Android 12 Beta 5 is here. For those that haven’t been following along at home, this is the last expected release before it hits stable and is ready for the masses — a so-called “release candidate” version that should be almost good to go. This latest version also picks up support for the brand new Pixel 5a, and it’s your last chance to get those beta-testing toes wet before Android 12 is released. On that note, Google also gives us a hint about its schedule, promising that Android 12 is “just a few weeks away.”
Well, a few weeks away for a very small number of phones. For most users, this release is months away, at best, and infinity away, at worst.
I’m puzzled about how genuine new advancements have become conflated with always work in progress unfinished products. Perhaps it’s all part of the brainwashing hype addiction which keeps mostly US media and blogs in income. I suppose product you never asked for with rough edges doesn’t sell so well.
I’m still waiting for Android 11 and I have a 2yr old flagship phone. Oneplus 7 Pro 5G.
Never again.
Who cares? Most Android versions after Oreo mostly add junk anyway, and anyone who cares about having the latest and greatest Android version (for the nerd bragging rights) already owns a Pixel.
The days people just wanted to have ICS in order to get access to Chrome and better task switching or Lollipop to get access to ahead-of-time compilation are over, nowadays you can run a Lollipop phone and be fine.
This is why Germany is asking the EU to legislate 7 years of security updates, because people just stick to their phones and don’t care what version it runs.
A somewhat ranty post, but I sometimes get the feeling that operating systems peaked in the early 2010s, and it’s been downhill since then, as the only things that seem to get added are cloud service upsells and fashion-driven changes in the UI. I have no interest in any new Android versions anymore, and considering this is coming from an ex-Android nerd like me, it says a lot.
kurkosdr,
This comes with market maturity. Computer evolution was slowing as mobile evolution was taking off, and now it’s the mobile industry’s time to slow down. Sure you’ve got the salesmen doing their best to keep the party going “you need this ultra megapixel camera” “5G will be revolutionary” or “this new CPU will revolutionize mobile”, etc, but it’s a lot more hype than anything. Consumers are experiencing upgrade fatigue with too little to show for it.
Now they’re pushing for operating systems to become subscription services. This isn’t so much for the benefit of consumers, but for the manufacturers who can see their markets are saturated and not growing any more. They have to find new sources of revenue and for better or worse they’re signing deals with advertisers, who can provide reliable revenue stream despite the fact that the vast majority of users hate them.
So I agree, we keep getting marginal spec bumps, but the industry is nowhere near as innovative as it used to be. It’s hard to say if we’re just in a temporary rut or if this is going to be a steady-state norm for a long while.