Article refrains from drawing conclusions, instead presenting the data. Android is doing better at moving users to newer versions, but the overwhelming majority of users don’t have the current Android OS version nor the previous version, combined.
Article refrains from drawing conclusions, instead presenting the data. Android is doing better at moving users to newer versions, but the overwhelming majority of users don’t have the current Android OS version nor the previous version, combined.
I love Linux, but it has the same problems. The Android equivalent of Linux on the desktop is custom ROMs, which often support hardware longer than the manufacturer did, just like on Windows. Linux on the desktop is free because manufacturers put in the work for free, which is why a lot of cheapo Chinese hardware often has issues with working well on Linux, as they don’t do that.
Someone could make a universal Linux for Android, bring it out as a GSI for everyone to flash, but nobody is putting in the effort to make that possible. Instead, people work on their own little tweaked branches for specific devices, because that’s a lot easier than unifying everything into a dynamic, universal system. They’re all tiny projects, often done by a group where each device gets one or two maintainers who do the work in their free time, all for free, just like Linux!
Attempts at bringing a third party OS to phones have been made (Ubuntu Touch) and are still being made (PostmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch (the non-canonical fork), Jolla’s Sailfish), but they’re even less popular than Linux on the desktop. There are also very few developers behind it compared to free operating systems like Linux or one of the BSDs. But, sadly, running Linux on a phone is like running Linux on the desktop in the early 2000s: it mostly works, if your hardware happens to be supported.
I was positively surprised to see that nix mobile distros(if one could call that) were easily swappable. Something as simple as putting in a different image on microSD card and flashing it. But there were so many issues from screen issues to unoptimized apps to even call quality problems. It has a long way to go.