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

Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

forum.xda-developers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 101 posts

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#11

Post by spidaman »

Zaak wrote: post #7
yock wrote: post #4

This might be plausible, but it can't possibly be confirmed which makes it no better than speculation. I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution. When both carrier and manufacturer neglect to offer explanation or consideration for their collective failure to deliver, they must collectively be held responsible. This m…

Summaries of Android upgrades by manufacturer and carrier: http://blogs.computerworld.com/17649/android_upgrades http://blogs.computerworld.com/17650/android_upgrades_carrie... tl;dr, Your best bet for upgrades is a high-end HTC phone on Verizon. If you go with Samsung or AT&T, you're out of luck.

Regarding "It seems safe to say, then -- no big surprise -- that aside from considering a phone's manufacturer, going with a higher profile, top-of-the-line device will improve your odds of receiving regular OS upgrades..." The Epic 4g has been Sprint's flagship phone, still running Eclair. I'm regretting not going with the Evo at times.

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#12

Post by yock »

Zaak wrote: post #7
yock wrote: post #4

This might be plausible, but it can't possibly be confirmed which makes it no better than speculation. I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution. When both carrier and manufacturer neglect to offer explanation or consideration for their collective failure to deliver, they must collectively be held responsible. This m…

Summaries of Android upgrades by manufacturer and carrier: http://blogs.computerworld.com/17649/android_upgrades http://blogs.computerworld.com/17650/android_upgrades_carrie... tl;dr, Your best bet for upgrades is a high-end HTC phone on Verizon. If you go with Samsung or AT&T, you're out of luck.

Those two links are absolutely fantastic!

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#13

Post by ergo98 »

The conflicting interests issue is really a problem in the Android space. As has been shown time and time again, vendors really don't want the burden of keeping your handset up to date forever because there is nothing in it for them, aside from perhaps avoiding too much negative press.

Naturally people are going to compare it to iOS, where updates are free and rapidly disseminated. The difference there is that there definitely is something in it for Apple -- they're getting a cut of every app you buy, every song you download, etc. They're a middleman, so it's just a cost of doing business.

I wish we could get to a point where Android updates cost money. I would happily pay $30 or whatever for each major update if it motivated the vendor to have an interest in keeping it up to date.

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#14

Post by technomancy »

Zaak wrote: post #7
yock wrote: post #4

This might be plausible, but it can't possibly be confirmed which makes it no better than speculation. I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution. When both carrier and manufacturer neglect to offer explanation or consideration for their collective failure to deliver, they must collectively be held responsible. This m…

Summaries of Android upgrades by manufacturer and carrier: http://blogs.computerworld.com/17649/android_upgrades http://blogs.computerworld.com/17650/android_upgrades_carrie... tl;dr, Your best bet for upgrades is a high-end HTC phone on Verizon. If you go with Samsung or AT&T, you're out of luck.

> Your best bet for upgrades is a high-end HTC phone on Verizon.

Your best bet is a phone that's designed to be rootable. Why put something like that in the hands of the user-hostile carriers?

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#15

Post by ScottBurson »

marshray wrote: post #8

Gee, I'd kind of liked Samsung because they seemed to focus on delivering good technology at a good price. I'd figured they perceived themselves as something of an underdog in the past (perhaps relative to the Japanese tech industry). This makes it seem like they're hiring Marketers and MBAs who think the best plan is to try to squeeze as much as they can out of their contract customers (the cell carriers) rather tha…

Agreed. I like the Epic's form factor and slide-out keyboard (in fact I'm typing this on a Nokia N810, which is almost exactly the same size) and was excited when I saw it announced. I would probably have bought one by now if it had Froyo. But watching Samsung's behavior around this upgrade has turned me off completely.

Maybe with Swype on an Evo I wouldn't miss the physical keyboard.

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#16

Post by samstokes »

Zaak wrote: post #7
yock wrote: post #4

This might be plausible, but it can't possibly be confirmed which makes it no better than speculation. I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution. When both carrier and manufacturer neglect to offer explanation or consideration for their collective failure to deliver, they must collectively be held responsible. This m…

Summaries of Android upgrades by manufacturer and carrier: http://blogs.computerworld.com/17649/android_upgrades http://blogs.computerworld.com/17650/android_upgrades_carrie... tl;dr, Your best bet for upgrades is a high-end HTC phone on Verizon. If you go with Samsung or AT&T, you're out of luck.

Surely your best bet is an unlocked phone running vanilla Android, rather than any carrier-customised variant? Every carrier customisation has to be ported to the new version each time the OS gets upgraded.

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#17

Post by w1ntermute »

yock wrote: post #4

This might be plausible, but it can't possibly be confirmed which makes it no better than speculation. I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution. When both carrier and manufacturer neglect to offer explanation or consideration for their collective failure to deliver, they must collectively be held responsible. This m…

> I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution.

Maybe you already know, but you can get an unofficial Froyo rom from xda-developers. And before people jump on me about how it won't work for their mom or next-door neighbor - this is just a tip for fellow HNers, in case they didn't know already.

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#18

Post by yock »

w1ntermute wrote: post #17
yock wrote: post #4

This might be plausible, but it can't possibly be confirmed which makes it no better than speculation. I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution. When both carrier and manufacturer neglect to offer explanation or consideration for their collective failure to deliver, they must collectively be held responsible. This m…

> I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution. Maybe you already know, but you can get an unofficial Froyo rom from xda-developers. And before people jump on me about how it won't work for their mom or next-door neighbor - this is just a tip for fellow HNers, in case they didn't know already.

Everything I've read is that the UX on the custom roms isn't exactly breathtaking. Am I mistaken?

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#19

Post by periferral »

this seems to make very little sense. most of the custom ROMs out there are based on Samsung's leaked 2.2 ROMs. If Samsung really didn't want to send out official updates for 2.2 they could stop the leaks and would kill XDA updates.

Also judging by the updates trickling in, there is still a lot of work being put in by Samsung to makes these ROMs stable. Almost every leaked ROM has issues. lag fixes and gps fixes on XDA seem to be the norm to work around them

Re: Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

#20

Post by mindslight »

ergo98 wrote: post #13

The conflicting interests issue is really a problem in the Android space. As has been shown time and time again, vendors really don't want the burden of keeping your handset up to date forever because there is nothing in it for them, aside from perhaps avoiding too much negative press. Naturally people are going to compare it to iOS, where updates are free and rapidly disseminated. The difference there is that there…

> I would happily pay $30 or whatever for each major update if it motivated the vendor to have an interest in keeping it up to date.

That would just be a different user-hostile incentive. The path forward is for Android to actually become consumer open source (GPL3). Let device manufacturers concentrate on shipping hardware and adding any new device drivers to a public repository. Updates can then be directly applied by eager users, or eventually pushed out by carriers with minimal integration effort. Proprietary "value adds" like SenseUI can still be done through the package system.

Post reply on HN