After my experience with the Nexus S, any benefits regarding the "pure Google experience" and "first-in-line updates" will be taken with more than a few grains of salt.
It's hard to describe the frustration of putting my trust in them and then watching so many other devices coming out with and being upgraded to Android 4.0 all around me, while I'm left in the dark.
Google, phone manufacturers, and carriers all seem to have a distinct "fire and forget" mindset regarding phones. As soon as it's on the market they move on to the next one, and those of us locked into a 1 or 2 year contract are left in the dust.
That may be true - but that's little comfort to the end consumer, and earns you no points next time they find themselves in a store picking out a new phone.
I don't understand why Google doesn't support offline/non-OTA patches. Apple achieved phenomenal adoption speed for new releases pre-OTA, there's no reason Google can't do the same. The fact that Google needs a carrier's blessing to patch phones is a non sequitor.
These are non-OTA updates, so I'm not sure that analysis holds. Note that the Verizon CDMA Galaxy Nexus ("toro") is in a similar position, but that JBQ promised an image would be coming soon.
I think a stronger case can be made that Google lacks an architecture like the desktop distros have where they can update packages independently. Why should, e.g., UI improvements to the shell or bug fixes to the settings app be held back by driver validation for an LTE modem?
Was there any other phone that got upgraded to Android 4.0 before Nexus S? As far as I know only the Transformer Prime and I think Motorola Xoom got 4.0, but those were already Honeycomb devices, and I believe they were significantly easier to upgrade to 4.0.
But I understand your concerns. For me the actual disappointment came from announcing the Nexus One would not receive it at all. The internal storage and the GPU might indeed suck for 4.0, but I find it hard to believe that there was absolutely no way to upgrade it, especially from the makers of Android. I'd expect a Nexus device to get at least 2 major version upgrades (so a 4.0 device would get 5.0 and 6.0, in this case).
Still, the Nexus tablet is something Google should've done a long time ago, and I was very surprised they didn't release a Nexus tablet in the same time with the Galaxy Nexus, to celebrate the unification of the phone and tablet software. To me that seemed like a no-brainer.
The fact that they decided to take the low-end and try to increase the Android tablet market share quickly, is also a welcome strategy, but I still think they need to be very aggressive about getting tablet-optimized apps from developers to be really successful.
Seems to me that the lack of a Google blessed tablet has a lot to do with why we're not seeing much in the tablet optimized app front. We need a stable development platform that's going to get updates at a reasonable clip. I don't want to have to buy a pile of devices or discard them left and right so I can dev on newer versions.
There are other reasons why tab apps are few and far between as well, but not having an n1 equivalent tablet held me back. I gave up waiting and bought a tf prime in December and am finally working on a tablet specific app, but I wonder how long before I'll have to replace it.
A product or service based on a reaction is driven by envy. not based on passion to innovate or the desire to provide a better service. it's just based on envy. all it cares about is what the other guy is doing.
This has been Google's strategy lately thanks to Larry Page.
Apple
Facebook
MS
Yelp
Groupon
the list goes on and on...
As for the updates to flagship devices (including the Nexus phones), even though Google tries to get builds ready for all devices at the same time, operator approval varies from one operator to the other and from one device to the other. The 8-month rule of thumb doesn't apply to flagship devices, since all phases are designed to happen at the same time for those, but there's still a bit of operator certification and approval at the end that can't overlap with anything else, and that's what explains the slight device-to-device variance even for flagship devices.
Not really. Apple can withhold iPhones from carriers if they want.
At best, Google could withhold Nexus phones, they can't withhold Android. Some OEM would always be willing to play ball. I suspect even the compatibility requirements and Google apps agreements wouldn't help. Everything I've heard is that Google certifies phones - not phone/carrier bundles (and, at least in the GSM world, it is hard to see how they could do otherwise).
The reason Android is so successful on handsets is because Google made a conscious decision to sell their soul to the carriers to get there. They can try and gradually undo that by purchasing their own manufacturer... But it's going to take a while.
> Google, phone manufacturers, and carriers all seem to have a distinct "fire and forget" mindset regarding phones. As soon as it's on the market they move on to the next one, and those of us locked into a 1 or 2 year contract are left in the dust.
Amen. One begins to realize that the serious upside of a monolithic product (e.g. the iPhone) is that your reputation is tied to a single product. With Android, there is no single company to blame for poor software support or constrained upgrade path (Google? HTC? AT&T?)
My sense is that Google is giving OEMs far too many options. The message should be, "Hey OEM, here's the Android project. Do a git clone and install it on your phone. Then you can call it Android. If that's not good enough for you, do a fork and call it whatever you want, but don't you dare call it Android."
I think that the tacit assumption when you buy a "Google Phone" is that it will have an upgrade path similar to the iPhone, and so free of the dysfunctional interplay between Google and the OEM (and, thanks to Google's weight, maybe even the carrier). But this has proven not to be the case. (Google still has a lot of explaining to do as to why the N1 doesn't get Android 4).
> Google still has a lot of explaining to do as to why the N1 doesn't get Android 4
No, they really don't. Google has been clear that, in their opinion, the Nexus One hardware doesn't support ICS. And while we all know someone will shoehorn a version of ICS on there somehow (after all, someone did it for the G1), there's plenty of evidence that Google's opinion is reasonable:
- the limited internal storage (512 MB) [ICS distributions are substantially bigger than Gingerbread ones and there were plenty of Nexus One users pinched for space on Gingerbread]
- the relatively weak GPU [less ability to support and probably less benefit from the new rendering architecture]
- no front-facing camera [i.e. no Face Unlock]
- no NFC [i.e. no Android Beam]
- ...
Feel free to complain that Google and HTC made bad choices when designing the Nexus One, if you want. In retrospect, they clearly did. But it isn't at all hard to explain why the Nexus One isn't getting ICS.
Actually, they do. You've done a lot of explaining for them, but the fact that you did so implies that the need. What you say may be true (and it certainly sounds reasonable) but I personally haven't seen this kind of messaging from Google, and I bought my N1 directly from them.
Indeed, I'm rather curious to know what the primary source is for your information. Perhaps there is an Android or a Nexus One blog I should be subscribed to.
That's the thing. Not that I don't read plenty of Android blogs (Phandroid and Android Police are my current favorites), but there's no magic here: My primary sources were the Nexus One specifications and the Android 4.0 Platform Highlights. Beyond confirming expectations on storage space, the only detail I really added was knowing that the Nexus One GPU is relatively weak.
More generally, I wouldn't expect any company to do a point-by-point deconstruction of a product (past or present) the way I did. It is unreasonable to expect a company to trash something that plenty of employees worked on and plenty of customers were happy with. But I expect these sorts of issues were the subtext of Google/HTC saying that the Nexus One was "too old" for ICS.
The N1 is over two years old and what two maybe three hardware generations behind. I don't think its unreasonable that it isn't supported by the latest OS or that Google has stopped communicating about it. I love my Nexus One (its birthday is the 5th) and I've really stopped paying close attention to the latest and greatest Android device. Few people care or know that they are running 2.3.6 vs. 2.2.4. Yeah it's disappointing to not be the most favored phone after walking in the light for so long but it was bound to happen sooner or later which for tech, especially phones is sooner.
When I EOL my N1 I'll again start paying attention religiously to phandroid, androidandme, and bgr to find Google's next golden child.
As the owner of a Nexus One I've had some frustrating experiences with Google's customer services. They frustrated a lot of users [1] and it was obvious they were unprepared to handle support issues and angry customers. HTC and Apple both offer exemplary customer service and Google will have a lot of work to do to match them in customer satisfaction.
Support is Google's greatest weakness. If they want to be a successful consumer electronics company they need to step it up fast. Apple is leagues ahead of them in this.
I don't ask with snark, but with genuine curiosity. I heard lots of people happy they got the free ones... But didn't hear about many people buying them.
I actually think they WOULD do better off if they made it themselves. Or at least just let Motorola do an exclusive Google-branded model akin to the Nexus.
I have one of the original Chromebooks, from their pilot program.
It's a great device for what it is, and the built-in 3G has actually saved my bacon on a couple of occasions. It made a great loaner device for when my girlfriend's parents had to drive halfway across the country with just a candybar pay-as-you-go phone.
Google's failing was twofold, in my opinion:
1) They initially said the device would sell cheaply, in the $200-300 range. Instead, the two launch devices were $500+, a price range which encroached on territory already covered by other, more powerful, and more featureful devices.
2) Lack of proper marketing. The Chromebook may have been less powerful, but it had a battery life like you wouldn't believe. I used mine daily, taking it to meetings at work to take notes on, browsing the web on breaks, yet I only had to charge it every few days, sometimes just once or twice a week. And that SSD! Every time I showed it to my coworkers, the first thing I did was close the lid to put it into hibernation, then re-open it and show how it was instantly back at its previous state. It truly behaved as though it remained powered on throughout the process, despite going into a low-power state that could last for weeks. Unfortunately, these and other great features were unknown to the average consumer.
As far as updates, however, their setup is top-notch. It automatically downloads and installs updates just like the Chrome browser does, and they update fairly often. I only wish they could do the same with their phones.
I never got one of the Chromebooks (I don't believe they're even available in my country), but I can understand why they failed at that price point and feature set.
If they were $200-300, then they not only are a great value for a laptop, but would provide fair competition against tablets, which many people want just as a cheap laptop.
But when you get to the $500 price point, you lose any advantage over the ipad, and start to encroach on the $900 price point of the macbook air, who's ssd and battery life is just as amazing as the chromebook, with better support and better specs.
I have one. I can't imagine any modern, budget laptop performing worse than a chrome book. As a last resort, I tried it with my 6 year old son, and he said it was too slow. It now sits in a pile of books.
If you havent used it recently its much better. I've been using mine since the day I got it and I'm using it right now. Considering this is $200 hardware from 15 months ago I could see this doing really well on $200 hardware today. I always took Google's approach to the CR-48 as making CrOS run well on the least powerful platform possible. If they can make me happy with this it can only get better with cheaper more powerful hardware in the future.
They sold very poorly, only about 5000 or so for each model after many months after launch.
The Motorola Xoom was a Google experience device but the initial high cost seems to have scared buyers away. Google does not have experience making hardware so it's better they let Motorola make it, but with Google branding.
Unlike phones, tablets shouldn't need carrier approval—at least not to the same extent. Google should have an easier time selling tablets than the ill-fated Nexus One.
They have to walk a very fine line here though. If they push their own hardware too hard they risk driving the other vendors into the arms of Microsoft. If they're too timid then the current excesses of the vendors go unchecked.
Personally I think they're going to have to bite the bullet and become a real consumer electronics company but that's going to be a very painful transition.
How exactly is this different from the Xoom (and the Nexus phones)? The implicit frame for this news is "Google copying Apple due to failure" but I don't seem to find any information beyond that.
It's hard to describe the frustration of putting my trust in them and then watching so many other devices coming out with and being upgraded to Android 4.0 all around me, while I'm left in the dark.
Google, phone manufacturers, and carriers all seem to have a distinct "fire and forget" mindset regarding phones. As soon as it's on the market they move on to the next one, and those of us locked into a 1 or 2 year contract are left in the dust.