Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

danluu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 474 posts

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#71

Post by vlozko »

userbinator wrote: post #63
opportune wrote: post #12

The flipside of this is that developers are forced to support versions of their apps that are compatible with previous operating systems. That's bad for developers, but good for consumers. iPhones shove updates down your throat as a user. They're so persistent that inevitably most people will accept the new update - and even if you're stubborn like me, eventually your apps will no longer be supported under the newer…

That's bad for developers, but good for consumers. Is it? I'm a developer --- and a consumer, as are most --- and have always kept to the principle of as much compatibility as possible, mostly by not gorging on new features for the sake of new features, and a "do what you can with what you have" approach. To me, spending a little extra effort to get much more compatibility is well worth it, since I've been on "the ot…

The QA effort to support 3-4 of the most recent OS’s isn’t “a little extra effort.” It can get pretty expensive, too, since you may have to have devices for all supported OS versions and possibly idioms (e.g. iPhone, iPad).

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#72

Post by dredmorbius »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #64
opportune wrote: post #12

The flipside of this is that developers are forced to support versions of their apps that are compatible with previous operating systems. That's bad for developers, but good for consumers. iPhones shove updates down your throat as a user. They're so persistent that inevitably most people will accept the new update - and even if you're stubborn like me, eventually your apps will no longer be supported under the newer…

Making it easier for users to run software with unpatched vulnerabilities, even accounting for some extra slowness, isn’t a good thing..

That "isn't a good thing" is paired against another "isn't a good thing": forcing people along an (expensive, disruptive, often utility-losing) upgrade path simply to drive revenue goals.

Perhaps we might look at this as a set of goals:

1. Users shouldn't run software with unpathed vulnerabilitities.

2. Users shouldn't have to discard devices after a small number of years (1-3, from date of purchase, in many cases).

3. Hardware, OS, and software vendors should have a functioning ecosystem in which they can operate profitably.

Unfortunately, the economics of hardware + information goods with an ongoing support liability but a one-time purchase point are pretty much pathological. This isn't a new problem. It's one that AT&T and IBM solved, in the 1930s and earlier, by leasing rather than selling hardware. IBM has continued that model through the present, for its enterprise computing hardware. There are few general-public devices that fall under this category, though.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#73

Post by kuschku »

abritinthebay wrote: post #46
rocky1138 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't Google devices. They're phones made by companies who downloaded and installed Android on them.

Even if this were true (it's not) that was a conscious choice by Google to capture market share. This issue was predicted (and observed) years ago, almost since the release of Android in fact, and is only getting worse. That is all due to Google's own choices.

The real problem with it is Linux. Here's a few facts:

The Kernel has no stable ABI for drivers.

Manufacturers only ever develop a driver for their chips once, and then send that to the OEM. They never update.

The Linux Kernel LTS gets 2 years of updates, Google's fork about 4.

From the day a Kernel is released, to the day it ships in a phone, usually 2 years are spent integrating the blobs and code drops from the chip manufacturers.

On every kernel upgrade that breaks the ABI, those 2 years would have to be redone from scratch.

Linux can't mainline support for every exotic piece of hardware that ever shows up in a device.

Manufacturers can't keep maintaining several developers to update every single chip they release.

Google can't keep Android on 6 year old kernels forever.

Now combine these facts, and you'll see the issue.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#74

Post by petecox »

gcbw2 wrote: post #14
coding123 wrote: post #8

This is why I will only ever buy the OnePlus brand at this point. I used to buy Nexus until they started skyrocketing the price (Ting user here) not to mention my last nexus bricked itself when the battery got low.

This comment is absolutely meaningless. You realize none of the models you mention have open sourced drivers, right? thanks to two or three companies that refuse to share their super secret (ha, it is all commodity) code to power the modem, camera, digitizer, SoC, etc. All those devices will continue to only be supported for <4 years (in the very best case!) and then off to increase the "outdated devices" count or th…

The model I'm using, Nexus 4, was released 5 years ago to the day. Via a community ROM it still receives monthly AOSP security patches, albeit on a prehistoric 3.4 kernel and vendor abandoned binary blobs.

If I had a spare $600 I might be inclined to support the librem-5 efforts of running a mainstream kernel with lifetime updates.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#75

Post by hew »

opportune wrote: post #12

The flipside of this is that developers are forced to support versions of their apps that are compatible with previous operating systems. That's bad for developers, but good for consumers. iPhones shove updates down your throat as a user. They're so persistent that inevitably most people will accept the new update - and even if you're stubborn like me, eventually your apps will no longer be supported under the newer…

> The problem is that the OS upgrades invariably slow down older phones, so even if you're perfectly happy with your iPhone to begin with, it starts to act slow as it gets the newer OS's.

This is a truism and from my experience it rings false. I ran an iPhone 5 for four years without feeling degraded.

FWIW, as background, I'm an ex-overclocking PC enthusiast and I consider myself very sensitive to any sorts of performance lag.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#76

Post by herbst »

I have a obscure low level Oppo device from Asia. Its hardly up to date, but it is still more than i need plus provides a 2 day battery life even after a year of using.

I think we just reached the point where phones grow in specs we dont actually need.

The thing is i use my phone mostly like a public wifi. Trust nothing.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#77

Post by kuschku »

dmitrygr wrote: post #54
ams6110 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be great if Google made a phone that was affordable. As it is now your choices are spending at least $600 or more to get a phone that will be supported, or buying a phone that probably comes with an outdated Android out of the box and that will never get an update.

did you see the new AndroidOne phones? google does updates for them and they are quite affordable. The Moto one is $400-ish and Xiaomi is $200-ish

As a developer, I need a device that gets Android DevPreview releases, so I can see it my apps work on real hardware before users will try them. (The emulator sucks, and you never know if a bug is caused by the emulator or the app).

Currently that's tonly the Pixels, which sell between $900 and $1300 in Germany.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#78

Post by scarface74 »

herbst wrote: post #76

I have a obscure low level Oppo device from Asia. Its hardly up to date, but it is still more than i need plus provides a 2 day battery life even after a year of using. I think we just reached the point where phones grow in specs we dont actually need. The thing is i use my phone mostly like a public wifi. Trust nothing.

What about security updates?

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#79

Post by bitL »

I still have Nexus 7 running on KitKat 4.2 as I dislike material look and for newer Android versions I always go with phones that ship with customized UI that better correspond to my aesthetics sense. Disclaimer: I am a visual artist as well and hate it when somebody enforces certain style, in my case anything flat, low-contrast, confusing where my brain has to spend >20ms identifying controls.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#80

Post by megy »

opportune wrote: post #12

The flipside of this is that developers are forced to support versions of their apps that are compatible with previous operating systems. That's bad for developers, but good for consumers. iPhones shove updates down your throat as a user. They're so persistent that inevitably most people will accept the new update - and even if you're stubborn like me, eventually your apps will no longer be supported under the newer…

> That's bad for developers, but good for consumers.

It is bad for consumers as well, since you only have so much time.

Post reply on HN