Many people tend to use the word ‘fragmentation’ when talking about the flaws of Android operating system. Why? Well, because Android is still quite fragmented. Google has taken some measures in order to rectify that, but there’s only so much the company can do as far as that is concerned. Android smartphone manufacturers tend to put their very own custom skins on top of Android, which basically prolongs updates for their devices. Every time a new version of Android is released, they need a certain period of time to code their skin for the new version. Speaking of delays, carriers also play a huge part here, of course.
Ever since Google acquired Motorola Mobility and basically put almost stock version of Android on Motorola devices, this company has been extremely fast as far as updates go. They were basically the first OEM to bring updates to non-Nexus devices, which was quite impressive. Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, and coincidentally, Motorola got worse at updating their devices ever since Lenovo purchased the company from Google. Fast updates were one of the main reason consumers were loyal to Motorola, and even though Lenovo did not affect the design and functionality of Motorola’s software offering, it seems like their update process became a whole lot slower, which his something certain people were afraid will happen.
Let me give you an example, the Moto E (2015) which launched back in February won’t even get updated to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The 2nd-gen Moto G has been updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop, but 5.1 Lollipop is nowhere to be found. That handset will, however, get updated to Marshmallow sometime in the future, but we still don’t know when. Another great example we have in the Droid Turbo 2 and Droid Maxx 2 devices Motorola and Verizon announced quite recently. Both of those phones have launched with Android 5.1 Lollipop pre-installed, while the ‘old’ Motorola would probably ship those phones with Marshmallow pre-installed.
Don’t get me wrong here, Motorola is still significantly faster than a ton of other OEMs out there, but considering how fast they used to be, and how light their Android skin is, I was hoping this won’t happen after the Lenovo deal. Let me give you another example, HTC has announced their One A9 handset quite recently, and that phone comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and its Sense UI skin is not example as light as Motorola’s, not even close to that. So, if HTC can do it, why can’t Motorola? That is something only the company can answer at this point, but I have to say that I’m slightly disappointed. I hope that Motorola will re-think this, and bring updates quickly in the future. Feel free to share your opinion about all this in the comments, we’d love to hear what you have to say, especially if you own one of Motorola’s handsets and are affected by this.