fragmentation

One problem in the Android ecosystem today is fragmentation. If the phone is not the nexus one, chances are the OS is older than Froyo (2.2). Even for new phones at the time of writing, I still see Donut (1.6) being shipped. If the device is not released by Google, it seems that its version is always lagging behind.  In the spectrum, only a small percentage made up by these Google branded privileged devices will have the most up to date OS. The rest, and majority, of handsets will be at best one version behind. Now that Google no longer sells its own devices, these privileged devices will become smaller and smaller as the market grows. This fragmentation will be more pronounced unless some sorta rule enforces the manufacturer must keep up.

A lot of friends asked when they will see the OS upgrade (eg Eclair to Froyo) for their non Google branded devices. It's a popular question I too see in various social forums. Of Nokia, this question used to be more popular than others. 1. Nokia has shipped more devices than anyone else. 2. Their Symbian OS was stone aged with historical problems and patches all over it. So people look for fixes in the upgrade. 3. Its sick distribution strategy creates a problem where some regions get an upgrade while others don't based on the product code. That's why software like Nemesis exists to help users with their product code.

Android excels in the mobile market with a phenomenal momentum. Unfortunately, though, its increasing number of users are also asking the very same upgrade question. No one should be mistaken that the device manufacturers like Sansung, HTC, Motorola, oh yeah Nokia, are product companies. At the end of the day it all comes down to how many products they have sold. It's the revenue and profit their stockholders look at every quarter. Obviously it's their best interest to sell more devices. Upgrading the sold devices, however, is costly and most of them don't even have the infrastructure such as OverTheAir, user friendly firmware tools, to do so. And most importantly, upgrade doesn't add to sales numbers. Following the money trail, it makes a lot of sense for these companies to make new devices with the new OS versions than to create an upgrade path for sold devices. With some clever marketing campaign, users will be buying the new shiny device with the OS version we have been waiting for to upgrade. Why bother to upgrade. Just buy a new phone. That's a win situation for product companies.

A personal example was the Galaxy phone I got. It was shipped with Cupcake. Samsung was to release the Donut upgrade later last year. Never happened. But of course it shipped with new phones with Donut and Eclair shortly after. And it's not just Samsung. That's how they all do it.