Why Android updates are a mess: it's the business model

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/why-android-updates-are-a-mess-its-the-business-model/4300

by j_col • 15 years ago

30 44 15 years ago

jerrya6• 15 years ago

The author states that updating "older" products really has no return for Samsung (or other manufacturers), and is actually a form of cannibalization with their new products.

That of course is just classic "planned obsolescence", long criticized as wasteful, and injurious to your customers.

This is exacerbated by Samsung's (and other manufacturer's) rooting policies. As the author notes, not only will Samsung not maintain products just a few months old, but they make it very difficult for consumers to maintain the products on their own. In this case, rooting a Samsung android product voids the warranty.

Are there other industries like this? Where we are okay with a manufacturer never updating, or even fixing the bugs, of a very expensive product just months after they release it? And made worse by accepting that company's actions to make it hard/impossible/unacceptable for third parties to work on it?

(Perhaps cars are turning into this model. It used to be that it was not a big deal to take your car to your favorite mechanic, but now I gather, various forms of IP lock-in or just plain expensive required diagnostic tools are creating a barrier for independent mechanics.)

I would like to think that supporting older android products for at least two years is profitable. Does supporting the Galaxy S as opposed to forcing purchase of a Galaxy Nexus really result in cannibalization? The answer of course is no, what it does is help you KEEP a customer from going to Apple, or HTC, or Motorola. And that customer when their machine is too old will remember all your frequent updates and understand Samsung, that you take care of your customers, and buy your Galaxy S III.

The customer that understands you won't support them will be gone. Just like that.

drivebyacct23• 15 years ago

>Where we are okay with a manufacturer never updating, or even fixing the bugs, of a very expensive product just months after they release it? And made worse by accepting that company's actions to make it hard/impossible/unacceptable for third parties to work on it?

People keep buying them. In droves. I agree with you, but Samsung keeps setting records with phones sold. They seem to either be good enough at the time of sale that people are okay knowing that they may not be bumped up a major revision of Android, or frankly, they probably don't even understand that the SGSII was released for a couple of the carriers mere months before ICS was released. I knew and waited, but they don't. It's also why (frankly) a lot of people still have an outdated idea of what Android is like, because there are so many old builds on "current" phones.

evilduck• 15 years ago

The smartphone market has also been exploding. I'd guess the majority of Android owners haven't made it through their first contract cycle yet (or in the case of tablets, device lifecycle). It'll be more interesting in 3 or 4 years where the trends end up as consumer awareness increases.

I did Android for two years, with 1.5 of them spent as an abandoned device owner. I gladly switched to a iPhone 4S. Likewise, I got my wife an iPad2 last summer due to Apple's support history. Galaxy Tab purchasers might be satisfied today with how the device ships, but give it two years. Those still stuck on 2.3 or 3.0 in 2014 when Android 6.x releases some killer features might sing a different tune about their satisfaction with Android and/or Samsung.

I'm also still expecting [but not hoping for] a security problem to hit an old version of Android. It's practically bound to happen at some point with millions of pretty capable computers with unique IPs, its too tempting to ignore. Without any support mechanism available the consequences will be worse than they had to be.

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

If Samsung and the others see the updates as just a zero-ROI cost for them, then they are really short-sighted. They keep scrambling to develop the skins that many say they don't even want, when there is a differentiation solution right in front of them: offering updates to all their phones for a much longer period. Now that's some real differentiation, that even non-techie people will want. Who wouldn't want to go with the company that supports the phones for the longest time?

kenjackson5• 15 years ago

That's not really all that differentiable, and it costs money both short and long-term.

First, on the differentiation angle, things like length of maintanance are not things that usually sell devices. Especially not since the lifetime of the average device is just a tad longer than two years.

Second, it's not as if Samsung can rev every device for free. They have to go through the carrier to test each update and the carriers have finite resources. Therefore Samsung may have to stall the release of a new phone in order to test all of the other phones that exist, including that phone that only sold 10,000 units. And these tests cost the OEMs a pretty penny.

At the end of the day the Android model really is kind of broken. Updates are not just some ad hoc thing, but it really needs to be planned. Everything from how many devices each carrier has, the number of devices each manufacturer has, to the update rate, etc...

Feature phones didn't really have the update requirement so the Samsung model of a million phones made sense. But now it actually hurts their ability to deliver customer satisfaction. Due to the nature of Android, there will never be a cohesive update strategy. What you see now is what you'll have in the future with Android.

Terretta• 15 years ago

> Who wouldn't want to go with the company that supports the phones for the longest time?

Seemingly, everyone who buys Andriod instead of iOS. The platform gets what it wants: total customizability of an infinite variety of hardware, or devices that are all alike but keep getting every update 3 years after end of warranty.

It's a trade off, and with the original purchase, one is voting for which model one wants.

quanticle• 15 years ago

>Where are we okay with a manufacturer never updating or even fixing the bugs of a very expensive product just months after they release it?

Pretty much everywhere, actually. If I buy a vacuum cleaner, do I expect updates? If I buy a toaster or a microwave, do I expect updates? If I buy a TV, do I expect updates? People without a technical background classify their phones and computers in the same category as toasters, microwaves and televisions. To them the software that runs on the device is indistinguishable from the device itself. When they see new phones coming out with Ice Cream Sandwich only a couple of months after they purchased their phone, their reaction is not to scream for an update from their carrier. Their reaction is, "Well, darn. I guess I should have waited, so I could have had a better phone."

Think I'm wrong? Go ask Joe Random iPhone or Jane Random Android what version of iOS or Android their phones are running. It's the rare breed that'll give you anything more than a blank stare in response.

bonzoesc• 15 years ago

> (Perhaps cars are turning into this model. It used to be that it was not a big deal to take your car to your favorite mechanic, but now I gather, various forms of IP lock-in or just plain expensive required diagnostic tools are creating a barrier for independent mechanics.)

On both cars and phones, this kind of tamper resistance makes support cheaper, and generally better for the average customer. Moving to electronic subsystems in cars means reliability to the point of basically never breaking, at the cost of being able to adjust spark timing or carb tuning with a screwdriver and motivation alone. At the same time, the iPhone 4S (with no jailbreak available) is easier for both Apple and for a company's IT department to support than a rooted Nexus S running "rAv Rom 1.3 Stock 2.3.4 + Additions + JAME BOND 07-Jun-11 New version 1.3".

drivebyacct23• 15 years ago

I don't know what to tell people about this. It's unfortunate. I think people think of their phones as computers (and I'm not saying that's inaccurate), but unfortunately protected drivers prevent you from going out and grabbing a random ARM distribution or build and throwing it on your phone all willy-nilly.

Further, manufacturers have no incentive to upgrade your software because they're already adapting their changing custom code to their NEXT device that they'll launch 2 weeks later as a "sequel".

But, we've all heard this before. Not all Android devices are built the same, not all the software builds are the same. Many devices are more "open" than others, and some models (read, Nexus line) get timely updates.

I don't think it's unreasonable to compare Nexus vs. iPhone and leave many of the other Android phones in a separate class. As an Android user, that really doesn't bother me.

jerrya6• 15 years ago

Android architects should be able to make it easier for proprietary drivers to interoperate with future Android releases, by standardizing on interfaces.

I think though, that there has to be real push back against the rooting/warranty policies. If I take my car to an independent mechanic, it does not void the warranty. If I hire an HVAC contractor to fix my air conditioner, it does not void the warranty.

If Samsung, et. al., can point to legitimate ways in which a rooted/modded phone can break the phone irreparably, what that tells me is that's an indication of poor design on their part. As consumers we should expect they fix that, not make third party mods difficult.

drivebyacct23• 15 years ago

It's not really about the architechure of Android so much as it is the bullshit, erm, unfortunate licensing that goes into the graphics drivers, RIL, etc.

Even the 4.0.3 source drop for the Galaxy Nexus was awkward because half way through it Google had to stop and go get terms to release updates to the proprietary drivers for their own Nexus device. From my limited understanding, if you want to build a (not cheap, but... affordably, expensively cheap) phone today, there aren't exactly open-firmware hardware choices.

The only way to physically damage the phone is to do some of the (inane) extreme overclocking. Not sure what they can do about that except do more at a hardware level to set caps on that sort of thing. I still suspect the reluctance for rooting/roming is from the carriers (tethering and support primarily). This seems to be backed up by the fact that at least one of Motorola's new phone has an unlocked bootloader everywhere except the United States.

Samuel_Michon3• 15 years ago

"I don't think it's unreasonable to compare Nexus vs. iPhone and leave many of the other Android phones in a separate class."

I agree, but not even all Nexus phones get upgrades to the latest version of Android.

The Nexus One was released on January 5, 2010. It won't get an upgrade to ICS. Apple's iPhone 3GS was released on June 19, 2009. The latest version of iOS, 5.0.1, gets automatically pushed to it, over the air. It works great, even though the iPhone 3GS is a 2,5 year old model.

johsoe• 15 years ago

This really is a special case though. HTC made a terrible decision with the amount of internal storage on the Nexus One and Desire/Incredible, so the image wont fit.

Tichy6• 15 years ago

I don't get iOS 5 on my iPod Touch.

kalleboo• 15 years ago

The 3GS is still being manufactured and sold as new though.

Tichy6• 15 years ago

I have an iPod Touch that I can not update to iOS 5. I fail to see how the competition is faring so much better. Apple maybe has it the easiest with their limited selection of devices, but even they can't support old hardware indefinitely. As for Windows 7, are the requirements for new phones really so tight that they won't have that problem? And if the requirements are so tight, is it still attractive for hardware makers?

Also it seems customers just don't care. If they do (as I do), they could just stick to the official Google devices (as I also do). Problem solved.

I wonder about the driving force behind that article - just one concerned journalist, or maybe there were other incentives...?

cek2• 15 years ago

People ask me all the time why, if I think Windows Phone is such an excellent product, sales appear so lackluster.

(This post got long. tl;dr: Microsoft's approach with WP7 has a significant impedance mismatch with the carriers & device manufacturers. Will end-user dissat with Android be strong enough to overcome this impedance mismatch...that is the question.)

The fact that Windows Phone has, thus far, avoided fragmentation (almost every WP7 device from every manufacture r & carrier automatically got updated to WP7.5 "Mango" this fall) actually points to one of the core reasons:

_The device manufacturers, mobile operators, OS providers, and end users operate in an overly complex virtuous cycle_

A virtuous cycle is one where each side of the market both gives and receives positive value from the other sides. So much positive value is exchanged, with low friction, that the cycle grows and grows, like a snowball rolling down hill. The more sides to the market that exist, the more complex the system.

In the mobile device space the four primary sides of the market are not actually aligned very well. In fact, there is such deep misalignment that there is great instability. Android has succeeded by capitalizing on that misalignment. Windows Phone is attempting a different strategy...

Carriers: Own the customer. Own billing. Own Sales. Own the physical pipe. They hate being just a fat dumb pipe, but their capex structure means they will never be anything but a fat dumb pipe.

Device Mfgs: Own the hardware. Own the industrial design. They hate not owning the customer. But their HW bias (and manufacturing capex structure) prevent them from breaking out of this.

OS providers: Own the core of the customer experience. Own most real innovation. They hate not owning the customer. Their core business models (search, desktop/server OS, office, ...), as well as the fact they can't build HW, means they are always at the mercy of some middleman between them and the customer.

Users: Own the disposable income. They don't know what they hate. All they know is they buy phone service from mobile carriers and/or buy a phone from a carrier. They love speeds & feeds and will generally buy anything they are told to by television ads and RSPs (Retail Sales Professionals).

Note that Apple circumvented this by cutting the device manufacturer out and used that fact to force the carriers into being even more of a fat dumb pipe. Topic for another day, but my belief is over time this strategy will start to deteriorate for Apple.

Android has been wildly successful because it was built to reduce friction between all sides of the market. It 'bows down' to the device manufactures AND the carriers. It enabled device manufactures to do what they do best (build lots of devices). It enabled carriers to do what they do best (market lots of devices). It enabled users tons of choice. My hypothesis is that it also enables too much fragmentation that will eventually drive end users nuts.

Windows Phone has taken a different approach. It raises it's middle finger at both the device manufactures and carriers. It says "here's they hardware spec you shalt use". And it says "Here's how it will be updated" (to the carriers).

Thus both of those sides of the market are _reluctant_. Especially the carriers.

This is why, despite being a superior PRODUCT to Android, Windows Phone has not sold as well.

The question in my mind is whether Microsoft's continued investment in WP and close partnership with device manufactures such as Nokia will eventually enable a breakthrough here. I know that MS can be very persistent & patient; it's been so in the past. We will see.

pace• 15 years ago

Excellent post. In particular the Android and WP7 parts—you should make a dedicated blog post out of it.

rickyf• 15 years ago

Microsoft has little choice but to be patient and keep pushing. If they fail in mobile, their business business will eventually leave them. Their consumer computing business is already deteriorating. They must soldier on. The cost of failing is too high.

schiffern• 15 years ago

>I have an iPod Touch that I can not update to iOS 5. I fail to see how the competition is faring so much better. Apple maybe has it the easiest with their limited selection of devices, but even they can't support old hardware indefinitely.

No-one expects indefinite support. The problem is that the Galaxy S was released only 16 months ago, and is still available in some countries. And the Galaxy Tab is only 13 months old, and is also still being sold.

The comparable situation from the competitors would be if the iPhone 4 couldn't be upgraded to iOS 5.0.

In reality, Apple is still supporting the iPhone 3GS (released a whopping 30 months ago) and the third-gen iPod Touch (released 27 months ago, discontinued 15 months ago). Apple has never stopped supporting a mobile product they're still selling, or even one they've sold sometime in the past year.

Tichy6• 15 years ago

Is it really a big problem that the Galaxy S can not be updated to ICS? It is still a perfectly working phone. Most users are probably not even aware that there are newer versions of Android. And why should they care?

danso• 15 years ago

Which iPod Touch is it? No one's arguing that devices should be maintained forever, just that an Android device's life-cycle seems to be too short.

Also, let's face it, the iPod Touch is going to be a fundamentally different machine than the iPhone.

GBKS• 15 years ago

I assumed it was sheer incompetence, but maybe this explains why the only system update I have received for my HTC Incredible is a total mess.

The update process never finishes, no matter what I do. Something seems to be updated nonetheless, and now I constantly get "out of space" notifications, despite having 700MB available. At this point, text messaging is crippled due to this issue, and there doesn't seem to be a solution (checked online and in store). No outreach from Verizon or HTC on this, and since my friends who also own Incredibles have the same issue, I can only assume that a lot of people are stuck now with an almost broken phone.

Just a lovely situation. Makes me want to stay away from Android in the future.

vegardx• 15 years ago

Just an interesting idea, have you checked if people without the carrier specific build has the same problems? I have a feeling that all the customization that HTC and other vendors have to do for the carriers in the US is adding to even more negative effect to the bad update cycles.

shareme• 15 years ago

author example is wrong..

At no time does OHA/Google hand over source to MOs...OEMs have contract with MOs to supply the Android version to MOs not Google..

Why Android updates are a mess: it's the business model

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