T-Mobile G1 may not get a trip to dessert buffet line?

  • August 17, 2009 9:46 am

htc-g1

Hopeful T-Mobile G1 users who are currently slaving over the keyboards, anxiously awaiting more news and information on the upcoming Donut and Eclair Android updates may be slightly upset, distraught, and over all feeling like there’s no point in living any longer when they find out that the G1 may not be able to partake of future Android updates. Gasps!


The issue is not because of any licensing problems as is appearing with the adoption of the HTC Sense UI among other Android devices besides the Hero but instead is because of a memory issue, specifically a size limitation in the G1′s partition memory. The G1 has a smaller partition memory allotment than newer Android handsets. Android 1.5 (Cupcake) already had the partition size stripped down as small as possible. Another complication is the fact that Android currently doesn’t allow users to store applications on SD cards meaning the meager on device memory has to do double duty in providing OS specific space as well as 3rd party application space — a task that the G1′s paltry memory is having problems with.

So far, T-Mobile has denied that the G1 will be unable to download future updates, however, they haven’t exactly confirmed that it could either leaving the door open to the painful truth — that the T-Mobile G1 will in fact fail to receive future updates because of on device memory limitations. Of course, if Android and the development community would open the door for applications to be stored on the memory card, this issue would go away for some time as any substantial updates in the Android OS that require copious amounts of device memory are likely a couple of product cycles off meaning the G1 will be several generations old by then.

Still, in the here and now, it isn’t boding well for G1 users. Distraught? Saddened? Not knowing how you’re going to go on with life?

Source: Slashgear, i4u


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