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Comment by Zigurd | Hacker News Reader

Android has a different update model. It's inferior to Apple's, obviously. But that's how life is when you have OEMs that insist on adding a lot of their own "value" and who sell through the carrier channel.

In a strange way, this article confuses latency with throughput. It takes a long time for each Android update to gain a majority of the installed base. But it does get there. Slowing the frequency of updates will not change that.

Android continues to develop at a fast pace. Android N previews large-tablet/desktop OS features like proper mouse support and resizeable windows. This would not be the time to slow the release schedule.

One reason I hope the tablet market grows to where it can influence the overall Android market is that tablets do not need carrier approval for updates.

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Tablets have the same update cycle as phones for Android devices -- my tablet got a one major version upgrade and that's all it's ever going to get. From Samsung. And it's a powerful tablet that will last for years.

Google can keep pushing out updates but the percentage of devices on any particular version will keep getting smaller. The whole thing is fundamentally flawed.

Google agreed to this carrier model to gain market share against iOS. Google first tried the Apple full control model but couldn't get share that way. Stop blaming just the carriers.

> Stop blaming just the carriers.

Why? They're the ones that wouldn't agree to the terms that would have prevented an unnecessary bottleneck.

> One reason I hope the tablet market grows to where it can influence the overall Android market is that tablets do not need carrier approval for updates.

Phones don't need it either.

That's true. While I understand the carrier channel and why it works the way it does, I'm baffled as to why customers put up with it. You get a phone laden with both the OEM and carrier's spyware, that will lag system updates somewhere in the range of 9 months to never... Why buy that crap?

If Google deserves criticism it's for not pushing harder and more consistently on initiatives like Google Play Edition and Android One.

People put up with it because they don't really know of any alternative outside iOS. And until recently, financed phones were pretty much only available through your carrier, firmly locking you into the carrier channel and everything that entails. People might not like the nonsense--to the extent that they even think about it (honestly, Android updates take so long I know people who don't even realize that major updates are even an option for them)--but they dislike it a whole lot less than the idea of spending two grand in cash and all at once to outfit a family of four with new phones.

This is what a credit card is for. If you're going to buy on credit, do it on independent credit.

There's too much conflict of interest to trust cell companies to finance your phone.

No, but the agreements in place more or less guarantee it. Back with the original iPhone, Apple was able to push Cingular into ceding a lot of control over devices. Google was never able to do the same. Partly because they needed to make up marketshare, but also because it went against a lot of the Android ethos (IMO) that pre-dated even the iPhone.

I love open-source, and I'm a huge believer in the possibilities it represents. But I think those beliefs blinded people in the beginning, who assumed that carriers and manufacturers would similarly care. They don't. Hell, they're even slow to respond with security updates. Google is moving in a better direction, but it'll take a while. If we're really lucky, carriers and manufacturers won't notice the gradual changes and raise a fuss.

You'd think that, as long as they get to customize things to their heart's content and install their bloatware at some point, they'd be able to realize the benefits of a better update model. But then again, major UI changes that are clearly visible help differentiate new devices. So there's a nasty vested interest at work there as well.

Apple still has a lot of extra measures in place to work with carriers, they just do it ahead of announcing updates instead of dropping the code like Google does and then waiting for everyone to fix it for their equipment.

From my recall, Apple actually has a "Verizon team" that works on ensuring iOS updates meet all of Verizon's certification requirements for release ahead of announcement, which is why Apple software updates never suffer that terrible additional wait Android updates have before they end up on Verizon phones.

They still need willingness from their manufacturer...

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