I'm not seeing exactly what the problem is here, 99% of mobile applications still work fine on Gingerbread, there might be a few but only one app not capable of being used that i can think of off the top of my head is Google Chrome, and others Google have just made like Google Now. As long as the apps work, people are not going to give a rats ass what version of Android their are running.
Now the leap from Froyo to Gingerbread is not the same as it is to Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich. ICS was a complete revamp of the OS while previous versions of been small iterations of improvements (similar to how Jelly Bean is to ICS now). So just like it was stated the "skinning" is well beyond skin deep with numerous changes to the software and hardware drivers having to be re-written to support the new code, not even custom ROMs for numerous devices are finished and they've been working since AOSP became available Day 1.
Now the PDK is supposed to help this issue, with hardware manufacturers having a 3 month head start now for each new version instead of previously where Google released the source code whenever and ROM developers and manufacturers start at the same time.
Unless Google comes in and pulls an Apple to block all devices not running a minimum version of Android, i dont see this graph changing much. Gingerbread is very popular, especially for very low cost headsets in developing nations. Sucks but thats the way it is.
Sorry, but Google is showing how poor their understanding of methodology is.
First, they state:
"This page provides data about the relative number of active devices running a given version of the Android platform"
Later, they state:
"The following pie chart and table is based on the number of Android devices that have accessed Google Play within a 14-day period ending on the data collection date noted below."
Now, those two statements can only be true if the people who accessed Google Play during the most recent 14 day period is representative of the Android population as a whole. In fact, it undoubtedly overestimates the percentage of ICS users for a number of reasons:
1. Many, many Android devices are used as feature phones. They are mostly running much older versions of Android (often 2.2 or earlier). They are not captured in the GooglePlay data since feature phones do not access GooglePlay.
2. Most ICS phones are relatively new. Most people access GooglePlay much more with a new phone than an old one - so newer phones are overrepresented.
3. Just setting up a new phone causes most people to access GooglePlay to sign up the phone to their account. Even if they never use GooglePlay any other time, they get one access when the phone is new. Again, this overemphasizes the number of new phones.
4. I do not believe that GooglePlay is available in all countries. In particular, some third world countries (notably Iran) can not access it. Since those countries are likely to have fewer (if any) of the latest ICS devices, again, this source overestimates ICS penetration.
Like many things from Google, take it with a huge grain of salt. While I'm not saying that they're flat out lying about the numbers, they most certainly are pretending that they mean more than they really do.
I can't understand how you could post such an item and attempt to make a mockery of adoption rates, when the updates provided to iOS are stripped down to fit older hardware, and done mostly to make older products appear "current" to consumers. iOS6 on an iPhone 3GS is the equivalent of Android 2.3 running on the original HTC EVO 4G.
It's not about features, it's about APIs. Developers can target the latest version of iOS and know that their app will work on the majority of devices. Users can download apps with the most up-to-date features and run them on their old devices. Meanwhile, Android developers are stuck developing for old versions of Android and Android users, even if they have the very latest phone, are unlikely to find apps that take advantage of it. The lack of a few features in iOS is not a big deal and pretending that Google somehow "intentionally" doesn't go for broad adoption because it wants everyone to have the latest features, unlike dastardly Apple, is complete nonsense.
Because Android has the majority of not only the US, but also the world market?
Just like VHS vs Beta, GameBoy vs GameGear, GM vs any other car brand, majority doesn't mean quality. Beside Apple has never go over market share dominance, they go over profit, quality and consumer satisfaction. Android hardware maker goes over market saturation and bogo deal, this is what this news is about, majority of Android device are not maintained after being sold and are dead in a Point-of-sales point of view.
Google Play is the only way Google can form any sort of metric on Android. Android doesn't even need to have Google Play--the Kindle Fire being a prime example of such--and isn't included in these statistics because of that.
As you said, the figures only speak for devices capable of accessing Google Play, and have done so in the past 14 days. That probably is skewed towards new phone owners, and isn't completely representative of the whole.. but there really isn't any other way to measure it, or at least come anywhere near as close as it might.
This should also take into account eBook Readers, TVs running Android, etc. Many of these devices have heavily customized builds designed for their purposes, and as such, are not emphasizing the "latest" builds.
Pardon my ignorance, but what the hell happened with 3.x Honeycomb? Seems hardly anybody picked that up. I'm definitely not an Android fan, but even I am curious as to how those metrics are so unwieldy.
So the choice is slow adoption to all features, or full adoption where you lose out on the key features (iOS). I'll take slow adoption and community support.
So this is your way of telling us you are poorly informed and need some clarification on the topic at hand.
Sorry, but Google is showing how poor their understanding of methodology is.
First, they state:
"This page provides data about the relative number of active devices running a given version of the Android platform"
Later, they state:
"The following pie chart and table is based on the number of Android devices that have accessed Google Play within a 14-day period ending on the data collection date noted below."
Now, those two statements can only be true if the people who accessed Google Play during the most recent 14 day period is representative of the Android population as a whole. In fact, it undoubtedly overestimates the percentage of ICS users for a number of reasons:
1. Many, many Android devices are used as feature phones. They are mostly running much older versions of Android (often 2.2 or earlier). They are not captured in the GooglePlay data since feature phones do not access GooglePlay.
2. Most ICS phones are relatively new. Most people access GooglePlay much more with a new phone than an old one - so newer phones are overrepresented.
3. Just setting up a new phone causes most people to access GooglePlay to sign up the phone to their account. Even if they never use GooglePlay any other time, they get one access when the phone is new. Again, this overemphasizes the number of new phones.
4. I do not believe that GooglePlay is available in all countries. In particular, some third world countries (notably Iran) can not access it. Since those countries are likely to have fewer (if any) of the latest ICS devices, again, this source overestimates ICS penetration.
Like many things from Google, take it with a huge grain of salt. While I'm not saying that they're flat out lying about the numbers, they most certainly are pretending that they mean more than they really do.
A lot, maybe most, new Android phones are still shipping with 2.3, so, setting those up wouldn't over-represent 4.0. But, yes, the problem is that this is just those accessing GooglePlay. The real numbers probably shift dramatically toward earlier versions of Android if you were to take into account all the people who never or can't access GooglePlay.
But, Google is clearly misrepresenting the numbers, and very possibly flat out lying about them. Wouldn't be the first time they flat out lied, so it wouldn't be surprising.
So the choice is slow adoption to all features, or full adoption where you lose out on the key features (iOS). I'll take slow adoption and community support.
Users don't care about fragmentation directly, but developers do.
In the case of iOS, Apple can't (and/or doesn't) support every feature on every iPhone model, but the APIs work the same. This means less OS fragmentation for developers to deal with.
Pardon my ignorance, but what the hell happened with 3.x Honeycomb? Seems hardly anybody picked that up. I'm definitely not an Android fan, but even I am curious as to how those metrics are so unwieldy.
Users don't care about fragmentation directly, but developers do.
In the case of iOS, Apple can't (and/or doesn't) support every feature on every iPhone model, but the APIs work the same. This means less OS fragmentation for developers to deal with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by poke
It's not about features, it's about APIs. Developers can target the latest version of iOS and know that their app will work on the majority of devices. Users can download apps with the most up-to-date features and run them on their old devices. Meanwhile, Android developers are stuck developing for old versions of Android and Android users, even if they have the very latest phone, are unlikely to find apps that take advantage of it. The lack of a few features in iOS is not a big deal and pretending that Google somehow "intentionally" doesn't go for broad adoption because it wants everyone to have the latest features, unlike dastardly Apple, is complete nonsense.
I think this is a point of high confusion.
APIs rarely (if ever) are changed once "set in stone." 95% of the API calls available in Android 1.0 (as this example) still work exactly as they did then in 4.1. In the guts of Android, how those features are implemented might change, but those changes are mostly abstracted away and neither users nor developers see them. If the call was "PlaySound(SomeFile.mp3)" in 1.0, and it would play the sound, that same call would work in 4.1.
As time goes on, new APIs are added to provide additional functionality. For example, NFC technology for Wallet-based tech is relatively new, and wasn't around in Android 1.0. Let's say Google adds support for NFC in Android 2.3. Starting in that API, new functions are available, for example, "TransmitPayment()" or something similar.
To deal with older devices, simple checks are made. In the application manifest (installer), the application can say, "I only support devices using Android 2.3 or above. I won't install on anything less." and it's simply not available for older devices. This is a hard-line approach, and while possible, many developers instead tend to evaluate the platform in their code and then make things available conditionally.
For example, a developer would have a check in the start of their logic that would behave like this: "Are we running on Android 2.3 or newer? If so, make all of our NFC functionality available. If not, disable all of the NFC functionality, but let the user know that it's not available because their phone doesn't support it."
(As a sidenote, in the case of NFC, not only would you want to check to be sure you have the supported APIs (Android 2.3), but also that the device in question actually has NFC hardware installed to use those calls.)
So how does this mean Android relates to Apple with regard to API/OS support?
In short, developing for either platform (any platform, really--this isn't limited to just mobile development) means before you perform non-standard operations that you know are supported on every platform (for example, asking the platform to identify what it's version is), you have to make a check to see if it's supported.
If you're building an application that automatically launches navigation on your iPhone, you need some logic in it that says "Does this device have iOS 6? If it does, does this device support Navigation?" because not all iOS 6 devices do.
Similarly, in Android your code would include logic saying "Does this version of Android support what this program wants to do? Does it include hardware capable of doing it?"
Regardless of platform, developers have to write the same type of deterministic logic to ensure their applications work correctly. The concept of "fragmentation" exists on every platform that has more than one version, and it's no different between iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, Linux, etc.
But as noted by The Verge, third-party device manufacturers have been largely silent as to when or if current devices will receive the upgrade to Jelly Bean. That means that only some of Google's own devices — the Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Xoom and Nexus S — will receive the update when it arrives in mid-July.
Does this mean that Jelly Bean will be available to install on handsets in July?
Or that it is being released by Google to carriers who will then dick around with it for another +6 months before making it available to their customers?
Pardon my ignorance, but what the hell happened with 3.x Honeycomb? Seems hardly anybody picked that up. I'm definitely not an Android fan, but even I am curious as to how those metrics are so unwieldy.
Honeycomb was a tablet only stopgap before ICS unified android for phones and tablets. I doubt many people ever bought a device with it on as a lot of tablets still came with gingerbread even after honeycombs release, and even they didn't really sell in great numbers.
So the choice is slow adoption to all features, or full adoption where you lose out on the key features (iOS). I'll take slow adoption and community support.
It's kinda sad that these guys feel the need to join an Apple centric forum to spout their drivel in support of a platform they know know in their hearts is subpar. The insecurity complexes must be strong indeed.
Here is the problem: unlike Apple, Google phone manufacturers hav no financial incentive to update older phones. Until Google shares the revenue with the manufactures, Fragmentation it is.
Compared to apple where 80% of phones have the latest OS yet only about 20% of those that have the latest OS actually have all of its features......
For the life of me i could never figure out wy android guys don't just use the apple model and send a port of the latest OS with half of it chopped out just so you can say "yeah, 80% have it"
oh really,
one ICS feature (that works like shit i might add) is face unlock. I'm sorry but 100% of android phones do not have a front facing camera...
Does this mean that Jelly Bean will be available to install on handsets in July?
Or that it is being released by Google to carriers who will then dick around with it for another +6 months before making it available to their customers?
It'll be released for Nexus (Google) devices in mid-July.
For any other manufacturer, the source will be made available and they can elect to update (or not update) their devices--that's on them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveMcM76
Honeycomb was a tablet only stopgap before ICS unified android for phones and tablets. I doubt many people ever bought a device with it on as a lot of tablets still came with gingerbread even after honeycombs release, and even they didn't really sell in great numbers.
True. A majority of Google TV devices run Honeycomb, afaik.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
It's kinda sad that these guys feel the need to join an Apple centric forum to spout their drivel in support of a platform they know know in their hearts is subpar. The insecurity complexes must be strong indeed.
Actually, for me it's the reverse. It's fine to have a forum to tout strengths, but making false claims is bullshit. Why should I stand by and let you assume that's correct? I'll do my best to make peaceful, logical statements against that sort of stuff, but if it's going to resort to little more than mockery and name calling, I'm capable of that too.
Compared to apple where 80% of phones have the latest OS yet only about 20% of those that have the latest OS actually have all of its features......
For the life of me i could never figure out wy android guys don't just use the apple model and send a port of the latest OS with half of it chopped out just so you can say "yeah, 80% have it"
Sorry, I hate to tell you this, but there is no such thing as all hardware models supporting all software features... unless that software is only running on all new hardware. This has always been the case and will continue to do so. Older hardware has limitations due to it being OLDER and not as powerful, so newer software features may not work properly (or at all) on it.
Furthermore, you're missing the point and importance of a user base being up to date with the latest OS; apps and developers. If the user base is able to quickly move to a new OS, then developers can target one API set making it easier to develop apps that can take advantage of technologies introduced with the new OS (and I'm not talking about end user features, I'm talking about APIs). As a developer it is extremely important to know your user base. As an example I was working on an application targeting Mac OS X 10.7 only to later find out that most of the people who were interested in it were still running 10.6. I had to rewrite the application because I was using ARC (automatic reference counting) which isn't supported under Mac OS X 10.6.
Do you think Android developers are going to write apps for 10% of users or for 60%+ of users? They're going to target 2.3.x. Why? Because most 2.3.x apps will still run under 4.x., but the reverse is not true. Developers won't bother to start targeting 4.x, taking advantage of newer technologies, until it hits a majority share. By that time, Android 6.x will be released.
On another note... What a dud Android 3.x turned out to be! Holy crap! Google screwed the pooch on that.
So the choice is slow adoption to all features, or full adoption where you lose out on the key features (iOS). I'll take slow adoption and community support.
I'll take- release it when it works 100% of the time even if it take s a lil bit of time
vs.
just haphazardly releasing half baked shit so we can say we did it first. (face unlock on stage fail was awesome!!!!)
Here is the problem: unlike Apple, Google phone manufacturers hav no financial incentive to update older phones. Until Google shares the revenue with the manufactures, Fragmentation it is.
I do hope you understand what fragmentation is. Please read my above post on APIs.
If you do understand what fragmentation is, then you understand that despite many iOS devices having iOS 6 (or 5, or anything), they're still fragmented. An iPhone 3GS is not capable of Siri, cannot Navigate, etc. That too is fragmentation.
You're correct that Google has no financial incentive to update older devices. For that matter, Google makes little on Android itself. Android helps Google improve their search business by providing a mobile platform that consumes their services and helps drive and improve searching and marketing. That falls the manufacturers and carriers, who do (and do not) provide updates for various reasons. High-end models typically receive updates, mid-range and low-end phones may get one (or none).
It is important to realize that if Apple makes iOS 6 available to an iPhone 3GS but removes most of what makes it "iOS 6", then it's really just a marketing gimmick. In that way, the phone might as well still have iOS 5--and that's basically like an Android device not receiving an update.
Comments
I'm not seeing exactly what the problem is here, 99% of mobile applications still work fine on Gingerbread, there might be a few but only one app not capable of being used that i can think of off the top of my head is Google Chrome, and others Google have just made like Google Now. As long as the apps work, people are not going to give a rats ass what version of Android their are running.
Now the leap from Froyo to Gingerbread is not the same as it is to Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich. ICS was a complete revamp of the OS while previous versions of been small iterations of improvements (similar to how Jelly Bean is to ICS now). So just like it was stated the "skinning" is well beyond skin deep with numerous changes to the software and hardware drivers having to be re-written to support the new code, not even custom ROMs for numerous devices are finished and they've been working since AOSP became available Day 1.
Now the PDK is supposed to help this issue, with hardware manufacturers having a 3 month head start now for each new version instead of previously where Google released the source code whenever and ROM developers and manufacturers start at the same time.
Unless Google comes in and pulls an Apple to block all devices not running a minimum version of Android, i dont see this graph changing much. Gingerbread is very popular, especially for very low cost headsets in developing nations. Sucks but thats the way it is.
Sorry, but Google is showing how poor their understanding of methodology is.
First, they state:
"This page provides data about the relative number of active devices running a given version of the Android platform"
Later, they state:
"The following pie chart and table is based on the number of Android devices that have accessed Google Play within a 14-day period ending on the data collection date noted below."
Now, those two statements can only be true if the people who accessed Google Play during the most recent 14 day period is representative of the Android population as a whole. In fact, it undoubtedly overestimates the percentage of ICS users for a number of reasons:
1. Many, many Android devices are used as feature phones. They are mostly running much older versions of Android (often 2.2 or earlier). They are not captured in the GooglePlay data since feature phones do not access GooglePlay.
2. Most ICS phones are relatively new. Most people access GooglePlay much more with a new phone than an old one - so newer phones are overrepresented.
3. Just setting up a new phone causes most people to access GooglePlay to sign up the phone to their account. Even if they never use GooglePlay any other time, they get one access when the phone is new. Again, this overemphasizes the number of new phones.
4. I do not believe that GooglePlay is available in all countries. In particular, some third world countries (notably Iran) can not access it. Since those countries are likely to have fewer (if any) of the latest ICS devices, again, this source overestimates ICS penetration.
Like many things from Google, take it with a huge grain of salt. While I'm not saying that they're flat out lying about the numbers, they most certainly are pretending that they mean more than they really do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shidell
I can't understand how you could post such an item and attempt to make a mockery of adoption rates, when the updates provided to iOS are stripped down to fit older hardware, and done mostly to make older products appear "current" to consumers. iOS6 on an iPhone 3GS is the equivalent of Android 2.3 running on the original HTC EVO 4G.
It's not about features, it's about APIs. Developers can target the latest version of iOS and know that their app will work on the majority of devices. Users can download apps with the most up-to-date features and run them on their old devices. Meanwhile, Android developers are stuck developing for old versions of Android and Android users, even if they have the very latest phone, are unlikely to find apps that take advantage of it. The lack of a few features in iOS is not a big deal and pretending that Google somehow "intentionally" doesn't go for broad adoption because it wants everyone to have the latest features, unlike dastardly Apple, is complete nonsense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shidell
Because Android has the majority of not only the US, but also the world market?
Just like VHS vs Beta, GameBoy vs GameGear, GM vs any other car brand, majority doesn't mean quality. Beside Apple has never go over market share dominance, they go over profit, quality and consumer satisfaction. Android hardware maker goes over market saturation and bogo deal, this is what this news is about, majority of Android device are not maintained after being sold and are dead in a Point-of-sales point of view.
@jragosta:
Google Play is the only way Google can form any sort of metric on Android. Android doesn't even need to have Google Play--the Kindle Fire being a prime example of such--and isn't included in these statistics because of that.
As you said, the figures only speak for devices capable of accessing Google Play, and have done so in the past 14 days. That probably is skewed towards new phone owners, and isn't completely representative of the whole.. but there really isn't any other way to measure it, or at least come anywhere near as close as it might.
This should also take into account eBook Readers, TVs running Android, etc. Many of these devices have heavily customized builds designed for their purposes, and as such, are not emphasizing the "latest" builds.
Pardon my ignorance, but what the hell happened with 3.x Honeycomb? Seems hardly anybody picked that up. I'm definitely not an Android fan, but even I am curious as to how those metrics are so unwieldy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shidell
So the choice is slow adoption to all features, or full adoption where you lose out on the key features (iOS). I'll take slow adoption and community support.
So this is your way of telling us you are poorly informed and need some clarification on the topic at hand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Sorry, but Google is showing how poor their understanding of methodology is.
First, they state:
"This page provides data about the relative number of active devices running a given version of the Android platform"
Later, they state:
"The following pie chart and table is based on the number of Android devices that have accessed Google Play within a 14-day period ending on the data collection date noted below."
Now, those two statements can only be true if the people who accessed Google Play during the most recent 14 day period is representative of the Android population as a whole. In fact, it undoubtedly overestimates the percentage of ICS users for a number of reasons:
1. Many, many Android devices are used as feature phones. They are mostly running much older versions of Android (often 2.2 or earlier). They are not captured in the GooglePlay data since feature phones do not access GooglePlay.
2. Most ICS phones are relatively new. Most people access GooglePlay much more with a new phone than an old one - so newer phones are overrepresented.
3. Just setting up a new phone causes most people to access GooglePlay to sign up the phone to their account. Even if they never use GooglePlay any other time, they get one access when the phone is new. Again, this overemphasizes the number of new phones.
4. I do not believe that GooglePlay is available in all countries. In particular, some third world countries (notably Iran) can not access it. Since those countries are likely to have fewer (if any) of the latest ICS devices, again, this source overestimates ICS penetration.
Like many things from Google, take it with a huge grain of salt. While I'm not saying that they're flat out lying about the numbers, they most certainly are pretending that they mean more than they really do.
A lot, maybe most, new Android phones are still shipping with 2.3, so, setting those up wouldn't over-represent 4.0. But, yes, the problem is that this is just those accessing GooglePlay. The real numbers probably shift dramatically toward earlier versions of Android if you were to take into account all the people who never or can't access GooglePlay.
But, Google is clearly misrepresenting the numbers, and very possibly flat out lying about them. Wouldn't be the first time they flat out lied, so it wouldn't be surprising.
Users don't care about fragmentation directly, but developers do.
In the case of iOS, Apple can't (and/or doesn't) support every feature on every iPhone model, but the APIs work the same. This means less OS fragmentation for developers to deal with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slang4Art
Pardon my ignorance, but what the hell happened with 3.x Honeycomb? Seems hardly anybody picked that up. I'm definitely not an Android fan, but even I am curious as to how those metrics are so unwieldy.
Honeycomb was tablet only. They didn't sell many.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
Users don't care about fragmentation directly, but developers do.
In the case of iOS, Apple can't (and/or doesn't) support every feature on every iPhone model, but the APIs work the same. This means less OS fragmentation for developers to deal with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by poke
It's not about features, it's about APIs. Developers can target the latest version of iOS and know that their app will work on the majority of devices. Users can download apps with the most up-to-date features and run them on their old devices. Meanwhile, Android developers are stuck developing for old versions of Android and Android users, even if they have the very latest phone, are unlikely to find apps that take advantage of it. The lack of a few features in iOS is not a big deal and pretending that Google somehow "intentionally" doesn't go for broad adoption because it wants everyone to have the latest features, unlike dastardly Apple, is complete nonsense.
I think this is a point of high confusion.
APIs rarely (if ever) are changed once "set in stone." 95% of the API calls available in Android 1.0 (as this example) still work exactly as they did then in 4.1. In the guts of Android, how those features are implemented might change, but those changes are mostly abstracted away and neither users nor developers see them. If the call was "PlaySound(SomeFile.mp3)" in 1.0, and it would play the sound, that same call would work in 4.1.
As time goes on, new APIs are added to provide additional functionality. For example, NFC technology for Wallet-based tech is relatively new, and wasn't around in Android 1.0. Let's say Google adds support for NFC in Android 2.3. Starting in that API, new functions are available, for example, "TransmitPayment()" or something similar.
To deal with older devices, simple checks are made. In the application manifest (installer), the application can say, "I only support devices using Android 2.3 or above. I won't install on anything less." and it's simply not available for older devices. This is a hard-line approach, and while possible, many developers instead tend to evaluate the platform in their code and then make things available conditionally.
For example, a developer would have a check in the start of their logic that would behave like this: "Are we running on Android 2.3 or newer? If so, make all of our NFC functionality available. If not, disable all of the NFC functionality, but let the user know that it's not available because their phone doesn't support it."
(As a sidenote, in the case of NFC, not only would you want to check to be sure you have the supported APIs (Android 2.3), but also that the device in question actually has NFC hardware installed to use those calls.)
So how does this mean Android relates to Apple with regard to API/OS support?
In short, developing for either platform (any platform, really--this isn't limited to just mobile development) means before you perform non-standard operations that you know are supported on every platform (for example, asking the platform to identify what it's version is), you have to make a check to see if it's supported.
If you're building an application that automatically launches navigation on your iPhone, you need some logic in it that says "Does this device have iOS 6? If it does, does this device support Navigation?" because not all iOS 6 devices do.
Similarly, in Android your code would include logic saying "Does this version of Android support what this program wants to do? Does it include hardware capable of doing it?"
Regardless of platform, developers have to write the same type of deterministic logic to ensure their applications work correctly. The concept of "fragmentation" exists on every platform that has more than one version, and it's no different between iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, Linux, etc.
Or that it is being released by Google to carriers who will then dick around with it for another +6 months before making it available to their customers?
It's kinda sad that these guys feel the need to join an Apple centric forum to spout their drivel in support of a platform they know know in their hearts is subpar. The insecurity complexes must be strong indeed.
Here is the problem: unlike Apple, Google phone manufacturers hav no financial incentive to update older phones. Until Google shares the revenue with the manufactures, Fragmentation it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sleepy3
and 100% of phones have 100% of ICS features
Compared to apple where 80% of phones have the latest OS yet only about 20% of those that have the latest OS actually have all of its features......
For the life of me i could never figure out wy android guys don't just use the apple model and send a port of the latest OS with half of it chopped out just so you can say "yeah, 80% have it"
oh really,
one ICS feature (that works like shit i might add) is face unlock. I'm sorry but 100% of android phones do not have a front facing camera...
oh and do 100% of android phones have NFC chips??
nice try..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris_CA
Does this mean that Jelly Bean will be available to install on handsets in July?
Or that it is being released by Google to carriers who will then dick around with it for another +6 months before making it available to their customers?
It'll be released for Nexus (Google) devices in mid-July.
For any other manufacturer, the source will be made available and they can elect to update (or not update) their devices--that's on them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveMcM76
Honeycomb was a tablet only stopgap before ICS unified android for phones and tablets. I doubt many people ever bought a device with it on as a lot of tablets still came with gingerbread even after honeycombs release, and even they didn't really sell in great numbers.
True. A majority of Google TV devices run Honeycomb, afaik.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
It's kinda sad that these guys feel the need to join an Apple centric forum to spout their drivel in support of a platform they know know in their hearts is subpar. The insecurity complexes must be strong indeed.
Actually, for me it's the reverse. It's fine to have a forum to tout strengths, but making false claims is bullshit. Why should I stand by and let you assume that's correct? I'll do my best to make peaceful, logical statements against that sort of stuff, but if it's going to resort to little more than mockery and name calling, I'm capable of that too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sleepy3
and 100% of phones have 100% of ICS features
Compared to apple where 80% of phones have the latest OS yet only about 20% of those that have the latest OS actually have all of its features......
For the life of me i could never figure out wy android guys don't just use the apple model and send a port of the latest OS with half of it chopped out just so you can say "yeah, 80% have it"
Sorry, I hate to tell you this, but there is no such thing as all hardware models supporting all software features... unless that software is only running on all new hardware. This has always been the case and will continue to do so. Older hardware has limitations due to it being OLDER and not as powerful, so newer software features may not work properly (or at all) on it.
Furthermore, you're missing the point and importance of a user base being up to date with the latest OS; apps and developers. If the user base is able to quickly move to a new OS, then developers can target one API set making it easier to develop apps that can take advantage of technologies introduced with the new OS (and I'm not talking about end user features, I'm talking about APIs). As a developer it is extremely important to know your user base. As an example I was working on an application targeting Mac OS X 10.7 only to later find out that most of the people who were interested in it were still running 10.6. I had to rewrite the application because I was using ARC (automatic reference counting) which isn't supported under Mac OS X 10.6.
Do you think Android developers are going to write apps for 10% of users or for 60%+ of users? They're going to target 2.3.x. Why? Because most 2.3.x apps will still run under 4.x., but the reverse is not true. Developers won't bother to start targeting 4.x, taking advantage of newer technologies, until it hits a majority share. By that time, Android 6.x will be released.
On another note... What a dud Android 3.x turned out to be! Holy crap! Google screwed the pooch on that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shidell
So the choice is slow adoption to all features, or full adoption where you lose out on the key features (iOS). I'll take slow adoption and community support.
I'll take- release it when it works 100% of the time even if it take s a lil bit of time
vs.
just haphazardly releasing half baked shit so we can say we did it first. (face unlock on stage fail was awesome!!!!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by winstein2010
Here is the problem: unlike Apple, Google phone manufacturers hav no financial incentive to update older phones. Until Google shares the revenue with the manufactures, Fragmentation it is.
I do hope you understand what fragmentation is. Please read my above post on APIs.
If you do understand what fragmentation is, then you understand that despite many iOS devices having iOS 6 (or 5, or anything), they're still fragmented. An iPhone 3GS is not capable of Siri, cannot Navigate, etc. That too is fragmentation.
You're correct that Google has no financial incentive to update older devices. For that matter, Google makes little on Android itself. Android helps Google improve their search business by providing a mobile platform that consumes their services and helps drive and improve searching and marketing. That falls the manufacturers and carriers, who do (and do not) provide updates for various reasons. High-end models typically receive updates, mid-range and low-end phones may get one (or none).
It is important to realize that if Apple makes iOS 6 available to an iPhone 3GS but removes most of what makes it "iOS 6", then it's really just a marketing gimmick. In that way, the phone might as well still have iOS 5--and that's basically like an Android device not receiving an update.