Google Begins Rolling Out Android 7.0 Nougat

[bug77]

You know, you can always start your own business or buy FLOSS hardware.. they just recently published some A20 based hacker hardware that comes with USB->HDMI adapter to fight the planned obsolescence.

I'm not following.

[L_A_G]

Nexus 5 is officially left out in the cold indeed. But this is not entirely Google's fault, it's the closed nature of the hardware they use. When the maker of the SoC (or whatever other chip you may have on board) doesn't want to update their drivers, there's not a damn thing Google, Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony or anyone else can do about it. That's (part of the reason) why Apple prefers to keep everything in house and why I won't touch a Mediatek equipped phone. It's also why I could never make sense of people's enthusiasm over Cyanogenmod.

You're shifting way too much blame onto the manufacturers of the SoCs here. If the developers of custom ROMs like the Cyanogenmod crew can port newer versions of Android to devices that never got support from the manufacturer themselves it's pretty clear that the end of support was not caused by anything relating to drivers. It's not like Google is constantly messing about with the driver APIs so there's really no reason why drivers would become incompatible with the latest version of the OS as soon as the manufacturer stopped maintaining them.

[darkbasic]

You're shifting way too much blame onto the manufacturers of the SoCs here. If the developers of custom ROMs like the Cyanogenmod crew can port newer versions of Android to devices that never got support from the manufacturer themselves it's pretty clear that the end of support was not caused by anything relating to drivers. It's not like Google is constantly messing about with the driver APIs so there's really no reason why drivers would become incompatible with the latest version of the OS as soon as the manufacturer stopped maintaining them.

Android 7 has Vulkan support. Every device without Vulkan drivers can't officially get Android 7. It's time for Google to develop their own firmwares and drivers, like they did for their laptops.

[chrisb]

You're shifting way too much blame onto the manufacturers of the SoCs here. If the developers of custom ROMs like the Cyanogenmod crew can port newer versions of Android to devices that never got support from the manufacturer themselves it's pretty clear that the end of support was not caused by anything relating to drivers.

Another possibility is that Google has development requirements/testing/standards that differ from Cyanogenmod. Nexus devices have been hit by unfixable SoC driver incompatibilities that only appeared on update in the past (e.g. Nexus 4 camera bug). Google don't have to plan obsolescence to get people to buy new phones - the average phone replacement cycle is about two years anyway.

[bug77]

You're shifting way too much blame onto the manufacturers of the SoCs here. If the developers of custom ROMs like the Cyanogenmod crew can port newer versions of Android to devices that never got support from the manufacturer themselves it's pretty clear that the end of support was not caused by anything relating to drivers. It's not like Google is constantly messing about with the driver APIs so there's really no reason why drivers would become incompatible with the latest version of the OS as soon as the manufacturer stopped maintaining them.

Except Cyanogenmod can't do that. They will support maybe one more version than the manufacturer does and even then you get issues like non working wifi, usb, bt, gps and whatnot. Precisely because all they can do rip the drivers from the official image and hope they can compile newer Android linking to them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
And I'm not excusing Google here, they could ask that whoever want to supply the chips for the Nexus phone must provide support for X years. Then again, Google doesn't deal directly with these guys and the mobile market is huge, maybe Google doesn't have the clout to push for that.

Android 7 has Vulkan support. Every device without Vulkan drivers can't officially get Android 7. It's time for Google to develop their own firmwares and drivers, like they did for their laptops.

Is Vulkan a requirement for Nougat? I wasn't aware of that.

[wdb974]

Well, individual experiences don't really matter. What I'd like to see is a clear statement along the lines of: "we'll keep updating these as long as there are more than 10,000 (or 100,000, or 1,000,000 or whatever) active devices in the wild". But that won't happen because, as explained above, it's not (entirely) Google's decision.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/9HZHQJMrxF8

[darkbasic]

Is Vulkan a requirement for Nougat? I wasn't aware of that.

I'm not completely sure, but it may be.

[L_A_G]

Except Cyanogenmod can't do that. They will support maybe one more version than the manufacturer does and even then you get issues like non working wifi, usb, bt, gps and whatnot. Precisely because all they can do rip the drivers from the official image and hope they can compile newer Android linking to them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

You do realize that the devices are not just the SoCs? The wireless chips, which handle WiFi, BT and GPS, are not just used on one device, are maintained for quite a while and usually used no several devices released at different times. Incompatibilities with new versions of the OS happen a lot less often than what you think. There's completely functional ROMs for the Galaxy S2 up to 6.0.1 and that thing came out in 5 years ago.

And I'm not excusing Google here, they could ask that whoever want to supply the chips for the Nexus phone must provide support for X years. Then again, Google doesn't deal directly with these guys and the mobile market is huge, maybe Google doesn't have the clout to push for that.

Except you are excusing Google & Co here... They are after all a business and as one, they're supposed to make money and thus it makes perfect sense for them to make all devices obsolete in 3 years so that people wouldn't hold onto their devices for any longer than that.

[L_A_G]

Another possibility is that Google has development requirements/testing/standards that differ from Cyanogenmod. Nexus devices have been hit by unfixable SoC driver incompatibilities that only appeared on update in the past (e.g. Nexus 4 camera bug).

I'm fairly sure that Google is much more capable of fixing bugs like that than a bunch of modders...

Google don't have to plan obsolescence to get people to buy new phones - the average phone replacement cycle is about two years anyway.

You do realize we are right now talking about the reason for that quick upgrade cycle?

[bug77]

Bla, bla


Except you are excusing Google & Co here... They are after all a business and as one, they're supposed to make money and thus it makes perfect sense for them to make all devices obsolete in 3 years so that people wouldn't hold onto their devices for any longer than that.

Google doesn't sell devices (outside the limited Nexus line), so why would they care how often you buy one?