Why Android updates are a mess: it's the business model

Another Android release, another round of update uncertainty and disappointment.

My ZDNet colleague James Kendrick addressed the latest flap the other day with a provocatively titled post, Android 4.0 updates: It is all about the money. The short version of James’s argument is that handset makers would rather sell you a new phone than support an old one, and so they deliberately refuse to update old ones.

I remember engaging in this same argument about Windows Phones a year ago, when some analysts argued that carriers would deliberately block updates to sell new devices. When I read my analysis from back then, I got a weird sense of déjà vu. In fact, what I wrote back in November 2010 applies equally well to the Android community today:

One of the biggest criticisms of Windows Mobile and Android devices is that device manufacturers get control over who gets updated versions of the OS. That leads to awkward situations where someone pays big bucks (and signs a long-term contract) for a high-end device that can’t compete with rivals only a few months later, because the device maker is dragging its feet on releasing the OS upgrade.

Sound familiar? Android owners were screaming back then about long delays in getting upgrades from version 2.1, which was released in January 2010 and still wasn’t available on many devices 10 months later.

Then, as now, the delay was not about trying to force users to buy new handsets. Instead, it was about the business model that forces the ecosystem to make economic and engineering decisions about whether and when to update.

The Android community is traveling along a path that the old Windows Mobile platform followed a few years ago. It was a disaster then, and Microsoft wisely abandoned that entire business model when it developed Windows Phone 7. Alas, Google doesn’t have that option, which means that Android users are going to continue to face a mess when it comes to updates.

Ironically, my year-old analysis applies almost perfectly to Android. Here it is again, only slightly reformulated. And it explains the Android mess better than any of the explanations I’ve seen so far.

With a few exceptions, handset makers like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola do not sell directly to consumers. They sell to mobile carriers, who in turn sell products directly to consumers.

Mobile carriers are not evil or stupid. They are capitalists. That often produces behavior that appears to be evil and/or stupid. Depressingly often, in fact. But there’s usually a business reason for that behavior. And those who are arguing the paranoid case are ignoring those business models.

The problem with the (now-defunct) Windows Mobile platform, as I noted last year, is that every phone was very different, and thus the decision to provide an update involved potentially significant engineering costs. Android owners are finally becoming aware that the Android platform follows the exact same model. Hardware specs are all over the map, and thus there is a complicated chain of engineering that is unique for every handset:

• The operating system vendor (Google) issues a new version of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.0, let’s say).
• They make that code available to handset manufacturers like HTC, Motorola, and Samsung, who modify the code as needed to match the capabilities of each specific device. The handset makers also need to test the new code with each device configuration to ensure that it doesn’t introduce new bugs (regression testing).
• Then they hand the code over to the carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone, and so on) who might or might not add their own bits to it (branding, crapware, etc.) and test it on their network.
• Finally, if the stars align perfectly, it gets delivered to you, the device owner, either by the device maker or by the carrier.

This is not just a theoretical analysis. Motorola was forced to release a long, detailed blog post just a few weeks ago, explaining why some of its customers would have to wait a long time for ICS upgrades and others wouldn’t get them at all. Their explanation matches the situation as I described it a year ago almost to the letter.

Page 2: The long, slow Android update cycle –>