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The excuse has been driver and firmware support from the vendors. Google has extended security updates to 5 years for the newer Pixels. That's fairly decent, gi

by _ea1k 3y ago

The excuse has been driver and firmware support from the vendors. Google has extended security updates to 5 years for the newer Pixels. That's fairly decent, given that each one is only on the market for ~1 year. Obviously the cycle has to be longer for companies that keep older phones on the market as a lower cost option.

ethbr1 3y ago
In the US, at least, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a ton of pressure to limit update timeframe from the carriers. US carriers want postpaid customers, because they're more profitable and less likely to churn. Having an incentive to swap phones at the end of a (typically 2 year) phone upgrade cycle helps them sell renewals back into a new postpaid plan. Google, in typical Google fashion, probably doesn't care. It's used to end users not being its actual customers.
tristor 3y ago
> Google has extended security updates to 5 years for the newer Pixels. That's fairly decent, given that each one is only on the market for ~1 year. Apple has been supporting iPhone models for 6 years without any fanfare about it. iOS 15 supported the iPhone 6S, which was 6 years old at the time. iOS 17 that just got announced will only now drop support for the iPhone 8 released in 2017, 6 years ago. At certain points 7-year old phones have received all updates. Google's excuse about driver and firmware support does not and should not apply to the Pixel, which is a first-party device. I applaud Google for getting better here, but the linked article and the general reality of the Android ecosystem continuing to be a shitshow is really inexcusable in the face of their primary competitor doing the right thing for over a decade, quietly and competently.
- Clent 3y ago
  And that's just the full iOS updates. I have an iPad Air2 (2014?) that still receives security updates.
- CDSlice 3y ago
  Not to excuse Google but I think their main problem is that Qualcomm stops providing support for their chips pretty quickly which makes it much harder to run newer versions of Android that have newer kernels. Apple controls not just the OS but the chips as well so they don’t have to work around that problem.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Hardly an excuse, legal contracts exist and if Google would really care, they would enforce updates as condition to future AOSP access.
- baby_souffle 3y ago
  > Google's excuse about driver and firmware support does not and should not apply to the Pixel, which is a first-party device. The SoC/Modem at the heart of the (pre 6) pixels is not first party, though. If qualcom says "yeah, we're not going to bother backporting $newIssueFix to the kernel fork we used during chip development/bring-up" then there's not a _lot_ that google can do about it unless there's a contractual agreement in place. Apple has been using "first party" chips for their phones since the A4 processor (~ iPhone4) which is why they're able to keep compiling new OS/Kernel for their older hardware so long as the device is performant enough to actually run it. It's not a coincidence that google has been investing _heavily_ in making most of android super composable; large chunks of the HAL and system level components can be updated even if qualcom/mediatek ... etc don't do the work to get a newer kernel working.
  - tristor 3y ago
    > there's not a _lot_ that google can do about it unless there's a contractual agreement in place. 1. They should have a contractual agreement in place. 2. Google is one of the world's largest companies and one of the largest tech companies, they're also one of Qualcomm's largest customers alongside Samsung (who is also an Android-based handset manufacturer) after Apple started making their own basebands. They have /significant/ market leverage. It's excuses. Where there is a will, there is a way. The problem is that there isn't a will. Apple cares about device longevity and quality, Google does not. It's market segmentation in action. There is no reason anybody that can afford an iPhone should ever buy an Android device, because Google and their partner companies don't respect you as a customer. Consequently most Android devices are sold to people who can't afford an Apple device, otherwise they wouldn't submit themselves to this mistreatment.
    - baby_souffle 3y ago
      > They have /significant/ market leverage. Not really. QCM is in a position of power here. Where _else_ is samsung/google/apple going to go? This is slowly changing, but QCM modems are still in a league of their own... and they know it. > Apple cares about device longevity and quality, Google does not. It's market segmentation in action. This is a tenuous point at best. Apple isn't exactly rushing to make repair of their devices easy / accessible which is essential for a product to have a long life. Google doesn't have a lot of say over what other OEMs do w/r/t their hardware support. ----- My whole point is that it's not a happy/meaningless coincidence that as soon as an OEM moves away from QCM for the CPU, the promised support period grows.
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  When u consider the software cost the Android phones are definitely NOT cheap. A few years ago the Android phones software support were absurdly short and they are almost disposable. Some phones' updates are even dead on arrival as they are not even updated once. It's better nowadays as Samsung is providing even longer support than Google itslef
  - tristor 3y ago
    Android vs Apple is Samuel Vines' Boots Theory of Economics played out with handheld electronics: > "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet." If you can afford an Apple device, there's nearly no reason why you'd submit yourself to the mistreatment of being an Android customer, consequently those who buy Android devices, especially the bottom-dollar ones that never receive a single update post-purchase are those that can't afford better in the moment. Exactly like the cheap boots vs good boots in this classic allegory.
    - summm 3y ago
      That comparison is valid only if you had lots of suppliers and basically a single criterion, such as "feet dry" or in case of Apple "status". However, there are a lot of other reasons why you'd not want bo bend over for Apple's arrogant golden cage treatment. Main problem here is multiple instances of market failure all over the place: Qualcomm being a quasi-monopolist, made worse with patents. A phone being so complex that it cannot be made from scratch like a boot basically out of a cow. Apparently there being a place for only 2 App Ecosystems. General enshittifcation etc. etc.
      - tristor 3y ago
        Those are all a part of (but not the complete reasons) /why/ there is this segmentation in the market, but the segmentation is clear. Apple offers a superior product, treats their customers better, and is so expensive it is out of reach for many many people. Android offers a cheaper product, offers sometimes no updates at all or any assistance to customers, and is available to the masses. Vines' theory doesn't try to analyze /why/ things are the way they are, it's an observation of the higher cost of being poor. I am simply pointing out that the allegory extends to mobile phones, apparently, because there is a higher cost to being poor when your device gets security (and other) updates for half the length of time or less, or is made with lower quality and less powerful components, so has to be replaced more often. A base model iPhone is $800, a typical base model Android phone is around $200. That base model iPhone will get full iOS updates for 6 years, and security updates for 8 years, and is made of high quality components, and apps on the app store will generally work on that device for its entire lifespan (~8 years). That base model Android phone may never receive an update after release, but is generally guaranteed at most 1 year of updates, it is made with the cheapest components available as a low-margin device, and there are many apps on the play store that won't work on the device on the day its bought because it's not powerful enough, it will require replacement in roughly 1 year when it can no longer be updated (or more likely becomes broken, with no support). Over the same 8 year span that the iPhone base model user spends $800, the Android base model user will end up spending $1600 to maintain a phone with updates. Of course, there are flagship Android phone models as well. But even in that case the story is worse for Android, because you'll spend $1000 on an Android phone instead of $1200 on an iPhone, and you'll get 3 years of updates and no support, vs ~8 years of updates and support. In time-adjusted dollars, the iPhone is actually cheaper than Android, but it has a higher entry cost in the general sense than the Android phone. It's matching nearly identically to the allegory, which is why I pointed that out. The fact all modern devices, technologies, and our society in general is going to hell in a handbasket doesn't really matter in the context of what I am saying, but yes, I agree, enshittification ruins all.
- anonuser123456 3y ago
  >Google's excuse about driver and firmware support does not and should not apply to the Pixel, Until very recently, Google did not own the SoC, so it shouldn't be surprising that Apple is better at support given their vertical integration. At Apple, if the hardware isn't working as expected for a SW team, they send an email to a manager and it gets fixed or someone gets hammered by senior management. But the relationship between Google and a chip vendor isn't so smooth; that's just the nature of organizations. Google has made a smart choice by trying to bite off the SoC and try to be more vertical. It will make support much easier for them in the long run.
  - MBCook 3y ago
    So they can’t fix non-SoC related OS bugs because they don’t have the source to the SOC drivers? That doesn’t make sense to me. There may be classes they can’t fix, but there must be many they can.
    - fatfingerd 3y ago
      They can't claim an end of life date that's after the end of that SoC firmware contract if the SoC could have an issue that requires a fix. Plenty of hardware vendors ship updates for serious issues when they can after their published EoL date for good will reasons, but the EoL date is largely self fulfilling as corporate customers replace anything EoL to avoid risk.
- pull_my_finger 3y ago
  Well they may have been pushing updates to those older phones, but I wonder if we can call that "support". Supposedly they were pushing updates that intentionally slowed down older models to encourage people to upgrade[1]. Let's not pretend they were just doing good to do good. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/apple-agrees-to-settlement-of-up-to-500-million-from-lawsuit-alleging-it-throttled-older-phones/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/apple-agrees-to-settlement...
shortrounddev2 3y ago
>That's fairly decent Meanwhile, Microsoft released a security update to Windows XP in 2019
wolpoli 3y ago
> That's fairly decent, given that each one is only on the market for ~1 year. This makes me wonder if we instead should be counting number of years of OS updates from when it's last available new.
- ilyt 3y ago
  We absolutely should. And it should be legally required for manufacturer to support it for at least 5-6 years. So much less e-waste...
rlpb 3y ago
> Google has extended security updates to 5 years for the newer Pixels. It's not really 5 years. For example, if you buy a Pixel 6a today, a product that is not yet discontinued, you'll get less than 4 years support. Unless you accept Google's misleading framing of "from when the product was first sold", rather than the more reasonable "from when a consumer bought it, unless they bought it after it was discontinued". "When the product was first sold" is a meaningless date to a consumer who chooses to buy a product and this framing needs to die.

by _ea1k 3y ago

ethbr1 3y ago

In the US, at least, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a ton of pressure to limit update timeframe from the carriers. US carriers want postpaid customers, because they're more profitable and less likely to churn. Having an incentive to swap phones at the end of a (typically 2 year) phone upgrade cycle helps them sell renewals back into a new postpaid plan. Google, in typical Google fashion, probably doesn't care. It's used to end users not being its actual customers.

tristor 3y ago

> Google has extended security updates to 5 years for the newer Pixels. That's fairly decent, given that each one is only on the market for ~1 year. Apple has been supporting iPhone models for 6 years without any fanfare about it. iOS 15 supported the iPhone 6S, which was 6 years old at the time. iOS 17 that just got announced will only now drop support for the iPhone 8 released in 2017, 6 years ago. At certain points 7-year old phones have received all updates. Google's excuse about driver and firmware support does not and should not apply to the Pixel, which is a first-party device. I applaud Google for getting better here, but the linked article and the general reality of the Android ecosystem continuing to be a shitshow is really inexcusable in the face of their primary competitor doing the right thing for over a decade, quietly and competently.

Clent 3y ago
And that's just the full iOS updates. I have an iPad Air2 (2014?) that still receives security updates.
CDSlice 3y ago
Not to excuse Google but I think their main problem is that Qualcomm stops providing support for their chips pretty quickly which makes it much harder to run newer versions of Android that have newer kernels. Apple controls not just the OS but the chips as well so they don’t have to work around that problem.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Hardly an excuse, legal contracts exist and if Google would really care, they would enforce updates as condition to future AOSP access.
baby_souffle 3y ago
> Google's excuse about driver and firmware support does not and should not apply to the Pixel, which is a first-party device. The SoC/Modem at the heart of the (pre 6) pixels is not first party, though. If qualcom says "yeah, we're not going to bother backporting $newIssueFix to the kernel fork we used during chip development/bring-up" then there's not a _lot_ that google can do about it unless there's a contractual agreement in place. Apple has been using "first party" chips for their phones since the A4 processor (~ iPhone4) which is why they're able to keep compiling new OS/Kernel for their older hardware so long as the device is performant enough to actually run it. It's not a coincidence that google has been investing _heavily_ in making most of android super composable; large chunks of the HAL and system level components can be updated even if qualcom/mediatek ... etc don't do the work to get a newer kernel working.
- tristor 3y ago
  > there's not a _lot_ that google can do about it unless there's a contractual agreement in place. 1. They should have a contractual agreement in place. 2. Google is one of the world's largest companies and one of the largest tech companies, they're also one of Qualcomm's largest customers alongside Samsung (who is also an Android-based handset manufacturer) after Apple started making their own basebands. They have /significant/ market leverage. It's excuses. Where there is a will, there is a way. The problem is that there isn't a will. Apple cares about device longevity and quality, Google does not. It's market segmentation in action. There is no reason anybody that can afford an iPhone should ever buy an Android device, because Google and their partner companies don't respect you as a customer. Consequently most Android devices are sold to people who can't afford an Apple device, otherwise they wouldn't submit themselves to this mistreatment.
  - baby_souffle 3y ago
    > They have /significant/ market leverage. Not really. QCM is in a position of power here. Where _else_ is samsung/google/apple going to go? This is slowly changing, but QCM modems are still in a league of their own... and they know it. > Apple cares about device longevity and quality, Google does not. It's market segmentation in action. This is a tenuous point at best. Apple isn't exactly rushing to make repair of their devices easy / accessible which is essential for a product to have a long life. Google doesn't have a lot of say over what other OEMs do w/r/t their hardware support. ----- My whole point is that it's not a happy/meaningless coincidence that as soon as an OEM moves away from QCM for the CPU, the promised support period grows.
gloryjulio 3y ago
When u consider the software cost the Android phones are definitely NOT cheap. A few years ago the Android phones software support were absurdly short and they are almost disposable. Some phones' updates are even dead on arrival as they are not even updated once. It's better nowadays as Samsung is providing even longer support than Google itslef
- tristor 3y ago
  Android vs Apple is Samuel Vines' Boots Theory of Economics played out with handheld electronics: > "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet." If you can afford an Apple device, there's nearly no reason why you'd submit yourself to the mistreatment of being an Android customer, consequently those who buy Android devices, especially the bottom-dollar ones that never receive a single update post-purchase are those that can't afford better in the moment. Exactly like the cheap boots vs good boots in this classic allegory.
  - summm 3y ago
    That comparison is valid only if you had lots of suppliers and basically a single criterion, such as "feet dry" or in case of Apple "status". However, there are a lot of other reasons why you'd not want bo bend over for Apple's arrogant golden cage treatment. Main problem here is multiple instances of market failure all over the place: Qualcomm being a quasi-monopolist, made worse with patents. A phone being so complex that it cannot be made from scratch like a boot basically out of a cow. Apparently there being a place for only 2 App Ecosystems. General enshittifcation etc. etc.
    - tristor 3y ago
      Those are all a part of (but not the complete reasons) /why/ there is this segmentation in the market, but the segmentation is clear. Apple offers a superior product, treats their customers better, and is so expensive it is out of reach for many many people. Android offers a cheaper product, offers sometimes no updates at all or any assistance to customers, and is available to the masses. Vines' theory doesn't try to analyze /why/ things are the way they are, it's an observation of the higher cost of being poor. I am simply pointing out that the allegory extends to mobile phones, apparently, because there is a higher cost to being poor when your device gets security (and other) updates for half the length of time or less, or is made with lower quality and less powerful components, so has to be replaced more often. A base model iPhone is $800, a typical base model Android phone is around $200. That base model iPhone will get full iOS updates for 6 years, and security updates for 8 years, and is made of high quality components, and apps on the app store will generally work on that device for its entire lifespan (~8 years). That base model Android phone may never receive an update after release, but is generally guaranteed at most 1 year of updates, it is made with the cheapest components available as a low-margin device, and there are many apps on the play store that won't work on the device on the day its bought because it's not powerful enough, it will require replacement in roughly 1 year when it can no longer be updated (or more likely becomes broken, with no support). Over the same 8 year span that the iPhone base model user spends $800, the Android base model user will end up spending $1600 to maintain a phone with updates. Of course, there are flagship Android phone models as well. But even in that case the story is worse for Android, because you'll spend $1000 on an Android phone instead of $1200 on an iPhone, and you'll get 3 years of updates and no support, vs ~8 years of updates and support. In time-adjusted dollars, the iPhone is actually cheaper than Android, but it has a higher entry cost in the general sense than the Android phone. It's matching nearly identically to the allegory, which is why I pointed that out. The fact all modern devices, technologies, and our society in general is going to hell in a handbasket doesn't really matter in the context of what I am saying, but yes, I agree, enshittification ruins all.
anonuser123456 3y ago
>Google's excuse about driver and firmware support does not and should not apply to the Pixel, Until very recently, Google did not own the SoC, so it shouldn't be surprising that Apple is better at support given their vertical integration. At Apple, if the hardware isn't working as expected for a SW team, they send an email to a manager and it gets fixed or someone gets hammered by senior management. But the relationship between Google and a chip vendor isn't so smooth; that's just the nature of organizations. Google has made a smart choice by trying to bite off the SoC and try to be more vertical. It will make support much easier for them in the long run.
- MBCook 3y ago
  So they can’t fix non-SoC related OS bugs because they don’t have the source to the SOC drivers? That doesn’t make sense to me. There may be classes they can’t fix, but there must be many they can.
  - fatfingerd 3y ago
    They can't claim an end of life date that's after the end of that SoC firmware contract if the SoC could have an issue that requires a fix. Plenty of hardware vendors ship updates for serious issues when they can after their published EoL date for good will reasons, but the EoL date is largely self fulfilling as corporate customers replace anything EoL to avoid risk.
pull_my_finger 3y ago
Well they may have been pushing updates to those older phones, but I wonder if we can call that "support". Supposedly they were pushing updates that intentionally slowed down older models to encourage people to upgrade[1]. Let's not pretend they were just doing good to do good. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/apple-agrees-to-settlement-of-up-to-500-million-from-lawsuit-alleging-it-throttled-older-phones/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/apple-agrees-to-settlement...

shortrounddev2 3y ago

>That's fairly decent Meanwhile, Microsoft released a security update to Windows XP in 2019

wolpoli 3y ago

> That's fairly decent, given that each one is only on the market for ~1 year. This makes me wonder if we instead should be counting number of years of OS updates from when it's last available new.

ilyt 3y ago
We absolutely should. And it should be legally required for manufacturer to support it for at least 5-6 years. So much less e-waste...

rlpb 3y ago

> Google has extended security updates to 5 years for the newer Pixels. It's not really 5 years. For example, if you buy a Pixel 6a today, a product that is not yet discontinued, you'll get less than 4 years support. Unless you accept Google's misleading framing of "from when the product was first sold", rather than the more reasonable "from when a consumer bought it, unless they bought it after it was discontinued". "When the product was first sold" is a meaningless date to a consumer who chooses to buy a product and this framing needs to die.