I'm riding your wave Mohamed :) Have 2.1 on my Hero now and it is by FAR the best phone and OS I have ever had, even with the few little features that don't quite work properly due to running a non-official ROM. Froyo will probably never be officially released for the Hero, but I'm pretty sure that one of the devs on the 'scene' will release it soon enough - and that is exactly why I love Android more and more; a sceen to rival no other, full of clever and friendly people who push the hardware (and the official developers) to do more.

Android: Sold to Tim :)

You're right Tim, the good thing with Android is that the its not the operators or the manufacturers that rule the new versions deployment, If you are quit confident enough and you can't wait for your operator/manufacturer to roll out new versions then you can get a non-official ROM of the latest Android OS made by passionate for passionate ;)

Tips: If you don't know where to get these ROM or how to install them then my unique advice would be to not go further, keep your actual phone as it is and wait and see if your operator/manufacturer will update it.

To check your OS version go to "Settings", then "About Phone" and look for "Firmware version"

To check if you have a new System update, it's at the same level at previous info you just need to click on "System updates" (Make sure you are connected over Wi-Fi before updating your system as the files to download are pretty big)

@Mohamed: so basically because you can install non-official ROMs on rooted device, you consider that it's not the operator or manufacturer who decide on the deployment of new Android versions ? It is basically like saying that the iPhone is a very open system because you can jailbreak it and install whatever you want on it (including dual-booting Android BTW).

Actually, the fact that OS updates have to go through both the manufacturer and operator before reaching the end-user is one of the main causes for Android fragmentation, so no, it's definitely not a "good thing with Android".

As far as I'm concerned, I also have a Hero but I'm still stuck with Android 1.5. We might get 2.1 since the US version of the Hero just got it, but still that's a very long wait.

Now about the OHA: come on, don't tell me you're believing the hype ! The OHA is a joke, it was only set up by Google to pretend that Android is an industry standard rather than "Google's OS".

See this article about this subject:

http://moconews.net/article/419-the-reasons-why-googles-open-handset-alliance-has-been-a-disappointment/

One last thing about the obligatory iPhone/Android comparison: the real important question is not WHAT your phone can do, but HOW it does it. And that's where the iPhone wins over all other smartphones so far: what it does, it almost always does it better than the others. And with every new iPhone OS release or every new iPhone model, it is doing more and closing the "feature gap" with other smartphones.

I'll just give you a simple example: my iPhone 3GS has a 3MP camera, that sounds obsolete compared to my Hero 5 MP camera (which is almost obsolete too BTW). However, if given the choice I'll take pictures with my iPhone rather than my Hero, because despite the lower MP, the iPhone takes much better pictures (better color rendition, much better response time which leads to much less blurry pictures...)

@ Romain, if you think that iPhone is open (because you can jailbreak it and install non-official ROMs) then you misunderstood what I've said on my comment (I bet that even if you jailbreak your iPhone 3G you'll not be able to update it with iPhone OS 4, but you can still update your iPhone device with FROYO ;) )

Concerning O.H.A. this doesn't mean that everybody is sharing what he's doing (HTC did some improvements that were not shared with the community but this lead to a healthy competiton between HTC, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson etc...)

And last but not least, you are talking about Android fragmentation but for me there are at least 2 symptoms of a platform fragmentation that you don't take into account (several versions do not mean several "distributions" like for Linux for example)

Classical symptoms of platform fragmentation. 

First, older APIs no longer work and break in new releases. 

Second, multiple application marketplaces offer different applications that lack uniformity across platforms. 

Both of these are true when you look at desktop Linux. Neither are true of Android.

What you are talking about is "legacy" (Same with Apple's 1st generation iPhone that would not be upgraded to OS4...)

What is changing in mobile world is how fast devices and OS versions become obsolete (not because of a lack of feature but more likely because of high rate of innovation in a short period)

Concerning the mandatory iPhone/Android comparison: I still think that iPhone is a trend and new market stats tend to confirm what I'm saying (They will reach the same market share as in Personal Computer industry and that's all folks), with less than 100 millions units sold since 2007 we are still far from the huge success of a Nintendo DS, a Motorola RAZOR, a LG Chocolate, a PlayStation 1&2, a regular iPod, etc... its sure it has a significant share on smartphone market but still an inconsiderable part of mobile market.

For the use of your camera, it's a question of choice, a Canon addict will found you dozens of reasons to use a Canon instead of Nikon/Sony/etc...

Quick Note: You are comparing devices not OS in your case and this is not the Topic of this article (If I follow you on your path: if Sony Ericsson release a phone with a better camera under Android you will say that it's Sony Ericsson not Android... doesn't make sense...)

@Mohamed: no I don't think that iPhone is open, I was just making an analogy to point a flaw in your line of reasoning when you are using Android custom ROMs as an example to support your point that "it's not the operators or manufacturers that rule the new versions deployment", which I think is a pretty inaccurate, if not totally wrong, statement.

Regarding fragmentation, I agree that the 2 fragmentation symptoms you are refering to do not apply to Android, and I wasn't referring to them either.

What I meant is that when you have 3 major revisions of the OS widely used by devices in the field, in almost equivalent proportions, there are some features that you simply cannot provide on 1/3 or 2/3 of devices (because they're only supported on the latest OS versions), or there are some features that are very easily implemented on the latest versions of the OS, but require more significant and/or "tricky" developments on previous versions of the OS, so you're left with 3 possible choices:

- only implement the feature in a clean and/or simple way using the APIs from the latest version of the OS

- only implement the feature in a "tricky" and/or complicated way using the APIs available on the older versions of the OS (since they're usually also supported on newer versions)

- implement the feature twice (once for the newer OS, once for the older OS)

There's no ideal choice, all 3 of them suck for different reasons.

And this fragmentation also increases testing costs since you have to test the app on several versions of the system.

On the other hand, on iPhone OS there's no such fragmentation: if you start a new development nowadays you can pretty much forget about supporting anything prior to 3.1, because only a tiny fraction of iPhones and iPod touches are still running ancient versions of the OS

Now regarding the impact of the iPhone on the mobile industry: it can be measured in a quantitative and qualitative way:

Quantitative first: sure the iPhone will never grab 40% of the global or even smartphone market, but that's simply because it is positionned as a high-end phoneso it is de facto restricted to the high-end market segment. However, contrary to what you say the iPhone doesn't pale when compared to the other popular consumer electronics products:

- iPhone: 50 M cumulative sales since 2007 (so in 3 years)

- Nintendo DS: 130 M sales in 5 1/2 years. That's 70 M in 3 years

- Moto Razor: 110 M in 4 years. That's 82 M in 3 years

So yes iPhone sold less than the Razor or DS but we're talking about the same order of magnitude, and considering that Apple was totally new to the mobile phone manufacturing industry, I think it's only fair to call this a huge success

Now the biggest impact of the iPhone on the industry is not in terms of market share, but in more qualitative terms, i.e. how they changed the industry and established new standards or at least accelerated greatly some important trends.

Last point: yes I know I was comparing the picture quality of 2 specific devices, I didn't mean that the iPhone camera is superior to any Android phone camera. It was just an illustration that a longer feature list or higher spec numbers don't necessarily make a better product

@ Romain: I still not agree with your "Fragmentation" definition, what you are describing is clearly "Legacy", that's typically what will happen with iPhone OS 4 (if you have a iPhone 3G or 1st generation iPhone then you can forget about OS improvements made on next and later OS releases) that's sad to have an obsolete phone after 2 years but it's clearly how it is today (old devices can't afford to support new APIs but again this is called "Legacy" not "Fragmentation")

Concerning your comment about "I was just making an analogy to point a flaw in your line of reasoning when you are using Android custom ROMs as an example to support your point that "it's not the operators or manufacturers that rule the new versions deployment", which I think is a pretty inaccurate, if not totally wrong, statement.", I think that your statement is pretty inaccurate, few weeks ago some operators were forced to go to 2.0/2.1 OS because some developers have released ROMs for the phone they sold, with previous OSs an operator or a manufacturer had no interest to upgrade your phone to upper version because he won't offer you a better device at no cost for you and it will cost him a lot (dev/tests/deployement) + the risk of selling less new models (as you will get improvements directly on your current phone)

So, the fact that people can demonstrate and publish that a newer version could be supported by your 1 or 2 years old phone is a good thing for consumers (even if most of them will not use un-official ROMs), today the operators/manufacturers have no real reasons to argue (just take a look at most of US operators and manufacturers forums and you'll see what I'm talking about), remember that some months/weeks ago HTC announced that the HTC Hero will not get any updates and now they have been "forced" by un-official ROMs and Competition to do so (and that's the reason why you'll probably get your phone updated anytime soon), why? because they have to care about what consumers will say "Oh! see, developers can get OS Vx work o my phone and my operator/manufacturer said it was not possible, I'll never by a phone from XXXX again"

For the impact of the iPhone, it has never been told that the iPhone did not bring anything to mobile industry (I think it has been a good accelerator for smartphone segment) but just like the Razor was some years ago with phone casing (modern design, thinest, etc...) so its not new to the industry and its not the latest trend setter we will see in the coming next years...

In addition to that, note that just like Razor, the iPhone is counted as a product and not based on number of models (all iPhones don't get a 3.5 jack, all iPhones are not 3G, all iPhone don't have a 3Mp camera etc...) so if you want to talk about quantitative I think your numbers will fall dramatically and will have same magnitude as some other smartphones (sure it will be on top 3 but not so far from some Nokia, LG or Samsung phones), once again, I'm not telling that iPhone suck, just telling that it's the trend setter for a moment only...

@Mohamed: whether you call it Fragmentation or Legacy, it is a problem for a platform when several different major revisions coexist in the wild. Of course it will happen with the iPhone, and it has already begun with the release of the iPad (original iPad = 3.2 with other iPhones & iPod touch = 3.1.3, then we'll have for several months, before the iPad gets upgraded to 4.0, some iPhones and iPod touch with 4.0, some others still with 3.1, and iPad still with 3.2)

Even Google has acknowledged this problem and they're trying to address it in Froyo by making the system more modular so that the generic parts of the OS can be updated independently of the manufacturer-specific parts (mostly UI skins)

One last thing about the HTC Hero: HTC never announced that it would never get 2.1. Actually, they have been announcing for several months that an update was in the works. Initially they talked about an 1.6 update, then they announced that they were skipping 1.6 to go directly to 2.X. Then they have been delaying this update for a couple months (back in January they were announcing an update for March: http://www.htcsource.com/2010/01/htc-hero-android-2-1-update-scheduled-for-march/). So I don't know the part that unoffical ROMs played in their decision (and my opinion is that they didn't play any role at all given the small number of people who root their devices and install unofficial ROMs), but what is sure is that they didn't just change their minds yesterday

Ok, about fragmentation and the fact that even Google has acknowledged this problem, I just find out that Andy Robin (father of Android OS) share the same definition as me and talk about wrong word usage :) so it seems that regarding your comment, even Google is "lost on translation"...

Check video of last week I|O conference: http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/watch?v=1MWvh3VyP3w

That's just pure rhetorics: what they're calling "legacy", everyone else includes it as part of Android's "fragmentation" issue (because there are other factors that participate in fragmenting the platform, like the variety of different screen sizes and form factors, or all the different manufacturer customizations).

Anyway, whatever you call it, the fact that 3 very different revisions of the system are co-existing in similar proportions IS a problem

Hopefully Froyo will solve this or at least minimize the problem, time will tell...

You might find this article interesting if you want to give FroYo a try. Maybe it works for your Android phone ;) Good Luck!

I am definitely not risking to blow my phone just because I want to move from 1.6 to 2.2.

But it is true that Android platform is suffering from long delays between update release and it's arrival on user's device, these delays are mainly due to network operators.

Romain, Mohamed, you guys should should really meet to talk about the topic. Took me so long to read all your posts...