10 ms·

Android updates are getting slower and slower, despite Google's best efforts

143 points by whalabi 8y ago

inetknght 8y ago
Update adoption is getting slower because people (or perhaps just me) are frustrated with updates removing/changing functionality, making the device slower, or causing additional bugs beyond whatever was "fixed". That's on top of the fact that my carrier refuses to stay on top of updates for my device anyway.
- Aaargh20318 8y ago
  > the fact that my carrier refuses to stay on top of updates for my device anyway. I don't get why the carrier has to be involved at all. It has nothing to do with them at all so why do they even get a say in when a phone gets an update ?
  - rcarmo 8y ago
    As someone who spent the better part of two decades at a carrier (I joined as an acqui-hire to build an ISP), I've always been fascinated by the amount of crap carriers insist on having pre-loaded (and kept working) in device firmwares. Carriers want (demand, even) that their online portals, customer support apps and (most importantly) ringtone shops be pre-loaded on devices, and have always tied that to critical firmware drops for network defaults, radio compatibility testing, and a lot of other (truly critical) functionality that only actually exists on the device's radio baseband and has zero to do with the handset OS these days. Source: I was one of the program managers for the flying circus that was Vodafone 360, when we tried to work with Samsung to build a vertically integrated handset like the iPhone. This sank (mercifully) without a trace, and to this day I summarise what happened by explaining that Samsung actually had two engineering v-teams: the Galaxy team and... everyone else. And we got everyone else. It doesn't excuse a lot of what was decided, but it was instrumental in killing the service.
    - grumpy-cowboy 8y ago
      They will not be able to force their crap in my future Librem 5 phone.
      - rcarmo 8y ago
        I appreciate the independent thinking behind this comment, but seriously, what completely broke the carrier model was the iPhone. When we started discussing customisation with Apple, all they ever allowed us to do was add a default bookmark to Safari. Period. Finito. Looking back, that was the sanest thing any handset manufacturer ever did for the entire industry.
        JustSomeNobody 8y ago
        That and that carrier logo in the status bar, yes? I mean why else would AT&T get to display fake 5G up there now? Edit: Name, not logo
        rcarmo 8y ago
        That always had the carrier name (it's associated with the MCC/MNC IDs). I don't recall logos, but it's likely that they would follow suit some day, and AT&T has a very long history with Apple, so...
        inetknght 8y ago
        Kudos to Apple for that.
        Starknaked 8y ago
        How did carriers incentivise customisation for manufacturers? Did Apple essentially turn down "easy money" to maintain product integrity?
        scarface74 8y ago
        Apple’s m.o. early on was a take it or leave approach with the carriers. Usually the largest carrier in a market would refuse their demands but a smaller carrier would acquiesce. Then the larger carrier would start losing customers since they didn’t have the iPhone and they would come to the table.
  - JustSomeNobody 8y ago
    Dumb pipes. They fear becoming a dumb pipe. They will get their hands into anything and everything simply to make sure they're not just a dumb pipe.
    - everybodyknows 8y ago
      Dumb pipe ~= Commoditized complement https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348
  - hopler 8y ago
    Carrier is involved only if the carrier "manufactured" and sold you the device. Your choice. This is why Android moved as much as possible to the core Google Play services app instead of the OS.
- c0vfefe 8y ago
  It's planned obsolescence.
maaaats 8y ago
> Android devices aren’t kept up to date, leaving their users unable to benefit from advancements in the platform. What advancements? Both iOS and Android have for a few years reached maturity, not much exciting with each new update. At least not without new hardware, as most updates are to support something physical (notch, fingerprints, face scan etc). I used to hate my phone not being updated, so switched to a brand of Android that kept them up to date. But lately I don't really mind. Only reason I upgraded to Pie this weekend (after being bugged by the updater for months) was because of a few emojis I couldn't see properly when being sent to me. The update hasn't done anything big. Things are a bit rounder, the clock is now in the wrong corner. Some BLE issues as well, making me regret the update.
- ebg13 8y ago
  > What advancements? Security?
  - RugnirViking 8y ago
    ? Security on even older phones is so good most non-tech oriented people think that phone viruses are a myth
    - untog 8y ago
      That's not really true. There are regular browser vulnerabilities, for example.
      - vetinari 8y ago
        On Android, browsers are updated separately, outside the OS update cycle. The Android users have the current Chrome, Firefox or whatever they are using, without regard to their OS version.
      - RugnirViking 8y ago
        I don't doubt that there are many vulnerabilities. However, public perception so far is that it doesn't matter, as little in terms of major viruses have actually happened.
alexandercrohde 8y ago
Not sure why I should care. Can't think of a single feature I'm missing on my S6.
- cheeze 8y ago
  The ability to update apps on battery power only. The ability to not have ridiculous lag during updates of my apps. Better integration with password managers (works great in apps, not so much in Chrome) S reasonable desktop experience (shout out to Samsung DeX FTW)
- moviuro 8y ago
  Security? https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/ https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/
cheeze 8y ago
The shining example of Google vs apple for me is the package manager. Since Android D, updating my apps has caused the phone to slow to a crawl. Fps drops heavily, apps are laggy, etc. There is no option to only download updates when charging. Google has done nothing about this for years now. I still use Android because I need the control. But parts of the platform are just inexcusable (imo) in 2019. Dont get me wrong, Apple has their own problems as well. But Fps drops aren't one of them (at least on my iPad) If only apple let me actually have a non-terrible home screen...
- lvh 8y ago
  What control does Android give you that you want? (I’m legitimately asking: is there an immediate pragmatic reason, or is it a principled stance against walled gardens?)
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    The replaceable launcher is a big one. Tasker was another (though I heard Google Play was cracking down on non-accessibility uses of accessibility features for security reasons?) I switched back to iOS when the SE came out, but I still miss Nova Launcher. Especially being able to put two actions on each dock icon, one for tap and one for swipe up. So if you have something like friends split over two main chat platforms you can stuff Discord and SMS apps in the same icon and have them both quickly accessible.
    - cheeze 8y ago
      I just can't believe that 10 years later I still have to have a grid and have to hide apps I don't care about in folders.
      - glhaynes 8y ago
        You can delete the vast majority of the base apps on modern releases.
      - ec109685 8y ago
gniv 8y ago
I misread the title. The article is about the rate of adoption of new releases. Personally, I think it's due to people keeping their phones longer (and, of course, carriers not passing on the major updates).
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > I think it's due to people keeping their phones longer Why can't the old phones run the new versions of Android? There's been no architecture change has there?
  - c0vfefe 8y ago
    More bloat than the old hardware cam handle.
  - mandevil 8y ago
    They (mostly) can, just the various companies involved have no incentive to actually do the work necessary to do it. Treble is supposed to make upgrades easier, but as the article points out, most people don't have Treble, and the carriers and manufacturers still don't seem to care, even with a lower amount of effort involved.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  I suspect a lot of it is people keeping phones longer too. Hypothetically old phones could get updates... but it doesn't work that way, does it?
  - all2 8y ago
    Old phones don't make manufacturers money. I think it would be interesting to try and decouple the OS from the hardware in the same way Windows has been decoupled from computer manufacturing. Let the manufacturers do what they do best (make slick hardware) and let the OS developers do what they do (make slick OSs). As it stands now, every phone maker has their own flavor of Android, and updates for proprietary stuff doesn't make sense to companies that make money from new phones.
barrkel 8y ago
Not particularly on topic, but OnePlus is a pretty decent choice if you don't want to pay Pixel prices but get an almost stock experience with reasonably rapid OS updates.
- cs02rm0 8y ago
  For about two years. Even OnePlus, which is better than most, tails off after that. They've just released a public beta of Pie for the 3T, which hadn't had security updates for the last four months or so.
  - pantalaimon 8y ago
    I'm running Android 9 on my OnePlus One (2014) through LineageOS and it feels smooth as always.
    - cs02rm0 8y ago
      Lineage is great, I've run it on an HTC (M7 I think?) previously until it died. But it's not for everyone and some manufacturers make it harder than others.
waynenilsen 8y ago
The biggest problem is that android is not focusing on the low end where most of their users are. They need to make the UX on these older and slower devices _better_ with every update, not worse
- noxToken 8y ago
  Wouldn't that be up to the device manufacturer and in the case of the app themselves, the app devs? Samsung has TouchWiz and LG has (I think it's called) Home. There are 3rd party launchers available to download that will use a smaller footprint. I had an older HTC phone that was great for dev testing perf on lower end devices. It had a terrible memory leak that caused the phone to run slower overall, and you had to make numerous tweaks to fix it. One of them was to replace the default launcher. It made an immediate difference. Although I do concede that Google's apps are terrible for lower end devices.
- zaarn 8y ago
  On the low end there is Android One, which does take out all the bloatware that slows down most of the low end. It's pretty good in my opinion.
  - slezyr 8y ago
    May be you meant Android Go? Android One is full of google's own bloatware.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      I guess you've never had the pleasure of all the bloatware that OEM's put into low end phones? The last samsung phone I bought had 2GB free of 8GB on delivery, almost all of that space being used by their bloat. Google's own software isn't that heavy in comparison and Android One comes with very little of it, most of which you can still disable.
therealmarv 8y ago
But manufacturers getting faster and faster in pushing new phones in the market at the same time. There is no real return on investment in fast Android upgrades (which only cost money for them). There are also other risks (things will get slower, things will break). It's all about the money.
mikece 8y ago
This is why Google is devoting more and more resources to the Fuchsia project: to replace Android with an operating system that supports over-the-air (or WiFi) updates like iOS does and Windows Mobile did. It's the only way Google can effectively fight their fragmentation issue: get everyone to upgrade to the latest OS version.
- boramalper 8y ago
  Doesn’t Android already support OTA upgrades?
  - oropolo 8y ago
    Google can't make it happen unilaterally other than the Pixel phones. Without both the carrier and the handset maker putting work into the upgrade it won't happen. And the handset makers like Samsung don't want to cannibalize sales or spend resources allowing us to upgrade our Galaxy S5 handsets to Android P and Q.
    - moviuro 8y ago
      Don't forget Android One which is a pretty decent initiative. My updates happen within ~30 days https://android.com/one https://android.com/one
    - Double_a_92 8y ago
      Why though? If I run Windows on a Lenovo laptop, Lenovo doesn't have to vet the updates first... What are the carriers actually doing that safety updates or other GUI-related updates can't be just "added".
      - oblio 8y ago
        Actively blocking updates because they can sell more phones or they can just save money by avoiding absolutely all the hassles from updates (they don't care about security issues, they'll just blame Google).
- 8y ago
cageface 8y ago
This is definitely a problem but in practice it's not as dire as this article makes it sound. So many of the essential pieces have been factored out into the support libraries and independently upgradable components that Android devices actually get more regular updates in some respects than iOS devices do. For example, I have to update my entire iPhone OS to get an updated web browser or photo library or keyboard. Google can update all of those every day without a reboot. As an iOS developer I can't use new OS features until all my users have upgraded. As long as what I need is in the support library I can adopt the latest and greatest for Android right away.
- setpatchaddress 8y ago
  Downside of updating support libraries independently is that it balloons the QA matrix and makes integration bugs inevitable. The iOS approach means the entire OS is properly tested as an entire entity.
  - cageface 8y ago
    There are definitely some very big upsides to being able to move your entire user base to a new major OS version in a year. Apple benefits a lot from this and Google and the vendors and carriers need to somehow get their heads together and deal with this because it is a serious issue. I just wanted to point out that there are some good things about a more decoupled model too.
  - moron4hire 8y ago
    I would think two of the richest companies in the world could figure out how to manage that sort of complexity. Maybe they need to poach a few people from Microsoft to learn how it's done.
    - avtar 8y ago
      > Maybe they need to poach a few people from Microsoft to learn how it's done. It seems Microsoft needs some help in this department as well https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4500988/windows-update-blocked-because-of-drive-reassignment https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4500988/windows-upd...
javitury 8y ago
Those statistics should be broken down by new purchases and updating old devices. At the time of Android 4.4, many people got an Android device for the first time, so adoption was high. At the time of Android 8, the market is already mature and many people still hold to their old Android 6 device.
- stackoverflo 8y ago
  let go of my android 6 device yesterday. was a cheap device but i didnt feel i was missing out on anything significant
BubuIIC 8y ago
> That is, half of Android devices were on an OS that hadn’t seen an update in at least 2 years. This seems quite wrong, older Android versions do receive some security maintenance releases from google. It's of course up to the device vendor if a particular model gets it though. This is info is a bit hard to find but it seems like KitKat was supported until October 2017, Lollipop until March 2018 and Marshmallow until August 2018. (taken from wikipedia and here: https://www.quora.com/Will-the-Android-5-Lollipop-still-exist-in-2018-2019 https://www.quora.com/Will-the-Android-5-Lollipop-still-exis...) So you could be running a phone with KitKat, which was released in 2013 but still got the last update 1.5 years ago.
tobyhinloopen 8y ago
The short life-time of Android phones & the app's questionable privacy policies are the 2 major reasons I'm sticking to iOS, even though I think Apple is a major asshole. Android is an awesome OS, but the app store feels "unregulated" and I feel like I'm not in control who and what copies my data.
kissgyorgy 8y ago
This is called a "technical debt". :)
matchbok 8y ago
Dear lord. Less than 20% adoption a YEAR after release? iOS gets that in a few hours.
- oblio 8y ago
  OEMs + carriers.
aeturnum 8y ago
Since updating to Android 9 I've had the weirdest problems. Phone calls will randomly drop (neither I nor the other person is moving, happens on wifi and mobile) in the middle of the call. No apparent connection to internet traffic. I've also started seeing an issue where the phone will call someone and connect but not start playing audio or transmitting audio. Also, if I'm on wifi and then leave wifi (or turn it off), the phone will silently fail to use the mobile network. It will display that it has 4g / 3g / whatever, but data doesn't work and phone calls fail. The only fix is restarting the phone. I have a Nokia 8, which isn't a particularly popular handset and I'm thinking of switching to an old Samsung S8 or something - but it's striking to me how badly the experience has declined since 8. The phone was wonderful with 8!
- the_pwner224 8y ago
  If you're in the US, you may want to avoid Samsungs after the S5 - they all have locked bootloaders, and you will not be able to move away from the Samsung ROM. Maybe you don't think that's important now, but chances are you'll be keeping the phone for a few years, and you don't know how your needs or wants will change by then. Also it's nice (and not very hard) to install AOSP/LineageOS to get a lighter, faster, smoother, bloat-free, but still feature-rich experience, without all the tracking and shady stuff that OEMs put in. I used to have an S5 with LineageOS + F-Droid (no Google apps); the phone was faster and the battery lasted longer than my new S9 (from which I have purged all the unnecessary apps I can including Google's stuff).
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
Security updates are becoming more dire, but feature updates between versions has been dwindling since the early days. I've had an Android phone continuously since 2011, and while I could detail a laundry list of stuff we got from Gingerbread -> Ice Cream Sandwich or KitKat -> Lollipop, I can't think of many "game changers" from Marshmallow on that made each new update a "must have". Just trying to think of the ones I actually noticed or used: Nougat: Slightly better battery with doze mode; Built-in Night Light so I no longer need cf.lumen or Twilight Oreo: A better AutoFill API for my password manager Pie: Adaptive battery? I lost the ability to record calls when my phone got the Pie update, so I wouldn't really consider that a feature. So basically, other than having to use a third-party screen temperature app and needing to manually copy-paste passwords, there wasn't much meaningful difference in the experience between my Nexus 7 running Marshmallow and my S8+ phone with the Pie update.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  In many ways that's a good indication that the software is maturing. Every phone update shouldn't come with a bunch of dread around new user flows. Though they did generally manage to entirely screw up do-not-disturb and notification settings in a gross attempt at simplification...
- j45 8y ago
  The inability for Android manufacturers to deliver an honest, timely and up to date practice of current security updates (instead of 6 month old fixes) pushed me to a pixel when I was happy with my galaxy note and g6. The heartbleed bug remaining unpatched for so long really did it for me.
- __MatrixMan__ 8y ago
  > there wasn't much meaningful difference in the experience between my Nexus 7 running Marshmallow and my S8+ phone with the Pie update. Reading this on a Nexus 5, running marshmallow. I stopped upgrading when I stopped seeing a reason to, now I just get the old models on the cheap and only occasionally wonder if I'm missing out. In those moments I'll remember your comment, stop wondering, and continue treating my phone like the sub-$200 commodity that it is. Thanks.
tytso 8y ago
The article is only talking about major upgrades (e.g., going from Oreo to Pie). It is not talking about security updates, which are minor releases. People seem to be mixing up these two things. They are different.
wyldfire 8y ago
Aside: this headline is poorly worded IMO. It sounds ambiguous with the execution duration of a software update. "Android updates are getting less and less frequent" or "fewer android updates happening in the field" etc might be clearer. > The reasons for the slowing updates aren’t clear IMO it is clear: people often "update" by retiring the old device and buying a new one. The metrics in this article are all from Google -- they show market share of android release (out of android devices). People are refreshing less often because smartphones released in the last few years are: (1) not terribly different from the ones on the shelf now, (2) more expensive than they've ever been. People are spacing out their upgrade cycle because their current phone is good enough and because phones are more expensive.
chenning 8y ago
I haven't read the entire article, but the title and first few paragraphs and images/tables are unfair and misleading. This looks like a stereotypical jab at Android that you would expect from a company like Apple Inc. If you want to compare Apples to Apples (no pun intended) you should compare how fast updates roll out to the first party devices iPhone and Pixel. I've used the first two generations of Pixel now and I've never had an issue receiving updates. Google obviously has less control over what Samsung, LG, Huawei, do and that's not even taking into consideration carriers.
surbekznrlsnt 8y ago
Google should have two streams for their updates; security only and everything else. Vendors would have no problem with conflicts in UI or apps if the updates were security only and they could be pushed immediately. I'm also angry at Google for removing functionality. I won't upgrade to Pie because then my call recording app won't work and I make a lot of customer service calls. I could root my phone but this introduces other issues. Google has made people reluctant to update.
liuyanghejerry 8y ago
If every manufacturer is encouraging people to buy new phone, why do people even want to upgrade their old phones? The truth in China is that Xiaomi and Huawei releases their new phones very frequently. Now people are more and more focusing on screen, CPU, RAM, cameras.
wink 8y ago
Yay, I am the 0.01% without even caring a lot :D Very happy with my Nexus 5X, and why would I upgrade? The Pixels are just expensive and I don't see any benefit. A shame that I'll be in real trouble if this one ever dies.
- wbercx 8y ago
  The Nexus 5X is a nice device. How long have you had it for?
  - wink 8y ago
    Bought two of them on 16./21. July 2016. One stopped working reliably (didn't notice its SIM all the time) last November, mine's still working perfectly.
nfriedly 8y ago
Im on a Pixel 2, so I get fast updates. But I almost wish they were slower, or would just stop breakimg things and removing features. My phone, after more than a year of great service, starting dropping calls in my house again. I poked around and realized they removed the option to prefer Wi-Fi calling. So now because it can get a weak cellular signal, it ignores my strong Wi-Fi and I get much crappier services a result. #$&@!

143 points by whalabi 8y ago

Update adoption is getting slower because people (or perhaps just me) are frustrated with updates removing/changing functionality, making the device slower, or causing additional bugs beyond whatever was "fixed". That's on top of the fact that my carrier refuses to stay on top of updates for my device anyway.

Aaargh20318 8y ago
> the fact that my carrier refuses to stay on top of updates for my device anyway. I don't get why the carrier has to be involved at all. It has nothing to do with them at all so why do they even get a say in when a phone gets an update ?
- rcarmo 8y ago
  As someone who spent the better part of two decades at a carrier (I joined as an acqui-hire to build an ISP), I've always been fascinated by the amount of crap carriers insist on having pre-loaded (and kept working) in device firmwares. Carriers want (demand, even) that their online portals, customer support apps and (most importantly) ringtone shops be pre-loaded on devices, and have always tied that to critical firmware drops for network defaults, radio compatibility testing, and a lot of other (truly critical) functionality that only actually exists on the device's radio baseband and has zero to do with the handset OS these days. Source: I was one of the program managers for the flying circus that was Vodafone 360, when we tried to work with Samsung to build a vertically integrated handset like the iPhone. This sank (mercifully) without a trace, and to this day I summarise what happened by explaining that Samsung actually had two engineering v-teams: the Galaxy team and... everyone else. And we got everyone else. It doesn't excuse a lot of what was decided, but it was instrumental in killing the service.
  - grumpy-cowboy 8y ago
    They will not be able to force their crap in my future Librem 5 phone.
    - rcarmo 8y ago
      I appreciate the independent thinking behind this comment, but seriously, what completely broke the carrier model was the iPhone. When we started discussing customisation with Apple, all they ever allowed us to do was add a default bookmark to Safari. Period. Finito. Looking back, that was the sanest thing any handset manufacturer ever did for the entire industry.
      - JustSomeNobody 8y ago
        That and that carrier logo in the status bar, yes? I mean why else would AT&T get to display fake 5G up there now? Edit: Name, not logo
        rcarmo 8y ago
        That always had the carrier name (it's associated with the MCC/MNC IDs). I don't recall logos, but it's likely that they would follow suit some day, and AT&T has a very long history with Apple, so...
      - inetknght 8y ago
        Kudos to Apple for that.
      - Starknaked 8y ago
        How did carriers incentivise customisation for manufacturers? Did Apple essentially turn down "easy money" to maintain product integrity?
        scarface74 8y ago
        Apple’s m.o. early on was a take it or leave approach with the carriers. Usually the largest carrier in a market would refuse their demands but a smaller carrier would acquiesce. Then the larger carrier would start losing customers since they didn’t have the iPhone and they would come to the table.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  Dumb pipes. They fear becoming a dumb pipe. They will get their hands into anything and everything simply to make sure they're not just a dumb pipe.
  - everybodyknows 8y ago
    Dumb pipe ~= Commoditized complement https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047348
- hopler 8y ago
  Carrier is involved only if the carrier "manufactured" and sold you the device. Your choice. This is why Android moved as much as possible to the core Google Play services app instead of the OS.
c0vfefe 8y ago
It's planned obsolescence.

maaaats 8y ago

> Android devices aren’t kept up to date, leaving their users unable to benefit from advancements in the platform. What advancements? Both iOS and Android have for a few years reached maturity, not much exciting with each new update. At least not without new hardware, as most updates are to support something physical (notch, fingerprints, face scan etc). I used to hate my phone not being updated, so switched to a brand of Android that kept them up to date. But lately I don't really mind. Only reason I upgraded to Pie this weekend (after being bugged by the updater for months) was because of a few emojis I couldn't see properly when being sent to me. The update hasn't done anything big. Things are a bit rounder, the clock is now in the wrong corner. Some BLE issues as well, making me regret the update.

ebg13 8y ago
> What advancements? Security?
- RugnirViking 8y ago
  ? Security on even older phones is so good most non-tech oriented people think that phone viruses are a myth
  - untog 8y ago
    That's not really true. There are regular browser vulnerabilities, for example.
    - vetinari 8y ago
      On Android, browsers are updated separately, outside the OS update cycle. The Android users have the current Chrome, Firefox or whatever they are using, without regard to their OS version.
    - RugnirViking 8y ago
      I don't doubt that there are many vulnerabilities. However, public perception so far is that it doesn't matter, as little in terms of major viruses have actually happened.

alexandercrohde 8y ago

Not sure why I should care. Can't think of a single feature I'm missing on my S6.

cheeze 8y ago
The ability to update apps on battery power only. The ability to not have ridiculous lag during updates of my apps. Better integration with password managers (works great in apps, not so much in Chrome) S reasonable desktop experience (shout out to Samsung DeX FTW)
moviuro 8y ago
Security? https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/ https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/

cheeze 8y ago

The shining example of Google vs apple for me is the package manager. Since Android D, updating my apps has caused the phone to slow to a crawl. Fps drops heavily, apps are laggy, etc. There is no option to only download updates when charging. Google has done nothing about this for years now. I still use Android because I need the control. But parts of the platform are just inexcusable (imo) in 2019. Dont get me wrong, Apple has their own problems as well. But Fps drops aren't one of them (at least on my iPad) If only apple let me actually have a non-terrible home screen...

lvh 8y ago
What control does Android give you that you want? (I’m legitimately asking: is there an immediate pragmatic reason, or is it a principled stance against walled gardens?)
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  The replaceable launcher is a big one. Tasker was another (though I heard Google Play was cracking down on non-accessibility uses of accessibility features for security reasons?) I switched back to iOS when the SE came out, but I still miss Nova Launcher. Especially being able to put two actions on each dock icon, one for tap and one for swipe up. So if you have something like friends split over two main chat platforms you can stuff Discord and SMS apps in the same icon and have them both quickly accessible.
  - cheeze 8y ago
    I just can't believe that 10 years later I still have to have a grid and have to hide apps I don't care about in folders.
    - glhaynes 8y ago
      You can delete the vast majority of the base apps on modern releases.
    - ec109685 8y ago

gniv 8y ago

I misread the title. The article is about the rate of adoption of new releases. Personally, I think it's due to people keeping their phones longer (and, of course, carriers not passing on the major updates).

chrisseaton 8y ago
> I think it's due to people keeping their phones longer Why can't the old phones run the new versions of Android? There's been no architecture change has there?
- c0vfefe 8y ago
  More bloat than the old hardware cam handle.
- mandevil 8y ago
  They (mostly) can, just the various companies involved have no incentive to actually do the work necessary to do it. Treble is supposed to make upgrades easier, but as the article points out, most people don't have Treble, and the carriers and manufacturers still don't seem to care, even with a lower amount of effort involved.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
jrochkind1 8y ago
I suspect a lot of it is people keeping phones longer too. Hypothetically old phones could get updates... but it doesn't work that way, does it?
- all2 8y ago
  Old phones don't make manufacturers money. I think it would be interesting to try and decouple the OS from the hardware in the same way Windows has been decoupled from computer manufacturing. Let the manufacturers do what they do best (make slick hardware) and let the OS developers do what they do (make slick OSs). As it stands now, every phone maker has their own flavor of Android, and updates for proprietary stuff doesn't make sense to companies that make money from new phones.

barrkel 8y ago

Not particularly on topic, but OnePlus is a pretty decent choice if you don't want to pay Pixel prices but get an almost stock experience with reasonably rapid OS updates.

cs02rm0 8y ago
For about two years. Even OnePlus, which is better than most, tails off after that. They've just released a public beta of Pie for the 3T, which hadn't had security updates for the last four months or so.
- pantalaimon 8y ago
  I'm running Android 9 on my OnePlus One (2014) through LineageOS and it feels smooth as always.
  - cs02rm0 8y ago
    Lineage is great, I've run it on an HTC (M7 I think?) previously until it died. But it's not for everyone and some manufacturers make it harder than others.

waynenilsen 8y ago

The biggest problem is that android is not focusing on the low end where most of their users are. They need to make the UX on these older and slower devices _better_ with every update, not worse

noxToken 8y ago
Wouldn't that be up to the device manufacturer and in the case of the app themselves, the app devs? Samsung has TouchWiz and LG has (I think it's called) Home. There are 3rd party launchers available to download that will use a smaller footprint. I had an older HTC phone that was great for dev testing perf on lower end devices. It had a terrible memory leak that caused the phone to run slower overall, and you had to make numerous tweaks to fix it. One of them was to replace the default launcher. It made an immediate difference. Although I do concede that Google's apps are terrible for lower end devices.
zaarn 8y ago
On the low end there is Android One, which does take out all the bloatware that slows down most of the low end. It's pretty good in my opinion.
- slezyr 8y ago
  May be you meant Android Go? Android One is full of google's own bloatware.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    I guess you've never had the pleasure of all the bloatware that OEM's put into low end phones? The last samsung phone I bought had 2GB free of 8GB on delivery, almost all of that space being used by their bloat. Google's own software isn't that heavy in comparison and Android One comes with very little of it, most of which you can still disable.

therealmarv 8y ago

But manufacturers getting faster and faster in pushing new phones in the market at the same time. There is no real return on investment in fast Android upgrades (which only cost money for them). There are also other risks (things will get slower, things will break). It's all about the money.

mikece 8y ago

This is why Google is devoting more and more resources to the Fuchsia project: to replace Android with an operating system that supports over-the-air (or WiFi) updates like iOS does and Windows Mobile did. It's the only way Google can effectively fight their fragmentation issue: get everyone to upgrade to the latest OS version.

boramalper 8y ago
Doesn’t Android already support OTA upgrades?
- oropolo 8y ago
  Google can't make it happen unilaterally other than the Pixel phones. Without both the carrier and the handset maker putting work into the upgrade it won't happen. And the handset makers like Samsung don't want to cannibalize sales or spend resources allowing us to upgrade our Galaxy S5 handsets to Android P and Q.
  - moviuro 8y ago
    Don't forget Android One which is a pretty decent initiative. My updates happen within ~30 days https://android.com/one https://android.com/one
  - Double_a_92 8y ago
    Why though? If I run Windows on a Lenovo laptop, Lenovo doesn't have to vet the updates first... What are the carriers actually doing that safety updates or other GUI-related updates can't be just "added".
    - oblio 8y ago
      Actively blocking updates because they can sell more phones or they can just save money by avoiding absolutely all the hassles from updates (they don't care about security issues, they'll just blame Google).
8y ago

cageface 8y ago

This is definitely a problem but in practice it's not as dire as this article makes it sound. So many of the essential pieces have been factored out into the support libraries and independently upgradable components that Android devices actually get more regular updates in some respects than iOS devices do. For example, I have to update my entire iPhone OS to get an updated web browser or photo library or keyboard. Google can update all of those every day without a reboot. As an iOS developer I can't use new OS features until all my users have upgraded. As long as what I need is in the support library I can adopt the latest and greatest for Android right away.

setpatchaddress 8y ago
Downside of updating support libraries independently is that it balloons the QA matrix and makes integration bugs inevitable. The iOS approach means the entire OS is properly tested as an entire entity.
- cageface 8y ago
  There are definitely some very big upsides to being able to move your entire user base to a new major OS version in a year. Apple benefits a lot from this and Google and the vendors and carriers need to somehow get their heads together and deal with this because it is a serious issue. I just wanted to point out that there are some good things about a more decoupled model too.
- moron4hire 8y ago
  I would think two of the richest companies in the world could figure out how to manage that sort of complexity. Maybe they need to poach a few people from Microsoft to learn how it's done.
  - avtar 8y ago
    > Maybe they need to poach a few people from Microsoft to learn how it's done. It seems Microsoft needs some help in this department as well https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4500988/windows-update-blocked-because-of-drive-reassignment https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4500988/windows-upd...

javitury 8y ago

Those statistics should be broken down by new purchases and updating old devices. At the time of Android 4.4, many people got an Android device for the first time, so adoption was high. At the time of Android 8, the market is already mature and many people still hold to their old Android 6 device.

stackoverflo 8y ago
let go of my android 6 device yesterday. was a cheap device but i didnt feel i was missing out on anything significant

BubuIIC 8y ago

> That is, half of Android devices were on an OS that hadn’t seen an update in at least 2 years. This seems quite wrong, older Android versions do receive some security maintenance releases from google. It's of course up to the device vendor if a particular model gets it though. This is info is a bit hard to find but it seems like KitKat was supported until October 2017, Lollipop until March 2018 and Marshmallow until August 2018. (taken from wikipedia and here: https://www.quora.com/Will-the-Android-5-Lollipop-still-exist-in-2018-2019 https://www.quora.com/Will-the-Android-5-Lollipop-still-exis...) So you could be running a phone with KitKat, which was released in 2013 but still got the last update 1.5 years ago.

tobyhinloopen 8y ago

The short life-time of Android phones & the app's questionable privacy policies are the 2 major reasons I'm sticking to iOS, even though I think Apple is a major asshole. Android is an awesome OS, but the app store feels "unregulated" and I feel like I'm not in control who and what copies my data.

kissgyorgy 8y ago

This is called a "technical debt". :)

matchbok 8y ago

Dear lord. Less than 20% adoption a YEAR after release? iOS gets that in a few hours.

oblio 8y ago
OEMs + carriers.

aeturnum 8y ago

Since updating to Android 9 I've had the weirdest problems. Phone calls will randomly drop (neither I nor the other person is moving, happens on wifi and mobile) in the middle of the call. No apparent connection to internet traffic. I've also started seeing an issue where the phone will call someone and connect but not start playing audio or transmitting audio. Also, if I'm on wifi and then leave wifi (or turn it off), the phone will silently fail to use the mobile network. It will display that it has 4g / 3g / whatever, but data doesn't work and phone calls fail. The only fix is restarting the phone. I have a Nokia 8, which isn't a particularly popular handset and I'm thinking of switching to an old Samsung S8 or something - but it's striking to me how badly the experience has declined since 8. The phone was wonderful with 8!

the_pwner224 8y ago
If you're in the US, you may want to avoid Samsungs after the S5 - they all have locked bootloaders, and you will not be able to move away from the Samsung ROM. Maybe you don't think that's important now, but chances are you'll be keeping the phone for a few years, and you don't know how your needs or wants will change by then. Also it's nice (and not very hard) to install AOSP/LineageOS to get a lighter, faster, smoother, bloat-free, but still feature-rich experience, without all the tracking and shady stuff that OEMs put in. I used to have an S5 with LineageOS + F-Droid (no Google apps); the phone was faster and the battery lasted longer than my new S9 (from which I have purged all the unnecessary apps I can including Google's stuff).

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

Security updates are becoming more dire, but feature updates between versions has been dwindling since the early days. I've had an Android phone continuously since 2011, and while I could detail a laundry list of stuff we got from Gingerbread -> Ice Cream Sandwich or KitKat -> Lollipop, I can't think of many "game changers" from Marshmallow on that made each new update a "must have". Just trying to think of the ones I actually noticed or used: Nougat: Slightly better battery with doze mode; Built-in Night Light so I no longer need cf.lumen or Twilight Oreo: A better AutoFill API for my password manager Pie: Adaptive battery? I lost the ability to record calls when my phone got the Pie update, so I wouldn't really consider that a feature. So basically, other than having to use a third-party screen temperature app and needing to manually copy-paste passwords, there wasn't much meaningful difference in the experience between my Nexus 7 running Marshmallow and my S8+ phone with the Pie update.

vorpalhex 8y ago
In many ways that's a good indication that the software is maturing. Every phone update shouldn't come with a bunch of dread around new user flows. Though they did generally manage to entirely screw up do-not-disturb and notification settings in a gross attempt at simplification...
j45 8y ago
The inability for Android manufacturers to deliver an honest, timely and up to date practice of current security updates (instead of 6 month old fixes) pushed me to a pixel when I was happy with my galaxy note and g6. The heartbleed bug remaining unpatched for so long really did it for me.
__MatrixMan__ 8y ago
> there wasn't much meaningful difference in the experience between my Nexus 7 running Marshmallow and my S8+ phone with the Pie update. Reading this on a Nexus 5, running marshmallow. I stopped upgrading when I stopped seeing a reason to, now I just get the old models on the cheap and only occasionally wonder if I'm missing out. In those moments I'll remember your comment, stop wondering, and continue treating my phone like the sub-$200 commodity that it is. Thanks.

tytso 8y ago

The article is only talking about major upgrades (e.g., going from Oreo to Pie). It is not talking about security updates, which are minor releases. People seem to be mixing up these two things. They are different.

wyldfire 8y ago

Aside: this headline is poorly worded IMO. It sounds ambiguous with the execution duration of a software update. "Android updates are getting less and less frequent" or "fewer android updates happening in the field" etc might be clearer. > The reasons for the slowing updates aren’t clear IMO it is clear: people often "update" by retiring the old device and buying a new one. The metrics in this article are all from Google -- they show market share of android release (out of android devices). People are refreshing less often because smartphones released in the last few years are: (1) not terribly different from the ones on the shelf now, (2) more expensive than they've ever been. People are spacing out their upgrade cycle because their current phone is good enough and because phones are more expensive.

chenning 8y ago

I haven't read the entire article, but the title and first few paragraphs and images/tables are unfair and misleading. This looks like a stereotypical jab at Android that you would expect from a company like Apple Inc. If you want to compare Apples to Apples (no pun intended) you should compare how fast updates roll out to the first party devices iPhone and Pixel. I've used the first two generations of Pixel now and I've never had an issue receiving updates. Google obviously has less control over what Samsung, LG, Huawei, do and that's not even taking into consideration carriers.

surbekznrlsnt 8y ago

Google should have two streams for their updates; security only and everything else. Vendors would have no problem with conflicts in UI or apps if the updates were security only and they could be pushed immediately. I'm also angry at Google for removing functionality. I won't upgrade to Pie because then my call recording app won't work and I make a lot of customer service calls. I could root my phone but this introduces other issues. Google has made people reluctant to update.

liuyanghejerry 8y ago

If every manufacturer is encouraging people to buy new phone, why do people even want to upgrade their old phones? The truth in China is that Xiaomi and Huawei releases their new phones very frequently. Now people are more and more focusing on screen, CPU, RAM, cameras.

wink 8y ago

Yay, I am the 0.01% without even caring a lot :D Very happy with my Nexus 5X, and why would I upgrade? The Pixels are just expensive and I don't see any benefit. A shame that I'll be in real trouble if this one ever dies.

wbercx 8y ago
The Nexus 5X is a nice device. How long have you had it for?
- wink 8y ago
  Bought two of them on 16./21. July 2016. One stopped working reliably (didn't notice its SIM all the time) last November, mine's still working perfectly.

nfriedly 8y ago

Im on a Pixel 2, so I get fast updates. But I almost wish they were slower, or would just stop breakimg things and removing features. My phone, after more than a year of great service, starting dropping calls in my house again. I poked around and realized they removed the option to prefer Wi-Fi calling. So now because it can get a weak cellular signal, it ignores my strong Wi-Fi and I get much crappier services a result. #$&@!