Thursday, October 30, 2008

Android update

My phone tells me this morning that it wants a software update.

One selling point for me wrt the Android platform is the fact that it is an open platform- anybody can develop for it, or improve it, or build upon the work. Open Source, me likey. I know, on a deep an instinctual level, that hardware is much less important than it used to be- atoms are more and more a commodity these days. You buy a $50 off-the-shelf Linksys router, drop in a free third-party custom firmware, and you have the power of a full-on expensive router that would probably cost you at least few hundred bucks.

I don't really expect this first update to change the world or my phone to suddenly bake bread, but I'm pleased with the fact more than the details. This "minor bugfix" of an update evidently patches a security vulnerability in the browser. Big surprise, it's a buffer overflow.


For posterity's sake, before the update, my phone thought the following:

Firmware version: 1.0
Baseband: 62.33.20.08H_1.22.12.28
Kernel version: 2.6.25-01828-g18ac882 android-build@apa27 #1
Build number: kila-user 1.0 TC4-RC19 109652 ota-rel-keys,release-keys

The update took about four or five minutes to download, install, and reboot.

After the update, my phone thinks the following:

Firmware version: 1.0
Baseband: 62.33.20.08H_1.22.12.29
Kernel version: 2.6.25-01843-gfea26b0 android-build@apa27 #6
Build number: kila-user 1.0 TC4-RC29 115247 ota-rel-keys,release-keys

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