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A comment on 5 Months Ago Today the Galaxy Nexus was Released, It Hasn’t Been Updated Since. Parent comment

Re:5 Months Ago Today the Galaxy Nexus was Released, It Hasn... by ajross on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @06:39PM (#3979304)
It's not even true on Verizon. They pushed an OTA to 4.0.2 soon after launch. Verizon did indeed decide to skip 4.0.3, for unstated reasons. Last I heard 4.0.4 (a month and a half old) was in the pipe, but who knows.

The broader point is valid, though. Google needs to make this happen, no one in the rest of the bucket brigade (not the handset vendors, and certainly not the carriers who bear the costs) cares about updates -- only Google and the users do. Or at the very least make it clear why, when AOSP "releases" a version, certain developer phones won't be getting it.

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Re:5 Months Ago Today the Galaxy Nexus was Released, It Hasn... by bri3d on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @06:49PM (#3979341)
I absolutely agree with the broader point, and even the somewhat-shoddily-supported Verizon Galaxy Nexus is a shining example of up-to-date software in comparison to most released Android devices.

I think Google are going to be addressing this in a big way in the US with their recent move to sell unlocked devices directly to consumers. [0]

I am quite interested to see how CDMA (Verizon, Sprint) factors in to Google's latest device play (since CDMA devices, even "unlocked" ones, need to be approved by the carrier to be activated).

0: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230437150457740...

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Re:5 Months Ago Today the Galaxy Nexus was Released, It Hasn... by untog on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @07:15PM (#3979463)
Their move to sell unlocked devices is not new- they did it with the Nexus One and it was a failure. They're trying it again now, but I don't expect much to be different.
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Re:5 Months Ago Today the Galaxy Nexus was Released, It Hasn... by nextparadigms on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @08:05PM (#3979624)
How could Google create an incentive for carriers to upgrade the devices? Ask users to pay $10 for updates?
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Re:5 Months Ago Today the Galaxy Nexus was Released, It Hasn... by ajross on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @08:38PM (#3979739)
My preference would be to cleanly separate the API levels such that Android "compliance" requires the ability to update core components. But that's a software engineering problem, because right now the frameworks are evolving alongside driver and middleware stacks such that you can't just drop an "ICS" OS stack on top of a "Gingerbread" kernel and drivers and expect it to work.

Apple's answer, of course, is "... or else you won't get the next iPhone."

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