34 replies to this topic 2 votes

[+Mephistopheles]

Lead Android developer thinks a five-month wait for an update is 'very reasonable'

Jean-Baptiste Queru, technical lead on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), has revealed his opinion on the current state of the project and the lengthy waits users face for updates. In a Google+ post, Queru congratulates Sony on its Android 4.0 update for the Tablet S and describes the Japanese company as being the biggest contributor to Android, leaving everyone else playing catch-up. By contributing code to the project, Sony should be able to ensure timely updates for its own devices as well as helping out the community at large. So why the long wait for Android 4.0?

Queru actually thinks the five months it took Sony to update the tablet from 3.0 Honeycomb to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is "very reasonable," as the two Android versions are "quite different" under the hood. He also adds that the differences between Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich are huge, and so phone upgrades are likely to take longer. When asked why Asus updated its tablet much faster than Sony, Queru states that Asus worked together with Nvidia. Given the Transformer Prime's status as the flagship Tegra 3 tablet, it comes as no surprise that both parties would throw as many resources as they can at the tablet to ensure a timely update.

What really bothers Queru is that some Google-engineered devices still don't have the latest version of its own OS, thanks to delays in the carrier approval process. He's very glad that Google is back to selling devices directly, and will be "even happier" when he sees the program expanded to more countries.

Source: The Verge

[+sanke1]

If he agrees that Asus and Nvidia churned out update very fast for Transformer Prime, why the F*** others take so long? Does he know that he is contradicting himself?

[limok]

Exactly the xoom hasn't been fully updated to 4.0 in the UK and it was one of the first android tablets out there.

[Ambroos]

sanke1, on 27 April 2012 - 10:09, said:

If he agrees that Asus and Nvidia churned out update very fast for Transformer Prime, why the F*** others take so long? Does he know that he is contradicting himself?

nVidia and Asus worked together a lot, most development was parallel. Most other manufacturers don't get access to all needed drivers and HAL-stuff from their SoC-source that fast, and then it obviously takes a while to port all the included apps. That, and most companies (looking at you, Samsung) are just lazy.

Sony and Sony Mobile/Sony Ericsson), as it has been said, contribute a lot of their work to the Android source code, and they have very good developers. They improved memory management on ICS over the "standard" edition, and their software is rock solid. Good job Sony!

Sony Mobile is also the only manufacturer to date that actually completely reskinned their Android interface to match the ICS guidelines. With the 4.0 update (and on the Xperia S) all icons and almost all interface graphics got a major overhaul to fit Holo.

(For the record, Sony tablets are made by the Sony VAIO team, Sony Mobile (/Ericsson) Xperia smartphones are made by the SEMC (Sony (Ericsson) Mobile Communications) team. They work completely independent, but both of them contribute a lot of code to Android. They are slowly merging some development in common areas (mostly media-related such as Bravia Engine, Music Player, ...), but all of that is in a very early stage.)

[Boz]

sanke1, on 27 April 2012 - 10:09, said:

If he agrees that Asus and Nvidia churned out update very fast for Transformer Prime, why the F*** others take so long? Does he know that he is contradicting himself?

I assume it's because ASUS goes about Android the proper way. They are putting a few apps and widget that are theirs but their Android installation is pretty much stock which makes them updated it very fast. I just got an upgrade on ASUS Transformer 1 to the latest ICS only few days ago. They are super fast.

[Hardcore Til I Die]

I long for the day companies stop putting their skins on everything and offer launcher downloads instead.

[+Vice]

5 Month wait seems a bit long to me but I could live with that as-long as OEM's were more transparent about whether they are going to release an update at all.

[+DJ Dark]

/major facepalm.

[+remixedcat]

oh really when's the last time you had a blackberry or Symbian update???


*chirp* * chirp*

[.Neo]

I really don't have the patience to wait five months for an update, that is if I receive updates at all. Something that frequently remains to be seen.

[jakem1]

Let's not forget that it's now 7 months and only 7% of Android devices have been upgraded. Does he think that's acceptable?

[.Neo]

remixedcat, on 10 June 2012 - 09:31, said:

oh really when's the last time you had a blackberry or Symbian update???

Last month. In fact, at this point my BlackBerry Torch 9860 received more updates than my HTC Legend ever did.

I still loathe BlackBerry OS 7.1 though.

[Detection]

Boz, on 29 April 2012 - 08:35, said:

I assume it's because ASUS goes about Android the proper way. They are putting a few apps and widget that are theirs but their Android installation is pretty much stock which makes them updated it very fast. I just got an upgrade on ASUS Transformer 1 to the latest ICS only few days ago. They are super fast.

ASUS just mash together anything and send it out, they released 3 consecutive ICS builds for the TF101 to fix a major random reboot and sleep of death bug present since ICS day 1 and each update made things worse, one of them killed the volume and all of them made the bugs happen more frequently

They obviously either don't test their releases or they couldn't care less and send out useless crap anyway

They got together LOADS of (2) beta testers out of the 40+ that asked to be testers on XDA and then completely ignored them when they reported that the beta update did not fix the bugs, and sent them out to everyone anyway, three times.

Their amazing story they were telling everyone was "We can't replicate it"

How can you not replicate something that is happening to 99% of your customers when you own every revision of the TF101

I swore never to buy asus again after this, my TF101 was a paper weight for most of this year

[funkydude]

remixedcat, on 10 June 2012 - 09:31, said:

oh really when's the last time you had a blackberry or Symbian update???


*chirp* * chirp*

The Belle update just came out a few months ago and Carla is due soon, so that's both your points invalidated. (mainly because you didn't bother to research them)

[Miuku.]

remixedcat, on 10 June 2012 - 09:31, said:

oh really when's the last time you had a blackberry or Symbian update???

Considering Android and Windows Phone are both playing catch up on even basic features, I wouldn't complain much about slow Symbian updates.

It's not so long ago Android people were all "Ooh myyyyy" over tethering. It made me laugh myself to tears.