The Android and Windows updates to think twice about before installing

The oldest rule in computing is not to try to fix something that isn't broken: the likelihood is that you'll break something else. Bear this mind next time your phone or PC nags you to download an 'upgrade'.
MAG GADGET MARCH 12

Google has named its new Android system Marshmallow - but some of its features aren't so sweet...MAG GADGET MARCH 12

Google has named its new Android system Marshmallow - but some of its features aren't so sweet...
MAG GADGET MARCH 12 Google has named its new Android system Marshmallow - but some of its features aren't so sweet...

Windows updates in particular are notorious for Microsoft’s insistence on deploying them when it wants, not when suits you. Usually, they happen when you turn on your machine and when you’re most in a hurry to use it.

The newest version, Windows, 10, is better in that it lets you schedule an update, hours or even days into the future. But the scheduling screen doesn’t tell you how long the whole thing is likely to take. In my case it was six hours.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Microsoft’s updates are often huge and always less robust than those pushed out by Apple. The current one, which contains little more than tweaks and bug fixes, requires your input midway through the process, rendering an overnight deployment impossible – and it’s also prone to freezing three-quarters of the way through.

I had to cross my fingers and unplug the PC in the hope that the process would resume where it left off; instead it started over. Other users have reported getting stuck in an endless loop of automatic restarts.

This goes some way to exposing the house of cards on which Windows is built: new bits of code sitting on top of chunks that were written 20 years ago. If Heath Robinson were alive today, he’d be working for Microsoft.

But Windows isn’t alone in taking one step forward and two steps back: the latest upgrade to Google’s Android operating system also has a few unwelcome tricks up its sleeve. Android is the flexible and powerful system that sits behind most of the world’s non-Apple phones and tablets, but these are made by an abundance of different manufacturers, each working to its own set of standards, and the software has to try to satisfy them all. That’s why Android updates are always gradual 
affairs – it’s up to each maker to roll them out.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The latest version, named as ever after an American food staple, is called Marshmallow, and attempts to remedy a long-standing anomaly whereby phones with SD cards store their data in a completely separate place from the built-in memory. The new model lets you integrate the two, which is good news for phones with only eight or 16 gigabytes of memory, since a 32GB SD card can now quadruple it.

But there is a snag: you need to erase and reformat your existing card first, rendering it unreadable by a computer and greatly complicating the process of dragging files to or from your phone.

Worse yet, many users – myself included – are finding that even if you opt to keep your card separate, it still can’t be seen when you hook your phone up to a computer.

Even Apple, with its micromanaged ecosystem of hardware and apps, isn’t immune to upgrades that remove functionality rather than add it: iPads and iPhones running the latest iOS9 software are no longer able to beam pictures and video wirelessly to third-party devices.

Apple hasn’t said whether this is intentional, but either way, next time someone offers you an upgrade, ask yourself whether it’s for your benefit or theirs.