Frustrated Android users hope Samsung lawsuit will bring change
Originally published in 2016
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The update problem
The problem may be hard to fix.
If you have an Apple phone, you get all of your updates from one place—Apple, said Daniel Lance with Archer Security Group.
With Android, it is different.
“There’s no one central place to go get all of your stuff,” he said. “With the Android platform, it comes from Samsung or HTC or Motorola or whoever it might be. The model itself lends itself to, well, just say a large degree of inconsistency in what the updates are.”
That means Android updates from Google may go through manufacturers, like Samsung, and through carriers, like AT&T, before finally getting to you, the phone owner. That could take a long time.
“…Android’s set-up, along with the carrier’s testing requirements for all of the variants of a base model mean that even a small patch update has to go through a vigorous and lengthy approvals process,” wrote Ewan Spence in Forbes.
And that leads some users to swear, or come close.
“The Android update clusterfrick is by far the biggest problem in the Android world, and OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] should be, if possible, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for their negligent practices regarding updating their software,” said Thom Holwerda in OSNews.
“Oh and My Note5 is still on 5.1.1 with the November security patch,” said an angry user. “F—ING NOVEMBER PATCH and it’s January.”