On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Alberto <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dianne: I understand the issue with manufacturers and drivers, but > even if manufacturers have to prepare the updates for each handsets, > wouldn't be possible for Google to distribute those updates through > their own channels instead of going the carriers' way, for example, > correct me if I'm wrong in any of this: > If a manufacturer has a working, tested, stable update for their phone, then Google would provide little no additional help here by "distributing" the update. > 1. Google releases the source code > 2. Manufacturers customizes it for their handsets (drivers, etc) > 3. They send it back to Google > 4. Google updates most Android phones through their own channel at the > same time, very quickly most phones are running the latest version > This just isn't going to happen. Have you seen the number of devices that are being announced? It is simply not scalable to have Google or anyone sitting in the middle of this trying to manage updates created by manufacturers for various devices, for all the involved manufacturers. And this just doesn't help. The main issue is manufacturers creating and testing new builds for their phones. Distribution is relatively trivial next to that. > With all that said, even if there's nothing Google can do about the > updates, a companion desktop application for Android would help keep > the platform together, kind of like the lowest common denominator that > every "Google Experience" phone can plug into. > I think we are really much more interested in over-the-air updates than tying all of this through a desktop channel. That is really a much better way to deliver updates: for a particular device, you have a much higher percentage of users applying the updates. (Unless you force them to regularly interact with a desktop application that takes care of the updates, but that seems very undesirable to me. Not that better desktop support wouldn't be good for some things like media, but it shouldn't be anything you need.) -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer [email protected] Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them.
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