if only upgrades were that easy

<<If version x will run then version x+1 is guaranteed to fall on without difficulty.>>

And yet down the years I've ended up reinstalling Kubuntu from scratch every few updates when it falls over so badly that it's the quickest way to get going again. Windows hasn't had much less bumpy a ride here either. The idea that incremental updates are trouble free is laughably naive.

Sadly the same applies to in-place Android updates. However hard the packager tries, some users will end up with a borked phone at least some of the time. The safe alternative of fully replacing the OS and wiping their data+apps is not popular with users. It's a good incentive to put off or avoid updates.

The real incentive is that all the crapware they love to shovel over the OS takes it's own time to repair, as Android moves the goal posts with every release. Embed your crap too deeply and it breaks. It also doesn't upset them to think disappointed users might upgrade phone in frustration and enough will stupidly stick with the same manufacturer that just shafted them.

Let's face it: we all know going in that we're going to get the shitty end of the deal, with any part of the mobile industry.

read the Android Compatibility Definition

Check the current compatibility requirements http://source.android.com/compatibility/android-2.3-cdd.pdf, there's NO mention of SIM support.

As far as I can see the only hardware an Android device is required to have is a touchscreen, enough RAM and Flash storage and at least one network connection (of any type). Everything else is labeled as MAY or SHOULD have, not MUST have.

The sad truth is, this story is just that, a story made up by manufacturers that just don't *want* to sign contracts with Google or fulfill the software requirements.

sure?

So how do you install apps without downloading them? Seems pretty clear if you download an Android APK you're downloading Dalvik machine code that needs interpreting or compiling to run and runs straight into Apples ban.

fugly UI + uniformly high price = FAIL

So called fragmentation may well annoy lazier developers, customers love it. Presumably Microsoft are actively seeking lazy developers...

Locking down the UI so tightly means those of us that look at WM7 and thing 'fugly' are never going to buy in. The deluded few that like that look can already make their Android's look boring with WM7 widgets (one of the saddest apps yet). Meanwhile the bulk of the herd will find all the conformity they want on the oh-so pretty iPhone.

I'll carry on being grateful I can by a damn good phone (Orange San Francisco) for £80 safe knowing I can customise all the Orange branding crapware out of it. £300 still in my wallet and a phone I'm free to customise - remind me why fragmentation is supposed to be a problem for *customers*?

@Alan Wray:selective quoting at its best, try this one instead

I suggest you track down this quote from Rovio's CEO. Perhaps you might get a clue that the business models are different and paid content doesn't define profit on Android.

"“By end of year, we project earnings of over $1 million per month with the ad-supported version of Angry Birds,” says Peter Vesterbacka, CEO of Rovio."

been tried here and the pub industry took the piss

"What happened to common sense? This blanket ban of smoking is complete madness."

The UK pub/bar industry was given the opportunity to avoid compulsory bans, all they had to do was get a fairly moderate proportion of drinking area smoke free and clearly sign the areas. After 5 years they had managed to put smoking allowed signs up in over 90% of bars but provide bugger all smoke free service.

They played chicken with the government and lost. That's why compulsion is necessary, no-one in the trade wants to jump first and by and large none of them want to jump at all.

So far I've seen vanishingly small genuine complaint from smokers about our ban, because even smokers appreciate not drowning in a fug of smoke. Right at the start we saw a telling incident: builders having a lunchtime drink physically picking up the one just preparing to light up and throwing him out of the bar.

so called fragmentation is an Android strength

ElNumber:"even with its platform fragmentation which most users don't care about"

You understate, users actively want that 'fragmentation' because in reality fragmentation is little more than offering users choices. Lazy developers bitch about having to deal with different devices but frankly its not that hard and the user is king. And yes, I'm skipping over the mess carriers are making with their sodding OS overlays - they will go away when users get smart enough.

If users wanted to all use the same clone they'd already have an iPhone. I like having the option to run a tiny phone that fits comfortably in a pocket or a whopping great slab, with the same OS and mostly the same software (where dev's could be arsed testing it).

What Microsoft have done is removed the fragmentation, removing user choice with it. So they're explicitly fighting for Apples market and ignoring one of the strengths of Android, the variety of devices on offer. Don't see it ending well for Microsoft.

When Microsoft finally cave in and allow more variety in devices dev's will really see how much pain fragmentation can cause if dealing with it isn't built in from day 1.

an ADSL killer?

If this is true its not the other mobile operators that need to worry, this could easily replace ADSL over vast parts of the country. A reasonable price compared to ADSL+line rental at speeds many can only dream of.

Sadly I suspect it's another "3" drone making stuff up and "3"'s network is good but probably not that good. Yet.

O2 NEED good support more than "3"

Pretty much the same here, only had 1 problem on Three (couldn't disable my voicemail from a G1) and they fixed it instantly. Comparing Three and O2, more of the service just works on Three so there's a lot less need for customer support. The O2 network is horrible buggy and the missing features more annoying and sadly spills over onto my giffgaff service.

Comodo has different but less severe problems

Yeah, Comodo can be a royal PIA at times and its far from beginner friendly but so far its regular screwups have been localised - mostly forgetting my safe list with every damn update.

Had to give up AVG several years ago, didn't get my system nuked but it regularly had bad updates that left it sucking 100% CPU. Sucking so hard I couldn't even start the taskkiller to escape. Couldn't risk letting that loose on the family's PC's. Completely clueless, they never seemed to learn.

on what planet?

...in your world what we should see is much more important than what we actually see. A bad encoding is a bad encoding, whatever stats you throw at me. An upscaled SD remains upscaled SD whatever HD format you code it into. And a shitty quality master print stays shitty in SD or HD. The quality isn't there in the majority of HD material because the owners couldn't be arsed doing the job well, they know so few will even notice, they don't need to.

Let's face it though, the sort of idiots Which? uses typically couldn't spot quality if it poked them in the eyes. Like a depressing proportion of the general public they actually prefer the material overfiltered into softness, an astonishing number actually prefer upscaled SD over real HD versions. Most of the time I can see no difference at all, they both look identically bad.

its your router screwing up

torrents can indeed bring many domestic *ROUTERS* to their knees, I literally fried one (it died of heatstroke) and Nvidias woeful chipset network interfaces curl up and die at the slightest hint of torrents. Never seen the modem break sweat, it's not doing any packet processing, just forwarding them. It doesn't even notice that your torrents hitting a few hundred different IPs.

Personally I've seen a consistent 10Mbit on my 10Mbit connection since it was installed. On the rare times I suck 3+Gbyte of data in the afternoon and get throttled, the torrent slows down but iPlayer carries on working perfectly.

must be business use?

Business use isn't actually barred by giffgaff T&C's. Reselling is, running a business using it isn't.

he was kicked off with good reason.

Recently dickheads have been kicked off for a couple of reasons:

One cretin decided to ignore the difference between paying for unlimited data on a bundle and using the very explicitly capped (100Mb/day) free data. Strangely he get kicked off. Maybe the idiot should learn to read.

Some have persistently ignored the absolute ban on tethering of any kind, hammered the service and not surprisingly been given the heave ho. Some of these halfwits have openly admitted it on the forums or even attempted long self serving justification for their actions.

in situ charging not needed

Why would you want to charge AA/AAAs in situ? Much faster in a dedicated charger, easy enough to carry spares and away from a power point you need to swap out anyway.

Unfortunately the hideous power draw on DAB would mean buying a whole new set of Lithium AA/AAA and dedicated charger for a half decent life. Not much different from buying 2 overprices Pure battery pack.

Still, nice to see a less boxy DAB radio, still looks fugly but in a cheap, throwaway FM radio way for a change. Think I'll stick to the FM tuner in my £5 throwaway mobile and my MP3 player contains music I actually listen to instead of the crap on everything but Radio6.

Not an epic fail. Just a fail.

this could end software patents

Believe it or not, that could be a good thing. It leaves G with little option but to attack the patents and the patent system that allowed them. So far no-one big enough to seriously challenge the US patent office has had a compelling incentive to do it, hopefully that just changed.

Zune is the payload/problem

SD card is a minor irritation, I haven't removed the one in my phone for nearly a year. Haven't come near running out of space either. No, the killer is not allowing USB mounting, which is how most people transfer stuff.

Having neither option is an Applesque attempt to lockin their shitty Zune platform. Not something I'd want or be able to install on a borrowed PC away from home, probably not something I can install on most of my house PC's either unless Microsoft have developed a much better attitude to Linux.

It's bad enough Microsoft have imposed this DRM friendly gateway for uploads, having to use to download your own photo's is taking the piss.

fsck all to do with piracy

@Tigra 07:"It's ridiculous they can assume all p2p traffic is sharing copyrighted material"

P2P hammers networks whatever you're sharing, doubles the traffic (if you aim for a 1.0 ratio) and avoids any attempt to cache that traffic. P2P is almost a DDOS on network infrastructure.

Copyright infringement is a totally different issue.

look at the pictures

It already has dedicated volume controls (those buttons on the left edge), though I find them a little to easy to accidentally hit on my G1 (same vol button position).

patent wars just fizzle out

It was speculated that Google did this 'not Java' thing to prevent Sun having any contractual rights to assert against Android - its not Java, not licensed, not contracted -> not actionable. Given Sun's shitty attitude to licensing they had to do something in any case.

And guess what: Oracle have had to fall back on patent claims. I'd love to see fireworks here but if that's all they've got this ends with a patent cross license deal, or if Oracle plays hardball, with Oracle bled to dead by decades in litigation.

[BTW: if you want real Java on Android, there's an app for that. It worked but I couldn't really see the point using crappy Java apps on the phone]