By Android is the undisputed king of smartphones, in popularity and market share. There are so many reasons why people love android devices, mostly it’s because they are vastly available and also come at an affordable price.
But this giant doesn’t lack its shortfalls. Software updates… Most people don’t care about them but for those of us who care, the one question we always ask ourselves is when will I get the new update and will I even get it?
We are now at Android 9.0 Pie and I can testify to the slow process of android phones getting updates. Some phones never actually get past the version they were released on.
Start off your week with tech news recap and trending conversations in your inbox
In comparison to iOS, the iPhone 6 which was released in 2014 is currently running the latest iOS version and this is what I envy about iPhone users, continuos OEM support. I am not saying that we android users don’t receive updates entirely, we do but even then, they come a bit too late. How many phones are currently running on Android Oreo, let alone Android Pie? We are still seeing phone launch with Oreo, despite the existence of Android Pie.
What could the problem be? Is it that Google doesn’t have rules that OEMs should update their devices? Well, not all Android devices are suffering in this update issue. Those who are lucky enough to own a Pixel device, have no idea what we are talking about and I don’t blame them. The problem is not android in general, the problem is OEMs. They don’t care about updates and they only focus on releasing new phones that again, they won’t update. The only phones that try and keep up with updates are flagships such as Nokia, OnePlus, Xaiomi, Samsung flagships and a few others but again, too slow with the updates and the software support has a 2-year time-bomb attached to it.
A version of this article first appeared on TechArena Kenya
Comments