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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

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.
  - acchow 5y ago
    I haven't heard about Project Treble till your comment. A quick google: "Project Treble (take a deep breath) is Google's ambitious effort to rearchitect Android in order to establish a modular base in which the lower-level code created by silicon vendors is separated from the main Android operating system" As in abstracted away hardware code? As in...how operating systems have been built since before TikTokers were even born?
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      Everything is on a spectrum, they are further siloing off hardware from software and cutting out some spaghetti code between the two. Before hardware manufacturers had to merge in google's code with theirs before they release, with proper segregation google's aim with the project is to make a clean cut between the two so that kernel and up aren't so tightly coupled and they can upgrade their OS without breaking the hardware.
      - lostmsu 5y ago
        Further than they siloed it before, yes. In comparison to the competition (which sadly withdrew for other reasons), they are extremely far behind: Windows ME worked fine with hardware and drivers from Windows 95. But the whole problem is the consequence of Linux not having a stable driver interface.
        vetinari 5y ago
        There are many adjectives that could be used for Windows ME, but "worked fine" is not one of them. Whether with Win95 drivers or its own.
        lostmsu 5y ago
        I've certainly used modem drivers from Win 95 in Win Me
  - iainmerrick 5y ago
Aissen 5y ago
The 5 years for Pixel are for security updates only. OS updates are still 3 years. IMHO it's still too low, but it's a (small) step up.
MattGaiser 5y ago
> 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. Not really. You need to compensate Qualcomm for a pile of lost sales from people not getting new phones.
- captn3m0 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    Don't see why we are blaming Google for not bowing to Qualcomm rather than Qualcomm's low level of support.
    - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
      Because Google controls the vast majority of phone manufacturing on the planet: They have to approve every new hardware model. I think if Google said it was dropping support for Qualcomm in new models of phones unless an extended support lifecycle was reasonably offered, that Qualcomm would respond with "okay, bye". Google likes to hide behind "the OEMs make those kinds of decisions", but it's not reality: The Android MADA still gives them complete control of every Android hardware platform sold with support for Play Services. And, considering Google is one of the three most valuable companies on the entire planet, sitting on massive piles of cash stashed everywhere they can possibly stash it to avoid paying taxes.... Google can afford to pay for support if it wants to. If Google wanted to support phones more than three years, it would do that. It doesn't want to, and it's time to stop pretending otherwise.
      - xadhominemx 5y ago
        Google leveraging its control of android to extract better terms from Qualcomm for the Pixel business would be a blatant violation anti-trust statutes and they would get demolished in court
KennyBlanken 5y ago
What "support" does Google need from Qualcomm after three years beyond driver/firmware blobs, which three years into a SoC's lifetime should be pretty stable? We're talking about a company that maintains its own fork of the Linux kernel with something like 19,000 patches against mainstream. Anything not in a blob should be easily within their abilities to address. Also, Nexus and Pixel devices have a long history of software and hardware problems, many of which are immediately obvious within a day or two of devices hitting people's mailboxes, and are never fixed over the life of the phone. It's not like google seems to be picking up the phone very often to talk to Qualcomm for support, even during a device's development, much less after? The Pixel line jumped the shark when Google started permanently carrier-locking phone bootloaders for Verizon.
- spaceflunky 5y ago
  You need access to the software that runs those SOCs which is owned by Qualcomm. Qualcomm isn't just going to give the sourcecode of those SOCs for Google engineers to tinker around with it. It creates all kinds of crazy legal problems. It's not just the main Android OS that needs to be patched, the chips have their own proprietary software too. The problem is that after 3 years, most of those chips have gone EOL and QC wants to put their resources into developing new chips because that's where the revenue comes from (e.g. how they pay their employees). Meanwhile new security flaws keep getting discovered on EOL chips that provide zero new revenue. So what do you want here? Do you want the break neck pace of innovation to continue which is ultimately very good for everyone? Or should we spend all of our time making sure your Apple IIc still has security patches for 2022? At some point you just have to move on and that's just the trade you make for all technology. You can't simultaneously benefit from this cycle and then bemoan it. If all we ever did was make security patches for your Commodore and AppleIIc you wouldn't have a Pixel3.
  - hunter2_ 5y ago
    Point taken, however: modern apps don't run on 80s hardware, but they do run on a Pixel 3. The line in the sand just needs to align a bit more with the physical capabilities, for e-waste reasons.
JaimeThompson 5y ago
Given Google's track record we will see exactly how well supported it is in years 4 and 5. I expect it will be just the bare minimum.
- Bilal_io 5y ago
  You're correct. Google is promising 3 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates.
fluidcruft 5y ago
My honest opinion is that I think the whole Qualcomm thing is a canard. What I think is really going on is that after three years the batteries are at death's door. Too many people will just replace/trash the phone rather than know to replace the battery.
- captn3m0 5y ago
  iPhones have the same issue, and users either live with it or get their batteries replaced. We need replaceable batteries to make a comeback. Maybe the right to repair movement can get us there.
  - Bud 5y ago
    The batteries are "replaceable"; your own comment acknowledges that. What you mean is batteries the user can easily replace, which means you have to make compromises in the design of the phone and its structural integrity. The market has chosen against that. What you're talking about is forcing people to accept your personal preference, by law, because your design preference didn't win in the market. Personally, I oppose that.
    - silisili 5y ago
      I feel like there's a missing middle ground here. Sure, we don't have to go back to the days of peel off or slide off backs. But why not allow the phone to be opened easier? Perhaps a few tiny screws and a gasket vs...glue? Replacing a battery is technically possible still, it just requires a ton of patience, a heat gun, maybe a suction cup, maybe a razor knife. And even then you run the risk of breaking the back glass in the process(been there, done that). I don't think we need to go back to being able to hot swap batteries on the fly, but surely we can come up with something everyday people can realistically do at home.
      - londons_explore 5y ago
        Modern iphones all require a fancy laser to remove the back glass. [1]. You won't be doing that with a screwdriver at home. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X07j5deVIfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X07j5deVIfU
deeviant 5y ago
> 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. This reasoning is... really bad. If I were a "rich corporation" and decided to sale a product at a loss or significant reduction in margin for a feature that obvious(based on sells numbers) was not a factor in deciding to buy the phone or not, I wouldn't be a "rich corporation" for very long. The "richness" of a company has nothing to do, marginal cost does. It obviously didn't pencil out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- acdha 5y ago
  It's not that simple: Google makes money off of other services, a fair fraction of which is from Android users. If an Android user has a phone which is >3 years old, they are still likely to be buying apps through the Android store, using the phone to access Google's paid services, or generating data which Google uses for their ad sales. The underlying problem with Android is that they're competing with Apple, where all of those sources generate ongoing revenue from older hardware devices, but haven't found an effective way to share revenue between the different parties involved to pay for long-term support. Apple has no problem shipping iOS updates because they don't need you to buy a new phone nearly as much if you're subscribing to iCloud, using Apple Music, and buying from the App Store.
- dev_tty01 5y ago
  I don't think you have any basis for saying "was not a factor in deciding to buy the phone." Do you really think people buying the Pixel 3 knew it would only be supported for 3 years? Also, Google would not lose money if they supported the phone longer at a few pennies per phone. The Pixel phones (and others) are advertising and data delivery devices. Google makes money every time you use them.
  - deeviant 5y ago
    So you don't think I have "any basis" for saying that was not a factor in deciding to buy a phone? Do you know people? Most don't pay much attention things of this nature, the people on this board are not even close to the norm. And the pixel has been a sales success since it's introduction. To me, your argument amounts to "not ah!". Also, where did you get the "few pennies per phone" number? If that is accurate, what do you attribute google's decision to not spend basically nothing for longer updates from Qualcom?
_fat_santa 5y ago
I haven't owned an Android device in a while but I always thought the argument here is if the manufacturer stops supporting the device, you can always get support through the community via custom ROM's. With so many devices in the wild, I wonder if the Pixel 3 will become our generations HTC HD2 (which got community support for seemly an eternity).
- Helmut10001 5y ago
  See my other answer somewhere below: I still use my HD2 from 2009 today.
- rlpb 5y ago
  > ...I always thought the argument here is if the manufacturer stops supporting the device, you can always get support through the community via custom ROM's. That doesn't apply for kernel support. Custom ROMs generally use the last supported kernel from some official ROM. Then they start to accumulate known security vulnerabilities, because they never get updated again.
  - phh 5y ago
    Obviously YMMV, but last year there was exactly one OEM merging kernel LTS (Sony). While many (dare I say most?) Custom ROMs do.
    - lostmsu 5y ago
      I've read a few times that Sony is doing good work in terms of their kernels, but details eluded me, and as the result I never owned a Sony Android phone. Are they really good in that regard? Do they upstream? How long do they publish security patches for?
      - rodgerd 5y ago
        They upstream their changes and have a user-unlockable bootloader, which puts them ahead of approximately all of their competitors. Unfortunately they don't really seem interested in selling their phones in most English-speaking markets.
phh 5y ago
I want to answer that Qualcomm-is-the-issue again. You're pointing out how ridiculous it is, but let me expand: So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$. That's 10c/device. The VoLTE license costs more than that. The H264 license costs more than that. Also Pixel makes Android, so surely, Android can't become incompatible with older hardware because of Android, or if it does, it's Google's own doing! There is the question of security of binary blobs for which Google doesn't have the source code, ok! Well let's see: - Billions (ok, maybe just hundreds of millions) of Mediatek devices have their bootrom "open". Should we stop upgrading those, because of physical access issue? - Everyone considers 2G utterly broken, allowing downgrading attacks, thus Google gives Android 12 the possibility to disable 2G. Yet, Google "refuses" devices launched with Android 11 Treble HALs, like devices launched with Snapdragon 888, to have this "disable 2g" [1] - Pixel 6 stayed 45 days on an """obsolete""" security patch So, maybe we should stop saying that security is the alpha and omega, and all or nothing. It is important. Reducing our e-waste is more important. [1] This is a weird thing, related to Treble, Google Requirement Freeze, and Vendor System Requirements, I can explain in details if anyone is interested
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$. Do you have a source for that? That does seem pretty low.
- danaris 5y ago
  > So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$. ....and even if that estimate is two orders of magnitude too small, it's still basically pocket change for Google, which (based on about 30 seconds of Googling, so if I've misread I apologize) has been making tens of billions of dollars per quarter the past few years in net income. [edit] Figured I'd link the source of my figures for clarity: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-...
  - drstewart 5y ago
    I hate these arguments. It doesn't matter what their overall revenue is, it only matters what the cost is relative to the product at hand and to the value of the thing they're paying for. Nobody is sitting there approving expenses relative to their overall revenue. Would you pay $50 for a stick of gum? Why not? If you make hundreds of thousands of dollars, surely it shouldn't phase you?
908B64B197 5y ago
Meanwhile the original iPhone SE from 2016 can boot the latest iOS. And you can get a battery replacement from Apple right at the store, same day for... 49$! It just works. In just 4 months the Pixel 3A is officially getting EoL'd. This phone was released in 2019 (fall), same time as the iPhone 11. It just shows the wide gap between iOS and Android. > 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 I can believe it. Qualcomm makes money per chip sold, Apple makes money by building an ecosystem. Linux support is a cost center for Qualcomm past the initial launch kernel, and we can only imagine there's a difference in caliber between the engineers writing patches and hacks around the kernel at Qualcomm vs building the OS that powers the iPhone.
- mmastrac 5y ago
  Not defending Google here at all, but that $49 battery change was a hard-fought victory from Apple.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    To me that’s an insane win for everyone, including Apple. Because it completely changes the value proposition of iPhones. Hand me down iPhones for teenagers became a no brainer since all it costs is 49$ to get a 3-4 years old phone back to brand new. And they get the blue bubbles in iMessage (which, if you ask parents, is THE social differentiator in schools these days). Having a well architected stack and great engineering pays off in surprising ways!
    - kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
      > And they get the blue bubbles in iMessage (which, if you ask parents, is THE social differentiator in schools these days). I would also add that "if you ask students, it is THE social differentiator" as well. BUT, how the f_ck is it a good thing to encourage teenagers to get locked in to a company's products so they can stay socially relevant? iMessage's manipulative strategy (because teenagers value social belonging) by Apple is morally corrupt. I'm not saying it's effective (because their strategy absolutely is); I'm saying it's wrong. We shouldn't be encouraging children to get locked into the richest company in the world's walled garden for the rest of their life—what they use as teenagers is what they're going to, chances are, keep using for the rest of their lives. Teenagers literally do not use Android devices. The iOS market share in American high schools is easily over 90%. If you go to a high school classroom, you would be surprised to find more than one or two Android users in one classroom. Do you want your future to be one where Apple's locked down operating system has a market share of over 90%? Where Android is irrelevant and neglected, and you do not own your device—because unlike on iOS, some Android phones actually do let you unlock your bootloader and boot different operating systems? Please do not encourage the spread of iMessage. It lets one company cement their iron grip on the upcoming generations and will result in a net loss of computer freedom.
new_stranger 5y ago
The Pixel 3 was a great phone. If https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/ or https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/ had been able to come up with an AI assisted camera which could match the Google Camera app (The lens is trash, Google uses software to make good images) then it would have been great. Benefit of actual quality camera lenses is these open source OS can still provide good photos using a stock android camera app.
- floatboth 5y ago
  You can get Google Camera on anything: https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/ https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
  - tata71 5y ago
    Talk about letting the wolf into the henhouse.
  - kevincox 5y ago
    On pixel phones I'm pretty sure you can install the camera from the Play Store with no fuss on LineaseOS. I say that using a LineaseOS Pixel 4a with Google Camera and don't remember doing anything special to install it.
- tata71 5y ago
  I have never had an issue with the stock camera on GrapheneOS, and struggle to understand what better quality one could want... AI to fill in colors and details...potentially wrong?
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    The Pixel phones are well known for having a _ton_ of postprocessing for their photos to look good. Stabilisation, color correcting a known faulty sensor, etc. Not having this is truly visible.
ashtonkem 5y ago
This is one of the things that keeps me with Apple. They're far from perfect in the reliability front, but they will keep supporting the software for much longer than I expect my phone to last. Looks like the oldest phone they still support is the 6s, and typically they support phones for a bit under 7 years after launch, and 5 after discontinuation. Obviously they get slower and fewer features, but that's better than "Good luck LOL".
- dev_tty01 5y ago
  Yes, this. The 6s came out in 2015 and is still supported. I used one until just a few months ago. Worked great.
zepto 5y ago
Apple foresaw this and made the appropriate investments because they explicitly value device longevity. Google could easily do the same.
HPsquared 5y ago
How many emissions are we talking about here?
broknbottle 5y ago
Google is going to skimp and cut corners wherever they can to save money and trim the fat (e.g. cutting off google apps for business free, less and less ad yt ad revenue, accelerated EOL of devices and services, etc). This is what happens when you've barely innovated in the past few years (compared to early-mid 2000's). Google is essentially the Intel of Web 2.0 companies. They blew their huge lead dicking around with a billion messaging strategies, social media strategies (obsessing over fb), corporate scandals, etc and lost a lot of customer mind share and good graces in the process. It also doesn't help that Microsoft has found their stride again in recent years.
Jansen312 5y ago
They can only stay rich if we waste and reconsume again and again. That is how ads industries thrive. Apple and Samsung are what are today because we overbought their product. Almost everyone I know at least got 3+ phones (1 current 2 in the drawers). Even got one with 15+ phones (collection he said). As long as we behave to reward companies that do this, we will continuously getting new companies or existing companies adopting this strategy. I don't see "treehuggers" using antiquated Nokia phones and routinely seen many of my environmentally conscious frens having new iphones EVERY 2 years even if their old phones are working fine and they can easily go into a cheap repair shop to change the battery. As for security reasons, yeah, "frens" actually pasting post-it passwords and no idea what is yubi keys and never bother doing 2FA.
duxup 5y ago
I’m not sure if Google wanted… they could support a phone for much more than ~3 years. Older android phones slow down / get really janky as time goes on. Even when they’re still supporting it. It’s one of the reasons I left Android. Longer term lives for Android phones is pretty bad, flashing your own ROMs aside (I was done with that long ago).
abandonliberty 5y ago
>ridiculous amount of money This is a strange red herring because it is ridiculously expensive, but not meaningfully so on a per-handset basis. Software development teams are ridiculously expensive. Going from two to four years might require a doubling in staff. You need teams dedicated to old architecture, conservatively $1m for 5 people. Your best engineers will want to move on to newer problems. The problem compounds. These teams could be instead working on newer products with greater potential return, so they're billable at $4m for 5 people per year. 4 additional years of support is $16m. (This is fairly lean, but should be about the right order of magnitude +/- 1). With 13m sold, that's about $1/handset. Apple/Samsung budget for this. Google chooses not to.

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.
- acchow 5y ago
  I haven't heard about Project Treble till your comment. A quick google: "Project Treble (take a deep breath) is Google's ambitious effort to rearchitect Android in order to establish a modular base in which the lower-level code created by silicon vendors is separated from the main Android operating system" As in abstracted away hardware code? As in...how operating systems have been built since before TikTokers were even born?
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Everything is on a spectrum, they are further siloing off hardware from software and cutting out some spaghetti code between the two. Before hardware manufacturers had to merge in google's code with theirs before they release, with proper segregation google's aim with the project is to make a clean cut between the two so that kernel and up aren't so tightly coupled and they can upgrade their OS without breaking the hardware.
    - lostmsu 5y ago
      Further than they siloed it before, yes. In comparison to the competition (which sadly withdrew for other reasons), they are extremely far behind: Windows ME worked fine with hardware and drivers from Windows 95. But the whole problem is the consequence of Linux not having a stable driver interface.
      - vetinari 5y ago
        There are many adjectives that could be used for Windows ME, but "worked fine" is not one of them. Whether with Win95 drivers or its own.
        lostmsu 5y ago
        I've certainly used modem drivers from Win 95 in Win Me
- iainmerrick 5y ago

Aissen 5y ago

The 5 years for Pixel are for security updates only. OS updates are still 3 years. IMHO it's still too low, but it's a (small) step up.

MattGaiser 5y ago

> 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. Not really. You need to compensate Qualcomm for a pile of lost sales from people not getting new phones.

captn3m0 5y ago
[deleted]
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Don't see why we are blaming Google for not bowing to Qualcomm rather than Qualcomm's low level of support.
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    Because Google controls the vast majority of phone manufacturing on the planet: They have to approve every new hardware model. I think if Google said it was dropping support for Qualcomm in new models of phones unless an extended support lifecycle was reasonably offered, that Qualcomm would respond with "okay, bye". Google likes to hide behind "the OEMs make those kinds of decisions", but it's not reality: The Android MADA still gives them complete control of every Android hardware platform sold with support for Play Services. And, considering Google is one of the three most valuable companies on the entire planet, sitting on massive piles of cash stashed everywhere they can possibly stash it to avoid paying taxes.... Google can afford to pay for support if it wants to. If Google wanted to support phones more than three years, it would do that. It doesn't want to, and it's time to stop pretending otherwise.
    - xadhominemx 5y ago
      Google leveraging its control of android to extract better terms from Qualcomm for the Pixel business would be a blatant violation anti-trust statutes and they would get demolished in court

KennyBlanken 5y ago

What "support" does Google need from Qualcomm after three years beyond driver/firmware blobs, which three years into a SoC's lifetime should be pretty stable? We're talking about a company that maintains its own fork of the Linux kernel with something like 19,000 patches against mainstream. Anything not in a blob should be easily within their abilities to address. Also, Nexus and Pixel devices have a long history of software and hardware problems, many of which are immediately obvious within a day or two of devices hitting people's mailboxes, and are never fixed over the life of the phone. It's not like google seems to be picking up the phone very often to talk to Qualcomm for support, even during a device's development, much less after? The Pixel line jumped the shark when Google started permanently carrier-locking phone bootloaders for Verizon.

spaceflunky 5y ago
You need access to the software that runs those SOCs which is owned by Qualcomm. Qualcomm isn't just going to give the sourcecode of those SOCs for Google engineers to tinker around with it. It creates all kinds of crazy legal problems. It's not just the main Android OS that needs to be patched, the chips have their own proprietary software too. The problem is that after 3 years, most of those chips have gone EOL and QC wants to put their resources into developing new chips because that's where the revenue comes from (e.g. how they pay their employees). Meanwhile new security flaws keep getting discovered on EOL chips that provide zero new revenue. So what do you want here? Do you want the break neck pace of innovation to continue which is ultimately very good for everyone? Or should we spend all of our time making sure your Apple IIc still has security patches for 2022? At some point you just have to move on and that's just the trade you make for all technology. You can't simultaneously benefit from this cycle and then bemoan it. If all we ever did was make security patches for your Commodore and AppleIIc you wouldn't have a Pixel3.
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  Point taken, however: modern apps don't run on 80s hardware, but they do run on a Pixel 3. The line in the sand just needs to align a bit more with the physical capabilities, for e-waste reasons.

JaimeThompson 5y ago

Given Google's track record we will see exactly how well supported it is in years 4 and 5. I expect it will be just the bare minimum.

Bilal_io 5y ago
You're correct. Google is promising 3 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates.

fluidcruft 5y ago

My honest opinion is that I think the whole Qualcomm thing is a canard. What I think is really going on is that after three years the batteries are at death's door. Too many people will just replace/trash the phone rather than know to replace the battery.

captn3m0 5y ago
iPhones have the same issue, and users either live with it or get their batteries replaced. We need replaceable batteries to make a comeback. Maybe the right to repair movement can get us there.
- Bud 5y ago
  The batteries are "replaceable"; your own comment acknowledges that. What you mean is batteries the user can easily replace, which means you have to make compromises in the design of the phone and its structural integrity. The market has chosen against that. What you're talking about is forcing people to accept your personal preference, by law, because your design preference didn't win in the market. Personally, I oppose that.
  - silisili 5y ago
    I feel like there's a missing middle ground here. Sure, we don't have to go back to the days of peel off or slide off backs. But why not allow the phone to be opened easier? Perhaps a few tiny screws and a gasket vs...glue? Replacing a battery is technically possible still, it just requires a ton of patience, a heat gun, maybe a suction cup, maybe a razor knife. And even then you run the risk of breaking the back glass in the process(been there, done that). I don't think we need to go back to being able to hot swap batteries on the fly, but surely we can come up with something everyday people can realistically do at home.
    - londons_explore 5y ago
      Modern iphones all require a fancy laser to remove the back glass. [1]. You won't be doing that with a screwdriver at home. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X07j5deVIfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X07j5deVIfU

deeviant 5y ago

> 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. This reasoning is... really bad. If I were a "rich corporation" and decided to sale a product at a loss or significant reduction in margin for a feature that obvious(based on sells numbers) was not a factor in deciding to buy the phone or not, I wouldn't be a "rich corporation" for very long. The "richness" of a company has nothing to do, marginal cost does. It obviously didn't pencil out.

deleted 5y ago
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acdha 5y ago
It's not that simple: Google makes money off of other services, a fair fraction of which is from Android users. If an Android user has a phone which is >3 years old, they are still likely to be buying apps through the Android store, using the phone to access Google's paid services, or generating data which Google uses for their ad sales. The underlying problem with Android is that they're competing with Apple, where all of those sources generate ongoing revenue from older hardware devices, but haven't found an effective way to share revenue between the different parties involved to pay for long-term support. Apple has no problem shipping iOS updates because they don't need you to buy a new phone nearly as much if you're subscribing to iCloud, using Apple Music, and buying from the App Store.
dev_tty01 5y ago
I don't think you have any basis for saying "was not a factor in deciding to buy the phone." Do you really think people buying the Pixel 3 knew it would only be supported for 3 years? Also, Google would not lose money if they supported the phone longer at a few pennies per phone. The Pixel phones (and others) are advertising and data delivery devices. Google makes money every time you use them.
- deeviant 5y ago
  So you don't think I have "any basis" for saying that was not a factor in deciding to buy a phone? Do you know people? Most don't pay much attention things of this nature, the people on this board are not even close to the norm. And the pixel has been a sales success since it's introduction. To me, your argument amounts to "not ah!". Also, where did you get the "few pennies per phone" number? If that is accurate, what do you attribute google's decision to not spend basically nothing for longer updates from Qualcom?

_fat_santa 5y ago

I haven't owned an Android device in a while but I always thought the argument here is if the manufacturer stops supporting the device, you can always get support through the community via custom ROM's. With so many devices in the wild, I wonder if the Pixel 3 will become our generations HTC HD2 (which got community support for seemly an eternity).

Helmut10001 5y ago
See my other answer somewhere below: I still use my HD2 from 2009 today.
rlpb 5y ago
> ...I always thought the argument here is if the manufacturer stops supporting the device, you can always get support through the community via custom ROM's. That doesn't apply for kernel support. Custom ROMs generally use the last supported kernel from some official ROM. Then they start to accumulate known security vulnerabilities, because they never get updated again.
- phh 5y ago
  Obviously YMMV, but last year there was exactly one OEM merging kernel LTS (Sony). While many (dare I say most?) Custom ROMs do.
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    I've read a few times that Sony is doing good work in terms of their kernels, but details eluded me, and as the result I never owned a Sony Android phone. Are they really good in that regard? Do they upstream? How long do they publish security patches for?
    - rodgerd 5y ago
      They upstream their changes and have a user-unlockable bootloader, which puts them ahead of approximately all of their competitors. Unfortunately they don't really seem interested in selling their phones in most English-speaking markets.

phh 5y ago

I want to answer that Qualcomm-is-the-issue again. You're pointing out how ridiculous it is, but let me expand: So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$. That's 10c/device. The VoLTE license costs more than that. The H264 license costs more than that. Also Pixel makes Android, so surely, Android can't become incompatible with older hardware because of Android, or if it does, it's Google's own doing! There is the question of security of binary blobs for which Google doesn't have the source code, ok! Well let's see: - Billions (ok, maybe just hundreds of millions) of Mediatek devices have their bootrom "open". Should we stop upgrading those, because of physical access issue? - Everyone considers 2G utterly broken, allowing downgrading attacks, thus Google gives Android 12 the possibility to disable 2G. Yet, Google "refuses" devices launched with Android 11 Treble HALs, like devices launched with Snapdragon 888, to have this "disable 2g" [1] - Pixel 6 stayed 45 days on an """obsolete""" security patch So, maybe we should stop saying that security is the alpha and omega, and all or nothing. It is important. Reducing our e-waste is more important. [1] This is a weird thing, related to Treble, Google Requirement Freeze, and Vendor System Requirements, I can explain in details if anyone is interested

Sebb767 5y ago
> So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$. Do you have a source for that? That does seem pretty low.
danaris 5y ago
> So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$. ....and even if that estimate is two orders of magnitude too small, it's still basically pocket change for Google, which (based on about 30 seconds of Googling, so if I've misread I apologize) has been making tens of billions of dollars per quarter the past few years in net income. [edit] Figured I'd link the source of my figures for clarity: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-...
- drstewart 5y ago
  I hate these arguments. It doesn't matter what their overall revenue is, it only matters what the cost is relative to the product at hand and to the value of the thing they're paying for. Nobody is sitting there approving expenses relative to their overall revenue. Would you pay $50 for a stick of gum? Why not? If you make hundreds of thousands of dollars, surely it shouldn't phase you?

908B64B197 5y ago

Meanwhile the original iPhone SE from 2016 can boot the latest iOS. And you can get a battery replacement from Apple right at the store, same day for... 49$! It just works. In just 4 months the Pixel 3A is officially getting EoL'd. This phone was released in 2019 (fall), same time as the iPhone 11. It just shows the wide gap between iOS and Android. > 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 I can believe it. Qualcomm makes money per chip sold, Apple makes money by building an ecosystem. Linux support is a cost center for Qualcomm past the initial launch kernel, and we can only imagine there's a difference in caliber between the engineers writing patches and hacks around the kernel at Qualcomm vs building the OS that powers the iPhone.

mmastrac 5y ago
Not defending Google here at all, but that $49 battery change was a hard-fought victory from Apple.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  To me that’s an insane win for everyone, including Apple. Because it completely changes the value proposition of iPhones. Hand me down iPhones for teenagers became a no brainer since all it costs is 49$ to get a 3-4 years old phone back to brand new. And they get the blue bubbles in iMessage (which, if you ask parents, is THE social differentiator in schools these days). Having a well architected stack and great engineering pays off in surprising ways!
  - kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
    > And they get the blue bubbles in iMessage (which, if you ask parents, is THE social differentiator in schools these days). I would also add that "if you ask students, it is THE social differentiator" as well. BUT, how the f_ck is it a good thing to encourage teenagers to get locked in to a company's products so they can stay socially relevant? iMessage's manipulative strategy (because teenagers value social belonging) by Apple is morally corrupt. I'm not saying it's effective (because their strategy absolutely is); I'm saying it's wrong. We shouldn't be encouraging children to get locked into the richest company in the world's walled garden for the rest of their life—what they use as teenagers is what they're going to, chances are, keep using for the rest of their lives. Teenagers literally do not use Android devices. The iOS market share in American high schools is easily over 90%. If you go to a high school classroom, you would be surprised to find more than one or two Android users in one classroom. Do you want your future to be one where Apple's locked down operating system has a market share of over 90%? Where Android is irrelevant and neglected, and you do not own your device—because unlike on iOS, some Android phones actually do let you unlock your bootloader and boot different operating systems? Please do not encourage the spread of iMessage. It lets one company cement their iron grip on the upcoming generations and will result in a net loss of computer freedom.

new_stranger 5y ago

The Pixel 3 was a great phone. If https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/ or https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/ had been able to come up with an AI assisted camera which could match the Google Camera app (The lens is trash, Google uses software to make good images) then it would have been great. Benefit of actual quality camera lenses is these open source OS can still provide good photos using a stock android camera app.

floatboth 5y ago
You can get Google Camera on anything: https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/ https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
- tata71 5y ago
  Talk about letting the wolf into the henhouse.
- kevincox 5y ago
  On pixel phones I'm pretty sure you can install the camera from the Play Store with no fuss on LineaseOS. I say that using a LineaseOS Pixel 4a with Google Camera and don't remember doing anything special to install it.
tata71 5y ago
I have never had an issue with the stock camera on GrapheneOS, and struggle to understand what better quality one could want... AI to fill in colors and details...potentially wrong?
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  The Pixel phones are well known for having a _ton_ of postprocessing for their photos to look good. Stabilisation, color correcting a known faulty sensor, etc. Not having this is truly visible.

ashtonkem 5y ago

This is one of the things that keeps me with Apple. They're far from perfect in the reliability front, but they will keep supporting the software for much longer than I expect my phone to last. Looks like the oldest phone they still support is the 6s, and typically they support phones for a bit under 7 years after launch, and 5 after discontinuation. Obviously they get slower and fewer features, but that's better than "Good luck LOL".

dev_tty01 5y ago
Yes, this. The 6s came out in 2015 and is still supported. I used one until just a few months ago. Worked great.

zepto 5y ago

Apple foresaw this and made the appropriate investments because they explicitly value device longevity. Google could easily do the same.

HPsquared 5y ago

How many emissions are we talking about here?

broknbottle 5y ago

Google is going to skimp and cut corners wherever they can to save money and trim the fat (e.g. cutting off google apps for business free, less and less ad yt ad revenue, accelerated EOL of devices and services, etc). This is what happens when you've barely innovated in the past few years (compared to early-mid 2000's). Google is essentially the Intel of Web 2.0 companies. They blew their huge lead dicking around with a billion messaging strategies, social media strategies (obsessing over fb), corporate scandals, etc and lost a lot of customer mind share and good graces in the process. It also doesn't help that Microsoft has found their stride again in recent years.

Jansen312 5y ago

They can only stay rich if we waste and reconsume again and again. That is how ads industries thrive. Apple and Samsung are what are today because we overbought their product. Almost everyone I know at least got 3+ phones (1 current 2 in the drawers). Even got one with 15+ phones (collection he said). As long as we behave to reward companies that do this, we will continuously getting new companies or existing companies adopting this strategy. I don't see "treehuggers" using antiquated Nokia phones and routinely seen many of my environmentally conscious frens having new iphones EVERY 2 years even if their old phones are working fine and they can easily go into a cheap repair shop to change the battery. As for security reasons, yeah, "frens" actually pasting post-it passwords and no idea what is yubi keys and never bother doing 2FA.

duxup 5y ago

I’m not sure if Google wanted… they could support a phone for much more than ~3 years. Older android phones slow down / get really janky as time goes on. Even when they’re still supporting it. It’s one of the reasons I left Android. Longer term lives for Android phones is pretty bad, flashing your own ROMs aside (I was done with that long ago).

abandonliberty 5y ago

>ridiculous amount of money This is a strange red herring because it is ridiculously expensive, but not meaningfully so on a per-handset basis. Software development teams are ridiculously expensive. Going from two to four years might require a doubling in staff. You need teams dedicated to old architecture, conservatively $1m for 5 people. Your best engineers will want to move on to newer problems. The problem compounds. These teams could be instead working on newer products with greater potential return, so they're billable at $4m for 5 people per year. 4 additional years of support is $16m. (This is fairly lean, but should be about the right order of magnitude +/- 1). With 13m sold, that's about $1/handset. Apple/Samsung budget for this. Google chooses not to.