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Has Android ecosystem ever given a hint that a device would be supported after 2 years? Certainly for phones you are supposed to get a new one from your carrier

by knughit 11y ago

Has Android ecosystem ever given a hint that a device would be supported after 2 years? Certainly for phones you are supposed to get a new one from your carrier.

darklajid 11y ago
But .. why? I mean - if that device works perfectly fine, why buy a new one for a _software_ upgrade? And even that won't help in general (I was bitten by HTC, LG and Samsung in the past. Basically every Android vendor is crap and the GP calls out Google for being only slightly better).
- yeezul 11y ago
  Because software upgrades more often than not includes a lot of bells and whistles. You can go ahead and try to update a Pentium 3 to Windows 10. Will probably work, but it wasn't intended to.
  - darklajid 11y ago
    Now that's just BS, sorry. Okay, the Pentium 3 is not 3 years old, it's more like 20 (soonish). I'd bet that there are quite a lot of machines out there that are >= 3 years old, running Windows 10. Or more appropriately, running a recent Linux distribution. Sure, at some point the hardware capabilities become a problem. But I just don't see that for a random operating system (Android in this case), after 2-3 years. The real problem seems the infrastructure - every vendor claims that it is a hellish effort to move all their useless crap and customizations, all their closed source blobs and magic fluff to a new AOSP base. And _there_ lies the core problem. If vendors would stop messing with random UI changes to 'be different', if manufacturers wouldn't hide their drivers, only THEN would your hardware argument come into play. If I technically _could_ upgrade my late HTC Hero to Android M I might find the performance lacking - although again: I fail to see why the basic operating system wouldn't work just fine, playing games or trying do watch HD videos on a tiny display notwithstanding.
  - Zigurd 11y ago
    Android L runs fine on a tepid single core ARM CPU with an equally unexciting GPU. I'm using a SoM like that in an embedded system. It should run fine for many years and several Android updates. High end handset specmanship is completely disconnected from actual system requirements.
- quicklyfrozen 11y ago
  Because they've figured that the group of users remaining on older devices and actually caring that they run the latest software is pretty small and they don't want to dedicate the resources needed to support them.
- xbmcuser 11y ago
  If the device works perfectly fine why expect new features on it.
  - IanCal 11y ago
    Because it should be reasonable to have new software on two year old hardware? I don't get why I should need to throw away a perfectly functional screen, battery, CPU, RAM, camera, etc. because I'd like an improved permissions system.

by knughit 11y ago

Has Android ecosystem ever given a hint that a device would be supported after 2 years? Certainly for phones you are supposed to get a new one from your carrier.

darklajid 11y ago

But .. why? I mean - if that device works perfectly fine, why buy a new one for a _software_ upgrade? And even that won't help in general (I was bitten by HTC, LG and Samsung in the past. Basically every Android vendor is crap and the GP calls out Google for being only slightly better).

yeezul 11y ago
Because software upgrades more often than not includes a lot of bells and whistles. You can go ahead and try to update a Pentium 3 to Windows 10. Will probably work, but it wasn't intended to.
- darklajid 11y ago
  Now that's just BS, sorry. Okay, the Pentium 3 is not 3 years old, it's more like 20 (soonish). I'd bet that there are quite a lot of machines out there that are >= 3 years old, running Windows 10. Or more appropriately, running a recent Linux distribution. Sure, at some point the hardware capabilities become a problem. But I just don't see that for a random operating system (Android in this case), after 2-3 years. The real problem seems the infrastructure - every vendor claims that it is a hellish effort to move all their useless crap and customizations, all their closed source blobs and magic fluff to a new AOSP base. And _there_ lies the core problem. If vendors would stop messing with random UI changes to 'be different', if manufacturers wouldn't hide their drivers, only THEN would your hardware argument come into play. If I technically _could_ upgrade my late HTC Hero to Android M I might find the performance lacking - although again: I fail to see why the basic operating system wouldn't work just fine, playing games or trying do watch HD videos on a tiny display notwithstanding.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  Android L runs fine on a tepid single core ARM CPU with an equally unexciting GPU. I'm using a SoM like that in an embedded system. It should run fine for many years and several Android updates. High end handset specmanship is completely disconnected from actual system requirements.
quicklyfrozen 11y ago
Because they've figured that the group of users remaining on older devices and actually caring that they run the latest software is pretty small and they don't want to dedicate the resources needed to support them.
xbmcuser 11y ago
If the device works perfectly fine why expect new features on it.
- IanCal 11y ago
  Because it should be reasonable to have new software on two year old hardware? I don't get why I should need to throw away a perfectly functional screen, battery, CPU, RAM, camera, etc. because I'd like an improved permissions system.