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[broadstairs]

Don't know if this frustrates others as well. I have an old Android 10in tablet which has not been updated beyond V4 by Samsung. It is soooo sloooow and all the apps keep saying 'not compatible'. I decided that it was worth a try as my other one is broken, but I give up. What happened to compatiblility?

Stuart

[sevenlayermuddle]

What happened to compatiblility?

Just not fashionable, too much bother, these days.   I was brought up on mainframes then later, Unix.  Backwards compatibility was never negotiable, things just had to carry on working.  And if you were writing something new, you’d make efforts to ensure it would run, as far as possible, on older systems too.

I’ll now offend nearly everybody by saying I do actually blame the open source community for the modern attitudes.  Trouble is, “open” means “open”, nobody to enforce any rules.  So developers get to do whatever is the most fun, rather than what’s best for users.   And the constraints of backwards compatibility are never much fun, so simply ignored.

Apple (I know you won’t appreciate this comment) actually do try.   If I build an App for iOS 9, then the fact is was built for iOS 9 is burned into the binary.   If, at some later version, they decide that black is white and white is black, they can and do check versionung, and strive to make the run time libraries adapt, so my old App continues to run.   But then, iOS is of Unix heritage, not Linux.   

Also, if I update an old iOS App, maybe one that I released for, say, iOS 9, with new features that depend upon iOS 11, then the new App supercedes the old day in the App store, and will only be available to iOS 11 devices.   But I can configure that the old App version remains (semi invisibile) in the App store, so it will be installed if an iOS 9 device requests a download.

[Ronski]

If its a Samsung tablet you may be able to install a later custom rom.

I've just updated the wife's Samsung S3 Mini to Android 7.1 using Lineage OS 

[jelv]

Everything these days is coded to standards - retrospectively. They just code whatever they like and then designate it as a standard!

[broadstairs]

Yes having been used to mainframes where everything HAD to be compatible nowadays it has simply gone out of the window.

I was thinking of having a go at that Ronski however that OS does not as far as I can tell support my oold Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet. I did not do anything yet as I hoped it would be OK to use while we were away (again), it was just useable but only just. My other thing in doing this is that it will have to be done using Linux not Windows and most of the guides I've seen use Windows so I will have to convert to using Heimdall if possible. Actually just checked and looks like my GT-P5110 is on the list now for OS16 in Lineage however that is a way off I think.

Stuart

[Ronski]

That's the Galaxy Tab 2

There is some stuff here, but most is rather dated.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-tab-2/10-inch-development

Also this

http://www.android.gs/update-samsung-galaxy-tab-2-android-6-0-marshmallow-cm13/

No idea how you'd do it from Linux, don't you have a Windows laptop though?

[broadstairs]

That's the Galaxy Tab 2

There is some stuff here, but most is rather dated.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-tab-2/10-inch-development

Also this

http://www.android.gs/update-samsung-galaxy-tab-2-android-6-0-marshmallow-cm13/

No idea how you'd do it from Linux, don't you have a Windows laptop though?

Thanks for the pointers, had seen the last one. No all my stuff runs Linux except the Brix cube which runs the weather station which runs W7 and has not enough ports on it to run the station and do this. Heimdall is available for Windows and Linux and seems to be a used a bit with some Lineage stuff so here's hoping when the latest OS16 comes out. I think Heimdall does what the commonly used Windows software does so hopefully it will work OK. Since I don't need the tablet for some time now I might give it a go with the Marshmallow stuff, as long as I don't completely brick it I should be able to recover from most things.

Stuart

[broadstairs]

Well after a bit of faffing around I have managed to install TWRP recovery f/w and Android 6.0.1 on my tablet without bricking it  So now to have a play and see if it worth keeping it.

Stuart

[Ronski]

Well done Stuart, I've done it loads of times over the years, but not frequently enough to say I know what I'm doing, so far it's always gone well.

Hopefully the upgrade will improve things for you and with TWRP installed it will pave the way for future upgrades

[broadstairs]

Well my experience so far is not brilliant with 6.0.1 on this tablet. There are a few issues still, sometimes it is dog slow and other times the screen rotates to portrait but will not return to landscape without a reboot. Some apps still suggest they may not be compatible. The tablet runs with 1gb memory and a dual core processor running at 1Ghz and is 32bit. I thinnk I may decide to shell out for a new tablet in the hope it will run better for longer.

One real niggle I have with most Android browsers is that they do not support importing of bookmarks. Yes I know I can sync in some but that has always ended up messing up my desktop bookmarks with stuff I neither need or want, importing is so much easier.

Stuart

[jelv]

Have you looked at Opera? If you don't use that on the desktop it wouldn't matter of the syncing messed up the destop's bookmarks.

[broadstairs]

Have you looked at Opera? If you don't use that on the desktop it wouldn't matter of the syncing messed up the destop's bookmarks.

No but I have in the past and it failed miserably to come up to my expectations on both performance and security.

Yes but the issue is getting the bookmarks from the desktop in the first place, with no import available how do I do it?

Stuart

[jelv]

Opera desktop has an import feature - then sync to the tablet.

[Ronski]

1GB of memory and 2 cores is not great, when I use my wife's S3 Mini it feels really slow, but luckily she's only a very basic user. The update to Android 7 does seem to have cured the issues she was having.

I've recently purchased a Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 Plus, it's a great tablet, brilliant sound and battery life. Only negative is the unusual shape means it's hard to find a decent case, but I have found one which I like.