Rumour or genuine bad news? Only time will tell right now but according to Gadgetronica, their inside sources have revealed that Google may be looking to delay Key Lime Pie by as much as 4 months. The reasoning behind this is simple, reduce the forking in the market and allow the OEM manufacturers to catch up.
Recently it was reported that Android 4.1 and 4.2 were gaining traction in the marketplace with 16.5% of the Android active users now on Jellybean. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, as at the March figures commanded a respectable 28.6% of the marketshare. With the trend of active devices moving towards the newer versions of Android, are Google making the right decision if in fact they are delaying Android 5.0 to allow this trend to continue?
If they do delay Key Lime Pie, it raises some small questions as to the validity of the Nexus 5 rumours that have been floating around for a while now. Worth keeping eyes and ears out for further news to come prior to Google I/O.
Do you think it’s the right decision to delay Key Lime Pie, or is it going to cause more issues that it solves? Let us know in the comments below
Has anyone thought that they might be delaying it just the clear bugs. The last few major android releases have been buggy as hell. You often feel like a beta tester with the major releases.
also 3rd party manufacturers will only put their tweaks on stable bug free software. 4.2.2 only came out in Feb so give them a bit of time and it will be popping up more and more. They will never put 4.2.0 on a phone and really hope they dont start.
Yeah, at the end of the day, if the manufacturers didn’t spend so much time screwing around with the OS before they released it for their phones, the fragmentation issue would be nowhere near as bad. I say keep in track with the release schedule. Let the likes of Motorola and the nexus line set the pace for updates and if the consumers get sick of Samsung, HTC, Sony etc screwing around with updates, they can vote with their feet. It won’t take the other manufacturers long to change their tune if they start losing out….
If it delayed after Google IO, how come Google show off their new Nexus 7 and upgraded Nexus 4?
Samsung seems to be the only one taking stride with this. I mean they released the S IV on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. When was the last time a manufacturer ever released an Android phone on the latest OS?
Google just need to set an update release timing benchmark with Motorola and the nexus products, and if the other manufactures want to stuff around customising the os then that’s their call. They’ll lose customers if they take too long and people get annoyed enough…
I don’t buy it’s to allow other manufacturers to catch up. It’s not the google way. Google is about getting releases out as soon as possible. Their main competition is from apple. They wouldn’t want to give them any ground unnecessarily and also by releasing klp as soon as possible they will also attract more nexus sales.
Well if they announce KLP next month, but don’t ship until July, then that’s two months ‘delay’ anyway. I’d guess that’s what we are likely to see.
Can’t have apple catching up, can they?
I think Google should just give the manufacturers the middle finger. At IO last year they said that all OEMs would have access to the source months before public release, and yet the OEMs still drag their feet while they add their “enhancements” to it. It’s been about 10months since 4.1 was released and yet HTC are releasing their new flagship with 4.1.2. This is not good enough. Not even close, and why should we as end users have to suffer for their inadequacies?
What option do the end users have? We need to accept that while Android is controlled by the OEMs we (as users) will never have a clean, or current experience.
Google need to step up, lay down the law and say THIS is how it is.
THIS is how WE will handle update, and THIS is the minimum hardware requirement for you to run Android on your phone if you release it this quarter.
CMON GOOGLE!
I think, they need to do what MS have done with WINDOWS 8 PC, they give there manufactures the software a few months before, so they can screw it over, which mentioned above Google do, and if OEM’s drag their feet, leave them behind, run with Nexus, THE FLAGSHIP ANDROID PHONE, and if they don’t like that tell them to go screw themselves and die in a hole.
It’d definitely keep fragmentation down. I doubt we’ll see it happen anytime soon though.