Android 4.3 Factory images for Nexus 7 (2013) Available | Hacker News Reader

Android 4.3 Factory images for Nexus 7 (2013) Available

developers.google.com

53 pointsmyko22 comments

Looks like the individual binaries are available now too for AOSP builds:

https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers#razorjss...

Seems like Google decided to solve the problem right away once it got a bit of attention. Good on them for that.

Also looks like Nexus 4 binaries for Android 4.3 are available at the same time; I didn't think those were available either, does anyone know for certain?

Nexus 4 binaries have been available for the some time now. I installed using the same couple of weeks ago.

The New 7 has been very buggy for me. Got it the first day it came on the market, would randomly reboot. Couple of days later it started to shutoff by itself. GPS would not hold a signal and the Screen would randomly flicker... Returned mine after a week. Second one had similar problems so gave up.

Looks like I am not the only one: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/mobile/mG4JXaT...

Disappointed with the quality of a Marquee new product from Google. Hard to believe that they put this thru much quality control.

Same thing happened last year too. I bought mine as soon as it launched on Play and you could already see the screen lift issue within a week, so I returned it. I bought it again a few months later and I got a device that has no issues whatsoever.

I wonder if it was a hardware issue or something that can be fixed with an update

The random shutdown and reboot problems are because of the apps which are not yet updated. I think Netflix was one those apps. The GPS problem seems to be fixable with software update. Apparently the problem arises when two or more apps try to use the GPS.

I would argue that if apps can randomly shutdown and reboot the device without even explicitly trying to do so then the OS is at fault, even if it turns out that updates to those apps resolve the problem.

This isn't the 1980s or early 90s, consumer OSes (even those on small mobile devices) should not come crashing down because of something an app has done.

The reason is that some apps use different functionality which can expose deadlocks in the OS. If the OS hits a deadlock, than the watchdog service will reboot the phone to prevent it being locked in a certain state.

I'm aware of an example of a reboot exacerbated dramatically by using sticky intents / broadcasts on 4.1.1 - see https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=46806

So...JBQ crisis averted?

No, he quit. I believe the reason for his quitting was not so much because Qualcomm was tardy in releasing the images but more because of all the abuse he took from random internet nobodies due to the delay.

The Qualcomm crisis has been averted, the android userbase is still a bunch of dicks.

He wouldn't have quit if he knew the images were coming soon. This seems like Qualcomm was taking the heat for it, and decided to let Google use the images. JBQ even said he has been warning Google about this for six months.

So he knew it was Qualcomm the ones that were dicks, but he couldn't convince neither Google nor Qualcomm to put up the images, so he didn't want to take the blame for it from the Android community. This is just Qualcomm responding to the PR mess that they created now.

He deserves a lot of credit - it's doubtful it would have got anywhere near the same publicity if he hadn't quit, and that probably put the issue over the edge in terms of forcing Qualcomm to come to the party sooner.

I thought he was showing the stress for a long time now. In general, he had a great deal of responsibility for AOSP, which is affected by decisions in other parts of the Android organization. This was a tipping point.

This is why I only buy Android Nexus devices. Other brands just cannot get their update schemes together.

Thanks, I saw images for Google Nexus Phone, and mine is so, and I've got the update already, but made me wonder - There is a verion "With Google Wallet" and one without. I thought you can install Wallet by your choice, or is that not the case?

The non Google Wallet images are for those outside the United States.

Thank you!

Hmm, I thought the new Nexus 7 was 'flo', not 'razor'? Have I always been wrong? Or has the development name changed?

Droid Life says[1] razor is the "product name" and flo the "device name". I guess that means flo refers to the hardware and razor the software.

[1]: http://www.droid-life.com/2013/08/09/new-nexus-7-razor-facto...

Thanks!

Since my Nexus7 has upgraded is there any reason why I should bother with these?

These would only be necessary if you wanted to restore your device to the factory firmware after installing custom software, or to update before the OTA reached you (which obviously isn't an issue now).

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