Picture this:

Apple announces the release of iOS 5, but instead of announcing a specific release date as it has done in the past, Steve Jobs gets up on stage and simply says something like, “iOS 5 will be coming to your iPhone or iPad in the next few weeks.” No release date, no specifics, just a generic “coming soon” statement.

Now, if that’s not bad enough, imagine a few days later when users start reporting online that they’ve received the latest and greatest iOS 5 update. You immediately go to the “Check for updates” button, but are told that iOS 4.3.3 is the most current version. You shrug and assume that the iTunes servers are just busy and that it will show up soon.

Later that day, you’re talking to a friend who is showing you all of the new features in iOS 5 on his iPhone from the update he just received through iTunes. Again, you rush home, plug in your iPhone, hit the “Check for Updates” button and are once again greeted with the same response. So you shrug it off and figure that Apple’s servers must still be busy, grumble in frustration, and simply decide to give up and try again tomorrow.

A week goes by, filled with repeated attempts to update your iPhone to iOS 5. Still, iTunes continues to insist that you have the latest version available, despite the fact that it seems everybody around you already has the update and you’ve been left out in the cold. You do a bit of digging online and find a few blog posts and discussion forums with people who are having similar issues. You quickly discover that the problem is not that Apple’s servers are merely busy, but that Apple has decided to do a staggered rollout of iOS 5, and you simply have to assume that your device is not yet one of the “chosen” to receive the update.

Finally, perhaps two to three weeks later, after you’ve already given up in frustration, iTunes suddenly pops up a message letting you know that it’s your turn, and iOS 5 is now ready to download for your device.

Seems absurd? Well, this is exactly how things work with Android.

Leaving aside the obvious issues with different hardware platforms and carriers, when Google chooses to roll out an update even to its own “chosen” Nexus reference device the process is an indeterminate and frustrating mess.

Specific release dates are almost never announced in advance, leaving things vague. Meanwhile, discussion groups fill up with frustrated comments wondering when their specific device is going to receive the update. When someone from Google does surface to respond, it’s usually on the day that the rollout has begun, stating that the release is in the process of being rolled out and everybody should be getting it “in the next few days or weeks.”

Eventually, somebody will post a manual link to download the firmware for users who have grown tired of waiting for their device to become one of the “chosen” to receive the over-the-air (OTA) update. Since Google doesn’t provide this link themselves, this leaves users again to question whether what they’re getting is really the actual and proper OS update, particularly in the Android world where modified ROMs and firmware packages are commonplace.

Getting the latest Android OS update is pretty much a game of “hurry up and wait” — even among users of the exact same hardware.

The problem is even further exacerbated by the fact that there are multiple versions of the Nexus S (and Nexus One) available, and it seems that the AWS version for T-Mobile (and Wind and Mobilicity in Canada) always receive the update weeks before the other GSM version used by AT&T, Rogers, Bell and Telus. This happened last year with the Nexus One and is now happening again with the Nexus S. While it’s reasonable to accept that there are subtle hardware differences between the two models, this distinction is lost on most end users since a GSM phone should be a GSM phone.

On the one hand, you could applaud Google for getting whatever updates out as soon as they can, but optically it would probably create far less user frustration to not release the Nexus S OTA until it’s ready for everybody, and then to actually release it for everybody at the same time rather than creating a situation where users are left wondering if today is going to be the day that their device is finally chosen by Google. Of course, that would be a marketing or PR move, and Google is a company run by engineers.

To be fair, the average smartphone user on either Android or iOS may not pay much attention to upgrades, and therefore simply be pleasantly surprised when a new update does appear. For the power user, however, the situation can be frustrating at best and lends credence to the idea that Android remains a device for the nerd and developer crowd.