Google’s data shows that Marshmallow actually claimed 10.1% of all Android installs, based on data collected on June 6. The previous Android version, Lollipop, went down slightly from 35.6% in May to 35.4%, but it is still the version of Android with the most installs.
Pathetic.
Are you men and women tired of me bringing this up all the time yet? Yes?
Good. Expect more. Until Google gets its act together, I will keep talking about this.
Don’t forget that while Microsoft is in a race down, Google up. OEM’s just stunned.
Google’s damned for not updating (even though they aren’t the ones to bitch at, which makes bitching at them strange), Microsoft is damed for upgrading.
Same old song. Yawn
The difference is that Microsoft’s upgrades are objectively inferior. Google’s aren’t.
Another difference is that Microsoft’s upgrades are broadly installed. Google’s aren’t.
[This goes a lot better for the Planet]
Microsoft is damned for *forcing* and upgrade. Google is damned for not providing *any* way to upgrade.
As if Google care what any of us think…
what you going to do, buy the alternative?
They have strangled the market. They don’t Need to support your old phone, that’s a disposable commodity. “Buy a new one, use our store again to buy a new game!”
Selling “what we think” is Googles main business, and it is in their interest that we keep on using Google services and devices, to help them collect user data.
Google just solved an intractable problem with getting Android apps on Chrome OS. I expect to see the same containerization solve the update issue. I’m predicting by 2018. Save the link to this comment.
The update issue is very easy to solve with contracts that Google doesn’t want to impose on the OEMs.
I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not sure if you are familiar with the update issues with the Original Moto X. They ( at the time a Google Company too) did everything in the software to make it upgradable ( no skins, limited extensions to Andriod, etc), but they were done in by a well known chip supplier that wouldn’t provide a new version of a driver that would work with newer versions of Android.
They need software that they can upgrade while not needing to upgrade drivers. As others have pointed out in the past, that’s somewhat difficult to do with Linux kernels. Containerization gets past that, while minimizing any performance hit.
“I expect to see the same containerization solve the update issue.”
Never has studied this area. But, what about two stacked androids?
The first, -basement one, raised up just to the HAL and being carefully long term updated. The second, a single [virtualized?] image, built above this basement and easily upgradeable from Google Private Servers.
Personal profile kept at another image, totally detached from Telco ‘decorations’ and apps.
Those upgrade images, selected according to Law-Frames, Telco-Contracts and Device-Agent-Power-Profile [Tired of upgrades heavily relenting Devices].
[This strategy break the Telco’ grip over the OS, but this is definitively a plus].
If Telcos wishing to Soft Differentiate, Their constructs should pile above the Google Stack.
Even if -Basement Android never updates [Unknown Ultra Cheap piece of …] Weatherized Exposure Surface will be kept small.
Beyond the User Profile, this strategy also requires a OEM|Telco Profile.
Have a phone not that Old, hardware perfect, driven useless trash due to Manufacturer Crapware, Telco Add-Notification-Storms and -being an X.0.0 OSv.- lack of upgrades.
[Changed Telco, Manufacturer and OS, by the way
]
This two layer system is already mostly in place. With Android being the part that doesn’t update for most people and Google Play Service being the part that applications rely on and that does get updates.
With all the bashing about the lack of updates I am actually pleasantly surprised that roughly half of the people are running the latest or previous version. That doesn’t happen with most (all?) Desktop OS’s even though those are now gratis as well.
My geek part finds it infuriating, I have a one plus X and I am on lollipop…
But to be honest since probably KitKat I stopped paying too much attention. There is not much we really miss. Since lot of new innovative things have been moved to apps, just some features really mattrrs. What does have M more than L? I think only (for me) better battery management and different way of treating the storage card.
i agree. i’m on iOS and i just don’t see a ton of innovation left in the slab phone concept, at least until some major new tech is developed. it is packed with sensors and linked into everything in the cloud, apps have enough processing power to do whatever what they want, and just about every software interest is actively developing for android and iOS.
my next iPhone will probably be the smaller one. i just really don’t use the phone much anymore, having a tablet and laptop. if i had a wearable that didn’t need to be tethered i wouldn’t use the phone for anything. the screen is too small. only the cell radio is valuable to me, and i could have gotten that in my iPad instead.
Security updates?
Answering a question with a question? /s
Actually, L does get security updates. The question is if those updates reach the end user.
Much better battery management on Marshmallow and Lollipop. I can let GPS on longer when not in use.
Test done on Samsung Galaxy S5.
Google doesn’t need to get their act together because they are not hurt by this in any significant way and hence don’t care.
Ever since Google found a way to deliver their services to old devices without having to upgrade them with Play Services, they don’t care.
Also, nobody, I mean NOBODY, has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to upgrade your phone to a new major version. But they have a moral obligation to deliver security patches. There is the real problem nobody of you soap-boxers touches on, security patches for old major versions, not how many devices run a major version (marshmallow or whatever) they weren’t meant to run out of the box.
Edited 2016-06-07 22:59 UTC
I have to agree. Having owned a latest OS Android phone that was a poor build I would rather that major upgrades were tested and optimised. Rather than chucked out as quickly as possible.
I get regular security patches for my OS from Samsung and all the apps get updates through the Play store.
So having the latest and greatest is kind of a nice to have.
Then again I am on a Samsung flagship the Note 3. Marshmallow is in testing and being rolled out to the other variants at the moment. I remember my Lollipop update being delayed due to problems found after the roll out to other variants. I’d rather that than just getting the new and shiney soon as possible.
I still got security and OS patches to ICS in that waiting period. Lolipop has been rock solid since I got it.
I would prefer the following was recognised:
1 timeliness of security patches
2 build quality and patches to OS stability
3 then rollout of new OSs.
ICS and Lolipop are good enough for most people, as long as they are security patched and bug patched. This isn’t Adobe where security and bug fixes are held behind an upgrade wall (or was). Just like I don’t need to upgrade my hardware every year. The Note 3 is basically good enough for everything.
Also somewhat relevant. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Android-Marshmallow-update-causes-prob…
As a iOS/Android app developer, I’m used to that slow adoption by now.
I’m not too worried about Marshmallow.
What bothers me more is that half of all devices are still on OpenGL ES2.
This hinders render code on Android.
First of all, yes… it is annoying that Google doesn’t control Android OTA updates universally. However, having legacy versions of the OS really isn’t _that_ much of a problem. My KitKat device is never going to update but it still works great. I still get app updates from Play Store. Unlike iOS updates on older devices, my Android device isn’t any less performant than the day I got it. In fact, it just passed the 2 year mark and I’ve never had to do a clean wipe on it.
Forcing OS updates for older devices isn’t necessarily the holy grail that users desire, Thom.
You are completely omitting the issue of security-vulnerabilities in the older Androids.
This x 1000. A device which does not receive updates, is a device waiting to be exploited.
Security updates are .x updates (6.0 to 6.0.1). Most users do get such updates.
The topic here is version updtes (6.0 to 7.0). Most users don’t get such updates
iOS does backwards support, currently the oldest device supported is a 2011 iPhone 4S which i think is reasonable,
You have to upgrade iOS if you want to get recent applications, or updates of applications you are used to.
You cannot stay at older iOS version (because, for example, it is much more performant than the new one, or because you like the design better, or million of other reasons) and get the same.
The problem with iOS updates being that they typically leave older phones completely unusable after 2+ versions.
This was my reaction too. I could update my phone from KitKat, my OEM provides updated. But my phone will not be updated, because I like KitKat better than the newer alternatives. It’s not Google’s fault (in this case), it’s my choice.
As someone who’s phone performance went to shit after the Lollipop update, I wholeheartedly agree. Especially when the user doesn’t have the option to go back to a version that actually ran smoothly.
Nobody is talking about forcing. Forcing BAD!
But most end-users never get a choice to update to the latest version at all.
I have two phones with virtually identical hardware. One runs vanilla 4.4. The other runs vanilla 5.1. IMO the differences are barely noticeable.
Aside from 5.* leaking memory like crazy and whitishness all around.
Nobody cares about updates (not on Android, iOS or any other OS with Linux being an exception usually due to its audience level).
If this wasn’t the case Microsoft would not have been forced to adopt the Windows 10 upgrade tactic.
I was curious how many people returned their devices because of the update issue? That’s one of the ways to get the OEM understand the need of their customers.
If no one cares about updates, including iOS users as you say, then why is the latest version of iOS on 80+% of capable devices while the version of Android that came out a year ago is only 10% of devices? I guess iOS users really DO care about having the latest/greatest that’s available to them.
Based on the responses to this article, the prevailing wisdom that the vast majority of Android users really don’t care about privacy, having the latest security patches, and being able to use their devices to their full capability beyond what they ship with is true. The old saw that Android is for tweakers, advanced users who like to change everything about the look and feel of the OS the instant they take it out of the box, changing the icons, launchers, etc, is just a myth, then, because a lot of those tweaks and modifications require the latest versions of the OS. Evidently only about 10% of Android users really do care about those sorts of things.
Edited 2016-06-08 11:45 UTC
iOS users are offered updates. Users overwhelmingly just click yes to every update.
Android users aren’t offered version updates, but when they are offered they also overwhelmingly click yes to such updates.
The notion that Android is for tinkerers/geeks/nerds is ridiculous. tinkerers/geeks/nerds make up 1 to 10% of the mobile market while Android has 85% of that market.
Hi Thom, I truely don’t understand why it bothers you so much.
What are the *must have* features of Marshmallow? IMHO Google seems to go backward with every newer release.
There used to be a fine grained permission system + API that has been removed. The Material design is a pain in the ass, I never know where to press, long press or to swipe. Adblock used to work without manually configuring a proxy server. SD cards could be read without using some special protocol, now they can’t.
I can’t name any new feature I want *now*. A sign of maturity. It’s not the OS that is important anyway, it’s the apps.
It’s not about features.
It’s about security, bug fixes and accountability.
Right now we have far too many Android phones which get zero updates during their lifecycle which means no security updates, no bug fixes, no nothing.
Security updates are I guess the most important reason to upgrade. But maybe they are a bit overstated. With 2 million potential trojan horses in the Google apps store, it is much simpler to release an app that does something malicious rather than to exploit an OS vulnerability.
Every time I read an alarmist article it turns out to be much less severe than the headline suggests and/or the article is written by a ‘security’ company that used to earn zillions on selling Windows anti-virus and now tries to get into the mobile phone market (while both Apple and Google say there is no need for anti-virus software, slowing down your phone).
I can’t remember the last time I had a serious enough OS bug to warrant an OS upgrade. All the bugs that I encounter are in the application area, and those get updated quite frequently.
Finally, most people buy a new smartphone every 1-2 years. You automatically get a newer Android version.
If that still isn’t good enough, just do a mind excercise: Imagine Google’s latest and greatest OS is Kit Kat and they just released Lollipop. What a joy to find yourself on it!!!
Edited 2016-06-08 12:11 UTC
The stagefright vulnerability had at least four different remote ways of being exploited and it warranted an OS upgrade. And it’s just one security problem that I’m aware of.
E.g. let’s check the latest Android security update: https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-06-01.html
6 (six) critical remotely exploitable vulnerabilities announced by none other than Google themselves. Perhaps, you don’t understand a bit about security that’s why you sweep everything under the rug of the FUD spread by wanna-be-security companies who want a share of Android profits/pie.
This is ugly yes, but not really uniquely Android. First of all, Google has issued patches, it’s that manufacturers are not shipping the patches. The OTA mechanism doesn’t work because it’s on the device driver level of the OS. Google can’t be held responsibe.
This is the downside of receiving a new version of a free OS every year, that has to work on thousands of cheap devices made by dozens of different manufacturers.
The race to the bottom is so strong that no money is set aside for upgrades. Just like your hardware router or smart TV, you don’t get updates from the manufacturer.
I agree that it would be great if Google could find a way to force the eco system to deliver security updates but I don’t see a way out without phones getting more expensive and contract renegotiations between Google and the phone companies and the manufacturers
I switched to Nexus when the 4 came out, and I get all my updates. I am now on the Nexus 6p, and I use my Nexus 7 (2013) daily, without any issues.
If I wanted a more Samsungy device, I could add a theme, but I think Stock Android is just fine.
There are choices Thom, so yo can stop bitching about it, and go with the choice that will quench your update desires
Nexus 4 has long been unsupported and you cannot install Android 6.0 on it. A perfectly capable device by today’s standards.
A quite recent Nexus 5 is not getting Android 7.0 update.
You’re perfectly right: Google is doing fine.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/93481/20151013/how-to-install-and…
Yes, you can install Android 6 on the Nexus 4. Works beautifully, btw.
You can install != officially supported.
Tell Samsung, HTC, et al, that you won’t buy another phone from them until they commit to delivering android updates within a 30 day timeframe.
And then back it up. Buy a Nexus.
You’re blaming Google for a lazy vendor problem– It’s right up there with blaming Microsoft for not providing a driver for my Voodoo 3dfx video card for Windows 10.
Google is not required to produce drivers for every fiddly bit of hardware that <phone vendor> puts in your handset.
Every OEM previously did commit to doing this with in 18 months. And then they didn’t.
But next time, with a less realistic time frame, they mean it?
Edited 2016-06-08 15:32 UTC
Google is not even fully supporting their own devices with updates, so why would they force an OEM to do so? My Google Nexus 7 tablet 2012 wifi will not be getting an update per Google, so it is stuck at lollipop. Am I supposed to throw it away and spend another few hundred dollars? I bought the tablet brand new just 2 years ago and it works. Why would I do that?