Loiter, I'm not surprised the you are confused. Since both of us have kind of talked about too many topics, and I hadn't been a clear as I would like, I'll try to keep my reply simple and only on topic...
My complaint is with your original reply to an American HTC One user...
Slow to what? Compared to Google editions? Of course Nexus and the G4/One GPE versions will get the updates faster, they are vanilla editions.
HTC One has the fastest updates over every other Android phone the last year. Faster than LGs, Sonys and even Samsungs.
Now I agree that HTC had plenty of updates for this phone, world wide. But here is a brief history explaining why I don't agree that they were "fast" or faster then LG, Samsung, or Sony.
First off unlike the Samsung and LG the HTC One came out with only 4.1. 2, while the Samsung galaxy s4 and the LG G pro already had Android 4.2. 2
If anything HTC had to now catch up to its current competitors in reaching Android 4.2.2 this took at least 3 months, or the end of June/first week of July before the vast majority saw 4.2.2 and thus caught up to it's current competition.
( but, not all HTC One phones for such an update)
Sadly unlike in Europe and the UK, the US phones on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Spirit, didn't. Now if we were talking about Uganda and a whole 3 phones not being updated to 4.2.2, I would agree with you and just say it's a shame. But we are talking about the US at a time when as many as 1.2 million HTC One phones out of 5 million sold never got this update. (numbers based on news from Android Central, phone arena and pocket lint of HTC One sales in the first two months.)
No offense, but we are not talking about maybe 5% of phones originally released. We are talking about 22% of the original released phones in one of the largest markets for HTC. Or again, 1.2 million HTC ones.
No matter how you look at it this was a huge blunder from HTC. Now we could blame the HTC for this if we want. Or we can blame the carriers. No matter what it doesn't look good for HTC. If it was HTC 's choice because they wanted to help sell this phone on the delayed launch on Verizon, the last major US carrier to get it, then this was a huge mistake for future sales as it was disrespectful to all who purchased early on other carriers... Including AT&T who had the exclusive of the 64gig model.
Now if it was the fault of the US carriers in question, then that means that HTC wasn't "strong enough" to force the carriers to upgrade thier phones. Sadly, both ways of looking at such a lack of upgrade doesn't bode well for the HTC One when it comes to upgrades.
But that is not all. While you may have been able to enjoy such a major update, us peeps here in the US had to wait for 4.3
Thus for 6 months, 22% of the originally released phones had to wait to see the updates to blinkfeed, the remapping of the home button, and the new UI. Let's also not forget that for people in the US (again, one of HTC's largest world wide markets) had to wait for such things as toggles in the notification shade and (here's a big one) lock screen widget support.
It's bad enough that HTC made the choice to not come out with 4.2.2, but to make people in the US wait for 6 months to have lock screen widgets on a 2013 phone is just silly.
So when you say that HTC is the fastest with updates, I have to sit and wonder just what you are smoking? If anything it took HTC 3 to 4 months just to release 4.2.2, and catch up to LG and Samsung. While also failing to deliver the 4.2.2 update to over a million users of their latest and greatest. This sounds fast to you? I have 1.2 million users who will disagree with you.
As for the fast update to 4.3, I agree it was fast. Even faster than Samsung and LG. But what in the world will 4.3 bring to the LG G PRO or the Galaxy S4 that such phones don't already have?
4.3 brings nothing extra to such phones so such a fast update on HTC's part is moot. If anything 4.3 now brings "all" of HTC One's up to par with its 2013 competitors in Android features.... 6 months after its release. 5 months after the S4 had such Android features, and 4 months after the G PRO had them.
So, while I agree that HTC is always quick with updates on its latest phones, I wouldn't brag that they are the quickest. If anything, they had to catch up on the beginning and it took them at least 6 months to fully catch up to the competition, feature wise.
As for your comments on the S4 and the S3, you are far from telling the whole story and blowing things way out of proportion. It's borderline fud.
Posted via Android Central App