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

Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

electronista.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 145 posts

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#81

Post by bonzoesc »

ajross wrote: post #60
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…

This isn't a hardware capacity issue. The Snapdragon has a 1 GHz CPU very similar to the Cortex A8, an Adreno 200 GPU broadly comparable to an SGX 535, and the same 512MB of DRAM that all the other phones of its generation have. Its UMTS radio wouldn't make the cut on today's store shelves, and its camera sucks. But fundamentally this is about planned obsolescence. Google doesn't want to have to pay to maintain the d…

> This isn't a hardware capacity issue.

The Nexus One has 512MB of internal storage. The Nexus Galaxy has 32GB of internal storage. If ICS weighs in at much more than 400MB and has the stellar (read as: "perfunctory") MicroSD support we've come to expect from Android, it'd be about as enjoyable as a fart in a spacesuit on a Nexus One.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#82

Post by ajross »

edderly wrote: post #73
ajross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a hardware capacity issue. The Snapdragon has a 1 GHz CPU very similar to the Cortex A8, an Adreno 200 GPU broadly comparable to an SGX 535, and the same 512MB of DRAM that all the other phones of its generation have. Its UMTS radio wouldn't make the cut on today's store shelves, and its camera sucks. But fundamentally this is about planned obsolescence. Google doesn't want to have to pay to maintain the d…

Both the Nexus S and Nexus GS use an SGX540 which is fair jump in GPU performance.

A fair jump, but not a huge one. The Adreno 200 is an ES2 part with acceptable performance. I'd be very surprised if there were serious performance problems under ICS, but obviously without having seen the software we can't say.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#83

Post by ayuvar »

Fliko wrote: post #19
nickpp wrote: post #2

This is EXACTLY what I would expect from HTC. I had their products before and I got burned this way. It is one of the reasons I switched to Apple.

I'm wishing I bought an iPhone instead of my Nexus One now

I still like my Nexus One, but between the sagging power button and the lack of "real" multitouch, I'm not inclined to buy another HTC product next time.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#84

Post by protomyth »

tejaswiy wrote: post #64
robterrell wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only upgraded one of the 3GS's to iOS 5, and my experiences pretty much match this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4956/apple-ios-5-review/15 Basically, as fast or faster than 4.3. But mine is a development-only device with no music or other content, so maybe that's the difference.

This is interesting. I don't know if it's something with my phone specifically, but the whole thing just lags by a couple of seconds whenever I try to type something. It's so bad that I'm usually done typing a couple of words by the time the first characters come up on the screen ..

If you can, take it in to an Apple Store. It really sounds like you have something going wrong in hardware. Like vondur said, it sounds like bad flash memory.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#85

Post by anigbrowl »

hnalien wrote: post #80
anigbrowl wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the way the stock browser renders normal webpages. I don't care for the 3rd party browser interfaces, and I don't think it's too much to expect the stock browser to be reasonably robust - for the same reason that I expect the default wheels on a car to be sufficient for normal driving.

You should give Dolphin Browser a try. The best mobile browser. Period.

I did. It's great. I still think the stock browser should 'just work,' considering that Google also makes Chrome. I want to evaluate competitors' offerings in terms of added functionality, not basic stability. It's a bad advert for Android, just like inferior wheels on a car would be a bad advert for the car manufacturer.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#86

Post by ajross »

bonzoesc wrote: post #81
ajross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a hardware capacity issue. The Snapdragon has a 1 GHz CPU very similar to the Cortex A8, an Adreno 200 GPU broadly comparable to an SGX 535, and the same 512MB of DRAM that all the other phones of its generation have. Its UMTS radio wouldn't make the cut on today's store shelves, and its camera sucks. But fundamentally this is about planned obsolescence. Google doesn't want to have to pay to maintain the d…

> This isn't a hardware capacity issue. The Nexus One has 512MB of internal storage. The Nexus Galaxy has 32GB of internal storage. If ICS weighs in at much more than 400MB and has the stellar (read as: "perfunctory") MicroSD support we've come to expect from Android, it'd be about as enjoyable as a fart in a spacesuit on a Nexus One.

That's a good point. They may not be able to fit the standard image. But if that's the only issue, then expect Cyanogenmod et. al. to have this fixed within weeks. Running real filesystems on the sdcard has been routine in the AOSP community since forever.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#87

Post by v21 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #59
clhodapp wrote: post #53

I imagine that this is not due to the n1 being "underpowered" per se, as the nexus s has roughly the same specs as the n1, but more internal storage. The problem is due to the fact that the n1 can't accommodate the ics image, which google is claiming is about twice as large in size. /speculation

I think you're right. running out of onboard space is an issue if I install too many apps on the N1.

I am constantly running out of internal space on my N1. It's the worst thing about it, and the main reason I would upgrade.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#88

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rayiner wrote: post #75
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google updates many parts of "Android" such as Mail, Maps, Youtube, Market etc. independently of the OS. Other parts are improved not on the phone, but server side (e.g. google home page, mobile web interfaces, audio transcription). The bits that it doesn't upgrade (launcher, browser etc.) can often be replaced by 3rd parties, including repackagings of parts of later versions of AOSP. I was pleasantly surprised how m…

"The... (launcher, browser etc.) can often be replaced by 3rd parties, including repackagings of parts of later versions..." "I managed to get most of the other features..." "I added a custom froyo rom... and will probably jump to CyanogenMod soon." Punchline: "All in all, in not sure why people are so keen for Google to follow such an archaic and monolithic release model."

My whole point (which you've carefully elided in your response) was that you didn't need to do any of that to get the new Market, Maps, Youtube etc. on their own update schedules. Most would consider these key features and selling points of the OS and as such Apple bundles them together with OS updates and corresponding yearly(-ish) hardware releases.

Even the stuff that you have to seek out, like installing a new launcher or keyboard from the market is hardly at the level of recompiling a kernel and wouldn't even be necessary if you've already chosen a 3rd party replacement such as Swype for typing, again updated on its own schedule via the Market.

I could and did do the rest (rooting, seeking out and installing custom Roms) because I enjoy fiddling with things. I don't think a JIT is the kind of thing an average person cares about, or can make decisions about its hardware requirements. I don't recommend, or see much reason, for anyone else to do it if they are not also geeks. Your phone will not disappear in a puff of smoke, on the contrary it will still silently get better without any action on your part even if the version number on the about screen doesn't tick up.

But the facilities that lets me do all that customisation are the same thing that lets anyone use Opera or Firefox as their main browser, set to open URLs by other apps, unlike in iOS where Safari will always be the default browser. Or to change the launcher, use a different dialer or theme my phone differently. These are all good things, even if you don't use them. And there is no need to if you don't wish to.

Re: Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

#90

Post by angryasian »

funkah wrote: post #71
jkincaid wrote: post #3

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

OK, but if Google isn't releasing it, isn't that an indication that it won't run very well even if you do manage to install it?

it will be built off of android open source project essentially the same thing that the nexus prime will be running. With no new hardware requirements, I don't see any indication of why it wouldn't run as well.
Post reply on HN