I work for a telco (I don't speak for them, usual disclaimers apply). Everyone gets really ranty when operators delay firmware updates. Yeah, some of them delay to force you to buy a new phone, or to stuff the ROM full of bloatware. Most, however, do extensive testing to make sure that customers don't ring up call centres making angry complaints. Carriers (by and large) test the phone to make sure that the network po…
Surely these are issues to do with phone manufacturers and not with the carriers?
A comment in the recent "Apple has lost the functional high ground" thread started as follows, "Thing is nobody complains about Android updates breaking everything [...]".
I thought that was hilarious, since at this point my baseline expectation for an Android update is for absolutely core functionality to be broken, and not be fixed for a few months if ever. Now, technically only 3 out of 6 Android devices I've ever owned ended up in that state. But it appears that it would have been just a matter of time for the Nexus 4, and it doesn't appear in those stats just due to being stolen before it was broken.
I work for a telco (I don't speak for them, usual disclaimers apply). Everyone gets really ranty when operators delay firmware updates. Yeah, some of them delay to force you to buy a new phone, or to stuff the ROM full of bloatware. Most, however, do extensive testing to make sure that customers don't ring up call centres making angry complaints. Carriers (by and large) test the phone to make sure that the network po…
thank you for this post. i always felt that the other side of the fence was greatly underrepresented here.
I second that. We always get the same stream of negative comments towards telcos (not saying they're not deserved), but we don't get to see very often how this looks on the other side of the fence. It'll be wonderful to have more comments like GP's one.
I work for a telco (I don't speak for them, usual disclaimers apply). Everyone gets really ranty when operators delay firmware updates. Yeah, some of them delay to force you to buy a new phone, or to stuff the ROM full of bloatware. Most, however, do extensive testing to make sure that customers don't ring up call centres making angry complaints. Carriers (by and large) test the phone to make sure that the network po…
> compared to millions of customers storming your shops and demanding refunds And yet somehow Apple is able to push updates without carrier approval and this doesn't happen.
Not one single thing in your comment is factually correct. In fact, both points are demonstrably the opposite of the truth. Apple is not perfect. It is very good at marketing, very good at aesthetic design, decent to good at acquiring marginally above average hardware, and ranges poor to decent at software. The most important thing Apple is good at is marketing, and your comment demonstrates why.
Android Lollipop also broke the led indicator at the bottom of my Nexus 5. I can no longer count on it to reliably indicate if I have messages/emails pending on silent mode.
> compared to millions of customers storming your shops and demanding refunds And yet somehow Apple is able to push updates without carrier approval and this doesn't happen.
Except for 8.0.1 which hosed cell service for everyone. However, Apple was able to pull the update within hours and release a fix the next day.
I am looking at getting the Nexus 6 and its threads like this that make me think twice about leaving the iPhone. I prefer android, I love my nexus 7 but issues like this are the reason I left android to get the iPhone 5 from a Droid X2. Now, I thought if getting a Nexus google would support it more because my main issue with the Droid was that it was never updated...but now I am concerned.
Long time Android user here! (G2, Nexus One, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4). After several years of hoping Android would get its shit together, I switched to a 5S and got my wife an iPhone 6. I have minor quibbles: No Google Calendar App. Google service push notifications seem a tad slower on the iPhone. But the experience is just so much better. I am by no means a fan boi. I am a fan (as an infrastructure engineer with real…
Try Sunrise [1], which can use Google Calendar as backend and has push for updates.
I work for a telco (I don't speak for them, usual disclaimers apply). Everyone gets really ranty when operators delay firmware updates. Yeah, some of them delay to force you to buy a new phone, or to stuff the ROM full of bloatware. Most, however, do extensive testing to make sure that customers don't ring up call centres making angry complaints. Carriers (by and large) test the phone to make sure that the network po…
Wow, thanks for that interesting insight into the telco side of firmware upgrade delays.
I humbly submit that the carriers could avoid a lot of ill-will if there was more transparency in that process. I hope there aren't contractual obligations in place preventing that because it really changes the way I personally see the problem.