I'm fairly new to the Android OS. I've visited their site and found that there is a version 4 out currently but the Skyrocket I just bought only has 2.3.5.. My question is can I update the OS to 4, or even 3.1/3.2? I would like to get some of the Adobe programs for photo editing but they all seem to require 3.1 or higher. Any help will be greatly appreciated & thanks for taking to time to read my post.
-Mal
Version 2.x of Android (with various names depending on sub-versions, revisions, etc) is all you'll find on ANY android phone for the next week or so. This is the most recent version tree that works with mobile phones.
Version 3.x of Android, called "Honeycomb" is only for tablets. For example, the samsung galaxy tab 10.1 (8.9, 7.0 plus, etc)
Version 4.x of Android, called "Ice Cream Sandwich" (ICS), is the merging of the phone-based android (2.x) with the tablet based android (3.x.) As of this post, there are NO released phones or tablets with version 4. That will be changing very shortly with the release of the samsung nexus phone (nexus prime, I think) on verizon any day now, and the asus transformer prime tablet (in the next week or three.)
I think the adobe applications you are looking at are designed to only work with tablet devices (as they are the only ones with version 3.x of android.)
Take care
Gary
Thank you for answering Gary, the information you provided was very insightful.
-Mal
Related
I purchased a Sprint Galaxy Tab to give myself an opportunity to get acquainted with Android (it came with ver 2.2 Froyo). After two months reading the xda threads I have basically learned that Android isn't just a few variations (Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, etc.) - but rather each device has its own flavor of Android within those larger general classes. Different ROMs, different kernels, different application compatibilities, etc.
This surely isn't good for Google and/or Android in the marketplace.
This has come to light most vividly while trying to get my Netflix subscription to work on my Samsung Galaxy Tab. Netflix promotes that they support "Android devices" which technically may be true. I suspect there are at least a handful of Android devices supported. Sadly my Galaxy Tab is not among the selected few. And based on the extremely long threads on this subject with such a wide variety of proposed possible solutions, it is not isolated to the Galaxy Tab. This should not be such a big deal. And yes, I realize it is likely the fault of Netflix themselves trying to be the DRM cops that complicate this issue. But dang - how hard can it be???
I've got to ask why? How is it that this same Galaxy Tab can display video from a variety of sources, but not Netflix? And why are there so many 'apps' that will not run on similar (but not identical) Android platforms?
Sorry for venting a bit. But dang....
It would be nice if phone hardware had more of a PC architecture so when a new version of Android was released by google, you could just go and download it, possibly with a Google installer that would auto detect drivers and such. But that's just a dream.
avrillapete said:
... with a Google installer that would auto detect drivers and such. But that's just a dream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
20 years ago it would have been a dream. But today? And a company as agressive as Google? WHY would it still be just a dream?
Google says they want to set an open source 'standard' and I think that is commendable. But it feels like the whole process of implementing and supporting the Android OS is stuck in the '80s - with the same problems and limitations that plagued the early CPM and MSDOS world. Surely Google has resources and smarts enough to do better!
Mostly I am surprised and disappointed that Google hasn't done a better job with this aspect of Android. Surely it will get better...
Google has acknowledged this issue, and it WILL get better. Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) will have even less fragmentation than honeycomb, and be on ALL devices from its release onward. many pre-existing devices will be upgraded to it as well, ending, for the most part, all android fragmentation.
Find this post on the same site i am reading:
First Android 3.2 Tablet Honeycomb Chipad Hands-on Review
It's a good review, but is it a good tablet? $379.99, maybe i should wait for a while.
The Huawei Mediapad - 7" Android 3.2 should ship soon. If you haven't heard of Huawei, you will soon. They are a huge company and compete directly with Cisco and others. I would be concerned about the warranty or lack of for no name Chinese tablets.
I just noticed - Oddly enough, the company has "no current plans" to produce a WiFi-only model, which definitely puts a damper on those who aren't interested in ponying for carrier data. "
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/20/huawei-mediapad-revealed-worlds-first-7-inch-android-3-2-table/
up4sd said:
Find this post on the same site i am reading:
First Android 3.2 Tablet Honeycomb Chipad Hands-on Review
It's a good review, but is it a good tablet? $379.99, maybe i should wait for a while.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is not hard to believe at all
after all Android is open source
anyone can download the source code and compile their own version for their own hardware
there are tons of those Asian countries manufactured Android phones/tablets in Deal Extreme, you can always see the latest available in there with the latest AOS
Probably another Advent Vega clone using the latest version of Vegacomb Rom which is developped by some enthusiasts. Basically a ripoff...
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Nice, this version is only for tablets? or smartphones are included too?
Haven´t got any words for this..
this thing really looks like the PoV Mobii/Advent Vega
You can see the Speakers on one of the Screenshots, their are the same like in my PoV Mobii
First, let me unravel what I mean by the title...
Apple offers updates to most if not all iOS devices when a new version of iOS comes out. I can be mistaken about this, but it really doesn't make my coming point invalid.
Most major GNU/Linux distributions supports a **** ton of hardware via the Linux kernel and can thus be installed on a lot of different computer configurations. Arch and others manage to have a rolling release, while Ubuntu and others can be updated to the latest version every time there is a new one.
Now, the Android kernel is a fork of the Linux kernel.... yet to my knowlegde, Cyagen Mod is the closest thing we have to an "Android Distrobution" that works on several devices... yet the latest stable release for my Optimus 2X was in October 2011 (Android 2.3).
My guess is that, as of 2012, the number of Android users has far surpassed the number of Linux Desktop Users.
So my question is, why can't I have an up to date Android experience on my phone?
One simple answer would be to blame NVIDIA for not updating their tegra-drivers... I might be extremely uninformed, but I believe I had a working tegra driver in my stock android 2.3 version. So why not patch the same driver for 4.1? Is Android 4.1 really that different? Why arn't more people working on this? No commercial interest? Has that ever grinded the linux community to a halt?
I want 10 stable Android distibutions by Friday afternoon... Go!
No, but seriously... I understand there are a lot of developers working on bringing the latest Android experience to all sorts of devices.
Hi everybody,
currently I am using Android 4 (OMNI) on my Wave S8500 next to Bada (still using Bada sometimes since I ve got the livelong version of Route66).
I appriaciate the possibility to have both OS installed and ready for usage in parallal but I appreciate even more the usage of Android OS from SD card instead of internal memory since it is way faster!
Unfortunately the accu capacity when running on Android is only 1 to 2 days while compared with Bada 2.0 and similar usage pattern it lasts one entire week! (What a pitty that samsung did not take any benefit from having such a promising OS together with such a volume of devices sold mobiles, TVs, tablets whatever.)
In addition I've random freezes quite unreproducable which makes using Android quite unreliable. But all in all I am quite satisfied and really deeply grateful that Android for my wave even exists! I need to use it above all for calendar synchronisation (and also whatsapp meanwhile).
No I came across the possibilities of having version 5 of android to be used on S8500. But I could not find any suitable answers which version to go?
The one described here in (dev-thread) seems to be still in some early stages. Something similar seems to be the case for this version while non-working parts are partly mentioned.
I also found this description but without any additional information!
Does anybody have any hint or idead or suggestion for which version to go or whether number 5 is still not mature enough to be used as daily standard?
What are your experiences or suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
Bye
Hm, seems the upgrade/update links are all just for surveys! What a !xO%...
Hi,
You've provided me all links that you need, so asking your questions in that thread is the best solution for receive an relevant answer.
XDA Assist is here to help members navigate the site, not support. And you've navigated it already.
Good luck!
Hello everyone,
I was searching for Android One topics here and unfortunately found nothing ( probably because of the confusing name)
So can someone explain what's up with this Android One software overlay.
I read some info on wiki but still have some questions:
Is it like normal firmware that only comes with certain smartphones, or you can flash it yourself?
It's a near stock android but, which version is it based on,
does it come out every time new android version rolls out, or it just gets updated to the new one.
and lastly let's say I have android one phone, and after three years they stopped regular updates,
it's still android one compatible phone right, so I can update to the new version myself?
Thank you.
avoup said:
Hello everyone,
I was searching for Android One topics here and unfortunately found nothing ( probably because of the confusing name)
...
and lastly let's say I have android one phone, and after three years they stopped regular updates,
it's still android one compatible phone right, so I can update to the new version myself?
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, Android One are phones that run a lite weight version of Android for budget phones with small specs (under 2Go of RAM, entry level processor,...) called Android Go. It's supposed to give a fluid experience to phones with limited capacity. Each Android Go version (for each Android One device) is in consequences very specific to the device, in order to use efficiently all of what the different specs has to offer.
You can still build ROMs/TWRP for those devices, and use it as a normal device, but the experience will be much slower. So to answer your 3 questions:
1)It's firmware that only comes with certain phones, it's build to use perfectly the SoC and memory, so it's very specific (not generic like GSI)
2) Android One are phones, Android Go is the Android version. Your phone may or may not receive an update to the Next Android version, on that side it's the same as other phones. If it receives an update, you'll run (for example) Android 10 Go Version. So update exists for Android One phones, they won't stay for ever at the same Android version they had at the beginning.
3) when your phone won't be supported anymore, you won't be able to update your phone to another version of Android Go. You'll still be able to flash ROMs or stuff like that, but since Android Go builds are very specific to each devices, you can't flash them "cross devices".
PS: at the moment I've not heard of Android 10 Go Edition, it's still at Android 9 if I'm correct. But it will be updated, the goal of Android one is to support cheap and often not long lasting phone over time.
Read more here : https://www.android.com/versions/go-edition/