> AFAIK nothing stops HBO from supporting older webOS releases
Assuming that to be the case, nothing is stopping LG to provide an upgraded webOS either.
> They could maintain builds produced with the older SDK forever
Maintaining backwards compatibility in this way is not a small undertaking. How many webOS versions do you maintain compatibility with? How do you decide which features you spend time trying to backport to which versions? How do you make it clear to your users that their 2-year-old >US$1k TV won't get the shiny new thing because it's too old?
> they just can't be arsed to
And they shouldn't have to. If the hardware is good enough to support the latest OS and SDK, refusing to do so is nothing more than planned obsolescence on part of the manufacturer. They all share the same underlying architecture, main difference will probably be around drivers.
Multiply the number of apps by the number of different smart TV OSs by the number of versions of each and supporting all of them gets old really quickly.
Assuming that to be the case, nothing is stopping LG to provide an upgraded webOS either.
> They could maintain builds produced with the older SDK forever
Maintaining backwards compatibility in this way is not a small undertaking. How many webOS versions do you maintain compatibility with? How do you decide which features you spend time trying to backport to which versions? How do you make it clear to your users that their 2-year-old >US$1k TV won't get the shiny new thing because it's too old?
> they just can't be arsed to
And they shouldn't have to. If the hardware is good enough to support the latest OS and SDK, refusing to do so is nothing more than planned obsolescence on part of the manufacturer. They all share the same underlying architecture, main difference will probably be around drivers.
Multiply the number of apps by the number of different smart TV OSs by the number of versions of each and supporting all of them gets old really quickly.