Andy Rubin: The frequency of Android updates will slow

By on Jun 1, 2010 at 5:37 PM
Software June 1, 2010

andy-rubin

The frequency of major Android OS releases will soon slow down considerably, Google’s VP of engineering Andy Rubin said in an interview on Monday. Instead of several major releases per year (2009 saw three major releases), Rubin said Android is headed towards a more mature phase of its life cycle in which the number of updates must be controlled to allow developers to catch up. In other words, expect to see two or even one major release per year. Here are Rubin’s own words:

We’ve gone through a lot of product iterations because we had to bring the product up to market spec. Quite honestly, the product when we launched it, it didn’t really feel like a 1.0, it felt like kind of an 0.8, but it was a window of opportunity and the market needed an entrant at the holiday season. So we launched it, and from our internal 0.8, we got to 1.0 pretty quickly, and we went through this iteration cycle. You’ve noticed, probably, that that’s slowed down a little bit. Our product cycle is now, basically twice a year, and it will probably end up being once a year when things start settling down, because a platform that’s moving — it’s hard for developers to keep up. I want developers to basically leverage the innovation. I don’t want developers to have to predict the innovation.

We know the Android Army is going to pounce all over these statements as soon as this post goes up and that fans of other OSes will invariably get involved, but let’s try and keep it clean and civil, shall we?

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  • rob

    this is what is going to make android a great os. although android already has superior features, i will still not be giving up my iphone until they polish the os and it doesn’t feel so……well…….beta. this is def. a step in the right direction

  • Hamranhansenhansen

    It make sense to move to yearly updates since even that is too fast for most carriers, who don’t want to give you even one update per phone, let alone 3 per year. Most Android phones sold even today when 2.2 is out are running v1.6 and will never get an update at all.

    This is also a way for Rubin to say to carriers that the 2010 Android is done. Go build phones around it and sell Android v2.2 phones to users this holiday season.

    Also Android v2.2 is what a yearly release should be. The previous 2.x versions were slow even on a 1GHz device.

    > I think one of the arguments for Android
    > over, say, iPhone OS was that the iPhone
    > OS get’s updates only once a year whereas
    > Android was getting several.

    That is an entirely false argument. iPhones get 4-5 updates a year, direct from Apple, and update almost the whole platform within 30 days each time. During the past year, Apple released iPhone OS v3.0, v3.0.1, v3.1.0, v3.1.2, v3.1.3 for iPhone OS. (And v3.2 for iPad only.) If you buy an iPhone, you’re guaranteed to get about 10 timely software updates during the 2 year life of the phone, and so far they have updated phones in the 3rd year of their life also, so it’s really 15 updates per hardware purchase.

    On an Android phone, you’re not guaranteed to get even a single update, no matter what Google releases, because the carriers do the update, not Google.

    The speck of truth in what you’re saying is that on iPhone, the Android v2.0 update would have been an internal beta, v2.1 would have been a developer beta, and v2.2 would have shipped as v2.0 and all of the features of the 2 series would be introduced all at once to users as “2010 features.” The Android way seems faster, but on iPhone the recent Android v2.2 update would be on 75% or more of iPhones by now, whereas on Android v2.2 is only on a small handful of devices.

    Basically, the way software updates work on iPhone is a key advantage over all other mobiles. Not going through the carriers just by itself is already an exponential advantage. But yearly reference releases keep 3rd party developers up to date, and iTunes applies the updates so easily and maintains all the user data. Apple really worked hard on making iPhone a platform, not just an operating system or hardware device. Original 2007 iPhones are running the same software version you buy at the store today on a 3GS, and of course the same apps.

    > All the benefits and longevity the iPhone’s
    > got will soon be on the Android platform
    > as the end users should be able to expect
    > FULL OS SUPPORT for their device for
    > more than at least two years. Lets hope.

    Some phones will see an improvement, but the problem ultimately is the carriers. They ship a phone for 3 months then forget about it. If they do an update at all, it’s 6 months late or more. There’s no incentive for them to improve a phone they already sold, they would rather sell you a new phone.

    With iPhone OS, Apple has an incentive to update all the existing phones because that keeps the platform unified as one big developer target, which sells more apps, which makes developers create more apps, which sells more phones. Developers have already made iPhone OS v4.0 specific apps even though it hasn’t shipped yet because they know that about a month after it ships, most of the iPhones in the world will be running it.

    • Ace P

      “If you buy an iPhone, you’re guaranteed to get about 10 timely software updates during the 2 year life”

      10 updates? Maybe Steve-O should try doing it right the first time.

      • FreeRange

        Hey dumbdumb – that’s exactly what they do, they wait till they get it right AND provide a superior customer experience – like their ingenious cut and paste function. And the whole 10 updates in 2 years is nonsense. There is one major release a year.

      • Rahul

        @FreeRange

        “ingenious cut and paste” – cut and paste is such a basic function, it is by no means “ingenious”, and there’s no reason Apple should have waited until the 3rd generation to include it.

        Also, the original poster said that the gets 5 updates per year, he said nothing about the number of “major releases” per year. Please read more carefully in the future.

      • gee

        @ace,

        really most of apple updates are to counteract jail breaking. really about 3 major major updates. you know it.

  • Donnation

    I’d love Android of they could make better hardware and get better battery life. The 3GS is far superior in both of those areas. And let’s face it, if Verizon ever gets the iPhone half of you Android fan boys will get one.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

    • Joe B.

      Lol the hardware and specs in the current Android phones are considerably higher than that of the 3GS. If you love your Iphone than feel free to do so, but don’t create any illusions of Apple outspeccing Android because on a side-to-side comparison the Iphone hardware is noticably lesser to that of the newer Droid phones ie Incredible, Evo, etc…

      • Donnation

        I’m not talking specs wise. HTC can keep pumping out all of the high megapixel phones they like. The quality of the photos are garbage. And let me clarify: I was talking about hardware build quality. Plastic cheap feeling phones are Android’s specialty (except for the Motorola Droid, which sucks in every other way).

      • Cello

        Why does everyone keep comparing the 1 year old 3GS to the Incredible and EVO? It’s a year old. Not exactly apples to apples. Just wait for the new device to be released and then everyone can compare and talk shit. I love both platforms personally. It’s like people feel they have to defend their phone’s honor or something!

    • Louie Gandall

      Where did you buy your magical 3GS? With normal use, mine sucks the battery down in about 6 hours. And that’s not even running any Flash.

  • dur

    @Gee

    Yeah, like Steve’s pad, phone and pod right?

  • http://(null) caediackid3302

    I think this is a good thing! More like one universal OS, it would make for better apps in the long run. Less fragmentation.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • ricktheprick

    @Hanranh………………

    Wow, you spent a lot of time on that.

    I’ve had them all. The thing that just irks me no end, is that Apple won’t allow an app to simply switch on/off modes for things like wifi and bluetooth. You have to jailbreak the damn thing to get this function.

    What’s up with that? How stupid can they be?

    This one niggle is big enough for me to never buy another one.

    If they don’t change this, then Jobs has his head up his …….

    Droid Incredible – a better piece of hardware, with better OS than Apple’s girly iPhone.

  • jawman

    I love how BGR says that “Android Army is going to pounce all over this” and “let’s keep it clean” as if this is a bad thing. BGR will always do what they can to make Android look bad.
    In my opinion, I think this the slowing rate of updates is perfectly okay and normal.
    To put it simply, updates to an OS slow down because the OS has gotten better and therefore does not need frequent updates anymore. It’s up to speed, it’s up to par, and all systems are go.

  • Gee

    @all android fanboys

    market share or profit share?

    let’s see 8million manufactures making android devices vs. 1 company and 1 os.

    that 1 company sold 85 million units worldwide.
    with a robust margin. Not including 2 million ipads.

    while 8 million manufactures compete with each other at slim margins(due to heavy saturation)
    thats why smart companies are building their own os. it’s not long before android will be dead, for no other reason but profitability. capitalism in the end will win out.  Tell me how much longer is htc going to pay Microsoft for the use of android.  The really big companies are going to start using there own os. 

    Sent from my iPhone

    • Joe B.

      You’re absolutely right Gee. Andorid is so in danger of becoming dead. If theres one thing people hate it’s a solid Os with tons of features and functionality, programmed on phones with impressive hardware, with the choice of any provider to use them on. They also hate the growth 8000-9000 new apps added per month. But they especially hate the fact that multiple Android Phone models have outranked the mighty Iphone on several notable publications, rating sites, etc. Oh man buy those Android phones while they’re still available people because Gee touched on a great point Andorid is in a world of trouble.

    • Harry Johnson

      Somebody is angry about getting suckered in to their iPhone purchase.

    • Bob

      You do realise Microsoft doesn’t own Android – it’s Google and it is not licensed either, so HTC won’t be paying anything for it.

  • tim

    Yep this is a good thing. I say do 2 releases this year and next. Then go to a yearly release.

  • Osbor

    oh thank god
    an update every like 4 months? hell no, apps are still in 2.0 let alone ready for FroYo.

    with 2.2, a lot of essentially features were added, which makes the platform finally combat-ready.

    yearly big updates should be perfect as they’ll be BIG

  • Gee

    @Joe b

    the htc evo spec for spec is better than the incredible. So what’s your point. Os to os the iPhone wins hands down.

    • Ace Curry

      iPhone OS wins hands down?
      The current iPhone OS is:
      1) Plain and boring.
      2) Does not look as good (resolution is low. You can see pixels on the screen).
      3) You cannot customize it to make it the way you want it.
      4)You cannot multitask (I thought it was supposed to be a smartphone).
      5) You have to pay a monthly payments for tethering and navigation.
      6) If you hack it (which is the only way to make it decent), Apple could possibly brick your device.

      OS to OS, Android is more customizable, has many more features and higher end devices will always have superior hardware.

      Use Android on a high end device like the Nexus One. You will see that it runs very very smoothly.

      I think you are making these ridiculous claims to justify your purchase.

  • http://(null) sikkboy

    I’ll pass on Android for now. Bring on the iPhone 4th generation for T-Mobile USA. Trollface.jpg

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Las Vegas Arville @ Reno, Paradise, NV 89118, USA

    • Pan Liv

      Apple locked into AT&T until late 2012 thanks to original agreement plus another 6 months for iFad data pricing. But keep on predicting it, you’ll be right eventually…in 2 1/2 years.

  • Gee

    @Sikkboy
    I am with you 100% and I think you might get your wish on June 19 2010.

  • Gee

    @pan liv

    wow you know more than the experts. All contracts can change. T & c change constantly. Everyone Is speculating if there are changes and what are the changes. You should write a blog about it. Seeing you know so infatically.

  • Gee

    @bob
    you do know that Microsoft and htc have a deal in place, that allows htc to use Microsoft patents and in return Microsoft recieves royaltys for all android device that htc sells.

    • Bob

      But it’s only for certain parts HTC have added to Android – they could just use base Android and they wouldn’t have to pay anything.

      • gee

        not what i read. complete blanket contract.

  • mpowerd

    Serious question (as follow up to actual topic): like the slow down of OS updates, wouldn’t u Android users prefer a slow down of devices too? I am being serious – how hard is it to actually pull the trigger on ANY Android phone knowing there is a better (spec, screen size, camera, etc…) coming around the corner. Enough already???

  • Jarrett

    Wait a minute! A month ago all yee Fandroids were touting one reason Android was so much better than everything was the frequent updates, now a once a year update is the way to go? Fuck, the installed base is more fragmented than the platform.

    Good for Google for finally getting their platform under control. Maybe next they can work on getting their “Amigans” errrrrrrr, Fandroids under control.

    My Apologies to the Amiga reading crowd. For those needing a history lesson on Amiga and the people that follow the platform go do some searches on the subject. I say “follow” Amiga because any true Amigan never gave up on the platform.

  • Rahul

    This sounds like it will be good for Android as a platform, and good for me as a newb developer. Feels like I have to keep updating my SDK every other week >_>

  • Billy

    KILL HIM

  • http://www.brianward.com Brian Ward

    Seems to me that one of the marketing tools that Google loves to utilize is constant feature additions… This declaration is in conflict with that. Seems ironic that they recently said that fragmentation is a boogeyman, then come out and say fewer updates for the future. If I am disappointed in anything regarding Android, it is that it is not readily upgradeable to phones with adequate hardware.

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