Talk:Android version history/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Cupcake was changed to cookie

Somebody replaced all mentions of 'Cupcake' with 'Cookie'. Could this page be reverted to the previous state and protected for some short period of time or smth like that? 89.176.223.126 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:26, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

 Done - Rapture's Sander Cohen fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out! ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 10:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Jelly Bean 4.2 uses v.3.4 linux kernel, please update

thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.83.234.89 (talk) 23:21, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Home Screens deleted

I don't understand why it was deemed they were unimportant to the article. They displayed an evolution in the GUI design of Android. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2013_March_23#File:Android_1.0_Home_Screen.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bcrules82 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

They were deleted under Wikipedia:NFCC#8. I was told by a Wikiproject a while back that Android screenshots were under compatible licenses to free since they're a Linux fork (or something like that). Seems they were wrong...Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 14:20, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

No, they were right about Android's licence. It looks like these images were incorrectly tagged as fair use for some reason. And I'm not even convinced NFCC#8 would have applied anyway, since the images were inside collapsed sections due to article length concerns (which we really need a proper solution to, by the way), not because they were unimportant. I am tempted to restore the lot of them, but someone would need to go through and correct the image description pages, and possibly blur out some copyrighted Google logos. Rapture's Sander Cohen (talk) 16:12, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

With those sections uncollapsed the article is too big to navigate. What about splitting each version into separate articles? Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 16:14, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I've always been in favour of that, but we would need to figure out the naming scheme. By number? By dessert name? Etc. Rapture's Sander Cohen (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The idea seemed radical to me and that's why i've taken so long to come around to the idea. As i see it the names would have to be similar to one of these:

• Android 4.0
• Android OS 4.0
• Android Ice Cream Sandwich
• Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0

The only questions remaining are: "is there support for this split?" and "Which names do the articles receive?". Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I was the one who nominated the images for deletion. As I can see, they failed at least three of the non-free content criteria:

• WP:NFCC#1: Android is partially open source. Google takes the freely licensed source code and changes some things, for example by adding Android Market, and possibly changes some artwork such as icons and backgrounds. In this case, you would probably get the same understanding by using a screenshot showing only the open source parts of Android.
• WP:NFCC#3a: You shouldn't use lots of non-free images when just one or two would give you the same understanding. There are often not that big changes between each version, so not all versions are needed.
• WP:NFCC#8: You should only use non-free images if the images increase the understanding of the topic and if the removal of the images would be detrimental to that understanding. The images were in collapsed sections. A collapsed section screams that the contents of the section is something so unimportant that you can safely ignore it. That is more or less the opposite of what WP:NFCC#8. Additionally, the collapsed sections largely ignore what the versions look like, so the images would have violated WP:NFCC#8 even if the sections wouldn't have been collapsed.

I don't think that each of those versions would meet WP:N to qualify for an individual article. New versions pop up all of the time and they don't contain that many differences. Compare with List of Ubuntu releases where there isn't an article for each individual version. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, but this is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how many images are used, or where, if they weren't non-free in the first place. At least two images, File:Android 1.0 Home Screen.jpg and File:Android 1.1 Home Screen.jpg, contain no non-free elements whatsoever. Most of the others contain small Google logos which are incidental to the image, and might not be enough to make the image as a whole fair use - but if they do, blurring them out would have been trivial. Rapture's Sander Cohen (talk) 17:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Some wp:commonsense applies here. Do you think Google would object to the use of those images? No they wouldn't. In my opion WP:NFCC#8 does not apply. You don't judge it because it is collapsed. You judge it when it is uncollapsed and ask if it helps the uncollapsed content. Otherwise one could say delete all the content that is collapsed because it screams of not being needed. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 22:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Microsoft does not object to the use of Microsoft screenshots on Wikipedia (see {{Microsoft screenshot}}). However, all images which do not meet the definition are treated as unfree (see wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy) and need to comply with WP:NFCC#8. If some of the images were in fact free (although mistagged as unfree), then those images can be undeleted. However, they were, if I remember correctly, from a variety of different phone manufacturers. For example, I have a Samsung phone, and I would suspect that the default background image was produced by Samsung and that this image is unfree. You would have to verify that the background images and icons indeed are freely licensed. I would assume that many of the default background icons are freely licensed, but this is probably not the case with for example the Gmail icon, the Android Market icon or the Google Play icon. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

We deliberately chose screenshots that were as close to the free, default Android as possible. Everything is fine except for some copyrighted Gmail or Twitter icons on a few of the homescreens. As I said, I'm not convinced that one or two small, incidental icons can force the entire image to be fair use, but regardless it would be easy to blur/blank these out and the end result would be a free image. That's what I would like to do. Rapture's Sander Cohen (talk) 11:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I would support that. These could probably be photoshopped to remove the copyrighted icons anyhow in some/most cases. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 13:50, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Outdated image

The image in the article is 2 months old. Please update the image ASAP. 𝕁𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕒𝕟𝕂𝕪𝕤𝕖𝕣22 (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done Image is now up to date (June numbers should be coming out in the next few days)--Fjmustak (talk) 12:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Version distribution image

For this picture, What is Y axis and X axis?Manzzzz^(talk) 10:20, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Although it doesn't say in the image it appears that X is "distribution as of this date" and Y is "percentage of all Android devices currently in use". This assumption made on the basis that the image is updated every time new figures on activations are released.

Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:14, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Example - So using the table axes under that assumption i can claim that on 11/03/2011 ~48% of Android devices were running Gingerbread 2.3.4-2.3.7.

Okay? ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:18, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank youManzzzz^(talk) 08:57, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I also wondered about the axes Readers shouldn't have to come to a Talk page to understand the chart. The description of the axes should at minimum be in a footnote on the chart(if the axes can't be made more clear). Also, all the references for the chart really need to be on the chart. From reading above, it looks like the creator has compiled the references in an external spreadsheet, so maybe that wouldn't be hard to do. BTW, I love the chart, and it adds a lot to the article. 108.17.33.35 (talk) 04:23, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I can see about the caption but i think the rest of that would require someone like fjmustak (the creator). You're right of course though. It needs to be simpler. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've updated the versions up to the June numbers. The updated spreadsheet can be found here. I created two versions of the chart, one with every API version available (the second sheet), and the other with only dessert names (the first sheet). The third sheet contains the references to the historical data. Note, the months that are missing are the ones that I took the numbers directly from the Android developer site. As for the axes, the horizontal axis is the date data is released by Google, while the vertical axis is the percentage of usage recorded by Google for each API level. It is worth noting that the way Google now collects data is slightly different as of the April numbers, which is somewhat obvious from the jumps in the chart. More details can be found here. --Fjmustak (talk) 12:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Also note that the x axis is not exactly linear, as Google is now releasing the numbers monthly, while in the beginning it sometimes released the numbers twice a week, other times every couple of months. --Fjmustak (talk) 12:15, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Not the right screen

The screenshot of android 2.3 is not right one. Gingerbread didn't look at all like this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.145.122.242 (talk) 08:02, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The Image description says it is Android 2.3, and the caption adds "on the Samsung Nexus S". Since every manufacturer can reskin Android to take a different appearance we really can't take your word for that. If you can prove it then we can do something about it. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually the anon is right about this. I've corrected it. – Steel 17:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Nice spot! To be honest i remember when the icons looked like that but don't remember which version they are from. Jolly good ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:18, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually the prior screenshot was Android 2.3 but not with the stock/vanilla skin. The screenshot was from a Sony Ericsson Xperia phone running Android 2.3 with their OEM skinning. Just FYI, I personally believe a stock screenshot is preferred over a OEM skinned screenshot. 「gu1dry」⊤ • ¢  08:53, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree completely. The non-stock images are already on display in Android (operating system). We don't need them here too if it can be avoided. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 09:42, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference 4 empty

Reference 4 in the article is empty, can someone track it down in the history tab and fix it, or otherwise remove it? Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

YFixed by RockJuno. Big thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 14:51, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Add description to new features?

Quote:

System level support for Geofencing and Wi-Fi scanning APIs

What does that mean?   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:38, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

It is in the source article provided with it:

The Geofencing and Wi-Fi scanning APIs in the new Google Play services (revealed at Google I/O) now have system-level support on certain hardware, the new Nexus 7 and Nexus 4 being the only Google devices that are currently compatible. For example, the gyroscope and magnetometer can now report raw and ostensibly more accurate data to games and apps, and the WiFi scanning mode can be enabled without connecting to a network for better location tracking without using GPS.

— Jeremiah Rice, Android Police

I am thinking the 2 examples provided above could be used to provide some context as to give a general idea of what it does and also add a note that only the 2nd Gen Nexus 7 and Nexus 4 support it at the moment, the same also for the improvements to Photosphere (Only Nexus devices officially):

System level support for Geofencing and Wi-Fi scanning APIs (For example, The gyroscope and magnetometer can now report raw and ostensibly more accurate data to games and apps, and the WiFi scanning mode can be enabled without connecting to a network for better location tracking without using GPS.)

While on the topic of changes to 4.3., Would the "Google Play Music" update really be considered part of the 4.3 Android update? Lorondos (talk) 16:14, 28 July 2013 (UTC)