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Google Is Forcing Me to Dump a Perfectly Good Phone

• farzher 5y ago
  ok boomer. maybe ask your kid to install a custom rom for you since you can't figure it out
• fernowens 5y ago
  After all, it's just business for them. This is why I also transferred to iPhones because of this one.
• MerelyMortal 5y ago
  The author is dumping his Pixel 3 and seems to be very concerned about wasting hardware. If only he knew about CalyxOS: > If you have a Pixel 3 or newer, you can install CalyxOS on your own device. https://calyxos.org https://calyxos.org
  • petre 5y ago
    Plus countless other options which all work for Pixel devices. It's why I bought Google hardware, to install a custom ROM.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • Aissen 5y ago
    CalyxOS won't update the multiple binary blobs (drivers, firmwares) on your phone, so no that wouldn't change much to the article.
  • nr2x 5y ago
    Knowing about ROM flashing and being able to do it or wanting to spend the time on it are very different things. The author specifically says they want their phone to be a reliable appliance. I do not think they have the appetite for reflashing the ROM, nor should a consumer be required to do so. ----- This is from the website, this is not something an average person should attempt: Open a terminal on your host computer, change to the directory where you saved device-flasher, and then run: shasum -a 256 device-flasher.darwin And ensure the result says 04b4cf9912d853e0f108b42a756fd74db7a11cc6c951e05820e96d28ce56e543.
    • zucked 5y ago
      Furthermore - should the user succeed in flashing CalyxOS, they will inevitably be faced at one point with something about their device that doesn't work quite right. Maybe it's tied to Google Play Services (and the g-apps shim that Calyx supports) or a banking app that won't pass the security checks and thusly, won't open. I've not run Calyx myself, but those are issues I've personally experienced with other ROMs. If the author just wants a phone that works, this isn't the best option. I find the "is forcing me to.." a bit hyperbolic, but their point stands.
      • nr2x 5y ago
        And you also void the warranty...
  • danuker 5y ago
    Funny how third-parties offer updates for free, where Google will not. I guess it's part of how Google makes money.
• wanderingmind 5y ago
  I'm amazed that Lineage OS still supports Pixel 1 while Google can't provide support and updates for Pixel 3. Google just doesn't care about long term support which makes business sense since most people want to upgrade phones in 2-3 years. However it is completely antithetical to themselves calling an environmentally responsible company.
• Snuupy 5y ago
  One possible solution is to flash a custom ROM.
  • tablespoon 5y ago
    > One possible solution is to flash a custom ROM. Honestly, that's way too much trouble to actually be a solution. Custom ROMs should be a hobbyist thing for people who want to spend their time tinkering with their phone, not a way to support a not-very-old device.
    • MerelyMortal 5y ago
      That sounds like what someone could say about Linux: ~ Linux should be a hobbyist thing for people who want to spend their time tinkering with their computer, not a way to support a not-very-old device. ~ Whether it comes to phones or computers, I disagree respectively when it comes to custom ROMs or Linux.
      • tablespoon 5y ago
        > That sounds like what someone could say about Linux: So? The problem is both Linux and a Custom ROM take a few orders of magnitude more technical skill and effort to install and maintain, which is completely unreasonable to expect from a typical non-hobbyist retail technology user. Such users should be able to click "update" on their system, get up-to-date with patches, so they can go on to do what really want to do (which probably isn't "maintain their technology"). I'm even someone who's capable of doing that, but I don't want to because I've got much better and more important things do with my time now.
        • ecdouvhr 5y ago
          Installing Linux is often far easier than installing Windows nowadays, and multiple distributions offer long-time support. It's an excellent way of getting more life out of semi-old systems.
• totalZero 5y ago
  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had a Nexus 6P and after that experience I promised myself that I will never buy a Google hardware device ever again. The company has the wrong mentality regarding its handsets and how to take care of the customers who buy them.
  • joelthelion 5y ago
    Other hardware companies tend to have even worse update policies...
  • jjkmk 5y ago
    It's hit or miss, I have had a number of Nexus and Pixel devices and haven't had any issues.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • akamaka 5y ago
    The last time I bought a Google-branded phone, they cut support after only 18 months. I’ll never buy a Google hardware product ever again.
    • duffyjp 5y ago
      I bought an LG G7 from Google Fi, and it was exactly 18 months from the phone's release to when they stopped updating it. I didn't buy it on day one either, so I got even less. I vowed that was the last e-waste phone I'm buying and moved to an iPhone last year. There are still a lot of things I like better on Android, but it's not worth it.
      • emptyparadise 5y ago
        This is in large part due to poor luck and changing phones a lot, but I managed to use Android for around 4 years without ever receiving an over the air system update.
• secondcoming 5y ago
  I was eventually forced to upgrade my iPad because the YouTube app stopped working due to a required update that was unavailable for my device. Several others such as banking apps stopped working before that. Before that I had to ditch my otherwise perfectly fine OnePlus phone for similar reasons. I went with a Nokia because they promised several years of Android updates, so we'll see how that pans out. Quite annoying.
  • foobarian 5y ago
    You know, I am so bummed Microsoft gave up on a mobile OS. I feel by this time they would've been be a real refreshing alternative to the <expletive>show we have right now.
  • zibzab 5y ago
    At this point the only safe bet is S-series Samsung which are part of their enterprise program. Nokia wad okay-ish for a while but I don't think I would buy one today.
  • null_object 5y ago
    > I was eventually forced to upgrade my iPad because the YouTube app stopped working due to a required update that was unavailable for my device Which iPad is this? I’m running YouTube Premium on an iPad Air from 2013 - soon 9 years old.
    • secondcoming 5y ago
      iPad 4 I think (model MD514LL/A)
• oxymoran 5y ago
  It was always a security risk because google has always been spying on you…nobody is forcing you to buy android phones.
  • pdpi 5y ago
    This is not a helpful attitude. I have plenty of issues with Google's posture on privacy, but I don't expect them to steal credentials for other services, drain my bank account, blackmail me based on personal information, or any such thing. Conflating the two removes a lot of much needed nuance from the discussion.
    • 8note 5y ago
      I believe that a bad actor within google could do those things.
      • pdpi 5y ago
        "A bad actor within the manufacturer" and "the manufacturer itself" are entirely different threats. There's no particular reason why Google would be more exposed to that sort of bad apple than Apple, or any other provider.
  • ajkdhcb2 5y ago
    You say this like there's an alternative. Closed source iOS that scans all your messages for CSAM? Ironically I hated financially supporting Google but felt I had no choice but to get a Pixel to use GrapheneOS and have 5 years of security updates
• solidrake 5y ago
  How long should they provide software updates for? 3-years? 5-years? 10-years? What would be an acceptable cut off date for providing updates? I wouldn't expect companies to provide updates for their old hardware forever, but what would be an acceptable date that will benefit both consumers and the company itself.
  • criddell 5y ago
    What I want is for them to commit to supporting a device for some number of years after it's introduced so I know what to expect when I buy one. It should be one of the things manufacturers compete on.
    • renewiltord 5y ago
      https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en#zippy= https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en#z...
    • WolfRazu 5y ago
      Google commited to five years of security updates for the Pixel 6. It was one of their big selling points for the device. https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en-GB#zippy=%2Cpixel-and-pixel-pro-phones https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en-G...
  • zwieback 5y ago
    Right, that's the calculation any consumer good producing company has to do. When we buy industrial equipment we pay a huge markup for vendor promises that they'll support for 10+ years. It's painful at the time but we have automated manufacturing equipment that's been running 20+ years. When I purchase controllers, sensors, motors, etc. it cost me double or triple what I could have paid but now I'm happy I did. But I also know that our products (PCs and printers) can't have that same support model, we'd be out of business and we don't have a lucrative ad business that could buy us customer loyalty via loss leaders. I think 5-8 years is reasonable.
  • akamaka 5y ago
• sigmar 5y ago
  >Unless you routinely destroy your phone within two or three years, there’s no justification from a sustainability perspective to keep using Android phones. Of course, Apple is only good by comparison, as it also manufactures devices that are difficult to repair with an artificially short shelf life. It just happens to have a longer shelf life than Google. Most of the iPhone users I see are using a phone they purchased within the past three years. Does the average iPhone get used for longer than the average Pixel?
  • nickthegreek 5y ago
    Yes, because that old iphone is handed down to a kid or sold to someone else. The android resale market was trash last I looked. I still have family using iPhone 7 pluses but the battery is showing wear (but thats pretty cheap to replace).
  • whacim 5y ago
    I think iPhones get 6-7 years of support. I believe the new Pixel 6's are up to 5 years.
    • zibzab 5y ago
      Note that that 6-7 year "support" includes updates that will make you hate your phone.
      • null_object 5y ago
        > Note that that 6-7 year "support" includes updates that will make you hate your phone My kid is still using an iPhone 6s and loves it. It works perfectly.
      • dont__panic 5y ago
        Sure, back in the iPhone 4/4S days iOS 7 trashed older phones. Unusably bad. Should never have rolled out those UI updates if they couldn't perform well on older hardware. These days? I'm using a 2016 SE with iOS 15. Works great. I do not hate my phone. In fact, the small size, fingerprint sensor, and headphone jack make it a better buy than any modern smartphone. I can live without AI text recognition on my photos, which seems to be limited to newer phones. The app switcher, settings, browser, and everything else are still as snappy as the day I bought this thing. Only thing that doesn't run well? Spotify, which apparently doesn't bother to test their UI on small hardware (constantly clips links and text off the bottom of my screen), nor older CPUs (the app takes forever to start up, regularly freezes up when searching for songs, and can take anywhere from 1 second to 30 seconds to load even already downloaded albums). So uh... good on Apple. Shame on Spotify.
• ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  If it has software, it's not your property, and since software is everywhere, your right to private property is gone. You can't eacape this, now even batteries refuse to work without a software update. https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/1484961343916494852?t=p4Q-W0zYu9se7sd5rWt3ow&s=19 https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/148496134391649485...
  • danuker 5y ago
    > You can't escape this You can. Use a "dumb"phone. Funny how "dumb"phones are better at reliability. No need for updates, and battery lasts for more than a week. Funny how they still offer replaceable batteries, even though they cost a fraction of "smart"phones. To avoid financing the software-planned-obsolescence empire, you can use a combination of cheap second-hand "smart"phones for maps and chat apps that are important for you, and a dumb phone for reliable stuff like alarms, calls, and SMS.
    • fabioborellini 5y ago
      Now when dumb phones also have internet connectivity, is this really sound advice? Having no updates only means that vulnerabilities are not getting fixed. Since 4G connectivity and WhatsApp have become the minimum requirement for the bulk of the market, dumb phones have become Linux pcs with always-on internet, too.
    • ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      Oh, you mean the ones that come with spyware preinstalled? https://www.zdnet.com/article/unremovable-malware-found-preinstalled-on-low-end-smartphone-sold-in-the-us/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/unremovable-malware-found-prei... It is irrelevant if they have a touchscreen or are 'cheap second hand', it has a processor and it runs software. You want dumb phones, use analogue ones that plug into a socket with a rotary dial and use a paper map for navigation.
      • heurisko 5y ago
        I doubt the restyled Nokia 3310 comes with spyware https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-3310 https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-3310
• Kique 5y ago
  As a current Pixel 3 user, I think this article is slightly hyperbolic. The phone still works great other than a worse battery, definitely not "garbage". The author is making it sound like the phone stops working. But then again I still use Windows 7 which also doesn't have security updates.
  • Aissen 5y ago
    It's not hyperbolic, your security profile and risk aversion is just different from the author's.
    • neogodless 5y ago
      > forcing me That's a bit hyperbolic. Your point stands, otherwise.
      • singlow 5y ago
        Its not hyperbolic. I wrote the policy for my company's phone policy. If an employee wants to access any company resources from their personal phone (optional) they must submit to a phone audit. The audit is a checklist of security best practices including verifying that the phone is receiving security updates for the OS. So if they need a phone for work, they either upgrade to a newer phone or carry a second phone with security updates for work purposes. Either way they have to get a new phone. What else would a company do? You can't just have employees storing credentials for company accounts on a device that is likely to get pwned. Personally I don't see how anyone could justify having an out-of-date phone. Assuming you have it configured to read your email, it becomes a gateway to every account you own, which can have its password reset over email. MFA might help as long as that MFA isn't an app on your phone. But most websites don't support hardware security keys. If you care enough to have a dedicated TOTP device, then why would you want a phone with no security updates? This use of "forcing" does not require bricking the phone. Creating a situation where the only reasonable choice is to upgrade the hardware qualifies as "forcing" in my opinion. The phone is no longer capable of performing the job for which it was designed in a safe way.
      • 5y ago
• tablespoon 5y ago
  Honestly, Google needs really needs to do better. Samsung has raised the bar by supporting its devices with 4 years of patches: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295639/samsung-galaxy-device-2019-four-years-security-updates https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295639/samsung-galaxy-d.... And frankly, how hard/expensive would it be to support these devices for far longer? Google is a massive company, and I see little reason why that can't employ a team of devs backporting patches to older phones. Current versions of Windows and Linux run happily on decades-old hardware, so a phone should at least be able to get patches for known security issues for a decade. Dev resources would be far better spent on this than yet another hamfisted attempt to build a messenger app that they'll kill in a couple years anyway.
  • Hokusai 5y ago
    The problem is usually complexity and opportunity cost. Once you have a team that can keep Android patched, someone at Google is going to use them to speed up another product or create a new one. Why not add another team more? First, the situation will repeat itself, other needs would be prioritized higher. And there is a limit on the number of teams an organization can manage without non-linear manager cost increase. Linux runs on old hardware because big corporations own old hardware and are willing to pay to not have to replace it. Replacing a phone is a cost for the individual owner. And my experience with company phones is that they are seen as a retention perk. So newer flashier phones are worth the cost, it could be different in other industries, thou. One common solution to these problems is regulation. The government forces phone makers to patch the software for X years. Now there is a strong incentive to do so if the phone makers want to continue operating in that market.
    • SilasX 5y ago
      A lot of those costs go down with good interface design and interoperability.
    • nouveaux 5y ago
      > The problem is usually complexity and opportunity cost. > Once you have a team that can keep Android patched, someone at Google is going to use them to speed up another product or create a new one. Apple is still supporting phones made in 2016. Given Google size and profit margin, it is a business choice.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• sylware 5y ago
• newfonewhodis 5y ago
  I kept my OG Pixel for 5 years and had the battery replaced twice (2.5 years and ~4 years in). It worked fine until the last moment when it just died on me (like, absolutely bricked). I stopped getting software updates after 3 years but the hardware continued to be very capable until the very end. The battery was expected to degrade after some time, and the phone didn't feel as snappy with modern apps, but it was perfectly fine as a phone. I'm now on a Pixel 5 and expect to go through something similar. It is absurd to me that people switch phones every 2-3 years (or even annually).
• M2Ys4U 5y ago
  I just bought a new phone because OnePlus just stopped supporting my 6T which was released in November 2018, so for all intents and purposes 3 years ago as well. It was (well, is, I'm still using it while I await its replacement) a perfectly good phone aside from some wear on the USB-C port which I would have had serviced had this not happened. Frankly, if manufacturers aren't willing to continue to offer support for these devices they should just stop making phones.
• taspeotis 5y ago
  iPhone 5S First released September 20, 2013; 8 years ago Operating system iOS 12.5.5, released September 23, 2021 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5S https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5S
• ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  I think it's time someone ask if Google's vaunted claims about being carbon neutral count all of the Android and Chromebook hardware that Google forces consumers to discard due to their poor support lifecycle. I think they hide the sheer environmental waste tsunami behind third party manufacturing. (tbh, this might be a good area to kill two birds with one law/stone: Force companies to account in their environmental impact for decisions which drop product support. Dropping updates from a hardware model then is weighted by the carbon cost of all of them in use. As governments turn the screws on environmental regulations, this may also help product support lifecycles and more long-lived products.)
  • a9h74j 5y ago
    First part there I was suggesting two years ago. Very glad to see this as almost common sentiment in the thread today. Still hoping that Fuscia will have some advantages in legacy support, but personally not buying any Android phone.
• danuker 5y ago
  Funny how LineageOS can afford to support the Pixel 3, while Google can not. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#google https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#google
  • CoolGuySteve 5y ago
    Yeah supposedly, but I wasn't able to buy a used Pixel 3 that wasn't boot locked. I tried 4 of them, all were locked by the carrier. Should be illegal imo to stop supporting a phone that's also locked. All it does is generate waste.
  • boudin 5y ago
    I do use Lineage base OSes and I'm really thanksfull to its contributors allowing me to extend the life of my devices for years, but there is still a tradeoff in term of security, the firmware blobs which are closed source cannot be updated so those do not receive any security update. Unfortunately, there's not much that can be done about that without forcing manufacturer to open source those blobs or maintain their hardware for longer periods of time.
• intrasight 5y ago
  Two thoughts: 1. Just get a new phone every two years. Sell or donate the old one. It's not being "dumped". Or keep as your backup phone. 2. As the owner of a 2004 Volvo who will soon be looking for a new car, should I be concerned that the same issues will soon plague cars? Have they already?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • nsp 5y ago
    for 2. Yes to some degree, at least in terms of degraded functionality It's happened in the past with built in navigation systems where the manufacturer stops releasing updated dvds with new maps, and recently with the retiring of the 2G/edge cellular network - https://www.thedrive.com/tech/43187/how-the-3g-shutdown-in-2022-could-screw-your-car https://www.thedrive.com/tech/43187/how-the-3g-shutdown-in-2...
• julianlam 5y ago
  Doesn't Google publish the images for their phone, making it easier to load custom ROMs? https://www.androidauthority.com/unlock-pixel-3-bootloader-915961/ https://www.androidauthority.com/unlock-pixel-3-bootloader-9... Then https://lineageosroms.com/blueline/ https://lineageosroms.com/blueline/ Done, now your phone will be supported damn near forever. ---- I get that Google themselves should be supporting their phones for longer. I completely agree. I just can at least say that they've given you the tools to still use the phone after the updates stop. That's a damn sight better than other manufacturers... e.g. Nokia 6, the bootloader is locked, and I had to pay some kid in some random country to unlock it for me with his reverse engineered tool. So no, I give Google a lot of shit about their behaviour, but phone updates? Could be longer but I won't hold them to it.
  • celsoazevedo 5y ago
    > lineageosroms[.]com While that site links to official LineageOS builds, that's not the official LineageOS website. - https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/ - https://download.lineageos.org/blueline https://download.lineageos.org/blueline
    • julianlam 5y ago
      Thanks, I just quickly googled on my phone. Appreciate the correction as I can no longer edit the comment. By the way, I really like your Google Camera ports! Keep up the good work.
  • CoolGuySteve 5y ago
    I bought 4 used Pixel 3 devices and all were bootloader locked by the carrier. Verizon refuses to unlock Pixel 3 devices if you don't have an account with them.
• United857 5y ago
  Perhaps for an end user, but from a developer POV, the Pixels are some of the most developer friendly Android devices -- very easily rooted, little unnecessary bloatware by default compared to the likes of Samsung, Huawei etc.
  • MiddleEndian 5y ago
    It's always funny to me that companies pay developers to make worse versions of Android instead of just not doing that. Although obviously it's to force in some unremoveable shovelware.
• sulam 5y ago
  Google has actually started extending its security update policy for its hardware to 5 years. I don't know what "enough" is, but as someone who has to do these updates (ironically, for Fitbit devices, yes we are owned by Google now) I will say that continuing to ship updates for products you shipped 5 years ago is far from trivial. It forces you to develop in ways that are not natural for people that work with hardware (the natural thing is to branch per product, but good luck managing that if you need to land a security fix on the 15 or so products we shipped in the last 5 years). This is manageable now that we're owned by Google, but prior to the acquisition it was a serious drain on my team. And folks on my team would tell you that they don't love it even today -- having to support 5-yr old MCUs when you're trying to keep your BOM down can be very challenging, especially managing available memory.
  • bradfa 5y ago
    Google has generally supported Chromebooks for about 6 years and just recently seem to have started extending that duration to about 8 years. Some recent Chromebook launches have support through 2029. https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en If Google can do this for Chromebooks, most of which aren't even designed by Google (although usually based off reference designs), clearly they can also do this for the actual phones they make and sell under the Pixel brand. And Chromebooks span quite a wide variety of hardware capabilities, from school-targeted low cost models with eMMC and <4GB RAM all the way up to devices with NVMe and gobs of RAM on cutting edge CPUs from a variety of manufacturers, both ARM and x86.
    • BakeInBeens 5y ago
      Chrome OS is proprietary (Chromium OS is not) and it also cannot be modified by any manufacturer. Every chromebook manufactured also is developed with Google being aware so that the chipset and underlying hardware can be supported. It's quite a different licensing model than Android and that's most likely why giving eight years of updates was much easier.
      • 5y ago
• ng12 5y ago
  I recently switched to an iPhone 12 for this reason. It's been almost a year and I still hate iOS. It's significantly dumber than Android and has some truly baffling UX choices. However, the phone is undeniably better than any Android phone I've ever used so I can't convince myself to switch back.
  • drewg123 5y ago
    I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. I used nothing but Nexus and Pixel and finally switched to an iPhone 11 Pro from my Pixel 2 in 2020 and I have the same opinion. The phone itself is so much better, but the UX is so bizarre and full of what seems like "its this way because its always been this way" stuff. Almost every day I go to change a setting, and have to choose between the "Settings" app, or the app itself. It still irritates me that I can't assign a specific sound to an app. So now when I get a generic notification sound I have to check my phone to see if its urgent (food delivery) or trivial (twitter), because Apple forces both of those apps to sound the same.
    • dublinben 5y ago
      Why do you even have "trivial" notifications like Twitter making a sound? You can allow only truly "urgent" apps to make sounds, so there's no confusion.
      • drewg123 5y ago
        I have a friend who sometimes likes to contact me via twitter rather than SMS. Those messages are not urgent, but I do want to know about them. The other annoying issue is multiple urgent apps, but one is sending spammy notifications regarding promos. So if they all have the same sound, I don't know if that's my instacart melting on my porch, or grubhub annoying me with a promo. (which I just disabled).
    • post-it 5y ago
      > So now when I get a generic notification sound I have to check my phone to see if its urgent (food delivery) or trivial (twitter), because Apple forces both of those apps to sound the same. It's not ideal, but I've disabled sounds + banner and lockscreen notifications for almost all of my apps, allowing them to only display notifications in the notification centre. It lets me check trivial notifications when I want instead of being interrupted by them.
• jmnicolas 5y ago
  > “We find that three years of security and OS updates still provides users with a great experience for their device.” What about the 4th year? It's ludicrous to throw a perfectly functioning thing to buy a new one just because the gazillion dollar company behind it needs to make even more money without regard to the environment (oh but rest assured the next version will be 5% greener ... yeah right). My Pixel 4 XL will be EOLed at the end of the year (bought it in January 2020) and I'm torn between security and wastefulness.
  • all2 5y ago
    There are several aftermarket OSs that work on the Pixel 4. LineageOS is one of those. You might consider going that route if you want to sustain your hardware. This makes me wonder if there's a market for "save my phone", where you send your cellphone in and have a new OS installed...
    • jmnicolas 5y ago
      But are they secure though? AFAIK Google doesn't support the Pixels longer because Qualcom doesn't offer security updates for its chips.
      • all2 5y ago
        Does that happen at the firmware level or the driver level? It seems Qualcomm devices are pretty actively developed in the Linux kernel? I found Linaro, which claims to be doing work on Qualcomm devices: https://www.linaro.org/blog/highlights-from-linaro-connect-on-qualcomm-technologies-and-open-source-software/ https://www.linaro.org/blog/highlights-from-linaro-connect-o...
• mynameisash 5y ago
  Not that having another big player would solve the problem, but I do wish we at least had Microsoft still in the game as a foil against Google and Apple. In lieu of that, it's still on my very long to-do list to figure out how to flash my Android phone to finish extricating myself from the Google ecosystem. One of these days...
• spoonjim 5y ago
  There should be a federal law of a tax for non-user-serviceable batteries and a requirement to support devices with security updates for 20 years.
  • ejj28 5y ago
    20 years is very extreme. It's not realistic for anyone to support 20 year old hardware.
    • gkbrk 5y ago
      For most devices, supporting a device indefinitely is just a matter of letting the user flash their own firmware or replace the existing one using an SD card. Using your devices for a long time is not possible not due to the difficulty of the community maintaining the software, but because the original company put user-hostile signature checks on the firmware.
    • spoonjim 5y ago
      It’s not realistic because tech companies have conditioned us into that expectation. My dad has a 40 year old high end sound system which works flawlessly. Why can’t Google maintain some servers and push some fixes for 20 years?
• alyandon 5y ago
  My Pixel 2 will be the last Google phone I own. I really shouldn't continue using it but since I take excellent care of my electronics it works just as well as the day I bought it so I'm reluctant to ditch it until it actually develops problems. It's going to be far more cost effective for me to move to an iPhone and I never thought I'd ever say something like that non-ironically.
  • polishdude20 5y ago
    I use a pixel 2 as well, what sort of iPhone are you thinking? I'd like something as small as the pixel 2.
    • waterproof 5y ago
      I just switched from my pixel 2 to a hand-me-down iPhone 11 Pro for exactly this reason. Initially I installed LineageOS on my Pixel 2 but then you can't relock the bootloader, leaving the device completely exposed in the case of a physical attack. I was skeptical of the iOS transition but it was pretty easy and I will probably never go back.
      • alyandon 5y ago
        As much as I dislike the Apple walled garden, everything I actually care about has a native iOS application. I can use one of the cheap Android tablets I have lying around for anything else.
    • alyandon 5y ago
      My Pixel 2 screen (5" diagonal) is actually a bit small for me and a slight step down from the Nexus 5X I had previously. Given that, I'd probably go for an iPhone model has a slightly larger screen.
  • treelovinhippie 5y ago
• mfer 5y ago
  > In 2021, an estimated of 57.4 Mt of E-waste was generated globally [1] This is an increase over 2019 and before. The way things are designed and companies drive for profits on electronic things leads to more and more e-waste. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste#E-waste_data_2021 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste#E-waste_data_...
• captn3m0 5y ago
  I wrote a thread[0] on Pixel 3 (trying to convince Google to extend the support) a few months before it went EoL[3] (Oct '21). Here's the important bits: - 10M+ Pixel 3 devices that were sold worldwide - 72% of Pixel 3's estimated lifecycle emissions are from its manufacturing[1]. Using your phone is _not the source of most of the emissions during a phone's lifecycle_. - It has gotten worse over time, but Google hasn't offered better guaranttes. Pixel 5's emissions-over-lifetime are 30% higher than that of Pixel 3. The alleged reason Google can't offer support beyond 3 years is because of Google's dependence on Qualcomm for the support[2]. Apparently Qualcomm asks for a ridiculous amount of money to support any chip beyond a measly 2-3 years. Apple gets away with it by building their own chips, and Pixel 6 is guaranteed to be supported for 5 years as a result. However, the fact that Google - one of the world's richest corporation can't convince or pay Qualcomm to support a perfectly functional device in 2022 is astonishing. [0]: https://twitter.com/captn3m0/status/1427908406086553601 https://twitter.com/captn3m0/status/1427908406086553601 [1]: https://storage.googleapis.com/mannequin/sustainability/reports-2018/Sustainability_PrintReport_Pixel3.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/mannequin/sustainability/repo... [2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/the-fairphone-2-hits-five-years-of-updates-with-some-help-from-lineageos/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/the-fairphone-2-hits... [3]: https://endoflife.date/pixel https://endoflife.date/pixel
  • WithinReason 5y ago
    Wasn't Project Treble supposed to reduce Google's dependency on Qualcomm updating their drivers? https://www.xda-developers.com/list-android-devices-project-treble-support/ https://www.xda-developers.com/list-android-devices-project-...
    • captn3m0 5y ago
      The OP covers this in the article: > I’ve bought too many Android phones over the years believing Google when they say they’ve figured out how to be better with updates, whether it was the Google Play Store promise or the Android One promise or “Project Treble.” None of it has mattered. It’s too little, too late from Google. which links to https://www.theverge.com/22881882/android-12-google-pixel-6-pro-bugs-oneplus-oxygenos-12-samsung-one-ui-4-update https://www.theverge.com/22881882/android-12-google-pixel-6-..., which says: > By its nature, Android is a fragmented ecosystem. There’s no straight line from Android 12 to the Galaxy S21 or OnePlus 9 — every major update sees handoffs between the manufacturer, carriers, and Google, all of which result in delays. Initiatives like Project Treble seem to have helped speed up some parts of the process, but unless Google takes some drastic actions, nobody can completely fix the problem. Case in point, Treble came out in 2017, one year before Pixel 3. Didn't help.
• ballenf 5y ago
  Regulation to require jailbreaking any device that reaches EOL or support would be welcome.
  • thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Google's phones aren't locked - they're already 'jailbroken' when they're new. What would that regulation accomplish here?
• shadowgovt 5y ago
  Is the Pixel 3 outside the standard window for EOL, or is a 3-year lifecycle par for the course?
• curiousgal 5y ago
  I'm surprised no mentioned what an absolute shitshow Android 12 is. Getting "stuck" on Android 11 is a blessing. I regret updgrading from my Pixel 5 to the 6.
• mindslight 5y ago
  The entire mobile ecosystem is an insecure exploitative dumpster fire. People are way too willing to trust it, because companies spend billions of dollars on advertising to push it. But ultimately you should do the least amount of computing possible with it, and favor traditional user-representing PC operating systems that have been developed over decades. > Installing security updates is the one basic thing everyone needs to do for their own digital security This is only true to the extent that you trust a device. My phone is way down on my trust DAG. When I setup services for it to access (eg rsync or CalDAV), I basically consider it an attacker. It is a herolte that stopped receiving microG/Lineage updates, but continues working alright for my purposes. Would it bother me if a drive by attacker got ad hoc access to my occasional usage? Of course. But they're nowhere near positioned to exploit my information as much as the Advanced Persistent Threats that the phone shipped with would have! Furthermore most exploits are going to require interaction, so if you aren't browsing websites on the phone then staying patched matters even less. Of course you have to avoid giving in to the massive temptation of the surveillance industry pushing you to do all these things in your phone. They do this precisely because it is one of the least secure environments and thus they can better exploit you - you're not particularly thinking about opsec when you're relaxing on the couch. But alas the upgrade treadmill still marches on and it looks like I will have to upgrade that phone if I keep wanting native voice, due to the looming AT&T 4G deprecation. Although I'm tempted to just keep on using it with VOIP-over-data because the less money going to that fetid ecosystem the better.
• frouge 5y ago
  Guys, we're all frequent readers of HN here and it's pretty clear Google is not a company that we can trust. Data privacy, product stoppage, advertisement collusion, their search engine becoming an ad engine, obsolescence, monopoly, we're talking about a company that collects huge fines every 6 months. There is nothing good in Google World, so please, let's all change the world together and stop using the services of inhuman companies.
  • ajkdhcb2 5y ago
    Viable, better alternatives need to be built before that is possible
    • frouge 5y ago
      There are many alternatives available for Google products but you gotta to look for them and take time to switch, it sure ain't easy but we gotta do it.
• paxys 5y ago
  It's bizarre that a company like Google doesn't realize that supporting older devices actually helps them in the long term. Apple has the most dedicated customer base in the world who will gladly upgrade all their devices every year or two, yet even 6-8 year old iPhones and iPads regularly get software updates. This increases the value of Apple devices across the board and sustains a very large resale marketplace. This means more people are coming into the Apple ecosystem at the low end and eventually working their way up. If I know that my $900 purchase is going to be worthless in 2-3 years, why will I even bother?
  • YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
    I dropped my iPhone 11 and the screen got destroyed send it out for repair and picked up my old iPhone SE from 2016. Updated it to iOS 15.2 and it trucked along without problems until the replacement was here. Amazing. (I have to admit I got the battery changed when they had the free battery exchange program running).
    • timeon 5y ago
      Heh iPhone SE from 2016 is what I still use. Not sure why is it considered as something old.
      • Otek 5y ago
        Screen? Camera? Speed? Battery? I get that it is enough for you, and that's great, but let's not try to fool anyone that 6yo phone is a little bit old for most users in 2022. Edit: Apple is dropping support for 2016 SE this year, so let's just not recommend it to anyone right now ;)
        • slices 5y ago
          If the screen, camera, and speed were good enough in 2016, what's changed to make them not good enough now? (rhetorical question) As for battery, it's a lot cheaper & less wasteful to replace the battery than to get a whole new phone.
• c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  Where is the f'ing legislation forcing these companies to provide software updates for a number of years? The e-waste this kind of abandonment creates is unimaginable. I'm so frustrated that my government continues to do jack shit about issues like this that really matter and instead tries to ban encryption every six months.
  • fundad 5y ago
    filibustered
  • j0ba 5y ago
    Honestly I doubt congresspeople worry too much about the price of buying a new phone.
  • oezi 5y ago
    European union is working on legislation that manufacturers must declare lifespan of product for consumer to make a informed choice. Plus there is talk about 5 to 7 years of security updates being required to sell in Europe. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/06/germany-eu-require-7-years-iphone-updates/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/06/germany-eu-require-7-ye...
  • foolfoolz 5y ago
    the government should not legislate software updates. no one is forcing you to buy a google phone
    • Markoff 5y ago
      agreed, though they could put on phones some stickers like energy stickers depending on how many years the phone will be suitable to warn you to not buy red phone and rather go with green phone receiving updates for longer
• mips_avatar 5y ago
  Say what you will about Microsoft, but Windows support is designed to last a long time.
  • boznz 5y ago
    windows phone?
• trwhite 5y ago
  Unrelated, but I think the latest Android update is ghastly and I have no way of changing back to how it looked before. I'm all for progressive design but some of the new UI changes (for example the clock app which I use every day) make it way less usable for me.
• JohnTHaller 5y ago
  LineageOS supports the Google Pixel 3 with LineageOS 18.1 (aka Android 11). It's definitely worth giving this a shot and you can revert to the standard Google release if you'd like. Word of warning on Verizon devices, though. If you bought from Verizon, they generally place an OEM lock on it. So, the device is "unlocked" in terms of carrier, but locked in terms of OS. Don't buy Pixels from Verizon. How To: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/blueline/install https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/blueline/install Download: https://download.lineageos.org/blueline https://download.lineageos.org/blueline
  • Liquix 5y ago
    grapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org https://grapheneos.org) also still supports the Pixel 3, albeit in legacy/sunset phase now
  • waterproof 5y ago
    I did this on my Pixel 2, but unless I’m mistaken you have to unlock the boot loader to do it, leaving your device completely unsecured if someone has physical access to it. I gave up and got a phone from a manufacturer who provides true 6+ year security support. I was surprised to find that iPhone was essentially the only option.
    • unknown2374 5y ago
      Try out https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/, their support is exclusive to Pixels, but without compromising security.
    • contravariant 5y ago
      In what sense is it completely unsecured? As far as I can tell the data partition at least is protected and installing another OS should require wiping this partition. I mean given unfettered physical access someone could conceivably install malicious hard/software in it which might spy on you in other ways, but it takes some very strict security requirements for that to be an issue.
    • Markoff 5y ago
• nix23 5y ago
  Here you vice crybabys: https://download.lineageos.org/blueline https://download.lineageos.org/blueline
• _bfhp 5y ago
  Nothing will change until a large scale/large target hack or until ecology activists can successfully get photos of huge piles of e-waste in front of people. Needing to trash your phone every 5 years is still ridiculously wasteful. Just stop making so many new phones. Regulate it so it's so illegal/expensive that they can't keep doing this. I can't even stop using smartphones if I wanted to, because the people who came up with 2FA decided to make the Authenticator App a mandatory part of modern life, instead of physical security keys like they should have.
  • prosody 5y ago
    If you didn't already know, the standard OTP schemes used in many systems have desktop and hardware security token implementations. Doesn't help with systems that use non-standard schemes unfortunately.
    • _bfhp 5y ago
      I think the culture the issue... I could be wrong but it seems like a lot of companies ask new employees to use their Authenticator phone app for Google login, VPNs, SSO etc and if you want to use your hardware key you have to seek out a dev-ops person to configure it special for you. The majority of the 2FA settings I've seen for popular platforms (e.g. Twitch) don't let you use keys or you have to dig for it.
• sdoering 5y ago
  Call me an idiot, but for corporate work stuff I am still using my 2XL that hasn't received updates in a long time. As this is company provided hardware I actually just don't care to switch to a Samsung (as the company only offers these if I do not want to pay additional money - and why would I for a company provided phone) The phone still lasts longer than a day, I can use it to read my mails, see appointments, use slack, ms teams and use it as a 2nd factor to access corporate stuff. It just works. I don't see me throwing it out if I am not forced by It because of security reasons (but I actually doubt they care as long as they can install corporate spyware on these devices). Why would I trash the ressources that went into making of this thing, as long as it does what it should?
• throw10920 5y ago
  Everyone always talks about how, with Google's free web services, "you get what you pay for" - however, Google's hardware division seems to be aspiring to reach that same quality standard as the rest of the company: > In response to an email asking Google why it stopped supporting the Pixel 3, a Googles spokesperson said, “We find that three years of security and OS updates still provides users with a great experience for their device.”
• _57jb 5y ago
  How long though? This is the painful economics of technology. I think a more pointed argument is the relationship the software, hardware, and consumer has in this. As consumers we really can only vote with our purchasing and much of it is mired in learning by induction what we do/don't want. The walled garden and immense control of iOS is great until it isn't. The open landscape and diversity of Android is great until it isn't. The hardware manufacture and telecoms are an added pain in the mobile ecosystem. They want a hook into getting advertising in front of you so some of this hardware is subsidized through bloatware and system level apps that can't be removed. I have an Amazon Prime app that I cannot uninstall (only hide) because it is a system app!?! Hardware manufacturing is a loss at the start of the sale and supporting it is an added cost. The economics of the system are problematic and going to iOS will only work long enough until it doesn't. Point I'm making is the problem is upstream.
• ChrisArchitect 5y ago
  this is a long article about a weird flex. The device is still very much usable for majority daily usage and until hardware starts to go shouldn't be tossed out or even feelings of pressure to ditch it. Weird. Have had old Nexuses, Moto Gs etc lying around in case something goes wrong with current device and they're all still very usable even if the OS is a few versions back. Any regular apps still work and have their own security built in via SSL, passwords, 2FA, whatever, which is enough for the average user. Overreacting. And as mentioned numerous times they've been slowly improving the commitment to longer device updates etc! The technology is more suited to it/not as fast-moving as previous years.
• iqanq 5y ago
  This is what happens when you don't buy an iPhone.
• hughrr 5y ago
  This is why I buy iPhones. My mother has my old 2015 iPhone 6s. It runs latest iOS 15. Got a new battery at an apple store in under an hour mid last year. Looks like it just came out of the box. It’s over 6 years old now.
• MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
• postalrat 5y ago
  How about expecting at least 1 year of service for every $150 in the price of the phone.
• ccouzens 5y ago
  I think about phone updates as layers in a stack. At the lowest level of the stack we have software written in literal ROM. As such, it can't be updated without switching out the hardware. For an example of a vulnerability here search for "iPhone Checkm8". No doubt there are examples in the Android ecosystem too. Next layer up there are operating system updates. Unfortunately these are hard to compare across ecosystems as the scope of what an operating system is is poorly defined. Things like the web browser, HTLM rendering engine and SMS app are part of the iOS operating system. But on Android they're just apps and are updated the same as any other app. At the top of the stack we have app updates. Knowing what might contain known unpatched vulnerabilities helps me determine my risk and behaviours to combat it. For example I may not be comfortable running disreputable apps on an unpatched operating system. But on the same phone I may not worry about visiting websites as the browser is up to date. Personally I use web apps as much as possible and native apps as little as possible, so most of the security issues that affect old phones don't concern me.
• dataexporter 5y ago
  Its not just Google. All the network providers in America are pushing forced consumption down consumer throats by giving a deadline for upgrading their phones - beyond which it would stop working. I have two perfectly working (though a little older) phones - OnePlus 3 and a Galaxy S6 Edge. From February both these phones will not work with my phone carrier. I am aware that these are older phones and don't receive security patches etc, however I was perfectly fine using them and didn't have any issues with it. Too concerned about the consumerist lifestyle that is forced by this capitalist economy instead of providing updates/upgrades to their user till the phone's full life.
• AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  It's too bad ubuntu's and firefox's UIs for phones died. Maybe it is time for linux to stop obsessing over PCs and move to mobile. But given how badly they continue to screw up desktop Linux with balkanization and failed support of settings and other things... well, maybe it's an opportunity to do it right, but I doubt it. But the need is there. You'd thing there would be a company to do this. Maybe now that hardware in phones is somewhat stabilized, a competing long term support OS company will appear. It probably is a lot of grunt work and labor, so it won't scale and SV won't fund it.
• ubermonkey 5y ago
  My god, I'd heard that Android support over time was not great, but 3 years? That's really, really short. I'm a gadget nut, so for a long time I got a new phone every 18-24 months -- and for most of that time, the year over year gains on phones were sufficient to justify the upgrade, at least for some users. But we're in a more mature market now. YoY updates on phones are pretty incremental. I kept my iPhone 8 for about 3 years before handing it off to my wife (who, lest you think me a jerk, absolutely DID NOT WANT to spend the money on a new phone for her), who then used it for almost 2 more years. The phone I replaced it with is an 11Pro. I expect to get AT LEAST 3 years out of it. (What finally tempted me out of the 8 was the camera, which I assume is a common story no matter which kind of phone you like -- they got a LOT better between 2016 and 2019.) Pixels are high-end Android handsets, right? I would have assumed that they'd have similar useful lives; I don't blame Android folks for being up in arms, because sunsetting a 3 year old handset is just BANANAS.
  • Markoff 5y ago
    no, Pixels are not high end Android phones, upper midrangers at best usually, nowhere close to Samsung/Xiaomi high end, heck they even use years old cameras without upgrade
    • ubermonkey 5y ago
      I guess given Google's position within the Android world I expected their phones to be upper-end. Thanks for the correction. Does Samsung provide a longer support life?
      • Markoff 5y ago
        4 years software, 5 years security, but I think it was definitely less at least for software, they just improved it https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-galaxy-4-year-software-update-policy-explains/ https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-galaxy-4-year-softwar...
• MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  I have had a 2XL, 4XL, and now a 5a... and the 5a looks nice but is actually a piece of crap. I can't recall EVER having a phone with this many network hiccups.
• billpg 5y ago
  My Windows machine is something like 5 years old. Microsoft will keep supporting it until 2025 and even by then I will probably have switched it to Windows 11. Smartphones go unsupported after a few years? Why do we put up with this?
• rock_artist 5y ago
  The main problem is SoC lock-ins. You can find aftermarket AOSP for Android devices. Sadly it's inferior of the days where you can run a mainline OS on 20 year old device (eg. it is possible to run 32bit Windows 10 on first Intel MacBook from 2006). Another thing is apps, usually us developers drop "legacy" OSes as it's hard to support them (or worse a mobile store enforces dropping such support). So someone with old phone can't even use it anymore. There are some "open-source" SoC or more environmental/reusable approaches but it's just a drop in the ocean.
• rPlayer6554 5y ago
  I own a pixel 3 in good working condition.....do I really need to get a new one?
• brendoelfrendo 5y ago
  Am I taking crazy pills? Everyone here is saying "Yeah, but how long should we ask them to produce updates? Let's not be unreasonable." People, the mobile hardware ecosystem is fundamentally broken. On my desktop PC, I can keep upgrading Windows versions until the hardware craps out. I can move to Linux if Windows doesn't run well or has some functionality that's not compatible with my machine. There's an already existing model, but we don't apply it to mobile and we suffer through these locked-down ecosystems where Qualcomm and other hardware providers have the final say in when your hardware becomes unsupportable. The answer to the question of "how long should we expect Google to provide updates for a device?" is to reject the question and say "why can't Google just release the software that I then install on my device?" If the answer to that question is "well, because the devices are locked down and a software company can't actually make platform-agnostic software in this environment," that's a problem.
• lambic 5y ago
  It's not an ideal solution, but when I have to get a new phone the old one becomes my tv remote. I'm not too worried about security updates on a device that just has netflix and kodi on it.
• elif 5y ago
  I'm really surprised at the lack of support for recent pixel models... especially considering how terrible the pixel 6 release has been. For the first week I couldn't get it to charge because they didn't include a power brick and my existing power bricks, my PC's USB ports, etc. would charge slower than the battery discharged by sitting idle talking to 5G towers. Like literally plugged in with screen off it would drain the battery. Then the second week there were 2 days where my phone calls would fail to complete on my end but continue to ring on the other end. Really annoyingly frustrating failure mode. To top it all off, they removed the toggle for turning off the cell modem.. You have to open up a menu every time you want to change internet types. I've loved the pixel 2 so much it lasted until now... but google seems to be turning into the bloated carrier they tried to displace by launching fi.
• marcodiego 5y ago
  No no! If you can't control the software your device runs, you can't consider it "perfectly good".
• Digit-Al 5y ago
  I'm still using my Google Nexus 6P that I purchased five and a half years ago. Yes, it hasn't been updated for years but I almost never download new apps to it and I haven't been compromised so far (as far as I am aware).
• jdlyga 5y ago
  If your device is no longer able to get updates, and there is no viable alternative OS that you can run, it is no longer perfectly good. Perfectly good for electronics recycling perhaps.
• rglullis 5y ago
  In the spirit of recycling, let me repeat the remark I made on the thread about the problem of software subscriptions: this is what you get for not supporting FOSS, especially its R&D.
  • jimmyvalmer 5y ago
    If Android is what I get for $800, I'd hate to see what I get for free.
    • rglullis 5y ago
      I am saying exactly that free (as in speech) software is not free (as in beer), and the $800 never went to the support of a FOSS alternative. If your quip was an attempt at humor, it was bad. If it was an attempt at dismissing free/libre software, it was even worse.
      • jimmyvalmer 5y ago
        Until something fundamental changes about human nature, people will continue to find me unfunny, and gratis and libre will remain theoretically distinct but practically equivalent.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
• froggertoaster 5y ago
  Perhaps one of the strongest arguments for owning Apple tech is that they support their devices for long after everyone else would stop doing so. Android has classically been a dumpster fire compared to Apple on this front.
• freebreakfast 5y ago
  > The planned obsolescence is frustrating enough, and I’m certainly annoyed that I have to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone when I really shouldn’t have to. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone. That's the problem. We don't need these things. We want these things.
  • yc-kraln 5y ago
    Did you miss the part where using an unpatched, always internet connected device is a huge liability? That's the point, he can't not get a new phone because they're cutting off security patches for the one he is using.
    • freebreakfast 5y ago
      You can purchase <$100 smartphones at any Walmart, Target, Kroger, Dollar General, cell phone shop, online, and so on. +$100 smartphones are rarely a need. They are mostly a want. Edit: And least we forget... https://www.softstech.net/list-of-best-custom-roms-for-google-pixel-3-full-guide/ https://www.softstech.net/list-of-best-custom-roms-for-googl...
      • robocat 5y ago
        Your $100 smartphone is often insecure when you purchase it, and often gets no security updates. I have bought Nokia for the last few years because they were cheap, reliable, had zero crapware, and got updates quickly. The Android One program (no vendor crapware) seems to be winding down, and I value security more highly now, so next phone will be an iPhone. Currently I use an iPad for anything where security matters to me (I haven’t trusted Windows for a decade, and Linux relies on too few eyeballs).
  • belval 5y ago
    That might have been true in 2010, but it certainly isn't anymore. I need a QR code on my phone to prove that I am vaccinated. My banking, insurance and bills all are on my phone because no company will send paper anymore. It's also the device I use to take pictures, although I suppose you could classify that as a "want" more than a "need". Bottom line is: I have a Pixel 3 and it works flawlessly. It takes better pictures than my friends newer phones and just plain does everything I need it to. I bought it in 2019 so that's more like 2 years of update as the end consumer. I don't care about Android 13, but I want security updates and honestly feels like I gave them enough money to pay for it.
• g051051 5y ago
  All too common. I've had several devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) killed because Apple stopped providing any sort of software support until practically everything I used them for bitrotted away. The only old Apple device I have that still works fine is my iPod Nano, since it's too dumb to have this problem. I also have had to replace two otherwise pristine phones as 2G (Motorola Razr) and 3G (iPhone 5) services were discontinued, so there's that too.
• 8bitsrule 5y ago
  > So here I am, with another piece of premature junk, made by the company that pledges to “maximize the reuse of finite resources” and “enable others to do the same.” Some pledges are cheaper than others. Bottom-feeding pledges (whether well-intended or malicious) do not detail the steps that will be taken to implement them. As such they live in the misty realms of wishitude, along with campaign promises, and depend on trusting customers to imagine a positive outcome.
• formvoltron 5y ago
  It's a good point. If you work at Google, just know that I'll be doing the same. If Google refuses updates for perfectly good hardware, then I'll move to the iPhone.
• mschuster91 5y ago
  Not to mention that if you root them or install a custom firmware to keep using your device, most banking apps, Netflix and any games will simply refuse to run or weirdly crash (e.g. the Nintendo Switch companion app - which is a voicechat ffs).
• arepublicadoceu 5y ago
  People love to bash apple for their “expensive” products but I see it as I’m paying for support as well. My 3(?) years old iPhone XR works like new, receive regular updates and the battery still hold fine (never changed it). Whereas my android phone before that never saw an update besides a couple odd security patches after a lot of delay. I intend to use this iPhone until apple drop support for it. Maybe in a year or two I will replace the battery. But so far it’s the best phone purchase I ever made.
• throwaway22032 5y ago
  I get that I'm not the target market here, but the headline is quite amusing. I bought a Pixel 3 specifically _because_ it had support in Lineage and I could whack microG on it. I have some >8 year old tablets running Lineage and variants. I do wish though that Google would just IBM PC the ecosystem though. It'd make 1% less money or whatever, so it ain't ever happening.
• acd 5y ago
  One could load Cyanogenmod or a Linux based phone. Old electronics is a reason we must by law requiere manufacturers to have open devices. A phone should function like a personal computer. Open boot loader, standard boot process, standard chassi.
• pipeline_peak 5y ago
  “Forcing” is melodramatic, they dropped support. They aren’t directly advising you to stop using your device or else.
• FirstLvR 5y ago
  ahem, this is the main reason i ditch android for iphone a few years ago... Apple devices keep on running years after they supossed to is design flaw from the industry, top brands should do better
• yob22 5y ago
• kazinator 5y ago
  > I think of phones in much the same way I think of refrigerators or stoves. Is that so? I've never heard anyone complain about their fridge not receiving security updates any more, making it dangerous to use. (Though the Internet of Idiotic Things wants to change that, of course.)
• olliej 5y ago
  Wait so the actual google flagship only gets three years of support?
• unknown2374 5y ago
  surprised to see no mention of CalyxOS [0], which is still pushing security updates to their oldest supported phone, the Pixel 2. [0] https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/
• karolist 5y ago
  Still using Pixel 3XL, perfectly good phone with a processor that is faster at multicore than that in Pixel 5. I'm with the author here, sad to see this perfectly good phone getting obsoleted artificially. https://browser.geekbench.com/android_devices/google-pixel-3-xl https://browser.geekbench.com/android_devices/google-pixel-3...
• jlkuester7 5y ago
  Until last month I was still happily running a Google Nexus 6. For the past 5 years, I have been getting regular updates for it via Lineage OS (running Android 11 now). The only reason I had to stop using it is because the cell networks in the US are dropping support for its radio hardware. Still using my Nexus 7 tablet from 2013 (running Android 11 via Lineage OS). Huge shout-out to the awesome folks at Lineage who are keeping these devices viable for years! Honestly, when I went to buy a new phone, one of the biggest factors I considered was if it was popular enough with the custom-ROM crowed to be supported long-term...
• rhengles 5y ago
  Reading only the title, I thought "I am having this problem exactly now!". However, it is not about lack of security updates (it's an old Motorola phone). It is a smartphone that belonged to my late father who passed away in 2020. He had a google account with password and the phone has a pattern to draw in the lock screen. I know Google and the phone manufacturers are concerned with the stealing of phones, so they make it as hard as they can to use a phone without authorization, even if you try to reset the phone and erase all user data. Does anyone know if there is a process to remove a google account from a phone even if I have to prove to Google that he died of natural causes?
• lmilcin 5y ago
  I am waiting for delivery of my new iPhone. I am switching from Pixel 2 XL which looks brand new and is fully functional and does everything I need. There is literally not a single thing that I miss in this phone other than newer OS and updates. I have been delaying this decision for a year, but as a professional I can not continue using a phone that is not regularly updated. And so I will switch to a platform that will allow me to keep the device alive for much longer.
• sgt101 5y ago
  The really odd thing is that my daughters 3XL just died - it was under guarantee so I returned it and they gave me a new one. It's got a years guarantee to go! Can I return it because there are no updates?
• NoblePublius 5y ago
  A new Moto G Pure is $140. You’re gonna be fine.
• SakiToki 5y ago
  I would agree also as 3a user. The phone has been my favorite for a long time and its usage is pretty sweet for the price point. But the overall lack of support that google is showing for its old devices is saddening and has kinda put the nail in the coffin for getting a iphone and rolling with it at such a high price point.
• robocat 5y ago
  > then you’re vulnerable to every security flaw discovered since your last patch. You do continue to get security updates to Chrome and Google Play Services for many years. The App Store and other external systems may protect you from some other vulnerabilities. An iPhone gets updates for longer, but the cheapest iPhone costs 3x the price of the Nokia phone I have, so only comparing support period is nonsense. I buy a cheap phone so they are cheap to replace (broken/stolen/lost, often when travelling). > For millions of years, these metals formed underground Also geological and biological processes on the surface: some ores are formed underground but some are not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_genesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_genesis
• donatj 5y ago
  My 3a XL has been completely and totally bug-ridden since upgrading to Android 12. I have used Android for the last 12+ years across inumerable phones, and this is the worst Android experience I have ever had. - Sometimes I'll unlock my phone and the stupid new fade in effect gets stuck half way and my phone screen will just be dark until I sleep/unsleep. - Sometimes the buttons in my top menu decided to just not render, like yesterday when I was under my car trying to activate the flashlight. Requires a full restart. - The Google Assistant crashes every single time I try to use it, and I'm a big fan/user of Google Assistant. I just can't use Google Assistant. She goes to reply and it just dies mid reply. Every. Single. Time. - So much more little crap. My phone has become completely unreliable. When I got the OTA upgrade 6-ish months ago I was certain "oh, Google will fix these problems in no time." My phone is very quickly reaching EOL and I suspect Google is not going to fix any of this. I am, for the first time, contemplating switching to iOS.
  • wnolens 5y ago
    The UI changes still piss me off. Example: You can no longer flip WiFi on/off with a swipe (to expose tray) and tap. There's an extra tap and they removed the automatic re-enable, which I got used to.. so I find myself turning WiFi off when I'm out somewhere to avoid connecting randomly, and then I go home and blow through several GB of data accidentally. Also getting lots of google assistant crashes. And sometimes it just starts glitching out, virtually tapping all around the screen on it's own. A month ago it dialed 911 when I was trying to restart, and I had to apologize to the operator. I'm probably going to switch to iOS after 10 happy years on Android.
    • donatj 5y ago
      > A month ago it dialed 911 when I was trying to restart, and I had to apologize to the operator. Yup, I had mine do that too. The UI was frozen so I couldn’t hang up. I had to hold the power button and power cycle. They called back, and I apologized profusely.
• markstos 5y ago
  I was a Pixel 3 phone owner and switched to an iPhone after using Android since I bought my first smartphone over 10 years ago. The author nailed it: Google's lack of ongoing software support for their hardware is a problem.
• kombine 5y ago
  Thanks to this article I learned that my perfectly functioning OnePlus 6T received its last update in November, 2021. I think enough is enough and I will switch to Apple as soon as I can
• uhtred 5y ago
  Just install an alternative android OS on the phone and it will last you longer. Pretty sure Graphene supports the pixel 3. Probably Calyx. Probably /e/OS.
• webmaven 5y ago
  I currently have a Pixel 5a. I got it via the Google Fi "Subscribe and Save" option, which works out to a pretty decent discount from the retail price on top of paying it in installments over 2 years. I don't know how many of these subscriptions Google is selling, but it will be interesting to see what happens in when a bunch of Google Fi customers start becoming eligible for their upgrade to a new phone subscription around November 2023. Will customers upgrade immediately to the then presumably extant 'Pixel 7a', or wait? If customers wait for the next (hypothetically, a 'Pixel 8a') model to come out, will that actually be offered as an upgrade, or will the upgrade offer stick to the older model for a while? Because of these unknowns, the calculation the customers have to make is interesting: On the one hand, the 5a should still have almost another year of updates, so not upgrading immediately is viable and saves money, and if you wait your upgrade may be to a newer phone. But, if the '7a' remains the upgrade offer for a while even after the '8a' comes out, what is gained from maxing out the life of the 5a phone at the tail end is lost from shortening the life of the '8a' upgrade from the head end.
• beebmam 5y ago
  I still use a Pixel 2 as my phone and I had no idea it was EoL. I've been using this thing for more a year after it is apparently not getting security updates. That's extremely fucked up that this isn't communicated to users. Many people I know are using androids that are totally out of date. This is a giant security concern I now have for our society.
• a-dub 5y ago
  even worse, verizon won't unlock the bootloaders on the now unsupported phones so you can't even install a third party supported rom. also, i don't care how much fawning comes out of the press... the pixel 6 is an enormous impractical behemoth that barely fits in half my pockets.
• throwawayboise 5y ago
  I buy cheap (but not bottom-tier) Android phones. I've been happy with Motorola phones. If they stop getting updates after a few years, I can replace them without feeling like I'm scrapping a phone that I paid a lot of money for. Pixel phones are way out of my price range.
• johnmarcus 5y ago
  I keep my old phones as backup for either myself, or that poor soul you come across whom just smashed their screen and do not have money for a new one. Or sometimes I just keep it in my car as a an emergency phone / for pandora / for maps. It almost never goes to waste that way.
• toss1 5y ago
  Same for Google/Android and Samsung. My perfectly fine working and unblemished like-new Galaxy S8 is now off of regular updates, and behind a couple versions of the OS. So, it and I are basically running on borrowed time until a vulnerability strikes. It should definitely be mandatory to provide support any device over a certain level of cost and total sales for at least 7 years. Sure, people hate regulations and mandates, but otherwise we're stuck because a herd of sociopathic managers would rather pad their bonus pool then do the right thing, which is entirely within every company's budget, from Qualcom right through Smasung and Google.
• tombert 5y ago
  For all the crap that Apple gets, I gave a friend my old iPhone XS Max purchased in December of 2018 that still gets updates, and doesn't seem to have any EOL warnings. Since the hardware doesn't appear to be showing any wear, I think there's a reasonable chance my friend will get two more years out of this phone. I think 5-6 years is a fairly reasonable amount of time for nearly any computer, let alone something that lives in my pocket.
• julienfr112 5y ago
  On thing where google / android / pixel really shine is for google workspace integration and work profile. I do BYOD, and I ve got a work profile, with segregated apps and content. You have no equivalent with iphone.
• pavelevst 5y ago
  iPhone 6 still get security updates sometimes, just can’t be used with latest iOS
• causi 5y ago
  What else is new? AT&T recently forced me to dump my perfectly good OnePlus 6.
• Sunspark 5y ago
  If security updates were truly that critical, Google would push a play services update that would immediately kill all Google service connectivity to underscore that a no-longer-supported device is forbidden to use and force everyone in poorer countries to go forth and purchase a new one.
• happytiger 5y ago
  Well I used to have nest smoke detectors. My recent call to ask why all of my nests have stopped working came with a “oh well, your on firmware v1 and we aren’t releasing for that device anymore.” So I have a thousand bucks worth of smoke detectors going in the trash. The box said 7 years, but the firmware updates ended after 6, so recycling here we go. But the thing HN needs to understand is that the way google enforced expiring was to make the smoke detectors, one after the other, start chirping at high volume, often in the middle of the night, and with no warning in the app. So even if a corporation deciding that I have to replace all my smoke detectors after 7 years is reasonable, understand that the devices are worse than bricked — they are literally beeping to be replaced and there is no way to stop the behavior. We ended up with a stack of them on a counter trying to figure out what was going on, as one after the other hit their manufacturing date and expired in the same way. It was strangely dystopian. Like the company has spoken and you peons must upgrade. My favorite call was after I put in the next thermostat and had a $1500 bill. Apparently if your kids come home from school and it’s hot, they crank the AC down but being young they just turn the dial all the way. We learned of it after a particularly hot period (the kids would apparently always adjust it up again before we got home from work). This the system “learned” to make it arctic cold at 3:25 every day and stop doing so before 6. A well time vacation later, and our utility company was sending us quickly to the bill (it was regularly less than 300). Google support said, “yea, we hear about problems like that all the time,” and told us, “my suggestion would be to turn off the learning feature of your thermostat and just use it as a regular thermostat.” Ok. Will do. But wow, to find out it wasn’t an unusual use case was mind blowing. I stopped using Google for devices some time back because of firmware issues with support on phones. I realized after we have a series of iPhones hit 5 years or even six years old that I found them, batteries barely holding a charge but still working, charging for use above a drawer filled with my old android devices which were collecting dust, but were years younger, that the value isn’t there. Our form of response to the current fast fashion electronics industry to to use our devices as long as possible. Apple is a better value in that respect, despite their outright hostility to independent repair — which definitely dents their reputation in our house — so we ended up standardizing on their technology. Common sense environmentalism is making sure you minimize how much you buy. It’s interesting how much the longevity of devices (and privacy concerns) are becoming the major criteria for which devices we allow into our lives these days. Google has failed us repeatedly and lost our trust and we probably won’t ever buy another device from them. There was a time when I loved and adored them. Their growth seems to have lost what made them special in their DNA (transforming towns with savior Internet service, connecting the Worlds information > explaining yet another ocean of ad fraud, sunsetting every product we liked, afore mentioned firmware bugs) and we kind of look at them as the company we used to love. Honestly makes me sad. It was at one point one of the best hacker groups on the planet, insanely innovative, and run like one. I hope durability and reliability becomes a major tech trend.
• rbrbr 5y ago
• jl6 5y ago
  Truly we have built our house on sand when devices depend on a steady stream of security updates to remain safe. We are in the bleak dark ages of computing where the idea of shipping bug-free code is laughed off as a fantasy.
• WYepQ4dNnG 5y ago
  Mega corps marketing themselves as carbon neutral, but in reality they don't give two fck about the environment. If they did, they will try to support these devices avoiding people to dump them to jump on a new one.
• gitowiec 5y ago
  I'm using Samsung galaxy s8. I'm 3rd owner of it. Immediately when I got it almost 2 years ago I rooted it disabling my self to obtain latest updates for this phone. And I'm not whining about it loud.... I just don't get it why someone had to write about losing updates whole article? There are more important problems (real one)
• fleddr 5y ago
  Perhaps the most angering part is that both Google and Apple will greenwash the issue away as during product launches (which is where all attention is) where they will emphasize how very sustainable they are. That's the tactic to get away with piss poor aftercare. It's time for regulation and I mean harsh regulation. A product should be supported for as long as the reasonable duration of its hardware life cycle. I have 7 year old smartphones that still work just fine. So you're going to be delivering support for a long time, even up to a decade. Unwilling to do it or technical excuses? No problem. Refund the phone. I have a working paid device, you broke it. It's not my problem that your security model is like Swiss cheese. It's your defect, not mine. Battery replacements are to be made dead simple as it always was before. This is actually a key reason why people needlessly buy a new phone. All reasonable repairs should be possible to be carried out anywhere, including by the customer themself. You're going to document the process and supply the components. You may think of this as an angry extreme rant, but I'm serious. The point is that the pain should be put where it belongs. When you make a crappy product, the producer should feel it, not the consumer. This creates the incentive for the producer to create a product that doesn't break down so easily. Likewise, producers are a much larger factor in sustainability compared to a consumer, so they should drive it. Speaking of security, it's laughable that in a digital society, we accept that everything requires forever frequent updates otherwise its insecure. What does that tell you about the foundation of our computing? It's garbage. Yes, I know, "programmers produce bugs", "hackers are creative", but that's an explanation, not an excuse.
• Melatonic 5y ago
  Just because a device stops receiving security updates does not automatically mean its instantly unsafe to use. Unless you are a high profile target or a serious exploit comes out you can probably safely still use that device for quite awhile. If you want to be confident in your security then that might require some extra steps on your part monitoring what exploits are being released but with a hugely popular device like the Pixel I doubt that is very difficult. Tons of people are going to be using them regardless without any thought to security. That being said this whole 3 years of security updates is of course totally stupid and we deserve more. And manufacturers look to be realizing this. But if the rest of the phone hardware wise is also on a similar obsolescence cycle then is software updates the real problem here? Our devices are becoming more and more disposable in many ways and we need to target the root of the problem - if you can easily replace your battery and your 5 year old phone still does everything you need then there will be much more consumer demand in turn for longer software update support.
• ebb_earl_co 5y ago
  At first I thought that a good way out of this is to install Calyx OS or similar AOSP onto the Pixel, but then checked the Calyx support website [0] and, because they source the proprietary bits from Google, it's the same problem as the post elaborates... [0] https://calyxos.org/news/2021/05/14/security-updates/ https://calyxos.org/news/2021/05/14/security-updates/
• OOPMan 5y ago
  Isn't the Pixel fairly well supported in terms of custom ROMs which in turn unlock access to more recent security updates?
• userbinator 5y ago
  It says a lot about corporate brainwashing and propaganda when the comment here asking "Is it really a security risk?" is flagged dead and downvoted to hell. They really found the perfect excuse to squeeze users into increasingly authoritarian "upgrades" and gradual loss of control. The only security is really for their profits, not for you. Once you realise, the truth will set you free. No wonder they're scared.
• cosmin800 5y ago
  Of course google, and everybody else, wants us to throw away the phones and other products after 3 years, I don't know if anyone noticed but USD 100K cars start to break a lot after 3 years (the usual warranty) so you have to buy extremely expensive replacement parts (10x price of the new one) and get dragged into a "subscription" or buy a new car. The planned obsolescence is real and everywhere, from cars to light bulbs, software, hardware, and now is even easier for them with internet connected devices, even if the device works they just pull the plug of the service and render it useless.
• bbarn 5y ago
  For all the talk about replacing these every 3-4 years, I think I'd be a lot less upset if every 3 years actually felt like an upgrade. A slightly bigger screen, a 10% better camera, less buttons? Why do I need a new one? Apple may be getting a lot of positive credit in this department, but, by and large, what's the difference between an 11 and a 13? The incremental hardware differences are so small it's easy for them to build on the same OS over time. Google used to be my go to, and the google devices especially because they were more "vanilla" android at the time. I left a few years ago because google branded devices were so similar to Samsung (Samsung even manufacturing many of the "Nexus" devices at the time) that the vanilla feeling was fading away. Is there even a "stock" android option anymore? I honestly can't say as I've just bought into Apple's stuff for overall device compatibility with my other stuff.
• rickspencer3 5y ago
  If you want to run a phone effectively forever, I am afraid that you need to turn to the free software community, and give up a lot in terms of app compatibility and the many other benefits of living within a mainstream ecosystem. Going the Free Software route is not easy in my experience. The good news is, one of the great benefits of Pixel phones has always been that the boot loader is unlocked. So, realistically, you can run your phone as long as you want. There are many Free options to keep that going, if that is truly what you value.
• cosmojg 5y ago
  What? The Google Pixel line is one of the few smartphone lines continuously supported by every major open source mobile operating system. CalyxOS: https://calyxos.org/docs/guide/device-support/#supported-devices-still-receiving-updates-from-the-manufacturer https://calyxos.org/docs/guide/device-support/#supported-dev... GrapheneOS: https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices LineageOS: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ All three are still delivering essential security updates for the Pixel 3. The author could have made a stronger argument by picking a different smartphone to complain about.
  • pja 5y ago
    None of these can fix security issues in the binary blobs provided by the chipset manufacturer. And since this includes display drivers a security issue in the binary blobs is open season for every App on your phone. If an App or website has access to an API backed by a binary blob supplied by the hardware vendor then keeping Android itself up to date will not protect you. (Has anyone tried to exploit an old Android phone via WebGL? I’d presume that it’s feasible to exploit display driver bugs that way, which makes browsing the web on a phone without current security support problematic.)
• Helmut10001 5y ago
  I am still using my HTC HD2 from 2009 (running Windows Mobile 6.5) - meanwhile, since 2020, I do have two sim cards, because banking apps do not work on the HD2 and I have a spare Pixel 3a (always on wifi). The HD2 SSL certificates stopped working about 7 years ago, but I set up an internal nginx proxy that downgrades SSL certificates for me, when at home. I find the RSS-Reader particularly good, because it does not show images, which often disctract from content. Also, the Garmin app works with offline maps, doesn't expire and requires no subscription, and the HD2 is small - therefore quite good as a hiking companyon. It is on its 5th battery so far - this one lasts about a week on daily use, which is often more than new phones today. On the other hand, the Pixel 3a was the smallest phone I could get in 2020, and it is still too big to fit in my pockets.
• Terry_Roll 5y ago
  People are ditching their smart phones it seems https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60067032 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60067032 Havent had a phone for years now, too much hacking and surveillance for my liking, glad to not be drinking the Kool-Aid.
• mediumsmart 5y ago
  I tried to read the article but it does not have a perfectly good cookie reject button.
• istillwritecode 5y ago
  This is basically why I treat my phone as an untrusted device. The rest of the world wants me to use my phone as an extension of myself, but I treat it only as a portal to the public world. Security updates are almost irrelevant if there is nothing too sensitive on the phone. In particular, I don't have my gmail account on my phone, and I don't have access to monetary information on my phone.
• PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  Apple are bastards because they lock out users from modifying hardware. Google are bastards for not supporting older hardware. Microsoft were bastards for not having apps. There was the opportunity for a triopoly but snapchat was, depressingly, more important at the time.
• hawski 5y ago
  You could buy Fairphone. What I do for now is to buy used phones with broken screen and replace it myself. I did it with Pixel 1 and now with Pixel 4a. It helps to keep costs down and I feel better about myself. Other than that I would go with Fairphone for their software support.
• bocytron 5y ago
  You don't have to switch to iPhone, why not switch to the Fairphone instead, which principles and ethics are exactly the one the author is looking for?
• pabs3 5y ago
  A related post I read recently: "Musings on long-term software support and economic incentives" https://veronneau.org/musings-on-long-term-software-support-and-economic-incentives.html https://veronneau.org/musings-on-long-term-software-support-...
• pabs3 5y ago
  For Linux based devices (including Android devices), a lot of the problem is lack of support for the device in Linux mainline. Devices that are supported in Linux mainline generally get updates pretty much forever (think your laptop). Of course, getting mainline support is a lot of work that is costly.
• Markoff 5y ago
  Someone stops the guy from installing unofficial ROM especially in Pixel phone with easily unlockable bootloader? Let's ignore the fact the phone is perfectly fine even without latest security patch even without unofficial ROM. How exactly would someone exploit his phone if he is using newest versions of secured apps? The odds of attack on his phone are next to zero.
• blacklight 5y ago
  - LineageOS images are usually released for years after a phone's official Android support is dropped. Just ditch your official Android image for LineageOS, and most people won't even notice the difference. - If you're more brave and Linux-inclined, you may also opt for PostmarketOS. - Next time, avoid buying hardware released by Google. Those guys are religiously following the Apple book when it comes to hardware: premium stuff with high profit margins, that gets deprecated within 3 years so they can just reiterate. If you buy Google products, you are funding planned obsolescence.
• pshirshov 5y ago
  https://calyxos.org/news/2022/01/19/android-12-changelog/ https://calyxos.org/news/2022/01/19/android-12-changelog/
• 4k1l 5y ago
  I have also the same issue now with my Samsung Galaxy note 10 plus. This device has insane specs (12 GB of RAM, really good camera and display, the battery still last over 1,5 days, and could still be usable in the next 3 years. I would though need to replace it next year, only because of the lack of security patches. This is really crazy, when i think that i am still getting updates on a 7 years old laptop (both windows and linux).
• danielktdoranie 5y ago
  Yeah but Apple is the bad guy. Yet, my iPhone from 2016 runs the latest iOS.
• Im_your_dada 5y ago
  Apple does the same thing with phones and macs.
• IMAYousaf 5y ago
  Are there any rumblings of Google making its own chips? I figured it wouldn't be that big of an organizational leap considering they already produce their own TPU's.
• hogrider 5y ago
  I've dealt with this my whole life, I'm just on my second smarthpone ever since I try ro use it for as long as possible. I know not having security updates is bad on paper but what is the real risk? I guess I can study what vulns each update patches but I can't imagine it's stuff I have to worry about when I'm just making basic use of it, not sideloading app or rooting my phone or anything.