Diversity is both the greatest strength and most devastating weakness of Google Android phones on the market today. On the one hand, while Apple has only one device — one set of aesthetics, one basic size, one manufacturer — Google has a small mountain of alternatives to meet the tastes of its users. However, Google’s array of devices also means that it’s harder for developers to make applications that work on all platforms. That seems to apply to the developers that work to set up new iterations of the Android OS as well, as is evidenced by the large number of devices that sit a generation behind.
As reported by Android Community, one of the devices that falls into this category is the Galaxy S series. This impressive series just hit the ten million sales mark, and considering that we’re only tallying sales for the last twelve months, that’s more than a little impressive. Nonetheless, each phone sold is running on Android 2.1 (a.k.a., “Eclair”).
The Galaxy series has been running off 2.1 for some time, and in that time has been promising to make an update as soon as is possible. That’s the same word we’re receiving today, as official Twitter posts tell us that “We are working to make the Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade available to all U.S. Galaxy S owners” and that they “want Galaxy S owners to have a simple/reliable upgrade.”
The problem is that by the time it’s released, we’ll be looking at Gingerbread (Android’s 2.3 system) and Honeycomb (their tablet-oriented 3.0 system). It’s somewhat surprising to hear that their focus remains a generation back, especially since the Galaxy S series was the starting point for the Nexus S — Google’s flagship for the Gingerbread operating system. Even when an update is finally presented, it’s likely the Galaxy S will remain a generation behind.
