Sorry, for this update, my Samsung Galaxy SII (GT-I9100) runs Android
2.3.3 (Gengerbread) not 2.3.2 (Froyo). The kernel version was
apparently compiled by my mobile phone reseller and network operator
(to integrate additional apps), not by Samsung itself. This just
confims that phone resellers can include/remove the modules they want
from the kernel and other firmware builtin apps.
May be I would have the same troubles as you if I ever rooted the
phone to install some other version, but for now I just run the stock
firmware (which was updated from 2.3.2 to 2.3.3 by the mobile phone
operator in the first 3 days after I had connected it to the network,
by a pushed update that I had accepted to install; I have actually
never tested the Unicode rendering support before this update).
One problem I have with that phone is that the Gmail application is
prepackaged, but it cannot be uninstalled and cannot even be updated
from the Application menu, even when using Andoid Market (the
application is shown as "not installed" and is a very old one). And it
contains severe bugs where messages get mysteriously lost, and IMAP
folders get garbled. The alternative is to use the generic "email"
application written by Samsung instead (which can be updated from the
Market by installing an alternate version, something which is
mysteriously restricted for the Gmail application from Google).
I don't understand the logic of why some applications or services or
installable modules are restricted to some clients and not some
others. We can find many mailicious apps on the Android Market that
can cause severe failures (such as the phone rebooting and requesting
again the PIN code, meaning that it unexpectedly gets disconnected
from the operator, after using it online and we temporaily loose the
network/Internet signal or the GPS signal by moving around; this also
causes a severe battery drain each time the phone is rebooted; It is
very difficult to determine which app generates those reboots, as
there's not even any tool allowing to inspect a log with minimal
kernels dumps, and apparently no report being proposed to be sent to a
support service and no help given allowing the user to identify the
apps/services to uninstall/disable if they cause troubles; it may
appear that this is a bug in some builtin hardware device driver and
in that case the firmware itself is the source of the trouble, and
should be updatable).
What I don't like in Android is the very short support time: as I have
a phone prepared by my mobile operator, in just a few months it will
stop selling it and will immediately completely abandon maintaining
the firmwares, but it will still maintain the root restriction, even
though it is supposed to be still within the warranty time (and the
practive of mobile operators is that oif we send a phone to servicing,
all they will do is to rease everything on the phone and reinstall
their last supported "official" firmware with rooting disabled and all
specific apps from the operator; all apps or DRM protected medias that
refuse to be downladed and installed on an external SD card storage
will be lost, including payed ones, but the mobile operator absolutely
don't care about that !).
At least with iPhones, we have a much longer support time. I'm not
sure how this behaves in Windows Phone and Backberry. but all of them
can be "customized" and prepared specially by mobile operators
featuring their own apps (but I'm not sure that Apple allows kernels
of sponsored iphones/itabs to be freely modified by operators, all
they may do is to disable a standard app to feature another one
instead).
Getting a decent long term OS support on mobile devices is still very
complicate compared to notebooks, desktops, and servers. For this
reason, I'm n ot ready to switch my notebook to a tablet, and I will
still use a smartphone only as a more mobile complement of my
notebook. The convergence between smartphones/tablets on one side and
notebooks/desktop/servers is still late, I hope this will converge
soon where they will only be differentaited by their form factor but
not by the applications, services that are sintalled or by the
presence or not of a mobile connectivity sponsored by mobile
operators.
2011/11/5 கா. சேது | කා. සේතු | K. Sethu <skhome_at_gmail.com>:
> Thanks to Phillipe Verdy for a detailed reply to my reply to his
> earlier post - I had sent my reply only to Phillipe Verdy and not to
> this list, though actually I intended to - (missed due forgetting to
> press the "Reply to all" ). My post and his reply are quoted below
> this.
Received on Sat Nov 05 2011 - 17:53:32 CDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Sat Nov 05 2011 - 17:53:35 CDT