Database Develop

HTC pushes back Android Eclair update again [link]? Also questions on ROMs! TIA!

http://www.androidspin.com/2010/03/12/android-2-1-for-htc-hero-now-due-in-april/
i'm a n00b to the Android scene and my question is: does this affect the ability to update cooked ROMs here or do people here just work off 2.1 from a different phone... and does that create more hurdles than if the ROM were 'made for Hero' i.e. any unique handset dependencies, etc?
I'm in this dichotomy stage right now where I've read upteen hundred interviews, reviews, posts, comparisons, etc. of HTC Hero and Samsung Moment, and still can't decide, but am leaning to the Hero because of the excellent development that goes on here and because of Sense, even though I'm really yearning for that snappier processor, AMOLED screen, etc., I can't justify it if development is lukewarm compared to here and it seems updated ROMs for Moment are sketchy at best, in terms of getting full functionality out of the handset.
What I don't get is this... you folks here (devs, enthusiasts, etc), are constantly building new roms, but are they derivative of cupcake, or eclair? More so, despite whatever Sprint and HTC do or don't do (as it seems HTC is more concerned w/ the rollout of Desire), can I still get my 2.1 Eclair fix here, albeit original Sense, and is it mostly bug free/usable as a day phone w/o losing any *features* that I would get from a Sprint Stock Cupcake Hero?
I have a half mind to wait for a Sprint Snapdragon but no telling when that will be plus I can get a Hero for $60 now w/ free activation, and a Moment for the missus for $20 more, also no activation. That's a hard deal to beat, imo. But I find it vexing that there might never be an official Eclair update for the Hero, more so the Moment if it's incumbent upon Samsung to deliver as they have a track record of abandoning phones upon delivery.
Thanks in advance a million times for your response!
I have to act quick if I'm to get this deal, but these decisions are killing me.

if you can wait, wait for the supersonic.
otherwise it is really a matter of preference. my brother has the moment. he loves it because of the keyboard. otherwise the processor may be snappier but i can't tell a difference...
he doesn't run any roms, nothing worthwhile out there. And I am running 2.1 already thanks to our great devs.

For me it's really a matter of cost and time. I really need new phones and the time it takes to get a healthy discount on a 2 yr contract could be months from now.
The Processor in the Moment would come in most handy (I would think) in future Android updates; flash if it hits; and certain apps, etc.
But if there's not pushed updates to Moment, then it's totally dependent on the community and i don't think it's as strong as here, or rather it's in a much earlier stage...
I see there are two forums but upon initial investigation, I don't see these ROMS viable as day phones, more for testing and development
http://www.samsungmomentforum.com/rooting/?PHPSESSID=8c9ead9a3ee984137fea7bf4b21ad46d
sdx-developers.com
In any case, I don't want to deviate too far into Moment in a predominantly HTC board, which brings me back to my initial questions regarding how update cycle/process works here. Wondering what base platform devs work from, and if anyone cares about the potential 'official' 2.1 update and whether or not that changes a thing here.
Thanks in advance.

maybe this will help....
Here

hakujin said:
http://www.androidspin.com/2010/03/12/android-2-1-for-htc-hero-now-due-in-april/
i'm a n00b to the Android scene and my question is: does this affect the ability to update cooked ROMs here or do people here just work off 2.1 from a different phone... and does that create more hurdles than if the ROM were 'made for Hero' i.e. any unique handset dependencies, etc?
I'm in this dichotomy stage right now where I've read upteen hundred interviews, reviews, posts, comparisons, etc. of HTC Hero and Samsung Moment, and still can't decide, but am leaning to the Hero because of the excellent development that goes on here and because of Sense, even though I'm really yearning for that snappier processor, AMOLED screen, etc., I can't justify it if development is lukewarm compared to here and it seems updated ROMs for Moment are sketchy at best, in terms of getting full functionality out of the handset.
What I don't get is this... you folks here (devs, enthusiasts, etc), are constantly building new roms, but are they derivative of cupcake, or eclair? More so, despite whatever Sprint and HTC do or don't do (as it seems HTC is more concerned w/ the rollout of Desire), can I still get my 2.1 Eclair fix here, albeit original Sense, and is it mostly bug free/usable as a day phone w/o losing any *features* that I would get from a Sprint Stock Cupcake Hero?
I have a half mind to wait for a Sprint Snapdragon but no telling when that will be plus I can get a Hero for $60 now w/ free activation, and a Moment for the missus for $20 more, also no activation. That's a hard deal to beat, imo. But I find it vexing that there might never be an official Eclair update for the Hero, more so the Moment if it's incumbent upon Samsung to deliver as they have a track record of abandoning phones upon delivery.
Thanks in advance a million times for your response!
I have to act quick if I'm to get this deal, but these decisions are killing me.
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Personally I hated the moment, felt like I was carrying an Abrams Tank in my pocket, and its kind of ugly. But the HUGE issue I had with it was battery life. Litterally only got about 5 hours of LIGHT use. and only about 12 hours IN STAND BY! We had two seperate moments with 4 batteries and the ALL did that. Not to mention the OS feels so heavy on it and it is vanilla as possible. Now given they are supposed to release a "Moment2" that has an ASTC TV Tunner built in, but really? Do you want to carry around an antena and watch OTA TV on a 3inch screen? Come on. Ok, So it has an AMOLED screen and the Hero doesn't...bfd the Resolution is the same, you just have more colors...again do I need to bring up the 3" screen? Your not watching High Def movies on this thing.
When typing the moment can't keep up when you use the on screen key board, you really have to use the hardware keyboard even for short texts.
Onto the Hero:
We have fully working 2.1 Roms now, given they are buggy. Most of these guys will have it figured out in a week or so for a fully functional less buggy than Sprints 2.1 ROM. Personally I am still running 1.5 just because I don't see anything that 2.1 brings me that I can't live with out. And Ill be damned if im using a password to get into my exchange email everytime.

Read the article. I saw two issues.
1 - is Sweden CDMA?
2 - the Swedish release doesn't have to impact ours (US).
But then what do I know.
Androidspin said:
A member of Swedroid received a reply from HTC Sweden with another date! They state that the Android 2.1 is expected sometime in April but this release is not set in stone.
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Samsung has great hardware, but they've historically SUCKED at providing firmware upgrades, and are infamous for hacking proprietary, undocumented extensions onto ancient firmware... then refusing to tell anyone how it works. Ask anyone who ever owned one of their Sprint PalmOS phones (SPHi300, SPHi330, SPHi500). The end result (at least with their PalmOS phones) was a phone that couldn't run most new mainstream software (because they were at least a whole version behind), but developers couldn't even write apps that took advantage of the phones' native features because they were all undocumented and incompatible with Palm's own official way of doing it.
Put another way, don't even THINK about buying any Samsung Android phone that's not already rootable and shipping with 2.1, because community-built new releases are the only upgrades they're ever likely to see. The Moment will probably get 2.1 eventually due to pressure from Google, but I really think that will be the Samsung exception rather than its new future policy.

The Cupcake ROMs are very mature and good for essentially bug-free daily use.
The Eclair ROMs are just starting (I mean, the last 2-3 days) to get there. Both of the good ones (Flipz and Danger) are still a bit buggy. Danger appears to be, at the moment, the one farther along (I think Flipz is on vacation) and might just be good enough for daily use. Definitely not quite 100% though, as it's still a Verizon ROM and missing a couple of things like Visual Voicemail.

I came frfom a Moment, let me tell you to each his own. If you prefer a hardware keyboard, and better colors, get the moment.
If you don't mind the virtual keyboard and want to be able to flash 3-4 times a week from development community, get a hero.
The Moment currently ONLY has a cooked kernel to flash that was made by someone who started at samsungmomentforum.com and moved to sdx-developers.com.
With the CL14 kernel update the battery drain issue was solved, after putting on that update I would get a day and a half on my phone with light use, it has vanilla android with no extra interface options, which could be a plus or minus on which way you look at it.
I enjoyed my moment, but was left "wanting more", so I traded it for a TP2, which has a huge development community. The TP2 left me "wanting more" because it couldn't do the things that Android could, so I traded it for a Hero and now I am completely happy.
To each his own, sir..To each his own ;]

tejasrichard said:
Here
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way too be a ****

Sporkman said:
way too be a ****
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Wow. I was going more for pointedly funny than dickish (you'll notice that I took the time to make sure that the results were relevant to his question, as 4 of the top 5 hits are recent 2.1 threads, most -if not all- of which have a description of what is and isn't working in the first post). If I was being dickish I would have just advised him to use the search function as some others are wont to do.
edit: Pardon. 4 of the top 6.

Wait for the Supersonic. Upgrade deals will come and go, that deal doesn't even sound that good to me.... your phone has made it this far, what's a few more months (hopefully... )
You will regret it if you don't once that phone comes out.

tejasrichard said:
Wow. I was going more for pointedly funny than dickish (you'll notice that I took the time to make sure that the results were relevant to his question, as 4 of the top 5 hits are recent 2.1 threads, most -if not all- of which have a description of what is and isn't working in the first post). If I was being dickish I would have just advised him to use the search function as some others are wont to do.
edit: Pardon. 4 of the top 6.
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Made me laugh... And was helpful! (thanks for making my day)
Go for the Hero.. you will love it!

I love the people that say "wait for the supersonic". They have NO idea when it's coming out. The thing could come out in April, or it could come out in December, or it could come out any month in the middle. There's been no statement saying when the thing's coming out, and your guess is as good as mine (mine happens to be late August or September, to catch the Hero crowd wanting to upgrade).
If you like the phone you have now and want something with a snapdragon processor, then you obviously have to wait. I honestly don't see what difference a faster processor is going to make when it comes to the overall use of the phone. The 2.1 ROM's that are out now are so insanely fast that a faster processor would be overkill for the general use. It would certainly help with some of the processor intensive apps/widgets, but for general functions, I really don't think it'd make a huge difference.

tatonka_hero said:
There's been no statement saying when the thing's coming out, and your guess is as good as mine (mine happens to be late August or September, to catch the Hero crowd wanting to upgrade).
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That is my thought also. And frankly, my fervent prayer. I'm due for upgrade in December, and I'm hoping the Supersonic will be fully rooted and kickin' 3G butt by then, lol!

tatonka_hero said:
I love the people that say "wait for the supersonic". They have NO idea when it's coming out. The thing could come out in April, or it could come out in December, or it could come out any month in the middle. There's been no statement saying when the thing's coming out, and your guess is as good as mine (mine happens to be late August or September, to catch the Hero crowd wanting to upgrade).
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Personally, I signed a new contract when I got my Hero's. So I am stuck for another 2 years or what ever the time period is for an upgrade. I will be drooling over a supersonic, but hopefully by the time mine comes around I'll be able to get one of the dual-core 1.5 ghz snapdragon phones. Hell, I may bite the bullet on one when they do drop one on Sprint instead of waiting. I think I'll skip the current phase of 1 ghz devices though.

Kcarpenter said:
Personally, I signed a new contract when I got my Hero's. So I am stuck for another 2 years or what ever the time period is for an upgrade. I will be drooling over a supersonic, but hopefully by the time mine comes around I'll be able to get one of the dual-core 1.5 ghz snapdragon phones. Hell, I may bite the bullet on one when they do drop one on Sprint instead of waiting. I think I'll skip the current phase of 1 ghz devices though.
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you're not a premium customer (premier customer? I can't remember the specific term)? I thought like 90% of Hero owners ended up in that category, simply due to the price of the plan.
Guess I'm not entirely certain, being that I'm not on a contract, and am eligible for upgrades every year (or so I'm told by my girlfriend lol)

tatonka_hero said:
you're not a premium customer (premier customer? I can't remember the specific term)? I thought like 90% of Hero owners ended up in that category, simply due to the price of the plan.
Guess I'm not entirely certain, being that I'm not on a contract, and am eligible for upgrades every year (or so I'm told by my girlfriend lol)
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Individual plan of 69.99 or more, family plan of 99.99 or more, or someone who has been a customer for 10 or more years.
So, yes..most hero owners should qualify for Sprint Premier, as long as your account is in good standing.

scriz said:
Individual plan of 69.99 or more, family plan of 99.99 or more, or someone who has been a customer for 10 or more years.
So, yes..most hero owners should qualify for Sprint Premier, as long as your account is in good standing.
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Click to collapse
Yeah...see I didn't know that.
I'm on the 129.99 Unlimited plan x2 lines. I guess that qualifies me, assuming I don't drink all my money away and can't pay the bill.
I guess I will requalify around the begining of december. Good thing too, cell phones don't usually last me more than 7 months or so. They habitually end up in the toilet.

thank you so much folks! You have a been a world of help in final decision... I too feel the moment is too big, and realize samsung's lackluster handset support in updates over the years... i am definitely getting myself a hero.
funny that one or two of you mentioned battery life. I was reading a very verbose conversation on that on the moment board just yesterday between engineers but thought it was related to cooked roms. this concerns me now as wifey likes the hw keyboard of moment and she's also not a tweaker so cupcake/moment will do her just fine, even if eclair doesn't make it. She simply needs pictures, video, and mobile access to facebook for android and a decent browser as well as gmail, google calendar and such and she's golden; prettiness of gui is not a concern. But this battery problem is in the stock Sprint 1.5 Roms? She would not dig 5 hrs of battery life and I'd therefore have to waste the $35 fee in getting her over to another phone!
Say it ain't so! Does this affect all stock Moments if so?
Also... this Sprint Premier... is the reason for getting it similar to TEP i.e. upgrade options faster? What are the perks and is this a request i need to make?! More details please! I'm coming off 4 years of T-Mobile (although had sprint prior to), and am looking at the $129.99 Everything Messaging (unl. data, text, mms) - 25% monthly corp. discount so ~ $97/mo before taxes when all said and done. I would like to transfer asap as our phones are ancient; plan sucks @ 700 min (although very cheap at ~$52 before taxes/fees after discount); 2 years of contract doesn't bother me so much, but if I see the potential which happens from time to time (ETF change recently) I'll jump at breach of contract and void my contract. However, I don't mind not having a snapdragon at all. It's more important to get TX numbers (for discount and lower taxes/fees) before moving west. Frankly, I've been putting of the upgrade for far too long, invariably waiting for something better, or that next great thing. I was going to go HTC TP2 because of the excellent support from this community in the past, but w/ the announcement of win 7 and tegra and the cost of the tp2 i changed my mind.
Thanks!

[Q] [Unsatisfied Customers] - Are you going to buy another Milestone product?

To Gregory Q. Brown (Motorola CEO) and the whole company:
You suck. You make me (us) puke. I (we) bought my Milestone and I'm (we're) really angry about it. 2.1 is BUGGY and 2.2 has been initially planned for Q3 2010 then planned for "early" Q1 2011. Are you clowns or what? That's all. I'm (we're) done with you.
So people: who of you are going to buy another Motorola product now that we know how they threat their customers? Please vote in the poll and post a comment.
"I'm as mad as hell and I'm not taking this ANYMORE!" - Mr. Beale

Well, yeah.. they did screwed up a bit but the bottom line is that their products fits ME. The accesories, the hw keyboards I can't live without... all that makes it a deal. Barely, yes. Bootloader locked? wouldn't be a problem to me if the just updated as all other oses update. As os x, linux and windows update.
I have ms1 and played with ms2. I really like them both.
End.

Well I appreciate your honest opinion but think about them. They're threating us like sh*t. I agree when you say that Motorola products' quality is pretty EXCELLENT but this isn't true when it comes to software! And software is almost 60% of a smartphone. And, IMHO, if 60% of a product sucks, well, the whole product sucks too. I don't want to be left on the edge of the "development road" only because of Motorola laziness!

Well i dont think milestone will be getting froyo,thats what they say......
Sent from my Milestone using Tapatalk

After owning both the Milestone and the XT720, I can safely say I will never want to buy another Motorola product again.

no but im going to buy the droid 2 global so i can use ATT 3G and have a free bootloader!

Yes, i will buy another motorola product, but not a phone

No, the music skipping bug that was supposed to be fixed by 2.1 still affects me, the closed bootloader, the 30 fps cap in 2.1 is also annoying and the 2.2 update hasn't been realeased yet.
In the other hand the OS is awesome, I know for sure that the next phone I buy is going to be an android but not from motorola.

Crashreptila21 said:
Yes, i will buy another motorola product, but not a phone
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Lol! XD Obviously I meant a product related to the "smartphone" category!
BTW is there a way to change the title? I replaced Motorola with Milestone! -_-''

Well I too am pissed off by the promise of updates while we still don't get them. Remember it said "Flash-ready"? Still lacking that.

After seeing what Motorola did with the Droid X and 2, my D1 will be the last Motorola smartphone I get and will keep it until it either dies or I'm forced to a LTE phone.
Totally feel for you Milestone guys though.

in fact,i always want to buy another phone like "Milestone 2 - ME722" which with android 2.2 system.
but, no enough money NOW

sharljimhtsin said:
in fact,i always want to buy another phone like "Milestone 2 - ME722" which with android 2.2 system.
but, no enough money NOW
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So in the future you will be disappointed because Motorola won't upgrade your Milestone 2 to Gingerbread or Honeycomb...Trust me: buy other brand phones!
I sold my Milestone and I got a HD2...GUYS! IT ROCKS! Gingerbread is already almost FULLY-FUNCTIONAL! Only GPS doesn't work (which is a Gingerbread's issue not a cooked rom's one...). And soon we'll get Ubuntu and Meego running PERFECTLY!
People this is just an advice: LEAVE MOTOROLA ALONE! It doesn't deserve our money... At least HTC, Samsung etc. they let us doing what we want without any limits!

Motorola's Phones are very good devices as hardware. Milestone is my first Motorola and I am very satisfied with its engineering. But they pretty much suck on supporting their products.. Gingerbread is out and officially we are still waiting for FroYo.
I would buy again a Motorola, but just the much-anticipated Tablet that the will launch.
For my next Phone I will definitely choose a Google Phone, so I can have every latest update in a couple of days. A true dev phone.

Well, as I said, I LOVED Milestone hardware quality but its "closeness" is way more annoying than having a physical keyboard or a gummy back surface...

All Android devices need continued os and bug fix updates

http://www.facebook.com/motorola?sk=wall&filter=1 click the link people like it and comment on it.
I have seen first hand proof of this working. I had an evo 3d. Htc decided all futre devices would have locked bootliaders well that made alot of people angry. Someone posted a thread on xda suggesting we let htc know that is not gna fly. So it turnd out thousands of people got on there facebook wall and twitter. Guess what the next day htc released a statement saying that they wanted too keep there coustamers happy and that the bootloader would be unlocked. They were. Id like to be able too have a device and not have too get a new one juzt because moto or htc or sammy wants too put them out constantly get people too buy them and then ditch them and out out another. The atrix is 100 percent capable of runing ics and theres no excuae for it l not too recieve it just because moto wants people too buy new devices every couple months. I know many many people feel the same way well as i said we have the power too change that if people would stop bickering and take it seriously. And also if moto started supporting devices longer not just bug fixes but the new android flavors. Id definately make my next device a moto it would do nothing but benefit them

Why are we discussing/petitioning something that we don't know? Has it been set in stone that manufacturers will not support us anymore or is this all stemming from paranoia?

Because it is the trend. And the atrix 2 has been released already. All the manufactures with the exception of sammy have been doing this more and more lately abandoning. Devices. And pumping out new ones. At a very fast pace

So you are saying they are not going to support the atrix anymore since they released the atrix 2? I'd rather wait till this actually happens before i draw a conclusion. e.g. when ICS gets released and they say they are not going to update the atrix.

Kailkti said:
So you are saying they are not going to support the atrix anymore since they released the atrix 2? I'd rather wait till this actually happens before i draw a conclusion. e.g. when ICS gets released and they say they are not going to update the atrix.
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Look at the original Incredible.
My wife's one has been turned to **** since the 2.3.4 update, and nothing from HTC, and Verizon pretty much said too bad so sad. Buy another phone or deal with it.
So yes, support will be dropped for older models whether you like to assumed it or not.

Papi4baby said:
Look at the original Incredible.
My wife's one has been turned to **** since the 2.3.4 update, and nothing from HTC, and Verizon pretty much said too bad so sad. Buy another phone or deal with it.
So yes, support will be dropped for older models whether you like to assumed it or not.
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No it is obvious support is going to be dropped for old models. But he is implying that models released this year will not get support.

I think for every $10 a phone costs over $50 on launch day (on contract) is how many months it should be updated for. So a $300 phone should be kept updated for 25 months. So this would either keep phone prices lower or keep them updated.

Facebook is a poor way of getting the attention of corporations. You want them to change? Buy a nexus phone. Money talks.

Kailkti said:
No it is obvious support is going to be dropped for old models. But he is implying that models released this year will not get support.
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I think ICS only has support for Armv7 currently, so phones with those SoCs will get updated. However, phones using custom UIs will experience a longer waiting time, maybe around early Q1 of 2012. HTC has released like 1000 phones in the last few months and I doubt most will get ICS soon, not sure if Moto will bother at all. But it might be better to wait and actually see what goes down, like you said.

Has HTC in fact locked a boot loader or withheld hardware drivers?
I intend for my next phone to be HTC just because of the hell Samsung put us though trying to get GB on the i9000.

Handsome Rob said:
Has HTC in fact locked a boot loader or withheld hardware drivers?
I intend for my next phone to be HTC just because of the hell Samsung put us though trying to get GB on the i9000.
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HTC new phones i believe i read come locked.
You can unlock them direct with HTC, but you loose all warranty. As per HTC.

Papi4baby said:
HTC new phones i believe i read come locked.
You can unlock them direct with HTC, but you loose all warranty. As per HTC.
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As I understand it, you lose all ROM related warranty, so for instance if your screen fails then you're still covered.

Motorola unlocking bootloaders ??
you should check this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1316722

I had a motorola xt720.... not the best phone..but was ok. Motorola decided to stop supporting it within 4 months of launch or something stupid like that. No new updates no nothing. And still insisted on the bootloader staying locked so the dev's found it alot harder to do their job for them.
I will never ever buy a motorola product again.
The market is fairly competitive ... don't buy from companies that pull this crap

staring to feel ripped off.

I'm starting to feel ripped off with how long these upgrades take. I mean when you have phones manufactures posting profits in the millions and billions, yet they wont hire the manpower to get these updates out, it gets old. I have an evo3d, and feel like we should have ICS already. I know when I had a palm pre, at launch, the armchair programmers did more for that phone for free, then palms paid programmers ever did. Thats what I dont understand, if these rom guys can do so much in a couple hours after work, then why can't these paid 8 hour sh%theads get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Just like my acer 100 tab, when you buy it they say january have ICS, after you've bought it, now its april maybe. Ridiculous. Just venting I suppose, although I feel its a justified vent.

I'm not sure why they don't update things faster either. I guess it's just that a new version of android would confuse the majority of users. idk

Why would android OEMs want to upgrade their old devices? They get their money from selling more phones, if your g1 was officially kicking ICS, why would you want to upgrade? It's sales strategy. If you want updates, go to pretty much any other OS.

z33dev33l said:
Why would android OEMs want to upgrade their old devices? They get their money from selling more phones, if your g1 was officially kicking ICS, why would you want to upgrade? It's sales strategy.
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This is partly true, this rest is garbage.
Another thing is, people who want upgraded OSs are in the minority. So it just doesn't make since to put resources into stuff people don't care about.
A lot of my friends are still on IOS4.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

Are there any programs that will only work on ICS that you absolutely must have?
There's none in my case.
My phone works great, so why do I need the OS updated to the latest?

xaccers said:
Are there any programs that will only work on ICS that you absolutely must have?
There's none in my case.
My phone works great, so why do I need the OS updated to the latest?
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99% of the time I'd agree with that, but I'm fastidious when it comes to having organised bookmarks. I use Chrome at home and at work and have bookmark syncing enabled. I've used ChromeMarks to access my Chrome bookmarks on my phone, but I've always wanted it to be part of the browser.
Enter, Google Chrome for Android. It does the bookmark syncing.
I literally have ICS on my S2 for that 1 reason. Even with a few bugs and lags every now and then (it's still beta, after all).

I find the people not wanting updates comment as b.s. As for them not wanting to update to sell new phones, I agree with that, but as a consumer it gets tiring having every penny milked from you in one way or another. I buy a new phone outright every year, I have an evo3d, so comparing its update to something like a g1 is ridiculous at best.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App

^ as stated you're the minority. The majority don't buy phones for updates. Hell most don't know what OS their phone has.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

if they dont update it you will be more willing to upgrade your phone sooner. They have nothing to gain from spending time updating there phones when they can slap a slightly better os on a slightly better phone and get you in a new two year contract.

bacnat86 said:
if they dont update it you will be more willing to upgrade your phone sooner. They have nothing to gain from spending time updating there phones when they can slap a slightly better os on a slightly better phone and get you in a new two year contract.
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Correcto, thats why carriers love Android so much.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

sleekgreek said:
I'm starting to feel ripped off with how long these upgrades take. I mean when you have phones manufactures posting profits in the millions and billions, yet they wont hire the manpower to get these updates out, it gets old. I have an evo3d, and feel like we should have ICS already. I know when I had a palm pre, at launch, the armchair programmers did more for that phone for free, then palms paid programmers ever did. Thats what I dont understand, if these rom guys can do so much in a couple hours after work, then why can't these paid 8 hour sh%theads get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Just like my acer 100 tab, when you buy it they say january have ICS, after you've bought it, now its april maybe. Ridiculous. Just venting I suppose, although I feel its a justified vent.
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because the programmers get paid for it so they have no hurry. the dev community wants to use it so they put alot of hours and concentration into and get it out. I feel your pain man

This.
bacnat86 said:
if they dont update it you will be more willing to upgrade your phone sooner. They have nothing to gain from spending time updating there phones when they can slap a slightly better os on a slightly better phone and get you in a new two year contract.
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Click to collapse
This is the most common candidate for being the main reason. Why make people content with the last Big Thing when you can instead beef up and get them hyped for the next Big Thing?
But then why schedule the Ice Cream upgrade for the SGII just before the SGIII comes out? Beats me. Maybe companies are just schizophrenic. Maybe it's a genius plan to make people fume into wanting the SGIII (people tend not to to change their minds once they've made it up) while ensuring the people who can't afford it still remain happy after six months. Maybe it's just a publicity issue (Samsung needs the positive publicity of coming out with ICS, so they'll eventually need to follow through, but not until the very last moment). Any explanation seems likely to me at this point.
This is why it's generally best to buy a future-proof phone. With the Nexus, for example, you'll be able to get indefinite upgrades from google (even if you have to go through a few hoops). The easier something is to unlock (and I suppose: the more popular it is so that more devs are working on it), the more likely you'll be able to keep your phone upgraded yourself, even if you'll have to go through a few hoops to do so. You can't rely on your manufacturer*, and you definitely can't rely on your carrier to have your best upgrade interests in mind.
Of course, if you get a new phone every year (or even every two years), this isn't so much of an issue for you. Most people probably do this (indeed, the very system encourages them to do this), and so there's little incentive to actually change the system.
*This is supposedly where Apple excels, but at what cost..

I can answer that....
You see, all the armchair programmers have a disclaimer that says "We are not responsible if we break your phone..It may, or may not work as expected and if it blows up your phone it's not our fault"
A huge corporation like Motorola/HTC/Samsung/LG/Nokia/etc have millions of users worldwide with a large set of carriers that all want to tweak the user experience to what that particular carrier wants to standardize on. The phone manufacturer may build what they think is a perfectly reasonable piece of software (ALL software has bugs by the way) only to have it kicked back by the internal quality assurance team because it fails a particular test case. And when you have several dozen/hundred developers working on software it's a coordinated effort to meet internal timelines and goals. And if it passes the internal testing it has to be tested by the carriers who can reject the software build due to bugs/user experience/last minute enhancements which triggers the whole cycle all over again.
Smaller development teams where it's a few people working on code do not have as much overhead and probably don't have as much internal testing processes for all possible corner cases as a huge company does so they can coordinate and release a build much quicker.
sleekgreek said:
I'm starting to feel ripped off with how long these upgrades take. I mean when you have phones manufactures posting profits in the millions and billions, yet they wont hire the manpower to get these updates out, it gets old. I have an evo3d, and feel like we should have ICS already. I know when I had a palm pre, at launch, the armchair programmers did more for that phone for free, then palms paid programmers ever did. Thats what I dont understand, if these rom guys can do so much in a couple hours after work, then why can't these paid 8 hour sh%theads get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Just like my acer 100 tab, when you buy it they say january have ICS, after you've bought it, now its april maybe. Ridiculous. Just venting I suppose, although I feel its a justified vent.
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Click to collapse

As said above, the biggest issues are that Devs here and elsewhere have no responsibilities if the upgrades fail, and secondly, there are a ridiculous number of devices being released. There are about 100 android devices available as current phones, and I don't know how many total. Rather difficult to keep so many up to date. It would be nice if they would scale back how many products are out at once, but manufacturers don't seem to get that yet.

psychephylax said:
I can answer that....
You see, all the armchair programmers have a disclaimer that says "We are not responsible if we break your phone..It may, or may not work as expected and if it blows up your phone it's not our fault"
A huge corporation like Motorola/HTC/Samsung/LG/Nokia/etc have millions of users worldwide with a large set of carriers that all want to tweak the user experience to what that particular carrier wants to standardize on. The phone manufacturer may build what they think is a perfectly reasonable piece of software (ALL software has bugs by the way) only to have it kicked back by the internal quality assurance team because it fails a particular test case. And when you have several dozen/hundred developers working on software it's a coordinated effort to meet internal timelines and goals. And if it passes the internal testing it has to be tested by the carriers who can reject the software build due to bugs/user experience/last minute enhancements which triggers the whole cycle all over again.
Smaller development teams where it's a few people working on code do not have as much overhead and probably don't have as much internal testing processes for all possible corner cases as a huge company does so they can coordinate and release a build much quicker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just dont agree with that, after being with the palm pre from its launch, through all the manual hacks we had to implement before preware, then finally recieving an update months later that couldn't compete with the unofficial code from the guys over at precentral. There is a problem there. I understand there is alot of red tape involved with official releases, but even given that, the time frames are still ridiculous to the point that there is nothing reasonable about it. As awesome as the pre was it was missing basic functions, functions that were there in the code, perhaps they wanted to follow apples model of screwing the customer into the next model, idk. The fact of the matter is, there is no reason why htc or acer or samsung, despite touchwiz and sense and cant push out a nice update in a timely manner, none.

bacnat86 said:
if they dont update it you will be more willing to upgrade your phone sooner. They have nothing to gain from spending time updating there phones when they can slap a slightly better os on a slightly better phone and get you in a new two year contract.
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Click to collapse
In the UK where contracts (compared with what I've seen in other countries) are actually pretty good value, you get a new phone for free or not very much every time you renew your contract.
After even a year, there are much better phones out there, the phone you have may be a bit scuffed around the corners, battery will be down on capacity.
So most people upgrade when they get a new contract anyway.

It kills me when i read about the supposedly new "jelly bean" that's supposed to be coming out within the year. Seriously? get ICS out on more phones before you even THINK about releasing another update. Who knows the actual reason behind the delays for these updates but someone needs to get on it. When some of the newest phones out right now still don't have ICS or won't for awhile, there's something wrong.

The obvious plan is to push people to buy the newer quad core phones, more contracts, more money, not to mention if there's a premium because they're "quad core" just like then 4G first came out.

the majority of people buy what their salesman makes look good. some chick at the t-mobile store i was in bought some old phone cuz it was a few bucks cheaper than a new phone, which is like twice as fast and will have support at least 6 months longer than the other..

Shano56 said:
the majority of people buy what their salesman makes look good. some chick at the t-mobile store i was in bought some old phone cuz it was a few bucks cheaper than a new phone, which is like twice as fast and will have support at least 6 months longer than the other..
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This is true. A while back when I was trying to buy my first smartphone I ended up buying an original Droid just because of the salesman telling me about buy one get one offer, after reading about them, I had found out that this phone was so outdated, luckily I had found out before my 30 days.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium

[Q] Long time iPhoner new to Android and HTC One

Hey all,
Never thought I would say this, but I am REALLY happy with with my HTC One, after being an iPhoner for the past 5 years. Sure it has some minor niggles, but I am really pleased with it. And I love the fact that I can easily tinker with it.
My only concern is will the HTC One support Android 5.0 when it comes out? I have read horror stories of HTC discontinuing support for some of their phones after less than 18 months!
(My first post since joining seven years ago! This brings new meaning to lurker
Thanks,
loiphin.

Congratulations to your decision to come to Android
Android 5.0 isn't even announced so why bothering about it yet?
18 months is pretty long to support a device xD HTC is producing many phones per year, we can't force them to support every phone until eternity Besides that it's not very economically for business.
You can root and flash your phone to have the newest versions when official support ended.
Sent from my HTC One

loiphin said:
Hey all,
Never thought I would say this, but I am REALLY happy with with my HTC One, after being an iPhoner for the past 5 years. Sure it has some minor niggles, but I am really pleased with it. And I love the fact that I can easily tinker with it.
My only concern is will the HTC One support Android 5.0 when it comes out? I have read horror stories of HTC discontinuing support for some of their phones after less than 18 months!
(My first post since joining seven years ago! This brings new meaning to lurker
Thanks,
loiphin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
R U really planning to use this phone more than 18-24 months?
im looking forward to the "NEXT" HTC ONE

Most people here probably get a new phone every 6 months or so, so 18 months is plenty of time

99piotrek said:
R U really planning to use this phone more than 18-24 months?
im looking forward to the "NEXT" HTC ONE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used my desire for 3 1/2 years and plan to use the One that long too But still (to OP): You can't ask for supporting a device for that long.
Sent from my HTC One

I'm a previous iPhone user and tbh Apple aren't much different. You get 2, maybe 3 years of support before you start getting no update support or you lose half of the new features anyway because they aren't compatible with older devices so it really isn't much different with HTC ... The worst IMO for support are Sony. I had an Xperia Ray and they promised at least 2 years support at the time I purchased it and it received 1 update and it's stuck on 4.0.3 I believe to this day.

AllAboutTheCore said:
I'm a previous iPhone user and tbh Apple aren't much different. You get 2, maybe 3 years of support before you start getting no update support or you lose half of the new features anyway because they aren't compatible with older devices so it really isn't much different with HTC ... The worst IMO for support are Sony. I had an Xperia Ray and they promised at least 2 years support at the time I purchased it and it received 1 update and it's stuck on 4.0.3 I believe to this day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not well-known to iPhones but you won't get 2 or 3 years official support (= updates) at HTC or any other manufacturer
I remember the time with my HTC Desire (bought it unbranded), which was a flagship long time ago xD (2010). I bought it immediately when released with Eclair 2.1. It was updated to Froyo 2.2 and everybody was happy HTC promised an update to Gingerbread 2.3 but then cancelled this plan. Because of very annoyed customers they rolled out Gingerbread 2.3, but left out many features (as of less internal memory) and recommended the update only to developers (it was not accessible through software update function on the phone). The Desire was THE phone but only got this amount of support (I guess it was one year?) ... So we can't expect much more for HTC One
Sent from my HTC One

18-24 months seems about typical for HTC. It's worse if you're on a US carrier; they tend to abandon you after 18 months at best. I got a One XL on AT&T last May, and as far as I know, it's not getting 4.2 (mine is actually dead, but the update doesn't appear to be coming anyway).
Apple supports its phones longer, but its a bit deceptive since they don't give older phones all the features of the latest one. So you'll be on the newest version number but won't really have a complete update. With Android, you usually get everything, which is why older handset stop getting updated sooner.

You won't have to worry about software-related support if you learn how to root your phone. I had an iPhone for a few years myself before jumping to Android with the One, and I couldn't be happier. Fantastic phone.
Learning to root can seem daunting at first (actually, it IS daunting at first :cyclops: ), but it is so, so, so worth it. Not having to depend on the carriers or the factory for the latest updates is a great feeling.

First of all, if you are someone who enjoys tinkering with phones and gadgets(in other words a geek) you are going to have a blast now that you're on htc/android. The opportunities are endless. And one additional thing, you are in the right place(XDA) for doing that.
Second, I dunno about you but in my country android phones come cheaper than the latest iPhone in stores(even the flagships). So upgrading phones every year or so is a common not-too-expensive thing for android folks.
Welcome to the community and enjoy your One!
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

loiphin said:
Hey all,
Never thought I would say this, but I am REALLY happy with with my HTC One, after being an iPhoner for the past 5 years. Sure it has some minor niggles, but I am really pleased with it. And I love the fact that I can easily tinker with it.
My only concern is will the HTC One support Android 5.0 when it comes out? I have read horror stories of HTC discontinuing support for some of their phones after less than 18 months!
(My first post since joining seven years ago! This brings new meaning to lurker
Thanks,
loiphin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If android 5 is released September/October as rumours suggest then we may well see it from HTC for the 'One'
One thing I can guarantee though is that the guys here on XDA will certainly be building roms on 5

If you can think of something u want the one to do or b like chances it's been thought of these aren't iPhones android is run by people or devs for each Rom. Once u learn how to flash rims and kernels updates will b a thing of the past
Viper121,.elemental it's mental.

I've no plans to get another phone until next year at least, I'm extremely happy with my One like no other phone.
KLP - Key Lime Pie should be released this year so I'd highly imagine HTC will upgrade their flagship phone to it but I'll just have a custom ROM anyway way before any official HTC One is released so not applicable to me
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Even if we aren't supported by HTC, that doesn't mean all the devs will have up and left us. Someone will port Android 5.0 and maybe even more. We will definitely get many aosp ports and a few newer sense versions. Don't worry about that.
Sent from my HTC One

.vermilion said:
I'm not well-known to iPhones but you won't get 2 or 3 years official support (= updates) at HTC or any other manufacturer
I remember the time with my HTC Desire (bought it unbranded), which was a flagship long time ago xD (2010). I bought it immediately when released with Eclair 2.1. It was updated to Froyo 2.2 and everybody was happy HTC promised an update to Gingerbread 2.3 but then cancelled this plan. Because of very annoyed customers they rolled out Gingerbread 2.3, but left out many features (as of less internal memory) and recommended the update only to developers (it was not accessible through software update function on the phone). The Desire was THE phone but only got this amount of support (I guess it was one year?) ... So we can't expect much more for HTC One
Sent from my HTC One
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Click to collapse
I said 2-3 years, tops, 18-24 months for the One really isn't that much less that 2 years is it?