<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p>You know that brand new Android phone you're holding? Well, it's obsolete. It was obsolete before you bought it and will go through several rounds of obsolescence by the time you pass it on to favourite uncle and buy yourself another phone. Google rolls out big updates or outright overhauls of its operating system for phones and tablets every few months but Android users can never be certain when they will get the upgrades on their devices or if they'll get them at all. <br><br>In some cases, there's one thing they can be sure of and that's that they won't get the latest upgrade at all. Not only are upgrades frequent but there's a new Android device launched practically every week, rendering older devices to the annals of Android history before the shine rubs off the older devices. At any point of time, devices running the latest software are less than 5 per cent of all Android devices. At the current time, a mere 10 per cent of Android phones are on Android 4.0.3 or Ice Cream Sandwich and already the next version, Jelly Bean or 4.1, is out, arriving on Google's new Nexus 7 tablet.<br><br>You would think that users have enough features to explore on their existing phones without worrying about what else is new. But any who are enthusiastic about technology and gadgets, get extremely miffed and are quite clear about wanting the features brought in by the most recent version of Android. Those who know how to, will "root" their devices and install "custom ROMs" to get the new operating system, often with disastrous results, but for most people, it's sour grapes. Or perhaps sweet grapes would be more appropriate a term given the names Android versions come with.<br><br>But today, with the amount of buzz over new phones, many more users are aware of specs and software. They're actually beginning to ask about upgradeability before buying a phone. I had someone ask me whether he should consider the Galaxy S3 because it became available just before the Jelly Bean update to Android and now everyone was talking about new features that weren't on this coveted super-smartphone. <br><br>When, he asked, would the S3 upgrade to Jelly Bean? No matter which device we're talking about, no one can do much more than guess about the likelihood of an OS upgrade. It isn't up to Google, and theoretically most recent devices will be able to take an upgrade, but the phone manufacturer may not believe the upgrade is a priority. <br><br>Today, the Galaxy S2, still on Gingerbread, is selling quite well without any upgrades. Samsung will likely make their newer phones a prority instead of upgrading phones. Some new phones are actually still shipping with Gingerbread. Some companies, like Sony, have upgraded some of their phones, but still others are waiting and wondering. <br><br>For phone makers, the phones they sold, all kitted out with their customised interfaces and skins (such as TouchWhiz on Samsung phones and Sense on HTC devices) are already optimised for the operating systems they went out with. Reworking to fit into an upgraded OS takes resources and time, which they may or may not see as worthwhile. Only Google's own Nexus devices can be upgraded readily, but these don't necessarily make their way to India – not officially, anyway.<br><br>So what is the unsuspecting hapless user to do? Forget all about the upgrades?</p>
<p><br>Unfortunately there may be no alternative. Not being able to upgrade to the newest version can cause problems with some apps, besides making a user feel left out in the cold where new and interesting features are concerned, but what choice is there? One has to be judicious about which apps to install and update. Rooting a phone is an option only for the extremely tech savvy who will know how to rescue their phones if they're in trouble. For the rest of us ordinary mortals, it's a waiting game.</p>
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<p>mala (at) pobox (dot) com, @malabhargava on Twitter</p>
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.