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Android Oreo

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Re: Android Oreo

#531

Post by rypskar »

meerita wrote: post #506
thaumasiotes wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a series of Nexus phones. The Nexus 5 no longer works. The Nexus 4 still works, but its battery is puffing out. The Nexus S has no hardware problems at all, but it's too underpowered to run modern software. The model "phone vendors nefariously build products with short lifespans, regardless of what people want to buy, so that they can sell more hardware" has trouble explaining why the longest-lived phones ar…

My phone did died too (Nexus 6P). This doesn't mean all Nexus phones will die within opening the box.

I am still using my Nexus 4 from 2012, the only issue with it is that I don't get any upgrades anymore

Re: Android Oreo

#532

Post by weberc2 »

boojing wrote: post #485
weberc2 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I have an iPhone and I'm still waiting for the "remotely sane text selection" feature to ship. Just in case you think this is hyperbole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWz7rMj56Y

I just tried the 7+'s text selection and it works great unlike in that video.

Good to know. This is probably my biggest frustration with the iPhone. Any interaction with text is miserable, and it has been forever. Somehow Apple has not seemed to care for 6 generations.

Re: Android Oreo

#533

Post by Moru »

ranit wrote: post #516
thaumasiotes wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a series of Nexus phones. The Nexus 5 no longer works. The Nexus 4 still works, but its battery is puffing out. The Nexus S has no hardware problems at all, but it's too underpowered to run modern software. The model "phone vendors nefariously build products with short lifespans, regardless of what people want to buy, so that they can sell more hardware" has trouble explaining why the longest-lived phones ar…

> It's the same reason animals age and die. With the difference that younger (newer) animals are better built. :-)

I think most 50+ would disagree on this point... :-)

Re: Android Oreo

#534

Post by csydas »

josteink wrote: post #425
fabrice_d wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about cost: updates sometimes fail (incredible, I know), and carriers are the first place people go to get their phones back in working order. This kind of support is quite costly so carriers don't push too hard for updates to happen.

> carriers are the first place people go to get their phones back in working order That only applies to phone bought from carriers. Most people buy them in electronic shops where they buy tvs and laptops and stuff (since that allows you to get the best deal any carrier can offer, and not just be restricted to one).

This is half true and I think it falls neatly along generational lines, with exceptions for "really good deals". Most iPhone owners became first time AT&T customers when the iPhone came out. When Android hit the market, people went to their carrier because before this more or less was how you had to do it.

More people are just buying whatever phone and sticking a simcard in it but there is still a huge number who live by what their carrier gives them.

Re: Android Oreo

#535

Post by Mindwipe »

josteink wrote: post #432
ksk wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because they have to test the ROMs on their network in different regions, with different frequency bands, with roaming, etc. That work is tedious given all of the phones they support.

Do they do all this testing for all GSM phones in the world? All new and old? All GSM phones ever sold? I guess not. I guess instead they rely on the GSM specification to allow seamless independence between the phone and the carrier for 99.999% of the phones out there (if not more). So why do they need to "test" the remaining 0.001% when they have a update in user-facing functionality the carrier will never see or in…

Err... all carriers in Europe do this.

It happens with Apple OS updates too, Apple just have sufficient market clout to tell networks they must complete the testing in the week between the gold master release and the public release.

GSM isn't some magic specification. It's entirely possible for a crappy radio firmware to cause significant disruption to a network it connects to (indeed, I've seen a pre-release firmware from a mid-tier Android manufacturer that managed to cause a reboot in every cell tower it connected to from one of the UK's networks). That's an extreme example, but carriers frequently do testing on that basis, and it often holds up the European releases of Android software updates.

Re: Android Oreo

#536

Post by DCKing »

dcomp wrote: post #108

The most interesting part is the way they are planning on tackling fragmentation in O onwards with Project Treble [0] If your device ships with O it should be running an immutable semantically versioned HAL. In essence you should be able to be able to flash AOSP on every new device. No matter what the vendor does. Edit: I can see it now, in the technical specs of each device you will see a list of HAL Versions. The n…

I'm very skeptical of the level of optimism that is thrown towards Project Treble.

In the end it's just a way to make OEM's lives easier while developing updates. It will still require them to actually make updates for devices. Despite Project Treble they will still not have an economic incentive to update devices. And that is the core issue here, really.

My expectation is that Project Treble will help speeding up Android updates - they should come to devices sooner than they are released now, because Treble shortens the development process of updates. I don't expect devices to be updated any longer than they are now, or receive much more updates. OEMs will remain economically unpunished for not updating and likely will just pocket the money saved in the development process.

The only way to solve this problem is to build a "Windows Update for Android" whereby system components are updated in a modular and OEM independent way. The fundamental issue in Android's update problem is that OEMs are fully responsible for device updates and not motivated to do this job well, and Project Treble does not signficantly change this [1].

Don't get me wrong, Project Treble is a great move for Android. I however don't think it will make a huge difference in the Android update story.

[1]: EDIT: it's worth pointing out that Project Treble looks like a necessary move to make a "Windows Update for Android" happen though. Let's see if that becomes a reality.

Re: Android Oreo

#537

Post by qubex »

cakedoggie wrote: post #447
scott_karana wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP's point wasn't that emojis shouldn't be updated, but that it shouldn't require MAJOR/BREAKING VERSION updates (kernel, libraries, the works) to simply update a sprite font.

Who is saying it does? They are just releasing them at the same time.

I don't think they're retroactively releasing them for versions of Android prior to Oreo, though, are they?

Re: Android Oreo

#538

Post by fauigerzigerk »

pjmlp wrote: post #458
cakedoggie wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems people have made their choice they don't care. If they cared about updates they wouldn't be buying Android.

Some of them do care, but with an average salary of 500 euros or less, they have better things to do with the money than spending on iPhones. The only viable alternative was Windows Phone, but that is gone now.

That is very true, and I have to say it's disappointing and baffling how Microsoft dropped the ball on this one.

Microsoft are the only ones who ever managed to make the separation between OS vendor and hardware vendors work (at least on the PC side). They are sorely missed in the mobile space.

Re: Android Oreo

#539

Post by mariusmg »

DCKing wrote: post #536
dcomp wrote: post #108

The most interesting part is the way they are planning on tackling fragmentation in O onwards with Project Treble [0] If your device ships with O it should be running an immutable semantically versioned HAL. In essence you should be able to be able to flash AOSP on every new device. No matter what the vendor does. Edit: I can see it now, in the technical specs of each device you will see a list of HAL Versions. The n…

I'm very skeptical of the level of optimism that is thrown towards Project Treble. In the end it's just a way to make OEM's lives easier while developing updates. It will still require them to actually make updates for devices. Despite Project Treble they will still not have an economic incentive to update devices. And that is the core issue here, really. My expectation is that Project Treble will help speeding up An…

>and Project Treble does not signficantly change this

This hits the nail on the head. ProjectTreble thing will make no significant change in the long run. OEMs don't care about updating Android, they only care about selling hardware and developing shitty custom launchers.

Google is the only one that could change this. They could "tie" the Android licensing (Play Store and their custom bits) to forcing the OEM to release n major version updates . But they won't do this because it will hurt them financially (less licenses sold in the long run..)

Re: Android Oreo

#540

Post by fauigerzigerk »

remir wrote: post #367
cakedoggie wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems people have made their choice they don't care. If they cared about updates they wouldn't be buying Android.

You're thinking like a technical person. Aunt Susan doesn't know her phone is an Android phone. In her mind, it's a Samsung phone. It's not a question of not caring, she simply doesn't know.

There is such a thing as not knowing because you don't care, and I wouldn't even say that it's irrational. There's simply too much to know and care about in the world, so you have to be selective and event driven.
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