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Why ? Because most Android users don't like the fact that their devices are basically abandoned the minute they are purchased. It is by far the number one prob
by taligent 14y ago
Why ? Because most Android users don't like the fact that their devices are basically abandoned the minute they are purchased.
It is by far the number one problem with the platform at the moment. And frankly the idea that Google should do nothing about addressing Android's biggest flaw is pretty dumb.
- Steko 14y ago"most Android users" I'm guessing most actually don't care. That's the point of Android -- if "most" really cared the market would respond in a bigger way to that. The Galaxy Nexus has done well in sales but ultimately it's losing head to head against ICS phones.
- fpgeek 14y agoI'd say "don't care" is a pretty accurate reading. When ICS arrived for my wife's SGS2, she was probably more irritated by the update clearing her home screens than she was about most of the improvements in ICS. IIRC, the only feature that qualified for actual excitement rather than mild interest (or even less) was the ability to kill Vlingo dead, dead, dead.
- vetinari 14y agoActually, most Android users (scratch that, most cellphone users) do not care about updates at all. I've seen "normal users" with notification icon about update available and what they do? Ignore it. (To add, in Sony Ericsson's case, the notification is non-dismissable. Their biggest concern was, how to make it disappear. They didn't want to run the update; "the current software is fine").
- taligent 14y agoYour argument is simply not true. iOS users regularly update as we've seen time and time again. Windows users regularly update. OSX users regularly update. What makes Android users so different ?
- vetinari 14y agoOnly iOS users regularly update. Windows Phone was also sold only to enthusiasts, who had to update to Mango, as the platform matured. Other cellphone platforms users do not update, even if they can. In some cases, they cannot and they are used to that (e.g. Symbian). Windows and OSX are desktop systems, and not all of their owners update. Witness the prevalence of XP and 10.5 in the wild.
- Steko 14y agoIf memory serves me correctly there's a decent sized pool of iOS users that never hooked up their phone to the computer and so haven't gotten any updates since they bought pre-OTA. Going by wikipedia's usage share of web browsers maybe I'll say 15%+?
- vetinari 14y agoYou are right, when taking anectodes into account, I have such users around me. Even those, who are capable of OTA updates, they often don't (if your monthly limit is 1GB of data, you are not going to burn it on update). It may be difficult to accept on HN, but really, mainstream users do not care about firmware updates. It is actually net negative for them. They have a device they are using and the update changes the behavior, that they are used to.
- fpgeek 14y agoApple makes it difficult for iOS users to not update (consider all of the effort in the jailbreaking community to keep devices on old OS versions). Android OEMs and carriers, on the other hand, often make it easy to not update even when an update is available. For instance, they might deliberately not push an OTA update and instead require users to use a manufacturer-proprietary desktop application if they want the update. And, unlike iTunes for iOS users, most Android users aren't in the habit of using these applications since they're almost never necessary and usually less convenient than doing things directly on the device.