS and the installed apps so they should be counted in the stats.

Are ota updates being pushed out slower for Lollipop then Kitcat? I ahve a 2012 Nexus 7 and still have not gotten the 5.0.2 update. I'd install it if I got it but don't want to have to go the factory image rout.

You can sideload the ota image which retains your settings etc, image linked from here: http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/12/23/flash-all-the-things...

I upgraded from 5.0 to 5.02 using this method and it only made a slight difference to the horrendous performance I was experiencing on my Nexus 7 2012 tablet.

I ended up installing CyanogenMod - tablet back to being speedy and snappy: http://cyanogenmod.org/

> I ahve a 2012 Nexus 7 and still have not gotten the 5.0.2 update.

FWIW, I just got mine yesterday. My 2012 n7 was god awful on 5.0 and it seems to be waaaay better on 5.0.2.

I have a 2012 Nexus 7 and I intend on doing a full-wipe when I upgrade to Lollipop because of the Nexus 7 flash issues. My Nexus 7 has really slowed down under Kitkat in the last few months and probably needs a good reset.

I have a 1st gen Moto G and it hasn't received the 5.0 update yet.

Me too. One of the reasons I bought the phone was to get OTA updates, and I don't want to sideload things on my prod phone. So it's up to Motorola to get it out to me.

That said, I'm hearing a lot of negative about L, so I'm not sure if I should be upset or not. I think 4.1 had a better interface than 4.4 anyway.

I was "forced" to update to lollipop in order to add lollipop support for an App I'm working on. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The upgrade was seamless, and I immediately felt the improved speed thanks to android's new ART. Material UI is a pleasure. It's great to see how much effort Google has put into the look and feel of lollipop.

Either way - If you're developing a new app or releasing a new product - don't let the lollipop percentages confuse you. Early adopters of your app are much more likely to be early adopters of new android versions as well. About 15% of the users of one of my Apps recently released to the play market are Android 5.0 users. The rest are on Kit Kat, and virtually none of them on Jelly Bean or ICS.

Possible that KitKat is "good enough" for most users?

not just "good enough" but "better"

"Most users" think that KitKat is just a brand of candy. "Most users" will do whatever their phone tells them to do, or not even that. "Most users" are afraid to tinker with their phones.

nexus 5 with busted wifi checking in. I wish I weren't using lollipop.

My first gen Nexus 7 is using it, but I'm not. It's so slow that sometimes I can't even get past the login screen -- it goes dark before it registers that I've swiped my lock pattern! Other Nexus 7 owners have complained about this as well, but we don't matter enough for Google to issue any sort of fix.

We are the 0.1%! I love Lollipop and my Nexus 6 (also have Lollipop on a 2012 Nexus 7 with NO performance or WiFi issues and, in fact, increased battery life)

All the changes made to Android since KitKat are very nice and welcomed (mostly the better notification system and pull-down menu) and material design is pretty slick.

I was offered to update my Nexus 5 after Android Lollipop was first released, however I was living in a country with low bandwidth so I deferred it until I returned home. Now I can't update and am stuck on 4.4.4, so I don't really have a choice but to not use Android Lollipop.

It's a travesty that Dell had to ship a really nice tablet with Android 4.4. Especially since Dell isn't dragging around a bloatware portfolio the way Samsung is.

Is this worse than previous adoption rates for new Android releases? If not, then this article is pretty boring. "Steady as she goes in Androidworld!"

Odd that there are so many complaints about Lollipop vs KitKat here. I have a 2014 Moto X on Verizon and Lollipop has been excellent for me.

I'm using it on a very old galaxy tab and it's surely the nicest version of Android I've seen.

It's an inconsistent mess that destroys muscle memory. The new notifications are retarded. The "privacy conscious" notification screen is useless, won't even show you a clock timer. Typing this on Android. 5 and it still doesn't know how to scroll back to the left when the text area is wider than the screen.

How is this a 5.0 instead of 4.5 alpha?

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