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The one thing that Apple does well is prolonged support for their phones. I switched away from Android phones because I got sick of buying the latest flagships

The one thing that Apple does well is prolonged support for their phones. I switched away from Android phones because I got sick of buying the latest flagships only to have them lose software, hardware, and security support 12-24 months after release. The new iPhones don't appeal to me, but I'm satisfied knowing I can get a few more years out of my SE. I got my battery replaced 4 months ago after owning it for two years and its been running like new since on the latest version of iOS.

captn3m0 8y ago
Same reason I switched from Android to iPhone SE last year. Regular security updates, perfect form factor and I don't have to mess with MicroG to avoid Google anymore. Planning to buy a second one when apple decides to sunset the device.
trazire 8y ago
Yea, that's one thing that I envy Apple for. I legitimately still use the iPhone 4S as my daily driver. It had software updates for around 5 years and has iOS 9. Still works as an alarm clock, a music player, and for everything else I use it for. But it's also important to consider that lack of Android upgrades are also slightly disregardable, as API and app level updates will exist for years, and the majority of older phones support custom ROMs. I understand how that's not the ideal use case for people, just providing my own take on things.
- o10449366 8y ago
  I think I just have less patience for tinkering as I've gotten older (which is unfortunate in of itself, but I digress). I used to use custom ROMs on old Android phones that were no longer officially supported, but I got tired of the random and unpreventable soft bricks that would occur every few months. I overslept an important appointment because my old Nexus 5X soft bricked overnight and the alarm never went off. That phone ended up dying due to a widespread motherboard issue, one month after the hardware warranty expired. I used to roll my eyes at my dad's frustration with his crappy old Windows desktops when I was a kid, but now I understand how he felt. I just want something that works and that I can depend on and use for basic tasks.
  - komali2 8y ago
    I was the same way and then stopped fucking with the roms when a car accident happened in front of me and I discovered dialing 911 crashed the rom I had. Testing later showed 100% crash rate on 911 calls. It was the most popular rom at the time for my version of the s5 as well...
    - squeaky-clean 8y ago
      That's terrifying! I stopped tinkering with ROMs because the one I was on would crash a call 5-10 minutes in. Calls are usually short, so it didn't bug me until it crashed twice during a long call with my parents. I realized my phone had become really bad at being a phone. I switched to iOS shortly after because when using stock all my Google apps would constantly throw warnings that I had denied location services. Even apps like Gmail would prompt me with every new send.
    - fouc 8y ago
      Wow, that's a serious bug! Shame the car accident
    - EvangelicalPig 8y ago
      This bug? https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/6o50aq/i_dont_think_oneplus_is_the_only_android_phone/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/6o50aq/i_dont_thin...
  - skinnymuch 8y ago
    Yeah tinkering just doesn’t feel worth it. I’d love for there to be a simple way to get custom more up to date ROMs onto older Androids. But right now it seems cumbersome still. I just want things to work too. The issues you mentioned like the soft bricking sucks.
- Bud 8y ago
  That leaves users wide open to the quintillions of security issues with older Android which will never be patched, though.
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  First off, having to do all the research and cumbersome work for the ROMs and such. I don’t like doing it. And I don’t want to spend time doing it. Especially with all the issues that can arise. On to iPhones. I have an iPhone 4S on iOS 9 too. It’s jailbroken because the sleep button doesn’t work so I needed a work around. It’s too slow for me though. Great if you don’t want to be able to use your phone much. Otherwise the wait to load apps and the limited or weird acting ram is annoying. Nonetheless when I want to try reducing my digital “addiction” I can get by using it. My friends find it too slow to even use for more than 2 min. On the other hand, I also had a chance to use an iPhone 5 or 5S in the summer. It was perfectly usable. Fast enough and not that old of an OS (I think iOS 10) to be useless for downloading new apps.
se0 8y ago
I have a Samsung S7 from march 2016 and just received the march 2019 security update. Not bad ;)
- votepaunchy 8y ago
  This is Android P that was released 7 months ago?
  - metildaa 8y ago
    Nope, OP is talking about basic security patches, not Android version bumps. The S7 is stuck at Android 8 Oreo, and it would be a surprise if Samsung upgraded that to 8.1 or 9 (Pie). Samsung is one of the worst vendors when it comes to Android updates, only flagship phones will see any major updates, generally for less than 2 years.
    - nickflood 8y ago
      I don't intend to dispute this claim. In fact, it's still correct. And I'm biased, I've got a Samsung phone. Still, opinion improved a bit when my S8+ got a march 2019 update which upgraded it to Android 9.0 (phone shipped with Android 7 in May 2017) and basically the same features/skin as what's just been released on the S10 lineup. Makes me hopeful that maybe they are improving their update game going forward.
- metildaa 8y ago
  The Nokia 6 was released back in January 2017 and is still seeing major OS upgrades (most recently to Android 9 Pie). I would expect a larger, much higher volume vendor like Samsung to do more than security patches for older phones considering that a smaller player like Nokia can keep up. It isn't a herculean task! Pretty sure my next device will be a Nokia or iPhone due to the long term software support.
  - 43920 8y ago
    It's a lot easier for Nokia to do that because they use a version of Android that's basically stock. Samsung re-skins the UI and adds a bunch of features, so every time they upgrade to a new version of Android, they have to re-apply all those patches. (of course, whether they should do that is another question...)
taurath 8y ago
I’m not so sure anymore - I have a 3.5 year old iPhone 6s, and replaced the battery with a brand new on from the Apple store not 6 months ago - already, the new battery is worse than the old one a year into the phones life. Random shut offs at 10% and not getting through a day are regular occurances, something that didn’t happen at all the first 2 years
- 1123581321 8y ago
  What is the battery health percentage?
  - taurath 8y ago
    91% now.
- ysleepy 8y ago
  Do you have the "performance management" feature disabled? (aka cpu throttling for battery issues) A few years ago this was always-on, If you disabled it now, this would be a difference to your first battery experience. (just a guess though, I don't have an iPhone)
  - taurath 8y ago
    It turned itself on because the battery “couldn’t deliver peak power” and shut off at 12%
- o10449366 8y ago
  If that's true Apple should replace it for you. Check the battery percentage. I've anecdotally heard if it's draining unusually fast they'll replace it free of charge.
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    I will add another anecdotal hearing to this, because they did in fact replace an iPhone free of charge for me a few years ago when the battery was draining too fast. (And also a MacBook Pro battery, back in the dim forgotten era when such things were user-replaceable.)
imandride 8y ago
Recently updated my nephews One Plus 3 from 2016. The software updates are even tested on the old hardware. You can also send any of their previous phones in for repair, the repair costs are listed online and actually reasonable.
ryacko 8y ago
Even after the security updates stop, the phone is fairly hardened. I’ll probably keep the phone and disable JavaScript on Safari.
make3 8y ago
that's a funny thing to say when coming right out of a scandal where they admitted to slowing down older phones. I know they have their reasons; not having told people is still unacceptable

captn3m0 8y ago

Same reason I switched from Android to iPhone SE last year. Regular security updates, perfect form factor and I don't have to mess with MicroG to avoid Google anymore. Planning to buy a second one when apple decides to sunset the device.

trazire 8y ago

Yea, that's one thing that I envy Apple for. I legitimately still use the iPhone 4S as my daily driver. It had software updates for around 5 years and has iOS 9. Still works as an alarm clock, a music player, and for everything else I use it for. But it's also important to consider that lack of Android upgrades are also slightly disregardable, as API and app level updates will exist for years, and the majority of older phones support custom ROMs. I understand how that's not the ideal use case for people, just providing my own take on things.

o10449366 8y ago
I think I just have less patience for tinkering as I've gotten older (which is unfortunate in of itself, but I digress). I used to use custom ROMs on old Android phones that were no longer officially supported, but I got tired of the random and unpreventable soft bricks that would occur every few months. I overslept an important appointment because my old Nexus 5X soft bricked overnight and the alarm never went off. That phone ended up dying due to a widespread motherboard issue, one month after the hardware warranty expired. I used to roll my eyes at my dad's frustration with his crappy old Windows desktops when I was a kid, but now I understand how he felt. I just want something that works and that I can depend on and use for basic tasks.
- komali2 8y ago
  I was the same way and then stopped fucking with the roms when a car accident happened in front of me and I discovered dialing 911 crashed the rom I had. Testing later showed 100% crash rate on 911 calls. It was the most popular rom at the time for my version of the s5 as well...
  - squeaky-clean 8y ago
    That's terrifying! I stopped tinkering with ROMs because the one I was on would crash a call 5-10 minutes in. Calls are usually short, so it didn't bug me until it crashed twice during a long call with my parents. I realized my phone had become really bad at being a phone. I switched to iOS shortly after because when using stock all my Google apps would constantly throw warnings that I had denied location services. Even apps like Gmail would prompt me with every new send.
  - fouc 8y ago
    Wow, that's a serious bug! Shame the car accident
  - EvangelicalPig 8y ago
    This bug? https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/6o50aq/i_dont_think_oneplus_is_the_only_android_phone/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/6o50aq/i_dont_thin...
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  Yeah tinkering just doesn’t feel worth it. I’d love for there to be a simple way to get custom more up to date ROMs onto older Androids. But right now it seems cumbersome still. I just want things to work too. The issues you mentioned like the soft bricking sucks.
Bud 8y ago
That leaves users wide open to the quintillions of security issues with older Android which will never be patched, though.
skinnymuch 8y ago
First off, having to do all the research and cumbersome work for the ROMs and such. I don’t like doing it. And I don’t want to spend time doing it. Especially with all the issues that can arise. On to iPhones. I have an iPhone 4S on iOS 9 too. It’s jailbroken because the sleep button doesn’t work so I needed a work around. It’s too slow for me though. Great if you don’t want to be able to use your phone much. Otherwise the wait to load apps and the limited or weird acting ram is annoying. Nonetheless when I want to try reducing my digital “addiction” I can get by using it. My friends find it too slow to even use for more than 2 min. On the other hand, I also had a chance to use an iPhone 5 or 5S in the summer. It was perfectly usable. Fast enough and not that old of an OS (I think iOS 10) to be useless for downloading new apps.

se0 8y ago

I have a Samsung S7 from march 2016 and just received the march 2019 security update. Not bad ;)

votepaunchy 8y ago
This is Android P that was released 7 months ago?
- metildaa 8y ago
  Nope, OP is talking about basic security patches, not Android version bumps. The S7 is stuck at Android 8 Oreo, and it would be a surprise if Samsung upgraded that to 8.1 or 9 (Pie). Samsung is one of the worst vendors when it comes to Android updates, only flagship phones will see any major updates, generally for less than 2 years.
  - nickflood 8y ago
    I don't intend to dispute this claim. In fact, it's still correct. And I'm biased, I've got a Samsung phone. Still, opinion improved a bit when my S8+ got a march 2019 update which upgraded it to Android 9.0 (phone shipped with Android 7 in May 2017) and basically the same features/skin as what's just been released on the S10 lineup. Makes me hopeful that maybe they are improving their update game going forward.
metildaa 8y ago
The Nokia 6 was released back in January 2017 and is still seeing major OS upgrades (most recently to Android 9 Pie). I would expect a larger, much higher volume vendor like Samsung to do more than security patches for older phones considering that a smaller player like Nokia can keep up. It isn't a herculean task! Pretty sure my next device will be a Nokia or iPhone due to the long term software support.
- 43920 8y ago
  It's a lot easier for Nokia to do that because they use a version of Android that's basically stock. Samsung re-skins the UI and adds a bunch of features, so every time they upgrade to a new version of Android, they have to re-apply all those patches. (of course, whether they should do that is another question...)

taurath 8y ago

I’m not so sure anymore - I have a 3.5 year old iPhone 6s, and replaced the battery with a brand new on from the Apple store not 6 months ago - already, the new battery is worse than the old one a year into the phones life. Random shut offs at 10% and not getting through a day are regular occurances, something that didn’t happen at all the first 2 years

1123581321 8y ago
What is the battery health percentage?
- taurath 8y ago
  91% now.
ysleepy 8y ago
Do you have the "performance management" feature disabled? (aka cpu throttling for battery issues) A few years ago this was always-on, If you disabled it now, this would be a difference to your first battery experience. (just a guess though, I don't have an iPhone)
- taurath 8y ago
  It turned itself on because the battery “couldn’t deliver peak power” and shut off at 12%
o10449366 8y ago
If that's true Apple should replace it for you. Check the battery percentage. I've anecdotally heard if it's draining unusually fast they'll replace it free of charge.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  I will add another anecdotal hearing to this, because they did in fact replace an iPhone free of charge for me a few years ago when the battery was draining too fast. (And also a MacBook Pro battery, back in the dim forgotten era when such things were user-replaceable.)

imandride 8y ago

Recently updated my nephews One Plus 3 from 2016. The software updates are even tested on the old hardware. You can also send any of their previous phones in for repair, the repair costs are listed online and actually reasonable.

ryacko 8y ago

Even after the security updates stop, the phone is fairly hardened. I’ll probably keep the phone and disable JavaScript on Safari.

make3 8y ago

that's a funny thing to say when coming right out of a scandal where they admitted to slowing down older phones. I know they have their reasons; not having told people is still unacceptable