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Germany wants smartphone makers to offer 7 years of software updates

718 points by underscore_ku 5y ago

dwighttk 5y ago
Seems like 7 years could be pretty brittle. Could there be a floor of user requests for update per month or something?
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Why? 7 years is a very limited duration, i would personally advocate for (at the very least) twice that, and not just for security updates but also for hardware warranty. It would push hardware manufacturers to produce good reliable hardware instead of 10 crappy new phones every year, and to partner with reliable systems developers/vendors instead of pushing their own broken-in-1000-ways Androids.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    None of the governments business in the first place. 14 years would mean the original iphone is being updated. There would be like 4 people still using it.
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      At a certain point it's probably cheaper to give these people new phones then it is to update their software. (Ignoring the incentives this would create, of course)
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        Certainly not from an environmental perspective, and i assume also not (though i don't have a study on the topic) from an economic perspective.
    - grumbel 5y ago
      The Playstation2 was produced for 13 years, Xbox360 for 11 years. The CPU I am having in my PC is 10 years old already as well. Long lifespan is not exactly impossible in tech. Also bringing up the original iPhone is a strawman, as that's not going to be supported by this law any more than it is today, newly released phones however are. And since technological progression has slowed down a lot in the last few years that really shouldn't be that hard.
      - postingawayonhn 5y ago
        People don't carry game consoles around in their pockets all day. The refresh cycle for phones is also much faster for a verity of reasons.
        karteum 5y ago
        > People don't carry game consoles around in their pockets all day No, but most people also don't need SoCs which performance doubles every 2 years. If the software was properly written and optimised (which would be more common if the firmware developers expected the hardware to have a long lifespan), there would be no reason any phone manufactured in the last 7 years to be sluggish. Anyway most people just want their basic apps to work (e.g. phone, emails, whatsapp, agenda, hotel booking, photos, maps, chat, music player, etc.), none of which should require a very powerful CPU or tons of RAM...
        ryandrake 5y ago
        I'd also argue that lack of software support has got to be one of the primary reasons phones get refreshed at the rate they do. I keep my phones until the vendor stops shipping software updates. If today's iOS remained compatible with past devices, I'd probably still be using my iPhone 3. There's no reason it doesn't have to, either. Apple and other phone vendors deliberately choose to drop software support for hardware they consider "too old".
        postingawayonhn 5y ago
        I was referring to the physical wear and tear that a phone had to withstand compared to a game console.
    - darkwater 5y ago
      Indeed, but smartphone HW is much more mature nowadays and even the cheaper smartphone can do what most people need from a device like that. So, expecting a device released in 2021 to last 10 or even 15 years and still be useful it's not that weird (beside storage losing speed, maybe). 10 years for a device from 2012 OTOH would be completely impossible.
      - nbernard 5y ago
        > 10 years for a device from 2012 OTOH would be completely impossible. Why? My Nokia N9 is still my daily driver. Only the lack of software updates is making it less and less useful.
    - saagarjha 5y ago
      Maybe more people would be using it if it was still supported?
  - dwighttk 5y ago
    You must still dedicate developer time to devices that aren’t used seems like a bad law.
xqcgrek2 5y ago
Software updates should be indefinite, like Linux distros, which can still run on 15 year old hardware just fine. The future ought to be something like PinePhone (but with better hardware) that can be customized to run a variety of OS with consumables such as batteries easily user replaceable.
- bootloop 5y ago
  I would assume the reason why open Linux distros support 15 year old hw is because the OEM dropped support for it in the first place.
- sto_hristo 5y ago
  Yeah, that is definitely the ideal future. Problem is that it has to be a well organized entity behind this. The open source community is very fragmented and can't spawn a reliable product for the mass consumer in the way current companies can.
- goohle 5y ago
  Yes, but who will pay for that? More burden on maintainers -> less maintainers -> more burden on maintainers.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    If phone manufacturers stopped producing 10 models every year and focused on making a single robust one, they would have plenty of resources left for actual maintenance.
    - hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
      Sure, but they're in the business of selling as many phones as possible which means getting you to upgrade every so often. Unless they settle on a business model that allows them to make money from your old phone, I see this continuing.
      - 5y ago
Vespasian 5y ago
1. Security updates. No feature updates are required (Which is sensible in my opinion.) 2. The federal election happens later this month. Take this plan with a grain of salt. 3. The original article by heise.de mentions that the federal government will push these plans during negotiation of the EU wide laws. The government thinks that the plans of the commission do not go far enough. However it's unlikely that Germany will implement stricter rules on a national level.
- tgv 5y ago
  Sure, but Germany has a lot of clout in the EU, and this might be a good point for –just a random pick– a new chancellor to show his/her concern for the people. I'm almost sure the new German chancellor could get that done in EU record time.
  - photon-torpedo 5y ago
    > to show his/her concern for the people While I'd be happy for this plan to go through, I don't think most of the people will be happy with the side effects. Especially because of the spare parts requirements, I guess manufacturers will 1) Withdraw from EU market. 2) Reduce number of models on offer. 3) Raise prices.
    - _ZeD_ 5y ago
      it's still better than the actual state of million of phones filled with "abandonware"
      - photon-torpedo 5y ago
        I agree it's better, just I doubt it'll be popular.
      - worldofmatthew 5y ago
        It would also mean poor people being unable to afford these devices.
simonh 5y ago
It's hard to see how this could be enforced meaningfully. After all, who gets to decide if the updates represent a reasonable effort at bug fixing and security patching? What's to stop a company throwing out rudimentary updates as a box ticking exercise? In some ways that could be worse by creating a superficial appearance that phones are up to date.
- foepys 5y ago
  How about "you didn't fix a known security flaw within 3 months, pay 10% of MSRP to all your customers"?
  - simonh 5y ago
    Sounds wonderful, but the entire Android platform relies on patches from upstreams (Linux kernel devs, Google, device driver vendors. Numerous other open source projects that contribute critical components). Timelines like that simply aren't possible. It would kill Android stone dead.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      I upvoted because it's an actual concern, but don't agree with your point. Of course non-profit vendors should be excluded from such regulations, providing a best-effort solution. For other vendors, that would actually be a feature. It would incentivize hardware manufacturers to stop bundling bad/broken Androids with their hardware, open the bootloader and partner with serious free-software organizations who won't break your system or backdoor it. If you really want to roll out broken software for your customers and not give them a choice, pay up.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
      Then the commercial upstreams will have to provide patches in time in order to still be able to sell their products downstream-wards. For the open source upstreams... I've heard they accept patches. If not, the source is open, the downstream vendors can fix that. They can even put together a pool, pay into it together, and use the pooled money to develop (and hopefully upstream) a patch...
nspattak 5y ago
It would be very nice if this happened. In my view, one other feasible good step would be to require companies to publish the source code of their phones, ie provide the option for people to download, compile and install the full sw stack. Like this even if manufacturers stop supporting their devices, people can step in and do it. At the very least it would make it easier to support devices than it currently is in third party ROMs
- 0-_-0 5y ago
  I think that would be the ideal scenario.
- gruez 5y ago
  >In my view, one other feasible good step would be to require companies to publish the source code of their phones That is definitely not feasible. Vendors are very protective of their code. eg. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2019/08/2019-08-09-SenseTime-5.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2019/08/2019-08-0...
  - thepangolino 5y ago
    Vendors can be as protective as they want, they can't go against the law of the land.
    - gruez 5y ago
      The point is that there will be a lot of pushback from vendors. Meanwhile I doubt even 5% of the electorate actually cares about this. For that reason I don't think it's really "feasible".
      - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
        >Meanwhile I doubt even 5% of the electorate actually cares about this. // Representational democracy is supposed to work around the problem of an uninformed electorate. The question should be "if a member of the electorate understood this situation well enough would they care", representatives are supposed to use subject experts to help them answer that question and then use their political expertise to implement laws that move us towards a solution. It's a big ask, and it doesn't work that well -- politicians often work at what will win them plaudits in the press (or what can be presented as a win, if they control the press), rather than actually doing their job. Fundamentally though "the electorate doesn't care" is the wrong measure, there are a million things the electorate don't care about but would care about if they had the situation presented to them fully ... we pay representatives and advisors so we don't have to care directly ... that's supposed to be how it works.
HumblyTossed 5y ago
iPhone 6s (not 6) level of performance and above is really enough for most people to do normal every day tasks (not gaming). People are going to be keeping their devices for longer lengths of time. Security updates for longer periods are essential.
- klodolph 5y ago
  However, not all phones are iPhone 6s. A Nexus 5X is almost seven years old at this point, but I found mine to be rather slow a few years back.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Android phones just hit the "good enough" point a few years later than the iPhone ecosystem. My Samsung S7 (2016) is roughly as fast as my 6S (I have both for developing, and they're both plenty fast enough for everyday usage).
    - postingawayonhn 5y ago
      I don't think consumers are that interested in processor speeds anymore. Cameras are probably the biggest selling point for new phones these days, followed by battery life and display quality.
      - shadilay 5y ago
        Except all the flagship phones regressed from 1440p to 1080p displays.
        Dennip 5y ago
        They have gained things like high refresh rate and OLED etc, though
        shadilay 5y ago
annexrichmond 5y ago
I feel as though consumer protection hasn’t really caught up with technology and this is definitely a step in the right direction. But what if some software update “bricks” or regresses your device in some way? I’ve had video games even that have become unusable after software updates.
- Ueland 5y ago
  > But what if some software update “bricks” or regresses your device in some way? At least in Norway that causes you to get your device either fixed for free, or you get a new one. Any item you can expect to last at least five years, are covered. So for example, if you have a harddrive die after 4 years, you get a new one.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    Does that law take into account abuse of the device? For example, if my SSD dies after 4 years because the NAND wore out from me writing terabytes a day, would I still be allowed a new one under the law?
- Master_Odin 5y ago
  But this can happen anyway during the "regular" support window. I had this happen to me ol years back and it made booting the phone go from a few seconds to minutes as it had to do something with each installed app. This eventually got me to put a custom ROM just so I could stop having this bug, all because the manufacturer (Samsung) stopped caring about it.
oytis 5y ago
I think both the market and now the legislators are pushing connected devices to a subscription model. It's just economically unrealistic to pay once for a 7 years long service.
jokoon 5y ago
I wonder how large would be the container with all the unused/expired smartphones.
Ensorceled 5y ago
The latest iOS supports 6 year old iPhones ... this law seems pretty reasonable give that a iPhone 6 is unsupported but is still a solid device. Just looking at the iPhone release list, I we should be doing something like full product support for at least 5 years, full software support for 7 years, security updates for 10 years (iPhone 5 and up).
- internet2000 5y ago
  Why are you moving the goalposts just because iPhones meet the potential requirements as they are?
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    You misread. GP specially says they think the law makes sense because currently an iPhone 6 isn’t supported but they feel it should be.
    - Ensorceled 5y ago
      And clearly could be! Apple just drew an arbitrary line at 6 years, 7 would be doable.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    Where am I “moving goal posts”? I’m saying the law is reasonable because clearly Apple could follow it and, hence, so could other manufacturers. Then said I’d go further.
    - fomine3 5y ago
      Why Apple can provide such longer update is partially thanks to they adopt vertical integration model. It's not fair to just expand it for all manufacturers.
      - Ensorceled 5y ago
        Samsung is a $500B dollar company, Google is a trillion dollar company. I think they can manage. Everybody else can ride (Android) Google's coat tails.
marcodiego 5y ago
Better option: after the vendor stops support it, they should release the keys to unlock the bootloader. Specification and source code for drivers would be even better, but harder to get.
- Tepix 5y ago
  I don't see why this is a better option: If a vendor supplies bad security updates after six years, I can demand proper updates or perhaps my money back in return for my insecure device. If the software is open source i may not receive any updates regardless.
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    > If the software is open source i may not receive any updates regardless If the software is open source, anybody can update it. I use a cellphone from 2012 whose manufacturer abandonned a few years after release. This year alone I got 2 updates for it because I'm running the e.foundation /e/ OS. This wouldn't be possible had AOSP not being open source or its bootloader was locked.
gumby 5y ago
I think these requirements are very reasonable and we have an existence proof that it is doable. I know that Apple supports its hardware for seven years in California (and not other US states as far as I know) due to state law. I can’t imagine other manufacturers are immune to this same law. I’m not holding Apple up to be some paragon of virtue, but it was easy for me to find what they write on the subject: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624
- aduitsis 5y ago
  Oh! "Apple I" is considered obsolete :)
  - gumby 5y ago
    Clear evidence the government needs to act.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      Eh; it's slightly past 7 years old;)
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    ...and listed, like the Lisa, under "Mac desktops" for some reason. But aside their organization, the comprehensiveness of this list is actually quite satisfying:)
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      It's amazing just how many products are on that list. I wonder how many man-hours of development that represents.
viktorcode 5y ago
That would kill cheap smartphones.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  Presumably you mean sales of cheap phones couldn't be supported as there would be less demand. So it seems like new sales would be hit but in favour of second hand phones? That seems like the right thing - more use of products that can be repaired and maintained for longer is good, right?
  - worldofmatthew 5y ago
    Second hand phones are a shit-show, full of hidden costs (often at least new batteries and paying to check if it has been stolen) and people treat their phones like crap, meaning once the often one-month warrently you often get will not matter much once the phone starts bootlooping after three months from damage caused by the last owner.
    - morsch 5y ago
      Used goods sold by a business carry a 1 year (minimum) warranty in the EU.
      - worldofmatthew 5y ago
        Good luck proving that the last owner dropping the phone over and over caused the bootlooping and you would have to spend more than the cost of the device to take someone to court. Poor people de-facto don't have those legal rights, only what the seller is willing to allow.
        morsch 5y ago
        If it happens in the first 6 months, you don't have to prove it, the seller has to prove you did something to cause the bootloop[1] (and it's usually not worth it to them). I've had good luck with warranty claims beyond the 6 month period, when sticking to reputable sellers. [1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/faq/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...
ho_schi 5y ago
Providing firmware-updates and spare-parts (especially batteries) should be a requirement for all-purpose-computers i.e. laptops and desktops. And also for smartphones with user replaceable operating-system. For devices which are only appliances (smartphones with boot-lock and worse) this also extends to the operating-system itself. This makes devices more expensive? The prices will be higher but the value you get also. I'm talking about companies which uses adhesive strips and unusual screws with tiny buckles (Apple - iPhones) or the ones which glue the display onto the baseboard (Google - Pixel). Or companies which used to provided user-replaceable batteries with notches, which now uses screws inside the device (okay!), but now also a firmware to ensure that the user won't get a replacement battery some years later (Lenovo - ThinkPad). Otherwise Lenovos ThinkPads are good example, step-by-step manuals, explosion diagrams, well maintained replacement-part numbers...and yes, more expensive.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > The prices will be higher but the value you get also. Not everyone values repairability.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    Your statement is valid for individuals. But as a society, we could value reparability. And laws are there to enforce what the society values, not the selfish individuals you and me are part of.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      But we know society doesn’t value repairability as they don’t prefer repairable devices in practice.
      - shadilay 5y ago
        I as an individual hardly have a choice. If they offered a version of the next samsung phone with a removable battery I'd probably buy it.
steviedotboston 5y ago
Apple already does this
finchisko 5y ago
For me, the good compromise for start would be 3 devices per year per maker to have this prolonged support. Probably I'm native, but also wonder, why there is no single manufacturer that offers payed updates after product EOL. Like subscription service, canonical is offering after LTS release is EOL.
- ncphil 5y ago
  Because it is the phone manufacturers' suppliers, specifically the SoC manufacturers, who have created this mess for all the reasons previously stated upthread. Bright line regulations like those proposed (with some of the suggestions made here) would change that for the better.
Zigurd 5y ago
The Android world is full of finger pointing about why this is hard. SoC makers have crap BSP support and closed-source drivers. OEMs want to sell new phones (profit) instead of supporting old phones (pure cost). Google can't keep watches updateable despite dictating which SoC is used. Lots to complain about but no real excuses. This invites regulation.
webmobdev 5y ago
Some ideas I had for what a regulator can do to protect our consumer rights (including right to repair) on the software tech side: - All devices should come with unlocked bootloader. No exceptions. - OS updates should be mandated for a certain period. Especially security updates. - Standardisation: An open standard API for device drivers should be mandated for the hardware components used so that system developers can easily create support for any OS, and don't need to resort to reverse engineering. - Copyright restrictions on software code should be valid only for a certain period and become public domain (open source) after that. (It should definitely not be 75+ years of copyright that is currently mandated for films and books).
- karteum 5y ago
  > All devices should come with unlocked bootloader. No exceptions. Agree, but I would say it differently : users ought to be able to push their own keys while keeping the "secure boot" feature. e.g. "fastboot key push <key>"... > An open standard API for device drivers should be mandated You would also need to convince kernel devs to reconsider the "stable api nonsense" ideology... (https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/stable-api-nonsense.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/stable-api-no...)
- ncphil 5y ago
  Agreed on all your points, especially the last -- only I'd include a shorter patent term as well. If the phone is going to have an artificially limited life of 3 years, the 3 year term for both copyright and patent on its constituent parts (software and hardware) is more than reasonable: especially given that the whole purpose of copyright and patent is to build up the public domain commons for society's benefit.
sharmin123 5y ago
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_trampeltier 5y ago
I agree with just not complete with it. It is just important to keep the software actual / safe. Not new features, like Apple does it with full OS upgrade. Not to raise the price for 7 years for spare parts is BS and far from reality.
djoldman 5y ago
Anyone have details on how any of these required security updates will be forced to be anything more than an update to the version number? What's a "sufficient" update? I can imagine companies just updating whatever models they want to but the older model updates just being cosmetic to save costs.
Tepix 5y ago
The article mentions three and four year update cycles for some android devices. The "Android Enterprise Recommended" program provides "rugged devices" with five years of "90-day security updates". (see: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.android.com/en//static/2016/pdfs/enterprise/Android_Enterprise_Recommended_Datasheet_w_o_carrier.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.android.com/e... ) The Nokia XR20 is one of these devices, it was released in August 2021. However according to https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/security-updates https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/security-updates it is not guaranteed to receive security updates after August 2025. Something is wrong.
foxfluff 5y ago
For comparison, Linux LTS releases have up to around 6 years of support.
- fulafel 5y ago
  .. from the kernel.org maintainers, some distros / vendors offer longer support. But android vendors can update the kernel version too, eg once along with android major version upgrade and then stay on LTS updates only, adds up to more than 7 years.
rodarmor 5y ago
If this law comes into effect, consumers will pay the increased cost of delivery of 7 years of software updates when they purchase new phones. Smartphone makers don't sell new phones with a higher price tag and the guarantee of 7 years of software updates, likely because consumers would prefer a lower price and no guarantee. Thus, the law would effectively force people to buy something that they don't want.
- summm 5y ago
  You forgot to account for much higher resale values. After 2 years, you can resell your phone to someone who can still get 5 years out of it.
  - rodarmor 5y ago
    The fact that consumers don't want phones with 7 years of guaranteed updates (if they did, they would be willing to pay more for them, and smartphone makers would happily oblige) means that the impact on resale values would likely be small, or that consumers are unlikely to try to resell their phones.
Railsify 5y ago
Shouldn't be a problem if they quit releasing new models at the same rate they are now.
tlhunter 5y ago
Literally the only reason I stopped using my last two phones was that the security updates stopped streaming in. Even now they sit in a drawer, perfectly functional, abandoned by Google.
- e40 5y ago
  It's one of the reasons I moved from Google to Apple. iPhones 5-6 yrs old still supported. I always thought iPhones were too expensive, but I didn't take into account the upgrade cost every 2 yrs on Android.
  - elboru 5y ago
    Same here, I bought my first iPhone almost 4 years ago. It still works like the first day. I used to like constant change (installing different roms, customizing my phone, waiting for the next cool Android UI refresh, switching phones every 2 years etc). But as I get older I started to like consistency and the feeling of using my phone for years without thinking too much about updates and whether I would get them or not.
  - baq 5y ago
    same here. turns out an iphone 8 is a damn good phone today and I expect the new iphone se to be the TCO-wise budget choice.
  - opan 5y ago
    This seems backwards to me. You can still run modern Android versions on old phones like the OnePlus One thanks to LineageOS. There is no custom ROM scene for iOS devices.
    - fuzzy2 5y ago
      Except you cannot. The graphics driver of my Nexus 5 no longer receives updates. It is not compatible with newer Android versions. And… that's it. Just like that, no more updates. Less than two years after I bought it.
forinti 5y ago
You need to be able to replace your battery for a phone to last that long. It would be nice if manufacturers had to make them easily replaceable too.
- Slartie 5y ago
  There's a huge service infrastructure around phone repair and battery replacement nowadays. Not only can you go to the manufacturer and let them do it, but you also have a choice between lots of small phone repair shops, of which there are literally hundreds to be found in any bigger city on this planet. They are as ubiquitous as gas stations. This development has made non-user-replaceable batteries much more bearable.
CivBase 5y ago
At what point does it become cheaper for manufacturers to officially support alternative, third-party OSes (like LineageOS) than to commit to long-term support for Android?
dvdkon 5y ago
I'd rather let users install their own OS with minimal roadblocks (one click verification, no loss in functionality, standard low-level interface), seems to me like a more feasible and general option than forcing support of whatever ad-ridden rubbish manufacturers cook up these days.
- danuker 5y ago
  This is already the case for some manufacturers: see phones supported by LineageOS.[1] But the manufacturers are changing device drivers like the I change my socks. The community can't keep up. [1] - https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
  - dvdkon 5y ago
    Right now, there's just not enough people to keep up with all the phones, but with a standard bootloader interface (let's call it EUFI :P), a lot of that work could be made easier and we could have universal images like on the PC. Also, we can't expect the community to thrive when installing a custom OS on phones is relegated to die-hard enthusiasts by manufacturers who constantly make the experience worse. EDIT: Many of those phones also lose capabilities users might care about by unlocking: playing DRM'd media, using banking apps... That all inhibits OS customisation.
    - summm 5y ago
      The that authoritarian DRM crap and a banking bullshit has to stop. Why do they work on old vulnerable Android stock versions, but not on new Lineage os? Security is a dumb excuse here, it is all about exercising power over the user.
- jitix 5y ago
  I think the goal here is to keep the phone usable for longer than to offer flexibility for tech enthusiasts. Most people who use phones don't even know what an OS is.
  - 5y ago
cultofmetatron 5y ago
maybe instead make it easy for the user to load their own operating system. (and force hardware vendors to release specs and data that would enable open source drivers to be created without having to do reverse engineering). That way, good hardware can have a dedicated community.
ccouzens 5y ago
> 7 years of software updates I read this as requiring some software on the device to be updated every now and again for 7 years. I believe most Androids receive updates on the bundled Google apps for approximately that time period. The article isn't the proposed law, which probably has a more precise requirement. If it were me, I'd require software updates for devices with known vulnerabilities putting a typical user at risk. And software updates to allow for newer standards compatibility (eg TLS, WiFi protocols, API versions for apps) where typical users are likely to be impacted by not having the new version. I would start the 7 year countdown from the date that the device disappears from most shops (so exclude specialist eBay stores that allow enthusiasts to buy old devices).
andix 5y ago
They already have a similar law in place for car parts. Manufacturers have to supply them for 10 years. And also 3rd party garages have to be able to buy them. And compatible parts from another manufacturer are mostly legal (can't be protected by copyright). Extending something like this to software and security updates is a promising idea.
a9h74j 5y ago
This might be very naive, but I hope people developing Fuscia at Google bring in some ecological sense, and might find a way to naturally support phones and chromebooks well beyond a five-year point.
- google234123 5y ago
  I’m pretty sure they will support a stable driver API which will fix many of these issues.
  - summm 5y ago
    It will open new issues.Everything will be closed source and we are back to this windows 95 crappy driver situation.
    - google234123 5y ago
      What about the windows 10 good driver situation?
- summm 5y ago
  Fuchsias is just a way to not open source drivers and kernel modifications at all. So they can just willfully plan obsolescence without having to fear that any of those pesky hobbyist runs their own version that would circumvent those limitations.
the_third_wave 5y ago
Here's a "win-win" scheme which benefits both consumers as well as manufacturers/retailers without running up the costs for either: mandate the release of a device tree for all devices at least a year before the last vendor-supplied update so the users can migrate to any AOSP-derived distribution - LineageOS being the most well-known. The device tree should be complete, i.e. it needs to contain any needed drivers in either source (preferable) or blob form so the device will continue to be fully functional when used with a third-party distribution. Doing this will drastically increase the useable life span of devices by mostly removing software obsolescence as a factor. Hardware will still age, performance will eventually lag too far behind current devices but seeing as how I'm using several devices from around 2010 (Motorola Defy/Defy+) for specific tasks those 7 years can easily be extended without any additional cost to either vendor or consumer.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  Project treble should actually be really close to this, come to think of it. And I kind of think that that's theoretically supposed to be part of Google's certification process for Android, though I suspect there are caveats (ex. without unlocking the bootloader it doesn't help).
zxcvbn4038 5y ago
I love that they are closing all of the loopholes at the start - can’t raise the cost of the replacement parts over time, have to deliver them within a defined timeframe, etc. Combine that with meaningful penalties for non-compliance and I’m sure there are a lot of executives cursing. I’d love to see the same thing applied to lightbulbs - instead of throwing away the entire bulb because 1/n leds have failed, be able to replace the failed led. I’ve seen a number of YouTube videos where a guy tears down “burnt out” led bulbs and every time he’ll find a single led that is dead or dying and he’ll bypass it and the bulb works fine. However he usually destroys the plastic bulb piece getting it open - would be great if those screwed or snapped on.
marczellm 5y ago
I want seven years of warranty for computers and mobile devices and would be willing to pay a lot for it, but alas.
overgard 5y ago
I like this, but I think a reasonable alternative would be that for smart phones older than a certain age the manufacturer publish enough information for the creation of free drivers and software and unlocks for installing that software. One thing that makes me really sad is that I would probably be perfectly fine still using iPhone 5 era hardware if I had a free OS I could put on there with ongoing support. That's entirely reasonable in the desktop/laptop space so it strikes me as kinda sad that it seems non-existent in phones, when it's all just computers anyway.
- yourapostasy 5y ago
  I am a proponent of this idea, but I could never figure out how to address proprietary blobs and third-party entanglements. Even Apple with their massive vertical integration likely cannot fully open source an iPhone 5, as there are proprietary bits like certain chip driver's software API they've agreed to not divulge that are still in effect due to the nature of many legal agreements to grasp for indefinite terms in these matters.
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    If you're gonna have a law about open sourcing things, you just add a clause that says IP agreements after the lock-up term ends are null and void and unenforceable at law. You can have privacy (of your IP) or property rights, but state institutions will only help you enforce one, not both. Some people will argue that this will stifle innovation, because the manufacturers of the latest and greatest won't be incentivized to license their stuff. OK. Essentially I'm describing a bet on openness winning out over proprietary over time.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  The problem are the SoC that often have weird peripheral and drivers that require patched kernels (and often it's to interface with proprietary hardware that's under IP constrains).
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
bborud 5y ago
I would like a complete ban on sales of mobile phones and computers from companies that attempt to make it hard for independent repair shops to repair them. Spare parts, schematics and whatever tooling is required or GTFO.
whoomp12342 5y ago
Be careful what you wish for.... updates have bricked a few of my past phones
vzaliva 5y ago
While I am all for long-term support, as stated this law could be a little harh on manufacturers, forcing them to support multiple obsoletter models (we are talking iPhone 6 released 7 years ago). I think it would be reasonable to give them an opt-out by EITHER providing X years of support, or offering a shorter support period but with a discount on device upgrade calculated as percent from the original list price.
- summm 5y ago
  Then they just set the list price too high, always sell with a shrinking rebate, and it turns out that nothing changed in comparison to as so it is today. Nice idea...
  - vzaliva 5y ago
    In case of this law passing they will raise prices to cover costs for supporting old hardware. But I, perosnally change phones every 2 years becuse I like new techology and do not want to pay the price for supporting obsolte hardware which I do not use. Proposed law should balance benefits of people who want to use old hardware vs. ones who one to upgrade often.
    - trissi 5y ago
      This would probably increase resell value of your old devices so most of the cost would be returned if you resell your device.
ajmurmann 5y ago
How about enforce that vendors publish how long they will support the device and hold them to the promise. Consumers can then decide if they go with the vendor or device with the longer support timeline. If it's a real differentiator vendors will compete on support. I expect though that that won't happen because most consumers won't pay attention or simply don't care or need 7(!) years of support.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  I think consumers who care about upgrades are mostly aware that their iPhone will be supported 5 to 6 years, the low end android perhaps one or two year, and expensive androids perhaps 2 to 3 years. This market exists for more than a decade now, people have had the time to see how it works and how makers behave. It will be nice to always have official commitments (some makers already commit to timelines), but I don’t expect them to be different from the effective support time we already have.
guessbest 5y ago
Made the article better http://www.wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=3&music=4&url=www.xda-developers.com/germany-smartphone-makers-7-years-software-updates/ http://www.wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=...
morpheos137 5y ago
one thing I would love would be a mandate in the usa for cell carries to offer 20 years of service. We don't need 9g. Frankly 3g worked great for everything I needed and 4g works worse (spotty coverage, quicker battery drain). I can't see the point in 5g or beyond. I don't need to watch 4k videos on a 4 inch screen or whatever but I kind of would like to not have to upgrade a freaking cellphone every three years.
wiether 5y ago
With people buying more and more smartphone directly from China, will this have an impact ? Since July, you now have to pay customs & al on goods coming from outside the UE, which wasn't always the case before. But regarding those kind of requirements, would they apply since the seller is not located in Germany (or within the UE) ?
jordiburgos 5y ago
Germany and me too :)
spurgu 5y ago
Well (just reading the headline) I certainly wouldn't wanna be making a hobby device targeting the German market... sure if this only applies to companies who have been in business for X years and/or are selling Y+ devices.

718 points by underscore_ku 5y ago

dwighttk 5y ago

Seems like 7 years could be pretty brittle. Could there be a floor of user requests for update per month or something?

southerntofu 5y ago
Why? 7 years is a very limited duration, i would personally advocate for (at the very least) twice that, and not just for security updates but also for hardware warranty. It would push hardware manufacturers to produce good reliable hardware instead of 10 crappy new phones every year, and to partner with reliable systems developers/vendors instead of pushing their own broken-in-1000-ways Androids.
- ryan93 5y ago
  None of the governments business in the first place. 14 years would mean the original iphone is being updated. There would be like 4 people still using it.
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    At a certain point it's probably cheaper to give these people new phones then it is to update their software. (Ignoring the incentives this would create, of course)
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Certainly not from an environmental perspective, and i assume also not (though i don't have a study on the topic) from an economic perspective.
  - grumbel 5y ago
    The Playstation2 was produced for 13 years, Xbox360 for 11 years. The CPU I am having in my PC is 10 years old already as well. Long lifespan is not exactly impossible in tech. Also bringing up the original iPhone is a strawman, as that's not going to be supported by this law any more than it is today, newly released phones however are. And since technological progression has slowed down a lot in the last few years that really shouldn't be that hard.
    - postingawayonhn 5y ago
      People don't carry game consoles around in their pockets all day. The refresh cycle for phones is also much faster for a verity of reasons.
      - karteum 5y ago
        > People don't carry game consoles around in their pockets all day No, but most people also don't need SoCs which performance doubles every 2 years. If the software was properly written and optimised (which would be more common if the firmware developers expected the hardware to have a long lifespan), there would be no reason any phone manufactured in the last 7 years to be sluggish. Anyway most people just want their basic apps to work (e.g. phone, emails, whatsapp, agenda, hotel booking, photos, maps, chat, music player, etc.), none of which should require a very powerful CPU or tons of RAM...
        ryandrake 5y ago
        I'd also argue that lack of software support has got to be one of the primary reasons phones get refreshed at the rate they do. I keep my phones until the vendor stops shipping software updates. If today's iOS remained compatible with past devices, I'd probably still be using my iPhone 3. There's no reason it doesn't have to, either. Apple and other phone vendors deliberately choose to drop software support for hardware they consider "too old".
        postingawayonhn 5y ago
        I was referring to the physical wear and tear that a phone had to withstand compared to a game console.
  - darkwater 5y ago
    Indeed, but smartphone HW is much more mature nowadays and even the cheaper smartphone can do what most people need from a device like that. So, expecting a device released in 2021 to last 10 or even 15 years and still be useful it's not that weird (beside storage losing speed, maybe). 10 years for a device from 2012 OTOH would be completely impossible.
    - nbernard 5y ago
      > 10 years for a device from 2012 OTOH would be completely impossible. Why? My Nokia N9 is still my daily driver. Only the lack of software updates is making it less and less useful.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    Maybe more people would be using it if it was still supported?
- dwighttk 5y ago
  You must still dedicate developer time to devices that aren’t used seems like a bad law.

xqcgrek2 5y ago

Software updates should be indefinite, like Linux distros, which can still run on 15 year old hardware just fine. The future ought to be something like PinePhone (but with better hardware) that can be customized to run a variety of OS with consumables such as batteries easily user replaceable.

bootloop 5y ago
I would assume the reason why open Linux distros support 15 year old hw is because the OEM dropped support for it in the first place.
sto_hristo 5y ago
Yeah, that is definitely the ideal future. Problem is that it has to be a well organized entity behind this. The open source community is very fragmented and can't spawn a reliable product for the mass consumer in the way current companies can.
goohle 5y ago
Yes, but who will pay for that? More burden on maintainers -> less maintainers -> more burden on maintainers.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  If phone manufacturers stopped producing 10 models every year and focused on making a single robust one, they would have plenty of resources left for actual maintenance.
  - hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
    Sure, but they're in the business of selling as many phones as possible which means getting you to upgrade every so often. Unless they settle on a business model that allows them to make money from your old phone, I see this continuing.
    - 5y ago

Vespasian 5y ago

1. Security updates. No feature updates are required (Which is sensible in my opinion.) 2. The federal election happens later this month. Take this plan with a grain of salt. 3. The original article by heise.de mentions that the federal government will push these plans during negotiation of the EU wide laws. The government thinks that the plans of the commission do not go far enough. However it's unlikely that Germany will implement stricter rules on a national level.

tgv 5y ago
Sure, but Germany has a lot of clout in the EU, and this might be a good point for –just a random pick– a new chancellor to show his/her concern for the people. I'm almost sure the new German chancellor could get that done in EU record time.
- photon-torpedo 5y ago
  > to show his/her concern for the people While I'd be happy for this plan to go through, I don't think most of the people will be happy with the side effects. Especially because of the spare parts requirements, I guess manufacturers will 1) Withdraw from EU market. 2) Reduce number of models on offer. 3) Raise prices.
  - _ZeD_ 5y ago
    it's still better than the actual state of million of phones filled with "abandonware"
    - photon-torpedo 5y ago
      I agree it's better, just I doubt it'll be popular.
    - worldofmatthew 5y ago
      It would also mean poor people being unable to afford these devices.

simonh 5y ago

It's hard to see how this could be enforced meaningfully. After all, who gets to decide if the updates represent a reasonable effort at bug fixing and security patching? What's to stop a company throwing out rudimentary updates as a box ticking exercise? In some ways that could be worse by creating a superficial appearance that phones are up to date.

foepys 5y ago
How about "you didn't fix a known security flaw within 3 months, pay 10% of MSRP to all your customers"?
- simonh 5y ago
  Sounds wonderful, but the entire Android platform relies on patches from upstreams (Linux kernel devs, Google, device driver vendors. Numerous other open source projects that contribute critical components). Timelines like that simply aren't possible. It would kill Android stone dead.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    I upvoted because it's an actual concern, but don't agree with your point. Of course non-profit vendors should be excluded from such regulations, providing a best-effort solution. For other vendors, that would actually be a feature. It would incentivize hardware manufacturers to stop bundling bad/broken Androids with their hardware, open the bootloader and partner with serious free-software organizations who won't break your system or backdoor it. If you really want to roll out broken software for your customers and not give them a choice, pay up.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    Then the commercial upstreams will have to provide patches in time in order to still be able to sell their products downstream-wards. For the open source upstreams... I've heard they accept patches. If not, the source is open, the downstream vendors can fix that. They can even put together a pool, pay into it together, and use the pooled money to develop (and hopefully upstream) a patch...

nspattak 5y ago

It would be very nice if this happened. In my view, one other feasible good step would be to require companies to publish the source code of their phones, ie provide the option for people to download, compile and install the full sw stack. Like this even if manufacturers stop supporting their devices, people can step in and do it. At the very least it would make it easier to support devices than it currently is in third party ROMs

0-_-0 5y ago
I think that would be the ideal scenario.
gruez 5y ago
>In my view, one other feasible good step would be to require companies to publish the source code of their phones That is definitely not feasible. Vendors are very protective of their code. eg. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2019/08/2019-08-09-SenseTime-5.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2019/08/2019-08-0...
- thepangolino 5y ago
  Vendors can be as protective as they want, they can't go against the law of the land.
  - gruez 5y ago
    The point is that there will be a lot of pushback from vendors. Meanwhile I doubt even 5% of the electorate actually cares about this. For that reason I don't think it's really "feasible".
    - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
      >Meanwhile I doubt even 5% of the electorate actually cares about this. // Representational democracy is supposed to work around the problem of an uninformed electorate. The question should be "if a member of the electorate understood this situation well enough would they care", representatives are supposed to use subject experts to help them answer that question and then use their political expertise to implement laws that move us towards a solution. It's a big ask, and it doesn't work that well -- politicians often work at what will win them plaudits in the press (or what can be presented as a win, if they control the press), rather than actually doing their job. Fundamentally though "the electorate doesn't care" is the wrong measure, there are a million things the electorate don't care about but would care about if they had the situation presented to them fully ... we pay representatives and advisors so we don't have to care directly ... that's supposed to be how it works.

HumblyTossed 5y ago

iPhone 6s (not 6) level of performance and above is really enough for most people to do normal every day tasks (not gaming). People are going to be keeping their devices for longer lengths of time. Security updates for longer periods are essential.

klodolph 5y ago
However, not all phones are iPhone 6s. A Nexus 5X is almost seven years old at this point, but I found mine to be rather slow a few years back.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Android phones just hit the "good enough" point a few years later than the iPhone ecosystem. My Samsung S7 (2016) is roughly as fast as my 6S (I have both for developing, and they're both plenty fast enough for everyday usage).
  - postingawayonhn 5y ago
    I don't think consumers are that interested in processor speeds anymore. Cameras are probably the biggest selling point for new phones these days, followed by battery life and display quality.
    - shadilay 5y ago
      Except all the flagship phones regressed from 1440p to 1080p displays.
      - Dennip 5y ago
        They have gained things like high refresh rate and OLED etc, though
        shadilay 5y ago

annexrichmond 5y ago

I feel as though consumer protection hasn’t really caught up with technology and this is definitely a step in the right direction. But what if some software update “bricks” or regresses your device in some way? I’ve had video games even that have become unusable after software updates.

Ueland 5y ago
> But what if some software update “bricks” or regresses your device in some way? At least in Norway that causes you to get your device either fixed for free, or you get a new one. Any item you can expect to last at least five years, are covered. So for example, if you have a harddrive die after 4 years, you get a new one.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Does that law take into account abuse of the device? For example, if my SSD dies after 4 years because the NAND wore out from me writing terabytes a day, would I still be allowed a new one under the law?
Master_Odin 5y ago
But this can happen anyway during the "regular" support window. I had this happen to me ol years back and it made booting the phone go from a few seconds to minutes as it had to do something with each installed app. This eventually got me to put a custom ROM just so I could stop having this bug, all because the manufacturer (Samsung) stopped caring about it.

oytis 5y ago

I think both the market and now the legislators are pushing connected devices to a subscription model. It's just economically unrealistic to pay once for a 7 years long service.

jokoon 5y ago

I wonder how large would be the container with all the unused/expired smartphones.

Ensorceled 5y ago

The latest iOS supports 6 year old iPhones ... this law seems pretty reasonable give that a iPhone 6 is unsupported but is still a solid device. Just looking at the iPhone release list, I we should be doing something like full product support for at least 5 years, full software support for 7 years, security updates for 10 years (iPhone 5 and up).

internet2000 5y ago
Why are you moving the goalposts just because iPhones meet the potential requirements as they are?
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  You misread. GP specially says they think the law makes sense because currently an iPhone 6 isn’t supported but they feel it should be.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    And clearly could be! Apple just drew an arbitrary line at 6 years, 7 would be doable.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  Where am I “moving goal posts”? I’m saying the law is reasonable because clearly Apple could follow it and, hence, so could other manufacturers. Then said I’d go further.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Why Apple can provide such longer update is partially thanks to they adopt vertical integration model. It's not fair to just expand it for all manufacturers.
    - Ensorceled 5y ago
      Samsung is a $500B dollar company, Google is a trillion dollar company. I think they can manage. Everybody else can ride (Android) Google's coat tails.

marcodiego 5y ago

Better option: after the vendor stops support it, they should release the keys to unlock the bootloader. Specification and source code for drivers would be even better, but harder to get.

Tepix 5y ago
I don't see why this is a better option: If a vendor supplies bad security updates after six years, I can demand proper updates or perhaps my money back in return for my insecure device. If the software is open source i may not receive any updates regardless.
- marcodiego 5y ago
  > If the software is open source i may not receive any updates regardless If the software is open source, anybody can update it. I use a cellphone from 2012 whose manufacturer abandonned a few years after release. This year alone I got 2 updates for it because I'm running the e.foundation /e/ OS. This wouldn't be possible had AOSP not being open source or its bootloader was locked.

gumby 5y ago

I think these requirements are very reasonable and we have an existence proof that it is doable. I know that Apple supports its hardware for seven years in California (and not other US states as far as I know) due to state law. I can’t imagine other manufacturers are immune to this same law. I’m not holding Apple up to be some paragon of virtue, but it was easy for me to find what they write on the subject: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

aduitsis 5y ago
Oh! "Apple I" is considered obsolete :)
- gumby 5y ago
  Clear evidence the government needs to act.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Eh; it's slightly past 7 years old;)
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  ...and listed, like the Lisa, under "Mac desktops" for some reason. But aside their organization, the comprehensiveness of this list is actually quite satisfying:)
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    It's amazing just how many products are on that list. I wonder how many man-hours of development that represents.

viktorcode 5y ago

That would kill cheap smartphones.

pbhjpbhj 5y ago
Presumably you mean sales of cheap phones couldn't be supported as there would be less demand. So it seems like new sales would be hit but in favour of second hand phones? That seems like the right thing - more use of products that can be repaired and maintained for longer is good, right?
- worldofmatthew 5y ago
  Second hand phones are a shit-show, full of hidden costs (often at least new batteries and paying to check if it has been stolen) and people treat their phones like crap, meaning once the often one-month warrently you often get will not matter much once the phone starts bootlooping after three months from damage caused by the last owner.
  - morsch 5y ago
    Used goods sold by a business carry a 1 year (minimum) warranty in the EU.
    - worldofmatthew 5y ago
      Good luck proving that the last owner dropping the phone over and over caused the bootlooping and you would have to spend more than the cost of the device to take someone to court. Poor people de-facto don't have those legal rights, only what the seller is willing to allow.
      - morsch 5y ago
        If it happens in the first 6 months, you don't have to prove it, the seller has to prove you did something to cause the bootloop[1] (and it's usually not worth it to them). I've had good luck with warranty claims beyond the 6 month period, when sticking to reputable sellers. [1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/faq/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...

ho_schi 5y ago

Providing firmware-updates and spare-parts (especially batteries) should be a requirement for all-purpose-computers i.e. laptops and desktops. And also for smartphones with user replaceable operating-system. For devices which are only appliances (smartphones with boot-lock and worse) this also extends to the operating-system itself. This makes devices more expensive? The prices will be higher but the value you get also. I'm talking about companies which uses adhesive strips and unusual screws with tiny buckles (Apple - iPhones) or the ones which glue the display onto the baseboard (Google - Pixel). Or companies which used to provided user-replaceable batteries with notches, which now uses screws inside the device (okay!), but now also a firmware to ensure that the user won't get a replacement battery some years later (Lenovo - ThinkPad). Otherwise Lenovos ThinkPads are good example, step-by-step manuals, explosion diagrams, well maintained replacement-part numbers...and yes, more expensive.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> The prices will be higher but the value you get also. Not everyone values repairability.
- pjerem 5y ago
  Your statement is valid for individuals. But as a society, we could value reparability. And laws are there to enforce what the society values, not the selfish individuals you and me are part of.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    But we know society doesn’t value repairability as they don’t prefer repairable devices in practice.
    - shadilay 5y ago
      I as an individual hardly have a choice. If they offered a version of the next samsung phone with a removable battery I'd probably buy it.

steviedotboston 5y ago

Apple already does this

finchisko 5y ago

For me, the good compromise for start would be 3 devices per year per maker to have this prolonged support. Probably I'm native, but also wonder, why there is no single manufacturer that offers payed updates after product EOL. Like subscription service, canonical is offering after LTS release is EOL.

ncphil 5y ago
Because it is the phone manufacturers' suppliers, specifically the SoC manufacturers, who have created this mess for all the reasons previously stated upthread. Bright line regulations like those proposed (with some of the suggestions made here) would change that for the better.

Zigurd 5y ago

The Android world is full of finger pointing about why this is hard. SoC makers have crap BSP support and closed-source drivers. OEMs want to sell new phones (profit) instead of supporting old phones (pure cost). Google can't keep watches updateable despite dictating which SoC is used. Lots to complain about but no real excuses. This invites regulation.

webmobdev 5y ago

Some ideas I had for what a regulator can do to protect our consumer rights (including right to repair) on the software tech side: - All devices should come with unlocked bootloader. No exceptions. - OS updates should be mandated for a certain period. Especially security updates. - Standardisation: An open standard API for device drivers should be mandated for the hardware components used so that system developers can easily create support for any OS, and don't need to resort to reverse engineering. - Copyright restrictions on software code should be valid only for a certain period and become public domain (open source) after that. (It should definitely not be 75+ years of copyright that is currently mandated for films and books).

karteum 5y ago
> All devices should come with unlocked bootloader. No exceptions. Agree, but I would say it differently : users ought to be able to push their own keys while keeping the "secure boot" feature. e.g. "fastboot key push <key>"... > An open standard API for device drivers should be mandated You would also need to convince kernel devs to reconsider the "stable api nonsense" ideology... (https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/stable-api-nonsense.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/stable-api-no...)
ncphil 5y ago
Agreed on all your points, especially the last -- only I'd include a shorter patent term as well. If the phone is going to have an artificially limited life of 3 years, the 3 year term for both copyright and patent on its constituent parts (software and hardware) is more than reasonable: especially given that the whole purpose of copyright and patent is to build up the public domain commons for society's benefit.

sharmin123 5y ago

Website Hacking Techniques And What Are The Prevention Steps: https://www.hackerslist.co/website-hacking-techniques-and-what-are-the-prevention-steps/ https://www.hackerslist.co/website-hacking-techniques-and-wh...

_trampeltier 5y ago

I agree with just not complete with it. It is just important to keep the software actual / safe. Not new features, like Apple does it with full OS upgrade. Not to raise the price for 7 years for spare parts is BS and far from reality.

djoldman 5y ago

Anyone have details on how any of these required security updates will be forced to be anything more than an update to the version number? What's a "sufficient" update? I can imagine companies just updating whatever models they want to but the older model updates just being cosmetic to save costs.

Tepix 5y ago

The article mentions three and four year update cycles for some android devices. The "Android Enterprise Recommended" program provides "rugged devices" with five years of "90-day security updates". (see: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.android.com/en//static/2016/pdfs/enterprise/Android_Enterprise_Recommended_Datasheet_w_o_carrier.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.android.com/e... ) The Nokia XR20 is one of these devices, it was released in August 2021. However according to https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/security-updates https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/security-updates it is not guaranteed to receive security updates after August 2025. Something is wrong.

foxfluff 5y ago

For comparison, Linux LTS releases have up to around 6 years of support.

fulafel 5y ago
.. from the kernel.org maintainers, some distros / vendors offer longer support. But android vendors can update the kernel version too, eg once along with android major version upgrade and then stay on LTS updates only, adds up to more than 7 years.

rodarmor 5y ago

If this law comes into effect, consumers will pay the increased cost of delivery of 7 years of software updates when they purchase new phones. Smartphone makers don't sell new phones with a higher price tag and the guarantee of 7 years of software updates, likely because consumers would prefer a lower price and no guarantee. Thus, the law would effectively force people to buy something that they don't want.

summm 5y ago
You forgot to account for much higher resale values. After 2 years, you can resell your phone to someone who can still get 5 years out of it.
- rodarmor 5y ago
  The fact that consumers don't want phones with 7 years of guaranteed updates (if they did, they would be willing to pay more for them, and smartphone makers would happily oblige) means that the impact on resale values would likely be small, or that consumers are unlikely to try to resell their phones.

Railsify 5y ago

Shouldn't be a problem if they quit releasing new models at the same rate they are now.

tlhunter 5y ago

Literally the only reason I stopped using my last two phones was that the security updates stopped streaming in. Even now they sit in a drawer, perfectly functional, abandoned by Google.

e40 5y ago
It's one of the reasons I moved from Google to Apple. iPhones 5-6 yrs old still supported. I always thought iPhones were too expensive, but I didn't take into account the upgrade cost every 2 yrs on Android.
- elboru 5y ago
  Same here, I bought my first iPhone almost 4 years ago. It still works like the first day. I used to like constant change (installing different roms, customizing my phone, waiting for the next cool Android UI refresh, switching phones every 2 years etc). But as I get older I started to like consistency and the feeling of using my phone for years without thinking too much about updates and whether I would get them or not.
- baq 5y ago
  same here. turns out an iphone 8 is a damn good phone today and I expect the new iphone se to be the TCO-wise budget choice.
- opan 5y ago
  This seems backwards to me. You can still run modern Android versions on old phones like the OnePlus One thanks to LineageOS. There is no custom ROM scene for iOS devices.
  - fuzzy2 5y ago
    Except you cannot. The graphics driver of my Nexus 5 no longer receives updates. It is not compatible with newer Android versions. And… that's it. Just like that, no more updates. Less than two years after I bought it.

forinti 5y ago

You need to be able to replace your battery for a phone to last that long. It would be nice if manufacturers had to make them easily replaceable too.

Slartie 5y ago
There's a huge service infrastructure around phone repair and battery replacement nowadays. Not only can you go to the manufacturer and let them do it, but you also have a choice between lots of small phone repair shops, of which there are literally hundreds to be found in any bigger city on this planet. They are as ubiquitous as gas stations. This development has made non-user-replaceable batteries much more bearable.

CivBase 5y ago

At what point does it become cheaper for manufacturers to officially support alternative, third-party OSes (like LineageOS) than to commit to long-term support for Android?

dvdkon 5y ago

I'd rather let users install their own OS with minimal roadblocks (one click verification, no loss in functionality, standard low-level interface), seems to me like a more feasible and general option than forcing support of whatever ad-ridden rubbish manufacturers cook up these days.

danuker 5y ago
This is already the case for some manufacturers: see phones supported by LineageOS.[1] But the manufacturers are changing device drivers like the I change my socks. The community can't keep up. [1] - https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
- dvdkon 5y ago
  Right now, there's just not enough people to keep up with all the phones, but with a standard bootloader interface (let's call it EUFI :P), a lot of that work could be made easier and we could have universal images like on the PC. Also, we can't expect the community to thrive when installing a custom OS on phones is relegated to die-hard enthusiasts by manufacturers who constantly make the experience worse. EDIT: Many of those phones also lose capabilities users might care about by unlocking: playing DRM'd media, using banking apps... That all inhibits OS customisation.
  - summm 5y ago
    The that authoritarian DRM crap and a banking bullshit has to stop. Why do they work on old vulnerable Android stock versions, but not on new Lineage os? Security is a dumb excuse here, it is all about exercising power over the user.
jitix 5y ago
I think the goal here is to keep the phone usable for longer than to offer flexibility for tech enthusiasts. Most people who use phones don't even know what an OS is.
- 5y ago

cultofmetatron 5y ago

maybe instead make it easy for the user to load their own operating system. (and force hardware vendors to release specs and data that would enable open source drivers to be created without having to do reverse engineering). That way, good hardware can have a dedicated community.

ccouzens 5y ago

> 7 years of software updates I read this as requiring some software on the device to be updated every now and again for 7 years. I believe most Androids receive updates on the bundled Google apps for approximately that time period. The article isn't the proposed law, which probably has a more precise requirement. If it were me, I'd require software updates for devices with known vulnerabilities putting a typical user at risk. And software updates to allow for newer standards compatibility (eg TLS, WiFi protocols, API versions for apps) where typical users are likely to be impacted by not having the new version. I would start the 7 year countdown from the date that the device disappears from most shops (so exclude specialist eBay stores that allow enthusiasts to buy old devices).

andix 5y ago

They already have a similar law in place for car parts. Manufacturers have to supply them for 10 years. And also 3rd party garages have to be able to buy them. And compatible parts from another manufacturer are mostly legal (can't be protected by copyright). Extending something like this to software and security updates is a promising idea.

a9h74j 5y ago

This might be very naive, but I hope people developing Fuscia at Google bring in some ecological sense, and might find a way to naturally support phones and chromebooks well beyond a five-year point.

google234123 5y ago
I’m pretty sure they will support a stable driver API which will fix many of these issues.
- summm 5y ago
  It will open new issues.Everything will be closed source and we are back to this windows 95 crappy driver situation.
  - google234123 5y ago
    What about the windows 10 good driver situation?
summm 5y ago
Fuchsias is just a way to not open source drivers and kernel modifications at all. So they can just willfully plan obsolescence without having to fear that any of those pesky hobbyist runs their own version that would circumvent those limitations.

the_third_wave 5y ago

Here's a "win-win" scheme which benefits both consumers as well as manufacturers/retailers without running up the costs for either: mandate the release of a device tree for all devices at least a year before the last vendor-supplied update so the users can migrate to any AOSP-derived distribution - LineageOS being the most well-known. The device tree should be complete, i.e. it needs to contain any needed drivers in either source (preferable) or blob form so the device will continue to be fully functional when used with a third-party distribution. Doing this will drastically increase the useable life span of devices by mostly removing software obsolescence as a factor. Hardware will still age, performance will eventually lag too far behind current devices but seeing as how I'm using several devices from around 2010 (Motorola Defy/Defy+) for specific tasks those 7 years can easily be extended without any additional cost to either vendor or consumer.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Project treble should actually be really close to this, come to think of it. And I kind of think that that's theoretically supposed to be part of Google's certification process for Android, though I suspect there are caveats (ex. without unlocking the bootloader it doesn't help).

zxcvbn4038 5y ago

I love that they are closing all of the loopholes at the start - can’t raise the cost of the replacement parts over time, have to deliver them within a defined timeframe, etc. Combine that with meaningful penalties for non-compliance and I’m sure there are a lot of executives cursing. I’d love to see the same thing applied to lightbulbs - instead of throwing away the entire bulb because 1/n leds have failed, be able to replace the failed led. I’ve seen a number of YouTube videos where a guy tears down “burnt out” led bulbs and every time he’ll find a single led that is dead or dying and he’ll bypass it and the bulb works fine. However he usually destroys the plastic bulb piece getting it open - would be great if those screwed or snapped on.

marczellm 5y ago

I want seven years of warranty for computers and mobile devices and would be willing to pay a lot for it, but alas.

overgard 5y ago

I like this, but I think a reasonable alternative would be that for smart phones older than a certain age the manufacturer publish enough information for the creation of free drivers and software and unlocks for installing that software. One thing that makes me really sad is that I would probably be perfectly fine still using iPhone 5 era hardware if I had a free OS I could put on there with ongoing support. That's entirely reasonable in the desktop/laptop space so it strikes me as kinda sad that it seems non-existent in phones, when it's all just computers anyway.

yourapostasy 5y ago
I am a proponent of this idea, but I could never figure out how to address proprietary blobs and third-party entanglements. Even Apple with their massive vertical integration likely cannot fully open source an iPhone 5, as there are proprietary bits like certain chip driver's software API they've agreed to not divulge that are still in effect due to the nature of many legal agreements to grasp for indefinite terms in these matters.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  If you're gonna have a law about open sourcing things, you just add a clause that says IP agreements after the lock-up term ends are null and void and unenforceable at law. You can have privacy (of your IP) or property rights, but state institutions will only help you enforce one, not both. Some people will argue that this will stifle innovation, because the manufacturers of the latest and greatest won't be incentivized to license their stuff. OK. Essentially I'm describing a bet on openness winning out over proprietary over time.
908B64B197 5y ago
The problem are the SoC that often have weird peripheral and drivers that require patched kernels (and often it's to interface with proprietary hardware that's under IP constrains).
- R0b0t1 5y ago

bborud 5y ago

I would like a complete ban on sales of mobile phones and computers from companies that attempt to make it hard for independent repair shops to repair them. Spare parts, schematics and whatever tooling is required or GTFO.

whoomp12342 5y ago

Be careful what you wish for.... updates have bricked a few of my past phones

vzaliva 5y ago

While I am all for long-term support, as stated this law could be a little harh on manufacturers, forcing them to support multiple obsoletter models (we are talking iPhone 6 released 7 years ago). I think it would be reasonable to give them an opt-out by EITHER providing X years of support, or offering a shorter support period but with a discount on device upgrade calculated as percent from the original list price.

summm 5y ago
Then they just set the list price too high, always sell with a shrinking rebate, and it turns out that nothing changed in comparison to as so it is today. Nice idea...
- vzaliva 5y ago
  In case of this law passing they will raise prices to cover costs for supporting old hardware. But I, perosnally change phones every 2 years becuse I like new techology and do not want to pay the price for supporting obsolte hardware which I do not use. Proposed law should balance benefits of people who want to use old hardware vs. ones who one to upgrade often.
  - trissi 5y ago
    This would probably increase resell value of your old devices so most of the cost would be returned if you resell your device.

ajmurmann 5y ago

How about enforce that vendors publish how long they will support the device and hold them to the promise. Consumers can then decide if they go with the vendor or device with the longer support timeline. If it's a real differentiator vendors will compete on support. I expect though that that won't happen because most consumers won't pay attention or simply don't care or need 7(!) years of support.

makeitdouble 5y ago
I think consumers who care about upgrades are mostly aware that their iPhone will be supported 5 to 6 years, the low end android perhaps one or two year, and expensive androids perhaps 2 to 3 years. This market exists for more than a decade now, people have had the time to see how it works and how makers behave. It will be nice to always have official commitments (some makers already commit to timelines), but I don’t expect them to be different from the effective support time we already have.

guessbest 5y ago

Made the article better http://www.wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=3&music=4&url=www.xda-developers.com/germany-smartphone-makers-7-years-software-updates/ http://www.wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=...

morpheos137 5y ago

one thing I would love would be a mandate in the usa for cell carries to offer 20 years of service. We don't need 9g. Frankly 3g worked great for everything I needed and 4g works worse (spotty coverage, quicker battery drain). I can't see the point in 5g or beyond. I don't need to watch 4k videos on a 4 inch screen or whatever but I kind of would like to not have to upgrade a freaking cellphone every three years.

wiether 5y ago

With people buying more and more smartphone directly from China, will this have an impact ? Since July, you now have to pay customs & al on goods coming from outside the UE, which wasn't always the case before. But regarding those kind of requirements, would they apply since the seller is not located in Germany (or within the UE) ?

jordiburgos 5y ago

Germany and me too :)

spurgu 5y ago

Well (just reading the headline) I certainly wouldn't wanna be making a hobby device targeting the German market... sure if this only applies to companies who have been in business for X years and/or are selling Y+ devices.