Android M, the next version of Google's operating system for smartphones and tablets, was just unveiled at the company's annual I/O developer conference.
And I couldn't care less.
As a longtime Android fan I should have been excited for this moment. After all, I've been addicted to the platform since I purchased the Droid Erisback in 2009 -- I even have little green Android figurines scattered across my desk. But excitement wasn't my first reaction.
Android M isn't exactly revolutionary, but it's promising a lot of interesting features. The Google Now personal assistant will be better with contextual searches (Now On Tap), app permissions will be revamped, and battery life will (allegedly) be better. Those all sound appealing -- especially the battery life improvements -- but I'm not as excited as I should be for one big reason:
I know I'll probably never even see Android M on my current smartphone.
How do I know? Because six months after its debut, I don't even have the most recent version of Android (5.0 Lollipop), either.
The Apple way: Instant OS updates
When Apple releases a software update to their phones, all compatible devices -- regardless of location or carrier -- can download the update at the same time. Given that Apple has sold more than 700 million iPhones to date, and that all new models starting with 2011's iPhone 4S are compatiblewith the latest version of iOS, that means that hundreds of millions of phones around the world can get the latest operating system on the same day that it's released.
Even Microsoft -- albeit with far fewer phones on its Windows OS -- offers the same day and date software updates, regardless of phone carrier.
Unfortunately, this isn't the case with Android. Despite (or, perhaps because of) being the biggest phone operating system in the world, updating Androidphones is a rather long and complicated process.
Google first pushes its updated Android software to the members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a consortium of more than 80 companies. Each manufacturer will then tweak the code for their respective devices. For example, Samsung must build TouchWiz -- its unique skin, which modifies the look and feel and adds various distinguishing features -- around each new version of Android. The same goes for HTC (Sense UI), LG, Sony and Motorola.
(For manufacturers that use a totally customized "fork" of Android -- such as Xiaomi, Amazon and others -- the customization road is an even more extensive process, but not really relevant to this conversation.)
If you have an unlocked (non-carrier specific) phone, that's the end of the process -- you get the update once the manufacturer distributes it. But for most of us (in the US, at least), the phone is bought through a wireless carrier, adding yet another layer of bureaucracy to the software update process.
Each wireless carrier gets its own further customized version of the manufacturer's Android software, which it then subjects to network compatibility testing. The carriers are the ultimate arbiter of when which update goes live for which devices on their networks. That's why many times you will see an Android OS update hit, say, an AT&Tphone, while that same device languishes on an older version on Verizon or Sprint.
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