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The problem is that even GOOGLE does not support their customers on the Nexus line. I have, in my drawer, an otherwise perfectly good Galaxy Nexus that is stuc

The problem is that even GOOGLE does not support their customers on the Nexus line. I have, in my drawer, an otherwise perfectly good Galaxy Nexus that is stuck running 4.3 because Google cannot be bothered to update it to 4.4. If Google will not update its own Nexus hardware to 4.4, how can anybody reasonably blame other hardware vendors for behaving the same way?

achernya 12y ago
I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect Google to update a device to the latest version when the hardware manufacturer has exited the market -- http://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-samsung-galaxy-nexus-owners-no-kitkat-for-you/ http://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-samsung-galaxy-nexus-owne.... While Google does control Android, that's not the only software that is present on the phone. Short of the Nexus series starting to have open source baseband and radio firmware, we'll be at the mercy of hardware manufacturers.
- danieldk 12y ago
  This myth needs to die. Google Glass uses a TI OMAP SoC from the same generation (4430). The brand-new Moto 360 uses a TI OMAP SoC from the preceding (!) generation (3630). Google Glass runs KitKat, the Moto 360 even runs Android Wear 5.
  - achernya 12y ago
    It's not that much of a myth. When Google first announced that the Galaxy Nexus was not getting KitKat, I was pretty disappointed, as I had one too. I looked into why there was no official support, and when I found out it had to do with the firmware, my gut reaction was "WTF, that makes no sense." Digging some more, I found out that it actually has to do with kernel driver-firmware compatibility. Google wanted to ship an update, but they needed changes that TI was no longer willing/capable of making. In order to release KitKat on the Galaxy Nexus would either require Google to reverse engineer the hardware and make their own radio firmware (not likely) or holding back the kernel to the same one on 4.3 (subpar experience if it even works). Neither the Glass nor Moto 360 suffer from this problem since neither has a cellular radio.
    - drewg123 12y ago
      Ah, this is interesting. I had always though that it was something about the graphics system. Forgoing an update due to radio firmware is even more embarrassing. They probably could have done a shim layer, to translate between the old & new APIs. Even shipping 4.4 with a 4.3 kernel would be far superior to having what is essentially a brick.
- drewg123 12y ago
  First, as others point out, there are several devices with either the same (or very similar) versions of the ti omap chipset running 4.4. Secondly, I purchased a Galaxy Nexus from Google in late April, 2012 with the understanding that it would receive updates for at least 2 years. That is why I was very disappointed when it was not eligible for an update that arrived less than 18 months after I purchased it. It is truely sad that a perfectly good phone is essentially e-waste, and cannot be used due to this bug.
LukeB_UK 12y ago
Wasn't that because Texas Instruments pulled out of the mobile market?
- wtallis 12y ago
  That may be the excuse, but it isn't much of a reason. Google's got the clout to get rid of problems like that. They just didn't deem it worth the expense.
  - deelowe 12y ago
    Do you have like 0 experience in hardware or just trolling people? If TI refuses to support the hardware, there isn't much you can do. Besides the enormous technical challenge of reverse engineering all of the software, there's likely legal issues as well. If a hardware vendor pulls support for your product, it's almost always better to end of life the device. A better argument is that vendors of consumer hardware should require that their partners sign up for long term support agreements where warranted. Let's not pretend that, just because a software company is big, they can force one of the largest chip vendors in the world to bow to their demands.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - wtallis 12y ago
      If you're an end user or a small shop, you SOL when the hardware gets dropped. But a company like Google always has options. It's not like TI went out of business or stopped answering Google's phone calls out of spite. Google can totally afford to buy a source code license for the drivers and firmware, and they would realistically only be taking on a small added QA burden since they know everything works as-is with the old OS version and they know what they changed with their new OS version. If they were really serious about maintaining their product leadership, they could even hire some of the original team that wrote the drivers and firmware.
      - 12y ago

achernya 12y ago

I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect Google to update a device to the latest version when the hardware manufacturer has exited the market -- http://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-samsung-galaxy-nexus-owners-no-kitkat-for-you/ http://www.cnet.com/news/google-to-samsung-galaxy-nexus-owne.... While Google does control Android, that's not the only software that is present on the phone. Short of the Nexus series starting to have open source baseband and radio firmware, we'll be at the mercy of hardware manufacturers.

danieldk 12y ago
This myth needs to die. Google Glass uses a TI OMAP SoC from the same generation (4430). The brand-new Moto 360 uses a TI OMAP SoC from the preceding (!) generation (3630). Google Glass runs KitKat, the Moto 360 even runs Android Wear 5.
- achernya 12y ago
  It's not that much of a myth. When Google first announced that the Galaxy Nexus was not getting KitKat, I was pretty disappointed, as I had one too. I looked into why there was no official support, and when I found out it had to do with the firmware, my gut reaction was "WTF, that makes no sense." Digging some more, I found out that it actually has to do with kernel driver-firmware compatibility. Google wanted to ship an update, but they needed changes that TI was no longer willing/capable of making. In order to release KitKat on the Galaxy Nexus would either require Google to reverse engineer the hardware and make their own radio firmware (not likely) or holding back the kernel to the same one on 4.3 (subpar experience if it even works). Neither the Glass nor Moto 360 suffer from this problem since neither has a cellular radio.
  - drewg123 12y ago
    Ah, this is interesting. I had always though that it was something about the graphics system. Forgoing an update due to radio firmware is even more embarrassing. They probably could have done a shim layer, to translate between the old & new APIs. Even shipping 4.4 with a 4.3 kernel would be far superior to having what is essentially a brick.
drewg123 12y ago
First, as others point out, there are several devices with either the same (or very similar) versions of the ti omap chipset running 4.4. Secondly, I purchased a Galaxy Nexus from Google in late April, 2012 with the understanding that it would receive updates for at least 2 years. That is why I was very disappointed when it was not eligible for an update that arrived less than 18 months after I purchased it. It is truely sad that a perfectly good phone is essentially e-waste, and cannot be used due to this bug.

LukeB_UK 12y ago

Wasn't that because Texas Instruments pulled out of the mobile market?

wtallis 12y ago
That may be the excuse, but it isn't much of a reason. Google's got the clout to get rid of problems like that. They just didn't deem it worth the expense.
- deelowe 12y ago
  Do you have like 0 experience in hardware or just trolling people? If TI refuses to support the hardware, there isn't much you can do. Besides the enormous technical challenge of reverse engineering all of the software, there's likely legal issues as well. If a hardware vendor pulls support for your product, it's almost always better to end of life the device. A better argument is that vendors of consumer hardware should require that their partners sign up for long term support agreements where warranted. Let's not pretend that, just because a software company is big, they can force one of the largest chip vendors in the world to bow to their demands.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - wtallis 12y ago
    If you're an end user or a small shop, you SOL when the hardware gets dropped. But a company like Google always has options. It's not like TI went out of business or stopped answering Google's phone calls out of spite. Google can totally afford to buy a source code license for the drivers and firmware, and they would realistically only be taking on a small added QA burden since they know everything works as-is with the old OS version and they know what they changed with their new OS version. If they were really serious about maintaining their product leadership, they could even hire some of the original team that wrote the drivers and firmware.
    - 12y ago