[nadams]

> Almost all users would be incapable of applying patches themselves.

There are currently 357,101 registered users on XDA developers. Saying "almost" every android user can't apply a patch is somewhat far fetched.

Most procedures on XDA developers have a much better step by step documentation than most SDKs I've seen - and every time I've used them it's been successful. I've only had one issue regarding flashing a radio - but that was my fault for not reading/paying attention and Motorola for not allowing a lower version of radio to be flashed...

Yes - there are grandmas and people who don't even know what Linux is would not be able to apply the patch themselves - but you are going to find that in any market.

[SamReidHughes]

> Yes - there are grandmas and people who don't even know what Linux is would not be able to apply the patch themselves

Fascinating. What proportion of Android users do you think would be left unpatched?

[nadams]

I think something got lost in translation - I'm not saying for the manufacturers NOT to release updates.

I'm advocating for the ability for people like me to be able to apply the patches manually - and thus as a result the ability to remove and tweak the underlying OS to my liking. As it stands right now I can't do that due to proprietary drivers.

> What proportion of Android users do you think would be left unpatched?

But I'll humor you. Analyzing the breakdown of Android devices [1] - I would argue at this point devices running 4.2.X and lower will never see another update (because 4.2 is almost 3 years old - if there is an upgrade available people haven't or will never upgrade). That is about 34% of Android devices who will, arguably, never see another update.

I do like how they left off Honeycomb (3.X) - I know for a fact there are still devices out there running it so that graph is a little off.

[1] http://www.droid-life.com/2015/08/03/android-distribution-au...

[SamReidHughes]

> I think something got lost in translation

Oh, I get it, so when you said you don't think the delay is the problem, while quoting a sentence talking about getting the patch to users, you were in fact talking about what you wanted, not what would be good for general users.