Why do you want to upgrade your Android OS ?

[nozzer]

This thread is not meant to be a criticism or start arguments or anything but i'm genuinly interested in why people feel the need to upgrade the OS on their Android device.

The majority of programs seem to run on relatively early OS versions (I know there are some exceptions, there always are) so what facilities is it that you want from a later OS ?

I often get the impression that people upgrade simply because they like to fiddle but they dont actually have any clear reason for doing so.

Am I wrong ?

Is there some compelling reaon for upgrading ?

 

[pipsqueaker]

This thread is not meant to be a criticism or start arguments or anything but i'm genuinly interested in why people feel the need to upgrade the OS on their Android device.

The majority of programs seem to run on relatively early OS versions (I know there are some exceptions, there always are) so what facilities is it that you want from a later OS ?

I often get the impression that people upgrade simply because they like to fiddle but they dont actually have any clear reason for doing so.

Am I wrong ?
Is there some compelling reaon for upgrading ?

Probably not wrong.
Look at all those peeps that just had to upgrade to Vista and then went back to XP

 

[gav12345]

This thread is not meant to be a criticism or start arguments or anything but i'm genuinly interested in why people feel the need to upgrade the OS on their Android device.

The majority of programs seem to run on relatively early OS versions (I know there are some exceptions, there always are) so what facilities is it that you want from a later OS ?

I often get the impression that people upgrade simply because they like to fiddle but they dont actually have any clear reason for doing so.

Am I wrong ?

Is there some compelling reaon for upgrading ?

with a lot of phones not just android you get memory problems as phone memory is very small and runs out. flashing a rom or upgrading should sort it

also networks always add there own crap on phones too. flashing a rom or upgrading should sort it

some phone cameras has the ability of hd and better performance but with standard software that comes with phone sometimes stops you getting the best out of your phone. flashing a rom or upgrading should sort it

i personally edit the roms and take out all the biult in phone apps that i never use and for me its much better and takes less space on phone memory.

also makes the phone customable and if rooted makes the phone much better.


thats my personal reasons im sure there are more reasons why others upgrade.

 

[wiz569]

i personally edit the roms and take out all the built in phone apps that i never use and for me its much better and takes less space on phone memory.

what do you use to edit them with gav?

 

[rawsy]

i update my phones partly for the tinkering factor and partly just to try and make it better. ill try and update anything software wise. changeing os on my pc and lappy doesnt interest me though.

 

[cdstack]

debranding of the operator tweaks to make things faster and smoother.

 

[nozzer]

Interesting points.

with a lot of phones not just android you get memory problems as phone memory is very small and runs out. flashing a rom or upgrading should sort it

The memory requirements of later version OS's tend to be larger than the earlier ones so not sure how updating would help with that problem. Generally the requirements for a 2.1 OS device would be lower than a 2.2 OS device although obviously there is some overlap. Same thing applies to other OS versions, the newer it is the more processing power and memory generally required to support it.

also networks always add there own crap on phones too. flashing a rom or upgrading should sort it

Ah, now were getting to the crux. What you seem to want is more in the way of OS customisation rather than actual updating the OS

some phone cameras has the ability of hd and better performance but with standard software that comes with phone sometimes stops you getting the best out of your phone. flashing a rom or upgrading should sort it

Is that not just a matter of installing a 'better' application or tweaking the present OS slightly ?

i personally edit the roms and take out all the biult in phone apps that i never use and for me its much better and takes less space on phone memory.

also makes the phone customable and if rooted makes the phone much better.

Ok, again, your more into customising the present OS rather than trying to load a newer version of the OS. I can see why you would want to tidy up some of the providers junk apps etc to provide more space for other apps

'Rooting' I'm not sure about. Generally under linux using the root account except in certain very particular situations is considered a very bad idea. If you need superuser access then its usually more proper to use something like the SU command. Not sure if such a command exists on Android but it certainly could do (sure Android has a version of busybox so no doubt the SU command could be added easily enough). Running in root mode all the time would tend to negate a lot of the protection afforded by Android's sandboxing system thus leaving the phone open to all kinds of 'nasties'

btw, not trying to argue for or against anything here. Just trying to understand the reasoning behind what people are trying to achieve with a possible view to maybe getting some more technical discussions going.

 

[nozzer]

i update my phones partly for the tinkering factor and partly just to try and make it better. ill try and update anything software wise. ......

hmm, I have the same problem. I love to tinker even though I may not have any particular goal in mind. Thats partly why I started the thread - to find out if there are any clear reasons or if we are all just a bunch of very bored geeks !

 

[lanarkshire]

I think of the updates like Service Packs. It'll maybe fix things under the hood and give me a few extra wallpapers if nothing else. To be honest my Sammy Galaxy S was just as good when I unboxed it as it is today after a few updates.

 

[gav12345]

nozzer


i have a few androids

one is a hd2 and is windows 6.5 os

i now have android on it and is upto date as windows 6.5 is way out of date

hd7 is the same phone apart from one button but has windows 7 os on it

i have done a windows 7 update on it but not my cup of tea.

i have tried many different android roms but only really keep going back to the smoothest that runs on my phone even though it was a windows 6.5.

i am so glad i can put android latest version on it

as for rooting well there is pros and cons also some apps need to be installed on phone and not sd

its down to people trying and playing as i and others love playing with gadgets and i think its like that really something different to play with lol

 

[edogg]

rooting gives you super user access so for instance you can have the free apps without the adverts that come with them (install adfree)and remove built in system apps that you dont use and make a backups of all the apps and their data(install titanium backup) both of these require root access
Rooting does not run the phone in root mode it just gives you access to the android operating system when required
clockwork mod gives you the ability to backup the complete android phone system including all user data.
so a rooted phone is open like a pc a custom rom is aimed at improving the speed of the phones operating system making file access faster and scrolling of screens smoother they also improve battery performance
we have 3 android gadgets my htc hero a galaxy tab and my parteners san francisco all are rooted and running custom roms the hero and sanfran are running modaco roms and the tab is on a rotohammer xwjmi rom the performance of all free is much improved . The sanfran is de orangenated no nasty orange apps because it is on asda mobile

edogg

 

[nozzer]

so a rooted phone is open like a pc a custom rom is aimed at improving the speed of the phones operating system making file access faster and scrolling of screens smoother they also improve battery performance

You need to explain that a little more if you understand it. There's no particular reason why a rooted device should work any faster or more efficently than a non-rooted device except for you bypassing the sandboxing, which is specifically designed to protect applications from each other.

The custom Roms are all based on standard Android code so your not really getting any more efficient drivers or anything therefore, again, I cant really see how you can noticably be changing things like screen scrolling speed or file access speeds (tbh, file access speed is mostly detrmined by the relatively slow flash chips so is more of a hardware limitation than anything else).

Its all very interesting but i'm starting to think the only thing thats occuring is the bypassing of the sandbox which i'm not sure is a good thing. Ultimately, this has to lead to more unstable devices as various applications start to interfere with each other. One app crashing outside the sandbox can bring the whole device down !

At he moment I can fully understand the logic of tweaking the OS to remove bloatware etc but still having trouble in understanding why devices need to be 'rooted' (a temporary root I can understand, but not permanent) or why anybody would want to try and build a custom rom from the sources. Surely that kind of thing is really for the geeky amongst us (i'm including myself in that as I've actually built custom roms from source)

 

[edogg]

I am not an expert and i dont think the "sandbox" is touched the rom is deodexed (whatever that is ) all I know is that custom roms give better performance and when the phone is rebooted after any root access it goes back to non root access apps like super user ,titanium backup and adfree access the root for super user operations and then like a linux computer ( android is a kind of linux) it returns to the operating system.
my understanding of rooting is to give machine code access to the user

for better understanding than i have there are people like paul obrien of modaco and xda developers forum I agree that some roms have broken bits so they do not work properly so installing them would seem to be pointless yet many geeks do install them and put up with it for supposed speed increase ( a bit like removing the springs on a car to save weight so it will go faster)

edogg

 

[hawkish]

Since I flashed a custom version of the DesireHD rom on my normal desire phone I get the perks of HD, better ui, car menu, graphic equalizer etc and my battery life has jumped from 10 hours to 4 days with 3G switched on constantly

 

[Bally12345]

I just wanted to get rid of all the orange branding

 

[nozzer]

I just wanted to get rid of all the orange branding

Very understandable !

But I think thats more of an OS tweak thing than actually rebuilding a custom rom from source. It should be relatively easy to remove 'unwanted' apps by temporarily rooting and editing/deleting the appropriate files.

 

[nozzer]

Since I flashed a custom version of the DesireHD rom on my normal desire phone I get the perks of HD, better ui, car menu, graphic equalizer etc and my battery life has jumped from 10 hours to 4 days with 3G switched on constantly

HD, I preseume is just another application or codec. I cant see why that couldn't be installed on the stock OS.

Better UI i'm not quite sure about. I'm presuming your saying that you prefer the standard Android UI rather than some modification your phone provider has seen fit to include. Regardless, its basically just a skin so again a few tweaks should be all that is required on the stock OS.

Car menu/graphic equalizer, again surely just apps/widgets. I cant imagine there's anything particularly special about doing that kind of thing.

Battery life, now that is a weird one and without looking at exactly what is draining power on each version of the OS your using I cant say whats happening. Power requirement is a physical property though so obviously the only way to reduce power consumption is to modify something physical. Either devices are now turned off or the processor is slowed or some other physical difference is occuring. You cant just magically make a battery last almost 5 times as long without dialing power consumption back somewhere. Regardless, this will all be controlled via config files within both versions of the OS so you could likely relatively easily duplicate the settings on the stock OS.

 

[wiz569]

HD, I preseume is just another application or codec. I cant see why that couldn't be installed on the stock OS.

Better UI i'm not quite sure about. I'm presuming your saying that you prefer the standard Android UI rather than some modification your phone provider has seen fit to include. Regardless, its basically just a skin so again a few tweaks should be all that is required on the stock OS.

Car menu/graphic equalizer, again surely just apps/widgets. I cant imagine there's anything particularly special about doing that kind of thing.

Battery life, now that is a weird one and without looking at exactly what is draining power on each version of the OS your using I cant say whats happening. Power requirement is a physical property though so obviously the only way to reduce power consumption is to modify something physical. Either devices are now turned off or the processor is slowed or some other physical difference is occuring. You cant just magically make a battery last almost 5 times as long without dialing power consumption back somewhere. Regardless, this will all be controlled via config files within both versions of the OS so you could likely relatively easily duplicate the settings on the stock OS.

As you so rightly say nozzer all these are just tweaks but all packaged together under the guise of a custom rom

therefore unburdening the average joe from tinkering under the hood so to speak

 

[audiobookman]

i also like to tinker with my desire hd, when you say the updates need more power / room for the rom is not technically correct. my old motorola mile stone was shipped with 2.1 which in all fairness was a complete DOG. the os was slow and glitchy at best. but 2.2 was a lot more fluid and roughly the same size rom.

On my desire hd i found my battery life was poor at best, with root and custom roms i am able to undervolt my phone and overclock it at the same time, this gives me a faster phone using less juice!!

i was also able to remove all the bloat that the phone came with - ie facebook and twitter, dont like them wont use them, they were just taking up space and using data / battery life.

having root and access to more roms gives you a preview at new phones os as well, atm on xda they are trying to port over (rather successfully as well) sense 3.0 to the desire hd, htc has already said it wont be avalible on our phones officially so this option is really nice to have.

i dont remember the last time i got an advert on my phone even with the free apps i download - again saving my data plan.

android is about freedom and customisation right down to the fonts desplayed, you can have an android phone looking like an iphony or have them looking very pretty the choice is completly up to the user, custom roms help as standard roms generally wont let you change fonts or boot logos etc,

It cool when an iphone owner sees what can actually be achieved with the android os and the next thing you know they are asking you to help them put on a custom rom.... ive had this happen a few times now at work;

 

[nozzer]

As you so rightly say nozzer all these are just tweaks but all packaged together under the guise of a custom rom

therefore unburdening the average joe from tinkering under the hood so to speak

Ok, so custom roms really aren't custom builds from source then but rather just edited and repackaged tweaks to the original stock roms. That sort of makes sense although personally i'd rather take the time to learn how to mod my own device rather than stick some unknown code on it - who knows whats been added !

I guess that means my initial idea that people were wanting to actually update the OS version of there devices by building the latest Android source from the repositories is flawed.