• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Is Jelly Bean in the Bionics future?

Well considering they apparenly are making a Jelly Bean update, do you think the Bionic may get Jelly Bean in the future eventually?

I'm not saying I want it, I am merely curious because so many knock the Windows Phones because like the Windows Phones on 7.5 won't get 8 and that's used as a reason not to get one. But if say our phones don't get the latest updates either, does that make the Android phones any better from that standpoint?

I guess I'm just more interested in the philosophical answer than actually getting it.
 
The Bionic is certainly capable of running JB and you will see some JB custom ROMS, but I'm not sure that either Verizon or Motorola will have much initiative to release JB on a older phone when they think that by not doing so will cause people to upgrade to a newer phone.
I'm not saying Bionic won't see a official JB update, just that I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't, but I'm with you.
Fragmentation has been a major bane of the Android OS and if a phone like Bionic doesn't get JB I may look at other options when it comes time to upgrade, which is probably a year and a half to two years away for me. We'll see what's available then. :)
 
ics has been out for how long now. and the bionic is still waiting.

jellybean just recently came out. i'd venture to guess that the bionic will be discontinued before jellybean comes to it. specially since it's been nothing but a problem child. poor reception, poor wakeups, poor screen touches, the screen resets.

problems that have been there since day one and no improvement with the updates it has had. specially it's piss poor reception. being a truck driver. i seem to be the only person in the country with no reception cept the major cities.
 
snowwy66 said:
ics has been out for how long now. and the bionic is still waiting.

jellybean just recently came out. i'd venture to guess that the bionic will be discontinued before jellybean comes to it.
Click to expand...

ICS has been out since late last year. A lot of VZW devices are still waiting for it not just the Bionic. It's getting close though. Pretty soon all of VZW's newer phones will be on ICS. (crosses fingers)

I hope JellyBean doesn't take that long though but I wouldn't be surprised if Bionic received JB even if it's discontinued. The D2 received the GB update and it was a discontinued model when it receive it.
 
There are a lot of apps that have just very recently been updated to run on ICS and you still run into those that haven't.
I just picked up a Nexus 7 and it seems like half of the stuff available in the play store won't work with JB yet. I know that's a major exaggeration, but there is a awfully lot not compatible with JB as it is brand new and not installed on many devices. If the Bionic were to get a 100% bug free version tomorrow there would still be a lot of frustrated users out here.
As you can see in this link only 10.9% of all android devices are on ICS so far so I think the Bionic is doing just fine. Dashboards | Android Developers
 
Well, I guess part of my question had to do with things I read about other phones.

I read a lot of articles where people talk about "Don't buy Windows Phone that has 7.5 because they will only get 7.8 and not 8". But do Android phones, as a general rule, get constant updates as Google releases new OS versions or does Android phones have the same problem of getting one or two OS upgrades and then abandoned?

I know Apple is seperate because they control their own hardware and software. Do carriers even have any say over iOS like they apparently do Android?
 
trophynuts said:
my .02 cents says no the Bionic won't see an "official" JB OTA. Thank you and come again.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I'd agree.
Not trying to be smart, but are there ANY VZW phones that have received 2 official updates? Even the OG Droid never officially got GB.
Granted, JB isn't much of an update over ICS so I suppose anything could happen.
 
dreadnatty08 said:
Unfortunately, I'd agree.
Not trying to be smart, but are there ANY VZW phones that have received 2 official updates? Even the OG Droid never officially got GB.
Click to expand...

Yes - the Droid Incredible came out on Eclair, and received Froyo and Gingerbread updates. Also, I *think* that the Droid X shipped with 2.1; if so, it then (quickly) received Froyo and ultimately a Gingerbread update.

It also depends on how you think of Eclair; the OG Droid received a 2.1 update from 2.0, and then Froyo.

I also strongly believe that the Razr series will get JB updates after getting ICS. I'm not so sure about the Bionic - it seems to be treated like the poor stepchild of the Razr. (This paragraph is all guesses, of course - Motorola and Verizon have made no official JB upgrade announcements, though Google already updated the Xoom tablet.)
 
honeycomb came out shortly after the bionic.

ics has been out for awhile.

now it's jellybean.

and i dont' even think the iphones really get a software update. the first versions may have. but it's usually buy a new model

blackberries couldn't handle going from 5 to 6. you had to upgrade for a phone with more memory.

same with windows. although some one hacked mobile 6 to work on the first phone which had 5.

i don't even think palm was upgradeable without a newer device. but that was the shortest owned device in my hands.
 
snowwy66 said:
honeycomb came out shortly after the bionic.
Click to expand...

Two things about Honeycomb - first, Honeycomb was out before the Bionic was released - I think that the Xoom was out last February or March. Second, it was a tablet-only OS with no phone functions and was not open-sourced until the day that ICS was open sourced last November.

and i dont' even think the iphones really get a software update. the first versions may have. but it's usually buy a new model
Click to expand...

Say what you will about iPhones and iOS (I think that they are excellent devices with a great OS, even though I prefer Android), but the iPhone is easily the best popular smartphone OS for upgrades. Every single model received all iOS updates well after it was out for two years; in fact, the 3Gs will get an iOS 6 update this fall about 40 months after its original release. I don't think that there is a single comparable Android handset that can say the same - even a full two years worth of updates officially pushed to the phone.
 
doogald said:
Two things about Honeycomb - first, Honeycomb was out before the Bionic was released - I think that the Xoom was out last February or March. Second, it was a tablet-only OS with no phone functions and was not open-sourced until the day that ICS was open sourced last November.



Say what you will about iPhones and iOS (I think that they are excellent devices with a great OS, even though I prefer Android), but the iPhone is easily the best popular smartphone OS for upgrades. Every single model received all iOS updates well after it was out for two years; in fact, the 3Gs will get an iOS 6 update this fall about 40 months after its original release. I don't think that there is a single comparable Android handset that can say the same - even a full two years worth of updates officially pushed to the phone.
Click to expand...

My 4th Generation iPod touch I have had, well, about a year and 9 months now, had gotten all the iOS updates and will get iOS 6. From what I understand it's not really any different from an iPhone except, well, for the phone part.
 
My own personal guess is that we won't get JB.

Here is the reason for said guess: Verizon taking 4 Android phones global this summer | ZDNet

If you don't want to read the link, it's an article from back in May that says Verizon is going to roll out an update to four of its phones to (finally) make them global phones. Said four are: Rezound, RAZR, RAZR Maxx, and Droid 4.

And I read that thing and think "What about Bionic?" I remember when we first saw the specs on this thing that it had a GSM radio in it -- and we all know that it is, in fact, do-able. (http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-bionic/545743-droid-bionic-can-do-cmda-4lte-gsm-hspa-image-intensive.html )

So I say to myself: Self, Verizon isn't including Bionic in the list of 4G phones that it is planning to update to World phones -- even though we all know damn well that they could -- so there's no chance in hell that they're going to update us to JB.
 
Well, I don't think the global thing has anything to do with it, I think it's just a matter of Verizon quickly abandoning phones. It's one of the minor reasons I am likely going to leave Verizon when my contract is up and see if another carrier treats customers better.
 
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying the global thing had anything to do with JB -- what I was saying was that they were clearly abandoning the Bionic in favor of their other LTE phones with respect to that one thing (the global capacity), so I have no doubt that they'll similarly abandon the Bionic when it comes time for JB.

The speed with which the Bionic completely disappeared from Verizon's shelves makes me actually surprised we're in line for ICS.
 
I don't know if they had any choice but to put ICS for the Bionic. Verizon was very specific about their promise to have ICS for the Bionic. When I asked about it when I was shoppingf or phones they were very clear on that point, so if they had reneged, I have a feeling they would have had a lot of people not happy over false advertising.
 
No way JB is coming to Bionic... Considering how fast Motorola dumped the Bionic as one of its flagship phones, they're not eager to keep it updated.... You can't even buy the phone on vzw.com anymore. ICS is it's last version upgrade. If we're lucky, we MIGHT get one more minor bug fix update, but that will be it.
 
ispamforfood said:
No way JB is coming to Bionic... Considering how fast Motorola dumped the Bionic as one of its flagship phones, they're not eager to keep it updated.... You can't even buy the phone on vzw.com anymore. ICS is it's last version upgrade. If we're lucky, we MIGHT get one more minor bug fix update, but that will be it.
Click to expand...


i'm with you. the bionic was the biggest disaster. and now it's a forgotten child. it didn't get honeycom. but lucky to get ICS. let alone JB.

from what i've been reading. all the other motorola releases after the bionic got there ICS.
 
snowwy66 said:
i'm with you. the bionic was the biggest disaster. and now it's a forgotten child. it didn't get honeycom. but lucky to get ICS. let alone JB.

from what i've been reading. all the other motorola releases after the bionic got there ICS.
Click to expand...

Just an fyi, honeycomb was for tablets not phones.
 
Pretty sure Moto will wash their hands of the Bionic once they get ICS out. I think they'd give up on ICS too if it weren't for the fact that people would probably form a class action lawsuit for the broken promise. But after that I think the Bionic will officially be dead to them. Although I suspect the dev community will get us a fully working JellyBean at some point down the line.
 
PowerBomb said:
Pretty sure Moto will wash their hands of the Bionic once they get ICS out. I think they'd give up on ICS too if it weren't for the fact that people would probably form a class action lawsuit for the broken promise. But after that I think the Bionic will officially be dead to them. Although I suspect the dev community will get us a fully working JellyBean at some point down the line.
Click to expand...

Yep, pretty much..there is already a nice jelly bean rom out but not everything is functional. Yet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom