Pioneering T-Mobile G1 owners have been
enjoying the spoils of Android 1.5 (or
Cupcake, as it's known 'round these parts) for months now, but it looks as if that very treat will be the last taste of confectionery goodness that the smartphone gets. According to Android software engineer Dave Sparks, a time is soon coming when devs "wont be able to fit the latest [Android] release on the G1's internal flash," and yet another engineer has chimed in via Twitter to say that he "can't promise" that any update after 1.5 will fit. For whatever reason, HTC gifted the G1 with an incredibly meager amount of internal flash, and considering that no Android phone will support app storage / loading from a microSD card, there's no way to free up room for
Donut, Eclair or Flan. You've been a real champ, G1, but without 2.0+, we just can't give you the love and devotion you truly need. Go on, call us fickle -- we deserve it.
[Via
Electronista and
jkOnTheRun]
Update: We've received a statement directly from T-Mobile on the matter, saying "We plan to continue working with Google to introduce future software updates to the T-Mobile G1. Reports to the contrary are inaccurate." It's unclear whether those are just going to be security and stability updates to 1.5 or whether we'll see wholesale new versions like Donut and beyond, but for the sake of G1 owners everywhere, we're hoping it's the latter.
posted Aug 17th 2009 7:23PM
Yeah but rooted phones should be okay for Donut 2.0 or higher I would hope. Now we shall see how many users want to root their phone. :)
Bs. Apps can run off of sd if the allowed. Devs are already doing it.
Just because they can't get 2.0 doesn't mean they can't get updates. What about 1.5.1 and 1.5.2?
For example, turning on support for Bluetooth applications won't take any more memory - just a flick of a switch - so they should be able to get stuff like fix and more bug fixes.
So.....how long until this bad news spreads to the "new" MyTouch. My trial period is up tomorrow and I am now thinking seriously of returning my MyTouch. Just don't want to take the risk of being abandoned.
You may be out of luck Jim, the myTouch has the same amount of built in memory as the G1. I can't see why one phone with the same amount of space would be excluded.
@ Red
Sorry Red but you are misinformed. The MyTouch (HTC Magic) has 512 MB ROM and 288 MB RAM while the G1 (HTC Dream) has 256 MB ROM 192 MB RAM. It is certainly not a huge leap in the specs department but it is a difference. The Hero has the same specs as far as memory goes as the MyTouch so you should see the MyTouch going to 2.0 and beyond.
From the sound of it, Looks like they plan on skipping right past the 1.5.1.. etc and going with the striaght 2.0 donut
@Red
Actually, they're talking about ROM. The G1 jas 256 while the mytouch has 512.
In this day-in-age, it's really sad that something so simple as Flash ROM is still an issue for our modern electronic devices.
My G1 has served me well, but this is the final nail in its coffin for me, I'll be replacing it with *something* else. What that something is, remains to be seen...
Well thanks to the folks over at XDA I'm going to milk my G1 for as long as I can, I actually prefer the qwerty keyboard over the full touch screen of the my touch, plus with it rooted I have multitouch and can store and run apps off my sd card.
So bite the bullet and shrink the cache partition. Yes, we'll have to wipe the device. Yes, we'll lose OTA updates. We're early adopters - we knew we'd have to do things like this.
If not, at least we can still root.
I blame HTC for this... They never got the point of putting enough internal memory in their phones...
Still, I'm holding onto my G1 until the SE Xperia X3 comes out.
http://www.phones-online.org/phones/smartphone/sony-ericsson-smartphone-phones/new-sony-ericsson-xperia-x5-exposure.html
So, what happens to developers with Android Dev Phone 1? They need to buy another developer phone? Doesn't make sense at all.
I think they develop this phones these day with no thought of the consumer, or atleast suppling the consumer with a quality product. I would rather have a product that will meet the needs of the changing industry for a few years and pay for better firmware(2.0) as is rolls out then to have a phone that is pretty much dead technology months later. I think the world has changed a lot since the days of building a quality product that you stand behind and offer full support until the next "Major" technology is discovered and rolled out to the consumer. In today's world it's about milking the consumer out of as much money as they can, technology will never die so their will always be money to be made as the new and improved rolls out. Why make the consumer suffer so in these tuff economic times.
yeah they want to force people to buy there new phones when the other one can no longer be updated in a short period of time not unlike apple and its macbooks want faster performance buy a new one with more room
According to this thread http://tinyurl.com/l4gfcv , updates will continue
Kinda sad to think myG1 might be even shorter-lived for me than my old Siemens S46.
Which if you knew the S46 is a genuine slap in the face with a rotten fish.
Still, I'll enjoy the next Android phone even more, right? Right???
Well, everyone's obiviously going to have to use a custom SPL that eliminates the cache partition and doubles /system... if someone can make it without having a fiasco like with Haykuro's "special" SPL that almost doubled /data...
Haykuro's special SPL also increases /system to 90MB. I'm currently running my G1 with it and cyanogen's ROMs and there's 27.5MB space still free.
Not accurate: http://twitter.com/FoneFrenzy/status/3375744867