Why can't we all have ICS?

[jaguar10301]

Samsung bought first rights in ICS before Google purchased Motorola. Google can not legally release ICS until that contract runs out which is hopefully soon. That being said they should at least have all other devices updated to honeycomb.

WTH are you talking about, no one has first rights to ICS, it was open sourced in November... Google CHOSE Samsung to make the Nexus phone, which is Google's line of stock phones.

 

[jaguar10301]

Actually its not. I was told that by 3 different reps from two different Verizon stores. Samsung is the only manufacturer that can get the official update OTA. The coding might be released for other phones but Samsung is the only one that officially has it.

Reps at stores are hourly employees like at McDonalds, they don't know crap. I read and listen to many industry journalists and this has never been stated and goes completely against what open source is, Android is open source software.... Just stop.

 

[bnceo]

Ah. The age old question.

Carrier INSIST on having control on the updates and the HW companies refuse to fight for it. Apple has the power and the muscle to insist on doing this themselves.

Also, manufacturers (see Samsung) care more about selling newer and newer models and care less about supporting old devices. They also have a portfolio that is so large that some just fall through the cracks and decisions are made by $$$ people and managers.

 

[FLEJ]

Personally, after getting ICS yesterday, I wouldn't be in a big hurry to get it installed. It's buggy, has many new defaults that mysteriously eliminate connections and sever operations, and hasn't yet got me liking it in any way. We are basically suffering under a "Microsoft" style OS release, with us as the Beta testers.
Maybe eventually, but since yesterday I have been unhappy with the whole process, and the product.

 

[gabbott]

One issue is, that unless you have a nexus phone that runs stock Android, it's up to the OEMs for Android upgrades since Sense, Blur, Touchwiz, etc. are not stock Android. The OEM has taken Android as a source and made their own builds, it's more than just a "skin" they put onto Android. So it really is more up to the OEM/carrier when it comes to updates on most Android phones.

 

[GMJeff]

Personally, after getting ICS yesterday, I wouldn't be in a big hurry to get it installed. It's buggy, has many new defaults that mysteriously eliminate connections and sever operations, and hasn't yet got me liking it in any way. We are basically suffering under a "Microsoft" style OS release, with us as the Beta testers.
Maybe eventually, but since yesterday I have been unhappy with the whole process, and the product.

I have installed two different versions of custom ICS roms on my Galaxy Note as well as a carrier update to my Galaxy SII (at&t) and picked up my Galaxy SIII on Thursday that I have been using since then.

I have yet to see that it is "buggy" software, and I have yet to feel like a "beta tester" for the software. The battery life on the devices was excellent compared to Gingerbread, which was not bad in my opinion. As for regular usage, I have nothing but good things to say about that, also. No dropped calls, my wifi and cellular connections are always up and running. So, I can only guess that could be apps that aren't designed/coded to run on ICS, or just a bad app(s) in general. Could also be hardware drivers from the OEM or carrier as well.

Another thing, don't knock Microsoft's OS, I have a Windows Phone also and it is a competent OS. It does everything that Android, iOS and Blackberry can do, and does it well. If so many people weren't biased against Microsoft, they would have a bigger market share in my opinion. Frankly the Metro interface is somewhat perfect for a phone device. I have only had one app that locked up the device that I had to pull the battery for, due to a systemwide lockup, probably a memory leak in the new app. It was updated a few days later, so the programmer knew about it and released a patch accordingly.

 

[AndroidOne]

The only fair comparison to Apple and the iPhone is the GSM Nexus. Most other phones sport an OEM custom ROM not Android. AFAIK, it was stated on IO12 that the current Nexus line (Galaxy and S) will be getting JB this month directly from Google.

The CDMA Nexus variety is not fully controlled by Google do to proprietary network files - some of that was recently resolved for the Nexus S on Sprint, so will see how that works for the JB update on that phone.