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I won't buy an android phone if it's not a Nexus. This isn't because I love Nexus phones, they're just serviceable. I really want an external SD card, but have
by jalami 10y ago
I won't buy an android phone if it's not a Nexus. This isn't because I love Nexus phones, they're just serviceable. I really want an external SD card, but have to make due. I mainly want timely updates for security's sake. AOSP and a rooted OMNIRom/CyanogenMod/Replicant Nexus is the closest you can get to a mainstream, supported FOSS phone these days with the fastest security updates.
One of the real problems is carriers. They have no material incentive to push software updates and are often in hot water about security updates. They actually have a disincentive to push updates. If Samsung doesn't update the Note X to Android Y, you buy a new Note X2 phone from them with fresh Android Y. It's a broken system with misaligned interests all over. So, to contradict the OP, customers, carriers and manufacturers want yearly android releases.
Another problem is the difficulty in updating between releases. I can install Windows or Linux on any junker motherboard and get it to run, but I have to pray to the manufacturer/carrier tag-team to allow my $800 phone to get the next version a year later. Why can't we remove them from the equation, easily? I'm sure this point is full of naivety on my part. It just smells like planned obsolescence.
Another problem is the shift from AOSP to Google Play Services. The deprecated Android browser even had unpatched security holes as 'wontfix, switch to Chrome' last I checked. So many apps rely on GAPPS for anything and everything now, what's the point of an open OS when everything is behind a blackbox service?
Another problem is the centrality of the Play store. F-Droid is a life-saver, but how can I get my Brother Printer Service driver? I can't download it from Brother. I have to get it from Google Play. I've been spinning up a Genymotion emulator with GAPPS just to download, repackage the apks I need and then move it to my Nexus. Then I get hit with 'this app is not available for your device/version/location' and it's spoofing the build.prop file to let me download the damn apk. The whole ecosystem is DRM'd lockin at every turn.
F-droid allows private repos with closed source APKs, I wish a decentralized system like that, like the web, would gain adoption.
- chrisseaton 10y agoWhy do you need the carrier to be involved in your decision to update your phone? All they know about is your SIM card. Do they even know or care what phone or version of Android you are running?
- blacksmith_tb 10y agoMost of the readership on HR doesn't. But most consumers want their phones to "just work" - unless they personally feel the pain of unpatched vulnerabilities, they expect that whatever is running on their phone continues to work. So it seems that the carriers have decided not to risk keeping their customers up to date (not wanting to take on any extra tech support). Carriers don't generally care what you're running on your phone, but since many handsets have locked bootloaders (and/or few people maintaining alternative ROMs), choosing a Nexus device means being able to do what you want, which could include being more secure.
- chrisseaton 10y ago> So it seems that the carriers have decided not to risk keeping their customers up to date But I don't understand how the carrier is involved at all. What if you update your phone on WiFi so you aren't using the carrier at all. They can't intercept that so how are they to blame for whether you can upgrade or not?
- tssva 10y agoIf you purchased your phone through a carrier it comes configured to only allow upgrades approved by that carrier. At least in the US most people still purchase their phones through their carrier.
- jalami 10y agoI guess that depends on how you got your phone. Manufacturers make carrier-specific hardware a lot of the time since carriers buy in bulk. This is slowly going away in the US with most companies switching to pre-paid and BYOD plans, but still an issue. Sometimes it's simply a digit on the end of a model number, other times complete radio frequencies different. I remember when I got my Note2 years ago, I got the T-mobile one because it had the best hardware and most frequencies supported. I waited the required number of months before I could unlock it and hop to ATT for their network. Sometimes only certain model numbers will accept a flash because of whatever the carrier had the manufacturer do to their model. I know there's recent legislation on it, but for a long time there were carrier locks on phones sold with plans and they were the only one you could have on it. Before LTE, CDMA phones couldn't switch carriers but with the grace of heir current carrier as it was on the carriers end. There was no removable SIM. I'm not sure if modern CDMA phones still require explicit requests to the carrier regardless of the LTE SIM as I'm on GSM which has always had them. Modern android even has a SQL database file in their phones for things like carrier-locked-down tethering and limits. So if you have a version of android that doesn't have these bit-flags getting sent with packets or has new ones, I'm not sure your carrier would allow it on the network. Of course you can root it and make all data, even tethered, appear like it's coming from the android browser. Carriers seem to have a lot of hooks in the OS is all I'm saying, blindly flashing is unfortunately asking for trouble.