Comments on: Smartphone OS Updates — How Fast is Fast Enough?

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:05:10 +0000

I completely agree – forced obsolescence in 9 months is going to dictate peoples choice. i’d pay a reasonable amount for an OS u/g or u/g path. but at 1200AUD HTCsmartphone is more akin to a PC than it is to a 100 buck Nokia handset.
I think the makers and networks are as much at fault as the IS proviers – painfully, can’t keep bashing Microsoft on this one.

By: Ray

Ray — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:45:58 +0000

At last an easy question!

The answer is “it depends,” and it’s the customers that decide.

No one questions that Microsoft doesn’t update enough and that customers see innovations like online markets for download-able apps, multi-touch finger friendly screens, and the like appear on other platforms first. So after a time customers migrate to those platforms to get the features they want.

Apple may update too often, not bringing significant new features or bug fixes to the table, so customers may get annoyed with any inconveniences created.

I think the general impression is Google isn’t updating fast enough. Why? Because each rev brings highly inticipated capabilities.

And Palm … well they’ve lost a lot of momentum. The OS update just release is long overdue.

By: Ray

Ray — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:33:03 +0000

This is probably the biggest complaint with Windows Mobile based phones. While handset manufacturers occasionally make updates of the OS available for older units, and thankfully this behavior has become more common recently, and groups like XDA-Developers work to make versions of firmware updates available for download to older phones, Microsoft refuses to create an official upgrade path. The practical consequence is a Windows Mobile phone is obsolete as sune as it’s purchased. Not so fore Apple, Palm, and Google phones.

By: CMank

CMank — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:59:29 +0000

One can always sit around waiting for an OS upgrade. And no, Android is not a “mess.”

Got my Sprint Hero about 3 weeks ago and I absolutely love it. Been with corporate Blackberry devices for about 8 years. I’m a geek and I mostly just love the openness. Don’t love the SMS app, go to the Marketplace and grab another one. Handcent and ChompSMS are the two hot SMS apps right now and they are both free. First time you open ChompSMS the Android OS will ask you if you want to make this your new default SMS app. Apple would never allow this in a million years.

Don’t even get me started with the multi-tasking and also the Task Manager app I downloaded a week ago. The HTC SenseUI is amazing as well. Widgets on my home screens – 7 home screens in fact. I don’t even want to re-read this post, because it probably sounds like some damn Android pitch, but I’m happy and wanted to share what I found.

Sprint HTC Hero has Android v1.5 with the HTC SenseUI on top. No, this cannot be shut down permanently. HTC has said they are working on getting out Android v2.0 with SenseUI to the Hero. I say great, but I’ve already in love. C

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:55:45 +0000

The answer to this is simple.

a) Don’t ever expect free upgrades unless you’ve been specifically told you’ll get one.
b) 2 year contracts are for idiots.

By: buttertime

buttertime — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:32:33 +0000

maybe VZW is intentionally crippling the Eris to make the Droid even more appealing

plus you have to wait for HTC to update Sense as well

I wish we could update phone like we do PC’s, right now we have no real control unless you love to hack.

the iphone/palm approach is nice, but WinMo/Android is a mess

By: Varun

Varun — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:01:13 +0000

While I’m as enthused for the Next Big Firmware Update as any other tech enthusiast, my bigger peeve is the lack of updates for older hardware – in many cases hardware that is marginally slower/less capable than the current generation hardware. One particularly egregious hardware manufacturer is Nokia, which has for about a decade now released half-completed firmware, pushed one or two updates out (usually not to all the different versions of the phone), promised to new bugs in another release, and then stopped releasing the hardware. It was enough to get me to swear off Nokia in 2007.