Less Than Half of Android Users Have Upgraded to Android 13 or 14! 🤯
www.youtube.com
Android 14 has been out for 9 months and Android 13 was released almost two years ago, but less than 50% of Android users have devices running those versions...

Funny, the comment types here are the same as on Youtube:

  1. “I still run Android and it is totally fine, will never switch Android just got worse!”
  2. “Well, money”
  3. “Companies need to support phones longer”
  4. “I just use LineageOS on that device”
  5. Misinformation
  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
    73·
    5 months ago

    Google doesnt do anything here. The OEMs need to port the Android kernel to older hardware.

    They often just support one LTS kernel.

    But Android even supports the LTS kernel for 6 years now.

    • MonkderDritte@feddit.deEnglish
      6·
      5 months ago

      Google doesnt do anything here. The OEMs need to port the Android kernel to older hardware.

      Wrong. Google had multiple projects like Treble to decouple the software from the hardware. What happened with it?

    • MaggiWuerzeEnglish
      41·
      5 months ago

      Google develops Android and thus is responsible for it’s update scheme. They already changed it quite a bit in the last years with GSIs and Project Treble but there’s still no real seperation that would allow the same drivers and hardware blobs to be used independent of the Android Version or updating the Android version without these needing to be included every time.

      That’s what needs to change.

      • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
        4·
        5 months ago

        Their own phones have support for the mainline kernel. It is the vendors that dont want to upstream their drivers and produce half-proprietary garbage they dont publish, so nobody can update these devices.

        • MaggiWuerzeEnglish
          21·
          5 months ago

          But Googles decides, that that is possible. I fthey changed the structure to enforce a seperation there’s nothing that would keep Android updates from those devices. Put all hardware and device specific stuf in a seperate layer and have it accessible to the updatable system. And it’s not like these vendors have an alternative to go to

          • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
            2·
            5 months ago

            Put all hardware and device specific stuf in a seperate layer

            Could you elaborate?

            Android uses Linux, a monolithic kernel. You cant just separate drivers.

            I also heard that OEMs write horrible drivers, which wouldnt work on a microkernel without maaajor porting issues.

            • MaggiWuerzeEnglish
              32·
              5 months ago

              And there are Linux distros with rolling releases, where the drivers stay where they are and the OS around them gets updated without issue. I’m sure the smart people at the Android team could do something similar

              • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
                4·
                5 months ago

                The drivers are in the kernel, kept updated with every release. As I said, pixels at least boot with mainline kernel support, but the Android kernel is modded.

                And then manifacturer use out of tree drivers as core part of their kernel.

                • MaggiWuerzeEnglish
                  2·
                  5 months ago

                  Yes I know the manufacturers do, but there’s no reason for the drivers to be replaced when the kernel is updated, you could hold them separately or reapply them after an update

                  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
                    2·
                    5 months ago

                    This doesnt always work as nonstable kernels (or even porting to a newer kernel) changes in their interface.

                    Like, backportig patches to a 6 year or more old kernel is crazy! My 6a runs on 5.14 and that is a currently supported phone.