Google Quietly Unveils Android 5.1 Lollipop 167
An anonymous reader writes Google today announced that Android One, the company's standard for bringing smartphones to the developing world, is coming to Indonesia later this month. This makes Indonesia the fifth country to roll out Android One, in addition to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Yet the bigger news is that these latest devices are shipping with Android 5.1 Lollipop. Before today, the latest known version of Google's mobile operating system was Android 5.0 Lollipop, which debuted in November 2014.
Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in the US with new devices we're still waiting for 5.0. It's still amazes me how slow the carriers and the device manufacturers are to put their bloat shit into a distro, test it and get it released. I'm going to see if CM is now ready and supports the Note 4, screw this lag time.
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Informative)
If you want prompt OS updates, don't buy a Samsung. They never promised they'd give you later Android versions.
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Motorola Razr HD here. Bought unlocked from Telstra in Australia. They STILL haven't rolled out KitKat for the Razr HD. Been promising it since April last year, and Motorola have announced a rollout for Lollipop.
Seriously, don't buy Telstra. Yes, I know about CM and will be investigating that very soon.
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+1 (Score:2)
If you want 'latest stock' ideally get a Nexus or a "Google Play edition" phone (which you can 'upgrade' your carrier bollocksed phone to easily enough if they support your model).
Should phone vendor specific bells and whistles be your thing, or there's no Google play rom, then just randonly pick a foreign GSM carrier that got their release out earl
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I'm in the US on AT&T. Out of those vendors (exluding Google) being sold with AT&T subsidy who has *promised* to give you later Android versions? How about on non-flagship devices?
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None, I would imagine. I don't care to find out what AT&T offer, since they have no coverage where I live.
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Insightful)
On a Nexus 5 here.
- 5.0 shipping was announced something like a month before I could actually get either an image or an OTA update
- The Nexus 5 got the 5.0.1 fixes well after other devices like the various Nexus tablets
- The Nexus 5 still hasn't got the 5.0.2 update despite several other devices having it
- That's awesome that 5.1 is out! But for nearly all of us who care, it isn't: https://developers.google.com/... [google.com]
Basically, Google does an awesome job talking the talk, and a shitty job of meeting the expectations they themselves set amongst their most fervent followers.
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You are comparing Google to Apple. Apple announce an OS update and it is available immediately on all their supported hardware. Google release OS updates to their open source and developer channels first, and then they get released on devices fairly soon afterwards but not instantly.
Personally I'm fine with Google's system because day 0 updates sometimes go badly wrong. These are feature updates, security fixes get rolled out via Play to everyone as soon as they are available. App updates are also separate
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Samsung Galaxy S Google edition get updates, often faster than the Nexus line itself.
You've boiled down a very complex case to targetting one company. I assume you got burned and have a grudge? The fact is MOST companies are not offering timely or at all Android updates.
Your only option is to buy a phone which runs a stock version of Android either controlled by Google, or one of the few models where an agreement means you do get updates. You can count those phones on one hand.
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I didn't say Samsung was the only one. I was responding to someone complaining their Samsung Note 4 doesn't have Android 5.0.
Motorola have 9 phones all getting Lollipop. 3 G's, 2 X's, the E, the Droid Mini, Ultra and Maxx.
They're not even owned by Google anymore, The Chinese own them now.
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Thanks to the availability of Heimdall [glassechidna.com.au], you hypothetically have the ability to unlock and reflash any of the Samsung Galaxy devices (I've only tried on my ancient "Mesmerize" [a variant of the original Galaxy S] and my S4, but both worked fine).
I don't really feel confident that any of the manufacturers are going to bother keeping up with updating older devices,
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I don't have anyone to thank for any delays. I have a Motorola phone, it's already got Lollipop.
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funny advice considering that actually samsung has been one of the best if not the best major brand in bringing prompt updates to their semi recent phones (your carrier might never roll them out with their shit but you could still flash 'em).
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Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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probably the old nexus 7, as factory images for 5.0 for the 2013 one just came out. Its really buggy, but other devices dont have that issue
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What were the symptoms? I've been thinking about getting a N7 2013 for the nightstand...
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Nexus 7 2012 and Lollipop don't mix. Don't update.
2013 fares better.
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My Nexus 7 2012 has been unusably slow since upgrading to 5.0 and 5.0.2 isn't much better. The web browser is useless. Granted, I have a lot of apps loaded, but it was far better with Kit Kat compared to Lollipop. It looks like the biggest culprit is Google Mail since I have several accounts with a LOT of email.
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Yesterday I wiped the cache partition as recommended and so far no problems of any kind.
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Turn off your device.
Press and hold Power and volume down buttons simultaneously until you see a large arrow at the top of your screen.
Press the volume down button repeatedly until you see “Recovery” in the arrow.
Select it by pressing the power button.
You’ll see an android mascot with a red triangle and exclama
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Wiping the cache helps - a bit. But it does not become as responsive as Kitkat again. I have flashed 4.4.4 again and its like someone released a brake...
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I did that numerous times and while it helped a little it certainly did not fix the problem. I even tried a factory reset and reinstall and that didn't solve the problem.
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Google seems to get away with far less customer service than most other companies.
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My Nexus 7 2012 has been unusably slow since upgrading to 5.0 and 5.0.2 isn't much better. The web browser is useless. Granted, I have a lot of apps loaded, but it was far better with Kit Kat compared to Lollipop. It looks like the biggest culprit is Google Mail since I have several accounts with a LOT of email.
It's annoying but doing a full reset (via the bootloader menus) helped my 2012 N7 to run great again with 5.0. I realized how few apps I actually needed to make good use of it, too. Battery life is still subpar, but it's almost 3 years old at this point so I don't expect it to be fresh as a daisy.
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There's a reason it wasn't rolled out by major manufacturers like Samsung. It never made it through their quality testing.
I'd buy this argument if we got timely updates to KitKat and Jellybean too. We didn't. One problem is not and excuse for the other, there are two issues at play:
1. Lollipop by all accounts is a load of shit.
2. Manufacturers by all accounts don't provide timely updates.
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Informative)
I recently completely reset/reformatted my 2012 Nexus 7 and put CyanogenMod's CM12 ("Lollipop") nightly on it. I intentionally did NOT install the "gapps" (Google apps) add-on.
So far, my own 2012 Nexus 7 has been working great, better even than it was with CM11 ("Key Lime Pie"/Android 4.4.4) with all the Google bloat.
Google has been shoving more and more of the "Android" experience into their apps instead of the OS. The not only are the "apps" and "services" getting more digitally obese, but there seem to be more and more of them every release, just loading up and clogging up ram and occasionally "updating" themselves online doing who-knows-what.
I feel like I saw similar (though less obvious) improvements in performance with previous now-"obsolete" devices that I've similarly purged and custom-ROMmed without the Google Search/Play/Music/Plus/News-And-Weather/Mail/Now/etc.
You're kind of stuck with it if you're dependent on apps that are only available from the Google Play store, but I'm finding I can get everything I need from f-droid [f-droid.org] instead, or through the web browser, at least so far (and for my own needs).
Anyway, point is, so far it doesn't seem to me like it's really "Lollipop" that the 2012 N7 has a problem with...
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has been shoving more and more of the "Android" experience into their apps instead of the OS.
Yep, and for good reason: Because the apps get updated while the OEMs won't update the base system. By moving functionality into the Play services app, Google makes it updatable, reducing fragmentation and enabling security patch distribution. In 5.0, for example, the WebView component was moved out of the system and into the Google apps. This is the component that is riddled with security holes in 4.3 and earlier devices, but which Google can't update.
(Disclaimer: I'm an Android engineer at Google, but my posts contain my own opinions only.)
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Google has been shoving more and more of the "Android" experience into their apps instead of the OS.
Yep, and for good reason: Because the apps get updated while the OEMs won't update the base system. By moving functionality into the Play services app, Google makes it updatable, reducing fragmentation and enabling security patch distribution. In 5.0, for example, the WebView component was moved out of the system and into the Google apps. This is the component that is riddled with security holes in 4.3 and earlier devices, but which Google can't update.
(Disclaimer: I'm an Android engineer at Google, but my posts contain my own opinions only.)
Google absolutely can update 4.3 to patch the webview vulnerabilities. Whether or not that update is pushed out to any given device on any given network is another matter. Currently, your only choice is to get 5.0 or get fucked. Further, ALL of the OS updating business could be handled by Google offering actual patches that users could install, similar to how every other sane operating system does it. The only missing piece would be rollback functionality on the off chance that the patch breaks somethin
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Google absolutely can update 4.3 to patch the webview vulnerabilities.
So can the OEMs. They don't actually need Google's assistance to fix this. Google absolutely needs theirs. And they won't do it. If they were willing to do updates, they'd move to 4.4.
Currently, your only choice is to get 5.0 or get fucked.
Or 4.4. KitKat's WebView is still in the core OS, but all of the known WebView bugs are fixed in it.
ALL of the OS updating business could be handled by Google offering actual patches that users could install, similar to how every other sane operating system does it
What sort of patches? Source code diffs? How would users install those? Binary patches to binaries built by many third parties with unknown modifications? Google can't create those.
Shoving everything into apps isn't done for security or updatability.
It actually is. Google is remarkably transparent about its goals and intentions. Sometimes I think the level of transparency backfires because everyone assumes there must be something else being hidden. People are so accustomed to assuming that corporations veil their true purposes, but I actually can't think of a case where the internal and external stories differ in any significant respect. And it's not like Google execs could be keeping a lot of stuff from the engineers like me, because we're the ones who actually make all of the key product decisions.
Nor does it reduce fragmentation. Many users refuse to install updates because they drastically alter the functionality and appearance of the apps.
The security upgrades are all in the services app, which has no UI, and maintains backward compatibility. You can update it without updating any of the apps that rely on it, if you don't like the new versions.
I believe Calendar was the latest one - no more weekly view.
The Calendar app has a weekly view. What was removed was the monthly view, but only on small screens where it was useless anyway. Tastes vary, I suppose, but I think the new Calendar app is awesome. In any case, if you don't like Google's calendar, there are a zillion others in the Play store. One of them will likely be to your taste.
Further, users should have full control over the apps and services running on their devices.
I disagree. I completely agree that users should have the option of taking full control over the apps and services running on their devices. This is why all Nexus devices are unlockable, and Google tries in various ways to encourage OEMs to make all their devices unlockable (with very little success, obviously). But making such control the default state is a bad idea because 99.99% of users would be harmed by it, not benefited. A modern operating system is a complex beast and securing it is hard, even without opening the door to random modifications... which may be made by the user or by someone with malicious intentions.
These are difficult and complex issues, but I think the approach Google has taken is a reasonable one: The security model assumes that the device is in a known configuration, and that the build number tells you everything about what's in the system, if it's a standard build. Users who want something else can unlock their devices and install whatever they want, but they are also taking full responsibility for the results.
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This is the component that is riddled with security holes in 4.3 and earlier devices, but which Google can't update.
It is news to me that they can't update this component on GSM Nexus devices sold directly by Google without the involvement of a carrier. Last time I checked Google was not updating all the ones which were vulnerable.
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This is the component that is riddled with security holes in 4.3 and earlier devices, but which Google can't update.
It is news to me that they can't update this component on GSM Nexus devices sold directly by Google without the involvement of a carrier. Last time I checked Google was not updating all the ones which were vulnerable.
See my other reply in this thread regarding the Galaxy Nexus situation. Google would update it if it were possible.
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This is the component that is riddled with security holes in 4.3 and earlier devices, but which Google can't update.
It is news to me that they can't update this component on GSM Nexus devices sold directly by Google without the involvement of a carrier. Last time I checked Google was not updating all the ones which were vulnerable.
See my other reply in this thread regarding the Galaxy Nexus situation. Google would update it if it were possible.
Or the Nexus S. Or the Nexus One. Or the ADP... (Granted, I'm not sure that all of those are vulnerable, and I'm fine with cutting off support at SOME point, but even the ADP would still be supported under many desktop-oriented support cycles.)
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"This is the component that is riddled with security holes in 4.3 and earlier devices, but which Google can't update."
Why not? Google sold me my Galaxy Nexus, they wrote the software. No reason they couldn't update it, they just can't be arsed.
Which is a shame, because I bought a Google phone believing it'd mean I'd get 1st class update support from Google with the carriers cut out, but it turned out that Google is actually worse at supporting some of it's devices than even the likes of Samsung and HTC are.
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Informative)
Why not? Google sold me my Galaxy Nexus, they wrote the software. No reason they couldn't update it, they just can't be arsed.
The GNex is a problematic case.
Google actually doesn't write all of the software; even for Nexus devices the SoC manufacturer and device manufacturer provide quite a bit of the low-level stuff needed to make a device boot, and Google doesn't get the source code. For example, I worked on low-level integration for the Nexus 9 and I integrated with a lot of nVidia and HTC code which was provided in binary form only.
In the case of the GNex, the SoC manufacturer (TI) is gone, and it seems that no one has a copy of some of the critical bits of firmware. Google should have foreseen that possibility, and required that the relevant source code be escrowed, or something, but didn't. Such problems can be avoided going forward, but there's nothing that can be done for the GNex.
Out of curiosity, are you still using your GNex?
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Yes I am still using my Galaxy Nexus because performance-wise it's still entirely adequate, it can still run everything I need and it seems silly to blow a few hundred quid when there's literally nothing wrong with the existing device beyond poor software support.
Even if I did decide to replace it I really just do not know where to go. I can't stand the crap that Samsung and HTC et. al. throw on top and don't particularly like much of what they have to offer half the time anyway. Many of the cheaper manufac
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And I know what the official Google line is on the Galaxy Nexus but I'm having a hard time buying it. I'm struggling to understand how a bug at the application layer affecting the browser cannot be fixed because of something to do with lower level firmware.
Pushing an update requires creating and signing a complete new system image. The problem may lie in the signing. I don't know the details.
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I'm not going to argue about the feasibility. I don't actually know the details of why the GNex can't be upgraded. I could find out (and probably will), but I'm sure I won't be able to share the details, so there's not much point in trying to convince you. I'll just mention that since Android doesn't support blockwise updates, updating GNex requires generating and signing a complete new system image. It's more involved than you're assuming, and therefore there's more scope for it to be problematic.
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That's pure BS.
You mean it is pure coincidence that all the components that get pushed into the play services app are now closed source? (keyboard, location service etc. etc.)
How would it affect updatability to keep those components open source?
There is a reason to move these apps away from the "core" android: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/ [arstechnica.com]
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:4, Funny)
You mean it is pure coincidence that all the components that get pushed into the play services app are now closed source? (keyboard, location service etc. etc.)
It's not coincidence, but it is a very unfortunate side effect. If we can find a way to fix the core system update issue I think this stuff will get pushed back into the base system.
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Google has been shoving more and more of the "Android" experience into their apps instead of the OS.
Yep, and for good reason: Because the apps get updated while the OEMs won't update the base system. By moving functionality into the Play services app, Google makes it updatable, reducing fragmentation and enabling security patch distribution. In 5.0, for example, the WebView component was moved out of the system and into the Google apps. This is the component that is riddled with security holes in 4.3 and earlier devices, but which Google can't update.
(Disclaimer: I'm an Android engineer at Google, but my posts contain my own opinions only.)
It also (in a side-benefit for Google) takes that functionality out of the hands of Amazon or non-Google-endorsed Android devices, and out of the open source.
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Google actually doesn't see taking it out of open source as a benefit, but a cost. At least, that's the perspective that I see around me.
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ya, N7 2012 is completely unusable with Lollipop.
But you can download any F2FS (filesystem) Lollipop ROM and it'll be fine again. For some reason F2FS is amazingly fast, at least on N7 2012.
I settled for a ROM called slimkat or something (see here: http://forum.xda-developers.co... [xda-developers.com] ).
But even otherwise, on newer devices like N5 etc where its quite fast, Lollipop seems to be a mishmash of fisher price colors, too much wasted white space etc. Windows ME is an apt comparison. Though they may have been aiming for iOS 8.
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My 2012 Nexus 7 (with cell connectivity) was upgraded straight to 5.0.2 just a couple of days ago. So far it seems fine.
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Strange, I have a Nexus 7 (2012) with Lollipop 5.0.2 and it's fine for the most part, wiht the only niggle being the occasional lag that occurrs shortly after unlocking it when it polls online services like gmail.
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Lucky you, mine times out all the time and thinks it's not connected to the internet. Then voila, 25 seconds later it seems to have connectivity.
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5.0 is kind of crap and a big step backwards from 4.4.4, I unfortuantely upgraded my Moto G to 5.0.1 and it just kind of ground to a halt. They haven't released the 5.0 update for the Moto X 2013 yet and now I'm hoping that they'll wait until 5.2 as the new OS seems kind of half-baked compared to the ultra-polished 4.4.4.
Android 5 is broken (Score:3)
Android developer here. Samsung has good reason for not pushing an update: The update breaks a lot of stuff.
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in the US with new devices we're still waiting for 5.0.
Then why do people keep purchasing Android devices from manufacturers that don't provide updates? Buy a Nexus device. It's not perfect but you'll get updates for around 2 years at least, and you'll have the cleanest, most stable, least bloated Android experience.
Google is about the software, so it behooves them to keep their devices running the latest. Manufacturers are about the hardware. Once you buy that device, their revenue stream ends. There's little to no incentive for them to provide you with updates. I've worked at a phone manufacturer, and it's a BFD to get a new version of Android out. Really big. Massive engineering resources.
Google isn't in Nexus to be a player in devices, they are in it to force other manufacturers to adhere to a better business model. They know the manufacturers won't do it until someone shows that it's viable. It's the same thing they did with cheap tablets when everyone was trying to sell them for $700. Buy Nexus, and show the manufacturers that you'll pay to have extended support and updates.
My experience for custom ROMs like CM is hit and miss. Often hard to find dists for your phone unless it's a flagship device, and when you do, they are buggy and unstable. It's a fine choice if you are trying to eek a little more life out of aging hardware, but otherwise you are better off with stock. It's the same reason the only Linux boxes I own are my otherwise outdated ex-Windows machines.
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Then why do people keep purchasing Android devices from manufacturers that don't provide updates?
Two reasons. Firstly, people haven't cottoned on to the fact that phones are, well, I don't know. I was going to say small, shitty PCs in a neat box, but that doesn't quite sumarise it. PCs never needed updating (major OS upgrades) anything like as often as phones seem to. And they were almost always reasonably straightforward to upgrade (there are many small shops which will do such things for you).
An I know ho
Re:Not so much anymore (Score:5, Informative)
what's hard to believe is that you are complaining about that. you should buy Apple friend.
the idea that Google could instantly roll out a major OS version upgrade to tens of vastly different devices from 10" tablets to 4.5" phones across at least 4 different manufacturers is really nuts if you have the least inkling of what's involved the engineering process.
p.s., my 2017 N7 Wifi has had Lollipop for over a month, along with my Nexus 10 that was released in 2012.
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Meanwhile, the Android KitKat 4.4.2 as shipped with my new Samsung Tab S 10.5 tablet is a mature, stable, and pretty smooth OS. I do not get the obsession with always chasing the latest version. I hang around XDA forums, and I feel like more than half of people who flash custom ROMs have no clue why they even need them, but it's some kind of badge of honor to get rid of the stock ROM. They complain about "lag" and "bloatware" which are supposedly fixed, yet no one ever cared to explained to me where I can r
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Bloat also means more vectors for security problems and privacy loss. If I stay with the factory ROM, I can always root it and get rid of those afterwards but then more often than not I lose the update channel and have to unroot to get the next release. It's not efficient, unroot, reflash to factory, update, root.. Flashing a custom ROM keeps me current at least within an O/S release and without the bloat. It's not just a badge, it makes owning the device easier.
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Well, for now after two months of ownership, I haven't seen any factory updates yet. To me it wouldn't be a big issue to keep rooting the device only every now and then. In fact, I am thinking of sticking with the KitKat when the Samsung Lollipop update appears. The 4.4.2 seems like a stable smooth OS. I'll let the other kids do the testing and update only when Lollipop has a killer feature that I need.
Also, don't forget that the custom ROM itself is a vector for security issues. I am talking about the cust
Re:Yes meanwhile.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd lay much of the blame at Google's feet. 5.01 remains pretty broken on my Nexus 4. The carriers are wise not to jump on it.
For two months now I've lived with a dialer that takes 3-4 seconds to respond to screen touches and random, complete phone lockups (about 1 every few days)
I'm not the only one: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=81593... and NO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT from Google.
I have a phone that can't reliably perform the most basic function of a phone and I'm fairly pissed off about it at this point... Windows phone is looking like a real possibility now. And you can forget about converting my iphone using wife. She's laughing her ass off.
what a joke (Score:2)
I finally got everything set up nicely with 4.4.4 on my Nexus 5
was really started to appreciate the Holo themes to everything (remember? battery saving for Amoled screens!)
they they went and came up with this notion that white is better because you shove stacks of paper around on a desk, that's what your phone should do too (Material Design). That paper stacking business is gaudy and messy. No thanks. I'll be staying on 4.4.4 for as long as possible, and I have backups of apps that have changed to the new d
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Apple has done this too and will probably happen to her if she has the phone for a while. I still remember a major iOS update making my old 3G slow & unusable and breaking bluetooth.
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I gave my girlfriend my "old" Nexus 4 with Cyanogenmod on it. It works very well. It has good battery life. I think it is technically considered Lollipop.
Looking at Windows phone is like forgoing a wife who needs time to become accustomed to being a wife for a $2 whore that you saw hanging out it in the seedier areas of town, all in the hopes of a long term relationship.
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LOL... yes and I feel dirty just thinking about it.
Not surprising (Score:2)
It's still amazes me how slow the carriers and the device manufacturers are to put their bloat shit into a distro, test it and get it released.
Why would that surprise you? The carriers have pretty much zero financial incentive to update existing phones. They just want to sell you a phone and they would actually prefer that you buy a new one rather than eek more life out of your old one. Same with lots of device makers.
Google and Apple (and a few others) actually understand that providing timely updates for phones in the field actually improves customer loyalty. But carriers and from what I can tell the majority of Android device makers haven't
It's more than bloat, It is PTCRB (Score:2)
While I agree that this time around they are all very, very slow, it is important for people to understand that in the US, the phone manufacturers cannot just "release" new software when ever they want.
Nearly all carriers in the US are members PTCRB. When you update the software, you need to test and re-certify it. You need to update your SVN number as well.
This takes time.
Grants, not as long as it is taking. Unless of course, there are some fundamental issues which cause the protocol tests to fail.
Because 5.0 is a crap? (Score:1)
I have a nexus phone, and when the Android 5.0 was pushed to my poor phone, without even blinking i found many blocking bugs, crashing apps, google map with strange behaviour, etc....
Even after the latest update, i am still having apps crashing here and there.
Was starting to wonder if it is time to switch to something else....even god forbids...iPhone....
Re:Because 5.0 is a crap? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have no problems at all with Lollipop on my Moto G
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Was starting to wonder if it is time to switch to something else....even god forbids...iPhone....
Nooooo! Not iCrap!! Get a couple of soup cans and a string before that!!
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Jolla/Sailfish sounds like an interesting option for the next purchase.
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Be glad you weren't a Nexus 7 user, particularly the 2012 edition. Lollipop was an unmitigated catastrophe that Google has still only partially patched.
What is with naming software after candy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or after stuffed animals, or after women, or after star wars characters, or after booze.
"We had major Stability problems in Donut that popped up again in Gingerbread, but we fixed them in Ice Cream Sand-witch."
"FSCK did not work in Feisty Fawn as well as it worked on Maverick Meerkat, but that's fixed now in Uropic Unicorn (Fuck we have stopped even using normal words now) with the new switch "FSCK -it", which makes things just work now irregardless of what you run it on."
Just Stop. Stop it.
"We didn't have
Re:What is with naming software after candy? (Score:5, Funny)
This.
I'm also sick of idiots who use shit like "1.2.6.27 beta" as some sort of version string.
No one knows what your asinine convention is, so it's meaningless.
No one in your office understands that asinine convention either, and for the 3 people who do, they'll change "1.4.2.12" to "1.5" for marketing purposes anyway.
MS got this right - you get a straight sequential build number if you need it, otherwise it's a simple "Windows 7" or "Windows 7 SP1" convention.
Of course, they fucked that up with "Windows 8.1" and "R2" for all their server shit. Essentially they're:
1) Killing off service packs for the server software because they want to charge for another license when the historical precedent was a free service pack.
2) Refusing to release Windows 7 SP2 because it will trigger a support extension.
3) Refusing to release any service pack for Windows 8 because they want people to forget it (despite the fact that there's nothing wrong with it).
4) Skipping 9 because they REALLY want people to forget Windows 8.
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3) Refusing to release any service pack for Windows 8 because they want people to forget it (despite the fact that there's nothing wrong with it)
You're dumb. Windows 8.1 is a service pack for Windows 8.
Re:What is with naming software after candy? (Score:5, Informative)
I think more people are starting to use semantic versioning: http://semver.org/ [semver.org]
The gist of it is:
Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:
MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
This way the numbers actually mean something in a somewhat consistent way across programs.
npm packages use this for example.
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+1 for that. Semver is awesome.
Re:What is with naming software after candy? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is true your colleagues will think you are an utter nutter, but they think that anyway - mostly because you are,
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Semver is a re-branding of an old idea... and the original was slightly better, IMO.
In the original approach, major and minor had the same meanings, but "patch" (AKA subminor) was for changes that are both forward and backward compatible. If the version numbering scheme is applied to a shared library (the context in which this scheme was invented), and you have a program which was written and built against version x.y.z,
The program must be modified and recompiled to run with version x+1.?.?.
The progra
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what? This is the days of google chrome where every update is "significant"
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If you break compatibility it's a new product and needs a new name.
If you want that name to be "Product 2.0" that's fine, as long as you keep supporting the original version.
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This.
I'm also sick of idiots who use shit like "1.2.6.27 beta" as some sort of version string.
No one knows what your asinine convention is, so it's meaningless.
No one in your office understands that asinine convention either, and for the 3 people who do, they'll change "1.4.2.12" to "1.5" for marketing purposes anyway.
MS got this right - you get a straight sequential build number if you need it, otherwise it's a simple "Windows 7" or "Windows 7 SP1" convention.
Of course, they fucked that up with "Windows 8.1" and "R2" for all their server shit. Essentially they're:
1) Killing off service packs for the server software because they want to charge for another license when the historical precedent was a free service pack.
2) Refusing to release Windows 7 SP2 because it will trigger a support extension.
3) Refusing to release any service pack for Windows 8 because they want people to forget it (despite the fact that there's nothing wrong with it).
4) Skipping 9 because they REALLY want people to forget Windows 8.
This. While we're at it, I'm sick of people starting their post with "This." instead of permitting their elaboration to imply agreement with the parent.
This. This bugs me.
This.
please stop.
This. I agree, please stop gaudily using "This."
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The GIMP doesn't sound like such a bad name for a graphics manipulation package anymore, does it?
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It has spread to other workplaces as well. Where I used to work, they started naming programs for user input after birds of prey or after construction machinery instead of what the programs actually were for. I think it is for people who like to think they are smarter than everybody else and they have to reinforce the idea b
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No, you do the versioning because, professionalism.
And because its easier to figure out earlier/later releases than trying to remember if Jack Daniels > Captain Morrigan. And one can more easily deduce that Perl 5.10.1 to 5.12.2 is a relatively minor change compared to the jump to Perl 6.
I'll be upset ... (Score:2)
... if Lollipop runs smoothly on a 1.3GHz processor. it doesn't even run smoothly on my 2.7GHz Nexus 6.
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Its pretty damn blazing on a nexus 6. The only real lag comes from the software encryption (which got better with updates, but its still not as fast as it should be).
Im personally fine with it, but loading up lollipop without encryption and the thing screams.
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Your Nexus 4 has 2x the RAM of those devices.
It's not that I'm displeased, but I'd expect it to be A LOT faster on a Nexus 6 than say a Nexus 5. In reality there's almost no difference.
Where did the real nerds go? (Score:2)
We have lives? (Score:2)
We grew up and got lives and/or jobs. A good number of us deal with software and hardware all day, so want our phones to just work without too much hassle.
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Because they bought these devices to save time, not waste it on making a device/service they paid for work.
weird attitude, in conflict with with nerd community I have grown up with on slashdot, which has for 15+ years routinely and actively promoted a hacker-like ethos with respect to one's products, tools, etc.
And even if WhateverOS supports those features, most manufacturers/telecoms claim that such software modifications (even just rooting) void the hardware warranty (a lie in NY, if not the entire US), and refuse to repair/replace the device.
Who cares what they say, on all my devices, even with flags for modification, I've been able to bring it back to factory. Warranty issues really?
I guess with enough time and ability you could just reverse engineer the hardware and write your own OS. And I guess with enough money in addition you could just create the hardware yourself too. But how far do you want to go down this rabbit hole?
That's an easy question. The entire distance my desire, abilities, and time, will take me. What's the problem? We arrive back at my earlier comment, somehow spen
What does it fix? (Score:2)
Long time android user here - currently on a Nexus 5. Lollipop seems to have ruined the android experience. The native calendar app is just horrible (try adding a monthly recurring meeting for the first Thursday of a month on a Tuesday - or try adding a meeting for tomorrow today; the user experience is horrible). It keeps forgetting my settings after any restart (Auto brightness damn you). And their "battery-saver" mode is a joke (here is an idea - let the clock frequency be lower whenever the screen is of
Re: When the fuck will it be on my Nexus 5? (Score:1)
Mine arrived about 2 weeks ago.
Re: Small phone for First World (Score:3, Funny)
If you think a 5" is a monster, I feel sorry for your girl!
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I have a S4 Mini, it is slightly larger than my Aria was, and around the size of my Old Evo3d. It's about as big as I want to have in my pocket (and not even skinny jeans, just regular old pants). It's an 'old' generation, but I got 4.4.2 working on it fine (yes, I, I did the actual build and released it on Xda), and will eventually get around to getting 5 working on it. It's a dual core snapdragon 1.7ghz with 1.3gb of ram(probably 1gb and something messing with it in my CM rom). I've been happy with it
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They are talking about kit kat vs lollipop, not 5.0 vs 5.1. But with the awful memory leak in 5.0 that has never been fixed they did leave themselves plenty of room for improvement.