Software updates for Android devices.
Once a manufacturer has made a software update available to Vodafone for testing, we will let you know in our Software Update Weekly Wrap by stating that we have received the update and will schedule testing soon.
There are many parties involved in the release of software updates:
- A manufacturer’s local and global development team
- Vodafone’s local and global devices teams
With so many stakeholders involved, sometimes the schedules on software updates can shift and change. For this reason, we’ll only let you know about an update once it’s been completed by the manufacturer and sent to Vodafone for testing.
Why do we need to do test software updates?
There are two primary reasons we test software updates for your tablets and smartphones:
- To ensure the best possible customer experience, and;
- To ensure that we remain on-side with ACMA regulations for telecommunications devices.
These regulations govern how a telecommunications device should operate under certain circumstances and are enshrined in law. Here at Vodafone we need to ensure that all devices and software updates approve comply with these regulations.
What do you do during “testing”?
Testing software updates to existing devices is a rigorous process. When we say an update is in testing, it’s not as simple as loading the update onto a phone for a week and seeing how it feels. It’s quite a scientific process with reports of outcomes running to nearly 100 pages.
Our testing teams carry out thousands of individual testing procedures and scenarios ranging from the ability to place an emergency call under unique or unlikely circumstances, to loading a song via Bluetooth and the ability to immediately play that song back, to conducting a physical drive-test through a variety of network conditions to monitor the antenna performance.
If a device or update fails any of these tests, we notify the manufacturer of our concerns and return the update to them as rejected.
It is then the responsibility of the manufacturer to deliver an entirely new build of software that addresses the shortcomings. As far as the Android journey is concerned, the build must return back to the Manufacturer Development stage for this bug-fixing to take place.
Bug-fixing is sometimes a lengthy process, and the software update may have to be ripped to pieces to find out where and what has gone wrong. It’s important to note that every software build for every carrier is subtly different.
This means that a bug that’s holding back the Vodafone release may not be present in other builds, and while it can be frustrating to wait while these issues are ironed out we have a responsibility to address them before release.
What bug could be so terrible that it stops the entire release?
Here are two examples of what we call “blocking issues” – circumstances where we have rejected an update. One is for regulatory reasons, the other is for a detrimental customer experience:
- Device unable to make emergency calls when a SIM-PIN is enabled
- Settings are not pre-populated after factory reset is performed
How long does testing take?
Although this is one of our most frequently asked questions, it’s next to impossible to give a true estimate on how long “testing” will take.
Sometimes an update is delivered to Vodafone in a perfect state – it passes all tests and is almost immediately made available for download by users.
However sometimes an update isn’t so lucky, requiring multiple cycles of testing and bug-fixing to bring it up to a condition that meets requirements and is suitable for release.
We’ll only know how long it takes for an update to be approved once that update is approved, so as much as we’d love to give you an estimate – our estimates would simply not be reliable.
