Chinese KitKat

[geoffrey mendelson]

On 1/6/2014 2:26 AM, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
> Sounds a bit harsh. A device cannot possibly become less useful with
> time than it was when you bought it (barring a HW malfunction). If it
> did then what it says on the tin it will still do it now, won't it?
> Without any new software...

Eventually apps stop working.  Android is based on the idea that you buy 
an app from someone, and it automatically updates when new versions come 
out. Even apps that cost $0.00 (free).  So an app developer can be 
reasonably sure that if he changes the protocol in version 1.3 that by 
version 1.5 he can drop the old protocol.

Since most apps connect to a server for something, whether it be 
authentication, information shared or received or both, and so on, they 
just start to die of old age. The answer is to update them. And there 
lies the rub.

For example, the big releases of Android were 2 and 4. Android 3, does 
not seem to exist in the wild as it were. I am sure it did at one time, 
and there were major changes between Android 2 and 3. So all Android 2 
devices, almost all 2 year old cell phones, can no longer buy or update 
an app.

I laugh every time I see someone selling an Android 2 phone. The price 
they are asking will get you a similar set of hardware running Android 4 
brand new. It also comes with a brand new battery, and since these 
phones need to be charged daily, a two year old phone has a battery with 
about 700 charge cycles on it, which means it may need to be replaced or 
if not now, soon.

No manufacturer is updating their Android 2 phones to Android 4, however 
most Android 4.1/4.2 phones (Jellybean) are giving their owns the option 
to update to 4.4 (KitKat).

So yes, the phones become less useful, and eventually no use at all.


Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ
Jerusalem Israel.