Android’s openness is a big reason for its success, but cellular carriers and phone manufacturers often use this openness to make the experience worse for its users. Android’s openness gives carriers and device manufacturers the freedom to do bad things.

The Android platform is successful because carriers and manufacturers are free to produce a wide variety of different devices and customize their software. However, this is also the cause of Android’s biggest problems.

Bloatware You Can’t Uninstall

Like Windows PCs, many Android phones come with bloatware. Bloatware is software preinstalled by the phone’s manufacturer or the carrier the phone is sold on. This additional software ranges from the useful — like some of Samsung’s apps that add unique features — to the useless — like the NASCAR app included on many of Sprint’s phones, which could always be downloaded separately.

However useful the preinstalled software is, there’s a big problem — this software takes up space on the phone. The software is installed to the system partition, where you can’t normally remove it — just like you can’t normally uninstall Gmail and other important apps that come with the Android OS. Bloatware can often take up a large amount of space — Samsung’s 16GB Galaxy S4 only comes with 8GB of usable space because so much space is used by the many apps Samsung adds to their version of Android.

Preinstalled apps can be disabled, but that doesn’t free up any space. You can only remove them with a root-only app like the powerful Titanium Backup or by installing a custom ROM.

Skins You Can’t Disable

Android manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, and others change the look of the Android operating system, tweaking it to use a different launcher (home screen), theme for included apps, and more. Manufacturers have to modify Android’s code to do this, and they make it impossible to use the default interface if you prefer it.

On a Samsung device, Samsung’s TouchWiz is the only included interface. Sure, you can install a third-party launcher — like the popular Apex Launcher that functions similarly to the default stock Android launcher — but manufacturers deprive you of the choice of using stock Android on your device.

If you really want to use stock Android, you will have to install a custom ROM like CyanogenMod. You’re stuck with the manufacturer’s interface or a third-party one, with no ability to easily disable the manufacturer’s custom interface and get Google’s version of the OS if you would prefer it.

Blocked Apps and Disabled Features

Carriers have the ability to block apps from their network on Google Play, preventing you from installing them on your device. Tethering apps are commonly blocked — carriers want you to pay extra for tethering.

Manufacturers and carriers may also disable features — like Android’s native tethering support. In the past, AT&T has disabled the “Unknown sources” checkbox that allows you to enable sideloading, preventing AT&T’s customers from getting apps from unofficial sources like the Amazon Appstore and Humble Bundle. AT&T is currently preventing its users from using Google Hangouts video chat features on its cellular network.

Carriers may also block apps like Google Wallet, as they would rather their customers not use a competing digital wallet solution while they work on developing their own digital wallet system that will be the only option on their devices.

When you buy an Android phone from a carrier, the carrier often bends that phone to their business model — whether that’s preventing you from tethering, getting apps from sources that the carrier doesn’t like, or disabling access to competing services.

Unreleased and Delayed Updates

Manufacturers produce an endless variety of different smartphones for carriers, who often insist on having exclusive smartphone models on their network. This has improved somewhat with phones like the latest phones in the Samsung Galaxy S and HTC One series. However, the Samsung Galaxy S2 had many different variants — like the Galaxy S II Skyrocket — tailored to different carriers.

The vast amount of different smartphones manufacturers and carriers need to support leads to a lack of Android updates and delays when updates do make their way to devices. Manufacturers have to produce updates tailored to every individual phone, and carriers have to approve them — so both parties often don’t bother.

This results in flagship phones like the HTC only receiving a few updates, lower end phones never receiving updates, and delays while updates make their way to even high-end, recent phones. As a bonus for carriers and manufacturers, this causes a phone to feel outdated before its time, encouraging a carrier’s customers to upgrade to an expensive new smartphone and lock themselves into a new contract.

Tweaks That Make Android Unstable

As part of their skinning Android and modifying its software to work differently, manufacturers can introduce instability and make Android worse. For example, many reviewers have complained that the Gallery app on the HTC One crashes frequently — HTC made some sort of change to Android and made this normally stable app unstable on their phone. Google can’t fix this, as the Gallery app is included with Android and HTC modified it — HTC needs to identify the bug they introduced and fix it.

Locked Phones That Can’t Be Used on Other Networks

It’s an old story by now, going back to the time before smartphones, but carriers often “lock” their phones to prevent them from being used on other networks. You may have purchased that new phone and locked yourself into a two-year contract, but don’t expect to take that phone with you to another network. The carrier treats it as their phone, bound to their network.

You may be able to have the carrier unlock your phone, but they may only do this after your contract is up. You may want to unlock that phone you paid for without your carrier’s permission — but unlocking a new cell phone is now a crime under the US DMCA.

Locked Bootloaders Preventing You From Installing Your Own OS

Android phones — even Google’s developer-friendly Nexus phones — ship with locked bootloaders. The locked bootloader will only boot an approved OS, ensuring that the operating system can’t be tampered with without your knowledge.

On a Nexus device or another phone with an unlockable bootloader, you can choose to unlock your bootloader, which allows you to install another operating system, like the CyanogenMod distribution of Android or even Ubuntu for phones. These are often referred to as custom ROMs. However, unlocking your bootloader in these ways will usually void your warranty — that’s what the smartphone manufacturers often claim, anyway.

Some carriers and manufacturers ship their phones with no way to unlock the bootloader, depriving you of the choice to use a custom ROM — which means you can’t install CyanogenMod to get a more recent version of Android after they stop updating your device, for example. Unlocking your bootloader may still be possible, but may be more work, often involving running a tool that exploits a security vulnerability in Android to gain access. People have to go out of their way to discover these security vulnerability so newer phones can be unlocked and rooted.

Carriers and manufacturers often make their phones uglier with branding, too — Verizon places their “Verizon” logo across the Galaxy Note 2′s home button, just so you know who your device really belongs to.

We’ve looked at the reasons why your Android phone probably isn’t getting updates before, and one of the reasons why is because each carrier must subject each update to a testing process before releasing it — if they ever release it.

This causes Android updates trickle out carrier-by-carrier. But updates for Apple’s iPhone are available everywhere when they’re released — so what’s going on?

Carriers Control Most Android Phones

Android devices actually follow the established cell phone model. You get a phone from your carrier on-contract. That carrier has customized that phone, adding their own branding and software (often considered bloatware) to it. The phone itself may be a unique model only available on your carrier. Carriers have traditionally loved unique phone models — witness the way the original Samsung Galaxy S split into the Samsung Vibrant, Samsung Fascinate, Samsung Mesmerize, and so on. Each phone was a slightly different Galaxy S (or even the same), but had a different name so each carrier could have their own unique phone.

Your carrier exercises control over your device even after you buy it, preventing it from working on other cellular networks (by locking it to their network). They are the ones in control of the phone and the software it comes with, and they are the ones in charge of approving and rolling out updates. You generally can’t get these updates from the manufacturer directly — only from the carrier.

When a new version of Android is released, the device manufacturer has to take it and adapt their existing customizations to it. They also have to make it work on all their phones, including the carrier-specific variants. This is why many manufacturers haven’t bothered updating many less-popular or older phones.

The manufacturer then has to send out the updates to every carrier. It’s each carrier’s job to test all the different updates for all their different smartphones, and they may take many months to do so. They may even decline to do the work and never release the update.

Apple Controls the iPhone

Love it or hate it, Apple used the popularity of their iPhone to upset this established model. Apple informed carriers (AT&T at first) that they were in charge of the phone. There was just a single iPhone, not an iPhone variant for every carrier. Carriers weren’t allowed to install their own software or brand it with their logos. They weren’t put in charge of updates — iPhone updates come from Apple, not from the carriers.

While there are many Android phones and variants of Android phones, there’s just one iPhone — there’s no iPhone Captivate, iPhone Fascinate, or iPhone Mesmerize.

Users want the iPhone, so carriers want to offer it. Apple uses this as leverage to exert their power over carriers and insist on this model, and carriers can’t hold back iPhone updates for the same reason they can’t ship iPhones filled with bloatware or with carrier logos stamped across their fronts.

Carriers may want to block iPhone updates but be unable to. An issue with iOS 6.1 resulted in Vodafone UK and 3 Austria asking their customers to not update to iOS 6.1 before the issue was fixed. The carriers couldn’t block the updates, as that wasn’t in their control — they could only ask their users nicely.

So Why Are Carriers Holding Back Updates?

It’s undoubtedly easier for carriers to test iPhone updates and inform Apple of any problems than it is for the carriers to test updates for a wide swath of different Android phones, some of which only exist on that carrier.

However, that isn’t the only reason carriers hold back updates:

• Updates Involve Work: When Samsung hands over a new build of Android for one of its phones, carriers have to do their own work to customize the phone. They’ll need to add their own branding and apps (bloatware) to the devices, which takes additional work.
• Carriers Can Delay Updates: Carriers can get away with putting this work off or failing to do it.  They have the ability to delay update rollouts for months if they feel like it, dragging their feet. Apple will release iPhone updates with or without them.
• Planned Obsolescence: Carriers don’t really want to upgrade a years-old smartphone and have it feel like new. As businesses looking to sell you a new phone and get you to renew your contract, it’s in their interest to make the new phones look attractive — and timely updates for old phones just cost additional money and make new products less tempting. Carriers have an incentive not to update their phones.

What Exactly Needs to Be Tested?

The carrier will need to test the phone’s software, particularly because that software has likely been customized by the carrier. They will need to ensure all their included apps work properly and that the phone’s specific software — which has likely had less testing than the iPhone’s software, which is the same worldwide — works properly.

Carriers also want to test the device to make sure it works properly on their network. They’ll want to ensure it doesn’t place additional load on the network, lead to additional dropped calls, or cause other problems.

Carriers Also Control Windows Phone

We’ve focused on Android here, but Windows Phone is in the same boat. Updates for Windows Phone devices must be approved by every carrier. When it was originally released,  Microsoft created an official website where users could track Windows Phone 7 updates on a per-carrier basis to see which carriers worldwide were failing to issue updates or issuing them too slowly.

However, Microsoft eventually took their “Where’s My Phone Update?” website down — perhaps because it annoyed carriers too much. Microsoft no longer provides information about the status of updates. Updates for Windows Phone 8 devices must still be approved by carriers before they roll out to Windows Phone devices.

Avoiding the Carriers

The only way to avoid the carrier control on non-iPhone phones is by going around them, purchasing a device directly from the phone’s manufacturer. For example, Google’s Nexus 4 will receive updates from Google without any carrier getting involved. Users can also purchase other unlocked, off-contract devices and receive updates without carrier involvement — assuming the manufacturer releases those updates.

You can also go off the beaten path, unlocking your phone’s boot loader and installing a custom ROM like Cyanogenmod to get an updated version of Android, whether your carrier wants you to or not.

So why exactly do carriers hold back updates for Android phones, but not for Apple’s iPhone? Well, because they can get away with it — Apple can insist that they’re in charge of updates and carriers have to play ball if they want the iPhone. Other phone platforms provide a way for carriers to continue providing the locked-down, customized phones they love so much and continue exercising their control over them.