This is not true. And developers need all APIs, not just the ones Google wants to license to OEMs to maintain control of the platform.

For example. Android N will use OpenJDK, and this will be a big shift for us.

And we can't get those because carrier stranglehold, proprietary drivers that need to be compiled for every kernel variant instead of using generic hooks, and so on. Android is still Wild West of smartphones, and it's embarrassing that Google's updates are hilariously terrible compared to Apple.

Software costs money to develop, most users don't care enough to pay for software updates (would your "mom" pay $20 to have JDK 8 support?) and unless the update enables a feature the vendor expects you to pay for (say, iCloud or Google Drive) no one is incentivized to provide timely updates.

On the flip side, software updates allow vendors to differentiate their new phones (yeah they both have A123 processors, but this phone has snapMessage *due to the new update)

I think the only other alternative is fully open source phones, which exist, but in terms of updates they're not any better

I should also mention the support library. I can now use some new niceties like vector assets on all Android versions.

However, not everything is part of play services. You can patch some security holes through play services, but some core elements of the platform need a full system update (however Play Services can detect apps trying to exploit a security flaw).

Also, in order to add something like the new permission model or a better version of the runtime, an OS update is still necessary.

Think about stagefright , your personal data is at risk just because some stupid company doesn't give fuck about you (and me), and wants you buy more phone.

Android update issue is clash between whole hardware and software industry. remember when you buy software you was going to get update for 5year or more most of the time. at the other hand in hardware industry when you did bought (before android) any phone, there was no update. no body cared about updates, and lets be honest the technical capability was not there in that time, so no one excepted companies to update their phone.

But regularly updating their phone require a lot of investment from companies (and at the other hand will a little decrease selling phone). which companies resist, which absoulouttly they don't have right to do. This is fight right now between customers and hardware companies.

Specially from now on this is going to be interesting , because phones from 2015+ , is capable of doing your ordinary computation (reading mails, watching movies, etc) for maybe 7, 8 years. (just like old pc , which does run latest version of Windows 10/Ubuntu good enough right now for you browsing/chatting/watching/etc, but you cant play high end games on it).

> Or you don't know what OS is or I do live in entirely other world than you.

My comparison was (pretty obviously) between iOS, which bundles all of the apps I mentioned with the OS, and Android, which does not. I can only ask for your forgiveness for my "ridiculous logic".

Perhaps the comment could have been worded a little more diplomatically ('cuz we're all sensitive, special flowers here), but I'd say the criticism is spot-on. If one thinks that "oooh, my apps get updated, who cares about OS updates?" (yeah, I know what you actually typed), a little correction is deservedly coming your way. The explanation for your "comparison" still doesn't tell me that you have a good grasp on the point 0xFFC was trying to make.

I think it's more that it's easier to discuss without people being massive jerks.

It's possible to express opinions without going all over the place