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If in October 2013 you bought a just released Google Nexus 5, you would have had official updates until December 2016. At the end of support, you could have the

by DCKing 5y ago

If in October 2013 you bought a just released Google Nexus 5, you would have had official updates until December 2016. At the end of support, you could have then bought the recent Google Pixel (1). And you would have had official updates until December 2019. A little over 6 years out of two devices is as good as it gets on Android, at least it's as good as it got in the mid-late 2010s. If in October 2013 you bought a just released iPhone 5S, you would have had official updates until - apparently - June 2021. Three months ago. Assuming that was really the last security update to iOS 12. An official Apple device has received one and a half year's worth more updates than two official Google devices put together. The difference between Android support and iOS support is insane. It's easy to point out that you'd probably need to get your battery fixed at least once to make a 5S last that long, and in 2021 it won't be any fun to use. The people that want to make things last have had the option though, and that's what's important. And with Moore's Law being dead and buried, it's going to be a lot easier to get things to last, too.

b9a2cab5 5y ago
If you bought a Nexus 5X or 6P, your device eventually bricked itself due to overheating literally melting the solder connections between the CPU and mainboard. Software support isn't the only thing Android vendors are skimping out on.
- 93po 5y ago
  I had 6P issues and it was replaced for free with an upgraded phone, even outside warranty period
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    >As time went on, many began to experience bootloops and random shutdowns, including myself. If you happened to order the Nexus 6P from the Google Store, you might have gotten lucky and been given a replacement Pixel phone. However, for many of us, we were simply left with a brick of a useless phone with no resolve. https://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-6p-owners-eligible-400-huawei-and-google-class-action-settlement https://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-6p-owners-eligible-400-...
jiggawatts 5y ago
I have a lot of older relatives that love the "hand-me-downs" of older iPhones and other i-gadgets. They're not power users, they just want to FaceTime with their grandkids and take photos of the flowers they grew in their yard. This is one reason I pay the Apple premium: as a family, we get a lot more mileage out of the devices. Also, I don't have to stress about security, because I know they will be protected by updates and cloud backup for years and years to come.
beagle3 5y ago
My daughter inherited my 4S from 10 years ago that was sitting in the drawer for 6 years now since I got my 6s (the week it came out, oct 2015). She’s bot yet 12. The 4S never had a screen or battery change. It’s battery doesn’t last long with YouTube or video calls, but if charged at night and used for emails and voice calls, will last the whole day. It is perfectly usable, can do FaceTime etc. We will need to replace it soon, though. Her school buddies all use WhatsApp which is no longer supported on iOS 9 (the latest on 4S). I wouldn’t let her use it much longer for lack of security updates. The hardware - and even battery - are still usable at 10 years. Almost pleasant, even. Best form factor ever.
briffle 5y ago
This is litterally 1 of the 2 reasons I went from a pixel (3XL) to an iphone. that and not having to mail in my phone, and wait a week for it to come back. that was completely frustrating and silly.
nebula8804 5y ago
>If in October 2013 you bought a just released Google Nexus 5, you would have had official updates until December 2016. Wait a second are you sure about that? The last official version released was 6.0.1 which was released in October of 2015. I remember this because the Nexus 5 was the phone that finally sealed the deal for me in leaving the Android ecosystem for good. These "engineers" on the Android team did not QA their software so when I upgraded to 4.4.4, it broke the camera such that every video I recorded had messed up garbled audio. It totally ruined a special eurotrip where I had taken tons of video. I guess it was my mistake for trusting Google enough to update right before the trip started. Anyway seeing that there is a section on Wikipedia devoted to all the hardware/software issues of the Pixel line, I think I made a wise choice to stop wasting my time with this ecosystem. Went to a used iPhone 5S and ended up using that phone for 5 years. Was the best phone I ever owned.
- DCKing 5y ago
  > Wait a second are you sure about that? I am not, as I didn't own the device (I did own a Nexus 4 around this time). I'm going by Google's available factory images [1]. [0] https://developers.google.com/android/images#hammerhead https://developers.google.com/android/images#hammerhead
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    So those seem like backported security updates. This is different from iOS where they receive the full OS system update, including new features (unless a required piece of hardware is missing, ie. Force Touch)
    - DCKing 5y ago
      To be fair to Google and Apple, the iPhone 5S has also only had security updates since 2018. They did add contact tracing features, but so did Google through the Play Store.
      - nebula8804 5y ago
Shad0w59 5y ago
I've replaced my iPhone 6s Plus battery 3 times since 2015, it continues to be my main daily driver. The cost of a new battery is around 10 bucks and some patience to install it.
red369 5y ago
While I agree completely with the idea, I have trouble deciding how secure the 5S should be considered. I couldn’t find anywhere Apple state the level of support, and it seems to receive some security patches but not others. Did the June update patch all known vulnerabilities at that point? Is it now insecure again since it did not receive a patch for ForcedEntry? The 6S/SE might be better examples? iOS 15 is now available on both.
ewzimm 5y ago
It's ironic that unofficial builds have been able to support these devices so much longer than their makers. LineageOS has done great things. And Amazon has shown that longer support is possible. The Kindle Fire HDX, released on September 25, 2013, and still somehow their best tablet, received its last security update on November 3, 2020.
- DCKing 5y ago
  Here’s the thing with unofficial Android upgrades: they don’t have complete coverage in their security updates. LineageOS and Amazon can’t generally provide security updates for older chips. Only Qualcomm can compile new kernels for the Snapdragon 800, say. And Qualcomm stops giving you updates after four years (recent change: it used to be the three). The updates LineageOS and Amazon and anyone else provides are updates to Android’s open source components. That’s all great - but they’re not complete security updates, and driver issues are a big vector.
  - ewzimm 5y ago
    This is true, and Qualcomm vulnerabilities have been some of the worst. This makes Google’s shift to custom silicon exciting if they’ll commit to long-term support. We should start thinking of the value of phones in terms of cost per supported year.

by DCKing 5y ago

b9a2cab5 5y ago

If you bought a Nexus 5X or 6P, your device eventually bricked itself due to overheating literally melting the solder connections between the CPU and mainboard. Software support isn't the only thing Android vendors are skimping out on.

93po 5y ago
I had 6P issues and it was replaced for free with an upgraded phone, even outside warranty period
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  >As time went on, many began to experience bootloops and random shutdowns, including myself. If you happened to order the Nexus 6P from the Google Store, you might have gotten lucky and been given a replacement Pixel phone. However, for many of us, we were simply left with a brick of a useless phone with no resolve. https://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-6p-owners-eligible-400-huawei-and-google-class-action-settlement https://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-6p-owners-eligible-400-...

jiggawatts 5y ago

I have a lot of older relatives that love the "hand-me-downs" of older iPhones and other i-gadgets. They're not power users, they just want to FaceTime with their grandkids and take photos of the flowers they grew in their yard. This is one reason I pay the Apple premium: as a family, we get a lot more mileage out of the devices. Also, I don't have to stress about security, because I know they will be protected by updates and cloud backup for years and years to come.

beagle3 5y ago

My daughter inherited my 4S from 10 years ago that was sitting in the drawer for 6 years now since I got my 6s (the week it came out, oct 2015). She’s bot yet 12. The 4S never had a screen or battery change. It’s battery doesn’t last long with YouTube or video calls, but if charged at night and used for emails and voice calls, will last the whole day. It is perfectly usable, can do FaceTime etc. We will need to replace it soon, though. Her school buddies all use WhatsApp which is no longer supported on iOS 9 (the latest on 4S). I wouldn’t let her use it much longer for lack of security updates. The hardware - and even battery - are still usable at 10 years. Almost pleasant, even. Best form factor ever.

briffle 5y ago

This is litterally 1 of the 2 reasons I went from a pixel (3XL) to an iphone. that and not having to mail in my phone, and wait a week for it to come back. that was completely frustrating and silly.

nebula8804 5y ago

>If in October 2013 you bought a just released Google Nexus 5, you would have had official updates until December 2016. Wait a second are you sure about that? The last official version released was 6.0.1 which was released in October of 2015. I remember this because the Nexus 5 was the phone that finally sealed the deal for me in leaving the Android ecosystem for good. These "engineers" on the Android team did not QA their software so when I upgraded to 4.4.4, it broke the camera such that every video I recorded had messed up garbled audio. It totally ruined a special eurotrip where I had taken tons of video. I guess it was my mistake for trusting Google enough to update right before the trip started. Anyway seeing that there is a section on Wikipedia devoted to all the hardware/software issues of the Pixel line, I think I made a wise choice to stop wasting my time with this ecosystem. Went to a used iPhone 5S and ended up using that phone for 5 years. Was the best phone I ever owned.

DCKing 5y ago
> Wait a second are you sure about that? I am not, as I didn't own the device (I did own a Nexus 4 around this time). I'm going by Google's available factory images [1]. [0] https://developers.google.com/android/images#hammerhead https://developers.google.com/android/images#hammerhead
- nebula8804 5y ago
  So those seem like backported security updates. This is different from iOS where they receive the full OS system update, including new features (unless a required piece of hardware is missing, ie. Force Touch)
  - DCKing 5y ago
    To be fair to Google and Apple, the iPhone 5S has also only had security updates since 2018. They did add contact tracing features, but so did Google through the Play Store.
    - nebula8804 5y ago

Shad0w59 5y ago

I've replaced my iPhone 6s Plus battery 3 times since 2015, it continues to be my main daily driver. The cost of a new battery is around 10 bucks and some patience to install it.

red369 5y ago

While I agree completely with the idea, I have trouble deciding how secure the 5S should be considered. I couldn’t find anywhere Apple state the level of support, and it seems to receive some security patches but not others. Did the June update patch all known vulnerabilities at that point? Is it now insecure again since it did not receive a patch for ForcedEntry? The 6S/SE might be better examples? iOS 15 is now available on both.

ewzimm 5y ago

It's ironic that unofficial builds have been able to support these devices so much longer than their makers. LineageOS has done great things. And Amazon has shown that longer support is possible. The Kindle Fire HDX, released on September 25, 2013, and still somehow their best tablet, received its last security update on November 3, 2020.

DCKing 5y ago
Here’s the thing with unofficial Android upgrades: they don’t have complete coverage in their security updates. LineageOS and Amazon can’t generally provide security updates for older chips. Only Qualcomm can compile new kernels for the Snapdragon 800, say. And Qualcomm stops giving you updates after four years (recent change: it used to be the three). The updates LineageOS and Amazon and anyone else provides are updates to Android’s open source components. That’s all great - but they’re not complete security updates, and driver issues are a big vector.
- ewzimm 5y ago
  This is true, and Qualcomm vulnerabilities have been some of the worst. This makes Google’s shift to custom silicon exciting if they’ll commit to long-term support. We should start thinking of the value of phones in terms of cost per supported year.