Today at the Google I/O conference, Google announced that they’ve worked out a deal with hardware manufacturers to guarantee that all eligible hardware will receive an upgrade for at least 18 months from release. On one hand this is great, but 18 months is a long time — enough time for hardware to become ineligible. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see Google making an effort to get Android updates to more phones more often.
Google Promises Android Software Upgrades Over 18 Months
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6 responses to “Google Promises Android Software Upgrades Over 18 Months”
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SamDoes anyone else feel like this announcement is akin to tying an anchor chain to tooth floss, as a means of connecting Google’s updates to the end user? Sure, getting the manufacturers on board for pushing out OS updates is a great start, but it remains at the whim of telcos who can hold up the process by “testing” the software on their network.
The concept of “eligible” hardware concerns me too, as I can see manufacturers claiming most of their legacy devices will be unsuitable for new updates, as a means of avoiding effort in translating the software for each of their device platforms.
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B“Google Promises Android Software Upgrades Every 18 Months”
I don’t think that is what they announced, is it? I thought they said that handsets would be updated FOR 18 months from when they release them (where hardware can handle the newer versions). This is quite different to being updated every 18 months.
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JesseI think this article completely misunderstood what they were saying in the keynote – they weren’t promising updates every 18 months – they were promising that handsets will receive updates FOR 18 months after they were made.
Obviously this is hardware specific – the cheaper the handset, the less likely you’re going to be able to run new versions as they want to keep pushing the boundaries – but if you have a top tier model with a good cpu/gpu then there’s really no reason why it can’t get updates for a long time.
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JamesThis article is wrong. As others have said, it’s talking about ensuring that users get the latest updates for the phone for up to 18 months. Please post a correction to this article or just delete this erroneous information before it spreads.
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Angus KidmanThe article makes it clear that the 18 month cycle is for pushing out OS updates (I agree the headline could make that clearer, but people saying that the article says there’ll be a new version clearly haven’t read all the text — and it’s not a long post!)
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James
Angus, the post heading has been edited and content has been edited as well (thanks for correcting it!). The heading used to be “Google Promises Android Software Upgrades Every 18 Months” – so we clearly did read all the text.
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