A rude shock for HTC fanboys

So the original HTC Desire isn't getting Gingerbread after all. Not enough RAM, apparently. You'd certainly think 576M was a fair amount, but obviously not if you want to run Sense.

This is a blow for Android, because clearly pretty much all the devices, regardless of vendor, released prior to 2.3 will probably now never get an upgrade. Sony, Samsung and the rest will breathe a sigh of relief; if HTC weaselled out, so can they. And they will.

Of course you can root the phone and install Cyanogen, and I'm wondering how long it'll be before some of the more enterprising 'mom and pop' mobile phone stores start offering this service, managing the tedious task of getting all your apps and data across, for some kind of (hopefully not too steep) fee.

It's also a blow for vendor (and carrier) customisation, because if this is seen by customers as potentially blocking future upgrades - and it certainly has had a huge impact in the timeliness of upgrades in the past - there will be growing pressure for handsets to be offered with stock Android builds, further commoditising a market already rapidly heading the way of the PC.

But it's also a worry when it comes to malware. As I said a long time ago, Android's openness is a two-edged sword. Coupled with an infrastructure of devices that cannot be updated, it's a crook's paradise, since existing security flaws will be there indefinitely. Sure, the Android Market *might* catch some of the bad guys but given that software can dynamically load other components, and that the kernel exploits may never be patched, how easy will it be to keep control of this.

HTC need to urgently re-think this decision. It might be a loss of face to abandon Sense - but the wholesale abandonment of its existing user base to what can only become an escalation of hackery, is a disaster in the making. How long will it be before customers sue HTC because they were hacked, for example?. Does HTC have a duty of care?. It's a tough call, given that Microsoft, for instance, have drawn a line on future Windows XP patches - but with device lifecycles as short as they are, how willing will customers be to upgrade. And even if they do, those 'non-upgradeable' handsets will make their way down the food chain. What happens when some litigious customer gets a multi-thousand dollar phone bill due to hacking and sues the carrier and HTC for negligence. Or will the carriers start barring old phones as a pre-emptive measure to avoid these kind of scenarios. That'll be a popular move!.

How ironic it would be if CyanogenMod actually offered *better* security by rooting the phone then vendor locked-down customised Androids did.

Google's stewardship of Android has been pretty erratic. The lockdown on Honeycomb certainly has helped, when it comes to the market being flooded with knockoff iPad wannabees, mass-produced from inferior components, but this can't last forever. Google really needs to think about parental responsibility here. Right now, baby Android is hanging around with some pretty scuzzy lowlifes, and Mom's looking the other way. And as Android users, not all of us enjoy playing in traffic. Time to wake up, Google, pull down a curfew, ground the kid for a while and get into some Tough Love. Otherwise, it'll end in tears....