It's the transition period from cellphones to computers. A cellphone doesn't need updates, it's a hard-coded brick that's released once and then it works until

It's the transition period from cellphones to computers. A cellphone doesn't need updates, it's a hard-coded brick that's released once and then it works until it gets broken. A computer is a platform, mostly made out of software and the freshness of the software platform is a key part of its nature: we've used to updating our linux and windows boxes for fifteen years. Now, smartphones are still a bit in between. They're basically computers but still regarded as phones. It'll take some time for everyone to catch up to the same level, maybe some years. Apple does it already and others must follow as soon as they get the order back in their development chain. Ideally, an Android phone would be like Ubuntu with per-device kernels. It would continuously stream new packages over the net and the kernel would handle all device specific things so that Android userspace doesn't have to. It basically works like this already, it's just the update process that hasn't been mechanized. And there are a small number of device specific tricks in the userspace too, these days, because OEMs think they can tailor Android for their product. It's as bad as an OEM that would want to sell laptops with an OEM customized Ubuntu distribution. It works one time but gets left back as soon as the real Ubuntu makes the next release.