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Nothing inherent makes security on 7 year old hardware any more difficult than on 2 year old hardware. Also, we're getting into the differences between upgrade

Nothing inherent makes security on 7 year old hardware any more difficult than on 2 year old hardware. Also, we're getting into the differences between upgrades (what OP said) and updates (the thing necessary to keep up with security) here. I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. I would have been perfectly content with only getting security updates since.

frackintoaster 2y ago
This is.. not true. A lot of hardware change is involved in modern mobile device security. Apple has come a long way from the iPhone 7 in hardware security and no amount of patching software is going to introduce a new cryptographic coprocessor.
- pbmonster 2y ago
  This is true, but most of that hardware security makes the devices harder to access once stolen/confiscated. For everyday use, against online threats, 7 year old hardware can be made extremely secure - it's what Windows 10 and Linux do every day on much, much older hardware. And sure, a cryptographic coprocessor will make accessing encrypted data a lot more snappy. But decrypting that data in software instead will work just as well, albeit slower. Which really doesn't matter for 90%+ of phone users.
vundercind 2y ago
> I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. - Live Photos. I won't consider any device that doesn't have something analogous, now. They're magical. Non-kid-havers may feel otherwise, but making every photo I snap of my kids a "Live Photo" is one of the most important improvements any technology thingy has provided in my entire life. (I think these are under the 10-year line? Very close, if not) - Transparent OCR and text selection in images. The first time I used an image for a couple full minutes, copying text out of it, before realizing only when I went to share it with someone that it wasn't a PDF but a PNG, was when I knew this had to be a table-stakes your-OS-is-incomplete-without-it feature for me. Sure it could just be a feature of some program I've got installed, but having it in any native image view is way better than having to open some specific program to use it, a thing I could long have done, but never did. Making it first-class, fast, and transparent to the user, makes all the difference. I rely on it all the time now. A couple off the top of my head.
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  Those are very nice to have, but if the device still can do basic web and phone things do you really need to upgrade?
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Well, no, but I was working with a bar of: > I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. which both of those easily clear for me. I bet I could come up with a few more if I read over some OS release notes from the last few years—"oh yeah, that! I use it so much I'd kinda forgotten it was a thing" sort of stuff.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  Neither of those should require an OS upgrade though, those should be apps.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    You could already OCR. What made me actually use it was exactly its becoming an OS feature. Now it seems weird if there's an image with text and I can't select the text I can plainly see on my screen.
- pbmonster 2y ago
  On Android, those features where shipped as apps. PixelCam brought live photos, and Google Lens brought seamless OCR to images. And really, that's how it should be. Both of those things are not things the operating system does or should do.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    > Google Lens brought seamless OCR to images. Do you have to open Google Lens to do it? I could already do something like that, just didn't. It's totally different when it Just Works.
- 2y ago

frackintoaster 2y ago

This is.. not true. A lot of hardware change is involved in modern mobile device security. Apple has come a long way from the iPhone 7 in hardware security and no amount of patching software is going to introduce a new cryptographic coprocessor.

pbmonster 2y ago
This is true, but most of that hardware security makes the devices harder to access once stolen/confiscated. For everyday use, against online threats, 7 year old hardware can be made extremely secure - it's what Windows 10 and Linux do every day on much, much older hardware. And sure, a cryptographic coprocessor will make accessing encrypted data a lot more snappy. But decrypting that data in software instead will work just as well, albeit slower. Which really doesn't matter for 90%+ of phone users.

vundercind 2y ago

> I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. - Live Photos. I won't consider any device that doesn't have something analogous, now. They're magical. Non-kid-havers may feel otherwise, but making every photo I snap of my kids a "Live Photo" is one of the most important improvements any technology thingy has provided in my entire life. (I think these are under the 10-year line? Very close, if not) - Transparent OCR and text selection in images. The first time I used an image for a couple full minutes, copying text out of it, before realizing only when I went to share it with someone that it wasn't a PDF but a PNG, was when I knew this had to be a table-stakes your-OS-is-incomplete-without-it feature for me. Sure it could just be a feature of some program I've got installed, but having it in any native image view is way better than having to open some specific program to use it, a thing I could long have done, but never did. Making it first-class, fast, and transparent to the user, makes all the difference. I rely on it all the time now. A couple off the top of my head.

datadrivenangel 2y ago
Those are very nice to have, but if the device still can do basic web and phone things do you really need to upgrade?
- vundercind 2y ago
  Well, no, but I was working with a bar of: > I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. which both of those easily clear for me. I bet I could come up with a few more if I read over some OS release notes from the last few years—"oh yeah, that! I use it so much I'd kinda forgotten it was a thing" sort of stuff.
Suppafly 2y ago
Neither of those should require an OS upgrade though, those should be apps.
- vundercind 2y ago
  You could already OCR. What made me actually use it was exactly its becoming an OS feature. Now it seems weird if there's an image with text and I can't select the text I can plainly see on my screen.
pbmonster 2y ago
On Android, those features where shipped as apps. PixelCam brought live photos, and Google Lens brought seamless OCR to images. And really, that's how it should be. Both of those things are not things the operating system does or should do.
- vundercind 2y ago
  > Google Lens brought seamless OCR to images. Do you have to open Google Lens to do it? I could already do something like that, just didn't. It's totally different when it Just Works.
2y ago