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Originally Posted by molman
Not living in the Android world hopefully someone can answer this for me. How does the Android model work with regards to bugs and security vulnerabilities? I mean are new updates and patches rolled out for older version levels or are these only rolled into the next version? I'm just curious what it means for a tablet based off a 2.2 version of Andriod. I mean these tablets are full functioning little computers these days that hit the internet with all these entails so I'm curious how this element his handled.
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It depends on where the vulnerability lies. If it is in the open source code. The branch is updated so new versions get the fix. Then use up to the hardware vendor to push the fix out.
If the vulnerability lies in Google's proprietary code then updates are pushed out.
Hardware vendors that use pure Android tend to get the updates faster since it's closest to the base line. While vendors like Nook and now Amazon take longer since they have to roll the changed to their branch.
[ QUOTE=molman;1728468]
Also what application considerations are there? Did version 3 (aka Honeycomb) bring many changes that would affect application development (API's/underlying system stuff) or was it more user space/UI stuff?[/QUOTE]
Yes, 3.0 had a lot of changes to support frames, better multitasking and more. Obviously 2.2 will not have these API so already Amazon is coming out with an obsoleted OS.