A Look at the Amount of Time Smartphone Vendors Have Taken To Roll out Major Android Updates To Their Handsets, and How Things Are Beginning To Improve (androidauthority.com) 131
Most Android smartphone vendors have been notorious for the time they take to roll out the newest Android OS updates to their respective handsets. To tackle this, Google in 2017 announced Project Treble, which bypasses some middlemen in delivering new updates to consumers. With Project Treble now supported by all Android phone makers, in theory updates should roll out to us faster than before. To test this, news blog AndroidAuthority looked at the data to see where things stand.
From the report: On average, Nougat updates took about 192 days to reach key devices, while Oreo was slightly faster at 170. Android Pie updates hit devices much faster, averaging just 118 days from Google's launch to significant OEM rollout. That's a significant improvement, though we're still waiting on updates from LG and HTC, which could drag this average back up. Most manufacturers are faster at providing updates now, but a few are slower. Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi were noticeably quicker this time around, bringing updates to key devices before the end of 2018. OnePlus and Sony were especially fast, but they've always been speedier than most. Disappointingly, Motorola has rolled out updates to its flagship Z series slower over the last few years.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
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if all the air around you reeked of feces, you would still have to breath.
monopolies make a ton of money for a reason.
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Re: Um... (Score:2)
Two smartphone OSes, Android and iOS, account for 99.999% of the smartphone market. Both OSes are the product of Surveillance Valley, thus both of them snoop you 50 different ways. Android may perhaps be a little more hostile to privacy, but it's a close call. I suspect most of the 'superior privacy' Apple sells is just empty marketing and lies.
Otoh, in the past I found Android to have a superior UI and therefore to win on usefulness. However over the past couple years the quality of Google's consumer baitw
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I've never seen this offered on any phone I've ever owned, ever.
First, look at the back of your phone, if there's a half-eaten apple logo on it, this article doesn't apply to you.
Second, if you do have an android phone and if updates are important to you (and they should be), look for a phone that's part of the Android One program:
https://www.android.com/one/ [android.com]
"Android One phones will receive at least two years of OS upgrades. With the latest version of Android, you'll get software that auto-adjusts to your needs, and helps you get things done more easily throughout the d
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Same here. Android phones get updates? The only way I've seen to update an Android phone is to throw it away and buy a new one.
There's also a marked difference between "is an update available" and "is it possible to update it". Some phones, and I'm thinking specifically of Samsung's J series, are so desperately crippled that if you install anything more than a weather app on them there's no room to perform updates. So even if you could, in theory, update them, you can't actually do so in practice.
This is about Lock In (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a business selling G1 (Still an excellent form factor I hope they bring it back.) and I would Root and Superuser them and install custom Roms.
They were really amazing, the early Android modding scene had a lot of potential.
25% better battery life.
40% better performance.
More customization options.
Excellent GUIs.
But I ramble.
Anyway nowadays it's hard to Root and get SuperUser and I don't understand why.
It's actually put a lifespan on Android which is sad.
Now Android is like Facebook, constantly getting worse and losing sight of what made it better than alternatives.
I don't want to be one of those old people who think things were better in the past, give me something to work with.
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I wish Google still "Don't be evil."
How about you stop being naive instead of falling for an informal motto that was not legally-binding in any way.
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I wish Google still "Don't be evil."
How about you stop being naive instead of falling for an informal motto that was not legally-binding in any way.
There's nothing wrong with expecting companies to abide by their publicly stated position, if a company is going to publicly say they are going to do something, they should follow through. Though they've already removed "Don't be evil" from their code of conduct, so it's moot anyway.
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But it wasn't a public position. It was an informal motto that they used to trick gullible people into thinking they were something they weren't. Google has always put money ahead of ethics. That anyone believed otherwise is silly.
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But it wasn't a public position. It was an informal motto that they used to trick gullible people into thinking they were something they weren't. Google has always put money ahead of ethics. That anyone believed otherwise is silly.
They included it in their S-1 filing prior to their IPO.
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Except one was an official policy statement and the other a throwaway motto.
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Anyway nowadays it's hard to Root and get SuperUser and I don't understand why.
Seems pretty straightforward:
https://www.xda-developers.com... [xda-developers.com]
It's not trivial and should not be since only those that know what they are doing should root their phone.
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Re:This is about Lock In (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway nowadays it's hard to Root and get SuperUser and I don't understand why.
This is my fault. Not only mine, not even mostly mine, but definitely my team's fault -- and I, personally, have a little of the blame. So that makes me a good person to explain.
First, let me point out that my teammates and I have no interest in preventing you from rooting your device. None whatsoever. We are skeptical that you can make good use of root without compromising your own security, but we also believe that if you want to compromise your security, you should be free to do so!
So, if we don't hate rooting, why have we made it hard?
We haven't, exactly. Let me explain.
Let's start with the bootloader. If your device has a locked bootloader (note that this is completely different from carrier locking, AKA SIM locking, which is what people usually mean when they talk about an Android device that is locked or unlocked), then you may not install your own software on it. All of the devices from Google ship with bootloaders that can be unlocked, because we think people should be able to do what they want with their devices. Most other Android device makers feel differently about this and ship bootloaders that cannot be unlocked. Some of them will sell you a "developer edition" that is unlockable.
It's always been this way. Nexus/Pixel devices have always been unlockable, most others have not. Those G1s you were rooting almost certainly did not have unlockable bootloaders. So... how did you root them?
You exploited vulnerabilities. There were lots of them. There was no software integrity checking, so once you exploited a vulnerability you were able to modify the system and keep it in the exploited state.
These vulnerabilities were nice for you because they let you root. They were also nice for anyone who wanted to hack into your phone and get your personal data out. Useful to good guys, but also to bad guys. On balance, that's a bad thing.
What we did was to fix a lot of vulnerabilities. Not all; no software system of substantial size will ever be free of vulnerabilities. Recognizing that, we built defense in depth. SELinux is a big component of this defense in depth. Today in Android it's almost unheard of to find a single vulnerability that allows the attacker to pwn the entire system. Vulnerabilities still exist, but now attackers need long exploit chains. They use one vulnerability to open a chink in a part of the system that then lets them find and exploit another vulnerability, and so on, until they finally get to the data they're trying to get, or -- better yet -- pop the kernel. Root isn't good enough any more; for free reign of the system you need to pop the kernel and disable SELinux. Today's exploit chains often use five to ten separate vulnerabilities, because less than that doesn't do you any good. Working exploit chains for major device models sell for $1M+ on black markets. That's because they're hard to find.
In addition to that, we also added verified boot, so that every piece of the system software is validated as its loaded. This means that once you find and exploit a long chain of vulnerabilities to get control, you can't just change the system software so that you always have it, because if you modify the system the device won't work any more. You have to re-exploit the vulnerabilities after every boot. (Note that a new class of techniques makes so-called "systemless root" possible; which gives you persistent root without changing the system. We're shutting those down, too.)
In addition to that, we got much more aggressive about making device makers patch the vulnerabilities. So if you find a sequence of vulns that gets you control, you'd better keep it secret or it'll stop working after the next update. Oh, and we also made it basically impossible to install an older version of the software to get back to a version that had known vulnerabilities you could use.
That's a small taste; a lot m
Re: This is about Lock In (Score:2)
Why the fuck did you decide to _force_ Android Pie users to waste space on their home screen with that garbagey "At A Glance" widget? And you now _force_ users to have the Google search bar on the home screen - and _force_ it to be at the bottom.
It's bad enough when you futz up my user experience just because you can. But it's inexcusable when you make it impossible to disable your annoying douchebaggery.
The Android Pie update was a big old middle finger to users. WTF, Google?
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Re: This is about Lock In (Score:2)
"Your complaints are all about the lack of configurability of the default launcher"
No, no, no, _NO_. My complaints are all about Big Brother Google forcing users to have an experience they don't want. And the Googly "fuck you, pleb, that's why" attitude underlying that coercion.
It's really obvious that Google holds us users/"products" in abject contempt. Once upon a time I was a big fan and advocate of Google's software, including Android. No more.
It's time for Uncle Sam to break up Alphabet.
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Given your UID, I'm guessing we're probably around the same age, having grown up with early x86 machines, dos, os/2, slackware, etc.
I suspect so. I'm 50.
Not to go all nostalgic, but "those were the days." We were free to explore, learn, tinker, fix, and break. We could output directly to ioports and trigger interrupts as a matter of course. I learned more about what makes a computer compute as a kid with a beat up old 8086 than I have as an adult (both in University and professionally).
Yep, but the openness of the systems isn't the only thing that has changed in the last 30-40 years. When we were tinkering, computers were rare, little-used and isolated. Now they're ubiquitous, so heavily-used they're almost a brain expansion pack and they're networked all of the time. The fact is that the vast, vast majority of computer users -- especially of mobile devices -- know absolutely nothing about how they work, and have no interest at all in learning, exploring, tinkering.
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You make some valid points, but..
because we think people should be able to do what they want with their devices.
You should add the caveat, - "as long as Google can mine the users data". That is the only thing Google really cares about. In a sense, allowing vulnerabilities means that there's competition to get to the data. It makes sense in other contexts too as to why Google is never going to allow users to encrypt the Inbox.
We don't mind you guys fixing vulnerabilities, or even employing dark patterns across your products, or even trying to trick people to use your products - Hey, it
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You make some valid points, but..
because we think people should be able to do what they want with their devices.
You should add the caveat, - "as long as Google can mine the users data". That is the only thing Google really cares about.
It's really not.
First, let me make clear that I work on Android. This is completely separate from the Google Apps. From my team's perspective, Google is just another app developer (though obviously a very influential one).
The Android system provldes no special access to Google. None whatsoever. If you want to scoff, please point me to the Google-data-mining hooks in AOSP.
Further, Google's apps are not special to Android. They cannot get any data from any other apps that don't choose to share it wit
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OTOH, it's also a very broad, deep and high-quality set of services, for which users pay nothing, in dollars. The deal is you trade the ability for Google to target ads to your eyeballs in exchange for all of that. If you think that's a bad deal, you're completely free to opt out. Buy an unlockable device, unlock it, remove all the Google apps, use a different search engine, don't use gmail, etc.
Well sure. I do my best. I try to avoid Google products as much as possible. I've switched to FF. Tried switching to bing, buts its terrible for technical searches. I don't use ad blockers because I'd rather just not visit a website than block ads.
Anyway, my point is that your claim is wrong. Google does allow you to encrypt the inbox... Google just doesn't encourage it. A different sort of company would ban it.
Okay but then at that point "Gmail" is just a folder to store mbox data. You cannot decrypt messages using the web client AFAIK.
(Yes, I recognize I'm being a little disingenuous here. Most people couldn't actually do what I describe. But it is possible, and many Google engineers put in a lot of extra work to make sure that it continues being possible.)
At the same time, many other Google engineers put in a lot of extra work to make AOSP useless without Google's closed-source play servic
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Why can't I get root on any android phone just by connecting it to a pc, enabling developer mode, letting the pc with adb set or deny root, or special commands like let apps of my choosing enable or disable wifi, data, gps, etc.?
Let me tell you a story. A true one. It's not actually an answer to your question, but it points the way.
Last year, a major Android device maker came to me and asked how I planned to fix the developer mode vulnerability. "What developer mode vulneability?" I asked, reaching for my laptop to look up the CVE.
They explained that in various parts of the world, especially Asia, but not only Asia, there are lots of free charging stations at bus stations, airports, coffee shops, Internet cafes, restaurants...
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Re: This is about Lock In (Score:2)
extreme level of stupid
Whereas being challenged by four syllable words...
Uh huh... (Score:4, Interesting)
With Project Treble now supported by all Android phone makers, in theory updates should roll out to us faster than before.
This is a rather interesting edit of a sentence from the actual linked article which says:
With Project Treble now supported by key Android flagships, in theory updates should roll out to us faster than ever before.
msmash, you do realize that the two versions do mot mean the same thing, right?
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With Project Treble now supported by all Android phone makers, in theory updates should roll out to us faster than before.
This is a rather interesting edit of a sentence from the actual linked article which says:
With Project Treble now supported by key Android flagships, in theory updates should roll out to us faster than ever before.
msmash, you do realize that the two versions do mot mean the same thing, right?
Whatever msmash did or didn't mean, here's the reality of the situation: Treble was mandated by Google for all devices that initially launched with Oreo (8.0) or later. If you buy a device that once ran Nougat or below, it probably doesn't support Treble. If you buy a newer device model that never ran anything pre-Oreo, it does.
Google updates are like ads (Score:1)
You don't want them. Yet they still come.
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To hell with Windows Phone, it is the reason why we lost MeeGo.
Re: Android Sucks (Score:2)
Yay monopoly power!
Re: Android Sucks (Score:2)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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The market was not so solidified back then. MeeGo had a shot at taking a nice chunk of the market. But WP did not, for a number of reasons:
> Carriers who wasted time and money preparing for MeeGo were pissed.
> There was no upgrade path for app developers from anything to WP.
> Microsoft's acquisition of Skype made carriers see them as a major enemy.
> Even before the first Lumias came out, it was known they would not be upgradable.
> Early versions of WP were very buggy and lacking in features.
Planned Obsolescence (Score:1)
Planned Obsolescence isn't going anywhere. Its what keeps device makers in business.
Meanwhile... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, it’s great that updates are available sooner on “key devices”, but the fact that this is being cited as something praiseworthy is rather indicative of how broken the situation remains. It took 192 days on average for Nougat to even become available on a subset of devices. 170 for Oreo. 118 for Pie. Meanwhile, iOS has always taken 0 days: it was available to all compatible devices immediately upon its release.
And availability is just half the problem. If availability is staggered, you have a harder time encouraging people to update (or even making them aware of the update), which hampers the deployment rate. Improving the speed of deployment needs to be the end goal. Improving availability is just a necessary step towards clearing hurdles that are in the way.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:5, Interesting)
But on the flip side, I don't think you get to 0 without having the same kind of control that Apple exhibits, and I'm not sure that's something that would be good for Android. If you're careful with your own personal choice of which device to buy, you can get that immediately availability for yourself. It may require extra effort on your part, but that's the cost of the greater freedom that Android affords.
Re: Meanwhile... (Score:5, Insightful)
The price you pay for "freedom" is being constantly vulnerable unless you buy a new flagship phone every year plus having Google spying on you constantly. Both options in the smartphone market are shit but I'll go with the one that's still getting updates after 5 years. There are no Android phones that have that option.
Re: Meanwhile... (Score:1)
My galaxy s5 is still getting updates and in two months that'll be the 5 year mark.
Re: Meanwhile... (Score:2)
What OS is it running?
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BS. The last major OS version for the S5 that was officially released by Samsung was Android 6.0.1 which was released by Google 3.5 years ago. So you're either falsely conflating security updates with OS upgrades (you know, the topic of the submission) or you're using a third-party ROM when this whole topic is about first-party support.
Re: Meanwhile... (Score:2)
You could do that if your device is supported or you have the ability and knowledge to customise a very complex piece of software. If it's not supported and you don't have the skills then you can always pay someone a lot of money to keep it up to date. Yay freedom. Alternatively the ecosystem could be designed to allow updating in spite of manufacturer / carrier incompetence / greed. Imagine having to be, or have access to, a kernel dev if you wanted the latest version of Debian on your PC.
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Technically, Apple's iOS release are not available on their phones in 0 days.
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I that’s a bit of an oversimplification. Android offers a public beta program (much like Apple) which does test pre-releases against a set of eligible Android devices with the stated purpose of identifying both software and hardware incompatibilities.
However for those Android devices which are not beta-eligible, your statement is true.
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For Android Pie, the beta-eligible list appeared to be
Essential Phone
Google Pixel Xl / 2XL
Nokia 7 plus
Oppo R15 Pro
Sony Xperia XZ2
Vivo X21UD
Vivo X21
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S
(From https://www.wikigain.com/insta... [wikigain.com] )
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The issue with the way Apple does it is that you are forced to stay on the latest version if you want all the security updates. On Android they have separated out most of the core OS services and they get patched separately for security issues.
If you don't want the latest version of iOS, perhaps because it makes your device very slow, you have to accept no security patches too.
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At some point all hardware hits end of life, but for a lot of Android phones that's artificially lower than it should be.
What makes you link lack of OS update together with end of life? There are as far as I know no plans for my device to get Android Pie. That doesn't mean it's end of life. Only last week I got the January 2019 security patch so clearly my device is still very much in service despite not getting OS upgrade.
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This is a very common misunderstanding about Android versions.
The major named versions are feature updates. Just because you don't get them, doesn't mean you are not getting security updates, or app updates including the core Android stuff like the browser and Play Store.
Feature updates are a mixed blessing. One the one hand, you might get new features... On the other hand, you phone works differently to the way it was when you bought it, and a lot of people hate that. it might also get slower or have less
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Yeah, because iOS is only available on apple phones.
The fact that someone else found a solution that doesn’t work for you doesn’t make your problem go away.
To typical end users, iOS is only available on Apple phones and Android is only available on Android phones. We know that to be an oversimplification, but the typical end user doesn’t care (or sometimes even know) about the difference between HTC, LG, or Samsung. All they know is that new features aren’t available on their Android phone, and they don’t know why. That’s
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What you said rings true of the early smartphone era where updates actually mattered. These days frankly, who gives a damn. In the past OS updates were critical. Killer features were added. Security updates came through the OS updates. It was all quite important. But these days ...
Security updates are now decoupled from the OS updates. I've not seen a monthly security patch come through more than 2 weeks after they were released.
I'm on Oreo. I don't know if there's plans to bring Pie to my device. I also do
Samsung is bad... (Score:3)
The Galaxy S3 was my last Samsung "flagship". Not only was it stupidly expensive for what it was, but the updates were slow to come and they seemed to leave the phone worse-off. I'm now settled with the Xiaomi Mi Mix line (switched from the cheaper but almost as good Mi line partly because of supporting T-Mobile LTE when I travel to the US), cheaper, better in most respects and updates don't leave the phone worse off. And according to TFA the updates come quicker too, although if that was my main concern I'd probably be looking at Android One phones or something like that...
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The Galaxy S3 was my last Samsung "flagship". Not only was it stupidly expensive for what it was, but the updates were slow to come and they seemed to leave the phone worse-off.
A LOT has changed across all vendors in the Android landscape. Judging any by their past (including both good and bad points) really doesn't help you make the right choice. Vendors have very much met each other with mediocrity. Samsung appear to be rolling out security updates as fast as Google, and Google appear to ever more be obsoleting their hardware (reads: not releasing OS upgrades) as much as other OEMs.
And updates really haven't left phones worse off since around Lollipop/Marshmallow when Google act
Tablets? (Score:1)
Does this cover Android-based tablets?
Even if it does...what I'm getting from this is that even my most recent Android device--running 6.0 (Marshmallow) is eventually going to go to its grave with the exact same OS it was born with. The apps get updated all the time (to the point of being more annoying than Windows is with its updates), but the OS is the same one it was shipped with, still susceptible to countless vulnerabilities that have been discovered and long fixed elsewhere.
I guess I should forget ab
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Treble is great for the bottom line (Score:2)
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Most bizarre about LG is that they update their hardware faster than their software. The V series has had three releases in 18 months. OS upgrades? None for at least the last two.
Where is My Update?? (Score:1)
Where is my update for my Samsung Galaxy Player?
It's still using Gingerbread.
Samsung WTF! (Score:2)
I have a Samsung Note 8, the security patch is from October 1, 2018 and I got an old 8.0.0 Android... I just check and Samsung said that my phone is up to date with the last software! Yeah! Right !
Cherry picked results? More like a year for me (Score:2)
Project Treble (Score:2)
A quote:
There are choices (Score:2)
Nokia (Score:1)
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It took Nokia a long time to release Pie for the Nokia 8 Sirroco. Even when it was released nothing appeared OTA in my region and I had to download the update from a third party site.
And this is an Android One branded device.
Android names (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be much more intuitive to name the different versions of Android by number instead of sweet-du-jour in the summary? How many people not in the business know by heart the order in which these randomly-assigned names came out?
I understand that the writing makes it obvious in which order they were rolled out, but were they all major versions? Subversions? Are subversions even named?
(Mind you, the full article does have version numbers next to the names)
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And just as I clicked on submit and went back to the full article, it dawned on me that the names are in alphabetical order, so ignore me; I'm just a bit more ignorant than I thought.
It removes the focus from Google (Score:2)
What all these efforts in making it easier to upgrade phones to the latest version are about it shifting the focus from Google to the manufactures.
Google has it made so easy to upgrade your phone to the latest version that it now is absolutely clear for consumers to find out who the good players are and which the bad ones are. There are no excuses anymore.
People Don't Want Customisaztions - Just Updates (Score:2)
Leading a horse to water (Score:2)
This perfectly fits the saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."
Project Treble was a long time coming, and could be argued that Google should have baked this into Android since v1.
That being said, it's here now and one would think that it should make a huge difference, but all this is really doing is putting a spotlight onto how little manufacturers care about support after their product has been purchased.
What frustrates me the most is that Google has so much sway over the ecos