On Dec 7, 8:42 pm, Moandji Ezana <[email protected]> wrote: > If OHA members can access private repos all along, why don't they release > their builds a couple of weeks after Google?
Here's what I imagine vendors go through with new Android builds: - Assuming they have access to the source: Check all the patches they applied to the previous version and port them to the new version, if necessary. - Update private drivers: there's probably a lot of drivers in stock Android, but if a vendor has a new graphics or cellular chip, he doesn't want that to be public knowledge until they released the phone, so they'll keep the drivers private for a while. - Update the apps / features on top of Android: Update for new features / API changes or just change them. - Internal testing: Vendor tests the phone in-house (we now know loss of signal strength is inevitable - http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/12/03/inevitable). - Carrier testing: Vendor submits phone to the carrier that sell the phone for testing. Now you multiply that with the number of Android phone variations a company has. For instance, there's a base model (like the Samsung Galaxy S), but the four U.S. carriers sell specific versions customized for them, making it four different variations in the U.S. alone. Of course, a vendor tries to optimize testing and all, but I think you can see why it a) many takes months to roll out firmware updates, b) vendors stop rolling out Android firmware updates often after a year or less (Motorola, I'm looking at you), and c) Android vendors don't earn a lot of profit, compared to "whole stack companies" like RIM or Apple, with Apple the only vendor resisting carrier-specific versions, making them even more profitable (see http://www.asymco.com/2010/08/17/androids-pursuit-of-the-biggest-losers/). This is pretty similar to Windows Mobile back in its heyday, except for that you got around one new version per year maybe at most. Android rolled out three major new versions in 2009 and 2010; it seems they will slow down to 2 in 2011 and just one a year in the end, according to Rubin (http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/ android_updates_slow_one_year). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" 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/javaposse?hl=en.
