[ycaspirant]

Can someone please explain the role that carriers play in the United States? In most countries, the carrier simply provides you with a SIM card that allows you to make use of their network, but they have nothing to do with your hardware / OS. How come carriers control OS updates in the United States?

To me, this sounds as absurd as an ISP having control of your computer - imagine if you had to wait till your ISP allowed you to update your OS. Yet that seems to be your situation with respect to mobile.

[xerophtye]

Actually in this case, you even get your PC from your ISP. So i think it works out like this:

first the OS people update it. Then the manufacturers launch a device with said OS. Then your ISP gets to sell said devices to you. (or maybe you can update on your existing device but the ISP still has to approve it)

In simpler words:

In US, people do not directly buy their phones from the manufacturers. They buy the PHONE from the carrier, who also includes a SIM with said phone. And the cost of the phone is distributed over several months and is combined with your monthly cellular service charges.

Pro: you get to have expensive phones for far less.

Con: The carrier apparently gets a lot of say. In fact you can't even switch carriers easily. They make you sign a contact.

Interesting fact: Originally when the smart phones came out in the pre-iPhone era, the carrier's tried to control app stores by having exclusive, carrier specific app-stores. It was apple who convinced one carrier (can't remember which one) to let Apple control the app store and thus this revolution.

[corin_]

It seems to be that way in much of the world - I don't have much knowledge on the topic outside of the UK, but a month or so ago when I was waiting for the new Blackberry OS update to roll out, I had to wait over a month for my network to approve it and send out the update (Vodafone UK), so I kept an eye on stories about the update and saw that it was reaching different networks around the world at different times (for example, Vodafone hadn't put it out to their customers in any other regions either, such as Australia).

[Joeri]

This isn't unique to the US. In most countries the carrier restricts ota updates for android and windows phone. I don't know why the iphone is the only device which doesn't need carrier approval prior to rollout. I also don't know why the carriers are involved, but it's definitely not unique to the US, most of europe is the same way.