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> 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 th

> 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.
  - tristor 3y ago
    > 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. Apple absolutely repairs their devices or replaces them for customers at reduce/no cost and recycles the components. They have an entire program for this called AppleCare. Millions of devices have been repaired by AppleCare. The only thing Apple is bad about is allowing independent third-parties to do repairs. Google is stating here they won't even do first-party repair, nor will they supply parts for third party repair. This is not even in the same ballpark. You are making a false equivalence to try to distract from the fact that Google is uniquely bad here and has no respect for their customers.
ilyt 3y ago
> 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. "You support it for 6 years or give us code, else we will take our million chip order to competition" should be enough
- xethos 3y ago
  This only works if the "competition" is willing to sell to you (like Apple or Samsung won't) or is roughly on-par with Qualcomm's performance and power consumption (which MediaTek absolutely is not). Otherwise your billion dollar company gets laughed out of the room.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    I don't know why there is this concerted effort to stick your head in the sand and pretend that such things cannot be the subject of a contract if the parties involved want them to be. I severely doubt that if you offered qualcomm a trillion dollars they could not support the hardware for another 3 years. In fact it would be much less than a trillion dollars in practice. What you're fundamentally saying is, qualcomm isn't going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and google is not willing to write the check to make it happen, and that's still on them.
    - baby_souffle 3y ago
      > What you're fundamentally saying is, qualcomm isn't going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and google is not willing to write the check to make it happen, and that's still on them. So QCM should just get to name their price and google should pay it?
      - paulmd 3y ago
        Willful misreading of a comment is extremely impolite on this site. I said that this wasn’t a “not available at any price” situation, it’s a matter of figuring out a cost that works. Google (and other phone vendors) want to pay zero ($0), and the law currently allows them to externalize this cost onto their customers and society at large (e-waste going into landfills, unpatched OSs promoting malware, etc) instead. And they do.
hnfong 3y ago
> The SoC/Modem at the heart of the (pre 6) pixels is not first party, though https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/qualcomm-to-supply-apple-with-5g-modems-for-iphones-through-2026.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/qualcomm-to-supply-apple-wit... Not sure your argument holds as much water as you'd think.
- xethos 3y ago
  These appear to be exclusively the modem, whereas OP was talking about the System-on-Chip with an integrated modem packaged by Qualcomm.
  - baby_souffle 3y ago
    > These appear to be exclusively the modem, whereas OP was talking about the System-on-Chip with an integrated modem packaged by Qualcomm. Exactly :). QCM likes to sell both but also recognizes that selling half is better than none.

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.
- tristor 3y ago
  > 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. Apple absolutely repairs their devices or replaces them for customers at reduce/no cost and recycles the components. They have an entire program for this called AppleCare. Millions of devices have been repaired by AppleCare. The only thing Apple is bad about is allowing independent third-parties to do repairs. Google is stating here they won't even do first-party repair, nor will they supply parts for third party repair. This is not even in the same ballpark. You are making a false equivalence to try to distract from the fact that Google is uniquely bad here and has no respect for their customers.

ilyt 3y ago

> 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. "You support it for 6 years or give us code, else we will take our million chip order to competition" should be enough

xethos 3y ago
This only works if the "competition" is willing to sell to you (like Apple or Samsung won't) or is roughly on-par with Qualcomm's performance and power consumption (which MediaTek absolutely is not). Otherwise your billion dollar company gets laughed out of the room.
- paulmd 3y ago
  I don't know why there is this concerted effort to stick your head in the sand and pretend that such things cannot be the subject of a contract if the parties involved want them to be. I severely doubt that if you offered qualcomm a trillion dollars they could not support the hardware for another 3 years. In fact it would be much less than a trillion dollars in practice. What you're fundamentally saying is, qualcomm isn't going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and google is not willing to write the check to make it happen, and that's still on them.
  - baby_souffle 3y ago
    > What you're fundamentally saying is, qualcomm isn't going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and google is not willing to write the check to make it happen, and that's still on them. So QCM should just get to name their price and google should pay it?
    - paulmd 3y ago
      Willful misreading of a comment is extremely impolite on this site. I said that this wasn’t a “not available at any price” situation, it’s a matter of figuring out a cost that works. Google (and other phone vendors) want to pay zero ($0), and the law currently allows them to externalize this cost onto their customers and society at large (e-waste going into landfills, unpatched OSs promoting malware, etc) instead. And they do.

hnfong 3y ago

> The SoC/Modem at the heart of the (pre 6) pixels is not first party, though https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/qualcomm-to-supply-apple-with-5g-modems-for-iphones-through-2026.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/qualcomm-to-supply-apple-wit... Not sure your argument holds as much water as you'd think.

xethos 3y ago
These appear to be exclusively the modem, whereas OP was talking about the System-on-Chip with an integrated modem packaged by Qualcomm.
- baby_souffle 3y ago
  > These appear to be exclusively the modem, whereas OP was talking about the System-on-Chip with an integrated modem packaged by Qualcomm. Exactly :). QCM likes to sell both but also recognizes that selling half is better than none.