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Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

arstechnica.com

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Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#161

Post by Waterluvian »

zimmerfrei wrote: post #125

> Nvidia released the first Shield Android TV in 2015 > it took about 18 months to [create] an entirely new security stack [...] Android updates aren’t actually that much work compared to DRM security, and some of its partners weren’t that keen on re-certifying older products. > In February 2025, Nvidia released Shield Patch 9.2 [...] That was the Tegra X1 [security] bug finally being laid to rest on the 2015 and 201…

This is the story I’m really interested in. How have they prevented MBAs from ruining this product?

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#162

Post by Gareth321 »

QuiEgo wrote: post #109
magicalhippo wrote: post #100

I have one of them, and been using it daily since I bought it in 2016. Bought a cheap Bluetooth remote control from AliExpress which was an upgrade over the Logitech Harmony crap I had earlier. If it were to break, knock on wood it won't happen, what options are there? I have tried to look but haven't really found anything that is free of Chinese backdoors and has decent hardware. For just Plex or Jellyfin a N100 box…

The next best is probably an Apple TV 4k, but it can't direct play as many audio and video formats as the Shield.

Apple TV is great except they prevent installing software which is not on their App Store. A big one for me is SmartTubeNext, which removes YouTube ads and sponsored segments. I can't even pay for that if I wanted to.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#163

Post by aceazzameen »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #116
wronglebowski wrote: post #51

Everyone is missing the why here, this only happens because the whole stack is vertically integrated. Even if say LG wanted to make a box like this and update it for 10 years they couldn’t, they don’t make the chips. Qualcomm straight up refuses to support chips through this many Android releases. Even if device manufacturers want to support devices forever it won’t matter if the actual SoC platform drops support.

Yet Microsoft figured this out decades ago. I (well my mom) had a supported with security updates version of Windows 7 on my 2007 Mac Mini (not a typo) until 2023.

That was from when Macs ran Intel and could easily dual boot Windows. I still have an old Mac Book Pro with Windows 10 on it. Updates only stopped recently because Win10 is at end of life. I've been meaning to blow everything out and install Linux.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#164

Post by sp3n »

something else that is outstanding about this device is the support. a couple of months ago my 2017 edition kept restarting occasionally while watching a movie so i got in touch with nvidia support, after a bit of back n forth they agreed to send me a brand new power adapter for free which arrived promptly and completely fixed the problem

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#166

Post by paulryanrogers »

guilamu wrote: post #158
altano wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They added auto-playing, full screen video ads to the home screen. I threw mine in the garbage. Pride and love, lol…

This is Google. Just change the default launcher and you're good.

Nova Launcher just added advertisements, unless you buy Pro. Ads come for everyone.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#167

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

aceazzameen wrote: post #163
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet Microsoft figured this out decades ago. I (well my mom) had a supported with security updates version of Windows 7 on my 2007 Mac Mini (not a typo) until 2023.

That was from when Macs ran Intel and could easily dual boot Windows. I still have an old Mac Book Pro with Windows 10 on it. Updates only stopped recently because Win10 is at end of life. I've been meaning to blow everything out and install Linux.

I am giving props to Microsoft because it did wrangle an industry together to standardize where one company makes the operating system and other companies make the hardware yet you can still upgrade your operating system even without the support of the vendor.

Yet Google can’t seem to make that happen.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#168

Post by paulryanrogers »

xattt wrote: post #144
altano wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They added auto-playing, full screen video ads to the home screen. I threw mine in the garbage. Pride and love, lol…

I did end up switching to Flauncher for a while before getting an Apple TV.

Does Apple TV have ads for Apple shows in its UI?

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#169

Post by jeroenhd »

akdev1l wrote: post #151
SkiFire13 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux originally supported Intel without any Intel engineers even knowing it existed. It should be noted that Intel makes CPUs, while Qualcomm makes SoCs, which include much more than just a CPU. Usually supporting the CPU is the easiest part, the rest is the issue. That said, when device OEMs release the kernel sources, modders are able to update custom roms for a long time, so I doubt this is just a Qualcomm issu…

They update the roms while keeping everything provided by Qualcomm the same so basically the kernel is frozen even if the android version is updated

The kernel is usually frozen but sometimes projects like PostmarketOS can use the changes to upstream the changes and add general Linux support.

Anyone can make a diff between the upstream kernel and the Qualcomm kernel. Maintaining these changes into later versions of the kernel will be quite challenging, but the base is already there.

That said, phones also come with plenty of binary drivers and those cannot be ported. That's an important reason not to bother with later kernel versions in custom ROMs: after all of your hard work, the end result will be missing important features such as GPU acceleration.

Re: Nvidia's 10-year effort to make the Shield TV the most updated Android device

#170

Post by rvnx »

Waterluvian wrote: post #161
zimmerfrei wrote: post #125

> Nvidia released the first Shield Android TV in 2015 > it took about 18 months to [create] an entirely new security stack [...] Android updates aren’t actually that much work compared to DRM security, and some of its partners weren’t that keen on re-certifying older products. > In February 2025, Nvidia released Shield Patch 9.2 [...] That was the Tegra X1 [security] bug finally being laid to rest on the 2015 and 201…

This is the story I’m really interested in. How have they prevented MBAs from ruining this product?

Infinite money.

Like Apple, SpaceX or Tesla.

(though I suspect that Apple hired some MBAs to work on Liquid Ass)

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