Did we all just witness Windows start to die?

[nicholas]

It is annoying though. It'd be like ford selling a car that only had 1 forward gear and you had to take it to some back street garage to have a new gearbox fitted. Sure some people will do it, but most will just not buy the car in the first place.
 
The stupid thing is that they add all the stuff on it to differentiate. I would like one of them to differentiate by shipping AOSP (I always pick a phone on hardware and not software anyway, I look for the smallest phone with the best camera). Android development needs to mature though, there are too many kernel ports. There should be one source tree that can be built for all phones and you shouldn't have to choose what features you want to work and what bugs you are willing to live with.
 
I don't recommend hacking anything to anyone, I'll only help them if they come to me & they know the risks. With Android I wouldn't even recommend updating to the latest manufacturer supplied firmware, most people are happiest with the software that was on the phone when they bought it. Every manufacturer update is worse in terms of speed & stability.

Just buy a Nexus device.

[nicholas]

Android claims to be more open than iOS but the reality is very different, Google have actually handed the carriers more power than they have ever had and the reality is iOS gives consumers a better deal with no carrier bloatware, no carrier controlled updates, no carrier branding uglifying your phone and you know what you get every time you buy an iDevice, a consistent apple user and support experiance.

Ahem.... http://www.google.com/nexus/all/

[nicholas]

As they say, one swallow does not a spring make!

The nexus range so far don't even support global 4G!

I don't know the state of 4G in the UK but here in Australia and also the US we have multile 4g networks to choose from and the thought of buying a new handset and being stuck on 3G for 1-2 years is ludicrous!

We have ONE 4G network and it's crap too. lol