The best they could do, they're already doing. Which is decouple functionality from the core into updatable apps. And develop the backward compatibility librari

The best they could do, they're already doing. Which is decouple functionality from the core into updatable apps. And develop the backward compatibility libraries for developers. In other OSes you usually have to wait for a whole system update to get small new features. But google is often pushing updates to important apps. iOS users have to wait for the new iOS to get the new maps app. While android users are getting new updates even if they have old 2.x devices. So at the end of the day, how does it matter if the version number on your device is low, if you're getting the latest features? Of course, there's still a lot to improve in this area. More apps to decouple. With ICS they decoupled the browser for the first time by launching Chrome Beta. This is huge for future versions since the browser is the most important app on the phone. And developing websites for android 2.x suck. So they get the idea, hopefully they'll keep improving in that direction. That said, can't google offer a service for OEMs to update their device drivers using google's own engineers? Say google charges X to have it's engineers drop not only the newest version source code on github at realease. But also your device's updated drivers at your company's repository, by the release of a new android update. Would that work?