How Google updated Android without releasing version 4.3

[Chippiewill]

Google covered a lot of ground in its three-and-a-half-hour opening keynote at Google I/O yesterday, but one thing it didn't announce was the oft-rumored next version of Android. However, persistent rumors insist that the elusive Android 4.3 is still coming next month—if that's true, why not announce it at I/O in front of all of your most enthusiastic developers?

The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem.

Consider the full breadth of yesterday's Android-related improvements: you've got an update to the Android version of Google Maps, due this summer, that incorporates some of the features of the iOS version and the new desktop version. There's a WebGL-capable version of Chrome for Android and an entirely new gaming API. A shotgun blast of improvements are coming to the Google Play Services APIs. And that's to say nothing of the products that affect Google's services across all supported platforms: Google Play Music All Access (say that five times fast), Hangouts, and Search improvements.

In iOS, most of these changes would be worthy of a point update, if not a major version update. With few exceptions, making major changes to any of the core first-party iOS apps requires an iOS update. This method works for iOS since all supported iOS devices get their updates directly from Apple on the same day (device-specific updates like iOS 6.1.4 notwithstanding).

This is not true of Android. Here, we've seen apps like Gmail and services like those provided by Google Play gradually decouple from the rest of the OS. This makes it possible for Google to provide major front-facing updates without actually relying on its notoriously unreliable partners to incrementally up the Android version number on their devices. Many of the new things announced yesterday are coming to your Android device whether you're running a Nexus 4 or a Galaxy S 4 or a Sony Xperia ZL or an HTC Thunderbolt.

And therein lies a partial solution to the platform's fragmentation problem.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/05/how-google-updated-android-without-releasing-version-4-3/

Very interesting article and would be a pretty good solution to the Android problem. A lot of apps still can't make use of new features as they're not supported by the majority of handsets. Although I'd still like Google to be a bit more assertive with OEMS releasing with up to date Android versions.

[samsaBEAR]

Google can try everything in the book, OEMs can then go on to update as quick as they can, but it's the networks that block the updates. Fact is, the networks don't want a year and a half old phone getting an update when that customer can go out and get a new phone instead. It's ********, and partly why I rooted my phone so I can run CyanogenMod. Google needs to step up to the carriers and strike a deal like Apple do, the update gets sent out regardless of the carrier's opinion, that way the only thing stopping updates is OEMs.

[mrwoooooooo]

its not the networks at all. they dont do it for iphones.

[xxMATTGxx]

Not sure how 100% true this article is but some what explains it:

http://gizmodo.com/5987508/why-android-updates-are-so-slow

[samsaBEAR]

its not the networks at all. they dont do it for iphones.
They don't do it for iPhone because Apple has sway. Carrying the iPhone is a huge thing for a network so I'm sure it's part of the contract with Apple to allow Apple to update their phones when they want.

[xxMATTGxx]

They don't do it for iPhone because Apple has sway. Carrying the iPhone is a huge thing for a network so I'm sure it's part of the contract with Apple to allow Apple to update their phones when they want.

I am not sure if the article I posted is true in what they say but they mention the Apple argument with the following:


But Apple Is So Much Faster!

This is one of the greatest illusions in the tech game. Apple announces the new version of iOS, and wham! You can download it on your phone within a day or two. How did Apple manage to skip that exhaustive carrier-testing that everyone else had to go through? It didn't. It had to jump through the same hoops as the Android manufacturers; the only difference is that Apple jumped through them before it announced the update.
Sprint's Ryan Sullivan explains:

"I don't think that Apple is necessarily any faster, I think it just appears faster because when they're announcing the OS release, they're launching it. A lot of that is just because they control the platform stack, but they have the same group of people who are working continuously on the network integration pieces for their 250 wireless carriers across the world. So, while Google is announcing the software when it's done at the platform-level only, and then they allow OEMs access to it so that they can build that network integration layer. It appears that Google and the Android process takes much longer. It doesn't. Google just takes it half way, and then it's up to the manufacturers and carriers to take it the rest of the way so that it will work on a network.... I think the overall cycle from start to finish is relatively similar between iOS and Android, it's just the point at which the platform is announced."