Google will soon require OEMs to roll out ‘regular’ Android security patches

[anon(7901790)]

Tizen. Was released in 2013 as I recall. Their watches run it, and some lower tier phones.



Samsung would try to play up Tizen a lot more, but there is a major Achilles' heel to that: 3rd party developers don't develop for it. The best chance they would have is to load the next Galaxy S/Note with it, but once people realize there are fewer apps for it, it will get returned.

It is plausible though.

At no point has anybody in this thread considered the added cost to the OEMs this would impose. Patching, testing, and then sending out the update takes time and people, which cost money.

How long do the OEMs provide updates for a particular OS version? One year, two years? Which goes back to my previous point. The longer an OS version is supported the more it costs.

 

[recDNA]

I think it runs on their smart TVs, too.

If that is what is on my Sammy smart tv I can say thatvTizen sucks.

 

[anon(7901790)]

If that is what is on my Sammy smart tv I can say thatvTizen sucks.

Both of my Samsung TVs work great.

 

[recDNA]

I find at least once a week when I click on the button to get to Netflix and other apps the wheel just spins and spins and never gets there. Have to shut off the tv then try again at which point it begins to install an "update" which takes about 15 minutes. I have parentheses around the word update because I have checked with Sammy and there is no weekly update - only one every few months. It is a know issue that has been widely discussed on various websites. There is no cure.

 

[Mike Dee]

Tizen. Was released in 2013 as I recall. Their watches run it, and some lower tier phones.



Samsung would try to play up Tizen a lot more, but there is a major Achilles' heel to that: 3rd party developers don't develop for it. The best chance they would have is to load the next Galaxy S/Note with it, but once people realize there are fewer apps for it, it will get returned.

I know Tizen but I don't think they are ready to commit to that on a full scale level

 

[anon(10092459)]

I feel that Sammy wants to do their own thing anyway. I mean, when you see an announcement from Android/Google introducing seven OEM devices for P Beta with no mention of Samsung at all, you have to wonder, at least some, where the relationship is standing right now.

If their App store was as solid, including security, as the Play store... maybe..?

 

[Almeuit]

I personally never would. I will be a Google it iPhone person.

I feel that Sammy wants to do their own thing anyway. I mean, when you see an announcement from Android/Google introducing seven OEM devices for P Beta with no mention of Samsung at all, you have to wonder, at least some, where the relationship is standing right now.

If their App store was as solid, including security, as the Play store... maybe..?

 

[L_Wolf_78]

Given everything Google says' is taken with a grain of salt...in the end it is actually going to come down to a shaming game I think before any company like Samsung or Huwaei or any other pick of device syas' they will do as they are told by Google!
After all, look at the Title of this board! "GOOGLE WILL REQUIRE..." So now Appple, Samsung, Motorola & every other maker of a mobile device is just going to start to listen to Google? HA!! If anyone has any ACCURATE or similar stats' as to what brand is most out on the market right now AND could talk to EVERY customer of said device, do you think that it will be 100% "Yes I feel the manufacturer listens to me & implements the changes I reccomend/would like"?
To me it sounds more like Google & their Corporate buddies have something in the works again that they want to be seen as spearheading so can play on the market rush it creates when the rest of the businesses wake up & see they were too late! Just look at the privacy issues lately. The BIGGEST if not worst offender for the longest time was GOOGLE!! Suddenly they are in the media stating that they are implememnting this & that to stop it while calling out every other corporation to do the same or that has even to start to do anything about it!

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

First, that is an opinion without evidence to back it.

The question is CAN Google get it in OEM agreements? Samsung in particular.

The reason I singled out Samsung is not only the obvious reason that it is the biggest Android OEM, but it has also been working on its own OS for years.

What would happen to Android if Google tried to force Samsung into signing an OEM agreement that forced it to send out regular updates and Samsung said nope, we're going to make phones with our own OS?

Samsung already provides updao, at least on their flagships, that exceed the Enterprise requirements.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Tizen, at least so far, is simply not good. It's a security nightmare, far worse than anything running Android and app devs ignore it entirely. They ignore it more than they ignored windows phones. It's also not Samsung's OS, it's simply another project, similar to Android, wit most of it's project stakeholders being the same companies that are stakeholders in AOSP.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Given everything Google says' is taken with a grain of salt...in the end it is actually going to come down to a shaming game I think before any company like Samsung or Huwaei or any other pick of device syas' they will do as they are told by Google!
After all, look at the Title of this board! "GOOGLE WILL REQUIRE..." So now Appple, Samsung, Motorola & every other maker of a mobile device is just going to start to listen to Google? HA!! If anyone has any ACCURATE or similar stats' as to what brand is most out on the market right now AND could talk to EVERY customer of said device, do you think that it will be 100% "Yes I feel the manufacturer listens to me & implements the changes I reccomend/would like"?
To me it sounds more like Google & their Corporate buddies have something in the works again that they want to be seen as spearheading so can play on the market rush it creates when the rest of the businesses wake up & see they were too late! Just look at the privacy issues lately. The BIGGEST if not worst offender for the longest time was GOOGLE!! Suddenly they are in the media stating that they are implememnting this & that to stop it while calling out every other corporation to do the same or that has even to start to do anything about it!

Apple phones do not run Android

In what way do you mean that Google was the worst offender?

Those two major bits of false information make other surrounding statements lose credibility. In fact the entire last paragraph seems to have no basis in factual reality. Google has been spearheading the charge for better user understanding and control over their own privacy and security for years. They're the only Android OEM that doesn't give itself permission to share or sell user data and they're the only oem to give users control over what days is collected and how it is used.

 

[GSDer]

"regular" probably doesn't mean "monthly"

"soon" probably doesn't mean "any time in the foreseeable future"

 

[anon(7901790)]

Samsung already provides updao, at least on their flagships, that exceed the Enterprise requirements.

That is true. But, Samsung has several device product lines. It doesn't provide regular updates to all of them. Samsung only provides regular updates to just a few of them.

An OEM agreement could make Samsung provide updates for all of its Android devices. That world cost a lot of money.

 

[L_Wolf_78]

https://plus.google.com/+alternativeto/posts/EoKH4AvrmKP?_utm_source=1-2-2
Came upon this article in regards to this. This article alone say's that Google has made a change to the contract. Fine. That is good news!
Yet if there is a public deadline it seems that those security patches are moved in a more timely manner. If there is an unwritten rule of how long until this is law, then whoever is responsible at Google for media relations should be look at how to assure us it is legitimate now

 

[I Can Be Your Hero]

An OEM agreement could make Samsung provide updates for all of its Android devices. That world cost a lot of money.

You're absolutely right, it would cost an OEM a lot of money to provide security updates for all their phones. Also, what is Google going to do if an OEM doesn't follow through?

Say Google tell their partners to update their phones every month with security patches and say for example Samsung doesn't - what is Google going to do? Android is free and open source, they can't force Samsung to do it, they can't punish Samsung in any way for not updating security patches.

And what is 'regular' anyway? Monthly? Quarterly? Annually? Is there an actual time frame on regular?

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

The current requirement for enterprises recommended is quarterly. I can't think of any reason they'd ask for more often than that.

 

[Mike Dee]

The current requirement for enterprises recommended is quarterly. I can't think of any reason they'd ask for more often than that.

Agreed.....and that seems like a fair target to make.

 

[anon(10000748)]

Quite frankly I'd rather hop on board with an OEM that actually supports phones longer than a year. I personally think that dealing with Samsung customer service is one of the ways they used to torture people at Guantanamo. It's really the biggest reason why I made the jump to iOS and it's why I changed my work phone from ios to the pixel. I love to see the phone manufacturers updating the phones to the latest os and security patches. I don't understand how anyone can say well it cost the company money? It's like if a car dealer only worked on cars that were under three years old and just said sorry you're sol need to buy a new one if it was older than that.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Quite frankly I'd rather hop on board with an OEM that actually supports phones longer than a year. I personally think that dealing with Samsung customer service is one of the ways they used to torture people at Guantanamo. It's really the biggest reason why I made the jump to iOS and it's why I changed my work phone from ios to the pixel. I love to see the phone manufacturers updating the phones to the latest os and security patches. I don't understand how anyone can say well it cost the company money? It's like if a car dealer only worked on cars that were under three years old and just said sorry you're sol need to buy a new one if it was older than that.

For the most part car manufacturers do stop software production on their Entertainment Systems which would be the only comparable feature almost immediately after releasing it to the vehicle. They will still put out patches for bug fixes but that's the most that anyone should expect.

And it does cost the manufacturer is money and a lot of it. So then there's the issue of opportunity cost.

Say that the profit from selling you a phone is $100. Set all of the sunk costs in research and development and advertising up to that point Parts materials labor Etc are all taken care of and they now have $100 in pocket. The company decides that they are going to invest $80 out of the $100 into themselves. How much of that $80 do you want them to spend on paying software developers to update old phones and how much of that $80 do you want them to spend software developers to develop new features for the next phone and how much of that $80 do you want to go into research and development on future devices?

Now look at it from their perspective. Exact same numbers as before but every dollar that they invest in research and development or in future software development Etc has the potential to increase their revenue on the next line up. With the exception of the very weak argument for brand retention, every dollar they spend on updating existing devices is essentially lost. The argument for brand retention is called weak because in the mobile industry brand retention is as close to perfect as makes All Odds and almost none of that retention can be attributed to software support.

If consumers by large cared about software support then no one would be buying any devices except for iPhones and pixels. Consumers do not care about that as a whole and therefore Samsung is the number one OEM in the world. Samsung is the number one maker of the devices that people want to buy and the number one company out of all of them in terms of repeat buyers.

I can promise you one thing regarding updates. As soon as the market gets together and demands updates in any sort of a meaningful way that's going to stick that position into terms of dollars and cents for the oems, Samsung will lead the charge into making sure that security updates are rolling out monthly and OS updates are happening for 2 to 3 years after the release of the device. Samsung is really bad at writing software but they're really smart at determining what consumers want in phones and marketing their phones to those consumers.

 

[neo158]

It's about time Google did something about the sorry state of Android security patches, as an example my Nokia 8 is on the April security updates but my mums Nokia 3 is still on the March updates and still hasn't received Oreo yet. The way they could enforce this, not sure if this would be an anti-trust issue, would be to say to OEMs that if they don't adhere to providing regular security updates then Google removes the rights to use Google apps on their phones.