Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25 • Hacker News Board

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#171

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 4:03 AM UTC

gst wrote: post #16

gcb0 wrote: post #3

all my bugs from android 2.3 (still heavily used in the us and out) up to android 4.2 were closed as obsolete. several are somewhat fixed on 5.0 (most by removing the feature) but nothing about support even nexus devices from 2.5 years ago. 3 were security ones confirmed by a few comments. I've been getting obsolete emails on my low profile bugs since November all the way to Dec 25... Google just gave up. i think nob…

The last device sold by Google that now runs an Android release of 4.2 or earlier was (afaik) the Nexus S - which was released in 2010. I think it's reasonable to stop support for a particular device after something like 4 years. Yes, there are other 3rd party manufacturers that sold devices based on such outdated versions up until recently. But why should it be Google's task to provide updates for these devices? Tha…

> I think it's reasonable to stop support for a particular device after something like 4 years.

Right, because 4 year old electronics might just as well go into the landfill and if someone is dumb enough to use them still we don't care if they have a security liability in their pocket.

Of course you need to support your devices longer than 4 years. You need to support them as long as their design life, and if your design life is only 4 years then you're not aware of the trickle-down effect of hardware once bought.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#172

Post by Zak » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 4:06 AM UTC

alvarosm wrote: post #117

sduclos wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wifi ad hoc network (82) seem like good thing to have in an emergency. Searching around I found Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer in Android doc at http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifip...

Well, that's kind of a minor feature and it's understandable that they might decide not to prioritize it. But there are many serious bugs out there that are being ignored.

It would also be trivial for them to ad, as several third-party builds support it and a couple patches have been offered over the years. It's almost certain there's a business/policy reason they don't want to support it.

Sharing a PC's wired connection via ad-hoc WiFi is still a pretty common use case. Mesh networking for communication in emergencies would be an awesome use case, but it depends on a lot of people using it for most of its benefit, and the installation procedure starts with "first, root your phone".

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#173

Post by sgnelson » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 4:18 AM UTC

oceanstone wrote: post #159

sgnelson wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saying used to be that something was designed for obsolescence. I no longer believe that's the case, I believe new devices are programmed for obsolescence. That is to say, the device used to work, but with new "updates," the device becomes more decrepit, and less useful, not better and more useful. I've had Apple devices that worked fine until the "update" (which was mainly targeted at the latest and greatest, no…

> I don't recall which software update it was, but my iPhone 3g was a great example of this. Do you recall if it was a major or minor update?

I really don't recall, but I'm guessing it was a major update. I believe this because I think I remember it being for the newer phones (iphones 4/5?) and that the update didn't include certain features on the 3g (this was a while ago for me, so I don't recall many details, sorry)

But at the same time, there was no "Warning: This will actually slow down your phone and make the user experience suck." I'm okay if a phone can't support certain features that the latest model includes. But the fact that an update actually made my older phone worse off, was quite the disappointment.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#174

Post by sgnelson » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 4:23 AM UTC

cpks wrote: post #163

oceanstone wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't recall which software update it was, but my iPhone 3g was a great example of this. Do you recall if it was a major or minor update?

For me, latest iOS+older iPad completely killed it. It was the last major upgrade, which added the animations. My iPad was the first gen with retina, and the animations were slow and jerky. I eventually enabled some accessibility mode which killed them, but other aspects of the user experience are less than stellar. Wifi is now intermittent. My Nexus 4 is growing a little decrepit, but not nearly as bad. I was consid…

Yes, this is exactly what is occurring with my mothers iPad (and I think her's is the same first gen retina). And frankly I can't do anything about it. But ever since she's installed iOS 8, wifi has been incredibly flakey. Of course, it's not Apple's fault, she just needs to buy a new iPad.

I'm not a gadget geek at all. I'm more of a cheap bastard/ "if it ain't broke.." and basically buy and use technology until it breaks or it won't do the job anymore. My Linksys WRT-54G I've had for at least 8 years just died the other day. For me it was good enough, no reason to change. My iPhone was good enough (until the updates made it unpleasant, I still used it, and eventually the hardware itself did die).

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#175

Post by swatow » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 5:02 AM UTC

hga wrote: post #27

gcb0 wrote: post #3

all my bugs from android 2.3 (still heavily used in the us and out) up to android 4.2 were closed as obsolete. several are somewhat fixed on 5.0 (most by removing the feature) but nothing about support even nexus devices from 2.5 years ago. 3 were security ones confirmed by a few comments. I've been getting obsolete emails on my low profile bugs since November all the way to Dec 25... Google just gave up. i think nob…

Echoes of Jamie Zawinski "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers" software development model? ( http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html ) Not quite the same thing, but Google and company sure look to believe they have better things to do....

Your post reminds me of how silly the way our society protects certain categories is.

"Attention-Deficit Teenegers" could be viewed as offensive to some, as it uses a medical diagnosis as a pejorative. Perhaps the author could argue that they are referring to typical teenage behavior, and not ADD, but that would to me be a completely ridiculous and artificial distinction.

So either we can't make fun of stereotypical teenage behavior (which is a slippery slope since about a lot of HN posts make fun of, or are directly hostile to, people in their early 20's) or have to admit that some medical categories are also things we can joke about.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#176

Post by anonymousab » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 5:29 AM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #22

At some point in a long living project, you have to declare some bugs are #wontfix. You are just lieing to yourself if you think you will ever get to the end of the bug backlog. It also can become an anchor, the team is focused solely on fixing bugs here and there instead of moving the ball forward (and hopefully fixing more fundamental problems along the way). I've made the call to mass close tickets like this. It's…

>At some point in a long living project, you have to declare some bugs are #wontfix

Sure. Those are your absolute failures though, and should be regarded as any other failure by your team. When they're "won't fix because it's icky/not fun/goes against our prior fundamental assumptions", at least.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#177

Post by iamcreasy » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 5:39 AM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #118

iamcreasy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every part of the world changes at the same pace. There are places where a device running Android 4.2 are the best one on the market. That being said, its extremely frustrating to see this happening.

> There are places where a device running Android 4.2 are the best one on the market. Where? With the possible exception of China [1], after the Moto G and Android One, I'd expect that you could get a KitKat (or better) entry-level device pretty much anywhere. [1] where there are entry-level KitKat devices, I'm just not sure of their quality since some major entry-level manufactureres (e.g. Xiaomi) are still on 4.2,…

Where people don't have the opportunity to look up online to see what are their options are, but good students come out of those situations nonetheless.

Most them are on 3G network and reception of a wifi network is an accident.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#178

Post by TheDong » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 6:01 AM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #111

This should be just another wake up call to the fact that Android just isn't open. Unless you're inside the OHA your view doesn't count, and even then you have to go along with Google's vision of the future. End users might think they have it bad, but the development experience is basically an exercise in dealing with whatever hyped up shiny unfinished turd is floating down from on high. It's a shame because some asp…

The existence of the Kindle with Amazon's android fork seems to be good evidence to the contrary; another company took the code and made their own fork. Sure, upstream might not be making changes to support Kindle, but it's open so they can apply those patches.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#179

Post by TheDong » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 6:04 AM UTC

allendoerfer wrote: post #61

Enterprises are able to pay huge maintenance fees. Single consumers are not and game theory teaches us, that they are unable to unite to get it (free rider problem). So I fear, that we need stronger consumer protection for software products. I do not know the situation in the US, but in the EU we have a mandated 2 year warranty for almost every product with very few sensible exceptions (food and the like). We need th…

This cannot work in this case.

The software is not what is being sold; it's the hardware. The software is free.

Let me paint a slightly sillier picture; imagine your law existed and one man wrote a small toy project in his free time 5 years ago... some company (e.g. Samsung) starts shipping it as part of an appliance they sell. If there are bugs in the software then is the original man obligated to fix them? Is he breaking the law?

Open source software just isn't compatible with laws mandating that it be maintained in a given way and it makes little sense, in my mind, to create such laws.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#180

Post by madeofpalk » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 6:14 AM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #104

ljf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so you know, you can't buy kindle books from the Android app anymore either - main reason I use Aldiko to read epub now. Agreed about Android 5 though, best yet!

Say what now? I just opened my Kindle app and the store hasn't gone anywhere. Are you maybe thinking of Google blocking Amazon from including the Amazon Appstore in the Amazon shopping app? That's a different issue and, more importantly, that doesn't really affect what's possible on Android, just how convenient it is. After all, anyone who wants to can download the store Google blocked from Amazon directly.

Just like how if anyone wants to purchase a Kindle book on the iPad, they can do it via Safari (they could make it more convenient by pinning it to the home screen as well)