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Comment by cwyers | Hacker News Reader

Your periodic reminder that there are more people on Ice Cream Sandwich and earlier than are on Lollipop:

http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

Heck, Gingerbread is at 6% versus 10% for Lollipop cumulative. And 5.0 has 9 times the adoption of 5.1. Instead of announcing a new Android version, why not announce how you're going to get new versions of Android onto devices already in wild? And if Google wants to blame the OEMs for this, the OEM you owned when I got my Motorola X (and still owned when you shipped 5.0!) still hasn't been updated. It's absurd.

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I dunno, blaming Google for phones not being updated (Other than their branded phones or course), is a bit like blaming Linus Torvalds when routers still use a 2.6.x kernel version. When something is open and able for anyone to do with as they please, it's only natural that the devices it lives on can't be controlled the same.

> When something is open and able for anyone to do with as they please

AOSP is open. Android from Google is not -- manufacturers have to agree to only ship Google's OS, not any competing forks. (Yes, they can customize things like the launcher, but those aren't true forks.)

I'd also add that the new App permissions won't be seen on versions prior to M, developers will have to support both for now when targeting the app for M.

So if judging by L, this means new App permissions will be on less then 10% of devices 6 months after release.

You could have bought a nexus.

Yeah, I owned a Galaxy Nexus, the idea that the Nexus line is some blanket guarantee of updates to new OS versions is mistaken.

Well, it's an 18 month guarantee. After that, Google is happy to abandon you.

I like many many things about Android. But they really need to sort this out, at least for their flagship phones.

What would be the acceptable time frame for supporting existing devices? I agree that 18 months is a bit on the short side, but the Galaxy Nexus is way beyond that. By the time M hits the street, the Galaxy Nexus will be a four year old model.

I am not complaining about the Galaxy Nexus not being supported NOW, although frankly I don't see why it shouldn't be -- the hardware is plenty capable of running new Android versions. It was terrible about getting updates back when it was still available for sale.

EDIT: I have three and four year old computers that are running Windows 10 Technical Preview just fine. And it's not like new low-end Android phones are more powerful than four-year-old mid- and high-end phones. I think that it's silly that we have reset our expectations so low that it's beyond the pale that companies should support OS updates on four-year-old phones.

Phones will get to where computers are now. If you think back 20 years, 4 year old computers could not run just released software. It took time for two things to happen:

1) Increase in available computing resources;

2) Commoditization of the platform.

It can be argued that we are just reaching condition (1), but we are still a bit far from (2). The peculiarities between hardware platforms make it necessary to actually test on each hardware platform. As the installed base of a phone dwindles, after a point it makes little sense to provide updates.

We'll get there, but it'll take a few more years. In the meantime, Nexus are great choices, because the developer community can actually fill in for the necessary testing and tweaking. I had an HTC Desire before my Nexus 5, and it was incredible how much its life was extended by a vibrant community (mine lasted over four years and was clearly outdated spec-wise when I bough the N5).

The thing is, Apple is already there -- iOS 8 is available for the 4S, which is roughly the same age as the Galaxy Nexus. I don't think condition 1 has ever been a problem.

(I know, I know... should have bought a Nexus, should have bought an iPhone. My mistake for buying Motorola. Won't happen again.)

20 years ago, in 1995, 4 year-old computers from 1991 generally could run just released productivity software, compilers and OS versions just fine, on Linux, Amiga, Windows/DOS computers at least. It was best to add another RAM stick though.

5-7 years

18 months is a joke

7 years is worse of a joke 18 months is. The flagship phone seven years ago was the Nokia n96: 128MB RAM, 267Mhz CPU, 320x240 display...

Yes a great phone but Nokia often gave up on phones soon after release, still a sweet machine potentially capable of repurposing.

If a company will not support a device and has locked it down there should be a moral obligation to allow others to support it.

Hardware should not be dead-ended.

The latest update 5.02 has been bricking Nexus Tablets, out of warranty.

I stopped upgrading because of this.

Security and OS updates should be separate

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