Prominent Android manufacturers commit to supporting phone software for 7 years
Prominent Android manufacturers commit to supporting phone software for 7 years
Samsung phones now come backed with seven years' worth of security updates and seven generations of OS upgrades.
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/9647496
Hopefully a blow to planned obsolescence
Once again I look at Sundar Pichai and ask, what is the point of you? Under his stewardship, Android has lost all signs of life. The Android community is dead. There's been no innovation and the little bits of innovation they had created in recent years were quickly sunset. The last selling point of a Pixel was the quick updates and long update life but now everyone offers seven years. No identity, no community, no selling point, just blandness! They don't even leverage their money to offer cheaper hardware, the Pixel Tablet with Dock is compelling in its form factor, but upon closer look, it's less than mid-range specs, sub-par speaker performance and all with an over inflated price. At least eat the cost so that you can get one or two of these in every home. The only thing that's impressed me in recent years is bundling the watches.
22i don't think they like the android community much since a lot of the community is dedicated toward getting away from the surveillance and theft that Google profits from.
17Well if they would think more than 1 financial quarter ahead of things, they'd realize that they will lose customers to competition, thereby ruining both device sales and data gathering profits.
What shocks me, and I do mean shocks me, is what this line of thinking implies. Is the data google (tries to) gather from me really worth more $ than, say, an average of 350$ each year? Cause thats just 1 phone every 2-3 years and I'm looking into a tablet, and wearables eventually. I refuse to believe any knowledge about me is unique and valuable enough to beat that, and it seriously confuses me.
5
You talk about android then bring up random points about the pixel phones. Those are two separate things. One could say android is doing well because multiple manufacturers have adopted the 7 year policy that google initially put forward. I mainly use iOS so not an android fanboy, but your rant isn’t really making a coherent point.
5They're not concerned with product, they're concerned with profit. They're strategically cutting away bits and pieces that don't make money. Incidentally, these are all the fun and exciting bits, leaving behind the blandness.
5That's a boring answer but it is sadly true for Google and every other big tech company currently. They focused on massive growth for years off the back of heavy investment but now that the financial climate is bad and interest rates are up, all these companies suddenly need to refocus the business around profitability. It's why this wave of enshittification has hit the internet within the last few years.
3It's a shame. I remember the Google+ days when they were playing with app redesigns. Those days were fun.
2
I agree, from a user point of view, however from Google's point of view guys only job is to make money for the company, which he seems to be doing.
Android has been left to languish and especially the mid range and budget segment. Google had let OEM's use the largest sales market to keep selling junk low spec phones year after year with the same specs and no meaningful improvements. If you wanna really great cameras or wireless charging, your only choice is to buy a premium device. That locks out billions of people from having a great Android experience.
Even the premium segment hasn't seen that much improvement from Google. It's basically only Samsung who are pushing things forward through OneUI and through hardware Innovations like folding phones and zoom cameras to make the experience better.
I for one am tired of it and have decided that my next phone is an iPhone. For the same price as an A55 I can get a brand new iPhone 12 or for less I can get a refurbished model and have far superior cameras than any Android below €750 as well as years of OS updates and enjoy all the great user features Apple has added to iOS recently.
The last iPhone I had was the 7 and it was ok but my S7 Edge was better. I've been on Android since then but now iPhone has finally made some great improvements in both hardware and software which I think should offer me a better experience than budget Android.
5Despite Sundar's leadership, do you think that extending update support to 7 years took no innovation? The Android team has been doing major system reworks to make this practical. The Tensor team has been working to do the same on the hardware side. Samsung is likely reusing firmware and software from that work given that the hardware is shares a lot of Samsung IPs. Prior to these developments Samsung was not interested in providing anywhere close to this length of support.
Android is in the best place it's ever been since its release. It's on more things than ever and we have the kind of update support we used to only dream about in 2008. And we have devices with unlockable and rekockable bootloaders. 🤯
3
This is old news, 5 months old. I thought they meant more manufacturers apart from google and samsung.
18The article says "manufacturers" but then only mentions Samsung in the article....
Not exactly a surprise tbh because they have to compete with iPhone. And I bet it's only for flagship devices. I can't see the budget devices getting this.
17That's typical clickbait: give a vague title to make people click.
9Google is also giving support for its Pixel devices since the Pixel 8 line.
And their Pixel 8a is also going to get 7 years of support, which is neat.Hopefully others follow.
5
That is good news.
Cynical me says there's some sort of catch though. They are commiting themselves to sell fewer phones. How else are they going to make their money?
Then again perhaps they are accepting they can't keep going on as they have been.
7This is for the S series lineup. Samsung still have their A series and M,F,C series in other markets.
4I see it as the other way around. People are going to keep their phones for longer whether or not they fix the security issues that emerge. It’s better to fix the issues, to improve user perception and user experience.
Smart phones are on increasingly longer replacement cycles before the announcement. Perhaps they see the writing on the wall.
2Through subscriptions. Both Google and Samsung are focusing heavily on that at the moment. That's also why their unique software features are often free at first. If Galaxy AI started off as a monthy subscription everyone would ignore it but their plan is to get you reliant on it then introduce a fee.
2Ah yes, the subscription. I'd forgotten about that.
1
Ignoring the fact that few folks keep the same device for 7 yrs to begin with, this is only good news for app support life.
The actual title of the topic should be:
"Android app support is getting even better"
This is essentially a nothing burger for hardware in the grand scheme of things but sure. We'll take it. Whatever.
I suppose it's a pretty big win for the aftermarket selling off older devices. More than a few brands still absolutely refuse to adopt this, however. Looking at you, Motorola.
0What about the battery? I doubt they support free battery replacements for 7 years...
-3Insane request.
5That would be too far fetched in reality.
They should at least make it easy to buy a genuine battery over that lifespan. Nobody should have to browse eBay & AliExpress for a replacement component that could theoretically explode.
Manufacturers should also be forced to promote battery recycling practices & initiatives too. They are tossing endless amounts of them onto rubbish piles via planned obsolescence and yearly updates.
2Attempts have been made to improve battery longevity in software, but at the end of the day battery chemistry sets the rules.
2I'm all for consumer protection, but I don't think demanding new hardware for free is reasonable at all. Making them easily available and replaceable would be.
1It's an alternative idea for a removable battery that they don't want to give back to the consumers, not even the steam deck has this. Software updates are nice, but the batteries are still the main limiting factor on a phones usability. I know getting free battery replacements is asking too much, but their dark patterns are as well. Corporations have way too much leeway, power, and protections; I don't care if they get hit hard with changes that help consumers.
2