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Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

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Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#11
Am I misunderstanding this:

"7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS." "12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less."

That makes 19 out of 18 phones. That looks like an error. I wonder what other errors there are here?

Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#12
post #5
post #2

I wrote the piece / did the research. Happy to answer any questions or comments people might have.

As JoachimSchipper said, provide a timeline and mark release dates of Os versions on it as well. This way it would be much cleaner and gives more context.

I actually had letters on there ("E", "F") etc for releases but on top of the sales windows & the support windows it was just too much on one chart.

I do plan to provide all that information as a comprehensive list of phones/updates, ideally along with the ability to sort by carrier, manufacturer, etc.

Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#13
post #4
post #2

I wrote the piece / did the research. Happy to answer any questions or comments people might have.

Have you considered extending the chart? Right now it seems very iOS versus Android, and is only useful for people in the United States.

Very much so - I made a note or two re extension & non-US at the end of the post. Definitely my intention.

Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#14
post #4
post #2

I wrote the piece / did the research. Happy to answer any questions or comments people might have.

Have you considered extending the chart? Right now it seems very iOS versus Android, and is only useful for people in the United States.

Why is iOS vs. Android only useful for people in the US?

Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#15

Am I misunderstanding this: "7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS." "12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less." That makes 19 out of 18 phones. That looks like an error. I wonder what other errors there are here?

"never" is also "a matter of weeks or less"

Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#16

Am I misunderstanding this: "7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS." "12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less." That makes 19 out of 18 phones. That looks like an error. I wonder what other errors there are here?

Depending on what you classify as a "matter of weeks", I count five devices in the latter category.

Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#17
post #2

I wrote the piece / did the research. Happy to answer any questions or comments people might have.

You should include iPod Touch and how apple forces a charge for updates on that device. This chart is also skewed a bit and should be based on intervals of releases rather than "years since". I don't recall seeing any iOS5 backports to iPhone 2G or 3G.

No, the original iPhone & 3G don't support iOS 5. But they did support the current version of iOS for 3 years after they were released - far more than any Android phones of the period.

(And, no, they don't charge for iPod Touch updates any more - that was technically an accounting regulation issue that the government changed.)

Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#18
post #2

I wrote the piece / did the research. Happy to answer any questions or comments people might have.

You should include iPod Touch and how apple forces a charge for updates on that device. This chart is also skewed a bit and should be based on intervals of releases rather than "years since". I don't recall seeing any iOS5 backports to iPhone 2G or 3G.

The chart could definitely be made easier to read. I also thought it claimed that the original iPhone got iOS 5 since current = 5 right now. Instead, the chart says that after three years, the original iPhone was still running the latest version at that time (iOS 3)

Re: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

#20
post #6

The current situation is somewhat unfair to the indiscrete / non-tech-savvy consumer since they might buy an Android phone without understanding the differences from the iOS ecosystem. At least several of my friends did. "They're about the same right? And this one was $30 cheaper!" And I genuinely feel bad every time this happens. Note that I of course have no gripes with Android OS/concept itself -- it's a good cont…

>And don't forget the mandatory "crapware" that carriers pre-install. ICS supposedly solves this problem but one has to wonder how many low-end Android phones will be sold in the next year (or even two?) that won't support ICS since the N1 won't be getting it.

I'd say Gingerbread will still be the most pre-installed Android version during all 2012.
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