HTC breaks promise to update One S

[lothar]

This phone was not a flagship.

So, outside of the Samsung Galaxy I, II, and III, how many of the hundreds of other Samsung Galaxy phones have Samsung updated? This is a serious question since people like to rag on HTC. How many Galaxy THIS and Galaxy THAT have Samsung updated since they released them? We all know there have been hundreds since they release a new phone every other day.

http://www.sammobile.com/2013/03/18...roid-5-0-for-the-galaxy-s-iii-galaxy-note-ii/
If this is true(not officially verified by Samsung themselves, just an insider), then it looks to me like Samsung is updating more than just it's flagships.
More than half of those phones I've never even heard off. Galaxy Express? Galaxy Young? Galaxy Fame? Galaxy S Advance? Really?

HTC One S is equivalent to a Galaxy S III mini released last year.
Galaxy S III mini will get Android 4.2.2

Samsung Galaxy S II was released April 2011, and will get Android 4.2.2
Which HTC phones(flagships included) released in 2011 will get Android 4.2.2? Even their 2012 flagships(HTC One X and One X+) are in doubt at this point and they could still cancel the already announced update at anytime like they did with the One S.

 

[Dari]

Dari, samsung only fucked up on promises on ONE phone, the S1. Ever since they received so much flack from that they have been excellent on updates. Excellent. In fact, they probably have been the best updaters for android.

I honestly don't care because the updates on these phones don't bother me. My experience with updates and upgrades in the Windows world has taught me one thing: major upgrades need new hardware or else everything just slows down. I don't know how people with 2 year old phones are doing with the latest Android OS but I'd imagine everything has slowed down somewhat...

 

[grkM3]

Dari hating on Samsung but picked a hard battle today as Samsung by far is the best company to support android devices for future updates Lol

The HTC incredible is the same soc as the gs3 and that phone never got jelly bean

He says updates don't bother him because its Samsung that is on top of everyone with updates and I'm sure all of us that got the updates loved the huge power saving features each update brought.

 

[Oyeve]

I honestly don't care because the updates on these phones don't bother me. My experience with updates and upgrades in the Windows world has taught me one thing: major upgrades need new hardware or else everything just slows down. I don't know how people with 2 year old phones are doing with the latest Android OS but I'd imagine everything has slowed down somewhat...

The OS update slowdown is not nearly as bad as it is on iphones. ios 6.x rendered my iphone 4 useless and ios 7 rendered it dead. I find that android os updates are less taxing on HW and Ive pretty much had every gen of both iphones and androids.

 

[cronos]

The HTC incredible is the same soc as the gs3 and that phone never got jelly bean

This has got to be a typo.

 

[AstroManLuca]

This has got to be a typo.

He must have meant the Incredible LTE, which had the same Snapdragon S4 that was in the GS3 (and, incidentally, the One S).

 

[poofyhairguy]

I don't know how people with 2 year old phones are doing with the latest Android OS but I'd imagine everything has slowed down somewhat...

Quite the opposite. When I put Jellybean on my S2, the OS experience was FAR better than the Gingerbread it shipped with. Thanks to Project Butter, many apps were much smoother and more responsive.

Android is so early in its development (and it started years behind iOS) that many updates are not merely incremental. GB to ICS was huge, ICS to JB was huge.

And you can make wise purchase decisions to make sure you have hardware that can handle updates. That is why I am so insistent that new phone bought this year needs 2GB of RAM, I think that will eventually be a defacto requirement for KLP.

 

[thecapsaicinkid]

The Nexus master race enjoy watching HTC/Samsung owners argue over who gets some outdated version of Android first.

 

[cronos]

He must have meant the Incredible LTE, which had the same Snapdragon S4 that was in the GS3 (and, incidentally, the One S).

Ah that makes more sense. I also just remember that the GS3 was released with different specs around the world.

 

[AstroManLuca]

The Nexus master race enjoy watching HTC/Samsung owners argue over who gets some outdated version of Android first.

Meanwhile the Nexus users get to fight over which Android version will finally be too demanding for their outdated hardware.

 

[bradly1101]

I'm pretty sure the Google Nexus One got OS updates for at least 18-24 months.

Probably because HTC believes their customers are more focused on "design" and "bling bling" rather than the latest Android OS updates? That's the only logic to their madness that I can think off.

The less they update old phones the more you'll want a new one.

 

[Wildman107]

As a general rule with most non nexus Android phones. Buy the phone with the expectation you won't be getting any updates. If you're not happy with it as is, don't buy it or make sure you can download the tweaks you want or have a decent dev community.

I completely disagree with your post. We should hold vendors to a higher standard than HTC's. How else could you get them to change if you don't elevate your expectations?

I'll compare it to buying a video card. Could you imagine buying a video card that wouldn't get driver updates from AMD or Nvidia? The culture and expectations we have around driver updates would never allow for that to happen. The same should be true for Android phones.

 

[bonkers325]

This is why I could not convince myself to buy an HTC One. It's a nice phone NOW, but in a year I'll rue the moment when I can't update.

 

[grkM3]

This has got to be a typo.

Sorry there are so many HTC phones

It was either the HTC incredible 4g or lte model and my cousin had it and was stuck with the os that came with the phone.HTC left it far behind when in fact it had a very powerful soc at the time

 

[s44]

For those defending HTC for this not being a flagship phone

Except it was. The SOC was the same as the US Galaxy S3 and arguably better than the international One X's Tegra3.

And Brian thought so.

The Nexus master race enjoy watching HTC/Samsung owners argue over who gets some outdated version of Android first.

Since Samsung owners got 4.3 before your precious Nexus did, you've already lost this argument.

 

[zerogear]

You are correct. The HTC Nexus One received OS updates for 22 months.

You have to admit though that 22 months of support isn't stellar compared to Apple. Early Nexus One adopters were lucky to have Google pushing the updates and not HTC.

Source: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/102149-why-the-nexus-one-cant-run-ice-cream-sandwich

The thing with that problem is, even when Apple does support devices, they leave out the new features that comes out with the new version for older devices. At the end of the point, there really isn't any reason for the users to upgrade to the latest version of the OS asides from the fact that they can say they run 6.0 or 7.0.

The fact of the matter is, Apple only push updates because they can continue advertising that "95% of our users are on current OS vs Android" misinformation.

Also, I'm on HTC One w/ 4.2.2

 

[Jodell88]

Except it was. The SOC was the same as the US Galaxy S3 and arguably better than the international One X's Tegra3.

And Brian thought so.
Since Samsung owners got 4.3 before your precious Nexus did, you've already lost this argument.

There is not an official 4.3 version as yet.

 

[poofyhairguy]

 

[zerogear]

I'm really wondering about the One S -- they might have promised it too soon. It may very well be the RAM limitation on the device that is causing HTC to break the promise.

HTC One S only has 1GB of RAM.

 

[Bateluer]

Since Samsung owners got 4.3 before your precious Nexus did, you've already lost this argument.

An unofficial leak of an unannounced version doesn't really count in this context.

 

[grkM3]

An unofficial leak of an unannounced version doesn't really count in this context.

From what we have seen it works 100% solid and will be official version on the gs4 but either way he still is right as there is no unofficial 4.3 for a nexus phone atm

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm really wondering about the One S -- they might have promised it too soon. It may very well be the RAM limitation on the device that is causing HTC to break the promise.

HTC One S only has 1GB of RAM.

You really think its more likely that 4.3 needs 2gb of ram rather than that HTC is just a bit crappy at updating phones?

 

[ChronoReverse]

The GS3 international has only 1GB of RAM and it'll certainly get 4.3 (and a bloated Touchwiz 4.3 at that). RAM limitations is unlikely.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Saw this earlier, makes me happy I picked the S4 over the HTC One.

Seeing that there are GE for both phones, I don't think this is an issue for either.

 

[WelshBloke]

Seeing that there are GE for both phones, I don't think this is an issue for either.

Yeah hopefully HTC will actually support the GE.