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Surely, you mean "Qualcomm-inflicted wound"? After TI left the Android SoC space, most OEMs and Carriers are beholden to Qualcomm, who write their own drivers
by sangnoir 6y ago
Surely, you mean "Qualcomm-inflicted wound"?
After TI left the Android SoC space, most OEMs and Carriers are beholden to Qualcomm, who write their own drivers and will never mainline them, if they can help it: long upgrade cycles will hurt Qualcomms bottomline, planned obsolescence via kernel incompatibility is how they achieve that. I don't think customers will upgrade from Snapdragon X05 to Snapdragon X20 for the minor gains in performance, if their old device could get the latest Android features.
- JetSpiegel 6y agoCouldn't Google bend Qualcomm to their will? Or even just buy them out, it's not like they lack the cash.
- sangnoir 6y agoGoogle decided on a cheaper technical solution instead - they only recently started abstracting Android drivers from the linux kernel (Project Treble[1]), which should allow drivers to continue working after the kernel has been updgraded. 1. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/11/an-update-on-project-treble.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/11/an-update-...
- corty 6y agoExcept Qualcom drivers are so crappy, you can rely on a remote exploit via WiFi or BT every year. So no chance to use the phone longer than maybe 2 years, even if nominally the software support might be longer. Not incidentally, "Qual" is german for "torture".