The bigger they are the slower they do firmware updates?

[greatwhite]

I don't know if my title is strictly true, but I do know that Samsung is the largest provider of Android devices and they appear to be on average the slowest of the meaningful player to do updates. They update reasonably quickly on their latest, greatest offering - read Galaxy S (insert latest number), but the rest of the products seem to be updated around about the time Google release the next version of android. For Example, I haven't got Android 6 on my Tab S, but got Android 7 on other non Samsung devices already.

For a company that has the dominant position in the market, this makes no sense. What are other peoples experiences and thoughts with this?

Does anyone one know of stats related manufacturer vs firmware update lead time?

 

[SauRoNZA]

Buy an iPhone.

 

[backstreetboy]

I don't know if my title is strictly true, but I do know that Samsung is the largest provider of Android devices and they appear to be on average the slowest of the meaningful player to do updates. They update reasonably quickly on their latest, greatest offering - read Galaxy S (insert latest number), but the rest of the products seem to be updated around about the time Google release the next version of android. For Example, I haven't got Android 6 on my Tab S, but got Android 7 on other non Samsung devices already.

For a company that has the dominant position in the market, this makes no sense. What are other peoples experiences and thoughts with this?

Does anyone one know of stats related manufacturer vs firmware update lead time?

Buy an iPhone.

Anyway blame our local SP's https://androidcommunity.com/android-6-0-1-now-ready-for-samsung-galaxy-tab-s-8-4-10-5-20160829/ and DIY.

 

[D tj]

Samsung can copy to save R+D time, but copying the software is a bit of a problem for them.

 

[AlphaJohn]

Why would they.

Most people live by the motto if it ain't broken don't fix it. According to most OEM's if they add the latest OS on the devices it will kill sales as it will prolong the device's life. <-- Something they really don't want.

Also I would go so far as to say that 90+% of the people don't care. Most people wont be even able to tell you what version they have currently on the phones.

So yeah why waste money on dev teams when you can make money on sales.

 

[greatwhite]

Anyway blame our local SP's https://androidcommunity.com/android-6-0-1-now-ready-for-samsung-galaxy-tab-s-8-4-10-5-20160829/ and DIY.

I know the the marshmallow update for the the Tab S was released by Samsung late August 2016 in some places in the world. So the SPs might be part of the problem here, but updates for other manufacturers seem to roll out faster here via the same SPs. From this I deduce that Samsung is at least part of the problem. And August 2016 is in itself a problem for an OS released the best part of a year before.

 

[NorthPole]

There was an article posted a few years ago if I'm correct about the process. Basically Samsung will develop the software, send it to the SP who then test it, if they want something changed (settings/bug fix etc) they send it back to Samsung and then back to the SP each time this is done usually takes about 1 month (may be wrong) till everyone is happy. So this is very dependant on the SP and Samsung to deploy resources to get it working. And this had to be done for each phone and each SP.

 

[greatwhite]

Why would they.

Most people live by the motto if it ain't broken don't fix it. According to most OEM's if they add the latest OS on the devices it will kill sales as it will prolong the device's life. <-- Something they really don't want.

Also I would go so far as to say that 90+% of the people don't care. Most people wont be even able to tell you what version they have currently on the phones.

So yeah why waste money on dev teams when you can make money on sales.

You might be right - many don't care.

That said they do they update, but are just exceptionally slow. So to the people that do care, they are pissing them off and driving them to another brand, but they have still spent the money on the devs. Those people that do care, also tend to be the tech influencers - the friend that average Joe knows that is tech savvy that Joe get purchasing advice from.

 

[Tsepz_GP]

I don't know if my title is strictly true, but I do know that Samsung is the largest provider of Android devices and they appear to be on average the slowest of the meaningful player to do updates. They update reasonably quickly on their latest, greatest offering - read Galaxy S (insert latest number), but the rest of the products seem to be updated around about the time Google release the next version of android. For Example, I haven't got Android 6 on my Tab S, but got Android 7 on other non Samsung devices already.

For a company that has the dominant position in the market, this makes no sense. What are other peoples experiences and thoughts with this?

Does anyone one know of stats related manufacturer vs firmware update lead time?

Most normal users don't care for software updates they just want the phone tondo what they want hence Samsung is in the dominant position.

I'm in Nougat with my S7 Edge, but funny enough, it's not a big step up as some of the Nougat features were in the Samsung Marshmallow Software.

If updates are that important abd crucial to you rather import a Google Pixel or get an iPhone.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Apple controls the software end to end. No ISP's get in the middle so you get updates instantly when they roll out.

 

[greatwhite]

Apple controls the software end to end. No ISP's get in the middle so you get updates instantly when they roll out.

In that respect, the others should take notes. But Apple being the ring fenced system it is also has its draw back for consumers, most notably cost

 

[DA-LION-619]

In that respect, the others should take notes. But Apple being the ring fenced system it is also has its draw back for consumers, most notably cost

Your low budget Android phones are crap and the flagships have a much higher hardware cost so in the end the price ends up close to an iPhone but with lower margins.

 

[greatwhite]

Your low budget Android phones are crap and the flagships have a much higher hardware cost so in the end the price ends up close to an iPhone but with lower margins.

You obviously get a better deal on your iPhones than I've ever seen. My experience is that iPhones are the most expensive by a fair margin - especially if you factor in larger memory requirements where a microSD card can be added to others.

 

[DA-LION-619]

You obviously get a better deal on your iPhones than I've ever seen. My experience is that iPhones are the most expensive by a fair margin - especially if you factor in larger memory requirements where a microSD card can be added to others.

The Samsung S7 is 12k on Takealot
The iPhone 7 is like 13k

1k isn't a big difference.

 

[backstreetboy]

I know the the marshmallow update for the the Tab S was released by Samsung late August 2016 in some places in the world. So the SPs might be part of the problem here, but updates for other manufacturers seem to roll out faster here via the same SPs. From this I deduce that Samsung is at least part of the problem. And August 2016 is in itself a problem for an OS released the best part of a year before.

Then buy from those manufacturers then... Samsung needs to skin Android with Touchwhiz and it takes time. Marshmallow doesn't bring that many new things anyway.

 

[Tsepz_GP]

Then buy from those manufacturers then... Samsung needs to skin Android with Touchwhiz and it takes time. Marshmallow doesn't bring that many new things anyway.

Yep.

Updates aren't as big of a deal as they were in the days of Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich, where huge leaps in UI, features and under the hood were made.

I remember how Froyo was a huge step up in performance for Androids and it bringing built-in Adobe Flash support and all kinds of cool stuff at the time. Good times.

These days it's more refinement and some of it is already done by the OEMs in their own UIs.

They must just keep pumping out the Security Updates, especially the Google Play Service updates that they push out, those go to around 90% of Androids and are pushed remotely, your phone updates without you even knowing.

 

[cguy]

I don't know if my title is strictly true, but I do know that Samsung is the largest provider of Android devices and they appear to be on average the slowest of the meaningful player to do updates. They update reasonably quickly on their latest, greatest offering - read Galaxy S (insert latest number), but the rest of the products seem to be updated around about the time Google release the next version of android. For Example, I haven't got Android 6 on my Tab S, but got Android 7 on other non Samsung devices already.

For a company that has the dominant position in the market, this makes no sense. What are other peoples experiences and thoughts with this?

Does anyone one know of stats related manufacturer vs firmware update lead time?

The bigger they are, the more units are out in the wild, and so the more risk there is. It most certainly makes sense that bigger firms take longer to update - essentially, the reasons are for more QA, as well as fewer turns on the Russian Roulette gun.

 

[surfs-up]

The bigger they are, the more units are out in the wild, and so the more risk there is. It most certainly makes sense that bigger firms take longer to update - essentially, the reasons are for more QA, as well as fewer turns on the Russian Roulette gun.

I don't really buy that reason. Everything is about scale - if a small cell phone manufacturer has 5 software developers working on firmware updates, then a bigger company that has 10 x as many phone models out there, should employ 10 x more developers working on firmware updates, and give each developer one or a few models to work on.....rather than work on the entire model range.

 

[cguy]

I don't really buy that reason. Everything is about scale - if a small cell phone manufacturer has 5 software developers working on firmware updates, then a bigger company that has 10 x as many phone models out there, should employ 10 x more developers working on firmware updates, and give each developer one or a few models to work on.....rather than work on the entire model range.

10x more developers is likely to make the product worse, not better. It doesn't scale like that.

 

[DA-LION-619]

More developers is likely to make the product worse, not better. It doesn't scale like that.

Lies.
Every project manager knows 9 women can give you a baby in one month.