[ssimpson]

the fragmentation and lack of updates from OEMs was the same thing that frustrated me about WinCE and older phones like the ericsson T68. They would completely abandon the devices that were released and you had to do all these hacks to make the newest firmware work. Often times it worked better because it didn't have all that carrier BS on it, but was a major hassle to get installed.

[Alupis]

iOS is also fragmented. I know many people with iphone 3gs's or the original ipads and are stuck on a previous version of ios.

(one could argue they need to upgrade devices -- well, the same can be argued for android users)

So, both sides of the fence or fragmented.

[wlesieutre]

There are very different degrees of fragmentation. An iPhone 3gs is 5 years old (launched in June 2009) and supported the newest version of iOS for more than 4 years (until iOS 7 launched in September 2013).

Contrast that with Google's Nexus One, which kicked off their Nexus program of well supported phones. It launched in March 2010 with Android 2.1, and got its last update to Android 2.3.6 in September 2011.

So for the iPhone: 4 years of support, and that's a typical experience.

For Android: 1.5 years of support, and that's on a good example with support managed directly by Google as part of their "look we can do long term support" program.