[archivator]

> and in a mobile device OS and application SW are tightly coupled

I call bullshit. There's no reason Google can't update everything AOSP-y in /system - libc, libart, libwebkit etc.

> Google (and Apple and Microsoft) can totally do it for devices that manufactures and maintains on its own

That's a low bar. When you buy a Dell laptop, you continue to receive updates from Microsoft. This is the bar we should hold Google to.

As for the certification process, surely having one update that ships to N models is easier to test than N updates shipping to N models?

[kyrra]

Except it's not that simple in the Android world. Someone explained it really well a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13057605

The basics are that every phone out there uses a forked Linux kernel patched to hell to get it working. Since none of the drives are upstreamed it's unmaintainable.

The linux kernel does not have a stable driver interface so shipping updates to phones is a LOT of work.

[mortehu]

This doesn't explain why they can't upgrade user-space applications and libraries. It's very rare for a user-space application upgrade to require a kernel update on any major operating system.

[Kurtz79]

> and in a mobile device OS and application SW are tightly coupled I call bullshit. There's no reason Google can't update everything AOSP-y in /system - libc, libart, libwebkit etc.

That's not the point. Even if it were so, it's still responsibility of the manufacturer to integrate it in its own firmware and push the update with the carrier's approval.

You are comparing a laptop to a smartphone, which makes no sense, the smartphone has to connect to cellular network to be useful, and it's the carrier that establishes the rules for the update process.

I agree that it should work as you say for devices with no cellular connectivity, such as WiFi only tablets, where no other parties other than the OS and device manufacturers are involved.

[nradov]

No that's not how it works. Apple can push any iPhone firmware updates they want to without carrier approval.