AWOL SDK kicks off Nexus One backlash

After the hype comes the backlash - and in the fast moving world of smartphones, the whole cycle only takes a day. So on Thursday the new Google Nexus One smartphone was going to turn the mobile business model on its head, and some ardent Google fans even thought it was a groundbreaking handset design. By Friday, there was …

[Anonymous Coward]

google should have ...

... called it the "Nexus beta" and then it would have been the same as all their new products :-)

[Gulfie]

How about this...

I'm not sure of Google's licence terms, but how about we take the open source OS layer from Android, port OpenJDK 6 to run on top of it and just (re)write all the phone software in pure Java desktop? Adding Java Mobile would be difficult as the code isn't open, you'd have to implement something from the JSRs and even then you'd probably have problems getting it certified.

Just a thought.

[Paul Smith]

Yes men

I think this is a wonderful example of what happens when you surround your self with yes men and start believing your own hype.

[Seanie Ryan]

well well

starting to make apple's model look not so evil/bad after all now....

one thing i have to ask... maybe some user can help me on this... if I had a Moto Droid running v1.x of Android, how do I go about upgrading it to V2.x? can it be done? easy/hard?

once there are loads of different models of Android phones from different suppliers, are you still in the boat of having what was installed day 1?

for example, the first 2g iphone can run the same 3.x OS as all new 3GS iphones and there is a simple way for users to upgrade.

Whats the same route/tool available to android customers and will it too complex for the average user?

[Colin_L]

upgrading versions of Android

I'm in the US on T-Mobile and there is no way for a user to upgrade their own code unless you've rooted the device.

Otherwise, you sit on your hands and wait for T-Mobile to push it out. I remember getting Cupcake (1.5) last summer, a good number of months after it was released.

Regarding the SDK, however, this same BS just happened with the Droid release as well. 2.0 was in customer hands before developers had a chance to update their apps, so Droid users had busted apps and existing users watched with amusement as updates were delivered rapid-fire in November and December.

As expected with rushed releases, some program 'updates' actually further broke applications for Android 1.6 users.

[My New Handle]

Not true ... no need to root to update

All you need to update from Cupcake to Donut was a copy of the new OS image file. The actual update was a piece of cake not requiring root access at all.

When Donut arrived I simply updated mine rather than wait for the OTA. There is plenty of help on the forums as to how to do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be evil, we failed geography

My Nexus One has gone AWOL, too, with Google insisting on shipping my superphone to Sierra Leone instead of Singapore. My frantic pleas to correct their mistake were answered with a refusal to change the shipping address, citing security reasons(?).

Paris, 'cos she's found her equal in Google Checkout...