One of the significant disadvantages of being an early adopter of any new technology is what comes after it, specifically, the improvements that every technology experiences over time. Such appears to be the case for those who rushed to pick up the G1 — the first Android phone on the market — as questions have begun to pop up over whether the device is in line to see its last update.

Like any device, the G1 has certain physical limitations — only so much stuff can fit in the case, and among the stuff being stuffed in is its memory. Apparently, according to one of Google's developers, not enough memory was stuffed when the stuffing was good, and now G1 owners may find themselves short on updates.

Posting via Twitter — the mass-communication tool of choice these days, it would seem — Google's Jean-Baptiste Queru announced on Friday that the G1 is running out of space. "As much as I'm hoping that it'll be possible to somehow continue updating the G1, I can't promise anything." Queru ought to know, considering that he's one of the guys working on it, and apparently the team knew going in that space would be shrinking. "We knew that internal flash space was going to be very tight on the G1 and we kept the system partition tight on purpose," he wrote later, in response to ideas from fellow Twitterites on how to proceed.

Google, for its part, apparently isn't commenting, but T-Mobile apparently was. A statement from the company reportedly proclaimed: "We plan to continue working with Google to introduce future software updates to the T-Mobile G1. Reports to the contrary are inaccurate." That raises the question — and users are most certainly already raising it — of whether the company is denying outright that a problem exists, if there is a solution in the works that nobody is willing to talk about, or if a bit of corporate doublespeak is underway. The suggestion has already been made that "future software updates" may refer to security and bugfix updates, but not feature upgrades.

Those interested in Queru's comments might wish to have a look through his Twitter stream, though his most recent tweet, as of this writing, suggests that he's said his piece. "At this point I can't comment any further on this issue, sorry."
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Justin Ryan is News Editor for LinuxJournal.com.
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