Google Brings Video Chat To Android, But You Probably Can't Get It Yet

Google voiced the entrance of video and voice talk is to Android working network Thursday afternoon.

In other words, you'll shortly be able to make calls by Google Talk over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G information networks (if your conduit supports it) to link up with other Android users together with people using Google Chat on their computers.

The firm skeleton to hurl out the let go commencement with Samsung Nexus S smartphone owners. After Nexus S owners take an over-the-air program refurbish in the next couple of weeks, they'll be able to take value of the new talk options in Google Talk.

But herein lies the caveat: Unless you're running the ultimate chronicle of Android on your phone (version 2.3, aka Gingerbread), you won't be able to use the new features.

The let go highlights an oft-discussed complaint related with Android-powered devices: program chronicle fragmentation. As of today, usually a handful of phones in the United States advance with the ultimate and paramount erect of Google's Android working network correct out of the box: the Nexus S, the Milky Way S 2 and HTC's Nexus One. (That final a is a year-old phone that's no longer existing for buy by carriers, and is usually existing send from Google as a "developer phone"). All other Android phones are running chronicle 2.2 (Froyo) or below.

Even phones debuting after the let go of Gingerbread are being sole with prehistoric software. The large 4 Android smartphone manufacturers - HTC, Samsung, Motorola and LG - all launched new gadgets in 2011 running Froyo, a chronicle of Android that's a era at the back the Gingerbread release.

Manufacturers frequently war patron concerns around program updates by confirming an ascent will be probable in the future. HTC says owners of its Thunderbolt smartphone should design Gingerbread to arrive this summer. Motorola says its Atrix will be upgradable, even though the firm gives no timeline on the release.

Other customers are just solid out of luck. A undoubted smorgasbord of gadgets won't be saying a Gingerbread refurbish at all.

"Once again, we am on cloud nine that we raced out and purchased an Eris," wrote Android user Mike Rich of his dropped Droid phone, that Verizon has fixed will not take future program updates . "Sadly, after hockey period ends we won't be able to lease it out to any person as a puck."

To be fair, a few of it is since hardware stipulations on comparison generations of phones, that can't unequivocally be blamed on anything but the advance of technology. Devices similar to HTC's G1, expelled over two-and-a-half years ago, can't even fit the Froyo ascent , ample reduction Gingerbread, onto its network storage.

And handset makers are carrying out a improved work than others in gripping their customers current. "Smartphone manufacturers refurbish their program roughly more than any other industry," Gartner researcher Phillip Redman told Wired.com.

But Android developers who do not wish to consent by producer timetables are producing DIY program updates. Popular phone alteration programs similar to CyanogenMod offer an unaccepted Gingerbread refurbish to phones that aren't nonetheless upgraded (along with a number of other customizations).

"CyanogenMod exists not because people wish to base their phones," wrote program designer Nikolai Kolev in reply to Google's announcement. "It's because people are sleepy of waiting."