Google to shame OEM's who do not push Android updates on time

[swatkats]

A report from Bloomberg claims that Google is going to take yet another swing at making manufacturers care about Android updates. This time the plan is apparently to "shame" OEMs into updating their devices.

Google has "drawn up lists that rank top phone makers by how up-to-date their handsets are, based on security patches and operating system versions," according to the report. Google has apparently shared this list with OEMs already and has "discussed making it public" in the hopes that OEMs will do better at updating their devices as a result.

This isn't the first time Google has tried to entice OEMs to update their devices. At Google I/O 2011, Google triumphantly announced the "Android Update Alliance," an agreement where Google and OEMs would work to ensure that devices got 18 months of updates. A year later everyone promptly forgot about it, and it hasn't been mentioned since.

In response to the Stagefright security vulnerability, Google started producing monthly Android security updates. Nexus devices and a handful of OEM flagships have started to get these updates, but for most Android users, this is just more code that never makes it to their devices.

The latest version of Android—6.0 Marshmallow—is seven months old, and only 7.5 percent of active devices have the update. That's a lot of devices that not only lack the latest features but are also missing out on security updates. With Google Play Services, Google has re-architected Android to make the underlying OS version more or less not matter for many feature implementations. We saw this at I/O 2016 with the launch of Android Instant Apps, which isn't just compatible with Marshmallow and Android N but goes all the way back to Android 4.2.


Source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/google-hopes-to-shame-slow-android-oems-with-update-rankings/

 

[iPwnz]

Brutal but deserved. Samsung will eat bricks!

 

[adventureguy]

But all OEMs are shameless. I doubt it'll work

 

[hmasalia]

Woh! 100% percent people would like to recieve updates

 

[Patrick Bateman]

I highly doubt samsung and friends will even bother.

 

[blr_p]

Android updates up to the vendor. Security updates should not be.But how to achieve that.

Each firmware has its own vulnerabilities on top of android. Not everybody will go the stock route. Moto is an exception.

Personally i prefer to be six months behind the nexus. devs have enough time to update their apps. he OS istlef ill have had a few more point updates so when you do finally upgrad everything will be that much smoother.

Stability over bragging rights.

 

[singenaadam]

Rather than shaming, if all the OEMs allow users the option of booting to a stock ROM, we can choose what we wish to have.

Doubt if bulk of the consumers would ever know of the shaming-game.

 

[drkrack]

Rather than shaming, if all the OEMs allow users the option of booting to a stock ROM, we can choose what we wish to have.

Doubt if bulk of the consumers would ever know of the shaming-game.

That's a easier thing to do, they'll brush off their responsibility of optimization of the software for their device. Custom Rom issues are pretty problematic too, its not for everyone.
They should give an option to downgrade if not satisfied with the update. ( I downgraded p780 to Kitkat from jb).

Android updates up to the vendor. Security updates should not be.But how to achieve that.

Each firmware has its own vulnerabilities on top of android. Not everybody will go the stock route. Moto is an exception.

Personally i prefer to be six months behind the nexus. devs have enough time to update their apps. he OS istlef ill have had a few more point updates so when you do finally upgrad everything will be that much smoother.

Stability over bragging rights.

Precisely, update for the heck of it, is useless. Half baked updates are problematic too. Some updates make the older devices slow ; ultimately forcing the user to upgrade the device itself . Apart from crashes when iOS 8 was launched , Apple has the best firmware update policy IMHO.

I'm seeing very few incremental updates with successive android versions as far as user experience is concerned ; so, only security updates like critical updates should be distributed without fail instead.

 

[blr_p]

Apart from crashes when iOS 8 was launched , Apple has the best firmware update policy IMHO.

iOS 7 was the new OS and was more problematic. Things right now are stable with Apple. What will 10 be like

I'm seeing very few incremental updates with successive android versions as far as user experience is concerned ; so, only security updates like critical updates should be distributed without fail instead.

Can see it in the numering.

4.0-1-2-3-4 four point updates and its still 4.x

5.0-1 just one point update

6.0.0-1 heh, are they kidding, just a dot dot update.Was there any reason for this to be a major point update.

Now they are talking about N and i'm a bit bored.

 

[swatkats]

I'm really curious to know who is that Sick person who is happy with Xiaomi and Samsung?

Edit: Its ssslayer

 

[deep909]

I think google should instead focus on increasing update cycle from 3 years to 5 or 6 years instead. That high end Galaxy S4 of few years ago is not going to get marshmallow is ridiculous.

 

[vivek.krishnan]

Actually, I would not mind instead buying a phone from a company like Xiaomi/Samsung/Moto/etc, but choose to install a custom ROM on top, for which, I can pay extra ~ 100 INR per month, for stable updates. nightly should be free of charge. That way, we have the best of two worlds.

Heck, we did look at this, but was not feasible without support from more devs and sites like xda.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

I am ok with getting just one major update and patches. I would rather have a device that stays functional on a older OS for 3~4 years than one that gets slow and less usable with each update.