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> Users are massively excited about new Android releases and these people are usually out of touch enthusiast-types who are happy with half-baked releases that

> Users are massively excited about new Android releases and these people are usually out of touch enthusiast-types who are happy with half-baked releases that require a lot of tweaking, rooting, and replacement launchers and such to be usable. The 5.0 release a year ago was just a nightmare. It was slow and introduced a significant memory leak that I find impossible to believe that Google didn't know about at launch. But Google likes to cheer on its product and have Nexus yearly launches. Tying your physical product to your software one seems a questionable strategy at best, and a boneheaded decision at worst. I'd be happy with a new version every two years with significant refinement done in the meantime. I have a Nexus and I fear every major update. It just breaks my phone and causes me stress until a .1 or .2 update finally fixes the issues Google introduced. If we're in a position where even Nexus owners are scared of updates, then there's something fundamentally wrong here. Worse, this morally empowers OEMs to say, "Well, google releases unfinished code, so we'll going to skip this update for a while." Honestly, the phone OEMs that went from 4.x to 5.1, skipping 5.0, were on the right side of history here. Every other Google update is half-baked and everyone knows it. I don't think Google is giving itself enough time to iron out the issues. Slowing down this train is the only solution here that makes sense, imo. Meanwhile my ipad is bulletproof. Sure it gets minor issues now and again, but Apple's QA level is leaps above Android. Lastly, the mobile revolution, at least in terms of phones, has long matured. Every update is just another denial about how close we are to the innovation grave here. There's just nothing compelling that requires frequent updates. Its time to move into a refinement period, the same way MS took NT4/2000 and made XP/2003 or Apple took a 3-4 year innovation break between Tiger/Leopard and Lion/Mountain Lion.

wangii 11y ago
To down voters, why down voted this comment? I find it honest and not offensive.
tdkl 11y ago
This is exactly the reason why I don't want a Nexus anymore, getting updates slowly is a feature, instead of playing a beta tester for Googles "ship it" culture. I switched to iOS on iPhone 5S last year after Lollipop being a shitshow, but iOS 9 has shown me that Apple isn't anything better, because they have to sell new hardware, so gimping older devices on purpose is the name of the game. I don't care about version numbers, if the OS is a stutter show after an update. All those iOS update bragging would be interesting if Apple would allow downgrades to previous major versions of iOS until next one gets released. Now a rule of the thumb is find the device/software you like right now and decide about updating it only after research of feedback.
- giovannibajo1 11y ago
  Which features did Apple remove or break on your phone with iOS 9? Or are you speaking of new features that you read about and were not added to it? There's a big difference wrt "fear of updating" which is the topic on hand.
  - tdkl 11y ago
    It brought stuttering performance when scrolling lists throughout the system on the 5S (mine) and 6 (from a friend). Even the 6S was stuttering on certain portions, but they somehow "mended" that (I say mended because they didn't bother much with 6 and 5S). They switched from OpenGL to Metal in iOS 9 for the first time, so it had to do something with it. There isn't anything UI wise in iOS 9 that would explain the difference in drawing performance. After the signing window was closed, I was stuck with it. I tried ongoing betas until 9.2, but then just had enough and sold it. I refuse to buy into the Apple greed of selling new hardware with shoddy software updates and so far I've read at the time, this wasn't the first time (iOS 7). The majority of non-power users just think "hey phone is too old I have to upgrade" and buy a new device. I mentioned fear of updating because this was the second time in one year I was burned with an update on two different platforms. The grass isn't greener on the other side.
- xbmcuser 11y ago
  Google has changed their way of doing things a lot over the years many parts have been moved over to Google play so that they can be updated separately. They have also released Android N to oems so that the oems can start working on porting it a lot earlier. The problem is that oem sell hardware so have little incentives to keep updating the older devices. Although another change is starting in Oem where the number of different hardware versions produced are being brought down. Although Samsung is the biggest oem for Android and they have the worst system. Samsung to me has the power to release the same phone for all carriers and regions and also stop carriers putting bloat on the device like Apple does.

wangii 11y ago

To down voters, why down voted this comment? I find it honest and not offensive.

tdkl 11y ago

This is exactly the reason why I don't want a Nexus anymore, getting updates slowly is a feature, instead of playing a beta tester for Googles "ship it" culture. I switched to iOS on iPhone 5S last year after Lollipop being a shitshow, but iOS 9 has shown me that Apple isn't anything better, because they have to sell new hardware, so gimping older devices on purpose is the name of the game. I don't care about version numbers, if the OS is a stutter show after an update. All those iOS update bragging would be interesting if Apple would allow downgrades to previous major versions of iOS until next one gets released. Now a rule of the thumb is find the device/software you like right now and decide about updating it only after research of feedback.

giovannibajo1 11y ago
Which features did Apple remove or break on your phone with iOS 9? Or are you speaking of new features that you read about and were not added to it? There's a big difference wrt "fear of updating" which is the topic on hand.
- tdkl 11y ago
  It brought stuttering performance when scrolling lists throughout the system on the 5S (mine) and 6 (from a friend). Even the 6S was stuttering on certain portions, but they somehow "mended" that (I say mended because they didn't bother much with 6 and 5S). They switched from OpenGL to Metal in iOS 9 for the first time, so it had to do something with it. There isn't anything UI wise in iOS 9 that would explain the difference in drawing performance. After the signing window was closed, I was stuck with it. I tried ongoing betas until 9.2, but then just had enough and sold it. I refuse to buy into the Apple greed of selling new hardware with shoddy software updates and so far I've read at the time, this wasn't the first time (iOS 7). The majority of non-power users just think "hey phone is too old I have to upgrade" and buy a new device. I mentioned fear of updating because this was the second time in one year I was burned with an update on two different platforms. The grass isn't greener on the other side.
xbmcuser 11y ago
Google has changed their way of doing things a lot over the years many parts have been moved over to Google play so that they can be updated separately. They have also released Android N to oems so that the oems can start working on porting it a lot earlier. The problem is that oem sell hardware so have little incentives to keep updating the older devices. Although another change is starting in Oem where the number of different hardware versions produced are being brought down. Although Samsung is the biggest oem for Android and they have the worst system. Samsung to me has the power to release the same phone for all carriers and regions and also stop carriers putting bloat on the device like Apple does.