It keeps getting more awesome
Let's bang that "fragmentation" drum once again though, because that never gets old.
Developers usually have to wait for the Google I/O conference in May before getting their paws on the latest Android builds, but this year the Chocolate Factory has let its version 7.0, or N, build out of the bag well before the show. "We're doing something a little different this year by releasing the preview early ... really …
Sounds like you need to get in touch with Motorola.
At this point, given the near complete lack of any sort of updates, I'm assuming it's roughly as secure as my Windows XP box.
Nope, it's certainly not invulnerable but Android definitely is a lot more secure than XP ever was.
Then you assumption is totally wrong.
Google are security patching Android 6 and Android 5.x , vendors are free to backport anything older.
Your device runs 5.1 so is supported via Motorola for patches.
Even if it weren't, Android is very secure, when was the last time year heard of anyone getting problems? You browser (and OS WebKit and openSSL) are all serviced via Google play, and you are prevented by default from getting apps from anywhere but Google play safe zone.
I'm other words, its a million times more secure than Windows XP, and significantly more secure than even windows 7/8/10
"Those who like Android" is a few percent of the people who buy Android. Most people are buying Samsung or HTC, not Android. Likewise most iPhone buyers buy Apple, not iOS.
You aren't going to get people to choose a phone just because it makes updating to newer versions easier. At least not unless there's the equivalent of few things like Nimda and I.Love.You hitting large swathes of Android users - and even then you'd probably see Samsung just backporting fixes for serious holes into older versions of Android even if Google won't.
No one complains about "Windows fragmentation" even though we see regular stats showing how many people are running XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 on their PCs. it doesn't matter for securing PCs (well except for those still on XP) since Microsoft continues patching older versions. Maybe Google would have more luck getting OEMs to provide security patches if they produced patches for version 4.4.3 or whatever so it would be very easy for OEMs to integrate the change into their codebase instead of asking them to go all the way to version 6.x to get the fix. Thing is, Google doesn't care, they get money selling ads to those people no matter what version of Android they're running.
I wouldn't mind doing some testing with a Pixel C- looks like a lovely piece of kit.
How does one enroll in the developer programme for a discount on one?
I haven't bought one- on price grounds- thus far- the 64Gb version is @ 619 Euro in the Google Store (the 32Gb version is a hundred less). While it is a lovely piece of hardware- Google are hardly doing themselves any favours by making it so expensive. I, for one, would be very happy to nab one- at the 150 Euro discount (my old Nexus 7 is getting mighty long in the tooth- to the extent I rely almost exclusively on my HTC One M8 these days).
Google- you have loyal followers of your hardware and software- give us a dig out for fecks sake.
"I wouldn't mind doing some testing with a Pixel C- looks like a lovely piece of kit."
Yes, it looks fine and specs are great too.
Anandtech had a review of the thing - twice since the first iteration was next to useless due to bugs - and the updated model still boasted many of the same bugs and crashes. I'm sure they'll address the bugs eventually.
Every new Android version I hope for a saner update mechanism, and every new Android version I'm inevitably disappointed.
I got briefly hopeful when Android-based things like Android Wear came out with updates direct from Google and I naively thought it was a sign of things to come, but nothing has materialised. Android-on-phones is probably the only Google product I can think of that *doesn't* auto-update by default and that leaves the millions of Android users that don't have Nexii vulnerable. Yes I know Google patches AOSP even on past versions, even if OEMs rarely distribute/use those patches, yes I know there are custom ROMs but both are workarounds not solutions to Android's support problem.
So no improved security. Still I'm sure cosmetic tweaks to notifications are a very important feature to have too...
>Every new Android version I hope for a saner update mechanism,
Manage your expectations, dotdavid!
There are some technical reasons that date back to Android 1.0 why Android updates can't be made saner without a bit of an upheaval (think of something akin to OSX moving from PowerPC to Intel). Google have nailed updates with ChromeOS, and it's possible that the two OSs might converge in future.
My just give this a whirl.
As to those moaning about not getting updates that down to the handset makers. I had this with HTC a perfectly good device the HTC OneX+ (64gb) didnt get kitkat and an important bluetooth stack bug fix.
Sure I could custom rom it and belive me a I did but even that was not perfect without the binary blobs from HTC.
My device want even 2 years old and my vendor basically dropped it. So I decided that I wouldn't suffer that again and bought the Nexus 6. If you buy a nexus phone, the nexus line is not designed to be mass market and is orginally aimed at developers.
As to those on the nexus 5 and 7, you may well see N for your devices but it it is a lot harder to get the newer os running on the now aging hardware so they probably had to set a minimum spec now for this re-release.
" For one-off notifications like a text message, Android N will now support a direct, in-window reply option, just like with the Wear operating system"
Bloody hell, a feature Windows Phone / Mobile has before Android!
MS producing a Linux distro and SQL on Linux all in a week... Hell really has frozen over!