Two weeks ago when Buddy Roark bought a brand-new HTC Eris smartphone from Verizon, his first Android device, it was a big step up from his feature phone. But it wasn’t until a few days later that he realized part of his new phone wasn’t so new after all. The Eris was running a version of Android that came out almost a year ago, which means many of the newer apps available in the Android Market won’t work on Roark’s phone.

“I didn’t know that I had an older operating system until I compared it with my friends,” Roark says. “They said my Android Market looks very different from theirs.”

At the store, Roark had never been told that his HTC Eris has Android 1.5, nicknamed “Cupcake.” Until told by a reporter, he had no idea what features he’s missing as a result. For instance, free turn-by-turn navigation is available in the latest version, Android 2.1 (“Eclair”), but is only available to Cupcake users for $10 a month from Verizon.

“I didn’t know that,” he says. “I think I will be pretty disappointed if I can’t upgrade to a higher version.”

Like Roark, many Android customers are discovering that their new smartphones do not have the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system. Despite state-of-the art hardware and design, many new Android phones are shipped with older versions of the firmware, cutting off consumers’ access to newer features and apps that require the most recent versions.

For instance, Motorola’s Backflip, released last week on AT&T, runs Android 1.5, while the just-launched Devour on Verizon runs Android 1.6, aka “Donut.” A slew of new Sony Ericsson phones, set to hit the market in the next few months, will ship with Android 1.6. Of the phones that are available today, only Google’s Nexus One has the very latest version, Android 2.1. Motorola’s own Droid phone, launched in October, has Android 2.0.

The profusion of versions is bad enough. But adding to the confusion is the fact that carriers and handset manufacturers rarely explain which version of the OS their phones have, or what that means.

“I can’t figure out why the handset makers are doing this,” says Chris Fagan, an Android developer who owns an app development company called Froogloid. “I find it very peculiar that they release new phones on older firmware.”

Motorola declined to comment.

Syncing With Google

Smartphone manufacturers have simply not been not able to keep up with Google’s pace. In the 16 months since the first Android phone hit the market, Google has upgraded the operating system four times. Meanwhile, it can take more than a year to develop a new smartphone.

Although the core Android operating system itself is free, handset makers need to create the middleware that interfaces between the hardware and the OS.

This middleware layer, called the Board Support Package, or BSP, can take three to five months to create. The BSP is a set of drivers that initialize processes and bind the OS to the chips.

Handset makers can write the code themselves or outsource it, but development time remains about the same. Add additional months for integration and testing, and handset makers are inevitably far behind Google’s Android release schedule, says Al Sutton, who runs a company called FunkyAndroid that offers app stores for Android devices.

The exception is when Google handpicks a company to work with it closely on a device — as in the case of the Motorola Droid or HTC Nexus One — in which case, the chosen handset maker gets an early heads-up about the next upcoming version of Android.

For consumers who unwittingly buy new phones with older versions of the operating system, these out-of-sync development schedules can translate into real differences in the user interface.

“When the firmware went from 1.5 to 1.6, it changed the way the Android Market looks and works,” says Fagan. For instance, users of Android phones that run versions 1.5 or earlier, such as the HTC Eris, can’t see screenshots of apps in the Android Market.

They also don’t have access to some apps that only support the latest version of the operating system. Take Google’s own app called Gesture Search that was released last week. Gesture Search, available only on the Android Market, lets users search their phones by just drawing letters on their touch screens. Gesture Search, though, is only available on Android phones that run OS version 2.0 or 2.1.

So what happens if you search for the Gesture Search app on the Motorola Backflip, a phone that’s barely a week old but runs Android 1.5? Instead of a notification that the app is not compatible with the OS, the app simply doesn’t appear in the search results.

Customer Confusion

A Google spokesperson told Wired.com that the idea is make sure only apps compatible with the OS are shown to the user.

But that also makes it difficult for apps to truly go viral. If you hear your friends talking about Gesture Search, your next step is probably going to be searching for it in the Android Market on your phone. Unless you know what version of Android you’re running, you’ll have no idea why the app you want doesn’t show up.

“From the customer-support perspective, this happens almost every single day,” says Froogloid’s Fagan. “I receive an email from an older Android OS user saying, ‘I am having trouble downloading your app and I don’t see it anywhere in the marketplace.'”

Froogloid’s popular Key Ring app only supports Android versions 1.5 and higher.

Sometimes, putting an older version of the Android OS on the phone is a shrewd marketing decision, says Sutton. Older versions of the Android operating system allow telecom carriers to charge for features that would be otherwise available for free, like navigation.

Though Motorola and HTC say they will upgrade some of the phones to the latest version of Android, Sutton says consumers shouldn’t assume it will be the case with every phone.

Upgrading the OS consumes resources and many companies don’t want to take that on, he says.

“The larger the company is and larger the installed base of phones, the more time it takes to get out those updates,” says Sutton. “And nine of out 10 times, when the company has to make a decision on whether they are going to update the firmware or not, they will say they won’t do it because people already have their product.”

See Also:

• Android’s Rapid Growth Has Some Developers Worried
• AT&T Plans 5 Android Smartphones in 2010
• Strapped to Android, HTC Takes a Dizzying Ride to the Top
• Google Debuts Android-Powered Nexus One ‘Superphone’
• MWC 2010: The Year of the Android

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

• android
• firmware
• fragmentation
• google
• OS
• phones