ARCHIVED - Feedback & General Discussion

[Will]

My fellow citizens:

I bring to you a message crafted with great care by our Product Development and Public Relations departments. A message approved by Google and delivered to me only moments ago. A message I now post for you, our loyal community members:

According to the Android team, "Cupcake," which is the code name for an Android software build, is still a work in progress that is considered to be a development branch and not for general availability.

We will update you as T-Mobile G1 software updates are made available to T-Mobile customers.

There you have it. Kinda what you expected... right?

Now... I'm not exactly sure what 'internal memo' some have claimed to have seen (personally I get e-mails, not memos.  memos are kinda Office Space)... or where these release dates originated or whom supposedly confirmed them. Seems one or more dates have already come and gone with no OTA or download location. I'd expect the same series of blogosphere promises and broken promises to continue for some time. Honestly, I've been making calls and sending e-mails to all the 'right' people and no one I've spoken to knows more than this. Disappointing? Indeed it is.

All that said, the staff and I will continue to communicate the need for additional information on our side and post what we can as we find out. For now... this is all T-Mobile has to say about Cupcake.

[Ryan11]

Thank you Will for including the community with this info!

[TheBlackRose]

Thank you ! Still, I feel like TMOBILE, ANDROID AND GOOGLE should have taken the time to clear the rumors .. we as customers deserved an explanation for all the confusion, I am glad there is some clearing now.. I just wish I knew why did that PDA specialist tell me they were releasing rc31, and that was today.. sigh..oh well

[ardchoille42]

In all fairness, it wasn't T-Mobile or Google who created the rumors so it's not their responsibility to clear them. A good rule of thumb is to simply not listen to the rumors.. you'll know the truth when the OTA update arrives on your handset.

Message Edited by ardchoille42 on 01-21-2009 11:28 AM

[GregP74]

Thanks for the info, Will. You might want to consider locking this thread except for moderators to keep it a place to get reliable updates and not just another freeforall.

Message Edited by GregP74 on 01-21-2009 11:35 AM

[userfriendlyme]

Well its about time someone gave something official to cut all this nonsense. It does show you how bad consumers want there phones updated with certain features. Hopefully t-mobile and google can get and update out before you start seeing a slew of G1's on ebay and craigslist. Hopefully its released before a new winmo 3g phone or blackberry 3g phone are released or I like many will be saying by by to android.

[Jrbourque]

So to clear it up what you are saying is that there is no on screen keyboard coming in an update nor bluetooth or the fixes that were mentioned in cupcake any time soon then?

[Superman]

Ho hum that mean international customers will have an even longer wait to get our breadcrumbs before you guys see cupcake freshly baked! c'est la vie!

[ROMzombie]

Uh, no.  "Cupcake" WAS a development branch, but was merged to the core codebase over a month ago.

http://source.android.com/roadmap/cupcake

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Update: cupcake has been merged into master.

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If T-Mobile isn't going to push it as an update for another three months, that's fine, although disapointing, but don't lie to us quite so blatantly.

[jhmosby]

They should have called the update tubesteak because they screwed us into thinking would we get a phone that actually worked. Forget the hype start simple with the basics like email notifications.

[soreco]

Not that that clears that up, will there be sterio bluetooth or flash anytime soon?

[Will]

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ROMzombie wrote:

Uh, no.  "Cupcake" WAS a development branch, but was merged to the core codebase over a month ago.

http://source.android.com/roadmap/cupcake

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Update: cupcake has been merged into master.

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If T-obile isn't going to push it as an update for another three months, that's fine, although disapointing, but don't lie to us quite so blatantly.

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Oh ROMzombie... I (nor anyone here) do not dare insult your or the greater Internet's knowledge.  I posted what I was provided.  Google approved the message as written.  Don't call it a "lie".  Call it... Public Relations verbiage. 

[tazzman]

I really wish they would do something. i used to use the  blackberry cure because but i got the G1 because it was suppose to be better. i am finding out so far that it isnt. i can never recieve my email and that is the most important thing to me. Thanks for the info anyway. I may just switch back to my blackberry and keep my G1 for when they finish the updates.

[Will]

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GregP74 wrote:
Thanks for the info, Will. You might want to consider locking this thread except for moderators to keep it a place to get reliable updates and not just another freeforall.

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I considered locking it when I posted it.  But... discussion and commentary is healthy.  Once folks get a chance to vent (or give thanks) I'll reconsider locking it.  I can always purge the comments at a later time when there is something new to post on this topic.  or... start a new thread.

[AgelessStranger]

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soreco wrote:
Not that that clears that up, will there be sterio bluetooth or flash anytime soon?

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Flash support has nothing to do with neither T-Mobile nor Google. If you want to know the update of Flash then speak to Adobe and ask to sign up for their pre-release beta scheme for mobile devices.

[AgelessStranger]

 On a more serious and on topic note, thank you for the "official" response on this. I was not shocked nor disappointed with any of the information, as a developer I understand the development lifecycle of major projects and would have been both shocked and disappointed to see "cupcake" this month, its too early. The longer we wait for any updates, the better they will be. 

[Will]

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Jrbourque wrote:
So to clear it up what you are saying is that there is no on screen keyboard coming in an update nor bluetooth or the fixes that were mentioned in cupcake any time soon then?

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I posted what I was given.  Honestly, I don't have any info on specific features or expected dates.  For sake of rumor control, I'd say you've made a very reasonable assumption based on all of our experiences with previous updates (or lack thereof). 

[tiiana]

I'm sure glad I wasn't holding my breath. I'd be dead 10x over!

Anyway, whatever updates that do come out, I'll be happy with them. There are some things that disappoint me about the phone, but they're not deal breakers. So everything's good.

[ShootingBlue]

I must say that I'm a bit disappointed by the forwardness of T-Mobile and Google about what we can expect in the future from the G1.  During the interview of Andy Rubin at the Sep. 23rd 2008 introduction of the G1 he said that features such as stereo bluetooth and video recording would be coming shortly in updates. He was even bold enough to say that this phone would essentially be "future proof". I'm starting to feel that we were misled.  There are numerous bugs in the OS that need to be addressed, we were all excited about having an app market only to discover that this phone has very limited memory and will not allow sd card installs. When asked if this is a feature we can expect to be added we get a "we are looking into it".  The memory managment on this phone is horrid, I have to keep uninstalling apps to make room for the market cache that currently sits at 27mb. There are no time frames for anything. Google pushes it off on T-Mobile and T-Mobile tells you its Googles problem. We spend a lot of money on this phone, things were promised. Still no widgets, can we atleast have an answer when the market will go to a "pay app" status. This phone was obviously not ready to be released. Google will even tell you that things were "left out" because they were not ready by the release date.  The battery life is another problem that i wont even go into.  All I'm saying is we deserve some answers. We paid $300 to be beta testers? I have been a customer of T-Mobile for 7+ years and this is really leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Oh and forgot to mention a camera thats barely functional.

Message Edited by ShootingBlue on 01-21-2009 03:41 PM

[ROMzombie]

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Will wrote:

Oh ROMzombie... I (nor anyone here) do not dare insult your or the greater Internet's knowledge.  I posted what I was provided.  Google approved the message as written.  Don't call it a "lie".  Call it... Public Relations verbiage. 

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Maybe you should take that page, which is official release information, and provide it to the internal guys that we can't talk to?  If they aren't aware that the code has been merged into the core branch, then they need to be made aware.

We've seen that T-Mobile is more than willing to push out releases quickly previously, but this reluctance to provide new features to existing users is a bit disconcerting, as opposed to only security patches.  Is T-Mobile's policy not to keep handsets up-to-date with Android OS revisions in the future?  If so, my next Android phone will be a developer phone purchased outright and run on Sprint's network.

Thanks!