So it could be a hardware limitation. Hmm.

A captive market. The new versions of the operating system allow the current devices to do more, for no extra outlay. That is bad for the service providers, they want to upsell the user from their current, outdated phone to a new one with the new operating system and tie them in for another 2 years.

If the user can get a free upgrade on their existing phone to use all the new features, when they only have 2 months left on their contract, they aren't going to want to get bogged down with a new contract for another 2 years, just because a new phone is a bit faster, has a slightly better screen or doesn't have any scratches...

It is a lose-lose situation for the provider.

If networks want to tie customers in for a couple of years offer contracts that are too good to refuse. I plan on getting an iPhone this year and will not bother upgrading for quite some time. My current phone is 5 years old and still does what I want. So I can quite happily see myself with the same iPhone for 5 years. If they offered a contract with data and no upgrade for less then I would take it.

Saw this list about what phones run with each version of Android. It is probably out of date now if any models have been updated

* 1.5: HTC Hero, T-Mobile Pulse, LG GW620, Motorola Cliq, Motorola Backflip, Samsung Behold, Samsung i7500, Samsung Moment
* 1.6: HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Tattoo, Motorola Devour, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
* 2.0: Motorola XT800
* 2.1: Google Nexus One, HTC Legend, HTC Desire, Motorola Droid, Samsung i5700

From http://www.neowin.net/news/google039s-s ... 39froyo039

The problem is also not the age of the phone.

There are new phones coming on the market, NOW, which still use the older versions of the OS.

Again, the service providers are using the OS version, as well as the handset itself as an upsell to more expensive handsets, which have more features...

When I went over to FOSDEM loads of the open source geeks had Android, and most of them were cursing at them
I'm sure they're great phones, but standing around a load of geeks cursing at an open source operating system after praising it was fairly amusing

In regards to the SE X10, it was designed and built when 1.6 was the most recent version, only they delayed the release for so long it is outdated. Apparently it will get an update to 2.1 later in the year.

I was assured by the Orange salesman yesterday that any Android device sold by the company from this point onwards will not have any specific network software on their, allowing update to the latest OS version as soon as its released. I'm not so sure I believe him.

Did he quote his source or have anything in writing?

I have a G2 Touch (re-badged Hero) and T-Mobile are providing a free update to 2.1 soon, so I'm not worried.

Best for Android news:
http://www.androidcentral.com/

How tasty is this:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/htc- ... hone-armo/

Well they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Personally I did not like the interface, it looked complicated.

Also 8Mpx camera on a phone? Really? How large is the sensor? I would like to see some images taken with that camera and compare them to the 4Mpx images my pocket camera takes (or even the 3Mpx ones from my iPhone). Same for the video, I would love to see some footage. The shots you could see through the camera looked pretty awful to me. It was not coping with the backlit subject very well at all.

Maybe I am mistaken but this looks like a device made to look good on a spec sheet rather than one made to live with.

Your iphone? Well, that would have to be in the daylight wouldn't it, or would you bust out some "flash app" from the appstore to help you out in the dark?

On a serious note, I don't care about the camera, I hardly ever use it anyway. I was talking about the phone itself. Plus I believe that Android is the future.

Apple did a great job at being first with the iphone but now that android is out I don't see any appeal in iphone (I never did tbh, I own a Blackberry). You will have all the apps you need for android phones and you will have tones of hardware to run it on. What can you run on iphone? Apple proprietary os that is under super thight control of fascist-like company.

So again, what is it the appeal of iphone these days?

An app store that works?
I believe one of our own was bemoaning the Android system lately. Was it l3v1ck?