A recent post from “The Understatement” blog sets out to track down every major and minor release of Android from 2008 to 2011 and how Android manufacturers deal with upgrades to their handsets released before June 2010.
The results are as below (via Understatement):
- 7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS.
- 12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less.
- 10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period.
- 11 of 18 stopped getting any support updates less than a year after release.
- 13 of 18 stopped getting any support updates before they even stopped selling the device or very shortly thereafter.
- 15 of 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010.
- In a few weeks, when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out, every device on here will be another major version behind.
- At least 16 of 18 will almost certainly never get Ice Cream Sandwich.
Delay in cascading version upgrades down to older handsets has always been one of the main complaints of Android users. Obviously a big part of the problem is that Android has to go from Google to the phone manufacturers to the carriers to the devices, whereas iOS just goes from Apple directly to devices.
Both the manufacturers and carriers do not have any incentives to push out upgrades to their customers in a timely manner and as such, together with the increased pace of version upgrades in Android, the older handsets just got left behind in various upgrade status.
Google understands that a lot of Android users are suffering as a result of this. Definitely, it will be unfair for users to have to purchase a newer Android model just to enjoy an upgraded version of Android. Thus, similar to the concept behind the Open Handset Alliance, the Android Update Alliance was set up back in May 2011. Key partners include Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, Motorola, AT&T, and Vodafone. The group promises handset updates for up to 18 months after a phone is introduced.
So, how is the Android Update Alliance performing at the moment?
Report Card (via Androidandme)
Of those manufacturers participating in the Alliance, HTC has been the most successful in updating their existing devices. LG, Motorola and Samsung have some catch up to do.
On the bright side though, the majority of devices released after the formation of the Alliance have been launched with some form of Gingerbread. At the front of the pack are HTC and Sony Ericsson; all their newest devices are on the latest version of Android. Motorola and Samsung have launched a few devices on older versions, but this may be due to them being lower-end models.
There is still much work to be done but I do not foresee much improvement in the upgrading of smartphones that are more than 1 year old. With the release of Android 4.0, upgrading will be a lot easier for manufacturers, but it just does not make sense for manufacturers to spend more effort and time in supporting phone models that will be relatively obsolete in another 6 months time.
As aptly mentioned by many analysts, Android 4.0 is just the beginning and we should not expect Android 4.0 to resolve all the current issues that we faced with Android at the moment. However, things should start to improve going forward and it’s great that Google has started to take on more ownership in the management of Android.
