More disappointment for non-technical customers hoping to see long term support for their still-fresh “flagship” Android phones. Vlad Savov at The Verge writes about Samsung’s decision:
…Samsung’s choice not to upgrade this phone to Ice Cream Sandwich is simply unacceptable. As an owner of a Galaxy S, I would feel betrayed. As a technology journalist, I am appalled.
…
It sees production and R&D costs in one column and it tries to balance them against sales revenue in the other, never raising its gaze to the long-term consideration of whether anyone would come back for a repeat purchase.
I’ve been asked many times when I would starting building software for Android. As a technical platform, it fascinates me, and I’m always on the lookout to learn something new. But as a consumer electronics platform, it still stinks.
Google, who dominates on the web, pushes Android out as fast as it can for fear of losing its window into our querying minds. Samsung is looking for a cheap and customizable software component to set-and-forget in it’s hardware. This leaves Android, as a philosophy, burdened with a schizophenic caretaker on the one hand and a race to the bottom on the other.
The customer is caught in the middle.
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