Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

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A lot of the Windows security updates require restarts. It's not a dissimilar problem. And OS patches have to happen on shared systems, Exchange servers, Sharepoint servers, domain controllers, etc. Uptime is more important on those than a cell phone by any objective measure.

edit - Also, Microsoft has complicated relationships with many large vendors and probably tests on a LOT of permutations for each patch vs whatever Google does for Android. I am surprised to find myself sympathizing with Microsoft.... that being said, this is digressing. MSFT should have a universal fast track for 0days and decouple it from the standard upgrade process. 90 days should be enough, and have no real problem with Google's actions.

Indeed, but this must be considered if someone is going to critique Google's speed at updating Android vs desktop operating systems. The updates need to be stable and important if the user is going to be walked through this disruptive process.

Additionally, Windows OS has a long history, is much more stable, and Microsoft controls the majority of the codebase unlike Google.

Android's codebase is built on top of quite a rickety legacy foundation of old patchworked linux kernels that have to be in sync with drivers from proprietary manufacturers like Qualcomm - although is has improved a lot in recent years.

Yet, I do agree Google/Android vendors should be pushing updates at a much higher frequency.

Not disagreeing with what you said, just want to point out that Microsoft needs to deal with even more driver from proprietary manufacturers :-)

Google has a critical dependence on a few very slow moving manufacturers before they can do each update. And their vendors aren't nearly as capable or incentived as Intel or Nvidia to release updates quickly - since their arrangement is a fixed-hardware deal with particular phones. Not for supporting x operating system on a variety of hardware, with competitors at their throats.

I cannot think of a company that works with Android and not with Windows. Again, agree that Android has to support a lot of hardware, but Windows needs to support even more.

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