Should you pay for your next OS upgrade?

[Bateluer]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/08/editorial-should-your-next-mobile-os-update-cost-you/

An interesting read, though, I haven't fully digested it yet. One section I found interesting though.

So here's what we're getting at: say Android 2.3 comes out. It "hits store shelves." We're proposing you should be able to install it on any Android smartphone (or tablet, we suppose) on day one, assuming it meets 2.3's minimum hardware spec requirements. Yes, granted -- for most modern mobile platforms, that'll require some extremely user-friendly, foolproof tools for kernel compilation -- but it's not science fiction. It's not out of the realm of reason. It can be done.

This would be interesting.

The elephant in the room that we haven't mentioned, though, is the carrier. No network operator in the world will ever accept its role as a dumb pipe; they'll be subsidizing, branding, and generally ruining devices until the day you die... and then they'll install Bing on your tombstone. And that's fine -- maybe we just go ahead and leave carriers out of this little plan, letting the branded phones wither on the vine as they often do. You can't win 'em all. But for our money -- our $500 or more in unbranded, unsubsidized money, that is -- we see no reason we can't make this work.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Quite honestly, I think the OS updates from Android are barely anything. I've seen 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.2.1. The amount of improvement is so minimal I don't believe we should be charged for this crap.

On the other hand, I feel like iOS gets HUGE updates revision after revision. If they made me pay $4.95 it could be justifiable. Now you could blame Apple for being behind the game to begin with so that they need to take strides every year, but at least I feel like I'm getting more of an upgrade.

 

[zerocool84]

Quite honestly, I think the OS updates from Android are barely anything. I've seen 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.2.1. The amount of improvement is so minimal I don't believe we should be charged for this crap.

On the other hand, I feel like iOS gets HUGE updates revision after revision. If they made me pay $4.95 it could be justifiable. Now you could blame Apple for being behind the game to begin with so that they need to take strides every year, but at least I feel like I'm getting more of an upgrade.

Are you talking about iOS incremental updates or the whole point updates??? Any whole point updates from any company is huge, any incremental update isn't. Apple's incremental updates on iOS aren't that huge just like Android's. 2.2's update over 2.1 made some big updates to Android which is evident by how much better 2.2 performs over 2.1 and 1.6-> 2.0 had a lot of stuff.

 

[Bateluer]

Quite honestly, I think the OS updates from Android are barely anything. I've seen 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.2.1. The amount of improvement is so minimal I don't believe we should be charged for this crap.

The update from 2.0 to 2.1, and from 2.1 to 2.2, were just as large as Apple's big updates. The 2.0 to 2.0.1 and 2.2 to 2.2.1 were very incremental, 2.0.1 was only on the Moto Droid, and to my knowledge, the only carrier OTAs for 2.2.1 were for the G2 and possibly the MT4G?

 

[Deeko]

Quite honestly, I think the OS updates from Android are barely anything. I've seen 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.2.1. The amount of improvement is so minimal I don't believe we should be charged for this crap.

On the other hand, I feel like iOS gets HUGE updates revision after revision. If they made me pay $4.95 it could be justifiable. Now you could blame Apple for being behind the game to begin with so that they need to take strides every year, but at least I feel like I'm getting more of an upgrade.

I've seen every Android update from 1.0 through 2.2.1, so I'm fairly familiar with these.

You have to remember that Android releases come much faster than iOS updates. The OS has been out just over two years, and we've gone from 1.0 -> Cupcake -> Donut -> 2.0 -> Eclair -> Froyo -> 2.2.1 -> Gingerbread.

Some updates are bigger than others. 2.0->2.1 wasn't huge, nor was 1.5-1.6. However, some of them are really big. Cupcake (1.5) was a massive update that included some very big features (on screen keyboard, video recording, custom widgets to name a few). 2.0 added Exchange & multiple gmail accounts, which are pretty big by themselves. 2.2 wasn't huge on the surface, but it included a JIT which was a massive performance improvement.

If you look at Android 1.0 compared to the forthcoming Gingerbread, the difference is night and day. No single release was THAT big, but combined, they add up. At this time last year, the best in the market was 1.6 (Donut) - compared that to Gingerbread. That's easily as much as one year of iOS updates.

That was long winded....Google won't charge for Android anyway.

 

[rudeguy]

for a vanilla Android version? Heck yes!

I spend how many hours downloading, reinstalling and tinkering with different versions.

However that would go against the GNU

 

[Bateluer]

for a vanilla Android version? Heck yes!

I spend how many hours downloading, reinstalling and tinkering with different versions.

However that would go against the GNU

How? You can sell open source programs, no law against it.

I think the bigger issue would be how the retail version of Android would get loaded on a phone that's been castrated by the carrier.

 

[boomhower]

I think the bigger issue would be how the retail version of Android would get loaded on a phone that's been castrated by the carrier.

How would it be any different than what we are doing now, rooting and installing custom ROM's? Just make vanilla available for purchase. I'd be willing to pay for vanilla updates the day they are released from google. No carrier branding, no carrier apps, just vanilla google.

 

[Bateluer]

How would it be any different than what we are doing now, rooting and installing custom ROM's? Just make vanilla available for purchase. I'd be willing to pay for vanilla updates the day they are released from google. No carrier branding, no carrier apps, just vanilla google.

As would I. The issue I'm inquiring about is the whole locked boot loader/NAND Lock/etc thing that more carriers and manufacturers are doing. If the retail Android version isn't signed for your phone, it would fail to install/brick your phone. Perhaps you could purchase directly from the manufacturer or carrier and get a version specifically for your device?

 

[GTaudiophile]

Only if it's the unadulterated version from Google.

 

[OS]

Should you pay for your next OS upgrade?

no because then the manufacturer will have even less incentive to deliver a fully working product (blackberry storm)