The replaceable launcher is a big one. Tasker was another (though I heard Google Play was cracking down on non-accessibility uses of accessibility features for security reasons?) I switched back to iOS when the SE came out, but I still miss Nova Launcher. Especially being able to put two actions on each dock icon, one for tap and one for swipe up. So if you have something like friends split over two main chat platfor…
I just can't believe that 10 years later I still have to have a grid and have to hide apps I don't care about in folders.
The replaceable launcher is a big one. Tasker was another (though I heard Google Play was cracking down on non-accessibility uses of accessibility features for security reasons?) I switched back to iOS when the SE came out, but I still miss Nova Launcher. Especially being able to put two actions on each dock icon, one for tap and one for swipe up. So if you have something like friends split over two main chat platfor…
I just can't believe that 10 years later I still have to have a grid and have to hide apps I don't care about in folders.
”have to hide apps I don't care about in folders.”
Almost all apps can be deleted now days on iOS, including most of Apple’s stock apps. The only exceptions are a few core system apps, like Settings and App Store.
Those statistics should be broken down by new purchases and updating old devices. At the time of Android 4.4, many people got an Android device for the first time, so adoption was high. At the time of Android 8, the market is already mature and many people still hold to their old Android 6 device.
let go of my android 6 device yesterday. was a cheap device but i didnt feel i was missing out on anything significant
This is why Google is devoting more and more resources to the Fuchsia project: to replace Android with an operating system that supports over-the-air (or WiFi) updates like iOS does and Windows Mobile did. It's the only way Google can effectively fight their fragmentation issue: get everyone to upgrade to the latest OS version.
Doesn’t Android already support OTA upgrades?
Google can't make it happen unilaterally other than the Pixel phones. Without both the carrier and the handset maker putting work into the upgrade it won't happen. And the handset makers like Samsung don't want to cannibalize sales or spend resources allowing us to upgrade our Galaxy S5 handsets to Android P and Q.
I misread the title. The article is about the rate of adoption of new releases. Personally, I think it's due to people keeping their phones longer (and, of course, carriers not passing on the major updates).
I suspect a lot of it is people keeping phones longer too. Hypothetically old phones could get updates... but it doesn't work that way, does it?
Old phones don't make manufacturers money. I think it would be interesting to try and decouple the OS from the hardware in the same way Windows has been decoupled from computer manufacturing.
Let the manufacturers do what they do best (make slick hardware) and let the OS developers do what they do (make slick OSs).
As it stands now, every phone maker has their own flavor of Android, and updates for proprietary stuff doesn't make sense to companies that make money from new phones.
As someone who spent the better part of two decades at a carrier (I joined as an acqui-hire to build an ISP), I've always been fascinated by the amount of crap carriers insist on having pre-loaded (and kept working) in device firmwares. Carriers want (demand, even) that their online portals, customer support apps and (most importantly) ringtone shops be pre-loaded on devices, and have always tied that to critical fir…
They will not be able to force their crap in my future Librem 5 phone.
I appreciate the independent thinking behind this comment, but seriously, what completely broke the carrier model was the iPhone.
When we started discussing customisation with Apple, all they ever allowed us to do was add a default bookmark to Safari. Period. Finito.
Looking back, that was the sanest thing any handset manufacturer ever did for the entire industry.
The shining example of Google vs apple for me is the package manager. Since Android D, updating my apps has caused the phone to slow to a crawl. Fps drops heavily, apps are laggy, etc. There is no option to only download updates when charging. Google has done nothing about this for years now. I still use Android because I need the control. But parts of the platform are just inexcusable (imo) in 2019. Dont get me wron…
I recently swapped to iPhone after being a long time Android user. After using the iPhone for a few months now, I will definitely be going back to Android. Before I owned an Apple device, I was sure that iPhones got first class treatment in app design/development - this has been a resounding disappointment. Instead, there are a few good apps but most of them are just enough to be good enough and not really amazing. Not to mention Apple's total lack of inter-app communication (iOS's default clock app is not good enough, I installed Alarmy so I can skip the next alarm if I wake up early, Alarmy needs to run in the foreground, won't let me access it in lock screen, and if your kid locks your phone out while the alarm is going, gotta wait the full 5 minutes before you can stop it. Personal anecdotes, but little things like this make me wonder why people like iOS so much when it's so limiting.