161–170 of 235 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I were Motorola or Samsung, though, there's no way I'd do that. Without differentiation, you're selling a commodity product. If you're selling a commodity, there are no margins. I agree with you that it would be better for the Android ecosystem if they would, though.
HP, Dell, Lenovo and Sony would like to have a word with you - they have been selling PC's without custom UI's all this time.
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…
they are different leagues.
The people that consider an android or ios as equals and decide on device color or price won't even know what this table is about.
history is repeating. iOS is a IBM mainframe. with it's golden cuffs. Android is the radio shack PC. with it's "require soldering".
i give that android is still in it's infancy. and that the availability of OSes are few. just like in the beginning of the PC era all you had was BASICshells. all you have now for android is Android and some slighly different shells. but soon an android device will be like a PC. you can choose your linux distro. and then you will have the option of having full control of your mobile, just like you have of your servers.
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…
I'm very happy with Android. But, I only recommend the Nexus line and this post seems to back that up (we'll see as things go forward).
my nexus one shows as green, yes, i have all the latest software, but no fix yet for the touchscreen issue. That alone would make the nexus one RED since launch on that table for me, as this hints to zero support.
try to use your touch screen for 10min while the device is charging from an empty battery (some other use cases also trigger the bug, but this is 100% reproductible)
1. Anyone who cares about OS updates would only have ever owned three or four of the phones on the chart. 2. Anyone who cares about OS updates doesn't keep a phone for longer than 2 years. Most spring for an early upgrade after 1.5. Many (like me) finagle a new one every year or so. 3. My wife has never updated the OS of any of the 3 iPhones she's owned. I believe she is representative.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I speak from experience when I say, putting iOS 4 on the 3G was just a terrible idea. The 3G should have stayed with the 2G in being restricted to iOS 3.1.3, which whilst no speed demon, at least runs reasonably well, even now. The 3GS is the lowest hardware that should have been given iOS 4.
Didn't they address that in a subsequent iOS 4 update? My understanding is that 3G iOS4 support got a lot more tolerable.
The device is still much slower and less smooth than on 3.1 due to higher base memory requirements (as a result, not only are most applications slower to load some will not load at all on 4.2 and will instead crash due to going OOM and not being able to clear out anything upon receiving an OOM signal).
The graph is debatable for the 3G: its last update was 4.2.1 released 28 months into the phone's lifecycle, but it did not get iOS 4.3 release in March 2011. Talking about "major version" sounds like a lie/cop-out in that case, since iOS receives pretty major updates in "minor" versions (4.3 included personal hotspots, ASLR, a JITed javascript engine, settings rearrangements and reworks, the ability to cancel an appl…
Also note that the graph goes out only three years, conveniently skipping the fact that the original and 3G will never get iOS 5. You'd think Apple had a perfect record, when in fact there's a bunch of yellow on their graph too. That chart is terribly cooked. It leaves out important devices like the Nexus S which had good support, and includes a ton of clunkers in lieu of the most popular phones (e.g. no Galaxy S var…
Considering no Android device comes even remotely close to three years of support, and three years is well outside the renewal cycles you can generally expect, I don't think that's really cooking anything.
> That chart is terribly cooked. It leaves out important devices like the Nexus S which had good support
The Nexus S is barely 10 months old, and is about phones which had been released as of June 2010, 6 months before the Nexus S appeared...
> That said, the point the post is making is valid and important. But the graphic is sensationalized junk.
It's not ideal in the least, but calling it "sensationalized junk" is pushing it too far by a long shot.
The graph is debatable for the 3G: its last update was 4.2.1 released 28 months into the phone's lifecycle, but it did not get iOS 4.3 release in March 2011. Talking about "major version" sounds like a lie/cop-out in that case, since iOS receives pretty major updates in "minor" versions (4.3 included personal hotspots, ASLR, a JITed javascript engine, settings rearrangements and reworks, the ability to cancel an appl…
From a developer standpoint, the Major version releases are far more important. All I have to choose is "am I going to support 3.1.x devices, or am I going to limit myself to 4.x devices". Even better, now that iOS5 has arrived with (very pleasantly smooth) support for the 3GS, the choice is "do I support 3.x or 5.x" since the last years of devices ALL support the APIs in the most recent OS. That is huge. Just yester…
Sure, but the graph seems to take user-point considerations foremost (#1), before developer-point considerations.
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.