Google Tries To Balance Humpty Dumpty, Can't Match Apple's Lofty Support

Last year, when iOS 4 launched alongside the new iPhone, I remember with amusement some of the anger and protest that poured out of Apple's user base over the company's decision to halt software updates of the original iPhone and slow the support of its iPhone 3G model. While obsolescence has always been an inherent fact of life in the fast-paced consumer electronics industry, Apple -- perhaps due to its immense popularity and overt newsworthiness -- was slammed by customers and critics alike for not impossibly producing handsets that remained infinitely forward-compatible. Finally, the frenzy dissipated, as did the frivolous lawsuits, and people generally settled down to realize that 30 months of guaranteed support was actually pretty fair. To me, it's a heck of a lot more than that: It's totally unheard of in the entire mobile sector! Before Apple's fourth handset graced my grubby mitts, I'd never owned an iPhone. It was actually my iPad -- which I purchased on launch day -- that convinced me iOS was the real deal. Until then, I'd owned my share of cell phones, from old clamshell Motorolas and fancy, high-end Nokias to the latest Android phones and the clever, doomed Palm Pre. While I never expected my "dumbphones" to receive updates, I did expect some tweaks to leak out for my N95 and 5800 Finnish smartphones. They never did. Now, don't get me wrong: Nokias used to be great and internationally well-supported, but North American models were rarely (if ever) updated to fix even the most basic problems. So, after (too long) a while fiddling with trying to get European fixes working on those phones, I gave up and bought Verizon's original Motorola Droid. It was new and fast and fun for about a month, until the next latest and greatest Android phone launched and I started to see a significant lack of focus in the carrier's sloth-like approach to updates. I returned the unit. Instead, I bet on the Nexus One, which promised updates aplenty from the Android-maker itself. The phone was slick and snappy, but poor build quality and poorer signal and speaker performance bade me retire it, too. I then tried webOS (which, mind you, I still very much enjoy) in Palm's all-or-nothing, revolutionary Pre. Exclusivity to Sprint killed that venture after I couldn't place calls from my tree-covered property, and I ended up popping my trusty AT&T SIM into a six-year-old candybar while awaiting Apple's newest design. Of all the many phones I've tried, I had both the most hope for and ultimately the greatest disappointment in the Android models. Fragmentation, which has been a huge issue from the start, proved degrading to my personal experience and my confidence in the platform going forward. Google was cranking out unsupported or unstable updates so quickly, it was hard to imagine my phone could stay "new" for even half a year without serious rooting or user intervention. To its credit, Google -- who lets service providers freely change and modify its free OS -- caught on to the problem soon enough; but, because of how Android was created and why it works for adopting companies, there was little the search giant could do on its own. At this years I/O conference, Google tried to unify a group of carriers and manufacturers into a consortium with the stated aim of addressing this problem and supporting -- through OEM and carrier cooperation -- an 18-month software update guarantee. According to This Is My Next's Nilay Patel,

the founding members are Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola, and AT&T. The group’s first move is to promise that that new Android devices from these partners will receive updates for 18 months after launch, pending hardware support, which is a great step towards addressing the problem of orphan devices.

That seems pretty good on the surface, and, to a small degree, it is. But it's certainly not great, and that bit about "pending hardware support" is troubling. Obviously, hardware must support the delivered updates, but Android manufacturers are notorious for quickly and constantly pushing out models with faster cores, more memory, different displays, and new sensor arrays. Software and apps made around such devices can't often be made to function (or function well) on wimpier units. Asking for details, Patel reports:

Talking about the size and constituency of the partnership so far, [Google's Andy] Rubin says that “it’s an open invitation” to any manufacturer or carrier that wants to participate — but that it made sense to start out small for the sake of manageability. Long term, “there’s no reason not to have everyone in it.”

In other words, there's no guarantee Google's guarantee will ever be implemented. Furthermore, the nature of the guarantee isn't at all clear. Will an Android Froyo handset purchased today be able to run Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich tomorrow? Realistically, and from Android's track record, that seems unlikely. Rather, it's more plausible that incremental, version-specific updates will be released for the called-for year and a half. On the other hand, Apple's game-plan remains the same. With the upcoming iPhone's iOS 5, Apple will no longer completely support the iPhone 3GS with current updates. People, while still upset over that announcement, seem to be taking it more in stride this time around. Perhaps, as Android has risen up the ranks over the last year, everyone's just generally more aware of the fleeting nature of software support and hardware compatibility. With iPhone, when you buy the new model, your handset's new for a year and you get at least two years of honest-to-goodness, top-of-the line software updates and apps that support them. Apple's never really publicized this, nor has it been heavily lauded or discussed in the tech community. People are cheering for Google's attempt at future-proofing it's wares, but -- even if it succeeds -- Apple still carries you at least an extra six months down the line. In terms of overall value, update support is just one of many compelling reasons to choose iPhone over even the best of competitors. Nothing else comes close.

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