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Android is notorious for aging out phones much faster than Apple. You could use 8+ year old phones with the latest security updates up until very recently.
by shiftpgdn 3y ago
Android is notorious for aging out phones much faster than Apple. You could use 8+ year old phones with the latest security updates up until very recently.
- camhart 3y agoI don't know a single person using an 8+ year old phone. I'd guess 99% of the population makes a phone last 2-4 years.
- croes 3y agoBut why? It seems the only progress is the camera and the CPU, but for what more CPU speed? The camera?
- vel0city 3y agoSeveral of the phones I've upgraded from were due to the onboard storage wearing out. A couple were because of water damage, which is less of a concern these days.
- runamok 3y agoFor me at least the battery seems to degrade significantly after 2+ years. I have a OnePlus 7t that is 3 years old and I use it heavily almost every day. I should consider wiping it to see if that improves battery life.
- woodruffw 3y agoNot sure about 8 years, but I know at least 3 people who use iPhone 8s still and have no intention of stopping, so that's 6 years. I know at least one person who had an iPhone 5 until it broke earlier this year.
- kaba0 3y agoI guess this will only lengthen as we go forward, as the initial jumps between successive phones were large, and they are much more incremental nowadays. An iphone XS is good for 5 more years easily.
- llimllib 3y agoI try to use mine for 5 years each, I jumped from the 8 to the 14 earlier this year
- bombcar 3y agoI only stopped using the 8+ because it got destroyed, and "upgrading" to a newer used one was almost the same price. Otherwise I'd still be rocking that touch button.
- szundi 3y agoFather as business development manager manages with iphone 7
- throwaway54_56 3y agoThe lifespan of those phones remains for the people that buy them used/refurbished. There is a strong secondary market for iPhones.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoWow, I don’t think that’s true at all. Most people can’t afford a new phone that frequently. I know amongst my techno elite friends your estimate holds, but for almost everyone else I know they rarely upgrade and it’s more about when it physically falls apart than any desire to participate in an upgrade cycle.
- scarface_74 3y agoIn the US, all of the major carriers offer 0% interest payment plans. Even the MVNOs offer low end iPhones “for free” with a contract. We don’t have to limit it to people you know People upgrade their phones about once every 2.5 years https://www.refurb.me/blog/how-long-does-a-smartphone-last-replacement-cycle https://www.refurb.me/blog/how-long-does-a-smartphone-last-r...
- hotnfresh 3y agoMy carrier offers them 0% interest, rolled into your phone plan payment. But, go figure, the sticker price is like 10-15% higher than on the Apple site. They just hid the interest in the price.
- scarface_74 3y agoThat isn’t true for T-mobile. But even so, you can always just buy from Apple with a 0% interest payment plan
- hotnfresh 3y agoiPhone 14 128GB on t-mobile’s site: $829 (zero-interest roll-into-your-phone-bill financing available) Same, on Apple’s site: $699 IDK, maybe apple price-dropped today and T-Mobile hasn’t caught up, but that’s similar to what I’ve seen in the past when I’ve looked at buying through them.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago0% interest isn’t $0/m. When you live paycheck to paycheck, as most Americans do, that’s a very important detail. Most people don’t have disposable income. But even that do they don’t value phone upgrades. When I see their ancient phones I sometimes remark they can get a phone with monthly terms and they just shrug and say the sad device with cracked screens and ancient cameras and crap display resolution and brightness is good enough for them. It baffles me, but most people just use their phone for texting, occasionally a map, and a crappy camera. Only in my tech friend circle do people keep up.
- skywhopper 3y agoWeird, I don’t know anyone that keeps their phone for less than five years.
- scarface_74 3y agoAnd I’m sure you don’t know “anyone that still watches TV” like the old Slashdot meme. It’s really not that hard to find statistics. It’s 2.5 - 3 years https://www.refurb.me/blog/how-long-does-a-smartphone-last-replacement-cycle# https://www.refurb.me/blog/how-long-does-a-smartphone-last-r... https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-2-year-mobile-phone-upgrade-cycle-is-mostly-dead https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-2-year-mobile-phone-upgrade-c...
- minkzilla 3y agoYou said "I'd guess 99% of the population makes a phone last 2-4 years." Which is obviously false if the average is 3 years. An interesting data point neither of these articles have is the standard deviation. One of the articles says 8% of people wait more than 5 years.
- scarface_74 3y agoI never said any such thing about “99%”
- minkzilla 3y agoAh sorry, I replied to the wrong comment.
- ryandrake 3y agoMy iPhone 7 will be 7 years old in a few days, so close. I haven't found the need for anything that has gone into new phones since then that would justify the cost.
- vehemenz 3y agoHah, I just upgraded my iPhone 7 to the 13 Mini. It's definitely better, but I probably could have held on for another two years.
- avn2109 3y agoMy daily driver phone is an iPhone 7+, which Wikipedia tells me is from 2016. It works great and people often compliment the pictures from its camera. That's not "8+ years old" but it's in the ballpark :)
- zie 3y agoI'm at 5yrs(iPhone XR), though I do plan on replacing my phone with a new iPhone 15 later this year or early next.
- TheAtomic 3y agoOn a 6 year old iPhone 6 here. Solid, charges quick, no battery issues, good pics, you name it. I may upgrade to go all USB-C but may wait to see if the 15 has issues.
- thinkmassive 3y agoAnecdata: I have a friend who refuses to update from an original iPhone SE because he hates the larger form factors AND because it functions perfectly fine for his needs. I know multiple people still using an iPhone X (2018), for whom cost is not an issue. The main reason for the majority of the general population to upgrade is because the phone literally breaks (screen, stops charging, radio malfunctions, etc)
- nerdbert 3y agoMine is 6 years old, my wife and son are both using 8-year-old iphones. They still get security updates.
- scarface_74 3y agoActually, Apple released a security update for iPhone 5s (2013) earlier this year.
- joecool1029 3y agoJust installed 15.7.9 on the original iPhone SE (2016). Came out yesterday?
- saiya-jin 3y agoBy far the biggest intrusion window these days is your browser. Latest firefox with ublock origin is simply the safest of them all, saving bandwidth, blocking youtube ads, saving battery, your eyes and so on. Plus, currently plenty of androids have 5-6 years of guaranteed security updates. To be honest I wouldnt ever want to use much older phones even if patched up to date, too clunky, making bad photos (I have kids so this is top priority), not up to most network standards and so on
- scarface_74 3y agoWhich Android phones have 5-6 years of security updates?
- wredue 3y agoProbably all of them, but that’s only cause, unless things have changed, it takes 3 years to get said updates in the first place. I remember before I switched to iPhone I would wait and wait and wait and wait for the latest android and updates and a whole new version of android would roll out before I would even get the previous version.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoSamsung provides 5
- scarface_74 3y agoSo a Samsung phone from 2018 is still getting operating system updates or security updates?
- bad_user 3y agoTheir pledge has started in 2019, and the promise for 5 years of updates is fairly new. I remember they first promised 3 or 4 years of security updates. For what is worth, I have a Galaxy Tab S6 from 2019 that is still getting security updates, although it wasn't updated to Android 13: https://doc.samsungmobile.com/SM-T865/ROM/doc.html https://doc.samsungmobile.com/SM-T865/ROM/doc.html
- londons_explore 3y agoAncient android might not get security updates, but is actually still very usable. The vast majority of apps will still at least run and talk to their servers on a 10 year old phone.
- squokko 3y agoUsing a non-updated device on the Internet is not smart if you have any personal information on the phone.
- londons_explore 3y agoPlenty of people do it... And it doesn't actually backfire often - the worst that seems to happen is your phone will self-install unremovable adware if you visit the wrong website. A complete reset solves it tho.
- la_oveja 3y agosystem might not be updated, but apps are. its not the end of the world in a realistic setting
- mikeweiss 3y agoI'd actually like to see a list of real world security incidents that occured on EOL android devices. Not out of date browsers. (Chrome can still be updated) but devices no longer getting OS security updates.. something tells me it's very very rarely if ever an actual issue in real life.
- taway32r41 3y agoI'm not going to do a lot of research here but one thing I remember reading about was an uptick in Android Ransomware. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2020/10/08/sophisticated-new-android-malware-marks-the-latest-evolution-of-mobile-ransomware/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2020/10/08/sop... In the article it explains how Google and the ransomers are doing a cat and mouse thing. If your phone is not keeping up, that could definitely be an issue.
- rglullis 3y agoAnd? My android phones last on average 3 years, do everything I need and cost less than €200. The exception is the current Fairphone 3 I am using, which I paid 350€ and I am expecting to use for at least 5 years, possibly 7. How can one justify paying 3x the cost if not just to continue keeping myself tied into Apple?
- mattl 3y agoiPhone SE 2022 is $429 and will likely get updates for a similar amount of time as the OP mentioned. Not every iPhone is over $800.
- rglullis 3y agoThat's still more than the Fairphone, which has to deal with the overhead of sourcing materials and paying fair wages to everyone in the supply chain.
- mattl 3y agohttps://www.techradar.com/reviews/fairphone-3-review#section-fairphone-3-release-date-and-price https://www.techradar.com/reviews/fairphone-3-review#section... $500 in 2019 is $597 now. 450 Euro in 2019 is 533 Euro now. That's enough to buy an iPhone 13 and skip the SE model entirely.
- rglullis 3y agoIs that what the majority of people are buying, or are you just pushing down some numbers while forgetting that it does not reflect the reality of the consumer market?
- mattl 3y agoMy last two iPhones have been the SE model and I know a number of friends who have one. The previous smaller iPhone SE (2016) was a lovely phone and still getting updates.
- orangepurple 3y agoThis is why LineageOS is so critical
- forty 3y agoIt depends on the brand. Look at FairPhone if you care about durability, they are amazing. The recent FP5 might last 10 years. (happy owner of a FP3)
- flanbiscuit 3y agoI've been with Android since my the very first G1. I'm not an iPhone hater, I think they are great phones, I'm just happy with Android (for now) and see little reason to switch yet. That being said, the one thing that could probably make me switch is this issue right here. I have the Pixel 5a, it was released in August 2021 and Google only guarantees support for that model up to August 2024, that is for both full OS updates and just security patches. As of the Pixel 6 series and after, you get 3 years of full OS updates, and 5 years of security patches (that's 2 extra years after full OS updates stop). To compare, the iPhone 13 series was released in September 2021 and will continue to get support up to 7 years after its release (Sept 2028). So far my Pixel 5a has been the best (reliability-wise) phone I've ever hard and it sucks to know that after August 2024, I'll be vulnerable to future security vulnerabilities. Samsung offer only slightly better support by increasing the full OS support to 4 years instead of Google's 3 for the Pixel. Same 5 year for security patch. That's not enough for me to go back to Samsung and deal with their OS bloated with apps I can't uninstall (it's been a while, maybe it's better?) sources: https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en https://www.androidpolice.com/samsung-four-year-update-list-android/ https://www.androidpolice.com/samsung-four-year-update-list-... https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201624 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201624
- galangalalgol 3y agoMy 4a potentially just got its last update. If I don't any security updates going forward, not sure if I'll put a third party image on it or toss it. I'll probably try the first, and if it does work well, the second.
- nani8ot 3y agoGrapheneOS receives OS updates for another year. It's pretty simple to flash with a web-based installer. If it feels too slow, try disabling "Secure app spawning". It's a security improvement over Google's Android by GrapheneOS but increases app startup time. Especially on slower devices like the 4a.
- rwalle 3y agoLooks like you are talking about two different things in one sentence. About security updates -- while it is true that Apple provides security updates much longer than Android phones and this is something I care a lot about, I need to point out that the vast majority of people (outside HN or similar "tech forums") don't upgrade phones due to lack of security features but lack of latest features, missing nice cameras, or if the battery has bad battery or damage.