Except HTC doesn't control the software on the Nexus One. Google handles all Google-experience devices like the Nexus One, Nexus S, Xoom and the new Nexus Galaxy.

> otherwise why would google not support n1?

Google has never really cared about support.

> They'd have nothing to lose.

They'd have to spend time porting and validating it.

I'm wishing I bought an iPhone instead of my Nexus One now

I still like my Nexus One, but between the sagging power button and the lack of "real" multitouch, I'm not inclined to buy another HTC product next time.

The buggy multi-touch was the worse thing on the Nexus One, and was very falsely advertised on some sites. I really thought that it had a working multi-touch solution before I paid the mountain of importing fees to get it into Canada.

I do still like it too, it just could've been that much better without much more effort put into it.

How is this different than Apple's iOS5 compatibility list?

Well, besides how much easier it will be for third parties to add ICS to Nexus One.

I think the reaction is largely over the perceived short lifespan of the hardware in relation to supported software updates available to it, which in this instance favors poorly against Apple generally supplying software updates more than two years after a phone is released.

This phone is substantially younger (by six months) than Apple's oldest supported model, for one thing. And since the 3GS will be sold on an ongoing basis, it'll likely enjoy updates beyond 5.0, as well.

iOS 5 runs smoothly on a 3GS, a phone older than the Nexus One.

But the last official update for the 3G turned it into a dog. I don't think any company is blameless, here, but I'm far more disappointed to see Google doing it. Linux still runs on a 386, last time I checked.

FWIW, many report that iOS5 actually makes the 3GS faster. Anandtech ran some benchmarks that show the 3GS on 5.0 being faster than the iPhone 4 on 4.3 at many tasks!

I'm not convinced that you could run a 3.0 kernel image on a 386 without running out of RAM pretty soon, even if you cut it down to something pretty minimal. I haven't found any sources where anyone's actually installed modern Linux on one - they all seem to have used ancient distros because support actually vanished some time back (see eg. here: http://hackaday.com/2011/08/12/installing-linux-on-a-386-lap...).

I stand corrected, but you have my curiosity up. Nevertheless, the "decline" of hardware in the face of software advancement in phones strikes me as awfully rapid. Is the Nexus One really so underpowered that ICS couldn't be made to accommodate it?

the 3G is 4 yr old. the Nexus one is only 1.5+ yr old.

here are two issues:

1) Android is suffering from feature creep / bloat

2) Unresolved design issues are biting them in the ass