8 ms·

Google Promises To Bring December Back To Android 4.2 “Soon”

60 points by aritraghosh007 14y ago

patmcguire 14y ago
...and the carriers will push the update in about 6 months.
rmrfrmrf 14y ago
UIDatePicker must have had a good laugh at this.
diggan 14y ago
Think if Android had the same "patch small and often" as Google Chrome, that way, this could be fixed rather quick.
- jfb 14y ago
  That would require Google to be in a very different business than they are, however. Apple can do this, and Microsoft, but no matter how quickly this gets fixed upstream, there are many more stops the fix-the-damn-defect train has to visit in Android world.
  - yock 14y ago
    What makes you say this? How many iOS system apps are inexorably linked to the OS itself (ie. not installed & updated through the app store)? This is a really hard problem. Features that you thought belonged at the system level during design and conceptualization half a decade (or more?) ago have grown to be fully-functional applications in and of themselves today. It's all too easy for us to sit back and think "I wouldn't have linked any apps so closely to the OS" but the situation probably looked very different to the original designers.
    - jfb 14y ago
      Simply that for all the good will in the world, fixes to Android are gated by forces beyond Google's control (by design).
- paxswill 14y ago
  They're working towards it. Lots of former system apps are being extracted from the base OS and turned into apps updated through the Play store. The most recent I remember was the Calendar app, which changed into Google Calendar through the Play store.
  - mtgx 14y ago
    But I don't think they'll ever make the whole OS work like that, unfortunately. I was hoping they would at least create a whole line-up of "Nexus" devices from all manufacturers that would be updated the way they update the Chromebooks. But I'm beginning to think that won't happen either
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      They can't. Many of the core underlying bits are tied to the device drivers. [Insert mobile device drivers and ARM complains here.]
NathanKP 14y ago
It sounds and looks like an off by one bug. But it could be nasty to fix if people have already created events with an off by one bug. Any update to fix the date picker could then cause their scheduled dates to show up a month early, and would therefore also have to include some sort of script to update existing scheduled events users have created.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ch0wn 14y ago
  Yap, there was a change in the NumberPicker that seemed to have caused it: https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/commit/a1410e6789ce72bc423793315a51aea8b6bad6c7 https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/commit/a...
  - swohns 14y ago
    That makes sense, but why is the patch taking so long?
    - Lewisham 14y ago
      Rushing a patch and possibly breaking something further is worse than just having the bug you have out now. As a former intern, usual Google practice is to rollback rather than attempt to fix with non-client apps, in order to take a more measured approach to the issue and not accidentally break something with a hasty fix. Android is in a different position as rollbacks aren't possible, but my guess is the release managers would take a similar view to not rushing.
    - zmmmmm 14y ago
      50% of comments: what horrible QA, don't they test anything? Other 50% of comments: why is the patch taking so long!
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  It may be a trivial <=12 instead of <12 in the controller that populates the view. If it is more than that, ugh. It wouldn't be so bad for new devices, but for people who upgraded, this could be seriously ugly.
DHowett 14y ago
What I cannot fathom is why the list of dates available via a date picker (which, as far as I can tell, is a standard kit component) is up to each app. I can understand situations in which the available dates should be limited, but the People application does not need to impose any such restrictions; therefore, what is available in the picker should not be up to it.
- tadfisher 14y ago
  The People app uses its own picker widget for event dates, in order to support the optional year element; it uses NumberPicker widgets internally. There is an off-by-one bug in NumberPicker that was worked around in the standard DatePicker component, but not in the custom widget implemented in the People app.
acex 14y ago
for some reason i find this hilariously funny.
- smokeyj 14y ago
  As if they don't expect December to arrive..
  - brianto2010 14y ago
    Maybe it'll be a Christmas present. :-)
bdavisx 14y ago
Am I the only person that thinks that DatePicker really sucks because there's no way to actually enter a date thru a "keyboard"?
paul 14y ago
It's always the little details. My limited experiences with Android (I try it every year or so) always end when I get annoyed by basic things not working. The tablet I got at Google I/O 1.5 years ago would power off every time it was fully charged, so I could either leave it unplugged (it which case it would run down the battery after a few days), or I could keep it plugged in, but then I'd have to wait for it to boot every time I tried to use it. It feels like they give more attention to the "big" features than the "little" details, which is why I still have an iphone.
- Lewisham 14y ago
  Things were dramatically improved with Jelly Bean, which is the first Android release I think really stepped up to the plate with iOS. The little things were, by and large, dealt with. Matias Duarte has done a fabulous job.
  - avalanchenine 14y ago
    > Things were dramatically improved with [X release] I've been hearing this argument with every single Android release to date. Like your comment's parent, I try out another Android device every 18 months or so, and I still have yet to be impressed. I haven't tried Jelly Bean though. Maybe it is really the release that makes everything better.
    - Lewisham 14y ago
      I was absolutely in the same boat as you: everything was better, but still not able to match iOS. I was happily surprised when I tried out Jelly Bean. The Holo theme is taking hold, Project Butter did really well (although I hear rumblings of regressions in 4.2).
      - nitrogen 14y ago
        Project Butter did really well (although I hear rumblings of regressions in 4.2). It's frustrating that this happened in Ubuntu as well. They spent a couple of releases focusing on fast boot times, and it paid off. A few releases later, and now boot times are slow again.
michaelhoffman 14y ago
Say what you will about Microsoft's products, but I doubt an error like this would make it through their robust testing process these days.
- M4v3R 14y ago
  I can't tell for "these days", but back then on Windows 98 IIRC, they forgot Poland (literally) on their time zone map: http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/9331/nopoland9fg.jpg http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/9331/nopoland9fg.jpg
  - michaelhoffman 14y ago
    A cosmetic issue from 14 years ago doesn't make a great counterexample. The reason for the Poland error is explained here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/10/27/880411.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/10/27/88041...
  - Evbn 14y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=you%20forgot%20poland https://www.google.com/search?q=you%20forgot%20poland Windows was a liberal conspiracy!
- mikeash 14y ago
  I was immediately reminded of how every Zune locked up on December 31st, 2008 due to a calendar bug: http://techcrunch.com/2008/12/31/zune-bug-explained-in-detail/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/12/31/zune-bug-explained-in-detai...
- mun2mun 14y ago
  Every company has its own share of date related bugs Microsoft: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/how-a-leap-year-bug-could-topple-microsofts-azure-cloud-service/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/how-a-leap-year-bug-... Apple: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/10/apple-deleted-2am-and-2pm-from-the-space-time-continuum-hopes-we-dont-notice/ http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/10/apple-deleted-2am-and-2pm-...
suyash 14y ago
What kind of QA google has? - Good for nothing kind
Tichy 14y ago
Unless you add dozens of people to your address book every day, this is actually not such a big deal. I tend to edit the address book on the web anyway.
zmmmmm 14y ago
For those deceived by the headline, December is still in "Android", it is one date picker in one app, where dates are not used much (the People, or contacts app).
- imgabe 14y ago
  Yeah, it actually took me a few minutes to find this. The only place it seems to come up is if you're adding an Event to a contact, like someone's birthday I suppose. Honestly, who would be manually doing that on their phone?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- rkwz 14y ago
  Don't they use the same datepicker throughout the OS? Why do they have different ones for different apps? #DRY
  - zmmmmm 14y ago
    They do. The People app has specialized it though, because in the birthday date picker the year is optional, whereas in the stock one the year is required.
evanphx 14y ago
Soon as in next month, January.
baggachipz 14y ago
4.2 has been a real disappointment to me compared to 4.1. Since my update, the phone lags on input more, apps crash frequently, and restarts must happen more often. Just today, I had Google Voice slow down, crash, restart, and crash again. Then, after I took a picture, the whole phone locked up. It seems that 4.2 wasn't ready for prime time, but was pushed out for the Nexus 4 release.
TimGebhardt 14y ago
Just replace it with Smarch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RCs2RKiLlA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RCs2RKiLlA http://simpsonswiki.net/wiki/Smarch http://simpsonswiki.net/wiki/Smarch "Smarch is the thirteenth month of the year, according to Springfield Elementary School calendars. It has 28 days."
state 14y ago
Maybe it's not cool to admit it, but this is a bug I can really relate to. I had a Facebook page title become [Object Object] the other day and this feels similar. I wonder if the luddites of tomorrow will lament the loss of these wabi-sabi details.
ilanco 14y ago
This bug should be Google's last worry. There are people with Nexus devices that can't make a simple phone call. Open issues: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?can=2&q=type=Defect&sort=-stars&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?can=2&q=typ...

patmcguire 14y ago

...and the carriers will push the update in about 6 months.

rmrfrmrf 14y ago

UIDatePicker must have had a good laugh at this.

diggan 14y ago

Think if Android had the same "patch small and often" as Google Chrome, that way, this could be fixed rather quick.

jfb 14y ago
That would require Google to be in a very different business than they are, however. Apple can do this, and Microsoft, but no matter how quickly this gets fixed upstream, there are many more stops the fix-the-damn-defect train has to visit in Android world.
- yock 14y ago
  What makes you say this? How many iOS system apps are inexorably linked to the OS itself (ie. not installed & updated through the app store)? This is a really hard problem. Features that you thought belonged at the system level during design and conceptualization half a decade (or more?) ago have grown to be fully-functional applications in and of themselves today. It's all too easy for us to sit back and think "I wouldn't have linked any apps so closely to the OS" but the situation probably looked very different to the original designers.
  - jfb 14y ago
    Simply that for all the good will in the world, fixes to Android are gated by forces beyond Google's control (by design).
paxswill 14y ago
They're working towards it. Lots of former system apps are being extracted from the base OS and turned into apps updated through the Play store. The most recent I remember was the Calendar app, which changed into Google Calendar through the Play store.
- mtgx 14y ago
  But I don't think they'll ever make the whole OS work like that, unfortunately. I was hoping they would at least create a whole line-up of "Nexus" devices from all manufacturers that would be updated the way they update the Chromebooks. But I'm beginning to think that won't happen either
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    They can't. Many of the core underlying bits are tied to the device drivers. [Insert mobile device drivers and ARM complains here.]

NathanKP 14y ago

It sounds and looks like an off by one bug. But it could be nasty to fix if people have already created events with an off by one bug. Any update to fix the date picker could then cause their scheduled dates to show up a month early, and would therefore also have to include some sort of script to update existing scheduled events users have created.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ch0wn 14y ago
Yap, there was a change in the NumberPicker that seemed to have caused it: https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/commit/a1410e6789ce72bc423793315a51aea8b6bad6c7 https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/commit/a...
- swohns 14y ago
  That makes sense, but why is the patch taking so long?
  - Lewisham 14y ago
    Rushing a patch and possibly breaking something further is worse than just having the bug you have out now. As a former intern, usual Google practice is to rollback rather than attempt to fix with non-client apps, in order to take a more measured approach to the issue and not accidentally break something with a hasty fix. Android is in a different position as rollbacks aren't possible, but my guess is the release managers would take a similar view to not rushing.
  - zmmmmm 14y ago
    50% of comments: what horrible QA, don't they test anything? Other 50% of comments: why is the patch taking so long!
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
It may be a trivial <=12 instead of <12 in the controller that populates the view. If it is more than that, ugh. It wouldn't be so bad for new devices, but for people who upgraded, this could be seriously ugly.

DHowett 14y ago

What I cannot fathom is why the list of dates available via a date picker (which, as far as I can tell, is a standard kit component) is up to each app. I can understand situations in which the available dates should be limited, but the People application does not need to impose any such restrictions; therefore, what is available in the picker should not be up to it.

tadfisher 14y ago
The People app uses its own picker widget for event dates, in order to support the optional year element; it uses NumberPicker widgets internally. There is an off-by-one bug in NumberPicker that was worked around in the standard DatePicker component, but not in the custom widget implemented in the People app.

acex 14y ago

for some reason i find this hilariously funny.

smokeyj 14y ago
As if they don't expect December to arrive..
- brianto2010 14y ago
  Maybe it'll be a Christmas present. :-)

bdavisx 14y ago

Am I the only person that thinks that DatePicker really sucks because there's no way to actually enter a date thru a "keyboard"?

paul 14y ago

It's always the little details. My limited experiences with Android (I try it every year or so) always end when I get annoyed by basic things not working. The tablet I got at Google I/O 1.5 years ago would power off every time it was fully charged, so I could either leave it unplugged (it which case it would run down the battery after a few days), or I could keep it plugged in, but then I'd have to wait for it to boot every time I tried to use it. It feels like they give more attention to the "big" features than the "little" details, which is why I still have an iphone.

Lewisham 14y ago
Things were dramatically improved with Jelly Bean, which is the first Android release I think really stepped up to the plate with iOS. The little things were, by and large, dealt with. Matias Duarte has done a fabulous job.
- avalanchenine 14y ago
  > Things were dramatically improved with [X release] I've been hearing this argument with every single Android release to date. Like your comment's parent, I try out another Android device every 18 months or so, and I still have yet to be impressed. I haven't tried Jelly Bean though. Maybe it is really the release that makes everything better.
  - Lewisham 14y ago
    I was absolutely in the same boat as you: everything was better, but still not able to match iOS. I was happily surprised when I tried out Jelly Bean. The Holo theme is taking hold, Project Butter did really well (although I hear rumblings of regressions in 4.2).
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      Project Butter did really well (although I hear rumblings of regressions in 4.2). It's frustrating that this happened in Ubuntu as well. They spent a couple of releases focusing on fast boot times, and it paid off. A few releases later, and now boot times are slow again.

michaelhoffman 14y ago

Say what you will about Microsoft's products, but I doubt an error like this would make it through their robust testing process these days.

M4v3R 14y ago
I can't tell for "these days", but back then on Windows 98 IIRC, they forgot Poland (literally) on their time zone map: http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/9331/nopoland9fg.jpg http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/9331/nopoland9fg.jpg
- michaelhoffman 14y ago
  A cosmetic issue from 14 years ago doesn't make a great counterexample. The reason for the Poland error is explained here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/10/27/880411.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/10/27/88041...
- Evbn 14y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=you%20forgot%20poland https://www.google.com/search?q=you%20forgot%20poland Windows was a liberal conspiracy!
mikeash 14y ago
I was immediately reminded of how every Zune locked up on December 31st, 2008 due to a calendar bug: http://techcrunch.com/2008/12/31/zune-bug-explained-in-detail/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/12/31/zune-bug-explained-in-detai...
mun2mun 14y ago
Every company has its own share of date related bugs Microsoft: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/how-a-leap-year-bug-could-topple-microsofts-azure-cloud-service/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/how-a-leap-year-bug-... Apple: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/10/apple-deleted-2am-and-2pm-from-the-space-time-continuum-hopes-we-dont-notice/ http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/10/apple-deleted-2am-and-2pm-...

suyash 14y ago

What kind of QA google has? - Good for nothing kind

Tichy 14y ago

Unless you add dozens of people to your address book every day, this is actually not such a big deal. I tend to edit the address book on the web anyway.

zmmmmm 14y ago

For those deceived by the headline, December is still in "Android", it is one date picker in one app, where dates are not used much (the People, or contacts app).

imgabe 14y ago
Yeah, it actually took me a few minutes to find this. The only place it seems to come up is if you're adding an Event to a contact, like someone's birthday I suppose. Honestly, who would be manually doing that on their phone?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rkwz 14y ago
Don't they use the same datepicker throughout the OS? Why do they have different ones for different apps? #DRY
- zmmmmm 14y ago
  They do. The People app has specialized it though, because in the birthday date picker the year is optional, whereas in the stock one the year is required.

evanphx 14y ago

Soon as in next month, January.

baggachipz 14y ago

4.2 has been a real disappointment to me compared to 4.1. Since my update, the phone lags on input more, apps crash frequently, and restarts must happen more often. Just today, I had Google Voice slow down, crash, restart, and crash again. Then, after I took a picture, the whole phone locked up. It seems that 4.2 wasn't ready for prime time, but was pushed out for the Nexus 4 release.

TimGebhardt 14y ago

Just replace it with Smarch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RCs2RKiLlA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RCs2RKiLlA http://simpsonswiki.net/wiki/Smarch http://simpsonswiki.net/wiki/Smarch "Smarch is the thirteenth month of the year, according to Springfield Elementary School calendars. It has 28 days."

state 14y ago

Maybe it's not cool to admit it, but this is a bug I can really relate to. I had a Facebook page title become [Object Object] the other day and this feels similar. I wonder if the luddites of tomorrow will lament the loss of these wabi-sabi details.

ilanco 14y ago

This bug should be Google's last worry. There are people with Nexus devices that can't make a simple phone call. Open issues: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?can=2&q=type=Defect&sort=-stars&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?can=2&q=typ...