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The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so

The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips. It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years. Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money. They also build their own chips.

hatsune 3y ago
Quite not true. LOS does not need to hack kernal of all deprecated chips to update everything to much higher android ver. There are no reasons manufacturer can't do that. It's a choice made by manufacturer not Qualcomm.
SCdF 3y ago
Are you saying that Pixel's abysmal long term support record is because Google can't afford to hire kernel and hardware devs? Or does Qualcomm lock them out even with those people after some number of years?
- masklinn 3y ago
  > Are you saying that Pixel's abysmal long term support record is because Google can't afford to hire kernel and hardware devs? Not can’t, don’t want to. If it‘s not going to save or make money, company isn’t going to bother. And Google is on a cost-cutting crusade right now so absent an external motivation it’s going to happen even less.
wiseowise 3y ago
> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money. Funny way to spell “provide quality service compared to competitors”.
- Zambyte 3y ago
  What service do they provide you?
  - wiseowise 3y ago
    Cloud sync that works across all of my devices in a centralized manner. Zero bloatware, adware OS that works out of the box and doesn’t change every year. Consistent experience across devices. iOS, specifically, all of what I listed there and really nice, fluent system compared to Androids that have frame drops even on top end devices.
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      Can you actually block in-app ads in iOS? Like the way adaway does it, by modify /etc/hosts and thus removing 95% of the annoyances in apps?
      - giovani 3y ago
        I'm not aware if you can do it the way you mention, but you can used NextDNS and it pretty much cleans most of the ads (I actually haven't seen an ad in a very long time). If it ever interests you: https://nextdns.io/?from=d6jchbnv https://nextdns.io/?from=d6jchbnv (my affiliate link).
        ignoramous 3y ago
        DNS based content blocking is trivially bypassed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30411049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30411049 I am pretty active in the blocklist community, co-maintain a FOSS network monitor and firewall for Android, was a contributor to AOSP, and run a public DoH/DoT resolver; to me, the writing has been on the wall for the past few years. Plugins like uBlockOrigin, alt web-based front-ends like Invidious, and reverse-engineered apps like YouTube ReVanced will most likely be the only options left in the not so distant future.
      - 3y ago
gettodachoppa 3y ago
How is the actual phone (not computing device) hardware on the Pixel? The last time I had a Google phone was the 2012 Nexus, and I said never again. It had absolutely trash speakers and microphone. I couldn't be talking to someone when it was windy, I couldn't hear them. And when I tried recording a video at a sports stadium, the audio was completely distorted from the noise because the mic couldn't keep up with the noise. Is the Pixel a good choice for people who spend the majority of their time on the road and not in a quiet office or home?
- DocJade 3y ago
  I have a pixel 6 pro, works great Never had problems with the microphones, and calls are extra clear because they do some ai nonsense to upscale the audio coming into the phone My 2 main gripes are: The modem, I have issues with reception in the strangest locations, I can have direct line of sight to 3 different cell towers and still get stuck on edge till I hit the "Fix connectivity" button in settings, but when it is working (which it does 95% of the time), works great The camera, amazing photo quality, videos look great, I have nothing against image quality. But the videos this thing takes are MASSIVE, even with HVEC on, a 50 second video can weigh over 300mb. Not sure what's up with that. Oh also the main shooter camera is mechanically separated from the rest of the phone, so if you shake the phone or whip pan it too hard, you can hear it rattle. Overall 9/10 though! I hear the pixel 7 has a better modem
echelon 3y ago
Awful perverse incentives, vendor lock in, and control everywhere you look. I hate mobile computing. It's a pale shadow of what I imagine it could have been.
- cwalv 3y ago
  I'm optimistic that "what it could have been" is what it will eventually be. Originally there was just Apple, and their lock-in driven business model. Competitors could emulate them and still get away with it for a while, but it will get commoditized to the same level PCs are at some point.
  - troupo 3y ago
    Funnily enough, originally people thought it was Apple who commoditized mobile computing and software development by getting it from the clutches of telecom providers
    - cwalv 3y ago
      I had a buddy who was working on a Linux base for Motorola phones back around 2004/2005. I mentioned this to a EE I worked with back then, who had spent a long time working for Motorola, and he said the carriers "would never allow it." Having the baseband firmware cordoned off was inevitable
    - HPsquared 3y ago
      It's commoditization all the way down.
    - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
      I will say, at least after Apple introduced the smartphone to the masses we did eventually get some amount of commoditization and control as consumers. Not from them, mind you, but they successfully killed the old giants in their bid to take their place, allowing Android to rise and give some amount of control to the people.
- fsflover 3y ago
troupo 3y ago
> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money. What does this even mean? If you're so concerned about not paying for anything, all you need is buy the phone from Apple. You don't have to pay for anything else. The reason Apple can support their phones for longer is because they control most of the stack: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/owning-the-stack-the-legal-war-for-control-of-the-smartphone-platform/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/owning-the-stack...
- Timwi 3y ago
  > You don't have to pay for anything else. Is there an iOS equivalent to F-Droid?
  - nicexe 3y ago
    This is the closest. https://altstore.io/ https://altstore.io/
masklinn 3y ago
> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money. Nonsense. It’s because they have all the expertise in-house anyway, they get extremely good terms due to their weight and negotiation, and they figure if you don’t change phone now you might do so next year and they’ll get your money anyway. There’s no brand loyalty on the Android side, and fostering it seems impossible (even brand recognition efforts don’t seem to do much).
- gdrulia 3y ago
  On what is based your claim that it is impossible to foster brand loyalty on Android side? Maybe there is a reason that there is no brand loyalty on Android side, a reason that maybe those brands created themselves after seeking instant profits above anything else. Not one android phone manufacturer tried to cultivate long term relations with their customers for any reasonable amount of time. A lot of customers tried variety of android phones exactly for that reason, to find a brand that would not let you down and yet very quicly all promises were broken.
- worrycue 3y ago
  Also even if you don’t buy a new iPhone now, i.e. you keep using your old iPhone, they still benefit if you continue to buy apps (and buy in-app purchases), if you continue to buy from iTunes just for the convenience, or subscribe to Apple Music. This incentivises them to support all their phones as long as technologically possible. Other phone manufacturers have the opposite incentive, they want you to buy a new phone ASAP, since they earn nothing if you don’t buy a new phone. From an e-waste perspective, Apple’s model is definitely better.
veave 3y ago
The reason you don't see long term support on Android is the same reason Linux failed in the desktop: the Linux kernel developers want everything mainlined and are not interested in keeping a stable kernel API for drivers, but in the real world, drivers are closed source.
- convalescindrey 3y ago
  Oh right, it's those open source kernel guys. Has nothing to do with incentives to sell phones being aligned with business/profit (i.e. avoiding a phone to be usable well across the 5+ years mark).
  - all2 3y ago
    This is the reason I want Arch Linux on my phone. I have my option of mobile interfaces (Plasma Mobile is still a thing, right?) or I could literally roll my own (there are i3 mods that allow using touch screens). I'd love to be able to run a mainline Linux kernel on a standard handset. It would enable a bunch of goofy things, like using old phones as IP wifi security cameras.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  > drivers are closed source And that’s a problem that needs fixed. Out of any piece of software, the one that connects my hardware to my OS is probably one of the most important. Although I find it dubious this alone is why Linux historically has failed at desktop. It certainly sucks to deal with, but at least people attempted to use Linux. Personally I would argue that people’s innate fear of change is the bigger problem, in my experience.
- mindslight 3y ago
  I sure miss that "real world" with its blue screens of death from unmaintained binary drivers thrown over the wall by lowest bidders, running with kernel privileges doing who-knows-what behind the scenes. I shudder to think about what that has devolved to today, with the widespread prevalence of shameless user surveillance and all. Meanwhile in the free world, hardware is well documented.
madeofpalk 3y ago
> Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise > Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden Samsung can do it because they're smart, but Apple does it because they're evil? Why doesn't Apple also have in house expertise? > Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Qualcomm seems like a scapegoat here. Google surely has expertise here. Isn't this sorely on Google?
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  >Samsung can do it because they're smart, but Apple does it because they're evil? Nobody said Apple are doing it because they're are evil, calm down. Your parent said Apple can afford to give you longer support because they not only make money when they sell you the phone HW, they also keep making money from your iCloud, iTunes and every other third party subscription or SW you buy on Apple App store. Basically, they double dip and monetize you over the entire period of you owning the device. That's exactly what your parent said. Apple's walled garden affords them enough revenue to keep funding SW updates for your old Apple devices which Android makers can't do. All the other Android makers, apart from Google, don't make any other money after they sell you the phone HW, since Google is the one earning 30% off Playstore sales, not Samsung, or the others HW makers. Therefore they can't afford to pay teams of SW devs to keep pushing you SW updated for your old phone, so many years after you stopped giving them money, especially since they depend on Quallcomm and other semi vendors giving them up to date drivers, which they won't do for free since semi makers also want to sell newer chips rather than supporting older ones for free. Google could do like Apple in theory, since they own the whole ecosystem stack apart from the SoC and they do have the cash for it, but they don't want to do it because Google sucks at maintaining anything "old" long-term, especially HW, so they keep doing what Google does best and focus on the new shiny while sunsetting the older shinys. It's ironic that Samsung offers longer Andorid updates for their flagships S-series, than Google themselves do for the Pixels. That says everying about Google.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    No, Google just sucks at maintaining an ecosystem. Microsoft figured out how to license an OS to third party OEMs and still allow end users to update their hardware without depending on the vendor for literally decades. Heck I was able to just throw a Windows 7 CD in my old first gen Mac Mini x86 1.66Ghz Core Duo and run it for years after Apple dropped support.
kevincox 3y ago
> Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. I don't think this is particularly relevant. IIRC Qualcomm hardware support includes a handful of binary blobs with restrictive licenses. So if there is a vulnerability in one of those OEMs can't fix it without Qualcomm's support. So it is impossible to promise longer support than Qualcomm will provide. In practice they may be able to support the device longer if they can work around security issues from outside the blob or if no security issues are found, but they can't guarantee it (and without a guarantee there is also less incentive to actually do it). We are finally seeing Apple, Google and Samsung creating their own SOC with longer software support, hopefully that is enough to disrupt Qualcomm's shitty practices here.
jqpabc123 3y ago
It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years. Yes. Hardware vendors love Open Source. It essentially cedes all control of the market to them. They spend minimal time/money/effort on software development and updates because surprise, surprise --- it doesn't produce profits, it consumes them. Hardware is where they make all their money. The only realistic way to get long term software support on Android is from Open Source. This means installing a replacement, 3rd party Open Source ROM. This is the first thing I do when I buy a new phone --- and I won't buy a phone that doesn't have good 3rd party support. I have a Moto G4 Play from 2016 that gets regular software updates running e/OS. The last update was May 14th. This is my backup phone (I have a backup for everything that is considered "essential"). My primary phone is a Moto One 5G Ace (2021) which also has excellent support from e/OS and it's currently cheap as dirt considering the hardware specs. Only $129 from Amazon with 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, Snapdragon 765 processor, 2 day battery and microSD expansion. If I accidentally leave it in an Uber or drop it in a toilet, it's sad but no big deal. I just switch to the backup until the replacement arrives. Try that with your $1000 iPhone.
- bartvk 3y ago
  > I just switch to the backup until the replacement arrives. Try that with your $1000 iPhone. Do you really keep them fully sync'ed? How do you sync photos?
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    I don't keep them fully synced. I do back up the "important stuff" on my primary phone to off device storage on a fairly regular basis. So my backup phone can be brought up to sync if need be. A secret weapon in this regard is an Android open source file manager called Material Files which can create compressed files and speaks SMB. I usually create backups onto a SD memory card and then periodically copy these to local off device storage using wifi.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  You’re not getting the updated proprietary blobs for the chips. You’re just getting an updated OS.
david-gpu 3y ago
> The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips Apple and Google make money off you for as long as you use your phone. Qualcomm only makes money when you buy it. Thus, Qualcomm has little incentive to maintain old chips for long. Not because they are evil, that would be another conversation, but because they only make money off newly sold phones.
- ntauthority 3y ago
  Qualcomm actually started offering LTS (long-term support) BSP (board support packages) to device manufacturers for a fee. This is why some vendors like Samsung and Microsoft started providing updates for phones with older SoCs for longer than usual: they're paying the additional per-product license fee for being allowed to ship updated firmware.
izacus 3y ago
I'm seconding the Pixels - they're also pretty much the only phones that allow you to upload your own signing keys, so you can run Google-free GrapheneOS with secure boot enabled. (Which is also nice for long term support.)
- wilsonnb3 3y ago
  GrapheneOS stops supporting phones when Google stops releasing new firmware for them for security reasons, so you aren’t going to get longer term support from it.
  - kdklol 3y ago
    They do have extra 2 years of partial "transitional" support, if I'm not mistaken. But yes, even they will not support them forever as it's not financially feasible without help in the form of first-party updates.
  - tiberious726 3y ago
    To do anything else would be snakeoil at best: no open source project can support the radio firmware
    - allarm 3y ago
      Is it technically possible to write an open source firmware for the existing wireless chips?
      - all2 3y ago
        Technically, yes. The big hangup is that spec sheets for these chips are often hidden behind NDAs, so devs are left reverse engineering existing firmwares. This extra barrier to entry hobbles further development for many phones.
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        Not really, modem firmware even for wifi and BT is pretty much tied down "thanks" to regulations, you won't get far without an exploit bypassing the signature verification. Governments are apparently very afraid of people modifying their chipsets to be more powerful in range than allowed.
hospitalJail 3y ago
>walled garden This is a marketing phrase that twists a negative into a positive. Its better to use more objective terms. Gardens give you a perceptions of flowers and fruits.
- DannyB2 3y ago
  A walled garden is only seen that way by those inside. To those outside it is a prison camp.
- goodoldneon 3y ago
  I’m in the Apple walled garden and it’s nice. It’s expensive, but it’s nice
  - fsflover 3y ago
    Until for any reason you want to leave...
    - allarm 3y ago
      Oh, and what happens then? I’m mostly using Apple devices, but also have a Pixel as a backup phone and a laptop with Linux as a backup laptop. It’s not like I’m locked in the ecosystem entirely.
- oofnik 3y ago
  Closed ecosystem? Sealed environment? Prison? What do you suggest to use instead? The last term would seem apt given the term "jailbreaking"
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    Personally I do like that. Perhaps we should opt to calling it “proprietary prison”.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  And the number of people outside of a few geeks who care to a first approximation is 0
hospitalJail 3y ago
Samsung is terrible, do not buy ever. They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security. I would recommend against Google phones, while 'they just work', they have been forcing users via dark patterns to use their services more and more. Its quite easy to get stuck with a google drive monthly fee or use their Maps app which is full of ads.
- eppp 3y ago
  Which leaves what exactly?
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    Check out Zenfone.
- daneel_w 3y ago
  >"They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security." What are you on about? Every version of iOS I've used the past 11 years, on every iPhone I've used, has been a buttery smooth experience compared to most (not all; most) things Android, and on top of that I've gotten over 5 years of OS/security updates for each model which is practically unheard of with Android OEMs.
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    Doesnt matter what their security updates are. Those are after the fact. Bezos got his nudes leaked and Jamal Khashoggi was killed.
    - daneel_w 3y ago
      >"Doesnt matter what their security updates are. Those are after the fact." Of course it matters. Whether you get 6 months, 1 year, or 5 years of updates is a huge deal. Their patches' timing don't differ from that of other vendors: most vulnerabilities are fixed before disclosure, few are exploitable, even fewer are found in the wild. >"Bezos got his nudes leaked and Jamal Khashoggi was killed." What stupid, arrogant and inflammatory rhetoric, suggesting that the reason someone died was because of their personal choice of an iPhone instead of an Android phone. Dumb toad. Nothing ever leaned towards there actually being an iCloud system breach. Everything points to weak guessable passwords and a lack of 2FA being the common vector for these leaks, because if there were a system breach there would have been far more victims and far higher value/content besides celebrities and their private nudes.
a-dub 3y ago
notably the pixel has moved off qualcomm to google silicon and now has 5+ years of support. if you want the _pure_ android experience, aosp support for pixel hardware has traditionally been very good. (google posts signed binary blobs for google hardware and with the move to google silicon those blobs have been getting smaller or may be completely eliminated now)
toastal 3y ago
I really wish there were more options than the Pixel. Ever since they removed the headphone jack it became obvious that there needs to be more device diversity in the longer-supported space.
jklinger410 3y ago
> The Pixel is the closest. This answer is painfully obvious and posts like OP's shouldn't be allowed on Hacker News.
barbazoo 3y ago
It seems that Google finally came to their senses and extended the support period to 5 years from 3 for anything Pixel 6+, so that's good I guess. https://endoflife.date/pixel https://endoflife.date/pixel

hatsune 3y ago

Quite not true. LOS does not need to hack kernal of all deprecated chips to update everything to much higher android ver. There are no reasons manufacturer can't do that. It's a choice made by manufacturer not Qualcomm.

SCdF 3y ago

Are you saying that Pixel's abysmal long term support record is because Google can't afford to hire kernel and hardware devs? Or does Qualcomm lock them out even with those people after some number of years?

masklinn 3y ago
> Are you saying that Pixel's abysmal long term support record is because Google can't afford to hire kernel and hardware devs? Not can’t, don’t want to. If it‘s not going to save or make money, company isn’t going to bother. And Google is on a cost-cutting crusade right now so absent an external motivation it’s going to happen even less.

wiseowise 3y ago

> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money. Funny way to spell “provide quality service compared to competitors”.

Zambyte 3y ago
What service do they provide you?
- wiseowise 3y ago
  Cloud sync that works across all of my devices in a centralized manner. Zero bloatware, adware OS that works out of the box and doesn’t change every year. Consistent experience across devices. iOS, specifically, all of what I listed there and really nice, fluent system compared to Androids that have frame drops even on top end devices.
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    Can you actually block in-app ads in iOS? Like the way adaway does it, by modify /etc/hosts and thus removing 95% of the annoyances in apps?
    - giovani 3y ago
      I'm not aware if you can do it the way you mention, but you can used NextDNS and it pretty much cleans most of the ads (I actually haven't seen an ad in a very long time). If it ever interests you: https://nextdns.io/?from=d6jchbnv https://nextdns.io/?from=d6jchbnv (my affiliate link).
      - ignoramous 3y ago
        DNS based content blocking is trivially bypassed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30411049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30411049 I am pretty active in the blocklist community, co-maintain a FOSS network monitor and firewall for Android, was a contributor to AOSP, and run a public DoH/DoT resolver; to me, the writing has been on the wall for the past few years. Plugins like uBlockOrigin, alt web-based front-ends like Invidious, and reverse-engineered apps like YouTube ReVanced will most likely be the only options left in the not so distant future.
    - 3y ago

gettodachoppa 3y ago

How is the actual phone (not computing device) hardware on the Pixel? The last time I had a Google phone was the 2012 Nexus, and I said never again. It had absolutely trash speakers and microphone. I couldn't be talking to someone when it was windy, I couldn't hear them. And when I tried recording a video at a sports stadium, the audio was completely distorted from the noise because the mic couldn't keep up with the noise. Is the Pixel a good choice for people who spend the majority of their time on the road and not in a quiet office or home?

DocJade 3y ago
I have a pixel 6 pro, works great Never had problems with the microphones, and calls are extra clear because they do some ai nonsense to upscale the audio coming into the phone My 2 main gripes are: The modem, I have issues with reception in the strangest locations, I can have direct line of sight to 3 different cell towers and still get stuck on edge till I hit the "Fix connectivity" button in settings, but when it is working (which it does 95% of the time), works great The camera, amazing photo quality, videos look great, I have nothing against image quality. But the videos this thing takes are MASSIVE, even with HVEC on, a 50 second video can weigh over 300mb. Not sure what's up with that. Oh also the main shooter camera is mechanically separated from the rest of the phone, so if you shake the phone or whip pan it too hard, you can hear it rattle. Overall 9/10 though! I hear the pixel 7 has a better modem

echelon 3y ago

Awful perverse incentives, vendor lock in, and control everywhere you look. I hate mobile computing. It's a pale shadow of what I imagine it could have been.

cwalv 3y ago
I'm optimistic that "what it could have been" is what it will eventually be. Originally there was just Apple, and their lock-in driven business model. Competitors could emulate them and still get away with it for a while, but it will get commoditized to the same level PCs are at some point.
- troupo 3y ago
  Funnily enough, originally people thought it was Apple who commoditized mobile computing and software development by getting it from the clutches of telecom providers
  - cwalv 3y ago
    I had a buddy who was working on a Linux base for Motorola phones back around 2004/2005. I mentioned this to a EE I worked with back then, who had spent a long time working for Motorola, and he said the carriers "would never allow it." Having the baseband firmware cordoned off was inevitable
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    It's commoditization all the way down.
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    I will say, at least after Apple introduced the smartphone to the masses we did eventually get some amount of commoditization and control as consumers. Not from them, mind you, but they successfully killed the old giants in their bid to take their place, allowing Android to rise and give some amount of control to the people.
fsflover 3y ago

troupo 3y ago

> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money. What does this even mean? If you're so concerned about not paying for anything, all you need is buy the phone from Apple. You don't have to pay for anything else. The reason Apple can support their phones for longer is because they control most of the stack: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/owning-the-stack-the-legal-war-for-control-of-the-smartphone-platform/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/owning-the-stack...

Timwi 3y ago
> You don't have to pay for anything else. Is there an iOS equivalent to F-Droid?
- nicexe 3y ago
  This is the closest. https://altstore.io/ https://altstore.io/

masklinn 3y ago

> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money. Nonsense. It’s because they have all the expertise in-house anyway, they get extremely good terms due to their weight and negotiation, and they figure if you don’t change phone now you might do so next year and they’ll get your money anyway. There’s no brand loyalty on the Android side, and fostering it seems impossible (even brand recognition efforts don’t seem to do much).

gdrulia 3y ago
On what is based your claim that it is impossible to foster brand loyalty on Android side? Maybe there is a reason that there is no brand loyalty on Android side, a reason that maybe those brands created themselves after seeking instant profits above anything else. Not one android phone manufacturer tried to cultivate long term relations with their customers for any reasonable amount of time. A lot of customers tried variety of android phones exactly for that reason, to find a brand that would not let you down and yet very quicly all promises were broken.
worrycue 3y ago
Also even if you don’t buy a new iPhone now, i.e. you keep using your old iPhone, they still benefit if you continue to buy apps (and buy in-app purchases), if you continue to buy from iTunes just for the convenience, or subscribe to Apple Music. This incentivises them to support all their phones as long as technologically possible. Other phone manufacturers have the opposite incentive, they want you to buy a new phone ASAP, since they earn nothing if you don’t buy a new phone. From an e-waste perspective, Apple’s model is definitely better.

veave 3y ago

The reason you don't see long term support on Android is the same reason Linux failed in the desktop: the Linux kernel developers want everything mainlined and are not interested in keeping a stable kernel API for drivers, but in the real world, drivers are closed source.

convalescindrey 3y ago
Oh right, it's those open source kernel guys. Has nothing to do with incentives to sell phones being aligned with business/profit (i.e. avoiding a phone to be usable well across the 5+ years mark).
- all2 3y ago
  This is the reason I want Arch Linux on my phone. I have my option of mobile interfaces (Plasma Mobile is still a thing, right?) or I could literally roll my own (there are i3 mods that allow using touch screens). I'd love to be able to run a mainline Linux kernel on a standard handset. It would enable a bunch of goofy things, like using old phones as IP wifi security cameras.
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
> drivers are closed source And that’s a problem that needs fixed. Out of any piece of software, the one that connects my hardware to my OS is probably one of the most important. Although I find it dubious this alone is why Linux historically has failed at desktop. It certainly sucks to deal with, but at least people attempted to use Linux. Personally I would argue that people’s innate fear of change is the bigger problem, in my experience.
mindslight 3y ago
I sure miss that "real world" with its blue screens of death from unmaintained binary drivers thrown over the wall by lowest bidders, running with kernel privileges doing who-knows-what behind the scenes. I shudder to think about what that has devolved to today, with the widespread prevalence of shameless user surveillance and all. Meanwhile in the free world, hardware is well documented.

madeofpalk 3y ago

> Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise > Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden Samsung can do it because they're smart, but Apple does it because they're evil? Why doesn't Apple also have in house expertise? > Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Qualcomm seems like a scapegoat here. Google surely has expertise here. Isn't this sorely on Google?

ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>Samsung can do it because they're smart, but Apple does it because they're evil? Nobody said Apple are doing it because they're are evil, calm down. Your parent said Apple can afford to give you longer support because they not only make money when they sell you the phone HW, they also keep making money from your iCloud, iTunes and every other third party subscription or SW you buy on Apple App store. Basically, they double dip and monetize you over the entire period of you owning the device. That's exactly what your parent said. Apple's walled garden affords them enough revenue to keep funding SW updates for your old Apple devices which Android makers can't do. All the other Android makers, apart from Google, don't make any other money after they sell you the phone HW, since Google is the one earning 30% off Playstore sales, not Samsung, or the others HW makers. Therefore they can't afford to pay teams of SW devs to keep pushing you SW updated for your old phone, so many years after you stopped giving them money, especially since they depend on Quallcomm and other semi vendors giving them up to date drivers, which they won't do for free since semi makers also want to sell newer chips rather than supporting older ones for free. Google could do like Apple in theory, since they own the whole ecosystem stack apart from the SoC and they do have the cash for it, but they don't want to do it because Google sucks at maintaining anything "old" long-term, especially HW, so they keep doing what Google does best and focus on the new shiny while sunsetting the older shinys. It's ironic that Samsung offers longer Andorid updates for their flagships S-series, than Google themselves do for the Pixels. That says everying about Google.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  No, Google just sucks at maintaining an ecosystem. Microsoft figured out how to license an OS to third party OEMs and still allow end users to update their hardware without depending on the vendor for literally decades. Heck I was able to just throw a Windows 7 CD in my old first gen Mac Mini x86 1.66Ghz Core Duo and run it for years after Apple dropped support.

kevincox 3y ago

> Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. I don't think this is particularly relevant. IIRC Qualcomm hardware support includes a handful of binary blobs with restrictive licenses. So if there is a vulnerability in one of those OEMs can't fix it without Qualcomm's support. So it is impossible to promise longer support than Qualcomm will provide. In practice they may be able to support the device longer if they can work around security issues from outside the blob or if no security issues are found, but they can't guarantee it (and without a guarantee there is also less incentive to actually do it). We are finally seeing Apple, Google and Samsung creating their own SOC with longer software support, hopefully that is enough to disrupt Qualcomm's shitty practices here.

jqpabc123 3y ago

It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years. Yes. Hardware vendors love Open Source. It essentially cedes all control of the market to them. They spend minimal time/money/effort on software development and updates because surprise, surprise --- it doesn't produce profits, it consumes them. Hardware is where they make all their money. The only realistic way to get long term software support on Android is from Open Source. This means installing a replacement, 3rd party Open Source ROM. This is the first thing I do when I buy a new phone --- and I won't buy a phone that doesn't have good 3rd party support. I have a Moto G4 Play from 2016 that gets regular software updates running e/OS. The last update was May 14th. This is my backup phone (I have a backup for everything that is considered "essential"). My primary phone is a Moto One 5G Ace (2021) which also has excellent support from e/OS and it's currently cheap as dirt considering the hardware specs. Only $129 from Amazon with 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, Snapdragon 765 processor, 2 day battery and microSD expansion. If I accidentally leave it in an Uber or drop it in a toilet, it's sad but no big deal. I just switch to the backup until the replacement arrives. Try that with your $1000 iPhone.

bartvk 3y ago
> I just switch to the backup until the replacement arrives. Try that with your $1000 iPhone. Do you really keep them fully sync'ed? How do you sync photos?
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  I don't keep them fully synced. I do back up the "important stuff" on my primary phone to off device storage on a fairly regular basis. So my backup phone can be brought up to sync if need be. A secret weapon in this regard is an Android open source file manager called Material Files which can create compressed files and speaks SMB. I usually create backups onto a SD memory card and then periodically copy these to local off device storage using wifi.
aaomidi 3y ago
You’re not getting the updated proprietary blobs for the chips. You’re just getting an updated OS.

david-gpu 3y ago

> The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips Apple and Google make money off you for as long as you use your phone. Qualcomm only makes money when you buy it. Thus, Qualcomm has little incentive to maintain old chips for long. Not because they are evil, that would be another conversation, but because they only make money off newly sold phones.

ntauthority 3y ago
Qualcomm actually started offering LTS (long-term support) BSP (board support packages) to device manufacturers for a fee. This is why some vendors like Samsung and Microsoft started providing updates for phones with older SoCs for longer than usual: they're paying the additional per-product license fee for being allowed to ship updated firmware.

izacus 3y ago

I'm seconding the Pixels - they're also pretty much the only phones that allow you to upload your own signing keys, so you can run Google-free GrapheneOS with secure boot enabled. (Which is also nice for long term support.)

wilsonnb3 3y ago
GrapheneOS stops supporting phones when Google stops releasing new firmware for them for security reasons, so you aren’t going to get longer term support from it.
- kdklol 3y ago
  They do have extra 2 years of partial "transitional" support, if I'm not mistaken. But yes, even they will not support them forever as it's not financially feasible without help in the form of first-party updates.
- tiberious726 3y ago
  To do anything else would be snakeoil at best: no open source project can support the radio firmware
  - allarm 3y ago
    Is it technically possible to write an open source firmware for the existing wireless chips?
    - all2 3y ago
      Technically, yes. The big hangup is that spec sheets for these chips are often hidden behind NDAs, so devs are left reverse engineering existing firmwares. This extra barrier to entry hobbles further development for many phones.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      Not really, modem firmware even for wifi and BT is pretty much tied down "thanks" to regulations, you won't get far without an exploit bypassing the signature verification. Governments are apparently very afraid of people modifying their chipsets to be more powerful in range than allowed.

hospitalJail 3y ago

>walled garden This is a marketing phrase that twists a negative into a positive. Its better to use more objective terms. Gardens give you a perceptions of flowers and fruits.

DannyB2 3y ago
A walled garden is only seen that way by those inside. To those outside it is a prison camp.
goodoldneon 3y ago
I’m in the Apple walled garden and it’s nice. It’s expensive, but it’s nice
- fsflover 3y ago
  Until for any reason you want to leave...
  - allarm 3y ago
    Oh, and what happens then? I’m mostly using Apple devices, but also have a Pixel as a backup phone and a laptop with Linux as a backup laptop. It’s not like I’m locked in the ecosystem entirely.
oofnik 3y ago
Closed ecosystem? Sealed environment? Prison? What do you suggest to use instead? The last term would seem apt given the term "jailbreaking"
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  Personally I do like that. Perhaps we should opt to calling it “proprietary prison”.
scarface_74 3y ago
And the number of people outside of a few geeks who care to a first approximation is 0

hospitalJail 3y ago

Samsung is terrible, do not buy ever. They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security. I would recommend against Google phones, while 'they just work', they have been forcing users via dark patterns to use their services more and more. Its quite easy to get stuck with a google drive monthly fee or use their Maps app which is full of ads.

eppp 3y ago
Which leaves what exactly?
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Check out Zenfone.
daneel_w 3y ago
>"They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security." What are you on about? Every version of iOS I've used the past 11 years, on every iPhone I've used, has been a buttery smooth experience compared to most (not all; most) things Android, and on top of that I've gotten over 5 years of OS/security updates for each model which is practically unheard of with Android OEMs.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Doesnt matter what their security updates are. Those are after the fact. Bezos got his nudes leaked and Jamal Khashoggi was killed.
  - daneel_w 3y ago
    >"Doesnt matter what their security updates are. Those are after the fact." Of course it matters. Whether you get 6 months, 1 year, or 5 years of updates is a huge deal. Their patches' timing don't differ from that of other vendors: most vulnerabilities are fixed before disclosure, few are exploitable, even fewer are found in the wild. >"Bezos got his nudes leaked and Jamal Khashoggi was killed." What stupid, arrogant and inflammatory rhetoric, suggesting that the reason someone died was because of their personal choice of an iPhone instead of an Android phone. Dumb toad. Nothing ever leaned towards there actually being an iCloud system breach. Everything points to weak guessable passwords and a lack of 2FA being the common vector for these leaks, because if there were a system breach there would have been far more victims and far higher value/content besides celebrities and their private nudes.

a-dub 3y ago

notably the pixel has moved off qualcomm to google silicon and now has 5+ years of support. if you want the _pure_ android experience, aosp support for pixel hardware has traditionally been very good. (google posts signed binary blobs for google hardware and with the move to google silicon those blobs have been getting smaller or may be completely eliminated now)

toastal 3y ago

I really wish there were more options than the Pixel. Ever since they removed the headphone jack it became obvious that there needs to be more device diversity in the longer-supported space.

jklinger410 3y ago

> The Pixel is the closest. This answer is painfully obvious and posts like OP's shouldn't be allowed on Hacker News.

barbazoo 3y ago

It seems that Google finally came to their senses and extended the support period to 5 years from 3 for anything Pixel 6+, so that's good I guess. https://endoflife.date/pixel https://endoflife.date/pixel