Anyone who owns an HTC Hero or who has been following the ongoing saga of updates for the device will instantly know where I’m going with this, but for those who don’t here’s a little history to bring you up to speed:
- April 30th 2009 – Android 1.5 (Cupcake) released
- June 24th 2009 – HTC Hero official announcement, also states Hero will be launched with Android 1.5 (Cupcake)
- July 2009 – Becomes available for purchase in Europe
- 15th September 2009 – Android 1.6 (Donut) SDK released
- 26th October 2009 – Android 2.0 (Éclair) SDK released
- December 3rd 2009 – Android 2.0.1 SDK released
- 12th January 2010 – Android 2.1 SDK released
Does anyone see a pattern here?
Hero users are stuck on an Android version released a YEAR ago this month, which in the world of ever changing Android is a more like a century ago.
Google has been pushing out core Android updates at traditional Google speed; that is to say, faster than the speed of light.
The firm has been adding gobs of new functionality, fixing issues, crushing bugs and everything else you would expect to be done by the big G.
Now, at this breakneck pace, one could easily forgive companies for skipping an update or two, or pushing things back a bit to bake up the new Android dessert into a firmware, sprinkling it with all the goodies that make it work, before iceing it with that pretty little thing called the Sense UI.
But it has been rumored that HTC has been doing things the hard way; working hard to cook up fresh batches of tasty Android goodness, only to abandon efforts to start work from scratch on the next version of Android. Every time.
This sounds rather daft, as surely the firm realizes that the great Google monster will be coming out with a new version before HTC’s work is even half-baked, so it seems like an awful waste of resources to invest in something the firm knows it won’t have time to finish.
It would also seem highly doubtful that when two behemoths like HTC and Google meet up for a chat, something as ‘trivial’ as a new Android version wouldn’t be mentioned as coming soon. Surely HTC knows the schedule? Surely it wouldn’t be too hard for HTC to actually finish a firmware version before scrapping it and moving on to the next version?
It’s almost as if HTC’s firmware team all have ADHD and someone is feeding them red cordial. The team sits down and starts something, only to leave it half finished before moving onto the next task. It seems odd. And inefficient.
Now, the aforementioned wouldn’t actually be so bad if a lot of the things added into the Android updates were not essential for some of the big Android selling points, like for Navigation (US only) to work, or for some of the other features people might find essential – like Exchange support – to work.
The real kicker, however, is HTC’s frustrating inability to commit to a release date officially, it’s bizarre refusal to come out and say “this update will come out on this date” and sticking to it.
Just that alone would go a long way towards defusing the growing animosity between Hero users and HTC. Scores of unhappy customers have already publicly ranted that their next phone will NOT be from HTC, simply owing to the horrid support and vague promises being bandied around by the firm.
HTC seems to have settled for the unsatisfying but common PR response of “this update is coming,” leaving customers hanging for another quarter or half a year; pretty piss-poor at this stage in the game.
In fact, the only people at this point keeping HTC’s Android efforts in the game are the developers on forums like XDA, HTCpedia and Modaco, who regularly go out of their way to port new Android builds to work on devices long neglected by HTC itself, giving them the features and updates that HTC fails to deliver.
Currently we are still waiting for HTC to release the 2.1 update, which keeps getting pushed back. That was due in March, but has been pushed back yet again until this month… supposedly.
Anyone care to take bets on what comes first? Pigs flying or HTC putting out a firmware on time? Count me in for $100 on the pigs…
