Jean-Baptiste Queru, technical lead on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), has revealed his opinion on the current state of the project and the lengthy waits users face for updates. In a Google+ post, Queru congratulates Sony on its Android 4.0 update for the Tablet S and describes the Japanese company as being the biggest contributor to Android, leaving everyone else playing catch-up. By contributing code to the project, Sony should be able to ensure timely updates for its own devices as well as helping out the community at large. So why the long wait for Android 4.0?
"everyone else is now going to have to play catch-up."
Queru actually thinks the five months it took Sony to update the tablet from 3.0 Honeycomb to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is "very reasonable," as the two Android versions are "quite different" under the hood. He also adds that the differences between Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich are huge, and so phone upgrades are likely to take longer. When asked why Asus updated its tablet much faster than Sony, Queru states that Asus worked together with Nvidia. Given the Transformer Prime's status as the flagship Tegra 3 tablet, it comes as no surprise that both parties would throw as many resources as they can at the tablet to ensure a timely update.
What really bothers Queru is that some Google-engineered devices still don't have the latest version of its own OS, thanks to delays in the carrier approval process. He's very glad that Google is back to selling devices directly, and will be "even happier" when he sees the program expanded to more countries.
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