2.2 May Not Come Till December

[knarfl1]

Originally Posted by derfnoslen

I'm not buying any new Android phone until gingerbread ships. Updates are said to slow after that. Sprint isn't going to take the EVO to 3.0 I don't think.

That's for sure. In 6 months, Evo will be old news and Sprint will be touting their next big thing (with Ginger.)

[knarfl1]

Originally Posted by zone23

UH ya most people on this site get new devices before the 2 years. I get a new device every year because of being a Premier Customer I am not the majority of sprint users. Also Sprint does or should want to get 2.2 out because other phones are going to have it and don't want people buying say a Galaxy because it has 2.2.

Then why is Sprint/HTC taking their sweet time to release 2.2? Lin from HTC stated,"I would believe that we would be done with our Froyo updates before Christmas."?

I Would believe? We would be? Nice way to not commit and dissuade people like you from moving on to Galaxy S or other 2.2 phones.

Highly functional ROMs can be cooked up in days/weeks by individuals. May be HTC/Sprint should hire some of these guys if they really do need months to get 2.2 out (roll eyes.) Evo will be old news in 6 months, not just as an Android phone but as a phone in general.

[zone23]

Originally Posted by knarfl1

Then why is Sprint/HTC taking their sweet time to release 2.2? Lin from HTC stated,"I would believe that we would be done with our Froyo updates before Christmas."?

I Would believe? We would be? Nice way to not commit and dissuade people like you from moving on to Galaxy S or other 2.2 phones.

Highly functional ROMs can be cooked up in days/weeks by individuals. May be HTC/Sprint should hire some of these guys if they really do need months to get 2.2 out (roll eyes.) Evo will be old news in 6 months, not just as an Android phone but as a phone in general.

I'm not so sure its Sprint that takes its sweet time as much as HTC.

[knarfl1]

Originally Posted by zone23

I'm not so sure its Sprint that takes its sweet time as much as HTC.

Exactly. It comes down to business decisions, not dev/QA.

If history is of any lesson, carriers make no haste in releasing major OS updates to existing devices.

[tokuzumi]

Also, if anyone has ever worked or dealt with IT in a large organization, there is all kinds of red tape that must be unraveled. There's scope documents, and justification documents. Those documents must get sign off. Project plans are written. Those must get approval. Cost estimates are, well, estimated. There are resource concerns that are brought out in these meetings. Once all that documentation gets finalized, which can take months, the actual coding begins. Should there be any deviations from the initial plan, those must be written, and submitted for approval. Once the coding is done, QA begins. During QA, bugs are documented, sent back to the developers to be fixed, and a new timeline for QA is set. This goes back to QA, and the cycle repeats until a finished product is signed off. Then it gets released.

How it happens here: A dev downloads the latest rom, sits down at a computer, and starts tinkering. They do a release and pray. The process repeats until it goes from WIP to ROM status.

If HTC did the PPCGeeks/XDA way, they would have been out of business a long time ago. Also, if the devs here went to work at HTC, the process and amount of time to release new official updates would be the same. I say we keep our devs here, and let HTC have theirs.

[knarfl1]

Originally Posted by tokuzumi

Also, if anyone has ever worked or dealt with IT in a large organization, there is all kinds of red tape that must be unraveled. There's scope documents, and justification documents. Those documents must get sign off. Project plans are written. Those must get approval. Cost estimates are, well, estimated. There are resource concerns that are brought out in these meetings. Once all that documentation gets finalized, which can take months, the actual coding begins. Should there be any deviations from the initial plan, those must be written, and submitted for approval. Once the coding is done, QA begins. During QA, bugs are documented, sent back to the developers to be fixed, and a new timeline for QA is set. This goes back to QA, and the cycle repeats until a finished product is signed off. Then it gets released.

How it happens here: A dev downloads the latest rom, sits down at a computer, and starts tinkering. They do a release and pray. The process repeats until it goes from WIP to ROM status.

If HTC did the PPCGeeks/XDA way, they would have been out of business a long time ago. Also, if the devs here went to work at HTC, the process and amount of time to release new official updates would be the same. I say we keep our devs here, and let HTC have theirs.

You make a good point regarding PMO and the triangle of constraints. I doubt HTC would be out of business if they had agility in pumping out OS updates quickly. They can allocate 10 code monkeys (who are happy making $30k a year even with a CS degree) and scrum the OS updates. If there's one thing phone companies do, it's act fast. They would be out of business if they couldn't act/react fast. If you've seen product launch calendar for the cell carriers, you'll know what I'm talking about. Even lowly TMO has got dozen phones launching rest of this year.

New model phones arriving are launching with 2.2 but upgrade takes possibly up to 6 months? HTC had access to 2.2 source for months which means they've been prepping for 2.2 upgrades too.

We should be point the finger at Sprint not HTC.

[testacon]

Originally Posted by tokuzumi

Also, if anyone has ever worked or dealt with IT in a large organization, there is all kinds of red tape that must be unraveled. There's scope documents, and justification documents. Those documents must get sign off. Project plans are written. Those must get approval. Cost estimates are, well, estimated. There are resource concerns that are brought out in these meetings. Once all that documentation gets finalized, which can take months, the actual coding begins. Should there be any deviations from the initial plan, those must be written, and submitted for approval. Once the coding is done, QA begins. During QA, bugs are documented, sent back to the developers to be fixed, and a new timeline for QA is set. This goes back to QA, and the cycle repeats until a finished product is signed off. Then it gets released.

How it happens here: A dev downloads the latest rom, sits down at a computer, and starts tinkering. They do a release and pray. The process repeats until it goes from WIP to ROM status.

If HTC did the PPCGeeks/XDA way, they would have been out of business a long time ago. Also, if the devs here went to work at HTC, the process and amount of time to release new official updates would be the same. I say we keep our devs here, and let HTC have theirs.

I'm pretty sure that outside of the QA portion, all of the "red tape" as you called it is hammered out prior to buying the phones. Sprint knew that Froyo/Gingerbread is coming out prior to the phones release. I'm sure they worked out software upgrade costs prior to them stamping the Sprint logo on the phones. If they didn't HTC probably would take them to the cleaners every time they want to upgrade something.

[tokuzumi]

Originally Posted by testacon

I'm pretty sure that outside of the QA portion, all of the "red tape" as you called it is hammered out prior to buying the phones. Sprint knew that Froyo/Gingerbread is coming out prior to the phones release. I'm sure they worked out software upgrade costs prior to them stamping the Sprint logo on the phones. If they didn't HTC probably would take them to the cleaners every time they want to upgrade something.

While I can't speak for every corporation, but at the company I work for (400K employees around the world), having something built by IT takes forever. And my description of the process is basically what happens.

[hidaya]

Originally Posted by tokuzumi

While I can't speak for every corporation, but at the company I work for (400K employees around the world), having something built by IT takes forever. And my description of the process is basically what happens.

this is so very true, having dated those from the IT world ive seen them work on many products long before it comes to the public

[edufur]

Originally Posted by sanjsrik

I don't know if I agree with this so much. While the OS is much more stable. I can't remember the last time I had to restart the device because something got at the core OS and killed it.

There is a LOT to be desired with Android:

A decent base of commercial applications that support business users. The phone was sold as a power device, yet, it has almost NO business-centric applications. That's a huge problem

I disagree. I am a heavy corporate user and WinMo was a joke for me. It slowed me down. Android is much more productive and doesn't lock up everytime a meeting reminder fires off.

Originally Posted by sanjsrik

A "marketplace" that is a joke. Google makes its money on search engine technology, yet the marketplace isn't searchable. WTF?

AMEN! I competely agree with this. Well, it is searchable... but it is a crappy search.

Originally Posted by sanjsrik

Can't install to SD card. Why has this taken until 2.2 to come out? That seems such an odd thing to not build in from the beginning. This is a classic example of developers and not UI folks being in charge of core development.

I really dont care about this. But I might be the minority.

Originally Posted by sanjsrik

How many "pretty" girl applications do we need in the marketplace?

Amen again! I would like the ability to filter all that crap!

Originally Posted by sanjsrik

For gods' sake, we can get rid of so many applications that are completely useless and instead make some that everyone KNOWS we need:

--PIM
--Decent unified email application
--Decent drawing application
--Decent Word processor

I don't need any of that other than the mail prog. MailDroid is AMAZING. Check into that one.

Originally Posted by sanjsrik

There's so much that the Android platform needs that if companies stepped up and started creating things for them, customers would use them.

Let's not even mention how the constant polling of useless Google services drains the battery life out of the devices.

It's just a matter of time before Droid takes the lead ahead of iPhone. In terms of polling, i think there are apps for that.