No it absolutely is Google's fault. They have control and could have and should have mandated update guidelines. Likewise, yes, the carriers fuck things up but again that is Google's fault for letting them do that.
And no Samsung isn't blameless, but Google absolutely could have made this a non-issue years ago but decided they'd rather make Android a total clusterfuck instead.
Plus they've constantly harangued Microsoft over security and yet Android is a total fucking joke in that regard. And we're getting the same bullshit we've gotten with Android updates in general (funny how every other year they say how they've resolved performance and made it smooth?), so anyone expecting there will be anything meaningful actually done to fix this stuff longterm is just delusional at this point. But we'll get a lot of talk about how they totally fixed it with this next major release, just make sure you buy the latest phones so you can enjoy those perks! Until the next update fucks it up again. I'm not an Apple fanboy either, but if it wasn't for them we very probably would not be getting the quality fingerprint sensors (that still took Android what 2 years to get to that level?).
Security should have been a major integral focus in Android development. Google is responsible for the state it is in. Yet we get "no its Samsung's fault!" "no, no it is Verizon/AT&T's!". They're all culpable, but Google needs to take charge and resolve this.
What is also dumb is Microsoft is getting trashed for not playing ball to appease the carriers which would end up putting them in the same position as Google, compromising end user control and security.
I know, especially after I believe Google came out and said they were pushing for devices 3 years old to get the latest version. And several of the OEMs said they were working to make that happen. The Note 3 is barely 2 years old.
You’re not really seeing the full picture here. Google cannot mandate any update guidelines on code they’ve open sourced under the Apache license. The only real power Google has in terms of strong-arming their OEM partners are the Google Apps. The closed source, first party apps like Gmail, Maps, etc. But that’s a threat you can only make once. They can deprive Samsung of usage for example, but then they lose untold fortunes of money by not getting to mine the data from those apps from Samsung users. Samsung already has shitty equivalent applications so they won’t really be THAT harmed.. customers not buying their phones would be the only hit they could take there, and in the end that hit is also shared with Google. So you can see that this is not really a realistic threat.
Google has taken some creative measures starting with Marshmallow in order to mandate specific security guarantees. Yes this is late in the game, but Google has *always* provided security mechanisms that the OEMs straight up ignore. Samsung are the most insecure device you can buy for the most part in almost every market because they have completely wide open, permissive bootloaders. If I have physical access to your device, I can backdoor it in under 23 seconds and completely bypass your full disk encryption. I gave a talk on this at Blackhat USA this year, other conferences world-wide, and will give it again at Blackhat EU next week if you’re interested in the attack.
Android is a very complicated platform that has to support thousands of variations of devices, it’s not surprising that performance and features are going to be harder to pin down and integrate compared to say Apple, who controls literally every aspect of the device, hardware and software. They can’t really compete fairly in that aspect. Android has steadily gotten better, but it’s still a very complex ecosystem with nuanced problems that your absolute statements fall painfully short of describing accurately and realistically.
Security is a huge focus for Android development believe it or not... but the problem is that OEMs fuck up Google code and extend and hack things to the point where they create security bugs that aren't Google's fault. The majority of security flaws in Android that weren’t related to a Linux kernel bug or stagefright (the outlier here) has been because of OEM or carrier customizations that they fucked up. Samsung is the *worst* offender here by far.. they have a new system level compromise seemingly once a month. Again, Google cannot tell an OEM how to use the open source code. They can mandate specific guidelines it must adhere to, but they cannot control the programming practices of another company. It’s unrealistic to even suggest they can and really speaks to a lack of understanding of the problem in my opinion.
Google also cannot control carriers like Apple can. There simply isn’t the insane demand for the product like there was with the iPhone. Verizon was the original carrier that Apple wanted to launch with, but Verizon wouldn’t play ball with them in terms letting Apple control the update process on their network. So Apple just went with AT&T instead, and Verizon lost insane amounts of potential revenue as a result of that… and what do you know? They eventually caved and allowed the device on the network due to the overwhelming popularity of the devices. The problem Google has is, there are dozens upon dozens of variants of Android handsets, not a single one really has the same brand power of the iPhone. Yes, overall sales of Android have surpassed, but not because of any single device you can point to. In the end, Google cannot strong-arm the carriers like Apple was able to, and that certainly isn’t from lack of trying, they just won’t play ball. The other problem is, that wouldn’t even help them. OEMs hack up Android so much that patches from Google are IMPOSSIBLE to apply, the entire framework is different, every aspect of the code has been modified in some way such that ONLY the OEM is capable of applying the source patches to their own code base.. this creates the update nightmare that Android has, and once again Google is not in control of this directly. Once the OEM gets the source update, they have to push out an OTA, which then has to get pushed through the carrier update process as well.
So I guess my point is, yes everyone in this picture is to blame in some way, but Google really doesn’t have the ability to ‘take charge and resolve this’ problem in the manner you’re saying. It’s way more complicated than you are giving it credit for.
Google has taken a lot of strides recently to try to stop the bleeding in terms of security, but it’s a far more complicated operating system with far too many variables for there to be a one-size solution. I definitely agree it’s very late in the game, but Android exploded so fast and was released on so many devices that it became unwieldy very quickly.
In terms of the Note 3 discussion, Samsung is literally the only company here to blame for that not potentially receiving an update (that isn't confirmed anywhere and is basically just hearsay as far as I'm concerned). Point blank.
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