It was just over a year ago that Google Inc. launched its “experiment” to shake up the mobile ecosystem in the United States. Seeking to push the envelope of Android hardware, the search giant teamed up with HTC Corp. to produce the excellent Nexus One. Although Google’s direct-to-consumers retail approach ultimately failed, the legacy of the Nexus One lived on, and the quality of Android hardware accelerated to the point that we’re now seeing dual-core smart phones.
When launching the device, Google promised that this “pure” Android experience would allow them to keep Nexus One owners completely up-to-date with the bleeding edge of Android development. However, many Nexus One users are starting to see the shine come off Google’s promises as they continue to wait for their turn to update to 2.3, the software developer kit for which (traditionally the final hurdle before a public release) was released a full two months ago. Similarly, the Nexus S, Google’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.-built successor to the Nexus One crown, and the only publicly available phone running the updated version, has been on the market for around seven weeks.
As if to add insult to injury, a Motorola Inc. Super Bowl ad has spilled the beans on the next next version of Android – Honeycomb –seeing a public release on Feb. 24 (it’s already available through less official sources). With complete silence on Google’s end about when the update will roll out, the Nexus One faithful could now see themselves a full two revisions behind the newest devices – a fairly frustrating situation, given many consumers and developers bought the “superphone” for the explicit reason that they wanted to be on the newest Android version.
So what’s Google up to? They publicly scrambled to fix an SMS bug in recent weeks, which could have put development back slightly, but a full two months? Perhaps their mission statement needs updating from “Don’t be evil” to “Don’t be lazy”.
Photo by Dan Jackson
