A few hours ago, we spotted no less than five mentions of “Android 5.1” on Google’s Indonesian Android One page. Considering that 5.1 is quite a jump from 5.0.2, and something like 5.0.3 seemed more likely as the next bug fixer, we were cautious to suggest it may have been a mistake or a very persistent typo.
But as it turns out, Android 5.1 is real, and it’s indeed shipping on Android One phones in Indonesia.
…but without a changelog, we have no idea what’s in it, and as always, we have zero idea when anyone else is going to get it, if at all.
Android^a"c.
No sign of an update for the Nexus 6.
Since it’s appearing on Android One first (excepting Nexus test devices appearing on web logs) and still retains the Lollipop naming, it seems reasonable to believe that 5.1 would primarily contain optimizations for low-end hardware.
From this page it looks like they have fixed the missing silent mode of Android 5
http://www.androidpit.com/android-5-1-lollipop-update
70% of ALL iOS devices are now using the latest version of the OS. Which is down a bit from the adoption rate of the previous major iOS update, and yet what percentage of Android devices are capable of using this latest version of that OS, let alone what percentage is even able to download and install it? I’m talking normal use, via normal update cycles and channels, no rooting, jailbreaking or similar process that normal users would not do or be aware of. Google and Android have a horrific fragmentation problem on their hands and it gets worse with each new OS version.
It really is unbelievable. Android, IOS, Windows Phone…all given away for free by their developers and people choosing to either not install it (IOS), carriers blocking it (Windows Phone) or manufacturers AND carriers blocking it (Android)
…and of course there is ignorance from the users that simply think of their phone as a tool that “just works”
But I agree, Android is by far the worst of the bunch. If I would go to a shop and by a device right now there is only a tiny chance that I will contain the 5.x branch of Android. If I buy an IOS or Windows Phone device (here in The Netherlands) it WILL run the latest version of the OS
To be fair there are good reasons not to install iOS 8 on some devices. It can be quite buggy, even as of 8.1.3.
Yes, fragmentation is bad but in reality I don’t think the difference between iOS and Android is as big as the version numbers imply.
If you install a new version of iOS on an old iOS device there is often a lot of the new stuff that does not work on the old device, on the other hand on Android new stuff is available in the Android compatibility libraries. So in reality there is very little difference in functionality between say a Android 4.0 and a Android 5 phone, and som of the functionality missing would be hardware related even in Android (e.g Bluetooth BLE)
The situation with companies not supporting their customers and provide software updates is of course still bad as people may not get needed security updates, but from a developer perspective it is not much of a problem. At least it is not worse than for iOS.
In most cases you don’t need to do anything special to support any Android 4.x version and it is usually not that hard to get most things to work on 2.3.x either. 2.2 and 2.1 would require some more work due to old unfixed bugs but less than 1% of the users run 2.2 or older, and less then 10% run something older than 2.3.x
(from wikipedia)
In 2012, Google began decoupling certain aspects of the operating system (particularly core applications) so they could be updated through Google Play Store, independently of Android itself. One of these components, Google Play Services, is a closed-source system-level process providing APIs for Google services, installed automatically on nearly all devices running Android version 2.2 and higher. With these changes, Google can add new operating system functionality through Play Services and application updates without having to distribute an upgrade to the operating system itself. As a result, Android 4.2 and 4.3 contained relatively fewer user-facing changes, focusing more on minor changes and platform improvements.
Now if you look at the graph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#mediaviewer/Fi… that would mean that between 65% and 90% of the devices would actually be able to run the latest version of those play services which would mean “almost all applications”. So from a developer perspective there isn’t that much to worry indeed. Customers will be able to run your app.
However, from a customers point of view basically nobody is running the latest, safest, fastest, friendliest, beautifullest version of the software which means their experience aren’t as positive as you would expect. And that is not only on low end devices. If you would buy top of the line phones like the note 4 today it wouldn’t include Android 5. And from the Samsung page they don’t even seem to care and just list “Android”
(and yes, I know beautifullest isn’t a real word, but it should be and it nicely conveys my hyperbole)
Hmm, My LG G3 with 5.0 has kernel 3.4
This 5.1 device shows kernel 3.10
I know it’s not the latest, but hey, 3.10 has tons of network latency and debloating improvements over 3.4
What I’d wish for is that they’d default to fq_codel instead of fifo on all of the qdiscs.
Or is it that my G3 has an ancient kernel for some reaso/n