Are wireless carriers responsible for the fragmentation of webOS?

September 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment
One of the benefits of purchasing a webOS device are the free and often regular updates pushed out by Palm. I’ve lost count of how many software updates have been released for the Sprint Palm Pre, all of which have improved my user experience with the phone. There’s been plenty of discussion about fragmentation on other platforms, most notably on Android phones. Are we starting to see fragmentation on webOS phones as result of the carriers? The current shipping version of webOS is 1.4.5 and it’s been available for both the Sprint Palm Pre and Palm Pixi since August 11th. That’s not the case with the other two US carriers.
Let’s take a look at Verizon. Yesterday we reported that webOS 1.4.5 was starting to ship for the Palm Pixi Plus. No word on the same update for Palm Pre Plus owners on Verizon, arguably the bulk of webOS owners on that carrier. No word on when that update is coming, this at a time when we are already seeing word of webOS 2.0 on the horizon.
AT&T hasn’t updated either the Palm Pixi Plus or Palm Pre Plus. As to when that might be happening, there has been no word from Palm or AT&T. Just yesterday, HP’s Rahul Sood summoned customers to ask carriers for the updates.
“Palm customers, you want game? The carriers have their updates. Get together and ask for 1.4.5″.
Palm has done a remarkable job with providing an operating system that can deliver updates OTA (over the air) with little effort on the part of consumers. Why are the carriers so slow to push updates and is this the start of fragmentation across the webOS platform.

One of the benefits of purchasing a webOS device are the free and often regular updates pushed out by Palm. I’ve lost count of how many software updates have been released for the Sprint Palm Pre, all of which have improved my user experience with the phone. There’s been plenty of discussion about fragmentation on other platforms, most notably on Android phones. Are we starting to see fragmentation on webOS phones as result of the carriers? The current version of webOS is 1.4.5 and it’s been available for both the Sprint Palm Pre and Palm Pixi since August 11th. That’s not the case with the other two US carriers.
Let’s take a look at Verizon. Yesterday we reported that webOS 1.4.5 was starting to ship for the Palm Pixi Plus. No word on the same update for Palm Pre Plus owners on Verizon, arguably the bulk of webOS owners on that carrier. No word on when that update is coming, this at a time when we are already seeing word of webOS 2.0 on the horizon.
AT&T hasn’t updated either the Palm Pixi Plus or Palm Pre Plus. As to when that might be happening, there has been no word from Palm or AT&T. Just yesterday, HP’s Rahul Sood on Twitter suggested customers nudge carriers for the updates. “Palm customers, you want game? The carriers have their updates. Get together and ask for 1.4.5″.
Palm has done a remarkable job with providing an operating system that can deliver updates OTA (over the air) with little effort on the part of consumers.

Why are the carriers so slow to push updates and is this the start of fragmentation across the webOS platform.

Filed Under: Editorial, News, webOS Phones, Wireless Carrier Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Comments

  1. PapaCl1ck says:
    September 2, 2010 at 1:01 pm

    I wouldn’t call it fragmented. I think everyone on every carrier will see 1.4.5 just a lot later then everyone else. I have bothered vzwsupport everyday for the last week about 1.4.5 and today I get a response from them that its currently being rolled out. I have been told that the reason that we see longer roll outs for OS upgrades across the board from Verizon is they are making sure that all security holes have been patched. Just my opinion. :)

    Chad
    @PapaCl1ck

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