There are lots of aspects to take into account when making such strategic decisions, and I'm very glad that it's not my job to make such decisions. As an engineer, I can propose technical ideas or make suggestions about the feasibility, cost, and risk of specific solutions, but that's where my role ends. I don't want to tell product managers how to do their jobs, at least because I don't want them to tell me how to do mine.
As for the ADP1, it's quite a different beast in terms of target audience, and therefore in terms of strategy. While the partition table is the same, there is actually a lot of additional software flexibility. We don't have as many concerns if an upgrade requires to wipe the entire phone, which in turn allows to ship non-preoptimized builds, which in turns saves about 10MB on the system partition (but costs 15+MB on the data partition). We don't have as many concerns if we need to remove non-essential apps from the system image (and e.g. make them downloadable through market). We could technically play further tricks (e.g. have different system images with different sets of apps, or use the cache partition to store some additional data since it's not used for OTA updates). My concern with the ADP1 is that its fate is tied to that of the G1 for practical reasons: once Dream hardware stops being supported as a consumer device, the incremental cost of supporting the ADP1 in addition to consumer devices goes up significantly. Once Dream hardware stops being manufactured to be sold as G1, the supply chain for the ADP1 is at risk (I don't have any actual visibility over that, so don't try to read anything between the lines or speculate). JBQ On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Al Sutton<[email protected]> wrote: > > I fully support not updating them through the entire contract, my concern is > that they'll stop getting updates while T-Mobile are still selling the G1 and > signing people up for new contracts. > > So if T-Mobile are going to stop selling the G1 in 6 months time then any > time after this is fair enough, but if an Android user is raving about it on > their 'phone to a friend I can see real PR problems if that friend goes and > buys a new G1 on a T-Mobile contract only to find that it is running an older > version of Android and can't be updated. > > Al. > > P.S. Does the ADP1 have the same OS capacity as the G1?, if so wouldn't > ending firmware updates for it alienate the very people who help the platform > grow? > > -- > > * Written an Android App? - List it at http://andappstore.com/ * > > ====== > Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the > company number 6741909. The registered head office is Kemp House, > 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, UK. > > The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not > necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's > subsidiaries. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jean-Baptiste Queru > Sent: 14 August 2009 12:54 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [android-discuss] Re: Why Google Android is open source? > > > On the other hand users really don't like it if an update removes > functionality that used to work in a previous release, and as the > framework itself grows that option ends up being the only way to > continue to make the system fit on small devices. We already hear the > feedback loud and clear when regressions happen because of bugs that > only affect small number of users, and this'd probably be much worse > if a feature was taken away from every single user by design. > > At some point this is a no-win situation, something has to give. > Looking at the speed at which the system grew from 1.0 to 1.5 in about > 6 months (and at the effort that already had to go into making 1.5 fit > on a G1), we've got to realistically anticipate that a G1 sold today > with a 2-year contract might not be able to run the latest and > greatest version of Android 2 years down the road. > > My concern, personally, isn't about the core Android itself, it's > about 3rd-party apps: the situation really becomes annoying when it > becomes impractical for developers to support a broad variety of > devices with a single version of their application, i.e. if supporting > different devices requires to target different versions of the core > framework. > > JBQ > > On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 12:44 AM, Al Sutton<[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I think it would be a big PR disaster to stop updates for the G1 before it's >> taken off the shelves. >> >> Nobody likes buying something new only to find out that it's no longer being >> supported with updates. >> >> Al. >> >> -- >> >> * Written an Android App? - List it at http://andappstore.com/ * >> >> ====== >> Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the >> company number 6741909. The registered head office is Kemp House, >> 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, UK. >> >> The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not >> necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's >> subsidiaries. >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of wimbet >> Sent: 14 August 2009 08:37 >> To: Android Discuss >> Subject: [android-discuss] Re: Why Google Android is open source? >> >> >>>Where the situation is really tricky is that the system partition on >>>the US G1 was already filled to the brim with cupcake, and we were >>>routinely flirting with build sizes that were a few dozen kB under the >>>limit (or several MB over...), which means that even small changes to >>>the core platform could very easily push the system size over the >>>limit and staying under the limit took some effort. >> >> So how much longer before the G1 is done getting updates? Is Donut >> the final one? Or does that not fit in the system partition either. >> >> >> > >> > > > > -- > Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru > Software Engineer, Android Open-Source Project, Google. > > Questions sent directly to me that have no reason for being private > will likely get ignored or forwarded to a public forum with no further > warning. > > > > > > -- Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru Software Engineer, Android Open-Source Project, Google. Questions sent directly to me that have no reason for being private will likely get ignored or forwarded to a public forum with no further warning. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
