It is the same thing that happens in the PC space. Since Microsoft doesn't make hardware they or third parties must write drivers and support everything that people put out there. Where OS X only needs to support the devices that Apple creates.

The difference is that Windows is such an entrenched platform that the third parties are willing to step up to the plate and write the drivers for the PC. Now the question is if Andriod will ever reach that same point.

Android has all the drivers it needs. The real difference is that Android systems are locked down in ways more annoying to circumvent than your average Windows OEM junkware install. It is easy to uninstall junkware on Windows, and to pop in a CD to upgrade or crossgrade the OS.

> It is easy to uninstall junkware on Windows, and to pop in a CD to upgrade or crossgrade the OS.

Can you enlighten me as to what it means to "crossgrade the OS". Native english speaker and I've never heard the term :)

I'd imagine he means wiping the Windows install and installing some other OS, e.g. Linux, BSD or OSx86 or something. Not really an upgrade or downgrade of the Windows installation the machine shipped with. I think crossgrade is a nice way to put it ;-)

Ah, I thought it was some weird stripping down thing the kids were doing to windows these days.

I guess "crossgrade" means installing another equivalent version of Windows. Installing anything other would most probably be an "upgrade".

:)

I knew who wrote this comment before I read the name.

You are being unfair. "Anything else" could include newer versions of Windows.

> You are being unfair. "Anything else" could include newer versions of Windows.

Just re-read the posts. I agree. I apologize!

No need to. I was joking ;-)

I'd never consider installing a version of Windows an upgrade ;-) Unless it's installing XP over Vista.

I'm guessing it's the sideways version of upgrade or downgrade: the new OS isn't better or worse, just different.

Linux :-)

Yes, I feel shame:) In hind site, that's obvious to me now.

I'd argue its just as easy/easier to "crossgrade the OS" (whatever that means) on an android phone as a PC. Step 1: get a .zip from http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ Step 2: Place it on your SD card. Step 3: Reboot phone, hold down the power button, select "install update". Now you have an android device with the latest software, no bloatware, and a host of other awesome features.

i've never seen an android device be able to be upgraded that way, and i work on an android rom.

even on the nexus phones which are arguably the most friendly to installing a custom rom, you have to hook the phone up to a computer, install the android sdk for usb drivers and download a fastboot binary, run "fastboot oem unlock", erase all of your phone's data, then install the custom rom and set everything back up.

on nearly every other phone, the process is much more complicated involving hacks to get around a locked bootloader. i remember doing this on my mytouch 3g and the process involved 2 microsd cards, a hex editor, and a strange website where i had to type in some serial number or something from my phone and download a specially crafted binary for it to put on one of the sd cards.

The problem is that you're relying on a third party which does it in their free time. I am not sure they're up to the level of the Linux kernel or Firefox yet.

And installing stuff on a PC is ingrained into people's psyche, if they can't do it themselves, they get some other folks to do it for them. Upgrading phones? Not so much. My friend never updated her iPhone 4 once. She once used iTunes to transfer songs to it when she bought it and then hated iTunes and didn't listen to music on the phone enough to connect it again. I installed a bunch of apps/games on her phone that she uses/plays, but whenever I see the phone, I see updates to the apps that are never installed from the app store. The other day, 34 apps were pending install on the app store icon!

I know that's unfathomable to us geeks, but that is how much of the general populace is. They wouldn't even know what a ROM means or how to go about finding what's the best one from xda-dev or how or even why they should attempt to install it instead of just using something that "works"(well or not) for now.

That's why this entire topic is a tempest in the teapot. Only us geeks and computer enthusiasts care about firmware updates. In real life, I know many people who are satisfied with their Android 1.6, 2.1 and iOS 3.x.

These people, even if they know that upgrade is available won't bother. The existing device with it's current firmware works for them, so why change it.

There are several significant problems with this that do impact regular people as well:

1) Developers must invest more time and money in order to support a wider range of firmware revisions, as the user base is more fractured. This leads to less app selection for users, and more buggy behavior on apps that are available. If you're an iOS developer, you can focus on just the last major firmware revision and reach 95%+ of the market, or support the last two major firmware revisions and reach 99%+ of the market, whereas on Android, you're forced to support a few more than that, and the populations stuck at each older revision are much more significant. Read the article for Android stats by revision. Here's an article with a bit more detail on the iOS side:

http://www.marco.org/2011/08/13/instapaper-ios-device-and-ve...

2) Performance and security updates are unavailable, making the user experience sub-optimal, and potentially putting users' personal information at risk.

Are you saying manufacturers should stop supplying updates and security fixes since most people dont bother to install the updates / fixes ?

Read the whole article. It matters for developers and for the platform. Even if users don't (know they) care.

Users are missing security fixes, developers can't use new features in new versions.

Not to mention it is easy to upgrade windows on your PC if you want if the hardware supports it.

>And don't forget the mandatory "crapware" that carriers pre-install.

ICS supposedly solves this problem but one has to wonder how many low-end Android phones will be sold in the next year (or even two?) that won't support ICS since the N1 won't be getting it.

I'd say Gingerbread will still be the most pre-installed Android version during all 2012.

Sadly I agree. Its also why I'm not too concerned that my n1 wont get a supported upgrade - I'll be needing a device that's down where the users are to dev & test. Ics will have to wait a bit.

Unfortunately I suspect you're right.

That's highly doubtful. After the source is available the full transition to the new OS by all manufacturers, even the cheap ones, seems to take about 6 months. Gingerbread source was released last December and there were no Froyo devices being sold by summer.

>there were no Froyo devices being sold by summer

What? There are still Froyo devices being sold now, as described in the article we are currently discussing:

That’s because every US carrier is still selling - even just now introducing - smartphones that will almost certainly never run Gingerbread and beyond.

Example: http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/huawei-impulse-4g-at/450...

Stores are filled with Froyo Tablets & Phones. Not like a year ago. But still lots.

The other point is that iOS is chockfull of crapware, though for some reason people ignore crapware if it comes straight from Apple. iOS 5 even prevents you from hiding some of the crap inside folders, I noticed this with the Newsstand app.

I think you're kind of missing the point of why the carrier crapware is bad. It isn't solely because you can't hide it or remove it, it's because in addition to that it is generally really poorly written software that has a terrible user experience and often only exists as an advertisement to some other product or service (ie. NASCAR app). Additionally in the case of some manufacturers and carriers, the standard UI is replaced with potentially less usable, but more importantly non-standard, creating an inconsistant user experience which fragments the platform.

TL;DR: if you buy an iOS device you get a consistant user experience. Thanks to the crapware, from Android you do not.

Why is that even significant? Do you have 5 iphones you use in your every day life that jumping between them would be painful if they had slightly different OSs? Doubtful. Phones have had inconsistent UIs for almost a decade before iphone, and all the iphone did was become the most popular. Razrs had consistent UIs right? But compared with a generic flip phone they were different. I don't see why all of the sudden this fragmentation and inconsistent UI is a such an evil thing or even a noteworthy subject. The manufacturers settings have no effect on apps unless they block the market place entirely. Then again I suppose the people writing articles about this subject are apple-enthusiasts and/or techies. I rarely see Jane Doe writing about fragmentation - and there is a good reason for that.

Pre-installed Apple applications are a whole different league from, for example, a pre-loaded unremovable trailer video for Confessions of a Shopaholic, which actually came on the last phone I had before the 3GS.

While the iOS bundled apps are usually quite good, what if you really don't like the built-in e-mail client?

I remember apps being rejected based on replicating functionality that already existed in Apple-branded apps. Is this still common?

The reason you can't hide Newsstand in a folder is that it IS a folder.

Limiting yes but it's not "preventing" you, it's just a constraint.

I do agree that it's irritating that you can't uninstall certain stuff though. Stocks is the main example which I think a majority of users have little or no interest in and up until iOS5 the Apple weather app was decidedly meh.

ICS makes preinstalled apps removable? Even one Google preinstalls, like Maps and Gallery and Twitter?

You can hide it within preferences which is probably the main issue with many users. From what I've seen these apps matter very little in terms of storage.

Newer (late 2010+) phones have finally learned to start putting a reasonable amount of onboard NAND, so app storage isn't near the problem it used to be. The "disable" feature sounds like it also `chmod -x`'s the app in question so it can't start, not just hide away the icon.

The one bit I'm worried about is if carriers are going to be able to comment out the feature (and the data controls, which I'm far more concerned about getting removed)

I suspect they will not be able to remove the feature as long as it's an official Android phone. My initial guess is that this will be added to CTS, or at least the list of requirements for things that work on Android.

Thus far, Google has shown a remarkable lack of backbone when it comes to the carriers. They're free to kill/restrict tethering, block non-Market apps, disable SIP support, not to mention the non-removable bloatware situation that motivated the app-disable feature in the first place. I'm not yet convinced they're willing to say 'no' to the telcos.

Depends on the phone and how much crapware is installed. I ended up having to flash my UK Orange-branded HTC Desire because they'd installed so much that there was only enough storage left to install a few user apps.

Newer phones are much better off in this regard.

I am using a branded T-Mobile HTC phone and I cannot agree more about unwanted crapware. I have a "Top Ten Apps" app on my phone which is preinstalled by T-Mobile, is not removable und runs permanently as a background process with 14mb ram (and I never started it) -.- I don't need to mention all those facebook, twitter and other "social" stuff where I don't even have accounts for.

Ha. Non-Orange phones are much better off in this regard (at least in the UK). And non-branded phones are even better.

I don't think carriers have realised just how much ill-will their crapware/crippling branding process engenders. In the past, they created a market for tools like Davinci, even though I resent having to use something like that to get MY hardware back into a sane state (and risk bricking it in the process). Now, they're pushing people towards rooting their Android phone. I haven't yet rooted my new (non-contract-encumbered) S2, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. When I do, I'll be sure to install my usual selection of advert-filtering, revenue-denying proxies while I'm at it...

How does it solve the issue? By making the UI better? But won't OEMs want to "differentiate" by installing their own bloated flashy custom UI?

Not to mention the uninstallable adware and junkware installed and always running in the background. Does ICS solve this?

Yes, ICS solves that.

Even if the apk is installed in system partition (that means you can't uninstall it), you can mark it hidden and the system will never take it into account at startup, intent broadcast or in other situations. It is as good as removed (except that it physically can't be removed, because you may want to restore the phone to factory settings).

i give it two days after launch for a cheap model sold by AT&T to came with ICS patched to ignore certain nascar apps.

>you can mark it hidden

Is there a UI function in the OS(for example by right clicking on the icon) for that or should it be done via a adb shell?

It's available in system settings:

http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/20/bloatware-kill-switch-ice...

Do you really call "sweeping the crap under the carpet" "solving" the problem? I call it a workaround, at best. Users will often want the used space back too, not just hide the icon.

I'm very happy with Android. But, I only recommend the Nexus line and this post seems to back that up (we'll see as things go forward).

that's choosing the lesser of two evils.

my nexus one shows as green, yes, i have all the latest software, but no fix yet for the touchscreen issue. That alone would make the nexus one RED since launch on that table for me, as this hints to zero support.

try to use your touch screen for 10min while the device is charging from an empty battery (some other use cases also trigger the bug, but this is 100% reproductible)

Is that a hardware issue? Never had a touchscreen problem myself when charging.

a combination of hardware and software. cheap hardware used in some lots require software recalibration on the driver.

if this does not happen to your phone you are in the happy minority of nexus one users.

to the rest of us, while using the touch screen for extended periods of time (shorted if using both fingers and/or charging) it will start to behave erradicaly. Touching one area will register a touch somewhere else. This is also affected by the pressure. the harder you press the less likely to see the bug. It will get worse and affect larger areas until you turn the screen off and on again (lock, unlock and it's back to perfect condition)

worth to mention, this does not happens with some mods. but i haven't rooted my phone as i use it mostly for development and like to test against the stock image.

I saw a very similar bug with my Motorola Cliq (which eventually, half-heartedly got updates) using the stock T-Mobile ROMs and Cyanogen Mod. Though I didn't track it down to that specific case I actually tended to use it while charging pretty heavily. Not sure if they're using the same hardware for part of the touchscreen, the S definitely had higher-end hw in general.

have you tried using a different charger? Usually that helps.

never thought about that... but it that happens with the two stock chargers, the iphone wall charger, the desktop dock, and with the car charger and running the GPS app.

the car charger+gps app is in fact the worst case, as it will not need touch screen usage to happen. and will happen very fast and all the time. so basically, using the gps for more then 20min, i know i will have to: press power button to turn screen off, press it again to turn screen on, type PIN, press the damn gps button i needed to press 2min ago.

Are OS updates really that important for most consumers?

I have a Desire running Froyo. I don't think I've really missed out on a huge amount by not getting Gingerbread.

While it may not be directly important to the final users (if you don't count security upgrades between versions), it definitely impact the ecosystem. If you need to pick a platform to develop for, you go for the more homogeneous one from a OS point of view. Also enterprises invest more in devices that have a longer support life. They want to buy something that even in 2-3 years is fully supported by the manufacture.

Enterprises don't care about device support life. They care, if the phone will survive for about two years. Then the employees will start bug you, that they want new gadget (I know, we have several hundred of them...).

Hard to say objectively, but I believe that actively updated software enhances perceived value. The human mind, even the non-technical one, is deeply attentive to change - as website iterations show, subtle improvements can have huge payoffs and even feed into the mind's reward circuitry. Every time there's a round of iPhone updates, I run into more than a few "normal" people that are delighted by tiny new features (anything from background wallpaper to iMessage read receipts). To people that don't usually keep their software up to date (but are coaxed into it by iTunes and now iCloud), getting new abilities without cost or effort is especially cool/rewarding.

Are security updates important for most consumers?

Hell yes. Whether they know it or not.

The Eclair/Froyo barrier is quite significant. No JIT, no App2Sd, no flash, no animated gif, abandoned Gmail app ... etc.

"I heard about this really cool new game, but it won't work on my three month old phone" really doesn't endear devices to the masses.

But that doesn't happen, because it's easy for game developers to support FroYo+ devices with the same APK.

Example: The latest hot Android game is "Wind-up Knight". It supports Android 2.2 and up.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.robotinvader.knigh...

As long as you don't need new APIs or features in a particular version of Android, sure.

Do you have any specific APIs or features in mind?

I think most app devs look at the installed base numbers and choose to support 2.1+ or 2.2+. I can't think of any APIs in 2.3 or 3.0 (or even 4.0) that are so wonderful that they are worth cutting off such a large part of the potential customer base.

So in that case, what about customers who DO buy new devices? Your argument suggests that developers won't build software to target the new capabilities their devices have. In which case the manufacturers' refusal to keep their old devices up to date is actually undermining their ability to sell new hardware ("Why should I buy a new android phone; all the software is written to target my existing two year old model")

Apple faces this problem too.

There are many ways to make a new device attractive besides making it incompatible with old devices. Support for new radio standards. Larger, brighter, higher resolution screens. More flash storage, a better camera, more attractive industrial design, more built-in apps, and a more polished UI for built-in apps.

Will this sort of backwards-compatible improvement always be possible? Probably not. Someday all the specs will be maxed out. But for now it's a good strategy.

Developers can write apps that are backwards compatible, yet still support new OS or hardware features when available.

Also, some developers will write dedicated apps that make full use of new OS or hardware features (like fancy camera apps).

OS updates are probably more important for developers initially---having access to the latest and greatest API/phone features/bugfixes. This becomes important for consumers when the apps they want to use require a version of the OS they can't get.

You've missed out on better battery life, definitely. I have a Desire running 7.1 Cyanogenmod, which is 2.3 and it has massively improved it.

I agree they're maybe not essential to a lot of consumers. Lord knows most people never thought about whether their dumbphone's OS was outdated or not, but I do think it's less than ideal for the ecosystem in the long term.

In terms of perceived value? Definitely. See all the flack Apple received for not supporting Siri on the iPhone 4. Now imagine if they hadn't released iOS 4 and multitasking on the 3GS.

Software is written to an OS, and can't be run by prior OSes. So you'll miss out on some apps.

They are to me. I like that something I bought a while ago continues to improve and add features. Toasters don't do that.

Apple doesn't pander.

They don't try to sell product by giving large commissions to the sales people. If you walk into an AT&T store, the sales associates won't recommend an iPhone.

Apple gets smart customers who understand the advantages of what they are buying, not customers who were duped into buying something because some clueless sales associate got a huge commission for selling it to them.

>This is quite different from buying, say, a Dell/HP PC vs. a Mac -- in both cases do you get a working, upgradeable machine.

But if you buy phones with unlocked bootloaders, it's just largely the same. As long as there is a device maintainer that has written an overlay for CM, you will get the newer OS updates. Before you jump on me and tell me "consumers shouldn't have to watch out for that", let's just remember the controversy still unraveling regarding Secure Boot with UEFI and Windows 8.

This is a controversial post? "Secure Boot" (without a way to disable or specify keys) is exactly like a locked bootloader on an Android phone.

i don't buy this 'a good contender for iOS'.

they are different leagues.

The people that consider an android or ios as equals and decide on device color or price won't even know what this table is about.

history is repeating. iOS is a IBM mainframe. with it's golden cuffs. Android is the radio shack PC. with it's "require soldering".

i give that android is still in it's infancy. and that the availability of OSes are few. just like in the beginning of the PC era all you had was BASICshells. all you have now for android is Android and some slighly different shells. but soon an android device will be like a PC. you can choose your linux distro. and then you will have the option of having full control of your mobile, just like you have of your servers.

There may be some truth to that for the type of person who reads HN, but it's certainly not true for the wider public. Most people don't care about having full control of their mobile device, they just want it to work.

exactly. and for them both this discussion and the long term support is irrelevant.

It's not irrelevant to them -- it's a concern that they are unable to articulate.

Anecdotal support: for the Android users I know who fall into this group, it manifests as a vague set of complaints -- certain apps don't run, had to take it into the store a lot, app claiming to be available for Android not available for their phone -- which are all symptoms of having what is called here an orphaned phone.

So yeah, they don't know or care whether they are running version 1.x or 2.y. But they do know that they are generally dissatisfied with their phone.

Android == "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell!"