Slow Android updates become burning issue for users
Gingerbread still available only on Nexus, Samsung denies it is blocking updates
Published: 19 January, 2011
Many users welcome the openness of Android compared to the tight control of Apple iOS, but they are becoming increasingly confused about policies for updating to new releases of the Google platform.
And fragmentation refuses to die as a bugbear for developers. While over half (52%) of the installed Android base does now run a single flavour, 2.2 or Froyo, 13% are still running the ageing 1.x releases (1.5 and 1.6). These users will be missing out on many features, and unable to upgrade to newer versions. Meanwhile, developers face difficult choices about which releases to support.
While 2.2 is dominant, release 2.1 still accounts for 35% of the base. Meanwhile, the shiny new Gingerbread (release 2.3) has a tiny presence of just 0.4% despite its many advances - and the tablet -friendly Honeycomb is imminent, adding to the developer's dilemmas.
Gingerbread is almost invisible because it is currently only available on two devices, Google's own Nexus One and Nexus S, neither of which has much market penetration. The update process for other devices is prolonged for two reasons - for OEMs, redesigning for a new release can be a fairly complicated affair, which they do not accomplish overnight; and for end users, updates are in the hands of carriers not Google. By contrast, iOS updates are pushed out by Apple not its cellco partners, so almost 90% of the iPhone and iPad base runs the latest version, iOS 4.
Of course, Apple has a more mature platform that does not require as many updates as Android, and is targeting only a few devices rather than an entire ecosystem. However, Google needs to assert a little more of the control it professes to hate, to avoid alienating consumers and giving credence to reports that carriers or OEMs are deliberately hobbling devices.
For instance, Samsung was this week forced to deny rumors that it was blocking carriers such as T-Mobile from releasing over-the-air updates to Android 2.2, to bring Gingerbread to its Galaxy S family. This was supposedly because it wanted users to buy a new phone, perhaps the second generation S, to be unveiled next month at Mobile World Congress. Even when such tales are untrue, they sound all too believable to users who are unable to get the latest Android release, sometimes for months after first hearing about its charms.
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