5 ms·

Why would you expect them to continue supporting a 5 year old OS version?

app4soft 6y ago
Because its community driven FLOSS project. And it would "OK" if there would no releases with new features... but bug fix releases which is worse. Instead, team (owner & core members) just dropped & disabled everything, leaving Android 5.x/6.x device owners in frozen state. Even more, team not proposed itself & ignored any proposition from others to at least support Termux for Android 5.x/6.x in LTS-way.
bill_mon 6y ago
Because most devices can't be updated? Supporting version 4+ gives you a much larger audience than limiting to version 7+.
- MrDresden 6y ago
  I think this was a very logical thing for them to do. Supporting platforms that old comes with a massive amount of headaches. It is hard enough for big teams of applications with high MRR to do, and is near impossible for a FOSS application to do in perpetuity.
saagarjha 6y ago
I know some people do this for iOS, so I would have expected it to almost be the norm on Android where many devices frequently fall behind on updates.
- app4soft 6y ago
  > I know some people do this for iOS Apple devs has a smart trick how to declare you to buy new iPhone {n+1} just next day after it out: Apple devs just may decrease performance of your previous iPhone {n} fully remotely without any prompts to you and without your permission.[0] And such remoted control over users costs only $500M single pay - not too much as for Apple at all.[1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965119 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22465829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22465829
badsectoracula 6y ago
Because 5 year old isn't really that old. My Android 5 powered phone (which is my only phone) works perfectly fine, the only annoyance i have with it is that it has become sluggish - but that is the fault of software developers bloating their code (the software pretty much does the same stuff as it did when i got the phone years ago), not of the phone itself. Note that i do not expect someone to do free work for me, i just do not consider a 5 year old device "old" enough to be weird for it to be supported - especially when it works just fine.

Because its community driven FLOSS project. And it would "OK" if there would no releases with new features... but bug fix releases which is worse. Instead, team (owner & core members) just dropped & disabled everything, leaving Android 5.x/6.x device owners in frozen state. Even more, team not proposed itself & ignored any proposition from others to at least support Termux for Android 5.x/6.x in LTS-way.

bill_mon 6y ago

Because most devices can't be updated? Supporting version 4+ gives you a much larger audience than limiting to version 7+.

MrDresden 6y ago
I think this was a very logical thing for them to do. Supporting platforms that old comes with a massive amount of headaches. It is hard enough for big teams of applications with high MRR to do, and is near impossible for a FOSS application to do in perpetuity.

saagarjha 6y ago

I know some people do this for iOS, so I would have expected it to almost be the norm on Android where many devices frequently fall behind on updates.

app4soft 6y ago
> I know some people do this for iOS Apple devs has a smart trick how to declare you to buy new iPhone {n+1} just next day after it out: Apple devs just may decrease performance of your previous iPhone {n} fully remotely without any prompts to you and without your permission.[0] And such remoted control over users costs only $500M single pay - not too much as for Apple at all.[1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965119 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22465829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22465829

badsectoracula 6y ago

Because 5 year old isn't really that old. My Android 5 powered phone (which is my only phone) works perfectly fine, the only annoyance i have with it is that it has become sluggish - but that is the fault of software developers bloating their code (the software pretty much does the same stuff as it did when i got the phone years ago), not of the phone itself. Note that i do not expect someone to do free work for me, i just do not consider a 5 year old device "old" enough to be weird for it to be supported - especially when it works just fine.