Not a lot of ICS at CES?

[Sandman333]

Maybe it's just me, but I would have thought we would have seen a lot more promotion of ICS devices at CES. There are some, to be sure, but I guess I was expecting more. Along that train of thought- still no Tegra 3 phones? Thought those would have been announced too. Would love to see something like the Razer Maxx with a 720P screen and Tegra 3 on ICS when shipped.

 

[anon(21022)]

They're both new techs. Takes a while to develop software and especially hardware, so it's no surprise to see few ICS and tegra3.

Same thing happened before with gb and also with tegra2...

I guess we've been conditioned by Apple by now: announce product, see it in stores within a week or two...? It's not how the rest of the industry works though lol

 

[Timelessblur]

Sadly I think this shows a problem and Google really needs to get control over the lack of updates on Android phones. I don't know like requiring companies to support their phones with updates for 18 months of the phones release to have access to the market and have some rather large punishments for failing to update in a timely manner (3 months max.) Update time of the 18 months is based on when the next OS is release.
So for example if say Jelly bean is released right before the end of month 18 then the manufacture would still be required to update their phone with in 3 months time of it.

 

[Shadowriver]

It's side effect of Android freedom, don't expect OEMs to relese stack Android without marking that it's there phone. Development of software with use of new features requires time. Google really don't have much space to change here, it's not like OEM care about them so much and if they don't like them they may as well go to WM7 or make there own platfrom (and don't say they can't do it, just look on Google TV situation where even there new sevior partners backstubing them in favor of there own systems). So Google can't force them too much, it's there system being guest on there hardware not other way and Android can't exist without hardware.

 

[kilroy]

For whatever reason, it seems Google has little or no control of how, when or IF an OEM upgrades the OS on their respective phones. Google's answer was to purchase Motorola and make sure future Motorola phones are updated RAPIDLY. When Motorola phones get rapid updates, consumers may blow off OEMs because they are sick of waiting for updates and move to Motorola phones to get quicker updates. That'll hurt the OEM so the presumption is this whole plan will force the OEMs to update sooner rather than later.

Of course, this all assumes (too) that future Motorola phones are "decent" enough to be wanted by the masses.

 

[Sandman333]

Of course, this all assumes (too) that future Motorola phones are "decent" enough to be wanted by the masses.

Well, I'm liking what I'm seeing from Motorola right now. I currently have a BB Storm 2 that I've used for the last 2+ years, so I'm eligible for an upgrade right now. At the very least, I'm going to get a Razor Maxx, but I'm waiting to see if something like that with the Tegra 3 and a better screen comes along here soon. I can be patient for a little while. Hopefully by then ICS will be shipping.

 

[Timelessblur]

For whatever reason, it seems Google has little or no control of how, when or IF an OEM upgrades the OS on their respective phones. Google's answer was to purchase Motorola and make sure future Motorola phones are updated RAPIDLY. When Motorola phones get rapid updates, consumers may blow off OEMs because they are sick of waiting for updates and move to Motorola phones to get quicker updates. That'll hurt the OEM so the presumption is this whole plan will force the OEMs to update sooner rather than later.

Of course, this all assumes (too) that future Motorola phones are "decent" enough to be wanted by the masses.

I will sadly believe that when I see it. The purchase should be completed in the next 12 months.
Heck as it gets closer one would think Google would have more and more say on what it wants Motorola to do.
Say update their phones asap right now. It is not like it is going to be stopped.

It rather sad to see how slow theses updates are to role out. My next phone will be bought in Jan 2013 (so about a year) and it will heavily be judge based on how upgrades are being done to ICS as it should be a jellybean powered phone and I want it be jellybean powered.

 

[Artisanthe]

For whatever reason, it seems Google has little or no control of how, when or IF an OEM upgrades the OS on their respective phones. Google's answer was to purchase Motorola and make sure future Motorola phones are updated RAPIDLY. When Motorola phones get rapid updates, consumers may blow off OEMs because they are sick of waiting for updates and move to Motorola phones to get quicker updates. That'll hurt the OEM so the presumption is this whole plan will force the OEMs to update sooner rather than later.

Of course, this all assumes (too) that future Motorola phones are "decent" enough to be wanted by the masses.

First and Foremost....Google acquired Moto for their Patents! They need them to help fend off Apples Aggressive Litigation....both Intellectual Property and Design Patents (they tried to patent rounded corners?). Whether they show any direct favoritism to Moto remains to be seen....though it's hard to imagine at least a little Nepotism not happening.

Look to the Mobile World Conference (MWC) to see what's Really new in mobile. It happens next month (Feb 27th-March 1). CES is an Electronics show....and Not the Venue for a lot of Mobile manufacturers. HTC has already promised two Quad phones (Edge, Zeta) a new dual core (Ville) and a Quad Tablet (Quattro). I doubt they will be alone....though they are rumored to be ahead of the Industry in general at this point. Most of the Heavy Hitters (Samsung, HTC, Moto, LG) were pretty subdued at CES except for Sammy, who showed off their existing line in depth and featured the Note....which is launching here now. We are six weeks away from seeing the Real NextGen Android products I think....D

 

[Shadowriver]

I didn't dive in to ICS coding yet, i learn from book based on android 2.x and so on, but looking on there newest UI design guildes page i think i noticed the reason why we don't see phones with 4.0 out of the box right now.... OEMs software is simply not ready and i can see why. ICS intruduce lot of big UI API changes, that even forced Google to make a backward compatibility support for 2.x apps, which normally should not happen if just add new APIs. Major change is is throw out of menu button support and leave it as legecy support, in favor of there action bar.

This force OEMs to redesign there software, they won't ship phone with software that use backard compatibility features of ICS, it would be like selling PS2 games for PS3 console. This would also explains why we see more 4.0 tablets then phones since those chnges happened already in 3.0 and they got stuff ready on them.

 

[anon(21022)]

That makes a lot of sense, Shadowriver ! Probably also why some udpates to ICS take time too, because not only do the OEMs have to adapt their software to the ICS APIs, but they also have to make sure the updates won't break the user experience (whether you agree or not about how useful the OEM enhancements are) - if the update behaves too differently from before, users will likely go crazy and blame Android/OEMs/Carriers for their broken phones.

OEMs are stuck between a rock and a hard place, they gotta update their phones to gain favor, but they gotta keep things the same or similar to avoid pissing off their non-geek users, or users who are less adaptable to change (some geeks like their UIs to stay the same too, while others have no trouble adapting to new UIs all the time, so it's not just "average users" who are at play, here).