3-Month later, Android 5.0 (Lollipop), has only 1.6% marketshare

[Misanthrope]

Lollipop it's their first serious attempt at regaining control of Android and it's 1000 versions, but they won't undue the damage in 3 months. Frankly not even in 3 years, I feel smarphones are reaching several barriers not only in tech but in actual usability and desirability even among enthusiasts: Most of you can look at your One M8 and don't think "Eww, still only 1080p and quadcore processor, this is disgusting, I need an upgrade now!" 

[c3p0_]

How often do you switch phones? Once each 2 years? No surprise to me. Carriers arent pushing roms either. Maybe not a bad thing. Nexus 5 is broken with lolipop and so are other phones. Too bugy so going CM route.

[Hulk]

As someone with the MotoG Gen 1, I believe that lollipop is horrible. Ever since I've got it, my device has been having its battery drained at an alarming rate- even when idle, it lowers by over 7% an hour when doing nothing and having nothing other than Wifi on. 

[Opcode]

Good, bad and which has more points in that direction is a different issue. My point was it's not Google's fault.

You can't blame manufactures for Google's mistakes.

[silberdrachi]

Odd I've run both 5.0.0 and 5.0.1 since they have come out and have had only a single issue, and that was an issue with an API that an app was using that needed to get updated (and was in 3 weeks).

 

I couldn't care less about market adoption rates. I know that Samsung, HTC and the other companies will not bother supporting their phones. You should know that when you get one of those that the chances are you will never see feature updates ever.

 

Not to mention most phones launching now that are sub 300 bucks are all 4.4 or 4.3 based, because that's what they had when they released. The only phones really big into the 5.0.0 or 5.0.1 are the really expensive 650-750 phones, which most people only get every other year.

 

What does market adoption really mean anyway? Its not like its going to change the way Google handles updates (because at this point they cant) and its not going to change the way they add features.

 

If you want the latest version, get a phone that is a Nexus or Google Play device, or get a phone that has a large amount of XDA support.

[jayctech]

Well it is, they didnt have to release android that way

 

They could also have a way to allow all android phones (that are capable) of being updated to the latest release of android, similar to how a pc can be updated to windows 8.1 and 10

 

They could pressure manufacturers and carriers to release updates more frequently and with less bloat

 

The OS may be open source, but google can control aspects of it, such as cutting off services like the Play store/gmail etc to none compliant devices

 

Just a quick example

The only thing they could do is pressurize manufacturers. They can't do anything else you're suggesting. Reason why they won't is because they don't make money from android, they make money from the Play Store and the rest of their apps. They could cripple the smartphones of manufacturer's they aren't happy with, problem is the more heavily skinned versions of android are on phones by the OEMs that sell the most (Samsung, LG, HTC) so cutting them off would result in a loss of a large percentage of their market.

[jayctech]

You can't blame manufactures for Google's mistakes.

What's Google's mistake? They released the newest version of Android and push it to their devices. Could they have done a better job at getting it to their devices? Yes.

 

Are they at fault because Samsung or someone else will take a year to update? No. Which is my point.

[Misanthrope]

The only thing they could do is pressurize manufacturers. They can't do anything else you're suggesting. Reason why they won't is because they don't make money from android, they make money from the Play Store and the rest of their apps. They could cripple the smartphones of manufacturer's they aren't happy with, problem is the more heavily skinned versions of android are on phones by the OEMs that sell the most (Samsung, LG, HTC) so cutting them off would result in a loss of a large percentage of their market.

 

I have to side with ShadowCap here: there is such a thing as a better balance between freedom and tight control, they didn't need to go all Apple on us to promote better compatibility and upgradeability while still playing nice with the phone manufacturers. It might have taken them more effort, but making sure key applications where vastly superior if they remain compatible with core Android could have been a good thing to do.

It wouldn't have solved eveything but just look at Samsung: They're still pushing Tizen even when Google bent over backwards and let them ruin Android with Touchwiz repeatedly. You can't just give into whatever they want like that.

[CtW]

i think this needs to be put here

 

  

[jayctech]

I have to side with ShadowCap here: there is such a thing as a better balance between freedom and tight control, they didn't need to go all Apple on us to promote better compatibility and upgradeability while still playing nice with the phone manufacturers. It might have taken them more effort, but making sure key applications where vastly superior if they remain compatible with core Android could have been a good thing to do.

It wouldn't have solved eveything but just look at Samsung: They're still pushing Tizen even when Google bent over backwards and let them ruin Android with Touchwiz repeatedly. You can't just give into whatever they want like that.

I'm confused what your point is. Google's apps are compatible with core Android. It's not like they could insert code after Samsung (for example) have done their modifications which will suddenly make their apps work terribly or something.

[Misanthrope]

I'm confused what your point is. Google's apps are compatible with core Android. It's not like they could insert code after Samsung (for example) have done their modifications which will suddenly make their apps work terribly or something.

 

I'm saying Google should withhold some important apps like newer versions of Chrome, Maps, Gmail client, etc. Until Samsung agrees to drop Touchwiz or update core Android on it's devices. They depend on playstore and add revenue sure, but that doesn't means they can't do a better job at keeping the fucking nonsense from vendors under control. 

In fact, since the ground up they should have made it clear that even though they can modify android they must offer an option to roll back to base android and let users update in a timely fashion. Letting manufacturers have complete control over all upgrades it's just a bad idea and this is exactly why most updates don't fucking matter at all since Samsung it's not in any way compelled to comply, they can just sit on lollipop for another 3 or 4 months until they are ready for their new flagships. This is bad for the users and for google and only good for Samsung to force users to buy new phones, phones they might not necessarily need but new features are held hostage on them.

[GoodBytes]

If Google was smart, they would make a certification program of sort where if the manufacture uses Android stock OS, Google can send directly OS updates, and carriers won't need "testing", and Google has the power to put their foot down and by-pass upgrading from the carrier. Plug the phone on your PC, download the updater and run it. The certification can have a tag that manufactures can use for identification of such product

Now if others want to modify, then too bad for them, it is their problem in maintaining the OS. So either they do a good job, or people will choose the stock Android to get all the OS updates.

[jayctech]

I'm saying Google should withhold some important apps like newer versions of Chrome, Maps, Gmail client, etc. Until Samsung agrees to drop Touchwiz or update core Android on it's devices. They depend on playstore and add revenue sure, but that doesn't means they can't do a better job at keeping the fucking nonsense from vendors under control. 

In fact, since the ground up they should have made it clear that even though they can modify android they must offer an option to roll back to base android and let users update in a timely fashion. Letting manufacturers have complete control over all upgrades it's just a bad idea and this is exactly why most updates don't fucking matter at all since Samsung it's not in any way compelled to comply, they can just sit on lollipop for another 3 or 4 months until they are ready for their new flagships. This is bad for the users and for google and only good for Samsung to force users to buy new phones, phones they might not necessarily need but new features are held hostage on them.

I'm pretty sure they do that already indirectly. Certain apps require certain versions of Android to work/have an update to the latest version of that app available. I've noticed in the past that when I update the OS, suddenly a bunch of apps decide they want to update too.

 

Again, Google can't make OEM's give the option to install base android because it's open source. The point is people have free access to the code to do with as they please. I could modify 5.0 and release a skinned version of Android if I wanted.

[Misanthrope]

I'm pretty sure they do that already indirectly. Certain apps require certain versions of Android to work/have an update to the latest version of that app available. I've noticed in the past that when I update the OS, suddenly a bunch of apps decide they want to update too.

 

Again, Google can't make OEM's give the option to install base android because it's open source. The point is people have free access to the code to do with as they please. I could modify 5.0 and release a skinned version of Android if I wanted.

 

Android isn't entirely open source. Some parts of it are, but the kernel and other things aren't open source. This is actually the root of the issue here: it isn't entirely open source so it lives in this very weird state where it doesn't has all of the benefits of being fully modular like Linux and a lot of the flaws anyway by being severely fragmented.

[Sousuke]

All I want is for CM12 to be fully released and put onto the OnePlus One so then I can take advantage of 5.0, Its an annoying waiting game.

[Opcode]

What's Google's mistake? They released the newest version of Android and push it to their devices. Could they have done a better job at getting it to their devices? Yes.

 

Are they at fault because Samsung or someone else will take a year to update? No. Which is my point.

They released a extremely buggy version of Android that even private developers wouldn't push to devices. Android 5.0 needs to mature before it can be widely adopted.

[jayctech]

Android isn't entirely open source. Some parts of it are, but the kernel and other things aren't open source. This is actually the root of the issue here: it isn't entirely open source so it lives in this very weird state where it doesn't has all of the benefits of being fully modular like Linux and a lot of the flaws anyway by being severely fragmented.

Never gave it much thought before but I guess someone has to be responsible for modifying the Linux kernel so it works with Android. Can't help but feel that'd be part of AOSP too but feel free to correct me if that's not true. I'm curious to know now that I've given it some thought.

 

Regardless, don't see it working that way. People are allowed to modify and install Android at their leisure that's just fact. Rather than blame Google, people should be moaning at manufacturers to change their approach to Android.

[jayctech]

They released a extremely buggy version of Android that even private developers wouldn't push to devices. Android 5.0 needs to mature before it can be widely adopted.

Every big update is buggy. Google's dealt with it. I have 3 devices on Lollipop (2 of which are on custom ROM nightlies) which are all stable and run fine.

 

Regardless, still isn't Google's fault OEMs haven't pushed the update to older devices.

[Linus_torvalds]

Well done google you are officially getting worse at this

I wanted to Quote you and clicked REPOST and send that Quote by mistake  

[TacticlTwinkie]

Well my old htc one (m7) just got the upgrade to Kit Kat like a month ago. I blame the handset makers. They don't roll out updates nearly quick enough, largely due to them having to stick their hands in it with their custom skins and useless stock apps.

[Toddwjp]

because its buggy as fuck.

 

phone carriers dont like pushing out updates. and know they have a reason not to

[vm'N]

Nexus 5 is broken with lolipop and so are other phones.

My nexus had more issues prior to 5.0.

Might just be lucky, however, I have yet to see the downside of upgrading.

[linusforsell]

My nexus had more issues prior to 5.0.

Might just be lucky, however, I have yet to see the downside of upgrading.

 

Same for me; I love the smoother experience and greater battery life that 5.0 brought to my N5.

 

Still not having received it for any of my Nexus 7s is quite disconcerting though... 

[Guest]

my problem with it, is how laggy it is, if it weren't for the dev options to reduce or kill animations i would pull my hair out every time i use my phone

Is the Moto G struggling with Lollipop?

[rockking1379]

is 3 months a long time? 

apple would have majority of their devices on their latest mobile OS within that time frame. so yeah, its a long time.