Galaxy Nexus OS Variant Not Controlled By Google

http://www.techieinsider.com/news/13274

by techiediy • 15 years ago

46 33 15 years ago

Damn it Google. I thought I could count on you not to mess this up. I want to be able to tell my mom that she should get a galaxy nexus and not have to worry. Now I have to track down a GSM edition from abroad that has a particular software build on it? You're not making this very easy.

danilocampos• 15 years ago

It's not meant to be. Google has sold their users down the river, including letting Verizon disable Wallet, in exchange for a piece of the action in mobile. So they can keep having a relevant platform for their ads.

It's been a mostly sharp move, but it wasn't done for reasons of user experience. And it shows with stuff like this. I wish they would take a harder line – enforce higher standards, fight the good fight on NFC. But that's not what they're after. Every phone that ships without Android, or a Google-free flavor of Android, is one more point where they can be left out in the cold when something like Siri comes along.

So as long as they can get most of what they want from these manufacturing partners, they'll take it.

alexbell• 15 years ago

This. User experience is not a real driver for Android, and never has been. It only has to be "good enough". It's open, which I applaud. But you are overly optimistic if you thought publicly traded billion+ dollar carriers and manufacturers weren't eventually going to subvert this.

If I understand correctly, the premiere Google handset is not going to ship with a premiere Google product. In fact, with Google's acquiescence it is going to be actively blocked. Google will bow down to carriers in an effort to maximize their ad dollars.

joebadmo3• 15 years ago

Not sure how to interpret this comment.

I don't understand why Wallet is a big deal. For users, it wouldn't be much of a difference from Isis. How is this selling users down t he river? What exactly is the good fight on NFC?

Every phone that ships without Android, or a Google-free flavor of Android, is one more point where they can be left out in the cold when something like Siri comes along.

What does this even mean? Google-free? Show me an Android phone on the market that's Google-free. And, at least as far as I can tell, Siri seems to have been a dud. I certainly don't know anyone that uses it regularly, and I don't know anyone who uses it at all for anything other than simple voice commands, which are not really Sir's value prop.

So as long as they can get most of what they want from these manufacturing partners, they'll take it.

Manufacturing partners? This is about Verizon, isn't it?

I also wish that Google would take a harder stance on stuff like the Nexus experience, and UI consistency, and update frequency. But I don't really see what Google is bargaining with here. What can they withhold from Verizon at this point?

EDIT: I know one person who uses Siri regularly. His name is Nicholas. He seems like a pretty nice guy. A bit snarky.

rst• 15 years ago

It's apparently messier than that --- the imported GSM phones are showing up with several different builds, only one of which is the official Google version. (And some of the variant builds are not getting official Google updates, most notably for the "volume bug" that was reported on early shipped units.)

It seems to be possible to reflash the official Google build onto units that shipped with some of the variants (some xda-forum posters have reported success), but it might pay to wait a few days for this to settle out before ordering if you're really worried about this.

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/is-the-galaxy-nexus-st...

tesseract• 15 years ago

I have an imported GSM Galaxy Nexus. It updated itself to ITL41F which, to my understanding, is the build that fixes the volume bug. Out of curiosity, is there a straightforward (i.e. without unlocking the bootloader) way to check whether I have a "Google build" or a "Samsung build"?

jinushaun• 15 years ago

In other words, can the Verizon Galaxy Nexus even be considered a "Nexus" anymore? The article implies "no."

snotrockets2• 15 years ago

According to the twitter conversation linked in a message here (http://twitter.theinfo.org/146020135109533696,) mysid, which is the Verizon GN is built by Google, like yakju (the Google GSM build,) and unlike yakju.+ (which are built by Samsung)

technogeek00• 15 years ago

So in these builds are they going to disable the ICS feature to disable programs, like the crap-ware Verizon shoves on the phones.

RandallBrown• 15 years ago

Why can't Google or Samsung push out the updates? Is it just that Verizon won't let them?

I guess it takes the selling power of the iPhone to ink a deal like that with Verizon.

old-gregg3• 15 years ago

United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc: http://bit.ly/5xgJcA

We need this to happen to:

  * All wireless carriers and their practice of locking phones
  * Apple/Amazon with their "stores" tied to their devices

canes123456• 15 years ago

I am not sure I see the connection with that case.

nknight4• 15 years ago

Companies in a given market sharing many of the same practices does not automatically violate the Sherman Act, nor does vertical integration by a non-monopoly or non-coercive monopoly.

old-gregg3• 15 years ago

Doesn't it bother you that there is only 1 retailer in the world who sells software for the iPhone? It is very possible that 3-5 years from now literally every byte of information flowing to our portable devices will be 100% controlled (or approved) by the big 3: Google, Apple and Amazon. Wintel domination pales in comparison.

P.S. In my comment above I used wireless carriers but forgot Google. In reality they all try to do the same thing: google/apple/amazon are using the platform, while carriers are using the pipe, but in the end they all want to own the whole enchilada.

ypcx2• 15 years ago

I think that was before laws could be bought with money, like in a supermarket, which is what we have today.

tomflack• 15 years ago

So basically Google just ruined the nexus brand? It was the one constant in Android they'd created that you could supposedly rely on and they just killed it in only the third generation.

there• 15 years ago

i was pretty disappointed with the nexus s as the successor to the nexus one. cheaper-feeling hardware, all plastic instead of rubber and metal, no sd-card expansion (i think that was on purpose to push google's cloud synching), no notification light, and a bigger footprint with no bigger screen resolution.

CountSessine• 15 years ago

Not a Nexus.

ldesegur• 15 years ago

What would stop people from removing crapware that VZ enjoy crippling their phones with? I know it's not as easy to remove apps on Android than it is on iOS but still...

joebadmo3• 15 years ago

Here's a conversation on twitter with Jean Baptiste Queru, who works on AOSP for Google. It's not completely illuminating, but there are interesting details:

http://twitter.theinfo.org/146020135109533696

jarek• 15 years ago

Somehow, I can't help but think "LOL, Verizon."

ypcx2• 15 years ago

So again, what is the problem when you can "flash" the phone with the OS variant you want? I noticed there already are floating various user builds for Galaxy Nexus. I'm much more worried about the frequent hardware build quality issues that German users are reporting about so much. I hope I won't have to send mine back. Let's stay optimistic!

rpikencal• 15 years ago

It sure does seem like Verizon likes to add their 2 cents to everything rather than leave it as intended. To have a clean phone without all the bloatware that Verizon adds on would be great.

Galaxy Nexus OS Variant Not Controlled By Google

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