Really? I thought the keynote explicitly said the SDK would be available today, but that neither the source code nor the binary updates would be pushed to the public (as opposed to hardware manufacturers, who now have ahead-of-time PDK access) until mid-July.
(edit: In addition, the Nexus 7, running Jelly Bean, while available to purchase today, will itself not be shipping until mid-July. I really don't think it is available yet.)
I cloned the manifest project and checked the tags; there aren't any 4.1+ tags present yet. I'd imagine there would be a JBQ post (like this, https://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/c0e01b4...) announcing Android 4.1 availability if the source were already available.
Does all this finally mean it has actually caught up with iOS in terms of touch-lag? And is this finally admittance that there was a problem all along?
I know some may jump to the defence of Android here, I've seen this argued ad nauseam before, and yes I've tried some Android phones that didn't have noticable lag, but the 'top of the range' Samsung Galaxy II tablet is indisputably laggy when compared to an iPad 2.
If this is finally the fix we've (or maybe just I've) been waiting for then congrats to Android, I'm really glad to see it.
Honeycomb and ICS aren't as smooth as iOS, but most of the lag that you're experiencing on your tablet is coming from Samsung's terrible software and not Android itself. The Galaxy Tabs are an embarrassment.
That's true, I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab. My girlfriend have an Acer Iconia tab. Same Android version, very similar hardware. I droll every time I use her tablet, it's so smooth compared to mine. It's a shame Samsung does this.
Definitely. I've played around with a friend's Transformer Prime for a bit and it was mostly pretty fluid.
ASUS also makes far less modifications to the OS, too. Their devices are very close to stock Android with just some small additions, some new apps and wallpapers and whatever.
I upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy Note from an iPhone 3GS not long ago, and my father upgraded to an Asus Padfone (ICS) at the same time. I was utterly dismayed at how wonderfully responsive the Padfone was compared to my touch-laggy Note. The Note became significantly smoother after upgrading it to ICS, but it was still slightly laggier than the Padfone, which is really smooth to use. Also the Padfone has a really nice default look overall, pretty glowing-blue notification icons, it feels good in the hand, etc.
It still irritates me that I bought a Samsung specifically because I heard they were easy to root compared to other vendors, but didn't realise that had changed in recent months -- or that they were laggy. I should've gone for a new-gen ICS device instead; an S3 perhaps.
I'm still enjoying the Note's screen size and the Android app ecosystem, though. There are some great apps out there to play with.
As an iPad 1, iPad 2, original Droid, Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus, and Kindle Fire owner, I have no idea what you are talking about. Our iOS devices have hiccups just as much as any of our Android devices do, and sometimes more.
Have you used the Galaxy Tab 2? That's what I'm referring to, and it's really poor in a straight comparison to an iPad 2. Perhaps I've been unlucky and picked the worst of the bunch. Above poster suggests the ASUS tabs are considerably better and it's Samsung at fault here and I'm inclined to take him/her at his/her word.
Edit: That said the difference is so vast, that combined with these announcement details I'm also inclined to believe no to-date Android tab is as smooth as iOS prior to this release, otherwise there would be nothing to improve on and make the above claims about being "Faster, Smoother, More Responsive" which is why I'm excited about this and have high hopes for Jelly Bean.
>Edit: That said the difference is so vast, that combined with these announcement details I'm also inclined to believe no to-date Android tab is as smooth as iOS prior to this release
Yeah, iOS has been smoother for awhile. Android improved a lot in recent generations (to the point where Android was "smooth enough" rather than blatantly irritating), however. I've only used Honeycomb, not ICS, so not sure how much or if that release improved response. Hopefully this "Project Butter" will make them more or less equivalent in smoothness.
Hiccups aside, which I agree is universal, the scrolling performance in-particular with Android devices just seems atrocious. I remember playing around with the GNex when it came out and just moving between home-screens was full of lag. That's with ICS. The mere existence of this Project Butter is a pretty good indication the problem was not solved in ICS isn't it?
Yes, iOS caught up with Android in many respects at the last WWDC, and Android is catching up with iOS on the responsiveness front. That's fine, on both counts. It means that Android and iOS are competitive. It also means I don't have to switch to iOS if I'm craving responsive.
The Android JVM basically means Android needs a faster processor to get the same level of responsiveness. So that's what they're giving it.[1] That's fine, since the benefit of Android is being flexible enough to run on scads of devices. That's emphatically a benefit, not a curse, just like being able to buy all different configurations of PCs is emphatically a benefit.
[1] Reports of A5x being faster than Tegra 3 are overblown.
The JVM isn't relevant to Android's responsiveness, only Android is. Android wrote Dalvik and the Android UI framework from scratch, it's performance is entirely in their hands.
Does that include the Verizon version of the Galaxy Nexus, since Google agreed to let Verizon handle the updates for that model?
If so, I'm glad to hear that Google is addressing the problem of not having their own devices be up-to-date (which was an embarrassment for some Android updates on previous Nexus devices).
Until the fragmentation problem is fixed, every new Android release only fills me with dread.
Normally when new versions of frameworks or software that I use come out, I like it. Except Android, because every new version of Android has lots of nice features that I won't be able to use and it is guaranteed to further fragment of the marketplace.
Android is the (old) Internet Explorer of mobile. I've never seen one application skew across versions so hard, or single-handedly fragment the space as much. (BTW kudos to MS for strongly encouraging their IE users upgrade).
What makes this perplexing is that Google has solved this problem with most of their other installed software offerings, Chrome particularly. There's basically only one version of Chrome (v 19 as I write this). Heck, even MS realized their mistake and is making efforts to roll up old IE users into the latest version. And of course Apple has done a fantastic job keeping all of it's users at the same iOS version.
I am well-aware of the OEM madness that drives Android fragmentation, and that you might think it's not "Google's fault" because of this. But I disagree. Google has vast resources and can basically do whatever it wants. If it wanted to require OEMs to build Android-upgradable phones, it could force them to do so. In fact, if they started doing this today you would hear loud cheers from around the world (and bitter complaining from the OEMs, but so what? There's a lot of money to be made and they'll get in line).
91% of the Android market is covered by 3 major versions (2.2, 2.3, and 4.0). 72% is covered by just two major versions (2.3 and 4.0).
This problem isn't quite as severe as its made out to be. Dealing with the diverse hardware ecosystem and implementation bugs are both much larger problems, IMO.
Yes, it's exactly like saying that. Windows has several years between each version and each version still has like 30-40% each, so it's quite fragmented, too.
Microsoft has always been quite good in backporting their developer libraries. So even you did have users on XP you could simply bundle these with your app e.g. .Net, DirectX.
Google may have to look at doing something similar for 2.3 users in particular.
You're obviously not a Windows or Android developer :)
Backported to XP APIs have always been limited and just building software for XP is becoming increasingly difficult (probably as it should be, but the reality is that there are a lot of XP machines still out there), whereas building for both Android 2.3 and 3.0 is laughably simple. You lose out on some APIs, but most of the best stuff is in the support libraries. The "fragmentation" for OS updates (IMO) is really only a serious negative for the end user not getting new stuff, bug fixes, and security updates, not a real negative for developers (yet).
The bigger fragmentation problem for developers is different hardware and different drivers, but OS updates would not generally help with that since the vendors are probably worse with fixing driver bugs than they are with updating their phones (and that "fragmentation" is rather overblown, in any case).
> [Windows] is fragmented. But not in the developer sense.
We develop windows applications and have to support XP and up. We certainly notice fragmentation "in the developer sense".
To give some examples, we can't use true filesystem transactions[1] or the ribbon UI[2]. These aren't available as "backported developer libraries". Sometimes we run into bugs[3] which were never fixed in earlier versions.
Microsoft has been good at backporting their developer libraries? And we are talking about phone right? So...Windows Phone 7 (silverlight) to 8 (WinRT), or even from Windows Mobile 6.5 (WinForms, OpenGL) to Windows Phone 7 (Silverlight) . How much backporting was/is being done?
Right, but the original topic was about phone and Microsoft's great back porting reputation just hasn't shown up there. There is something hard about the problem and none of the major players are taking that approach (Apple doesn't backport, just supports old hardware with new versions until it unsupports them).
If Google would only release 1 major version of Android per year, like everyone else, they would bring those numbers for only 1 version of Android before the next one is released, instead of 2.
I understand why they had to showcase Android 4.1 now - to release with their brand new tablet. And Android 5.0 will be released this fall. But next year they really should just release Android 6.0 at I/O (their biggest and most professional event), and be done with it. Then Android 7.0 at I/O in 2014 and so on.
It seems to me that the easiest way that Google could do this would be to create a "Perfect Android" branding or similar, which has some tight rules around licensing - to qualify, a device would have to meet a set of minimum hardware specs and the manufacturer and carriers would have to sign up to providing timely updates to the latest version that Google produces over the next N years. Google, for its part, would guarantee that those newer versions for the next N years will run well on the minimum hardware specs agreed to.
> There's a lot of money to be made and they'll get in line
The fact that that's not true is precisely why timely upgrades aren't done. Verizon and Motorola sold you that Droid RAZR. They get nothing from spending engineer time to update it.
Also, what is this implication that Google is just being lazy or has some incentive to not have everyone running the latest OS. You really think Google so powerful that they can snap their fingers and make OEMs do what they want? Isn't the very existence (and initial struggle) of the Nexus line evidence against that?
Apple gets "nothing" from engineering their upgrades to be backwards compatible. That is, if "nothing" means being incredibly successful. People are actually rather smart about things like this, and they know that the iPhone "just works" and will continue to work, and that is a huge competitive advantage. And long-term competitive advantage is one of the classic components of "maximizing shareholder value". So yes, publicly traded OEMs (which is all of them) are legally required to maximize shareholder value, and they are not doing that.
P.S. I think you are a troll, based on this and prior discussions, and this is the last time I'm responding to you. I'd appreciate it if you'd not respond to my posts either. Thank you.
Apple gets a lot of things, obviously. Making the updates backwards compatible means more people are using the current version, and that means feature uptake time is minimized. Apple's intention is that supporting your hardware for a longer period of time makes it a more attractive purchase.
Android phone manufacturers do not care about this. They are not in the business of promoting the operating system or cultivating a developer base. They want to sell hardware. They sell hardware by introducing new models with new features, not porting those same features to older models that have already been sold.
The maximal return under the Android model is to deliberately obsolete your older hardware so people purchase new phones.
that's flawed short term logic. I will never buy another android phone from someone like motorola. My phone is about a year old. Still under contract, and I can't even get ICS. I don't have the option of buying another phone right now!
And vendors like Motorola probably don't care about you and your situation. From their perspective, they likely see two things
1) a still growing cell phone market
2) a rapidly growing Android market
As long as the market's still growing, and as long as the vast majority of Android users aren't disgruntled about being left behind, their efforts are best spent on building new phones and acquiring new customers.
I'm curious how many people purchasing a new Android or iOS device even know it can be upgraded. Apple has features in iTunes and now in the phones themselves to advertise new versions and strongly encourage users to upgrade. I'd wager most Android users, because their phones never advertise updates to them, are aware it can even be upgraded and, thus, aren't the least bit put off by these vendors apparent negligence.
Until the market stops growing, or until the vast majority of users get angry about being left behind, vendors like Motorola have zero incentive to spend time or capital on maintaining old devices.
" Motorola have zero incentive to spend time or capital on maintaining old devices."
You are making a large assumption when you say this. Your assumption is that it won't hurt them in the long run. Maybe that is true, but it's a risky bet to make. I certainly won't buy another android phone. Maybe most normal users will, but I'm skeptical of that.
Here's how normal users will realize they aren't getting updates, because it happens to me often. Somehow they learn about some cool app they want and they go to the Play store to get it. But they can't find it. It doesn't show up on their search! It won't take long for them to figure out that they can't get it because it doesn't work for their old version of android.
Here's how normal users will realize they aren't getting updates, because it happens to me often. Somehow they learn about some cool app they want and they go to the Play store to get it. But they can't find it. It doesn't show up on their search! It won't take long for them to figure out that they can't get it because it doesn't work for their old version of android.
Yes, but is there anything that enables them to make the cognitive leap from "my phone runs an old version of Android" to "my phone should have been updated to a new version of Android"?
What's to keep them from instead coming to the conclusion of "my phone is old, I should buy a new one"? You assume they understand what "Android" is, who creates Android, who creates their phone, and that the thing running on their phone that's called "Android" can be upgraded but the entity that created their phone prevents that from happening.
Many people are just buying a phone. Heck, many people are just getting a plan which happens to give them a free phone. They don't, and have no desire to, understand the nuances of the phone they just got. It makes calls, browses the internet, and may let them install these "app" things.
And what's to say some of the people who do understand some of these nuances don't erroneously blame Google and Android rather than their phone's manufacturer?
I really do bet most people out there just say "damn, my phone's old" and go try and buy a new phone as soon as they're able. Which is a win for companies like Motorola.
You could be right, but that is a risky gamble to take for the manufacturers and Google. I think most people will realize they have a substandard experience because they use their phones in social settings and will easily see that their friends have apps that won't work on their phone and they will have a friend that can explain why.
For tech geeks, maybe. For the majority of the population? I doubt it. There are still people who aren't sure what version of Windows or OS X they're running on their laptops. Now they need to know which version of Android their phone is on?
"Your assumption is that it won't hurt them in the long run."
The entire notion of "the long run" has implicit in it various "ceteris paribus" assumptions that are very frequently false.
In particular, the "long run" makes little sense in the context of rapidly changing business and technology fields, and even less sense when it comes to mercurial public opinion.
On the other hand, the one thing that consistently has a good long-run outcome is to make money now, since, "in the long run", not only can accumulated capital stick around, but it will usually even appreciate.
I'd wager most Android users, because their phones never advertise updates to them, are aware it can even be upgraded and, thus, aren't the least bit put off by these vendors apparent negligence.
Huh? I've been on custom ROMs for almost 2 years now, but I remember when I was on the stock ROM, I got a nice little notification in the notification bar when an update was available.
Yes it is. It's stupid, shortsighted, and it is going to cost them money in the long term. They are still doing this.
But I don't understand about you not having option of buying phone. They won't allow you to use different phone with your sim or anything? You can just drop to a store, buy unlocked Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S III, Xperia S or something, and use it right?
Why is that? Your contract allows you to change phones at any time, you just can't get another subsidy or cancel your service without a fee until the extant contract expires. You are free to purchase another phone, second-hand or new, without cell company subsidy and switch to it.
And you think that is a good situation for Android users? Want the new OS, buy a new phone without a subsidy. That is one hell of a tag line for Android
I am using the Xperia Pro from Sony, am very happy with it. Bought it unbranded and unlocked, has a great hardware keyboard, and was updated to ICS two weeks ago. The only downside is the rather small amount of builtin memory.
This is true, but that is my point. Most people don't want control, they want a phone that does the latest and greatest. This makes the iphone a much better choice for most, including myself.
Apple gets happy developers who can use the latest & greatest APIs and support the latest & greatest features/services Apple offers. Android OEMs have no incentive. They don't get a cut of app or ad revenue. To this point at least lack of updates have not caused them any major problems. As we move further and further away from 2.x though I do think it will start to become a bigger issue. On the plus side it looks like Google made very few changes to 4.1 so we should see devices shipping with it by the end of the year this time.
Apple owns both the iOS platform and devices. I think Apple supports their older hardware because they want to reduce fragmentation of their iOS platform. Apple plays the long game.
Google owns the Android platform, but only a few Android devices. The carriers and device OEMs just want to pump 'n' dump devices. They don't care about the long term health of the Android ecosystem.
This isn't your personal email account. Hacker News is about informed discussion and debate. If you don't want people to engage you I have two suggestions; 1) Don't post your comments here. 2) Stop being intentionally provocative.
They are maximizing shareholder value though. Each OEM is competing with the other OEMs producing for Android, and creating a new Android update for the older phones doesn't increase sells if another OEM releases a phone that has better specs in addition to having the newest OS.
Whenever any of my friends go shopping for a new Android phone, they immediately try to find the one with the highest specs. OEMs aren't going to waste time releasing an update for a phone that won't make them money anymore, they're going to spend time instead on making better hardware that will make money.
They're only maximizing it for one quarter at a time. They're losing repeat business to competitors, primarily Apple. Why would I want to buy a second product from a company that has let me down once already?
I've been wondering if this is why Android growth in the US stalled last quarter as the people who bought Verizon Droids in fall 2009/early 2010 fall out of contract and pick something other than a Droid (i.e an iPhone) when they renew.
>I think you are a troll, based on this and prior discussions, and this is the last time I'm responding to you.
Nice of you to edit and sneak that in there. All I did was mention how it's in the interest of OEMs to push new devices. You continue to call me names, not reply to what I'm saying and be rude. Apparently you learned nothing from the last time you did this to me. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4158857
I hope it's obvious that Motorola releasing the RAZR2 is more profitable than spending time working on software updates to the RAZR1 and I don't know why you insist on comparing Android OEMs to Apple when you yourself already point out that they have different goals and strategies by the nature of their products,
Same here, albeit a different Motorola device. A combination of Motorola and T-Mobile meant I got 2.2 just after 4.0 was released, and I'll never see another legitimate upgrade for my phone, which is less than 2 years old.
Not only will I never buy another Motorola phone, after the experience of release delays by carriers I'll never buy another Android phone.
But if you had bought Xperia Arc S year ago, you would have official ICS on it now. Some OEMs do care. And some don't but no-one expects them to, because when you buy Huawei or ZTE phone, you either don't care or are willing to get updates from modaco.
With Motorola, it's just sad, but after encrypted bootlockers and soldered everything to make their phones unrepairable and unmodifiable, I would say it is to be expected.
FWIW you can get ICS on that phone, just not officially.
If you aren't going to buy a Nexus, you have to accept the fate of sparse official/OTA updates if you're lucky enough to get any at all. This is the fault of carriers and the ignorant masses that prop them up. An alternative exists if you're interested; buy Nexus line.
Only by installing alpha/beta quality software from an untrusted source. Not an acceptable solution for most. You're right though about buying a Nexus. That's the only way you will have any chance of getting software updates. If it's not available on your country/carrier, and updates are important to you, do not buy an Android phone.
Not really. First of all, free/open source software is not really "alpha/beta quality software from untrusted source" and suggesting it is, is pretty much trolling. Second, Google is not the only one manufacturer (in the borad sense) that keeps it's phones up-to-date, for example Sony recently released 4.0 upgrade for it's 2011 models. Third, I know it tends to be pretty common in the US, but if you are buying subsidized phone from your carrier to save money, you do save money, but pay a different price, be it slow upgrades, disabled tethering or something else. And no one coerced you to buy chaeper but crippled phone, you made that decision yourself.
But most of all, the platform fragmentation, I mean in the sense that even this instant some OEMs are selling Android 2.3 devices is the price for cheap phones being available at all. Sure, Apple does update it's phones (though not really old models so people still have to upgrade), but for a price of iPhone, you easily can get three or four cheap Android devices. This is because they can use old software that has lower hardware requirements and because reusing software has little R&D costs.
In the end, saying "I want no Android fragmentation" is pretty much saying "I want smartphones only for rich people" and I don't think that's worth it. Even if, maybe, in US, people can buy iPhones all the time and it would not be a problem for them, there are other parts of the world too.
CM9 is only at the release candidate stage for ICS so by their own definition it's beta / un-stable. For my device it's not even officially supported so I rely on random zip files I find in forums for updates. Pretty sketchy stuff.
I'm assuming some of it has to do with licensing agreements. My guess is carriers want to keep control of the code on the device because many preload their images with extra stuff ('crap' or 'value added service', ymmv).
Sun/Oracle can put out timely JRE/JDK updates for Windows/Linux - why doesn't Apple? Similar situation, and one which I thought was incredibly stupid for Sun to get itself in to years ago. If Java is really that core to your business (changing stock symbol to JAVA even!), don't let a third party control the availability and release schedule of that software for some of your users. Sun did it with Apple/Java, and Google's going it with multiple manufacturers and Android.
>Apple doesn't have a problem with releasing timely updates. So how come the Android OEMs can't ?
Because Android doesn't have the same ridiculous cult around it that Apple does. The iPhone made enough money to make carriers beg Apple to let them carry their phone -- more often it's the other way around, which is why bloatware and disabled features and all that other stuff infects every non-Apple phone. The demand for iPhone is astronomical, and that is the only reason Apple is in a position to instruct the carrier. If normal OEMs try this, the carrier will simply destock their items, remove the subsidy, and the OEM will never get any meaningful sales.
Have you read any of the posts up to the point in the thread? They don't want to. They have no incentive to. The carriers regularly drag their feet on updates, even after the manufacturers released them. Apple had the great thought to tell Verizon to, kindly, shove off, and they handle them by themselves. They manage the hardware, and every layer of the OS. That's not true of any Android phone, and the current situation is a result of that reality.
Realistically, there is a level beyond which you cannot increase profit through forced obsolescence. If I have a year left on my contract I am not going to buy a new phone, no matter how good it is. So the choice is not between a free software update and a new phone. It's a choice between a software update and nothing; the update may actually be more profitable.
Explain why a free software update for a year-old phone would even be on their radar of choices? The only time carriers have provided free Android updates was when a brand new phone was being released around the time of a major Android update, and competing against other brand new phones that already have the update, putting their product at a disadvantage among comparison shoppers.
What's the incentive to give you a free update a year into your 2-year contract? Nobody else is doing it, so not providing an update isn't going to influence a decision to switch carriers. Providing the update will cost significant money, while doing nothing will cost nothing. Why would creating an update "be more profitable"?
Interesting point. Has anybody charged for Android updates? IMO, $9.99 for a major upgrade wouldn't be offensive and could be a pretty decent chunk of revenue...
Apple used to charge for iOS updates, for somewhat spurious 'accounting' reasons. iPod users had to pay $5 or something (iPhone users still got it for free). They don't any more.
Let me offer a solution: It's time for Google to offer a Google+ Certification for Android. These certified devices would have two important characteristics:
1. They are guaranteed to run the latest version of Android for 5 years.
2. They are guaranteed to have a clean version of Android, without any carrier or device maker modifications.
No doubt the marketing people can come up with other things to add to the list, but that's the gist of it.
If such a certification existed, personally I would only shop among those options.
Such a certification would require that Google have some sort of compatibility criteria, and that their future development efforts run well within those criteria. So it constrains Google just as much as the OEMs. The certification should be cheap, but not free. And I picked the name for Sergey's buy-in.
The nice thing about this (voluntary) certification program is that OEMs don't have to participate. And in fact could have certified and uncertified devices. The program captures the essential qualities that made the iPhone successful, in my opinion. The App Store is a big part of their success, and developing for the iPhone is far more pleasant because of the stability of the platform.
This is great. The only thing I have a gripe with is:
> They are guaranteed to run the latest version of Android for 5 years.
5 years is too long. The HTC Dream, the first Android phone, was released less than 4 years ago. It only has a 528Mhz processor and 192MB of RAM. I don't want to know what the ICS or JB experience would be on that device...
Keep in mind the iPhone only turned 5 this year (the App Store turns 4 in a couple weeks). And the last version that supported it (with limited features) was released 3 years afterwards.
I think 3 years is more reasonable. Most people are eligible for a discounted phone upgrade every 2 years. I think that would fit in for most folks.
The problem with this argument is that we don't have any more extreme strides in mobile performance in the next 5 years. We already have phones that can effectively run any intensity of "eye candy" with spiff - by the time such a policy came to market in 2 years, it would be 2014 - unless we have a revolution in tech that lets us crank up the ghz without dramatically increasing the voltage to match, any arm based device for Android will be able to run any degree of eye candy they can add in in the "short term".
Back in 2008, we could easily see that the 500mhz single core ARM chip was going to be short lived. We had tremendous strides in performance available to us in just upping core clocks, and then we had the mobile multicore revolution.
We are done with both the main vein and the secondary digs of the mobile CPU goldmine (in reference to Herb here) and we are already pretty deep into heterogeneous computing. Remote processing is next, when the telecom monopoly is torn down so we can get the data speeds we are actually capable of today without paying monopoly rates.
The hardware WILL get significantly better between 2014 and 2019 - a 2019 smartphone will almost assuredly be as powerful as the 2014 consoles that will be coming out for gaming - but we can actually predict that. A 2014 console will have approximately a GCN 7850 graphics card and quad core 3.5 ghz cpu of some sort. So expect the mobile chip of 2019 to operate at ~4ghz with some number of cores and a lot of compute nodes approximately equivalent to modern mainstream desktop graphics at similar wattages to what we have now.
If the version of Android in 2019 can't run on an Android device of 2014, then that isn't the hardware not keeping up with software - that is just terrible design. Just like how desktop hardware peaked in 2006, mobile hardware will peak soon as well, after which performance is "good enough" for average joe consumer, and the UX won't change.
Another good example is how Google can keep pumping out new versions of Chrome without hesitation that the last version's user can run the new version. The browser is not getting exponentially more power or resource hungry, and in many ways they optimize its performance as much as they sacrifice it each release for better experience (of course things like webgl are pressuring browsers upwards with new usage in an environment without resource contraints) but the basic device, or in this case application, is not growing more and more computationally intensive by large jumps each release, or they would not be able to push out silent updates like they do.
Same thing with Android. Once it plateaus, there is no excuse not to use the silent continuous always backwards compatble update model, because the device is now "good enough". Just like how a dual core 3ghz pc from 2005 with 4gb of ram is still good enough today for 95% of use cases.
Desktop didn't really peak out at 2006. The clock speeds are not really raising anymore, true, but both architectural and fab improvements make a difference. If you take a look at benchmarks on anandtech for example, you'll find that current CPUs are about five or six times faster in well parallelizable tasks like video encoding or about three times faster in tasks that don't parallelize well.
While this might not seems like much, waiting for something one minute instead of five makes a difference, and 2006 computer won't play FullHD video, and you'll feel the difference on js heavy web pages.
Won't play FullHD video? Maybe if you're talking about crazy everything-x264-can-do encodings, but a decent 2006 computer will have a geforce 7xxx or similar and play "normal" FullHD video like you buy from itunes just fine.
But without the GPU (and I'm not sure how geforce 7xxx driver support looks now) even 720p videos might get problematic, some becoming pretty much a slideshow, some being just slightly uncomfortable when going around 20 fps. I know they do on my 2007 macbook.
The problem is that the general use case doesn't have a media center pc from 2007, "A significant portion" of consumer hardware is EXCUSIVELY for web browsing and word processing. Sources: every single relative I have except for my father who uses trading software to watch stocks, only use a combination of word (if I haven't touched their boxes), libre office (if I have), ie (if I haven't) or firefox (if I have). Those two cases cover 90% of pc use, maybe some photo browsing, but none of them watch video on a general purpose pc. (yet). Netflix probably changes that.
Yes, you're probably right. 3 years is more reasonable. For some reason I thought Apple was supporting 5 year-old devices, but they are not. And they are the ones setting the standard, here.
Five years is a really long time in the mobile industry, and will be for the coming decade, even if the crazy tempo is slowing somewhat. According to wikipedia [1] typical high-end 2009 phone (which is just three years) had 256 MB RAM and 600 mhz ARMv6 processor. I think two or three years would be enough, with todays rate of improvement.
Google announced their solution to this problem at the last Google I/O: the Android Update Alliance. It was basically a commitment by manufacturers to update phones for 18 months following their release.
Thank you natrius for that link. I'd never heard of the Android Update Alliance before. It is indeed very similar to what I'm proposing, and it's sad to see that it didn't take the first time around.
I think it's worth trying again, perhaps under a new moniker, and with some changes. One big change is option #2 - no device or carrier modifications. That means that the onus really isn't on the manufacturer to support an upgrade, other than getting the initial certification. After that step is taken, they have Google's assurance that future updates will run on the device.
Another potential change would be for Google to spend some marketing dollars on the initiative.
Finally, Google could make certification a required part of the Android licensing process. It becomes a non-voluntary program. The drawback to this, of course, is that it raises the bar on all Android phones, probably reducing the cheapest options to close to zero. (Although, who knows? I'm not a marketer or analyzer of markets. I truly have no idea what this change would do to the Android landscape, and I'm sure there are people with comfy 6-figure salaries at Google and the OEMs that can answer this question with more confidence, if not more certainty.)
Five years is ridiculous. The phones three years ago are vastly less powerful than the ones now - building Android so that it definitely fitted onto them would be nigh impossible.
That wasn't really a political decision, but a design error. The internal storage is way too small on the Nexus One. The same reason HTC Desire barely could get gingerbread.
I sincerely agree. However 5 years is a long time, perhaps 3 is more appropriate. Keep in mind that the first iPhone was introduced 5 and a half years ago.
In the post keynote workshop, they noted that this is not entirely fixed. They have made improvements but they also acknowledge they have some distance to go to have it perfect.
I don't have the technical details of the updates, and I doubt anyone will for a short while.
MediaPlayer supports chaining audio streams together to play audio files without pauses. This is useful for apps that require seamless transitions between audio files such as music players to play albums with continuous tracks or games.
Interesting RE: App Encryption. I had mentioned that years ago in IRC before Android was even a blip on Apple's radar and I was told that would not happen because the Market didn't want to ever modify the uploaded APK. It will be interesting to see if this curtails pirating, or more likely, just adds an extra step in the piracy process.
My phone, purchased brand-new last summer (the model itself is almost, but not quite a year old), still runs Android 2.3. It will run Android 2.3 forever, even though Google owns the company that made it. Jelly Bean, released last year, is still on less than 10% of all Android phones, and may never even exceed 15%.
If Google can't get its act together on the update situation, a lot of people, myself included, will not be buying Android phones the next time our contracts are up.
What I find disingenuous about this line of argument is that you (and everybody who argues it) know full well that you will not be keeping your current phone "forever", and in fact, it's almost 100% certain you will replace it within 2 years if not 12 months simply because of the 2 year upgrade cycle that exists in many carriers or if not, because of the lure of next generation hardware will convince you to buy a new phone.
So what you are actually asking for is for tremendous engineering resources to be spent to port the bleeding edge OS to your soon to be obsolete phone so that you can use it for a few months and then toss it in the bin.
Now I'm not necessarily arguing that there isn't an issue with upgrade on Android phones etc. But I find this particular tone of "I will be stuck forever with an outdated OS thanks to Google" that appears regularly in these comments to be somewhat disingenuous.
PS: Jelly Bean was not released last year, it was announced literally just hours ago.
Whoops you are right. I meant Ice Cream Sandwich, not Jelly Bean.
But my point stands. Most people buy new phones on a 2 year cycle when their contract expires. I buy phones on a 2-year cycle.
I am not expecting tremendous engineering resources to be spent on porting on bleeding edge OS to an obsolete phone. I am expecting some resources to be spent on porting my phone to an OS that was announced and available to OEMs when my phone was released. I am expecting an OS to be released on a phone which has the hardware to support it.
I am stuck with an outdated OS thanks to Google, becaues they won't do a damn thing to pressure carriers or manufacturers to remedy the update situation.
And you know what? The money I use to buy my phone is my money. When the time comes to vote with my wallet, if Google has not fixed the update situation it created, I will vote for something other than Android.
Google will never fix the situation on devices it doesn't sells itself, because it cannot. They cannot force manufacturers to provide update, because most consumers don't care. If you want a well updated phone, get a Galaxy Nexus. Apart from it, the only other phone in market guaranteed to be updated is iPhone.
Better yet, consider switching to prepaid, and you will be less annoyed every time your carrier withholds the update. Most of the international versions do get updated, even if their record is not as stellar as Google/Apple.
<quote>I am expecting some resources to be spent on porting my phone to an OS that was announced and available to OEMs when my phone was released.</quote>
Why didn't you just buy a phone which already had the latest OS on it at the time if having the latest OS is important to you? Are there no custom ROMS for the phone you have?
1) Available to OEMs does not mean that any OEMs had yet released phones with it on my carrier. I have unlimited data, which effectively shackles me to the carrier unless I want to give that up for a pitiful 2-4 GB/month.
2) I connect to a corporate server. I cannot use a custom ROM for security reasons.
(edit: In addition, the Nexus 7, running Jelly Bean, while available to purchase today, will itself not be shipping until mid-July. I really don't think it is available yet.)