Sony smartphones won't get Jelly Bean until next year
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Google really needs to fix this. I would think through standards and modularization.
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Sigh. Sony phones do look good. But, I'm weaning myself off of Sony after their customoer hostile actions as of late.
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I'm still running Gingerbread. Not bothering putting ICS on this android, I don't think it could take it. That said, it would be nice if they would come to some kind of leveling on when and how they do these releases across the entire platform, but I guess to some degree that would throw a monkey wrench in the works that is android. I mean after all, if it was set up like Apple, it might as well become same. ::shudder::
On a different note, why the hell are they using this food based names to move through the progression of the OS's? More rhetorical than anything else but I hate having to say something to the tune of "I have Ice Cream Sandwich as my current android OS", it just has a dopey feel to it, kinda like watching adults play with duplo bricks. Eh, maybe I'm a curmudgeon and don't realize it yet. Give me a numbered release any day over dopey names.
On a different note, why the hell are they using this food based names to move through the progression of the OS's? More rhetorical than anything else but I hate having to say something to the tune of "I have Ice Cream Sandwich as my current android OS", it just has a dopey feel to it, kinda like watching adults play with duplo bricks. Eh, maybe I'm a curmudgeon and don't realize it yet. Give me a numbered release any day over dopey names.
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I've been looking to switch away from iPhone to Android and I've come to the conclusion that unless I see "Nexus" in the name of the device, I may end up screwed on updates. I've been holding off, as there are rumors of a new Nexus in the next 30-60 days, though the LG part is a bit worrisome. If it is indeed an LG device, I may have to go with the S3 and risk an update dead end.
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Transmitte":3lhb4sls said:
Or just say, you know, "I'm running version 4.1." It's not that difficult, I promise you.
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academic.sam":3qvyq7yx said:
This crap makes me wary of the Android ecosystem. Oh and I agree, my money will never purchase a Sony product again. Sony has made sure of that with all their bloody anti-consumer bollocs...
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brianmac86":34xovfk3 said:
The idea is that the dessert names are code names, the actual releases are numbered. Look at OS X releases, for example, or Ubuntu. The actual releases are numbered, but people latch on to the code name.
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The Xperia U was released may 2012 with Gingerbread and won't be updated to Jelly Bean that was released in july 2012.
Absolutely pathetic.
Absolutely pathetic.
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Mydrrin":zuxmx8k9 said:
True. But how much of this is up to Google?
IIRC, one of the reasons the deal between Apple and Verizon fell through (the initial iPhone launch) was that Jobs was adamant about not letting the carrier interfere with the software. Unfortunately for Google, it appears that Jobs got the "deal of the century" insofar as this is concerned. I doubt another platform (such as Android) would get a deal like that now.
It's a real shame, and I wonder, if besides the carrier-mandated crapware, the main motivation is to keep customers on the upgrade path. Sell gimped phones, then the next-generation gimped phone at the next contract renewal.
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I blame Sony for this, not Google. Similarly to how long it takes software development shops to patch zero day exploits (browsers, plugins, etc), this kinda thing is quickly becoming a good public guage to see how well these hardware companies actually have their engineering shit together. Maybe it's just my opinion as a developer, but I think they should easily be capable of tracking Android pre-releases across their recent hardware, and making a final release on their products within a reasonable (month) timeframe after it goes public. If they don't care to organize the infrastructure required to do that, or just aren't capable of providing good support for their products, then maybe they just don't deserve our business.
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Transmitte":33ho0bqp said:
Google's always had a sense of fun, just look at their Google doodles, their map directions from Seattle to Honolulu ("kayak across the Pacific Ocean") or their "Oh, snap!" error messages. I find it to be pretty refreshing in the stuffed shirt world of corporate America.
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CatOne41":1d89z4zq said:
oh yeah , that's going great , just great.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397729,00.asp
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Speaking as someone who used to work with two (non-US) carriers on ranging mobile phones, I promise you that if a software update is not available from any carrier in any part of the world, then the lack of update is not the fault of the carriers.
One day in the future (if I ever get angry enough) I'll tell you about the first hand experience I have of the things that OEMs often attempt to demand from carriers in exchange for providing a software update for a device.
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Fokker":2pj2a846 said:
Can't blame Apple for this.
A similar scenario would be like trying to run Windows 8 on a Pentium system, and then blaming Microsoft for abysmal performance. That is precisely what Apple is trying to avoid.
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Mydrrin":2xvi52sl said:
But the problem isn't Google or Android. It's the carriers. How is it that a very small team (sometimes even just one person) can provide updated Android ROMs for 30 phone models, but carriers can't push updates? There are several reasons of course, but the primary one is that they so heavily modify Android before it goes on the phone. They decide what media players it will have, what skin it will have, what ads and apps will be pre-installed, on top of the minor phone specific hardware tweaks, for EACH line of phone.
Until carriers get out of the way and stop putting their own makeup on the OS, we'll never see reasonable upgrade availability.
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Doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the rumored Sony Nexus handset. The LG one looks pretty terrible with that sparkled back, so I was hoping Sony would come in with a sleeker option.
The glacial & staggered upgrade pace is far and away the biggest thing keeping me from switching from iOS to Android. I like iOS less and less with each update and like more and more about Android with each new version, but I'm so disappointed by those market share by Android version charts that show like 60% of handsets still running Gingerbread.
The glacial & staggered upgrade pace is far and away the biggest thing keeping me from switching from iOS to Android. I like iOS less and less with each update and like more and more about Android with each new version, but I'm so disappointed by those market share by Android version charts that show like 60% of handsets still running Gingerbread.
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Mydrrin":2r31tbkb said:
There is no business reason that Google would have any interest in this. They might say things for PR purposes, but updates do not have a significant impact on Google's revenue from search or advertisements on these devices.
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Are there any Android phones that were release in 2008 that got 4.1? Or even 4.0? Honest question.Fokker":1kkzkl7n said:
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Mydrrin":muk5tpwx said:
But they don't. Android's increasing global market share has proven that mass market consumers simply don't care. Commenters on tech sites do, but we're a vocal minority. Most people expect the phone to run as it did the day they bought it, and some may not even welcome updates.
Personally, I'll never buy a non-Nexus again.
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Fokker":3vf4f8nf said:
I think that there is a bit of a different between lack of updates to the current release for a phone built and sold over three years ago when compared to no updates to the current version of Android for phones that are going to be released later this year and the beginning of next!
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Transmitte":2hjf8s82 said:
Agree 100% on uniform rules regarding upgrades. But you'd be surprised what you phone can take.
I have an HTC Legend (release date: March 2010, running Éclair). It was updated by HTC up to Gingerbread, though that happened LONG after Android 2.3 had been out. I thought that was the end of the line and didn't bother rooting because I also thought Legend couldn't handle 4.x and in addition there were no ROMs for Legend running anything beyond Gingerbread.
Then I found out about a beta ROM running ICS and made a final try at rooting. That done, I used ICS on my 2-year-old phone for some 4 months until a Jelly Bean ROM appeared on xda-dev. I downloaded that, installed it and have been running it stably for 2 weeks. The phone is very responsive and I can use everything except WiFi tethering due to non-existent drivers.
You say you're not bothering to put ICS on you phone, which to me indicates you're not against rooting per se, or maybe you've rooted already. If that's the case, and there's a ROM available with good reviews for your phone, you may want to give ICS/JB a try
Transmitte":2hjf8s82 said:
You mean, like naming desktop OS versions after animals? And no, I'm not going for Apple - that'd be too easy. I'm thinking of Ubuntu and their distro version names that are not only animal-based, they're also alliterative (Hardy Heron? Jaunty Jackalope? Karmik Koala?)! The nerve of these guys...
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Fokker":3voyobi7 said:
You do know the Apple 3G is over 4 years old, don't you... These Android phones are less than 2 years old. Apple are definitely better than Android in this respect.
Now if you said "features", that'd be a different story. Apple locked iPhone 4 users out of new features (eg. SIRI) a year after the iPhone was released - which is very poor.
Google have a serious issue here. When players like Sony and Motorola (aka Google) fail to deliver timely updates, something is seriously broken. As per the mantra, stick with a Nexus
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Not quite. The problem is that OEMs do such a heavy customisation on Android that they have a significant amount of work to do to update to the new version of Android and then layer on top all their modifications. All of this work is perceived as a money sink because they cannot get anyone to pay for it - even though they try it with the carriers all the time.issor":uom1sljq said:
Carriers often cannot push updates because they don't get them downstream from the OEMs. Yes there are times when they have the updates but they don't want to do anything with them (more so in the US than elsewhere) - but the large majority of the time they simply don't get the updates.
I totally agree with you that carriers in the US shouldn't have the power that they do - but outside of the US, those customisations amount to three or four tabs in an excel spreadsheet, some wallpapers and startup images and some APK's for pre-loading. God knows, I've filled in enough of them in my time.
And yet despite all this, the OEMs are still not shipping even their variants of Android which have no carrier modifications (for handsets sold directly to customers). That should give you an idea where the bottleneck is.
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I just looked it up. The first Android phone, the HTC Dream, was released and discontinued around the same timeframes as the iPhone 3. It was officially updated to Android 1.5.Fokker":14gby2a5 said:
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IHATENAMES":7t89vme1 said:
Ask Verizon Galaxy Nexus users how long it took to get JB officially. That statment no longer stands.
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I think the reason manufacturers get away with this is that the average person getting a smartphone does not think about it as a computer. They don't expect software updates and new features - they expect it to just keep working the way it did when they bought it, like a camera or a television. I would love to see a survey of potential smartphone buyers where they ranked "ability to get the latest software updates" against other factors.
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xsteven77x":27wfpxp3 said:
Which is why you don't buy carrier-locked/specific phones if you want to get updates.
Also, it's just going to be the same with the new Nexus's if you buy them carrier-locked. The update will be released fast, but it won't be approved by the carrier for a while. Thus, don't buy carrier-locked phones if you want updates when they are released.
puddleglumm":27wfpxp3 said:
Exactly. How often do you hear people updating their non-smart TV with a new firmware? And updating their camera? As if! People treat phones as an appliance. It doesn't need updates, ever, right? Well, no, they aren't appliances, just like SmartTVs aren't appliances, and require updates.
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puck0114":3tn7t4qy said:
So true. I upgraded my wife's HTC Sensation recently for the first time since she bought it and she HATES the update because like one icon is in a new place. Makes absolutely no difference to her what improvements were made otherwise, just because of that.
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academic.sam":2buitr4b said:
As far as Android hardware goes, Sony's products are completely mediocre.
For phones, Samsung and HTC make the best hardware. For tablets it is Samsung, Amazon, and ASUS (Nexus 7).
Secondly, customer hostile? You are being ridiculous. Sony seems more lazy and slow and out of touch rather than anything else in the Android space.
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I would like to see this chart updated with current data. I am mainly curious to see which Android vendors are good about this, etc.
(http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982 ... f-support/)
(http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982 ... f-support/)
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xsteven77x":31tdxmt0 said:
Kind of sounds like an answer to the "whose at fault" circle jerk on updates. In that case it was definitely Verizon. In other cases I think it's a combo. I had a Desire, which "didn't have space for 2.3." If they'd remove the malware every carrier bundles it would have had room, but I think HTC was well aware that that wasn't in the cards.
Then there's the pace at which carriers drop support. It's 1-2 years, then "that phone is old, buy a new one, we won't even order accessories for it." So why would a manufacturer produce updates for a 2 year old phone, even if they were selling them brand new just two months ago.
Samsung ought to use its position to tell carriers they cannot modify Samsung phones if they want to sell them. I'm guessing Verizon is the only one that would be able to seriously oppose them. So maybe they could sell special phones to Verizon that never get updates, but let Verizon bundle their malware.
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There was a point where this kind of strategy actually made sense.
The new phones were so much faster and better and maybe even had new features impossible to duplicate on the old phones, like a bigger screen, cameras etc. Planned obsolescence or not, it just made sense to get a new phone anyways.
We're WELL past that point now, phones from 1 or even 2 years ago are perfectly capable of running JB and beyond and the hardware advantages are becoming negligible.
For example, Apple still sells the iphone 3gs and 4 in some countries, phones which are 2 and 3 years old respectively. How many android manufacturers are selling their 2 year old handsets?
I can think of only TWO logical conclusions. Android manufacturers are either LAZY (or unorganized or some combination), or GREEDY (we want them to buy a new phone even though the old ones work just fine). I would write down Sony into the 2nd category given their track record..
The new phones were so much faster and better and maybe even had new features impossible to duplicate on the old phones, like a bigger screen, cameras etc. Planned obsolescence or not, it just made sense to get a new phone anyways.
We're WELL past that point now, phones from 1 or even 2 years ago are perfectly capable of running JB and beyond and the hardware advantages are becoming negligible.
For example, Apple still sells the iphone 3gs and 4 in some countries, phones which are 2 and 3 years old respectively. How many android manufacturers are selling their 2 year old handsets?
I can think of only TWO logical conclusions. Android manufacturers are either LAZY (or unorganized or some combination), or GREEDY (we want them to buy a new phone even though the old ones work just fine). I would write down Sony into the 2nd category given their track record..
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puck0114":2psbjrt3 said:
When my GF's nexus upgraded to jelly bean and broke all of her kairosoft games, she was not at all impressed with having the latest android OS.
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