You really wanted a new smartphone this year, but just couldn’t afford it. Your friends and family couldn’t pull through either so your left with your archaic smartphone from 2011. Still, your old smartphone could be upgraded to a newer version of Android, right? It seems so simple, yet handset manufacturers constantly refuse to update older phones. Why is that?

While you may think that handset manufacturers simply hate you for being poor, it’s a little more complicated than that. In fact, the process of upgrading your phone’s OS is a lot more complicated than just pushing an OTA update to your device. It takes months of preparation and development to get the latest updates up and running on your device.

To better illustrate this process, HTC put together an infographic called “The anatomy of an Android OS update.” It gives us an inside look at how HTC evaluates and implements the newest versions of Android. Interestingly enough, the infographic follows the update process not just for carrier devices, but for unlocked and Google Play Edition devices as well.

Check it out:

Oh, and if you want to know how far along HTC is in upgrading your HTC One to KitKat, check out this status page.