Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
supitsmike
Specialist - Level 2

Alright, so for those of you who are keeping up with the news on Android and phones, some of you may have came across the speculation of some of the Android phones not recieving the 2.0 update. Some of you may not.

 

To bring you up to speed, and to make a long story short: We don't know if first generation Android phones will be recieving the 2.o Eclair update. If you don't know if your phone is a first generation Android device, I'll list it:

 

-T-Mobile myTouch.

-T-Mobile Motorola Cliq

-T-Mobile G1

-T-Mobile Behold II

-Sprint's HTC Hero

-Sprint's Samsung Moment

-HTC Droid Eris

 

Most of you will have the Eris and ask many questions as to why you may not recieve the update, I'm going to explain to you guys the reason why you may not.

 

1.Your UI.

If you're on the HTC Sense UI, one large problem is because it's very difficult to create an update that has it's own UI, and integrate it with the custom UI (TouchWiz2, MotoBLUR, HTC SENSE) that's already in the phone. It's not just as simple as lego-connect-'em and we're done kind of thing. There are things that need to be replaced, things that need to be altered to fit the update and have it go smoothly. When people release custom UI's (I.E. Moto for their deviled CLIQ), they are responsible for releasing the following update with the proper SDK changes to that UI. HTC has already announced that they are releasing it for the Hero, however, we don't know what they are going to do about the Eris.

 

2.Partitioning.

Your total internal memory is far more than the some 200+/-MB that you get when you get your phone. It's about 50MB+/- more depending on the phone, but your internal memory needs to be partioned between a lot of components with your phone. Putting out an update increases the amount that your phone needs to be partitioned by, usually a considerable amount. That effects overall performance.

 

3.Drivers.

What's really frustrating about this whole process is having to update all the drivers. This means your USB port, your processor, this that and the third. When you update your phone (like everyone did with 1.6), you go through a usually pretty long process, because it has a lot of information to recieve. Getting ready to have all this sent out to the user takes a plethora of time, and it really does need a lot of work.

 

4.Your provider.

T-Mobile has done an astounding job rolling out those updates. Everyone else? Not so much. It's too early in the game to tell how they will regularly behave with everything, but for right now It just depends on the diligency of your company.

 

What does this mean for me?

It means that the harsh fact is that you may not recieve the Android 2.0 update for your phone (If you are on a 1st Generation Android device).

 

I'm a Droid user, what does this mean for me?

You can sit pretty and patiently wait for Flan.

 

 

 

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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
Ardoreal
Enthusiast - Level 2

HTC has stated they are porting Sense to Android 2.0.  

 

http://twitter.com/htc/status/5243593307

 

We know that HTC will make the update.  If you have a vanilla Hero that is not carrier branded, you are most definitely getting Sense UI on Eclair.

 

What we don't know is how long Verizon will take on the validation testing for such a ROM update, or if Verizon will bother with it at all.  

 

If HTC finishes it, Verizon will be the holdup.  I think we'll get it on Eris though.

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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
gerio
Specialist - Level 2

Okay...

 

Flan?? Searches come up with Mexican recipes. Nothing related to phones.

Geri O

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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
Ardoreal
Enthusiast - Level 2
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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
supitsmike
Specialist - Level 2

Ardoreal wrote:

HTC has stated they are porting Sense to Android 2.0.  

 

http://twitter.com/htc/status/5243593307

 

We know that HTC will make the update.  If you have a vanilla Hero that is not carrier branded, you are most definitely getting Sense UI on Eclair.

 

What we don't know is how long Verizon will take on the validation testing for such a ROM update, or if Verizon will bother with it at all.  

 

If HTC finishes it, Verizon will be the holdup.  I think we'll get it on Eris though.


While this is true, the only speculation about that is that people are wondering if they were referring to the UK Hero (Which can recieve the update) or the US Hero.

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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
supitsmike
Specialist - Level 2

gerio wrote:

Okay...

 

Flan??

Geri O


 

A(ndroid)

B(eta)

C(upcake)

D(onut)

E(clair)

F(lan)

G(ingerbread)

 

See what's going on there?

They are pastries. Yummy, yummy pastries.

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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
Ardoreal
Enthusiast - Level 2

 


supitsmike wrote:

Ardoreal wrote:

HTC has stated they are porting Sense to Android 2.0.  

 

http://twitter.com/htc/status/5243593307

 

We know that HTC will make the update.  If you have a vanilla Hero that is not carrier branded, you are most definitely getting Sense UI on Eclair.

 

What we don't know is how long Verizon will take on the validation testing for such a ROM update, or if Verizon will bother with it at all.  

 

If HTC finishes it, Verizon will be the holdup.  I think we'll get it on Eris though.


While this is true, the only speculation about that is that people are wondering if they were referring to the UK Hero (Which can recieve the update) or the US Hero.


 

The US Hero's hardware, except for the baseband, is identical to UK Hero.  This is per HTC.  Sprint representatives in the BAW forums have commented that Sprint will make the update available for Sprint customers.  Verizon is the carrier we don't know for sure is on board or not.

 

[Edit]

If you want to go by track record, Sprint has publicly announced Blackberry devices would be getting OS updates (prime example was the Pearl 8130's on both Sprint and Verizon), and Verizon would usually have beaten them to the punch without mentioning anything.  The updates also added new functionality to the devices, HTML email, etc.  I don't suspect Verizon is going to hold back an Eclair update.  I think the company's attitude has somewhat changed in the last couple years.  Carrying a device like the Droid is proof enough of that.  

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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
supitsmike
Specialist - Level 2

Ardoreal wrote:

 


supitsmike wrote:

Ardoreal wrote:

HTC has stated they are porting Sense to Android 2.0.  

 

http://twitter.com/htc/status/5243593307

 

We know that HTC will make the update.  If you have a vanilla Hero that is not carrier branded, you are most definitely getting Sense UI on Eclair.

 

What we don't know is how long Verizon will take on the validation testing for such a ROM update, or if Verizon will bother with it at all.  

 

If HTC finishes it, Verizon will be the holdup.  I think we'll get it on Eris though.


While this is true, the only speculation about that is that people are wondering if they were referring to the UK Hero (Which can recieve the update) or the US Hero.


 

The US Hero's hardware, except for the baseband, is identical to UK Hero.  This is per HTC.  Sprint representatives in the BAW forums have commented that Sprint will make the update available for Sprint customers.  Verizon is the carrier we don't know for sure is on board or not.

 

[Edit]

If you want to go by track record, Sprint has publicly announced Blackberry devices would be getting OS updates (prime example was the Pearl 8130's on both Sprint and Verizon), and Verizon would usually have beaten them to the punch without mentioning anything.  The updates also added new functionality to the devices, HTML email, etc.  I don't suspect Verizon is going to hold back an Eclair update.  I think the company's attitude has somewhat changed in the last couple years.  Carrying a device like the Droid is proof enough of that.  


True enough. I was unclear on my post above. The speculation is how fast Sprint will release it. Because they released a statement companing (basically) about the way they can't do OTA updates as it has a limit of 10MB (lol).

 

I agree with the Verizon thing though, it seems their paradigm on things has changed a bit, if not they've backed down just a wee bit.  They needed the Droid very much to set them ahead of everyone else, the OS and Opensource only does them good.

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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
Ardoreal
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hehe, I do remember the Sprint 10mb thing...I'm wondering if that has more to do with data usage than anything else though.

 

I remember Palm and Sprint both hemming and haw'ing over WebOS updates OTA, and eventually something magically happened with the basebands were for the most part flaking out, and the carrier profile/baseband firmware update came out that was as large as the point release update for WebOS itself.  lol

 

I'm hopeful, what can I say?  :smileyhappy:  When I mention that Verizon beat Sprint to the punch, it wasn't exactly a large margin.  The Blackberry OS updates had been stable for months and months before VZ finally did an OTA.  I'm hoping for marketing purposes they jump on Eclair.  It seems a big part of this whole "Droid" push that they have the most contemporary phones.  

 

To be honest....I haven't seen any Eris ads though.  I'm sure there are some out there...???

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Re: Your HTC Eris And Moto Droid and the Eclair Update; Lets talk about it.
droidJim
Newbie

Good review of the subject.  This is the one issue that is delaying my purchase of the Eris (otherwise I want it bad !)

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