13 ms·

Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

450 points by estel 15y ago

degusta 15y ago
I wrote the piece / did the research. Happy to answer any questions or comments people might have.
- JoachimSchipper 15y ago
  Just an observation: I believe I would strongly prefer a timeline, like iPhone 3 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| iPhone 4 ||||||||||||||||||||||||| Nexus one ||||||||||----||||------- Other ph. ||||||||||||-------- This would make several things much clearer (e.g. what's the uptake of 2.3? Have Android manufacturers gotten better or worse?) Still, interesting. EDIT: Just FYI, at 47 minutes this has 9 points.
  - degusta 15y ago
    I actually originally started doing it that way, but thought it was more relevant vis a vis release date than calendar date. I do intend to include that when I finish doing all of the phones. (Yes, I'm a bit OCD :) ). Google apparently says less than 50% are on Gingerbread, despite way more than 50% of Android phones having been sold since 2.3 shipped. I do think manufacturers might have gotten a bit better, but I guess we'll see. That's one of the reasons I want to do the next 6 months or so of phones.
    - joelhaasnoot 15y ago
      Motorola is notoriously bad it looks like. It's a pitty you don't list many Samsung phones. They churn out devices, but don't do a lot of updates.
      - degusta 15y ago
        That's every Samsung phone released in the US through mid-2010. I do intend to keep at it and add more. (& yes, Motorola does appear to be particularly bad)
        joelhaasnoot 15y ago
        Yeah, the European marketshare is a little different: Motorola releases few of their devices in The Netherlands (more in Germany & UK), but Samsung has a very high market share here.
    - spiralpolitik 15y ago
      You can find the breakdown here. http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve... Currently 45% are on 2.2 with 2.3 approaching around 39%.
  - oflannabhra 15y ago
    If you're coming to the chart to see how well a manufacturer supports their products, the current layout is best. If you're trying to understand the history of phone releases and their current state, your suggestion might be best. I prefer the current layout.
- martey 15y ago
  Have you considered extending the chart? Right now it seems very iOS versus Android, and is only useful for people in the United States.
  - degusta 15y ago
    Very much so - I made a note or two re extension & non-US at the end of the post. Definitely my intention.
  - estel 15y ago
    Why is iOS vs. Android only useful for people in the US?
    - martey 15y ago
      It isn't. I was referring to the fact that the chart: - only compares iOS and Android phones, and - only compares updates from American carriers.
      - unconed 15y ago
        At the same time, the US is one of the biggest markets around, so it provides a reasonable case study and it tends to be the first to get any upgrade. It would be a nightmare to try to do the same for Europe for example because of the fragmentation.
        rodh257 15y ago
        is the US really the first to get an upgrade? Most of Samsungs phones are launched first elsewhere, and US versions later come with their own carrier specific versions. The plain Galaxy S is not on that chart, and it would have received the upgrade before all the US variants.
    - joelhaasnoot 15y ago
      Most of the devices listed are US-centric or US-only. Anything 4G isn't available in Europe under the same name.
- mda 15y ago
  As JoachimSchipper said, provide a timeline and mark release dates of Os versions on it as well. This way it would be much cleaner and gives more context.
  - degusta 15y ago
    I actually had letters on there ("E", "F") etc for releases but on top of the sales windows & the support windows it was just too much on one chart. I do plan to provide all that information as a comprehensive list of phones/updates, ideally along with the ability to sort by carrier, manufacturer, etc.
- robinduckett 15y ago
  You should include iPod Touch and how apple forces a charge for updates on that device. This chart is also skewed a bit and should be based on intervals of releases rather than "years since". I don't recall seeing any iOS5 backports to iPhone 2G or 3G.
  - technoslut 15y ago
    I don't think Apple charges for iPod touch updates anymore.
    - protomyth 15y ago
      After the government changed how things could be accounted for, Apple stopped charging for software updates.
  - degusta 15y ago
    No, the original iPhone & 3G don't support iOS 5. But they did support the current version of iOS for 3 years after they were released - far more than any Android phones of the period. (And, no, they don't charge for iPod Touch updates any more - that was technically an accounting regulation issue that the government changed.)
    - cbracken 15y ago
      Though to be honest, for the iPhone 3G, the longer green bar is easily misinterpreted as a positive thing, when for the most part, iOS4 rendered the phone very painful to use. 15-30s wait times for camera shutter, frequent hangs, constant crashes in Maps, being the main pain points with the two that my wife and I owned. If they'd have continued security and minor app updates for iOS3 on the 3G, I'd have been much happier.
      - frou_dh 15y ago
        I have my iPhone 3G running iOS 4.2.1 here. Home screen to camera shutter open takes 3 seconds. I don't use Maps, but nothing I do use crashes.
- commandar 15y ago
  It might be interesting to include whether a given phone is running stock Android or OEM skins like Sense. General consensus is that stock phones tend to be upgraded more often and faster, but it'd be nice to have some data to back that up.
  - degusta 15y ago
    Concur. Similarly, general consensus seems to be that the skins actively hold things up because manufacturers have to port them to each new OS on each device. It'll be interesting to see how much life the skins have left in them in the post-ICS era.
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  As an owner of a iPhone 3G I don't agree with the solid green color that it gets. It was rendered unusable by iOS4.0, and although it was on "the current version" up until the release of iOS5 I don't recall it getting any actual feature from iOS4 other than faster javascript in the browser. So things are not as binary as depicted there. It also seems like you're looking at Android through an Apple lens where the only phone updates come via the OS and having the latest version is the key metric. This means that e.g. any delay in releasing an iOS update has no impact on your graph, but if the Nexus team bust their chops to get an update out early, it makes every other phone look bad in relation. What would it look like if you charted when the phones last received an update to their Maps, Youtube, or Gmail client apps from Google?. For Maps they would all be green I believe, less so for Youtube which is currently 2.2+ only so 15% of current devices wouldn't be able to get the latest version. Glancing through the list of new features in iOS5 it seems to be equally split between a) things Android already had (twitter, notifications, no pc required updates), and b) things that are considered Applications, not part of the OS in Android (e.g. To-do apps, email/calendar improvements, e-magazine reader app) so there doesn't seem to be as much reason for Android users to have to upgrade. So generally, from this point of view, you seem to be a bit loose with equating "support" from Google to mean new OS version e.g. your phrase "tracked down every update that was released for each device" isn't strictly true if you consider a newer version of Maps or the Market an update. And I would imagine the average person in the street would.
  - MetaMan 15y ago
    When did you get your IPhone 3G? I got my Nexus one around 14 months ago. I choose it because its was the official Google developer's phone and so mostly likely to get updated! Except of course we now know that the Android benchmark device that's less than 2 years old will not be getting any more updates. BTW - I am willing to bet that when ICS source is released someone works out how to get ICS on it. I.e - I doubt that there's any fundamental reason it can't be done?
    - ZeroGravitas 15y ago
      I think I bought it about 6 months before the 3GS came out. I no longer use it as a phone, but still use it for other stuff. I also have just got a Nexus One (and have another Android phone). I'm not particularly disappointed that it's not getting ICS. I've not figured out one actual feature I care about that this announcement will deprive me of yet[1] (and as you say, I'll probably be able to put it on anyway. The key sticking point seems to be limited storage space, which custom ROMs have worked around before). Perhaps it'll mean I get better scores on javascript benchmarks with the default browser, but I'm keen to try Firefox anyway now that I have an ARMv7 device. But if the only thing I get is version number bragging rights, I'm not sure I'll even bother with ICS. [1] Face unlock? No front facing camera on the Nexus One, Android Beam? No NFC chip. Better browser? I'm not sure how much the benchmarks translate into reality. Built in VPN capatablities? actually that's interesting. Folders? We're scraping the barrel now. Different multitasking UI?
- MetaMan 15y ago
  Thanks. I think you have proven something that many of us have experienced - Android may have a number of technical advantages but its rollout management is unreliable and chaotic and so many non technical users may actually be better off with IOS devices! Technical users may be able to update themselves with some effort (E.g. via XDAdevelopers) if they choose devices carefully and have a bit of luck ! Over the last few months I have been advising my non technically minded friends / family members to "just get an IOS device if you can afford it. Android is great and more flexible but App quality is generally lower and you can't be sure you can EASILY get updates even 6 months after you buy. With IOS you know the device will be supported for around 2 years and maybe even longer. With Android there is no guarantee!" For me this is sad. I've got both an Android phone (Nexus one) and a tablet (HTC flyer). I am seriously thinking of getting an Iphone for my next personal phone and just accept the few restrictions - BAH !
- danso 15y ago
  Excellent, to the point visualization of an insight. I love it when journalists can use the table-chart format to create a data-deep yet simple graphic that tells a better story than any plain narrative can.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  Add the Sony Xperia to the mix. It was released and sold with Android 1.6(!!!!) and the updates were really slow in coming.
- kinofcain 15y ago
  This is exactly the kind of in depth nerdery I love. Thanks for putting it together. It seems like it would be valuable as a standalone resource. You might even be able to get some help from the community in a wiki format for keeping it up to date.
- vetinari 15y ago
  Could you also make a chart showing, how long the phone is supported after it stops selling? For example, 3G was being sold up until iPhone 4 introduction, but the iOS4 was the last update it has seen. Similarly, 3GS is still being sold, but that does not mean that it will be supported for next three years.
- armored 15y ago
  I think you should touch on frequency of updates: how often does Apple release, how often does Google? Also it's not really fair to expect that every phone is going to run the very latest Android code, especially ice cream sandwich, which expects a forward facing camera, doesn't use the navigation buttons and so forth. I do agree with the general premise that Android carriers/manufactures tend to release and abandon. They have no interest in updating the OS after the sale, which explains the popularity of Cyanogen.
- vacri 15y ago
  It's an apple fanboy piece, presenting heavily skewed data, be it from either straight-out falsity or improper definitions: 1) Original iphone can't run iOS 4, but it gets green all the way through. Similar issues with 3G and iOS5. EDIT: I see now that the way you've done the timelines makes it confusing, and seems to be done intentionally to make your point rather than clarify what's going on. 2) 2.1 to 2.2 is a minor release. 2.1 to 3.0 is a major release. And Android 3.0 isn't a phone release at all - specifically stated as such. It's impossible for a phone to be "3 major releases behind" when there are only two major releases available. Go back and remake the graph fairly. It will still show the story you want to tell, but you will be able to claim impartiality - and with it, better authority.
  - unconed 15y ago
    I was surprised at the iOS 4 omission, but for the love of god, please don't argue based on the version numbers alone. They never tell the whole story, and it depends on both software maturity and industry whether an upgrade is major or minor. There's also the fact that enough minor upgrades with a feature here and there over time can definitely accumulate into what would otherwise have been a major release. For example, Android 2.2 added huge performance gains, which definitely makes a difference for what app developers can do and what you can run. It also added very useful new features like wifi hotspot that make the device much more useful. Meanwhile 2.3 had a streamlined UI theme and added a new keyboard, NFC, gyros, WebM/AAC, multiple cameras, etc. Is that just minor? As an Android user, I feel the graph is pretty representative of the ecosystem and how my experience compares to iPhone users around me.
    - vacri 15y ago
      For example, Android 2.2 added huge performance gains ... It also added very useful new features like wifi hotspot that make the device much more useful. ... Is that just minor? Yes, I think so. Compare to this snippet: March 9, 2011 – iOS 4.3 arrived, delivering hotspot functionality, faster browsing, lock switch settings and improvements to AirPlay and Home Sharing. [1] iOS gets to call hotspot and faster browsing a minor version, why not the same for Android? It's comparing apples and oranges. Similarly, the cycle for Android 2.0 to 2.3 was around a year (well... 14 months) which is equivalent to the cycles for iOS major revs, which are about a year each [2] I'm currently trying to upgrade a bit of software at the moment at work that's a few minor points out... but those minor points contain some delicious features. Doesn't mean it's not a minor revision upgrade. [1]http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/06/03/ios-and-iphone-timeline-from-iphone-to-ios-5-in-5-years/ http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/06/03/ios-and-iphone-timel... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#Versions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#Versions edit: clarifications
d_r 15y ago
The current situation is somewhat unfair to the indiscrete / non-tech-savvy consumer since they might buy an Android phone without understanding the differences from the iOS ecosystem. At least several of my friends did. "They're about the same right? And this one was $30 cheaper!" And I genuinely feel bad every time this happens. Note that I of course have no gripes with Android OS/concept itself -- it's a good contender to iOS. My gripe is with the current gouging of consumers by hardware manufacturers/cell phone companies, of the fragmented/poor/outdated hardware coverage in many models, lack of upgrades, et cetera. And don't forget the mandatory "crapware" that carriers pre-install. This is quite different from buying, say, a Dell/HP PC vs. a Mac -- in both cases do you get a working, upgradeable machine.
- technoslut 15y ago
  >And don't forget the mandatory "crapware" that carriers pre-install. ICS supposedly solves this problem but one has to wonder how many low-end Android phones will be sold in the next year (or even two?) that won't support ICS since the N1 won't be getting it.
  - barredo 15y ago
    I'd say Gingerbread will still be the most pre-installed Android version during all 2012.
    - degusta 15y ago
      Unfortunately I suspect you're right.
    - guelo 15y ago
      That's highly doubtful. After the source is available the full transition to the new OS by all manufacturers, even the cheap ones, seems to take about 6 months. Gingerbread source was released last December and there were no Froyo devices being sold by summer.
      - 15y ago
hamletdrc2 15y ago
Am I misunderstanding this: "7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS." "12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less." That makes 19 out of 18 phones. That looks like an error. I wonder what other errors there are here?
- pieter 15y ago
  "never" is also "a matter of weeks or less"
- estel 15y ago
  Depending on what you classify as a "matter of weeks", I count five devices in the latter category.
- degusta 15y ago
  Yes, it's 7 that were "never" and 5 more that were "weeks", so 12 total that were "weeks or less". I struggled with that phrasing a bit - either way seemed wrong.
ajanuary 15y ago
Limiting it to 3 years masks the fact that lots of people still had iPhone 3G phones on 2 year contracts when Apple stopped offering updates for it. That said, the fact even that's off the scale is worrying for Android.
- betterth 15y ago
  You're right, but as a current iPhone 3G owner not getting updates, I can say that I had a great life for this phone (3.5 years and counting) and that I'm not mad Apple decided to stop supporting it. It's a very old device with very little memory - very difficult to support I imagine. And I'm okay with it because I know Apple has conservative product life cycles and will stick to it. And I know the next iPhone get will be supported for 2-3 years at least, as well.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > I can say that I had a great life for this phone (3.5 years and counting) and that I'm not mad Apple decided to stop supporting it. I think ajanuary is talking about the fact that the 3G was still for sale until right before the iPhone 4 was released (see black rectangle). So people who bought a 3G right before the 4 was released (not necessarily a smart move) got about 10 months of support (support essentially ended in March 2011, with iOS 4.3)
    - watmough 15y ago
      I speak from experience when I say, putting iOS 4 on the 3G was just a terrible idea. The 3G should have stayed with the 2G in being restricted to iOS 3.1.3, which whilst no speed demon, at least runs reasonably well, even now. The 3GS is the lowest hardware that should have been given iOS 4.
      - frou_dh 15y ago
        I speak from experience that the 3G running 4.2.1 that I still use "whilst no speed demon, at least runs reasonably well".
iaskwhy 15y ago
How do buying apps works on Android and all its versions? I remember buying apps on my first generation iPhone that then wouldn't support iOS 3.x but the Store still let me buy it. Is it the same on Android (but worse since there are so many different versions around)?
- SamColes 15y ago
  If your OS version isn't supported, you can't see it in the market or download it.
- juliano_q 15y ago
  No. The apps are targeted to a version (like 2.1 or above) and the devices below 2.1 don't see the app in the market.
- vidarh 15y ago
  The in-device market app won't see unsupported apps. If you go to market.android.com you can see it, but you will see a note telling you if some, all or none of your registered devices supports it, and an option to install it on one or more of them, so when you do upgrade or get a new device you can push any apps you've bought or installed previously to it.
ricw 15y ago
It's funny that these kind of long-term "features" don't get taken into consideration for any of the phone reviews. Its probably one of the most important features of a phone. I'm currently torn apart between buying an iPhone 4s and the galaxy nexus, but given that I can expect the iphone to be supported and updated instantly and regulary for a long time, and not with any of the android phones (less than 2 years for the original nexus phone), I think iphone it will be.. despite prefering the openness of android.
- gbog 15y ago
  It took me 10 mn, excluding download time, to root a Nexus S and install the of my choice on it...
  - nasmorn 15y ago
    But would you also like to do it for your mom and dad and wife and aunt and neighbor? If Android requires free geek labor to live up to its potential I sure am against it, because it would be my free labor that Google plans with here.
    - methodin 15y ago
      Your mom, dad, wife aunt and neighbor wouldn't even know what the hell you are talking about so being on version X has no particular significance to anyone outside of the tech community.
      - loire280 15y ago
        Developers care. What use are the new shiny features in Ice Cream Sandwich when I need to make my app compatible with phones on Eclair or Froyo to access a sufficiently broad portion of the Android install base? If developers are wary of developing for Android - especially the latest-and-greatest - that will affect the satisfaction of regular users.
        15y ago
juliano_q 15y ago
I think that the fact that the chart stopped at June 2010 makes it looks much worse than it is now. Android is newer than iOS and works on a very different environment. Support 4 devices is much easier than 4 thousand. If you extend this chart to 2011 you will notice that the platform is more mature and most of the phones will receive ICS (my wife Galaxy S is a relatively old device and will get it).
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- degusta 15y ago
  You might be right re it gets better - though not as sure about the ICS bit. It is my intention to keep at it & add (ideally) every phone.
  - fluidcruft 15y ago
    Here, I'll fill in a data point you missed: Motorola Milestone XT720 released June 2011 (USA: August) Runs 2.1 No bugfixes No updates No upgrades Buggy as hell. 2.2 upgrades and flash support pledged by Motorola sales/support at the time of release in the US -- later clarified that those employees had been "confused" when the mothballing was made official in late November. Those Apple green bars look quite nice, but I'm not a fan. Maybe add some Windows phone. The problem as I see it is that since Android is Open Source, the manufacturers don't abstract their innovations into a HAL. For example, Motorola's FM radio and HDMI support is peppered all over inside the core eclair framework. So, someone has to mix it all together again with each new release. Usually in the FOSS space, we like to believe that the effort of maintaining private forks encourages companies to contribute their efforts back to the open source project. That doesn't work here, because manufacturers like Motorola also have the viable option to simply abandon their forks. Which is even less effort. Apple has a huge economy of scale--only four or five devices (most very similar) with relatively humongous market share per device. The personnel/device ratio obviously supports a much better customer experience than any Android device can offer (with the exception of perhaps the Android developer phones). I can only assume Microsoft knows what they are doing and enforces abstractions and barriers that limit the scope of manufacture monkeying.
methodin 15y ago
So the point of the graphic has to be that most people don't really care, right?
bpolania 15y ago
It's an important omission not to mention that Android-based phones prices are declining at a much faster pace than iOS based phones. This is important because in many cases updating from one android to the next version (and sometimes to the next next version) is less expensive than buying a simple iPhone, rendering the need for further support unnecessary.
- maukdaddy 15y ago
  But people are limited by a 2 year contract for the "cheap" phones. They can't upgrade until that two year period is over. Suggesting that people upgrade to a new phone vs. upgrading software is terrible business and environmental practice!
  - vidarh 15y ago
    You can't pay to upgrade? I'm in the UK, and here you can upgrade at any time - you'll just pay more for the phone if you upgrade within your current contract period. As for environmental practice, there's a number of companies that'll refurbish used phones and sell them on, and they'll even give you a bit of cash for it if it's a reasonably recent phone. Here in the UK most of them will send you a prepaid envelope you can just drop your old phone in, and mail you a check when they receive it.
- gujk 15y ago
  I don't know about the middling phones, but flagship Nexus and iOS phones have been $540 - $600 unsubsidized. For a 2 vs 3 year lifespan (to be generous to Android), you would need a $400 Android to balance a $600 iPhone. You can't compare a $100 vs $200 subsidized phone, since that is just hiding the cost in the contract, which can be avoided.
- adolph 15y ago
  Yes, it does play to the carriers' customer retention biz plan for folks to upgrade HW to get the latest OS annually rather than when the contract runs out.
- woobar 15y ago
kalleboo 15y ago
How many PC users are still using XP, a 10 year old OS? If the version of the OS you have still works, it still works. The real issue here is security updates. Google need a way to update core OS component that aren't affected by the manufacturer's UI skinning.
- technoslut 15y ago
  Just because the expectations are low on MS desktops doesn't mean that other OSes shouldn't have updates. Many stay on XP primarily because of the cost to upgrade. This shouldn't be the case with Android.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- w0utert 15y ago
  To be fair, how many of these XP installs are still running a pre-SP1 version of the OS? Probably not much. Windows XP might be 10 years old, but it went through 3 major service packs that plugged many security holes, upgraded many frameworks and libraries, etc. Visually XP SP3 might not be different from the first Windows XP version, but under the hood, a lot has been fixed or upgraded. If I remember correctly, XP is still getting security updates to this date.
- forgotAgain 15y ago
  That's more a comment on a rejection of Vista by the market. The difference can be seen with 7 which, being a viable upgrade, is displacing XP.
- skeptical 15y ago
  Software compatibility is the key difference in here. To this day, virtually every application built for windows will run on windows xp. Does the same applies to android? I don't think it does. Many android apps require newer versions of android. I believe phone manufactures want to push compatibility lifetime so they can sell more devices.
- gte910h 15y ago
  We're still in the toddler stage of handset OSes. There are a lot of new features that are pretty important still coming through the pipe.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
masklinn 15y ago
The graph is debatable for the 3G: its last update was 4.2.1 released 28 months into the phone's lifecycle, but it did not get iOS 4.3 release in March 2011. Talking about "major version" sounds like a lie/cop-out in that case, since iOS receives pretty major updates in "minor" versions (4.3 included personal hotspots, ASLR, a JITed javascript engine, settings rearrangements and reworks, the ability to cancel an application update or remove an application being updated mid-download, ...)
- ajross 15y ago
  Also note that the graph goes out only three years, conveniently skipping the fact that the original and 3G will never get iOS 5. You'd think Apple had a perfect record, when in fact there's a bunch of yellow on their graph too. That chart is terribly cooked. It leaves out important devices like the Nexus S which had good support, and includes a ton of clunkers in lieu of the most popular phones (e.g. no Galaxy S variants) which tended to fare a little better. That said, the point the post is making is valid and important. But the graphic is sensationalized junk. It's a platform flame masquerading as product research.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > Also note that the graph goes out only three years, conveniently skipping the fact that the original and 3G will never get iOS 5. Considering no Android device comes even remotely close to three years of support, and three years is well outside the renewal cycles you can generally expect, I don't think that's really cooking anything. > That chart is terribly cooked. It leaves out important devices like the Nexus S which had good support The Nexus S is barely 10 months old, and is about phones which had been released as of June 2010, 6 months before the Nexus S appeared... > That said, the point the post is making is valid and important. But the graphic is sensationalized junk. It's not ideal in the least, but calling it "sensationalized junk" is pushing it too far by a long shot.
- delackner 15y ago
  From a developer standpoint, the Major version releases are far more important. All I have to choose is "am I going to support 3.1.x devices, or am I going to limit myself to 4.x devices". Even better, now that iOS5 has arrived with (very pleasantly smooth) support for the 3GS, the choice is "do I support 3.x or 5.x" since the last years of devices ALL support the APIs in the most recent OS. That is huge. Just yesterday I realized that a long-standing bug is fixed by iOS5, and that since nearly all of our customers will be running 3GS or newer hardware, I can depend on that fix with confidence when we release our next version soon.
ticks 15y ago
This is why the phone gods gave us CyanogenMOD.
SandB0x 15y ago
There's a major point that can be added to the Why Don’t Android Phones Get Updated? section: Third party skins and interfaces. HTC's Sense, Motorola's Motoblur and co can only introduce an engineering overhead and delays in upgrading. I would much rather they concentrated on making awsome hardware and leaving the UI to Google, rather than attempting to differentiate themselves in this way.
- billjings 15y ago
  If I were Motorola or Samsung, though, there's no way I'd do that. Without differentiation, you're selling a commodity product. If you're selling a commodity, there are no margins. I agree with you that it would be better for the Android ecosystem if they would, though.
  - mquander 15y ago
    If you or anyone can provide actual evidence that manufacturer software increases sales or gets consumers to tolerate higher margins, I'm all ears. But short of that, I don't believe it. I've never met someone who said they preferred a phone because of the bundled software. I have observed two groups of people: - Most people aren't conscious of bundled software or couldn't care less about it. - A minority actively dislike it and are biased toward buying "Google experience" phones.
    - billjings 15y ago
      I don't have numbers, but I've definitely met folks who have said, "Samsung has a better interface than HTC", or the like. The bundled software I'll grant is not really about differentiation - it's still a way to increase margins, though, by selling the right to bundle software on the phone or promoting your own services.
  - drzaiusapelord 15y ago
    They can make themselves different in other ways: 1. Hardware design. Even cosmetic stuff. 2. Good support. You know, being able to call a human being on the phone. 3. Easy OTA updater (No more Kies and god know what else) 4. Write an itunes clone for syncing that isn't terrible. Or license double-twist. 5. Useful crapware apps. Apple differentiates itself with stuff like Siri. Why is Anrdroid crapware like "Buy this 4.99 caller ID service?" There's so much room for improvement here. Considering ICS has all the eyecandy we need, its time to get out of the whole "Lets build a skin and add lots of crapware" that is turning Android into the smartphone ghetto. FWIW, its not just Android. I know a lot of iPhone users who have never upgraded the OS and never will. They don't understand the utility of doing so. I'm afraid a lot of this conversation depends on how geeks use their equipment, which is fine, but the hoi polloi isn't clamoring for updates like they should be.
Mordor 15y ago
This guy is a hero :)
jellicle 15y ago
Apples and oranges. An actually useful version of this graph would compare the Google phones to the Apple phones, and then in a separate table, compare the support for OS updates for other parties using the operating system (Apple would have no entries in that second chart, of course, but that's their choice). In the first hypothetical chart, I believe Google's support for Google phones compares acceptably well with Apple's support for Apple phones.
- ericd 15y ago
  Semantics. What matters to consumers is whether their phones get the new features, not who wins this pissing match.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    It is an issue of Semantics. Buying a Sense ridden phone from HTC and buying a Nexus from Google mean two entirely different things about the consistency of the phone and the timeliness of the software updates.
    - ericd 15y ago
      Right, I was talking about my original parent's point about how to make it fair, the chart maker should have split off the ones not made by Google and just compared the Google made ones vs. the Apple made ones. But not many phone purchasers actually care about that comparison - which company spawned the better ecosystem, they care about the phone they end up with. Hence, throwing them all together like he did in comparing the ecosystems was the appropriate thing to do.
pasbesoin 15y ago
I'm getting sick of Google's "see what sticks" and "let the end user fend for himself" attitude. I really wanted their various platforms to work, but now I'm just getting tired.
dsfasdfdfd 15y ago
And this is one reason why Google bought Motorola Mobility.
gcb 15y ago
Great graph. and to think i switched from a series of Nokia phones (because they loose support every 6mo, to the point you can't even buy a working headset cable or extra charger for them) and bought a nexus one because i thought "spending $700 to buy an OPEN phone directly from google will get updated software for life and consistent use of cables and standards"
- mdwrigh2 15y ago
  To be fair, you do get to use all of the new accessories and cables. Plus if you want to run ICS, while Google may not support it, it certainly seems like Cyanogen will have a version for the N1.
  - gcb 15y ago
    hum... you may want to check your facts. the desktop dock and car dock was discontinued what? 4 months after the launch? HTC only resumed selling 1.5yrs later. During that period the car dock was selling for $200 used on ebay. I have no idea if HTC still sells those now, but wouldn't be surprised if not. As for "new accessories" i bet most of them will use the near field thingy and be useless for the nexus one.
    - mdwrigh2 15y ago
      I have yet to see a new /accessory/ use NFC (really, the only thing I've seen use it is Wallet-like applications and check-in type applications). The desktop dock is still sold by HTC, but the car dock doesn't appear to be. Regardless, they're just a device that holds the phone and charges it. There are plenty of generic docks that still /do/ that (and probably a few third party ones that do it as well).
jsz0 15y ago
The lack of feature-updates is disappointing but they can get by forcing people to buy new phones for new features. It's the security side of this that could really blow up in their face. It's only a matter of time before these lingering security issues come home to roost. I wonder if Google has any plan to deal with the possibility of millions of Android phones and their associated user accounts being compromised? The risk is amplified by having all your eggs in the Google basket. What happens if your phone gets exploited and you just can't login to GMail tomorrow? (and you can't call Google for help) Unless you happen to be a high profile blogger or journalist you're going to have a hard time dealing with this type of thing.
dman 15y ago
The android team needs to pick a leaf out of the Google Chromes book. Chrome makes updates seamless and I wish android was the same.
RexRollman 15y ago
To me, Android is a fragmented soup sandwich. I like the idea of having choices for hardware, but under Android: - You can't assume what's going to be on the phone, software wise. Each maker evidently messes with it, sometimes even changing the interface itself. I've also read stories of bloatware being added. - You can't be sure how software updates are going to be handled, because that varies depending on maker and carrier, meaning you might not get updates they same time others do (this is also a problem for Windows 7 Phone). - Crappy cell provider logo plaques on the hardware (I detest that). - Multiple/competing app stores. I believe that Android has a lot of promise, but Google really needs to start exhibiting some control over what's going on.
- angryasian 15y ago
  the interfaces and multiple app stores are strengths of Android. If I don't like the default launcheror the default lockscreen or the keyboard, I can change it. Customization is a strength. It might be hard for IOS users to understand. Also multiple appstores is a strength because, competition is always good for the consumer. If you are afraid of the relaxed rules of the google market use amazon. If you want huge user base, use appbrain.
  - RexRollman 15y ago
    Customization is fine, when end users do it, but companies should not be messing with Android like they do (or at least, they shouldn't be able to refer to their Frankenstein creation as "Android").
gnubardt 15y ago
From data we've collected[1] more iOS devices (the majority) are running the most recent version of the OS, compared to Android. Even though they may have an update available (non-eligable devices excluded) not every user knows how or is able to update their device. http://blog.brightcove.com/sites/all/uploads/image/brightcove-html5-graphic-1-1.jpg http://blog.brightcove.com/sites/all/uploads/image/brightcov... [1] http://blog.brightcove.com/en/2011/10/brightcove-unveils-next-generation-video-cloud-smart-player
joebadmo 15y ago
1. Anyone who cares about OS updates would only have ever owned three or four of the phones on the chart. 2. Anyone who cares about OS updates doesn't keep a phone for longer than 2 years. Most spring for an early upgrade after 1.5. Many (like me) finagle a new one every year or so. 3. My wife has never updated the OS of any of the 3 iPhones she's owned. I believe she is representative.
- kisielk 15y ago
  According to some sources, it looks like iOS 5 adoption is up to 1/3 of eligible devices: http://www.localytics.com/blog/2011/ios-5-already-powering-1-in-3-eligible-devices/ http://www.localytics.com/blog/2011/ios-5-already-powering-1...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Rabidgremlin 15y ago
Whilst I agree that this is a problem (especially since it looks like my Nexus One won't get the the upgrade) a mitigating factor as an app developer is Android's backwards compatibility. For instance is my app targets 2.1 it will run on all on 2.1 and above which is currently ~97% of all active devices. Check out http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve... for the active OS version stats collected by Google in the last 14 days.
AlexV 15y ago
I compare Google's Android ecosystem to a restaurant: I ate once and received wonderful food and service. I go there again next week and the food is cold and the service is rude. Android's inconsistency is as big problem for Google as it is to the restaurant - if it's inconsistent, I stop going. I own several Android devices, with the SGS2 being the latest. If it is going to be inconsistent with the update & timing as the rest of them - next time I'm going to the competition, whoever it might be.
zmmmmm 15y ago
While it's definitely a problem for Android and extremely disappointing that devices under contract are not supported with new versions, looking at it on a device basis is somewhat unfair : the actual number of such handsets 3 versions behind in the real world are miniscule - according to the actual usage statistics, 84% of users are on 2.2 or better, and the functional differences between 2.2 and 2.3 are fairly small. The percentage of users on < 2.0 are down to ~2% at this point. I'd much rather see the platform being pushed forward than spending great amounts of time trying to shoehorn it onto extremely old devices used by 2% of people.
asmosoinio 15y ago
Looking at the big picture from Android Market point-of-view, developer can easily ignore the 1.5/1.6 crowd, and 2.1 is a small part of the whole: 1.5/1.6: 2.5% 2.1: 11.7% 2.2: 45.3% 2.3.x: 38.7% 3.x: 1.9% http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
weaselspice 15y ago
Hang on, iPhone 3G was released July 11, 2008 and iOS4 was released 710 days later (Jun 21, 2010). Many people found the 3G to be completely unusable with iOS4 installed and had to rollback to a previous version. On top of this, the 3G didn't receive the FULL iOS4 update, apple left out Multitasking, homescreen backgrounds, etc. You really need to update your diagram to show that iPhone 3G WAS NOT on the current major release after 2 years due to the fact that it didn't have many of the features of that release and that it couldn't handle what it WAS given properly anyway.

450 points by estel 15y ago

degusta 15y ago

I wrote the piece / did the research. Happy to answer any questions or comments people might have.

JoachimSchipper 15y ago
Just an observation: I believe I would strongly prefer a timeline, like iPhone 3 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| iPhone 4 ||||||||||||||||||||||||| Nexus one ||||||||||----||||------- Other ph. ||||||||||||-------- This would make several things much clearer (e.g. what's the uptake of 2.3? Have Android manufacturers gotten better or worse?) Still, interesting. EDIT: Just FYI, at 47 minutes this has 9 points.
- degusta 15y ago
  I actually originally started doing it that way, but thought it was more relevant vis a vis release date than calendar date. I do intend to include that when I finish doing all of the phones. (Yes, I'm a bit OCD :) ). Google apparently says less than 50% are on Gingerbread, despite way more than 50% of Android phones having been sold since 2.3 shipped. I do think manufacturers might have gotten a bit better, but I guess we'll see. That's one of the reasons I want to do the next 6 months or so of phones.
  - joelhaasnoot 15y ago
    Motorola is notoriously bad it looks like. It's a pitty you don't list many Samsung phones. They churn out devices, but don't do a lot of updates.
    - degusta 15y ago
      That's every Samsung phone released in the US through mid-2010. I do intend to keep at it and add more. (& yes, Motorola does appear to be particularly bad)
      - joelhaasnoot 15y ago
        Yeah, the European marketshare is a little different: Motorola releases few of their devices in The Netherlands (more in Germany & UK), but Samsung has a very high market share here.
  - spiralpolitik 15y ago
    You can find the breakdown here. http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve... Currently 45% are on 2.2 with 2.3 approaching around 39%.
- oflannabhra 15y ago
  If you're coming to the chart to see how well a manufacturer supports their products, the current layout is best. If you're trying to understand the history of phone releases and their current state, your suggestion might be best. I prefer the current layout.
martey 15y ago
Have you considered extending the chart? Right now it seems very iOS versus Android, and is only useful for people in the United States.
- degusta 15y ago
  Very much so - I made a note or two re extension & non-US at the end of the post. Definitely my intention.
- estel 15y ago
  Why is iOS vs. Android only useful for people in the US?
  - martey 15y ago
    It isn't. I was referring to the fact that the chart: - only compares iOS and Android phones, and - only compares updates from American carriers.
    - unconed 15y ago
      At the same time, the US is one of the biggest markets around, so it provides a reasonable case study and it tends to be the first to get any upgrade. It would be a nightmare to try to do the same for Europe for example because of the fragmentation.
      - rodh257 15y ago
        is the US really the first to get an upgrade? Most of Samsungs phones are launched first elsewhere, and US versions later come with their own carrier specific versions. The plain Galaxy S is not on that chart, and it would have received the upgrade before all the US variants.
  - joelhaasnoot 15y ago
    Most of the devices listed are US-centric or US-only. Anything 4G isn't available in Europe under the same name.
mda 15y ago
As JoachimSchipper said, provide a timeline and mark release dates of Os versions on it as well. This way it would be much cleaner and gives more context.
- degusta 15y ago
  I actually had letters on there ("E", "F") etc for releases but on top of the sales windows & the support windows it was just too much on one chart. I do plan to provide all that information as a comprehensive list of phones/updates, ideally along with the ability to sort by carrier, manufacturer, etc.
robinduckett 15y ago
You should include iPod Touch and how apple forces a charge for updates on that device. This chart is also skewed a bit and should be based on intervals of releases rather than "years since". I don't recall seeing any iOS5 backports to iPhone 2G or 3G.
- technoslut 15y ago
  I don't think Apple charges for iPod touch updates anymore.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    After the government changed how things could be accounted for, Apple stopped charging for software updates.
- degusta 15y ago
  No, the original iPhone & 3G don't support iOS 5. But they did support the current version of iOS for 3 years after they were released - far more than any Android phones of the period. (And, no, they don't charge for iPod Touch updates any more - that was technically an accounting regulation issue that the government changed.)
  - cbracken 15y ago
    Though to be honest, for the iPhone 3G, the longer green bar is easily misinterpreted as a positive thing, when for the most part, iOS4 rendered the phone very painful to use. 15-30s wait times for camera shutter, frequent hangs, constant crashes in Maps, being the main pain points with the two that my wife and I owned. If they'd have continued security and minor app updates for iOS3 on the 3G, I'd have been much happier.
    - frou_dh 15y ago
      I have my iPhone 3G running iOS 4.2.1 here. Home screen to camera shutter open takes 3 seconds. I don't use Maps, but nothing I do use crashes.
commandar 15y ago
It might be interesting to include whether a given phone is running stock Android or OEM skins like Sense. General consensus is that stock phones tend to be upgraded more often and faster, but it'd be nice to have some data to back that up.
- degusta 15y ago
  Concur. Similarly, general consensus seems to be that the skins actively hold things up because manufacturers have to port them to each new OS on each device. It'll be interesting to see how much life the skins have left in them in the post-ICS era.
ZeroGravitas 15y ago
As an owner of a iPhone 3G I don't agree with the solid green color that it gets. It was rendered unusable by iOS4.0, and although it was on "the current version" up until the release of iOS5 I don't recall it getting any actual feature from iOS4 other than faster javascript in the browser. So things are not as binary as depicted there. It also seems like you're looking at Android through an Apple lens where the only phone updates come via the OS and having the latest version is the key metric. This means that e.g. any delay in releasing an iOS update has no impact on your graph, but if the Nexus team bust their chops to get an update out early, it makes every other phone look bad in relation. What would it look like if you charted when the phones last received an update to their Maps, Youtube, or Gmail client apps from Google?. For Maps they would all be green I believe, less so for Youtube which is currently 2.2+ only so 15% of current devices wouldn't be able to get the latest version. Glancing through the list of new features in iOS5 it seems to be equally split between a) things Android already had (twitter, notifications, no pc required updates), and b) things that are considered Applications, not part of the OS in Android (e.g. To-do apps, email/calendar improvements, e-magazine reader app) so there doesn't seem to be as much reason for Android users to have to upgrade. So generally, from this point of view, you seem to be a bit loose with equating "support" from Google to mean new OS version e.g. your phrase "tracked down every update that was released for each device" isn't strictly true if you consider a newer version of Maps or the Market an update. And I would imagine the average person in the street would.
- MetaMan 15y ago
  When did you get your IPhone 3G? I got my Nexus one around 14 months ago. I choose it because its was the official Google developer's phone and so mostly likely to get updated! Except of course we now know that the Android benchmark device that's less than 2 years old will not be getting any more updates. BTW - I am willing to bet that when ICS source is released someone works out how to get ICS on it. I.e - I doubt that there's any fundamental reason it can't be done?
  - ZeroGravitas 15y ago
    I think I bought it about 6 months before the 3GS came out. I no longer use it as a phone, but still use it for other stuff. I also have just got a Nexus One (and have another Android phone). I'm not particularly disappointed that it's not getting ICS. I've not figured out one actual feature I care about that this announcement will deprive me of yet[1] (and as you say, I'll probably be able to put it on anyway. The key sticking point seems to be limited storage space, which custom ROMs have worked around before). Perhaps it'll mean I get better scores on javascript benchmarks with the default browser, but I'm keen to try Firefox anyway now that I have an ARMv7 device. But if the only thing I get is version number bragging rights, I'm not sure I'll even bother with ICS. [1] Face unlock? No front facing camera on the Nexus One, Android Beam? No NFC chip. Better browser? I'm not sure how much the benchmarks translate into reality. Built in VPN capatablities? actually that's interesting. Folders? We're scraping the barrel now. Different multitasking UI?
MetaMan 15y ago
Thanks. I think you have proven something that many of us have experienced - Android may have a number of technical advantages but its rollout management is unreliable and chaotic and so many non technical users may actually be better off with IOS devices! Technical users may be able to update themselves with some effort (E.g. via XDAdevelopers) if they choose devices carefully and have a bit of luck ! Over the last few months I have been advising my non technically minded friends / family members to "just get an IOS device if you can afford it. Android is great and more flexible but App quality is generally lower and you can't be sure you can EASILY get updates even 6 months after you buy. With IOS you know the device will be supported for around 2 years and maybe even longer. With Android there is no guarantee!" For me this is sad. I've got both an Android phone (Nexus one) and a tablet (HTC flyer). I am seriously thinking of getting an Iphone for my next personal phone and just accept the few restrictions - BAH !
danso 15y ago
Excellent, to the point visualization of an insight. I love it when journalists can use the table-chart format to create a data-deep yet simple graphic that tells a better story than any plain narrative can.
recoiledsnake 15y ago
Add the Sony Xperia to the mix. It was released and sold with Android 1.6(!!!!) and the updates were really slow in coming.
kinofcain 15y ago
This is exactly the kind of in depth nerdery I love. Thanks for putting it together. It seems like it would be valuable as a standalone resource. You might even be able to get some help from the community in a wiki format for keeping it up to date.
vetinari 15y ago
Could you also make a chart showing, how long the phone is supported after it stops selling? For example, 3G was being sold up until iPhone 4 introduction, but the iOS4 was the last update it has seen. Similarly, 3GS is still being sold, but that does not mean that it will be supported for next three years.
armored 15y ago
I think you should touch on frequency of updates: how often does Apple release, how often does Google? Also it's not really fair to expect that every phone is going to run the very latest Android code, especially ice cream sandwich, which expects a forward facing camera, doesn't use the navigation buttons and so forth. I do agree with the general premise that Android carriers/manufactures tend to release and abandon. They have no interest in updating the OS after the sale, which explains the popularity of Cyanogen.
vacri 15y ago
It's an apple fanboy piece, presenting heavily skewed data, be it from either straight-out falsity or improper definitions: 1) Original iphone can't run iOS 4, but it gets green all the way through. Similar issues with 3G and iOS5. EDIT: I see now that the way you've done the timelines makes it confusing, and seems to be done intentionally to make your point rather than clarify what's going on. 2) 2.1 to 2.2 is a minor release. 2.1 to 3.0 is a major release. And Android 3.0 isn't a phone release at all - specifically stated as such. It's impossible for a phone to be "3 major releases behind" when there are only two major releases available. Go back and remake the graph fairly. It will still show the story you want to tell, but you will be able to claim impartiality - and with it, better authority.
- unconed 15y ago
  I was surprised at the iOS 4 omission, but for the love of god, please don't argue based on the version numbers alone. They never tell the whole story, and it depends on both software maturity and industry whether an upgrade is major or minor. There's also the fact that enough minor upgrades with a feature here and there over time can definitely accumulate into what would otherwise have been a major release. For example, Android 2.2 added huge performance gains, which definitely makes a difference for what app developers can do and what you can run. It also added very useful new features like wifi hotspot that make the device much more useful. Meanwhile 2.3 had a streamlined UI theme and added a new keyboard, NFC, gyros, WebM/AAC, multiple cameras, etc. Is that just minor? As an Android user, I feel the graph is pretty representative of the ecosystem and how my experience compares to iPhone users around me.
  - vacri 15y ago
    For example, Android 2.2 added huge performance gains ... It also added very useful new features like wifi hotspot that make the device much more useful. ... Is that just minor? Yes, I think so. Compare to this snippet: March 9, 2011 – iOS 4.3 arrived, delivering hotspot functionality, faster browsing, lock switch settings and improvements to AirPlay and Home Sharing. [1] iOS gets to call hotspot and faster browsing a minor version, why not the same for Android? It's comparing apples and oranges. Similarly, the cycle for Android 2.0 to 2.3 was around a year (well... 14 months) which is equivalent to the cycles for iOS major revs, which are about a year each [2] I'm currently trying to upgrade a bit of software at the moment at work that's a few minor points out... but those minor points contain some delicious features. Doesn't mean it's not a minor revision upgrade. [1]http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/06/03/ios-and-iphone-timeline-from-iphone-to-ios-5-in-5-years/ http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/06/03/ios-and-iphone-timel... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#Versions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#Versions edit: clarifications

d_r 15y ago

The current situation is somewhat unfair to the indiscrete / non-tech-savvy consumer since they might buy an Android phone without understanding the differences from the iOS ecosystem. At least several of my friends did. "They're about the same right? And this one was $30 cheaper!" And I genuinely feel bad every time this happens. Note that I of course have no gripes with Android OS/concept itself -- it's a good contender to iOS. My gripe is with the current gouging of consumers by hardware manufacturers/cell phone companies, of the fragmented/poor/outdated hardware coverage in many models, lack of upgrades, et cetera. And don't forget the mandatory "crapware" that carriers pre-install. This is quite different from buying, say, a Dell/HP PC vs. a Mac -- in both cases do you get a working, upgradeable machine.

technoslut 15y ago
>And don't forget the mandatory "crapware" that carriers pre-install. ICS supposedly solves this problem but one has to wonder how many low-end Android phones will be sold in the next year (or even two?) that won't support ICS since the N1 won't be getting it.
- barredo 15y ago
  I'd say Gingerbread will still be the most pre-installed Android version during all 2012.
  - degusta 15y ago
    Unfortunately I suspect you're right.
  - guelo 15y ago
    That's highly doubtful. After the source is available the full transition to the new OS by all manufacturers, even the cheap ones, seems to take about 6 months. Gingerbread source was released last December and there were no Froyo devices being sold by summer.
    - 15y ago

hamletdrc2 15y ago

Am I misunderstanding this: "7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS." "12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less." That makes 19 out of 18 phones. That looks like an error. I wonder what other errors there are here?

pieter 15y ago
"never" is also "a matter of weeks or less"
estel 15y ago
Depending on what you classify as a "matter of weeks", I count five devices in the latter category.
degusta 15y ago
Yes, it's 7 that were "never" and 5 more that were "weeks", so 12 total that were "weeks or less". I struggled with that phrasing a bit - either way seemed wrong.

ajanuary 15y ago

Limiting it to 3 years masks the fact that lots of people still had iPhone 3G phones on 2 year contracts when Apple stopped offering updates for it. That said, the fact even that's off the scale is worrying for Android.

betterth 15y ago
You're right, but as a current iPhone 3G owner not getting updates, I can say that I had a great life for this phone (3.5 years and counting) and that I'm not mad Apple decided to stop supporting it. It's a very old device with very little memory - very difficult to support I imagine. And I'm okay with it because I know Apple has conservative product life cycles and will stick to it. And I know the next iPhone get will be supported for 2-3 years at least, as well.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > I can say that I had a great life for this phone (3.5 years and counting) and that I'm not mad Apple decided to stop supporting it. I think ajanuary is talking about the fact that the 3G was still for sale until right before the iPhone 4 was released (see black rectangle). So people who bought a 3G right before the 4 was released (not necessarily a smart move) got about 10 months of support (support essentially ended in March 2011, with iOS 4.3)
  - watmough 15y ago
    I speak from experience when I say, putting iOS 4 on the 3G was just a terrible idea. The 3G should have stayed with the 2G in being restricted to iOS 3.1.3, which whilst no speed demon, at least runs reasonably well, even now. The 3GS is the lowest hardware that should have been given iOS 4.
    - frou_dh 15y ago
      I speak from experience that the 3G running 4.2.1 that I still use "whilst no speed demon, at least runs reasonably well".

iaskwhy 15y ago

How do buying apps works on Android and all its versions? I remember buying apps on my first generation iPhone that then wouldn't support iOS 3.x but the Store still let me buy it. Is it the same on Android (but worse since there are so many different versions around)?

SamColes 15y ago
If your OS version isn't supported, you can't see it in the market or download it.
juliano_q 15y ago
No. The apps are targeted to a version (like 2.1 or above) and the devices below 2.1 don't see the app in the market.
vidarh 15y ago
The in-device market app won't see unsupported apps. If you go to market.android.com you can see it, but you will see a note telling you if some, all or none of your registered devices supports it, and an option to install it on one or more of them, so when you do upgrade or get a new device you can push any apps you've bought or installed previously to it.

ricw 15y ago

It's funny that these kind of long-term "features" don't get taken into consideration for any of the phone reviews. Its probably one of the most important features of a phone. I'm currently torn apart between buying an iPhone 4s and the galaxy nexus, but given that I can expect the iphone to be supported and updated instantly and regulary for a long time, and not with any of the android phones (less than 2 years for the original nexus phone), I think iphone it will be.. despite prefering the openness of android.

gbog 15y ago
It took me 10 mn, excluding download time, to root a Nexus S and install the of my choice on it...
- nasmorn 15y ago
  But would you also like to do it for your mom and dad and wife and aunt and neighbor? If Android requires free geek labor to live up to its potential I sure am against it, because it would be my free labor that Google plans with here.
  - methodin 15y ago
    Your mom, dad, wife aunt and neighbor wouldn't even know what the hell you are talking about so being on version X has no particular significance to anyone outside of the tech community.
    - loire280 15y ago
      Developers care. What use are the new shiny features in Ice Cream Sandwich when I need to make my app compatible with phones on Eclair or Froyo to access a sufficiently broad portion of the Android install base? If developers are wary of developing for Android - especially the latest-and-greatest - that will affect the satisfaction of regular users.
      - 15y ago

juliano_q 15y ago

I think that the fact that the chart stopped at June 2010 makes it looks much worse than it is now. Android is newer than iOS and works on a very different environment. Support 4 devices is much easier than 4 thousand. If you extend this chart to 2011 you will notice that the platform is more mature and most of the phones will receive ICS (my wife Galaxy S is a relatively old device and will get it).

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
degusta 15y ago
You might be right re it gets better - though not as sure about the ICS bit. It is my intention to keep at it & add (ideally) every phone.
- fluidcruft 15y ago
  Here, I'll fill in a data point you missed: Motorola Milestone XT720 released June 2011 (USA: August) Runs 2.1 No bugfixes No updates No upgrades Buggy as hell. 2.2 upgrades and flash support pledged by Motorola sales/support at the time of release in the US -- later clarified that those employees had been "confused" when the mothballing was made official in late November. Those Apple green bars look quite nice, but I'm not a fan. Maybe add some Windows phone. The problem as I see it is that since Android is Open Source, the manufacturers don't abstract their innovations into a HAL. For example, Motorola's FM radio and HDMI support is peppered all over inside the core eclair framework. So, someone has to mix it all together again with each new release. Usually in the FOSS space, we like to believe that the effort of maintaining private forks encourages companies to contribute their efforts back to the open source project. That doesn't work here, because manufacturers like Motorola also have the viable option to simply abandon their forks. Which is even less effort. Apple has a huge economy of scale--only four or five devices (most very similar) with relatively humongous market share per device. The personnel/device ratio obviously supports a much better customer experience than any Android device can offer (with the exception of perhaps the Android developer phones). I can only assume Microsoft knows what they are doing and enforces abstractions and barriers that limit the scope of manufacture monkeying.

methodin 15y ago

So the point of the graphic has to be that most people don't really care, right?

bpolania 15y ago

It's an important omission not to mention that Android-based phones prices are declining at a much faster pace than iOS based phones. This is important because in many cases updating from one android to the next version (and sometimes to the next next version) is less expensive than buying a simple iPhone, rendering the need for further support unnecessary.

maukdaddy 15y ago
But people are limited by a 2 year contract for the "cheap" phones. They can't upgrade until that two year period is over. Suggesting that people upgrade to a new phone vs. upgrading software is terrible business and environmental practice!
- vidarh 15y ago
  You can't pay to upgrade? I'm in the UK, and here you can upgrade at any time - you'll just pay more for the phone if you upgrade within your current contract period. As for environmental practice, there's a number of companies that'll refurbish used phones and sell them on, and they'll even give you a bit of cash for it if it's a reasonably recent phone. Here in the UK most of them will send you a prepaid envelope you can just drop your old phone in, and mail you a check when they receive it.
gujk 15y ago
I don't know about the middling phones, but flagship Nexus and iOS phones have been $540 - $600 unsubsidized. For a 2 vs 3 year lifespan (to be generous to Android), you would need a $400 Android to balance a $600 iPhone. You can't compare a $100 vs $200 subsidized phone, since that is just hiding the cost in the contract, which can be avoided.
adolph 15y ago
Yes, it does play to the carriers' customer retention biz plan for folks to upgrade HW to get the latest OS annually rather than when the contract runs out.
woobar 15y ago

kalleboo 15y ago

How many PC users are still using XP, a 10 year old OS? If the version of the OS you have still works, it still works. The real issue here is security updates. Google need a way to update core OS component that aren't affected by the manufacturer's UI skinning.

technoslut 15y ago
Just because the expectations are low on MS desktops doesn't mean that other OSes shouldn't have updates. Many stay on XP primarily because of the cost to upgrade. This shouldn't be the case with Android.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
w0utert 15y ago
To be fair, how many of these XP installs are still running a pre-SP1 version of the OS? Probably not much. Windows XP might be 10 years old, but it went through 3 major service packs that plugged many security holes, upgraded many frameworks and libraries, etc. Visually XP SP3 might not be different from the first Windows XP version, but under the hood, a lot has been fixed or upgraded. If I remember correctly, XP is still getting security updates to this date.
forgotAgain 15y ago
That's more a comment on a rejection of Vista by the market. The difference can be seen with 7 which, being a viable upgrade, is displacing XP.
skeptical 15y ago
Software compatibility is the key difference in here. To this day, virtually every application built for windows will run on windows xp. Does the same applies to android? I don't think it does. Many android apps require newer versions of android. I believe phone manufactures want to push compatibility lifetime so they can sell more devices.
gte910h 15y ago
We're still in the toddler stage of handset OSes. There are a lot of new features that are pretty important still coming through the pipe.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

masklinn 15y ago

The graph is debatable for the 3G: its last update was 4.2.1 released 28 months into the phone's lifecycle, but it did not get iOS 4.3 release in March 2011. Talking about "major version" sounds like a lie/cop-out in that case, since iOS receives pretty major updates in "minor" versions (4.3 included personal hotspots, ASLR, a JITed javascript engine, settings rearrangements and reworks, the ability to cancel an application update or remove an application being updated mid-download, ...)

ajross 15y ago
Also note that the graph goes out only three years, conveniently skipping the fact that the original and 3G will never get iOS 5. You'd think Apple had a perfect record, when in fact there's a bunch of yellow on their graph too. That chart is terribly cooked. It leaves out important devices like the Nexus S which had good support, and includes a ton of clunkers in lieu of the most popular phones (e.g. no Galaxy S variants) which tended to fare a little better. That said, the point the post is making is valid and important. But the graphic is sensationalized junk. It's a platform flame masquerading as product research.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > Also note that the graph goes out only three years, conveniently skipping the fact that the original and 3G will never get iOS 5. Considering no Android device comes even remotely close to three years of support, and three years is well outside the renewal cycles you can generally expect, I don't think that's really cooking anything. > That chart is terribly cooked. It leaves out important devices like the Nexus S which had good support The Nexus S is barely 10 months old, and is about phones which had been released as of June 2010, 6 months before the Nexus S appeared... > That said, the point the post is making is valid and important. But the graphic is sensationalized junk. It's not ideal in the least, but calling it "sensationalized junk" is pushing it too far by a long shot.
delackner 15y ago
From a developer standpoint, the Major version releases are far more important. All I have to choose is "am I going to support 3.1.x devices, or am I going to limit myself to 4.x devices". Even better, now that iOS5 has arrived with (very pleasantly smooth) support for the 3GS, the choice is "do I support 3.x or 5.x" since the last years of devices ALL support the APIs in the most recent OS. That is huge. Just yesterday I realized that a long-standing bug is fixed by iOS5, and that since nearly all of our customers will be running 3GS or newer hardware, I can depend on that fix with confidence when we release our next version soon.

ticks 15y ago

This is why the phone gods gave us CyanogenMOD.

SandB0x 15y ago

There's a major point that can be added to the Why Don’t Android Phones Get Updated? section: Third party skins and interfaces. HTC's Sense, Motorola's Motoblur and co can only introduce an engineering overhead and delays in upgrading. I would much rather they concentrated on making awsome hardware and leaving the UI to Google, rather than attempting to differentiate themselves in this way.

billjings 15y ago
If I were Motorola or Samsung, though, there's no way I'd do that. Without differentiation, you're selling a commodity product. If you're selling a commodity, there are no margins. I agree with you that it would be better for the Android ecosystem if they would, though.
- mquander 15y ago
  If you or anyone can provide actual evidence that manufacturer software increases sales or gets consumers to tolerate higher margins, I'm all ears. But short of that, I don't believe it. I've never met someone who said they preferred a phone because of the bundled software. I have observed two groups of people: - Most people aren't conscious of bundled software or couldn't care less about it. - A minority actively dislike it and are biased toward buying "Google experience" phones.
  - billjings 15y ago
    I don't have numbers, but I've definitely met folks who have said, "Samsung has a better interface than HTC", or the like. The bundled software I'll grant is not really about differentiation - it's still a way to increase margins, though, by selling the right to bundle software on the phone or promoting your own services.
- drzaiusapelord 15y ago
  They can make themselves different in other ways: 1. Hardware design. Even cosmetic stuff. 2. Good support. You know, being able to call a human being on the phone. 3. Easy OTA updater (No more Kies and god know what else) 4. Write an itunes clone for syncing that isn't terrible. Or license double-twist. 5. Useful crapware apps. Apple differentiates itself with stuff like Siri. Why is Anrdroid crapware like "Buy this 4.99 caller ID service?" There's so much room for improvement here. Considering ICS has all the eyecandy we need, its time to get out of the whole "Lets build a skin and add lots of crapware" that is turning Android into the smartphone ghetto. FWIW, its not just Android. I know a lot of iPhone users who have never upgraded the OS and never will. They don't understand the utility of doing so. I'm afraid a lot of this conversation depends on how geeks use their equipment, which is fine, but the hoi polloi isn't clamoring for updates like they should be.

Mordor 15y ago

This guy is a hero :)

jellicle 15y ago

Apples and oranges. An actually useful version of this graph would compare the Google phones to the Apple phones, and then in a separate table, compare the support for OS updates for other parties using the operating system (Apple would have no entries in that second chart, of course, but that's their choice). In the first hypothetical chart, I believe Google's support for Google phones compares acceptably well with Apple's support for Apple phones.

ericd 15y ago
Semantics. What matters to consumers is whether their phones get the new features, not who wins this pissing match.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  It is an issue of Semantics. Buying a Sense ridden phone from HTC and buying a Nexus from Google mean two entirely different things about the consistency of the phone and the timeliness of the software updates.
  - ericd 15y ago
    Right, I was talking about my original parent's point about how to make it fair, the chart maker should have split off the ones not made by Google and just compared the Google made ones vs. the Apple made ones. But not many phone purchasers actually care about that comparison - which company spawned the better ecosystem, they care about the phone they end up with. Hence, throwing them all together like he did in comparing the ecosystems was the appropriate thing to do.

pasbesoin 15y ago

I'm getting sick of Google's "see what sticks" and "let the end user fend for himself" attitude. I really wanted their various platforms to work, but now I'm just getting tired.

dsfasdfdfd 15y ago

And this is one reason why Google bought Motorola Mobility.

gcb 15y ago

Great graph. and to think i switched from a series of Nokia phones (because they loose support every 6mo, to the point you can't even buy a working headset cable or extra charger for them) and bought a nexus one because i thought "spending $700 to buy an OPEN phone directly from google will get updated software for life and consistent use of cables and standards"

mdwrigh2 15y ago
To be fair, you do get to use all of the new accessories and cables. Plus if you want to run ICS, while Google may not support it, it certainly seems like Cyanogen will have a version for the N1.
- gcb 15y ago
  hum... you may want to check your facts. the desktop dock and car dock was discontinued what? 4 months after the launch? HTC only resumed selling 1.5yrs later. During that period the car dock was selling for $200 used on ebay. I have no idea if HTC still sells those now, but wouldn't be surprised if not. As for "new accessories" i bet most of them will use the near field thingy and be useless for the nexus one.
  - mdwrigh2 15y ago
    I have yet to see a new /accessory/ use NFC (really, the only thing I've seen use it is Wallet-like applications and check-in type applications). The desktop dock is still sold by HTC, but the car dock doesn't appear to be. Regardless, they're just a device that holds the phone and charges it. There are plenty of generic docks that still /do/ that (and probably a few third party ones that do it as well).

jsz0 15y ago

The lack of feature-updates is disappointing but they can get by forcing people to buy new phones for new features. It's the security side of this that could really blow up in their face. It's only a matter of time before these lingering security issues come home to roost. I wonder if Google has any plan to deal with the possibility of millions of Android phones and their associated user accounts being compromised? The risk is amplified by having all your eggs in the Google basket. What happens if your phone gets exploited and you just can't login to GMail tomorrow? (and you can't call Google for help) Unless you happen to be a high profile blogger or journalist you're going to have a hard time dealing with this type of thing.

dman 15y ago

The android team needs to pick a leaf out of the Google Chromes book. Chrome makes updates seamless and I wish android was the same.

RexRollman 15y ago

To me, Android is a fragmented soup sandwich. I like the idea of having choices for hardware, but under Android: - You can't assume what's going to be on the phone, software wise. Each maker evidently messes with it, sometimes even changing the interface itself. I've also read stories of bloatware being added. - You can't be sure how software updates are going to be handled, because that varies depending on maker and carrier, meaning you might not get updates they same time others do (this is also a problem for Windows 7 Phone). - Crappy cell provider logo plaques on the hardware (I detest that). - Multiple/competing app stores. I believe that Android has a lot of promise, but Google really needs to start exhibiting some control over what's going on.

angryasian 15y ago
the interfaces and multiple app stores are strengths of Android. If I don't like the default launcheror the default lockscreen or the keyboard, I can change it. Customization is a strength. It might be hard for IOS users to understand. Also multiple appstores is a strength because, competition is always good for the consumer. If you are afraid of the relaxed rules of the google market use amazon. If you want huge user base, use appbrain.
- RexRollman 15y ago
  Customization is fine, when end users do it, but companies should not be messing with Android like they do (or at least, they shouldn't be able to refer to their Frankenstein creation as "Android").

gnubardt 15y ago

From data we've collected[1] more iOS devices (the majority) are running the most recent version of the OS, compared to Android. Even though they may have an update available (non-eligable devices excluded) not every user knows how or is able to update their device. http://blog.brightcove.com/sites/all/uploads/image/brightcove-html5-graphic-1-1.jpg http://blog.brightcove.com/sites/all/uploads/image/brightcov... [1] http://blog.brightcove.com/en/2011/10/brightcove-unveils-next-generation-video-cloud-smart-player

joebadmo 15y ago

1. Anyone who cares about OS updates would only have ever owned three or four of the phones on the chart. 2. Anyone who cares about OS updates doesn't keep a phone for longer than 2 years. Most spring for an early upgrade after 1.5. Many (like me) finagle a new one every year or so. 3. My wife has never updated the OS of any of the 3 iPhones she's owned. I believe she is representative.

kisielk 15y ago
According to some sources, it looks like iOS 5 adoption is up to 1/3 of eligible devices: http://www.localytics.com/blog/2011/ios-5-already-powering-1-in-3-eligible-devices/ http://www.localytics.com/blog/2011/ios-5-already-powering-1...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Rabidgremlin 15y ago

Whilst I agree that this is a problem (especially since it looks like my Nexus One won't get the the upgrade) a mitigating factor as an app developer is Android's backwards compatibility. For instance is my app targets 2.1 it will run on all on 2.1 and above which is currently ~97% of all active devices. Check out http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve... for the active OS version stats collected by Google in the last 14 days.

AlexV 15y ago

I compare Google's Android ecosystem to a restaurant: I ate once and received wonderful food and service. I go there again next week and the food is cold and the service is rude. Android's inconsistency is as big problem for Google as it is to the restaurant - if it's inconsistent, I stop going. I own several Android devices, with the SGS2 being the latest. If it is going to be inconsistent with the update & timing as the rest of them - next time I'm going to the competition, whoever it might be.

zmmmmm 15y ago

While it's definitely a problem for Android and extremely disappointing that devices under contract are not supported with new versions, looking at it on a device basis is somewhat unfair : the actual number of such handsets 3 versions behind in the real world are miniscule - according to the actual usage statistics, 84% of users are on 2.2 or better, and the functional differences between 2.2 and 2.3 are fairly small. The percentage of users on < 2.0 are down to ~2% at this point. I'd much rather see the platform being pushed forward than spending great amounts of time trying to shoehorn it onto extremely old devices used by 2% of people.

asmosoinio 15y ago

Looking at the big picture from Android Market point-of-view, developer can easily ignore the 1.5/1.6 crowd, and 2.1 is a small part of the whole: 1.5/1.6: 2.5% 2.1: 11.7% 2.2: 45.3% 2.3.x: 38.7% 3.x: 1.9% http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...

weaselspice 15y ago

Hang on, iPhone 3G was released July 11, 2008 and iOS4 was released 710 days later (Jun 21, 2010). Many people found the 3G to be completely unusable with iOS4 installed and had to rollback to a previous version. On top of this, the 3G didn't receive the FULL iOS4 update, apple left out Multitasking, homescreen backgrounds, etc. You really need to update your diagram to show that iPhone 3G WAS NOT on the current major release after 2 years due to the fact that it didn't have many of the features of that release and that it couldn't handle what it WAS given properly anyway.