Are Android customers left to rot the moment we walk out of the store? | Hacker News Reader

Are Android customers left to rot the moment we walk out of the store?

webiphany.com

21 pointsxrd28 comments

Yes, it's totally an issue. On the other hand, he's willing to hack his iPhone but not his Android?

It's different on Android. After the initial root, you get your future OS updates from the community. There's no reason to ever go back to the base. On the iPhone, you may have to revert your jailbreak at some point, like the author mentions.

After the initial root, which can be a pain (another thing to blame on short-sighted carriers and manufacturers), a custom ROM is actually far easier than updating many phones. There are ROM managers available in the Market that will manage them for you.

You can even change ROMs without even plugging into a computer. Try that with an iPhone.

I've got a Milestone. The reason I haven't rooted it is that I don't want download and run a possibly trojaned ROM off some guy from the internet.

I would like to pay a company for access to regular updates to Android on my phone (as long as there was QA to make sure my phone was supported).

Your argument is completely valid for this community, people who like to go off the reservation and run their own applications, code and OS.

However, the big draw of an iPhone is that it is a managed device, not a full-fledged computer+phone. Anybody who really wants to root their phone should get an Android device, the overarching purpose of an iPhone is to take away this control for the type of stability a casual user needs. It's totally counterintuitive to want to have complete user control of a managed device.

Furthermore, the issue of carriers not updating phones is an issue anyone who doesn't root their phone. It's like saying your car can get double the mileage, but you have to pull out the transmission by hand to install a clutch.

I made my parents get a Mac so I didn't have to keep fixing their BIOS. I'll be damned if I'm going to drive 370 miles to re-flash their phone after Android gets buggy and slow due to background processes. (They dig their feet into the ground, and will simply not learn about this.)

Those ordinary people will still get an Android, because it's on two-for-one offer or the salesman tells them to. And they'll be quite happy because their phone will make calls, and pick up their email, surf the web, play angry birds and give them directions and all the other things that a modern smartphone does. They'll never read Engadget and find out that they're a whole 6 months behind the software curve, and even if someone tells them they will quite rightly not care.

Because that is what we're talking about isn't it? Not BIOS problems or constant malware infestations, but geek rage at not being on the cutting edge. The intersection of people who care and can't help themselves is insignificant and consists mainly of whiny tech power-users who have nowhere to go but Android.

I don't know many non-developers using Android that have ever downloaded an application, let alone set up their email.

I don't know many non-developers using iOS that don't have a favorite app.

But yes, I am seeing a ton of people getting Android phones because it's what the salesman's hawking. Preference in this situation is tantamount to just straight up object-lust. Those who make do are probably better off than the rest of us arguing constantly about superiority.

I'm willing to root my Android. I've just been frustrated having to manage the process of updating my phone anytime a new OS comes out (as opposed to having the carriers do it), and the experience I detailed with doing something as simple as clearing the data from my iPhone makes we wary of doing this. Fortunately the Android community is getting better and better and producing root tools that you can simply download as an .apk, which is what I did with my Droid. This process does not work for my Galaxy, so I will probably end up manually doing this. I am worried that I will brick my phone since it is unsupported.

Hopefully the takeaway from this post was not a debate around root or jailbreaking, it was that there is a fundamental difference in the market forces playing out here. I always find that personally interesting, and personally frustrating right now.

>I think the same goes for T-Mobile.

Carriers get a cut of the Android Market revenue (10% of the sale), so they do have some interest in seeing you upgrade your phone. However, they also insist on exhaustively testing everything that runs on their networks (or, at least, everything you get from them), which gets expensive. I'd hope the Market revenue would be more than the testing costs, but I don't know.

That's definitely the biggest issue. Back in my Symbian days we'd see everything go through essentially 3 testing cycles.

1. Acceptance test at the OEM level 2. Acceptance test for each individual phone 3. Another round of testing at the carrier level.

It's that third round of testing that was always the most frustrating, as it was rarely well executed. We'd get a lot of really ticky-tack things ("bugs" in the form of "I don't think feature X should work this way"), while the big problems were rarely caught. We finally built out a rather large internal QA staff which was much more effective.

I'm not against testing, but the carriers need to adapt to the new environment. Instead of trying to catch every bug (and failing) be much quicker to push updates to the network. I'd much rather have an update every month or two, rather than wait 4 or 5 months to get a fix in.

This is one thing Apple gets right. The cadence of their updates is perfect.

At a minimum, Android needs to organize the base OS with a package system, so they can ship incremental updates which the OEMs can test quickly.

I get the same sinking feeling every time I check for an OS update on my Samsung Fascinate and it's not there.

No update means:

- ZERO GPS functionality (Verizon reps acknowledge this) - crippled performance on what's supposed to be top-of-the-line hardware (because the Samsung version of Android 2.1 uses a badly written swap filesystem)

My iPhone 3G has a better UI, multitouch, and even now feels like a more solidly built device. On the other hand, I've never had a dropped call on Verizon in San Francisco. I'd rather have a mostly-functioning, always-connected device than a beautiful idiot that connects to a network incapable of delivering even SMS.

I see lots of comments, but nobody mentioning Cyanogenmod, or the excellent communities at xda-developers for exactly this situation.

In brief -- if you don't want the reference Google Developer phone (soon to be released Nexus 2 / S perhaps? Right now Nexus One), root your phone, and install cyanogenmod.

I'm reminded reading the linked article that oh, say, four years ago, phone OS'es never updated, with the possible exception of Nokia's higher end E-series. Today, with a hacked Android phone, you could install nightly builds off the Android Open Source Project Trunk if you chose.

This is a big difference, and is something the poster can in fact do with his Samsung Galaxy S. So, why the complaining? All this is easily discoverable with some research before purchase of the phone.

Are you suggesting that everyone who purchases an Android phone root it?

I can absolutely root my phone. I just worry about things like the issue I detailed with my iPhone. I do think rooting is much easier than before, and there are still warnings in every forum I look at that indicate "if your phone explodes, don't blame us!"

I think it is a reasonable expectation that if I have a two year contract when I buy this phone that there should be a responsibility to upgrade that phone, and six months after the OS has been released seems out of bounds.

I don't agree about this being easy to research before purchasing the phone. When I purchase a Samsung Galaxy, is this the S? Is this some other Galaxy? Would this process work for rooting: http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/2271-how-to-root-your-andro.... (It does not by the way.) When I was at Google I/O they said there were sixty devices shipping with Android, and I am sure there are more now. It is actually non-trivial to keep all these details in your head unless that is what you want to do all day. I simply want to use my phone, and without Android 2.2 I am unable to use tethering, front facing camera for a bunch of apps, etc.

Instead of buying a phone from the carrier, if you want freedom you will have to look elsewhere. Buy a unlocked+rooted phone off EBay (let somebody else take the risk) or buy a developer phone (like the Nexus One).

You bought a locked-down, rights-stealing, consumer phone that is made for people who don't know better. You should totally know better. :-)

Does anyone know if you can install stock Android on, say, the Desire, and get it to act like a Nexus One (OTA updates, etc)? I'm not sure I see that much of a benefit in having HTC Sense, although it does have some good features.

Most phones, especially HTC ones, have a ROM that's basically stock Android.

Does this mean that I can install the updates and then install Sense on top? I'm a bit confused, I'm also not clear what custom ROMs provide and what the downsides are... I read some wikis but they don't mention downsides much.

I think most of the Sense stuff are system level packages, so you'd either have to find a ROM that included them or monkey around with ADB to get put Sense back on top. But if you want an stock Android experience that would seem to preclude Sense in large part.

What the custom ROMs provide really depends on what phone you're on and the goal of the ROM. A lot of them are really nothing more than a new skin, but some make bigger tweaks. I've got the Vibrant, and there are custom ROMs for Froyo even though T-Mobile hasn't released an official ROM for that yet. There are also a number of 2.1 ROMs that have other customizations (overclocking, underclocking, changing battery behavior)

I see, thank you.

Caveat emptor, if you did not think of how you were going to hack your phone when purchasing. There is a reason I am rocking the original Motorola Droid, and it is this exact reason. It really has nothing to do with Android, per se, and more to do with you.

It was my understanding that this is one reason why Apple does some strange accounting and why there are fees to get your iPod Touch upgraded, but not your iPhone. Part of the price of the phone is set aside to pay for future updates. So, you're not just paying for an iPhone, but also for access to future versions of iOS (up to a certain point). So not only is there an App Store incentive to get your to upgrade your iPhone, you already paid them to do it.

It doesn't seem like other manufacturers do the same thing. This could explain part of why they take so long in upgrading Android versions.

T-mobile just updated all myTouch, myTouch 3G to Android 2.2. Fortunately I have a myTouch 4G, but I feel comfortable that T-mobile will provide it with future updates.

Yes, and the mobile networks and device manufactures have no incentive to update; they actually want you to buy a new phone!!!

They're forgetting about those of us who haven't bought yet, and are watching how badly they are treating the early adopters. I was excited about the Samsung Epic when it first came out, and planning to get one when my Sprint refresh cycle comes around in January, but having seen how glacially slow Samsung has been to fix the problems people have been having with the phone, I now don't think I'll ever buy a Samsung phone.

Yeah, they have. Apple and Windows 7 are going to split the market if they don't start paying attention to their existing handset owners. (Both of those are doing centralized updates).

Realistically, people 6 months into a 2-year contract are not going to buy a new phone just to get the latest OS. They're more likely to say "never again" and buy an iPhone when their contract is up.

Apple and these users deserve each other...

They should take a lesson from Apple. The update they pushed to 3G users prompted many people to buy a new phone.

Of course not. We can open bugs... and then the bugs are left to rot.

Like the Arabic text input, Portuguese dictionary, imap folder support...

The last one with hundreds of comments and no word from google for half year.

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