technology Google Wants to Force Android Updates

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Original Article

 

Essentially Google is getting tired of the fragmentation of Android. They want phone manufacturers to start pushing out the newer versions of android a lot faster. It took Samsung over 7 months to get Marshmallow on the S6, and many people are operating on old outdated versions of Android. To combat this, Google intends on making a list of manufacturers who keep "up to date" on the latest Android and releasing it to the public which will definitely sway people's buying decisions. The truth is that Google wants what Apple has: an easily sustainable ecosystem. It's difficult to convince app developers to see Android as the first choice when over 24,000 different versions of it exist.

 

This is part of why I left Android, open source is a good idea on paper, but in execution it creates problems when anyone is allowed to modify the software, mostly in the compatibility department. This has also been the source of many security flaws because since device makers don't always have the latest version, they are also not shipping with the latest security updates.

 

Like them or hate them, this is what makes Apple device more appealing to developers: security and ease of development. 1 app to rule them all with minor variants. Android sadly is held back by all the people running older versions.

 

As Gizmodo puts it, only 8% of Android users are running Marshmallow while over 84% of iOS users are running the latest iOS.