Android Not Faring Well Against iOS When it Comes to Timely OS Updates

By Cheryl Lindo Jones
28 Oct, 2011 6:37 am

1 Comment

Michael DeGusta has written up a damning report showing how badly many Android phones fare as far as getting the latest Android OS updates. In contrast, all Apple iPhones, even the original released back in 2007, are still getting support updates 3 years after their release.

photo credit: Michael DeGusta

DeGusta put together his post and infographic after news came out that the Nexus One will not be getting an update to Ice Cream Sandwich. Despite this, he claims that Nexus One owners have had it better than other Android phone owners. Many Android phones that are still under contract today are not getting updates to Gingerbread, which is almost one year old (shipped in December 2010). It is this fragmentation that makes Android developers cringe, since they often have to take into account phones that are still running versions of Android that are 2, maybe 3 generations old.

This is a depressing quote from DeGusta’s post regarding the phones listed in the infographic:

If you thought that entitled you to some support, think again:

• 7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS.
• 12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less.
• 10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period.
• 11 of 18 stopped getting any support updates less than a year after release.
• 13 of 18 stopped getting any support updates before they even stopped selling the device or very shortly thereafter.
• 15 of 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010.
• In a few weeks, when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out, every device on here will be another major version behind.
• At least 16 of 18 will almost certainly never get Ice Cream Sandwich.

For those of us who are gadget geeks and early adopters, frequent phone updates are par for the course to get the latest and greatest. But for regular users, especially those just getting into the smartphone market, this is very bad news. They tend to stick out their 2-year contract and keep devices until their contract is up. These users are the ones most hurt by this appalling customer service from Android phone manufacturers. Clearly this fragmentation problem makes the user experience for non-updated devices less than optimal.

Now even though all iPhones have gotten support updates since their release, this isn’t to say that all iPhones are still working perfectly and can run all the apps that are out there today. Many apps in the iTunes App Store now have a minimum OS requirement of iOS 4.2.1. And many of these same apps would probably be quite taxing to the original iPhone. All that said, given these stats from Degusta’s report, it seems iPhone users would have a better user experience keeping up with the latest updates over a 2-year contract than Android users.

Hopefully now that Ice Cream Sandwich is meant to be a unifying OS between tablets and smartphones, Android users going forward will have a better experience getting timely updates. Perhaps reports like these that make public how bad the situation has been will encourage manufacturers to get their act together and do right by their devices’ end-users.

Via theunderstatement