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Douche move making it require Ice Cream Sandwich while they don't require telcos to ship any of us upgrades.

by benologist 15y ago

bryne 15y ago
Do you really still think Google has any say in the whole carrier upgrade thing?
- benologist 15y ago
  You're right, it's not Google's fault that they're only armed with: a) the only operating system that really competes with iOS while everyone struggle to compete with the iPhone b) mountains of cash c) a factory full of smart people solving much harder problems It's much better to just abandon every single generation of Android and the hardware it shipped on!
steve-howard 15y ago
If Samsung didn't lock down the bootloader so fucking tight on my $500 phone I wouldn't have to care what the telco does.
- jsight 15y ago
  Which Samsung Android device has a locked bootloader?
  - nuclear_eclipse 15y ago
    Most of the non-Nexus phones technically have a locked bootloader, so that people can only run firmware signed by the carrier. In practice, there are ways of jailbreaking the vast majority of locked phones, but there are some people who don't want to void their warranty or don't want to use community ROMs.
    - jsight 15y ago
      AFAIK (and some google searching seems to confirm) the Galaxy SII does not have a locked bootloader. I believe that the original Galaxy S was also unlocked. So which Samsung Android devices have locked bootloaders? Motorola and HTC tend to lock their bootloaders more often (though this situation is improving).
  - steve-howard 15y ago
    I'm so sorry, I was incorrect. I briefly owned a Nexus S which had an unlocked bootloader. I currently own a Motorola Photon, and even though there are ways to flash the bootloader, doing so cripples 4g (I believe this is by design).
starwed 15y ago
Yeah, lets just go ahead and assume there are no technical reasons here...
thetrendycyborg 15y ago
It has canvas hardware acceleration. Hardware acceleration is a new feature in Android 4. Hence, it is only available on ICS.
- gcp 15y ago
  They could have added fallbacks. HW graphics acceleration is also possible on pre-ICS Android, anyway.
angryasian 15y ago
probably more related more to a minimum hardware requirements.
apress 15y ago
It's using 4.0 APIs, according to Matt Seigler's story and interview with Google SVP of Chrome Sundar Pichai: "Back to the bad news: some of the more advanced features of Chrome for Android require APIs found only in Ice Cream Sandwich, so the team made the call to make it only available for Android 4.0 and beyond. Again, this means only 1% of current Android users out there can actually get and use the browser right now." - http://parislemon.com/post/17215781807/chrome-for-android-the-browser-for-the-1 http://parislemon.com/post/17215781807/chrome-for-android-th...
- fpgeek 15y ago
  1% of Android users is still at least a couple million. That's more than enough to get a reasonable pool of beta testers. By the time it gets out of beta, the Android release distribution will probably look quite different.

Douche move making it require Ice Cream Sandwich while they don't require telcos to ship any of us upgrades.

bryne 15y ago

Do you really still think Google has any say in the whole carrier upgrade thing?

benologist 15y ago
You're right, it's not Google's fault that they're only armed with: a) the only operating system that really competes with iOS while everyone struggle to compete with the iPhone b) mountains of cash c) a factory full of smart people solving much harder problems It's much better to just abandon every single generation of Android and the hardware it shipped on!

steve-howard 15y ago

If Samsung didn't lock down the bootloader so fucking tight on my $500 phone I wouldn't have to care what the telco does.

jsight 15y ago
Which Samsung Android device has a locked bootloader?
- nuclear_eclipse 15y ago
  Most of the non-Nexus phones technically have a locked bootloader, so that people can only run firmware signed by the carrier. In practice, there are ways of jailbreaking the vast majority of locked phones, but there are some people who don't want to void their warranty or don't want to use community ROMs.
  - jsight 15y ago
    AFAIK (and some google searching seems to confirm) the Galaxy SII does not have a locked bootloader. I believe that the original Galaxy S was also unlocked. So which Samsung Android devices have locked bootloaders? Motorola and HTC tend to lock their bootloaders more often (though this situation is improving).
- steve-howard 15y ago
  I'm so sorry, I was incorrect. I briefly owned a Nexus S which had an unlocked bootloader. I currently own a Motorola Photon, and even though there are ways to flash the bootloader, doing so cripples 4g (I believe this is by design).

starwed 15y ago

Yeah, lets just go ahead and assume there are no technical reasons here...

thetrendycyborg 15y ago

It has canvas hardware acceleration. Hardware acceleration is a new feature in Android 4. Hence, it is only available on ICS.

gcp 15y ago
They could have added fallbacks. HW graphics acceleration is also possible on pre-ICS Android, anyway.

angryasian 15y ago

probably more related more to a minimum hardware requirements.

apress 15y ago

It's using 4.0 APIs, according to Matt Seigler's story and interview with Google SVP of Chrome Sundar Pichai: "Back to the bad news: some of the more advanced features of Chrome for Android require APIs found only in Ice Cream Sandwich, so the team made the call to make it only available for Android 4.0 and beyond. Again, this means only 1% of current Android users out there can actually get and use the browser right now." - http://parislemon.com/post/17215781807/chrome-for-android-the-browser-for-the-1 http://parislemon.com/post/17215781807/chrome-for-android-th...

fpgeek 15y ago
1% of Android users is still at least a couple million. That's more than enough to get a reasonable pool of beta testers. By the time it gets out of beta, the Android release distribution will probably look quite different.