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There's increasingly mainstream coverage of apps which are incompatible with almost every android phone out there - requiring 2.1 or even 2.2 like this does. I
by akadruid 16y ago
There's increasingly mainstream coverage of apps which are incompatible with almost every android phone out there - requiring 2.1 or even 2.2 like this does. I wonder how long it will take for manufacturers to take upgrades seriously? Some of them are still abandoning their handsets as soon as they go out the door.
I suspect many of the early adopters are now including this in their purchasing decision when they upgrade.
- sjs382 16y agoMost of the handsets on the market are gonna get 2.2. Myself, I couldnt wait so I installed 2.2 myself and I'm loving it.
- wvenable 16y agoWhat handset are you using?
- sjs382 16y agoHTC Incredible on Verizon. So I'm definitely one of the people who laughs when people on tech forums yell about the carriers loading phones with bloatware and crippling their functionality. The only thing on my phone that wasnt on other SenseUI devices (even before root) was the Droid boot animation and a Verizon tab in the Android Market. And no functionality was crippled. I could always install non-market apps.
- dannyr 16y agoNot almost every Android phone. More than 62% of Android phones are either 2.1 or 2.2. http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
- akadruid 16y agoThat's very interesting - 3 months ago it was just 27%, and Eclair has been out over 9 months. http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/only-27-3-of-android-phones-can-use-the-official-twitter-client/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/only-27-3-of-android-phones... That's a pretty huge jump. Maybe we're seeing an attitude change for manufacturers already? I suppose some of them are now pushing their third generation of android handset and learning lessons from the second.
- akadruid 16y agoJust noticed the historical chart at the bottom. It seems that practice of releasing updates is definitely increasing - at the beginning of the year, the average version was actually _decreasing_, as already obsolete 1.5 and 1.6 phones were presumably being sold faster than updates were being released. However, it does look like you're still likely to be left in the cold if you've got something other than a HTC or Motorola (particularly an LG - suckers!) or in some cases even if you live outside the US. Also, that's a survey of the android market, which will be slightly skewed towards newer handsets (i.e. people who've had their android for a year probably have every app they might use already)
- booticon 16y ago60% is 2.1, however, and both of these new Android features are only supported in 2.2. I have an Eris that went on sale less than a year ago, and chances are my phone will never be updated to 2.2.
- dannyr 16y agoMy guess is that most phones that are still on 1.5 or 1.6 will never be updated to 2.1 or 2.2 If the phone is 2.1 now, it will probably get 2.2 by the end of the year.
- roel_v 16y agoHTC started the rollout of 2.2 for the Desire last week. The Desire is selling well in Europe. I presume they're also rolling it out for the Legend, which was heavily mass-marketed for the last 3-4 months. I have the impression HTC is the main Android vendor in Europe at the moment. Just this rollout will push 2.2 deployment numbers up, I think. As far as I know this is the first mainstream upgrade of phones from 2.1 to 2.2 (apart from the Nexus which is, imo, niche). Or did I miss any?
- gmichnikov 16y agoEvery day I regret buying my mytouch 3g instead of waiting for the nexus one on the same network at the same price.
- carlrice 16y ago2.1 users should check out Edwin. It does a lot of this stuff, it's free and its made by a HN reader.
- trafficlight 16y agoMy Verizon Droid just updated to 2.2 yesterday.
- portman 16y agoCan I ask what city you're in? I've been refreshing System Information like a madman waiting for my 2.2 upgrade to come in.
- whalesalad 16y agoYou're right... unfortunately most of the mobile device manufacturers out there are still in their mode of creating tons of devices one after another, forgetting about the older ones. They're all scrambling to compete with Apple, but they're completely missing this. Follow the In-N-Out philosophy... do one thing really well and then keep doing it. So many handsets these days are utter garbage. They're all more or less leapfrogging each other with a few pixels there, a few GHz there, +1 MP on the camera. Of course the carriers aren't helping. They all just want to sell units. It's a mess. I'm happy with my Nexus One and T-Mobile for now :)
- rbanffy 16y ago> They all just want to sell units. It's a mess. Actually, they want you to buy a 12 or 24-month plan, The unit is just the bait. In this scenario, it makes sense to build non-upgradable phones so that users opt to get locked in for another year just to get a "free" new phone.
- eru 16y agoI am very glad, that I can just buy separate SIM cards in Europe.
- technomancy 16y agoYou can do that with the Nexus One in the US, but people don't. Possibly because the carriers try their damndest to make sure nobody knows about it.
- evilduck 16y agoYep. I have the Samsung Moment that was released last November on Sprint, it got 2.1 but has been officially abandoned. It's my last Samsung phone, failing to maintain the OS is not excusable unless there's a hardware restriction that forces it.