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I got this email from o2 asia.So may be we don't have a chance to up wm2003 with final release from o2,how about qtek does anybody know about it?
O2's position on Pocket PC 2003
O2 Asia will not be deploying the Pocket PC 2003 upgrade. The Pocket PC 2003 upgrade is subject to the original design of the hardware and the level of integration of the device, particularly between the phone and pda functions. The O2 xda was not designed to support Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and therefore could not take advantage of some of the most important feature upgrades inherent in Pocket PC 2003. After careful evaluation of the costs and benefits and the relatively low impact on the user experience of the current xda version, we have decided not to deploy this upgrade. We are however pleased to announce that we will be introducing significant new features with another upgrade which will include the wireless modem, SIM Toolkit support and the SMS caller ID fix.
Can't be... I hope....
the part about Bluetooth and WiFi is bull****, look at the low-end ipaqs...
They don't wanna tell us, that all WM2003 devices will need to have WiFi and Bluetooth, do they?
If "The Pocket PC 2003 upgrade is subject to the original design of the hardware" how come I and many others are happly running it on our little old xda's :!: Hmmm, maybe they are trying to say it will only be available on xda 2, it would be cheaper for them in the long run.
Its a Bad News
All,
I got the problem after i upgrade PPC 2003, may be my mistake I erase the bootloader. This week i went to KL and I go to XDA helpdesk in Malaysia but i get disapointed with them... they didnt do anything with my Device they can't install the bootloader software. and about this news it's sucks :twisted: i feel like change to another device because the donn't have good support after sales service.
Oh no,
I sure hope O2 releases a version in europe!
bigies said:
We are however pleased to announce that we will be introducing significant new features with another upgrade which will include the wireless modem, SIM Toolkit support and the SMS caller ID fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I may be missing something here - but basically are they saying they are going to provide a small 2002 update, almost a year late, that will provide functions that should have been in the orignal ROM. Functions that many people have already installed because of the generosity and skills of the many enthusiasts here that write killer free aps!!
If it is true
Maybe O2 try to concentre on the XDA- 2( Big competitor SS i700)
Infact only more than 4 months new XDA should be introduced in the market
No time for old XDA- more than enough- 64 000 devices saled in total from May 2002
That why do not wait something special in the next upgrade maybe the Special Developers- ROM 1.2 the best one
This is trading plan, new products- new price-new features -hopefully future- more customers -more profit
It is meaning, we have to change new device for speed, D.Camera, bluetooth, WIFI and WM2003 ??? in the end of this year
Any ideas?
If it is true
Maybe O2 try to concentre on the XDA- 2( Big competitor SS i700)
Infact only more than 4 months new XDA should be introduced in the market
No time for old XDA- more than enough- 64 000 devices saled in total from May 2002
That why do not wait something special in the next upgrade maybe the Special Developers- ROM 1.2 the best one
This is trading plan, new products- new price-new features -hopefully future- more customers -more profit
It is meaning, we have to change new device for speed, D.Camera, bluetooth, WIFI and WM2003 ??? in the end of this year
Any ideas?
Jayman said:
bigies said:
We are however pleased to announce that we will be introducing significant new features with another upgrade which will include the wireless modem, SIM Toolkit support and the SMS caller ID fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I may be missing something here - but basically are they saying they are going to provide a small 2002 update, almost a year late, that will provide functions that should have been in the orignal ROM. Functions that many people have already installed because of the generosity and skills of the many enthusiasts here that write killer free aps!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not that, because the latest software upgrade to 3.17 and rsu to 4.21 is in fact meant for the UK model. What they're saying is that they'll be releasing the Asian model's upgrades soon. With Asian Carriers Auto-config. Thats my take on it. In the mean time, I did my upgrade last night to WM2003, pretty happy except for a few minor details...
With E-TEN M500 getting all the goodies, from Voice Command via BT Headset, good technical support, and now Windows Mobile 5.0, I think it's time that we get some serious damage control from i-mate.
Please take as much as 30 seconds out of your life to copy and paste the following letter and send to [email protected]:
Hello, Mr. Morrison,
I am writing to you in reference to the recent press release on Windows Mobile™ 5.0 from Microsoft®, and your position to support it on existing devices such as the i-mate™ JAM and the PDA2k.
As I am aware of now, there are conflicting reports from your technical support groups to your public interviews as to whether or not current i-mate™ owners will be able to upgrade their i-mate™ devices to Windows Mobile™ 5.0. As a relatively new i-mate™ customer, yet a rather trusted, public individual on various websites, forums, and support groups, I am hoping that I can get a firm answer from you or another trusted, definitive, and reliable source at i-mate™.
Since the announcement of Windows Mobile™ 5.0, manufacturers and companies have stepped up to announce that their existing Windows Mobile™-powered devices will be provided with a firmware upgrade, either paid or free, and within a reasonable amount of time. Most recently, E-TEN Corporation, whose M500 Windows Mobile™ Phone Edition device is in direct competition with the i-mate™ JAM, have firmly announced that they will have a Windows Mobile™ 5.0 upgrade solution in the near future.
Your continued support with your existing product line is just as important as your innovation and development of new devices, such as the yet-publicly-unnamed HTC Universal model. From a technical standpoint, the i-mate™ JAM and PDA2k are fully capable of satisfying the minimum requirements of Windows Mobile™ 5.0. I am also sure you are aware of the unofficial development of Windows Mobile™ 5.0 installed on an older-generation HTC Himalaya model with much success, which further proves that the JAM and PDA2k are more than likely candidates to accept such an upgrade.
I implore you to consider your current customer base in providing Windows Mobile™ 5.0 upgrade support for the JAM and PDA2k, and hope that you can reply with a firm response as soon as possible, as they both will surely reflect on your stance regarding customer service and support, with which many existing and potential consumers will definitely take into account when purchasing their next mobile device.
Thank you for your time and cooperation in this matter, and I hope to hear from you very soon.
Sincerely,
Your Name Here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good luck to us all.
Done
done
Done
Good idea would be to post this message to other forums as well
If you get something back, put it in here
done
done
dn
great idea... done ofcourse.
edit: could somebody inform ppcw.net / msmobiles.com and all other news sites about this community movement so we will get even more users to join us
done....
:wink:
BTW... I think it would be a good idea to ask i-mate for widcomm bluetooth stack.. instead of the crappy M$ one....
done! :twisted: :evil:
I worte to him 2 weeks ago and this is the letter I got back pertaining to the crappy customer service and hopeless ROM updates that tend solve some problems only to create more.
______________________________________________________
Dear Mr McClure,
Thank you for taking the time to write to us. I apologise that your experience hasn't been first rate.
Certain areas of our products do develop over time and we feel it important that new features an improvements are given to our customers as soon as they are available. Windows Media 10 became available firstly on the i-mate JAM, and we are now rolling this functionality onto our other device platforms. Similarly with video MMS capability on the JAM, improvements in camera software and post processing. New Bluetooth devices continue to enter into the market and occasionally we need to provide patches to ensure correct operation with our devices. We also receive service releases from Microsoft which we endeavour to release to our customers. We do try to stagger releases so that customers are not overloaded with patches and updates. Some critical updates we do release as patches, but we prefer to roll them up into single updates. We do perform stringent quality assurance on new builds to ensure we don't introduce new issues. This is far from our intention.
Best regards,
John Williamson
VP Technology
i-mate™
Office No. 207-213
Building 11
PO Box 500085
Dubai Internet City
Dubai, UAE
Tel: 00 971 (0) 4 390 1989
DDI: 00 971 (0) 4 367 8501
Fax: 00 971 (0) 4 390 4428
Mob: 00 971 (0) 50 550 8879
The camera still sucks.
johnannie said:
I worte to him 2 weeks ago and this is the letter I got back pertaining to the crappy customer service and hopeless ROM updates that tend solve some problems only to create more.
______________________________________________________
<snipped>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DONE!
Done
Shouldn't you address HTC? I don't think that I-Mate (or other third brands) have anything to do with the software implementation.
Besides that, I don't know why everyone wants Mobile 5. What do you know exactly about it that is so interesting for the Magician?
done.. i hope they read it though!!!!
Dandie said:
Shouldn't you address HTC? I don't think that I-Mate (or other third brands) have anything to do with the software implementation.
Besides that, I don't know why everyone wants Mobile 5. What do you know exactly about it that is so interesting for the Magician?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would think htc will only do it if imate, qtek, o2, orange, t-mob etc. etc. pay them to develop and 2k5 rom for upgrade.
Why would we want it? Well persistant memory alone would be enougth for me. Seriously, we will all be looking back in a few years and saying "remember when we had PPC's and the battery run out and wiped the memory. What the f*** was that all about??!"
done
I think it's about time we start putting pressure on HTC for a WM5.0 upgrade!!
With WM5.0 devices in JAM's form factor emerging on the market soon (eg ETEN M600) would you consider trading your JAM? The same applies for existing devices with a definite upgrade path to WM5.0 (e.g. ETEN M500).
Let's get a huge vote and send the link to HTC & other relevant parties!
That's entirely useless, mate. Their interest is to sell new devices and not to extend the lives of older ones. You may as well write to Microsoft and Intel and request Longhorn to run on Pentium I :lol:
Their interest is also not to lose customers to their competitors. We can see it happening right here in this forum. And what about new customers? Would they go for the JAM with no WM5 upgrade or for the ETEN M500 with a promised WM5 upgrade?
The Longhorn on Pentium1 comparison doesn't hold. WM5.0 CAN RUN on the Magician ... Longhorn on Pentium 1 cannot.
You place too much value on customer retention. The common perception in these small tech companies is that the cost of customer retention outweighs the benefits. So they probably don't care too much if you buy your next wm device elsewhere.
BTW, your poll is telling them that if they produce a new device with WM5, you'd happily upgrade to it which is exactly what they want. That gives them even more reason to not make WM5 available on current devices.
when you bought your JAM was there a note saying that it will have a WM5 upgrade when its released? NO? well dont complain.
When you buy a phone you need to buy a new one to get the new OS, why should it be different in the ppc pe world?
Would you prefer companies to spend time trying to offer you a MAJOR upgrade for an older device rather than working on innovative new devices?? I dont know about you but i prefer the second.
parisp said:
When you buy a phone you need to buy a new one to get the new OS, why should it be different in the ppc pe world?
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Click to collapse
Because PPC by comparison to a mobile phone is an open and extensible platform. And because it CAN be done. WM5 works on the JAM so it is really nothing more than a matter of releasing it.
Hi all,
I'm a lycky one that have a Qtek 2020.
I'm using WM5.... so I don't give a **** if MS only support new devices or even, only the new devices came with MW5.
When we bought a PC we can choose what OS we use, but in PDA this is not true, but I think in future we'll be able to choose.
Bye
The fact that E-TEN are releasing a WM5.0 upgrade for the current M500 model has already made some people sell their Magician for an E-TEN. They might like the E-TEN service and so on and never come back to HTC. Their next device will probably be another E-TEN of course!
It's very hard to get a customer, not so much to lose it.
And if I wanted a normal mobile phone I would have bought a mobile phone. I bought a Pocket PC phone with an open platform where most of the software written for it is updated on a regular basis.
I think in the scale of things most people upgrade for the device not the operating system, we all have to remember that this operating system is made by Microsoft so I personally have no great need for an upgrade to an operating system that will probably give me problems daily. On the other hand I love anything new or different so yes I to want that upgrade. If HTC gives us the upgrade do you really think it is going to stop us upgrading to a new device...... NO..... If we like it, then we need it, wether we can afford it is errelivant, we must have it at all costs.
Nokia offers software upgrades for free to there high end phones and I think it is HTC's responsabilty to those people like myself that have just bought a new PPC phone to release an upgrade, release it to all current model phones.
Hi!
I want to upgrade my Blue angel to WM6 but i wonder is it Leagal to do that?
thx for the help
Nope officially its illegal
thats bad
why?
it is outside the terms and conditions of our BA...
and of course...
*** drumroll ***
Micr0$oft's Legal Hold on the WM OS Softwares.
lol...is anything on the internet LEGAL nowadays?
SilverSamurai said:
it is outside the terms and conditions of our BA...
and of course...
*** drumroll ***
Micr0$oft's Legal Hold on the WM OS Softwares.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i guess :/ but cant i just buy the rights to use it,.... no i guess not..
BU!
thx for the answare thougt
It depends on your view of the law. Microsoft may be breaking the law by using anti-competitive tactics to force people to throw out old devices (and buy new ones... just to get the new software). If you believe that, then the EULA is illegal to begin with.
Further, unlike with desktop versions of Windows, the agreement to the EULA is never expressly made. You never click I Agree to an EULA during the initial startup. There are several scenarios where a user never would need to enter into agreement with the EULA, making it non-existent to the consumer in the first place.
Each of the arguments has legal holes in them, but so does Microsoft's... I doubt the courts will ever hash it out before Microsoft is forced to wise up and keep a steady stream of software updates until the hardware is truly obsoleted.
I would say this:
1) It is illegal to install a firmware update for WinCE devices, unless they are provided from the device manufacturer. The reason is that the manufacturer has to pay for this update (or have an agreement with Microsoft).
2) The end-user cannot purchase the firmware directly from Microsoft. One of the invoked reasons being that the firmware needs drivers and adaptation to the device. This is done by the manufacturer.
3) Often, Microsoft actually provides the update free of charge to the manufacturer, but he does not pass it on to the end-user, because he does not want to spend money and resources in adapting the firmware for the device - he prefers to sell new devices.
4) This means that often the fault is NOT with Microsoft but with the manufacturer! In this case, HTC.
5) Regarding the unofficial firmware updates, an intersting situation arises:
a) Microsoft does not really care, if you install the unofficial, newer, firmware, as it was available for the manufacturer anyway.
b) The manufacturer does not really care, as he is not interested in the already sold devices. If you break it due to upgrading with unofficial firmware - even better: you just lost warranty.
The proof is that this site still exists...
6) Conclusion:
a) Nothing legal will happen to you, if you install an unofficial firmware.
b) You will void warranty.
c) You should not sell or advertise your device with an unoffical firmware. Downgrade it to an official firmware before doing so.
d) Read all documentations before starting an upgrade - you will be on your own, if things go wrong (it is easy, once you know what to do).
Cheers,
vma
Hi XDA-Samsung Users,
I've been a member of XDA since Jan last year. I went from owning a Nexus One to a Samsung Galaxy S i9000. The reason for the change was for the better specs and superior hardware of the Samsung Galaxy.
The phone is an incredible piece of machinery, but is severely hampered by the modifications that Samsung makes to the Android OS. I admit that the codec support within TouchWiz is impressive, but too much of the core framework of the phone is inefficient and sluggish.
Even using the latest release of unofficial firmware Samsung, Android 2.2.1 (JPY), there is still the occasional hang and the missing RAM (which is there somewhere, but not for user applications).
Samsung is mostly to blame, but there is also a quality control element that Google should be responsible for.
I have prepared an open letter that I sent to Android via Google Press and then forwarded on to Samsung for their reference. This were all through publicly available channels so will have to filter through customer service centers and the like.
I'm not expecting much, Google appears to use Amazon's customer service approach, "No customer service is good customer service".
But would like to post it here to hopefully get it out into the wilderness.
I tweeted it here http://twitter.com/#!/ibproud/status/27528781828722688
and would appreciate if you agreed with the content to retweet it. Hopefully it should give it a bit more weight.
It would be interesting to get the communities feedback on how mature they believe Android is.
Do they need to keep trying to make everyone happy or can they start to use the weight of their OS to get manufacturers to align the user experience?
Dear Android Team,
I am writing this letter to air my frustrations and to hopefully get some peace of mind that your strategy for Android will resolve some of the main issues plaguing the platform.
I have now been with Android for over 12 months. I used to be an iPhone user, but couldn’t stand the walled garden that Apple put me in. I couldn’t download directly to the phone, replace the messaging app or sync wirelessly. I went to Android because I wanted the freedom to use my phone more as a desktop replacement than as a phone/mp3 player.
When I joined the Android family (January 2010), I started with the Google Nexus One. I was so keen to get into the Android community I didn’t even wait for it to be on sale in Australia to get it, thus I hit eBay and bought it outright.
I was very pleased with the platform but could still see a few rough edges around the Operating System. It had the usability I was looking for but was lacking the polish I had grown use to with Apple. There was good news on the horizon with an Éclair update that would give the already beautiful phone a nudge in the right direction. As I was in Australia and the phone wasn’t here yet, I had to push the update through myself, after seeing how easy this was and getting the feeling of being a little phone hacker, I was hooked, I started preaching Android to the masses. Australia is still building momentum for the platform and it’s taking some time. Most of the major carriers stock between 4-6 Android devices, most of which are low end or outdated in the overseas markets.
I follow all the key players in the industry through Twitter and have a majority of Google News trackers picking up articles with android related words. I have also now converted my Wife to Android (HTC Desire Z, also not available in Aus) and I picked up the Samsung Galaxy S and gave my sister the Nexus One. The problem I face now is that I’ve run out of money and can’t go out and buy a new Android phone just to be up to date with the latest Android OS (Gingerbread), this would also be the case for most consumers. The Nexus S is so similar to my current hardware that I must be able to leverage the extra performance from the update.
But alas, we reach the major problem with the platform. Fragmentation. I’m not referring to the Fragmentation of the various app stores and apps available based on different OS versions but more to the Fragmentation of the OS based on the custom skins and manufacturer update cycles. The open platform that is closed at 2 levels, Manufactures and Carriers. I will continue to buy my phones outright as it gives me the freedom and flexibility to upgrade my plans as better ones become available. This always guarantees that I’m free from the bloatware that is preloaded on most Carrier bought phones and free from 1 of the barriers to the true AOSP experience. The next barrier is one that is running rampant in the interwebs rumour mill at the moment and that’s manufacturer updates and in my case I refer to Samsung.
Samsung Galaxy S phones come loaded with Android 2.1, most of them internationally are running Android 2.2 and just recently as select group of the devices is getting Android 2.2.1. This is now a month after Android 2.3 was released. For Samsung I would consider this largely negligent, considering they had the opportunity to work with Google to build a Google Experience Phone (Nexus S). The specs of this phone are so similar to the Galaxy range that a port shouldn’t be too difficult. I understand that there are a lot of constraints and dependencies in the development cycle that could cause delays as well as manufacturers agendas (mostly in unit sales). It is great that Samsung have sold so many devices globally but at a cost of the user experience as well as potential damages to long term retention.
I understand the Open nature of Android and the push to encourage manufacturers to put there own spin on the platform, but Android is getting bigger and more mature, it doesn’t need to be High school girl bending to the whims and peer pressure from the carriers and manufacturers.
There are a team of Devs in Germany who are working to port CyanogenMod 7 (Gingerbread) to Galaxy S i9000, but these guys have now spent over four months just trying to get through Samsungs drivers. The team didn’t start just to customise the phone but to actually make the phone work properly, I of course refer to the RFS lag issue and Samsungs modification to the framework that slowed it down. The goal of the team is to maximise the potential of the hardware and operating system.
It would be great to see some muscle from Google thrown into the mix, there doesn’t need to be requirements dictated, but maybe ethics encouraged.
There seems to be a few options here:
- Encourage device manufacturers to share their drivers, if it is too sensitive to share at least work with the community to help them do it themselves.
- Start to break down the way the platform is customised so that way the manufactures (Samsung/HTC/Motorola) skin the platform can sit a layer above the core code, thus be a quick implementation/customisation to get their skins working.
- Get each manufacturer to offer the AOSP experience to advanced users. This can be done through an agreement between the user and manufacture that states this will void the warranty and have its own terms and conditions.
- This last one is a long stretch, but how about taking all the manufacturers drivers into a repository, the way Windows do updates. When a new Android version is developed the drivers can be updated or incorporated and be packaged out through the Android SDK.
I may be completely off the mark. I’m not a developer and couldn’t pretend to know what effort is involved at any stage of the process, from building Android to rolling it out into the latest and greatest phone. The one thing I am though is an End User, a person that wants my phone to do more, to get close to being a desktop replacement.
Maybe I’m also being a bit idealistic.
I hope the Android platform continues to flourish and for it to become the Windows of the mobile era.
Sincerely,
Irwin Proud
E: [email protected]
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Click to collapse
It's really an excellent summary. Consider there're even more black sheeps out there. For example Sony Ericcson which ones recently made a statement like Android is their favourite Smartphone OS and left Symbian in Nokias hands.
But we found also the good ones like HTC, which every Manufacturer should have HTC as its Paragon concerning Android Software Development.
Great write-up; I agree 100%
I agree with your post fully, and concur that the Windows Phone 7 model for OS updates is more efficient, and strikes a happy medium between iOS and Android's approach to upgrades. However it is also more restrictive in terms of handset hardware limitations
I suppose the idea is that customers should vote with their wallets and buy from companies with good software and firmware support. The problem with that is a majority of phone users (android or otherwise) are technically savvy enough to take such support into consideration when looking at the latest and greatest fancy phone in a store. We could all buy the Nexus One or Nexus S only, but this too is restrictive to the customer as other phones offer more/different features
my 2 cents worth:
I agree on your points - but I'd skip the first few paragraphs if I were the one who write the letter. Other than that, thank you for making the effort.
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
What Google should do?
Toss3 said:
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please allow me to politely disagree. Google can do a lot about this and they have done this also. When I say they have done this - I am talking about not having Market application on Android OSes which come on non-phone hardware.
Google should put similar restrictions for loosley coupled skins, upgradable drivers. I had been giving this a lot of thought lately. I will sum up my thoughts with above letter as above:-
i) Device manufacturer skinning - Google should mandate that it should be just another APK within AOSP and users should be given a choice to turn it off.
ii) Device Drivers - Google should mandate there should be a better way of installing device drivers - similar to what we have in MS Windows (MS Windows is an excellent model of how hardware device should be handled - this lead to the exponential growth Windows is enjoying now).
iii) Android OS Update - If Google can achieve the above two, then the choice to upgrade the OS should be at user discretion. Of course, Google should mandate that there is OTA availble as an option. And obviously this OTA would be served by Google, not by device manufacturers. This would also free up time, effort and cash spent by device manufacturers in upgrading the OS.
So this is in the best of interest of everybody.
These restrictions if put in place, would free us all from this phenomena of running outdated OS.
Not sure what ti say on this one. It's true that Samsung has failed on some levels, however I must say that this is the first phone that has allowed me to get to know so much about the internals of the Android OS.
Modifying kernels, ROM's, reading about different file-systems etc... it's not a thing for the common user but I expect the people on this forum to be interested in such things.
Ok, if Samsung had done it right, we may have discussed these things anyway but it would've drawn less attention as people would not be looking for solutions to their problems.
But of course we have to strive to quality for everyone and this letter may just open some people's eyes at both Google and Samsung.
Thank you so far for the feedback.
poundesville said:
my 2 cents worth:
I agree on your points - but I'd skip the first few paragraphs if I were the one who write the letter. Other than that, thank you for making the effort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Remember most members of XDA would be a cut above the average user. The reason this letter was written the way it was, was to demonstrate that I am a typical end user. Although I would consider myself leaning slightly to the more advanced side I wrote the letter based on a very general experience of the platform, an experience a lot of consumers would go through.
Toss3 said:
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What am I trying to achieve with this letter?
I really don’t know, but it helps to just get the thoughts out there.
With approximately 300,000 activations daily, I don’t think Android sees the true reflection of how their platform is received.
When the Galaxy range of phones was released in the US, they would have been seen as the closest thing to an iPhone that non-AT&T customers could get. So sales and activations shouldn’t be seen as the indicator of clever consumers or consumers wanting an open platform, but of consumers who wanted an iPhone but for the various reasons didn’t want to go with AT&T.
Remember: The international Samsung Galaxy is the only Android phone I know of that looks more like an iPhone than any other phone.
What I would really like to see is, that annually google will release a major version of Android. So V1, V2, V3, etc…. the mobile manufacturers commit to any minor or incremental updates per major version. So if Google says they are releasing Android 2.4 then they are saying to the manufacturer that this version will also work on any phone that currently supports v2.1 to v2.3.
As more and more people move to smartphones and tablets, more and more will we see hackers, spammers, botnets and so on attempt to access our devices. If we can’t have the latest updates that close any open holes then our phones become a huge liability.
Pierreken said:
Not sure what ti say on this one. It's true that Samsung has failed on some levels, however I must say that this is the first phone that has allowed me to get to know so much about the internals of the Android OS.
Modifying kernels, ROM's, reading about different file-systems etc... it's not a thing for the common user but I expect the people on this forum to be interested in such things.
Ok, if Samsung had done it right, we may have discussed these things anyway but it would've drawn less attention as people would not be looking for solutions to their problems.
But of course we have to strive to quality for everyone and this letter may just open some people's eyes at both Google and Samsung.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really sure if Samsung has failed as such, but have put too much focus on unit sales rather than quality control and great user experience. They started releasing different iterations and modifications to the same phone without considering that each minor tweak to the hardware would mean more resources to develop updates and maintain each device.
I also agree that without Samsung I would know very little about linux filesystems, kernel and custom roms, but shouldn't all of these be more to push the phone above it's limits and not to just get it working properly?
There's nothing wrong with knowing the advanced stuff, however it shouldn't be a necessity.
The problem ironically is that Android is open source. I agree wit the letter above, but I can;t see how you can stop manufacturers doing what they want.
Also the Drivers being proprietary isn't going to change and device manufacturers aren't going to suddenly start releasing their closed driver sources.
Agreed Google should stand up and restrict the Skins to a single APK that can be removed, this would stop all the associated problems with HTC and Samsung skinning too deep in to the OS that it becomes impossible to remove it. The problem with that is, then any manufacturers APK will be installable on any phone. Which is something we know they don't want.
We already know Androids biggest downfall and so does Google. Fragmentation.
I believe once Google has the strong position they want and users demand Android when they buy a new phone, they will start to put their foot down and try to enforce standardisation across Manufacturers, but until they get to what they feel is that point, we're stuck.
Anyway much luck with the letter, I hope someone who matters get's to see it.
Logicalstep