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Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

electronista.com

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Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#31

Post by jsnell »

untog wrote: post #18
ChuckMcM wrote: post #11

I've always wondered about this, especially in embedded devices. Amongst the many mistakes Microsoft made with Vista, first and foremost was allowing the bloat to get so bad that it wouldn't run at all on machines that ran XP quite happily. Later Windows 7 could actually run on those old XP machines with many, if not most, of the features that Vista bragged about. So here we have Google, arguably a company which can…

taking the time to run great on hardware of that capability pays huge dividends in the phone world. It really won't though, that's the problem. The Nexus One is nearly two years old. It's somewhat of an anomaly because it'll have a higher than average number of off-contract purchases, but in general once a person's contact has run for two years they get a new phone. Two year old phones just aren't that important. Spe…

All the world is not the US, in most places the incentives aren't set up for upgrading phones "just because". But even ignoring that, the benefits to the platform as a whole for getting to upgrade as many users as possible to latest version should be obvious. And if the top range of 2 years ago isn't good enough for an upgrade, chances are that a lot of the midrange of today isn't either.

(That said, if there really is a performance bottleneck preventing the port, the most likely candidate would be the GPU. And once you've made the decision to finally embrace the GPU, there's not anything you can do to fix the problem of going with a lame GPU when speccing out the hardware 3 years ago).

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#32

Post by glhaynes »

seanalltogether wrote: post #22
citricsquid wrote: post #14

I've got both the Nexus One and an iPhone 4 and I can never understand why anyone would choose the Nexus One over an iPhone, it's such an inferior product both hardware and software wise. The comparatively poor quality as put me off anything but iPhones.

The Nexus One is really more comparable to the 3Gs and I think it stands up well against it. I bought mine since I wanted an unlocked phone that didn't require a custom hack to accomplish. I've been considering going back to an iPhone 4s if Apple decides to sell it unlocked from their store.

The online store (at least the US one: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iph...) says the unlocked version is coming in November but I think that if you buy one from an Apple retail store you can get it unlocked now.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#33

Post by chugger »

patrickod wrote: post #29

Why are people complaining about the Nexus One not being as great as the iPhone 4. Look at the release dates and you'll see that the Nexus One has 6 months on the iPhone 4. If anything compare it to the 3GS and you'll see that it is in fact a much better phone. Google are pushing forward with Android and the Nexus One is unfortunately being left behind. It remains the best phone I've ever owned and I'll definitely be…

the iPhone 3GS is better than Nexus one because it (can) runs iOS 5. your Nexus One is stuck running an old OS.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#34

Post by phuff »

citricsquid wrote: post #14

I've got both the Nexus One and an iPhone 4 and I can never understand why anyone would choose the Nexus One over an iPhone, it's such an inferior product both hardware and software wise. The comparatively poor quality as put me off anything but iPhones.

I started with an N1 and later got an iPad 2. I found I had to turn off all push notifications and was surprised that apple would put out something that had such inferior usability when the notification dropdown thing that Android has is so clearly better. Maybe they didn't want to copy the people they despised? Or maybe they just couldn't find the engineering time until 5.0? I dunno. It was unbearable. I had to turn all of the push notifications off because I just couldn't handle being interrupted by a modal dialog all the time.

The other thing that really stinks on the iPad compared to the N1 is the non-multi-tasking of apps. Everytime I switch to a different app it starts all over again... Really? Really.

In general iOS was really pretty, and really usable. Maybe I was just aculturated to the android way of handling multi-tasking and notifications, but those two things alone made me think, "I can't believe people put up with this stuff..." :)

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#35

Post by RobAtticus »

nickpp wrote: post #28
jkincaid wrote: post #3

It's feasible that Cyanogenmod will release a compatible version though, isn't it?

Do you think ICS can actually run on N1? I do not think so. Otherwise why wouldn't google provide an update? Thus, what do you think cyanogen can do to make ICS properly run on the N1 hardware?

It might be able to run, but the performance is just so subpar that Google feels uncomfortable releasing it. I doubt it would go over well if they release ICS for the N1 and the phone is barely usable.

CM, on the other hand, will appear on any device that somebody is dedicated enough to bring it to. So if somebody really wants ICS on the N1, then they'll do it.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#36

Post by chugger »

phuff wrote: post #34
citricsquid wrote: post #14

I've got both the Nexus One and an iPhone 4 and I can never understand why anyone would choose the Nexus One over an iPhone, it's such an inferior product both hardware and software wise. The comparatively poor quality as put me off anything but iPhones.

I started with an N1 and later got an iPad 2. I found I had to turn off all push notifications and was surprised that apple would put out something that had such inferior usability when the notification dropdown thing that Android has is so clearly better. Maybe they didn't want to copy the people they despised? Or maybe they just couldn't find the engineering time until 5.0? I dunno. It was unbearable. I had to turn…

I was doing the same thing. I had a Nexus One and an iPad 2. My Nexus One crashed 12 times while I happily used my iPad 2 without problems.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#37

Post by anigbrowl »

Boo. Of course I do not expect all the advanced features or substitutes for things that are not supported by the older hardware, but Google promoted ICS strongly as a 'run everywhere' version designed to save developers from the hardware fragmentation issue. Between me, my wife, and my brothers-in-law, we have 7 or 8 Android devices in this household, and I was looking forward to a more unified operating environment.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#39

Post by tejaswiy »

robterrell wrote: post #16

Great. I guess I can stop hitting the "Update" thing every day in the hope that 4.0 will appear. I can't help but note that the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch purchased the same month are already running iOS 5.0 and I haven't noticed any speed issues.

My 3GS is almost unusably slow on iOS5.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#40

Post by saturdaysaint »

beej71 wrote: post #15
chugger wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS 5 runs smoothly on a 3GS, a phone older than the Nexus One.

But the last official update for the 3G turned it into a dog. I don't think any company is blameless, here, but I'm far more disappointed to see Google doing it. Linux still runs on a 386, last time I checked.

FWIW, many report that iOS5 actually makes the 3GS faster. Anandtech ran some benchmarks that show the 3GS on 5.0 being faster than the iPhone 4 on 4.3 at many tasks!
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