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Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

Just like you have to buy an Apple phone to get Apple updates immediately, you need to buy a Google phone to get Google updates immediately. Pixel and Nexus rollout is starting nowish (and beta participants are already getting the OTAs).

This is really not a secret at this time anymore and should be taken into account when you succumb to Samsung marketing.

Everybody else will be probably 4-6 months late.

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But Apple supports iPhones for 4-5 years. Google has said they will only support their flagship Nexus and Pixel phones for no more than 2 years. For a $700 device this is unacceptable.

That's not entirely true:

Pixel phones get security updates for at least 3 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store, or at least 18 months from when the Google Store last sold the device, whichever is longer.

https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705

Apart from what Ironlink said below, there's also the fact that Google and Apple support mean different things.

For Apple, updates often mean some subset of the full operating system updates, or a crippled version.

Whereas Google updates tend to be all of nothing - meaning if your phone does get the update, it gets all of the features of that particular version.

This seems to have changed somewhat with moving a lot of the stuff to Play Service (and now obviously with Project Treble), so you get the best of both world (in theory)...

I’m fine with receiving years and years of security updates. I paid for the features I got. Anything new is a bonus. But an up to date secure OS is non-negotiable.

If it's non-negotiable for you, you have a choice: Google phones or Apple phones. Everything else is out, unless you want to try your luck with stuff like LineageOS and hope that they support your device for whatever timeframe you consider reasonable.

Well I don't consider Google's collection of my data to be a secure practice from the standpoint of my privacy. So the one remaining option is Apple.

There's also Copperhead OS. (You pay quite a bit for the privilege of security though.)

No, Apple updates include the full operating system update. The only time features are disabled is when they require hardware that doesn't exist (e.g. you have no finger print reader so you can't use your finger print reader) or they are too intensive for the phones CPU/GPU. That's it. Apple's propensity for hardware accelerators may make this seem like it's crippling (Eg: there is a voice recognition hardware accelerator on Apple CPUs, IIRC) and people may not know why, but Apple does not use crippling software as a strategy to force upgrades-- as you seem to be implying.

I think they do. The original iPhone never got MMS support for alleged hardware reasons that were bunk. Siri was originally on the AppStore but once bought by Apple suddenly couldn't run on anything less than an iPhone 4S. There are probably other examples but those are the two I remember.

> For Apple, updates often mean some subset of the full operating system updates, or a crippled version. Whereas Google updates tend to be all of nothing - meaning if your phone does get the update, it gets all of the features of that particular version.

Eh? Aren't you swapping something here? On Apple you get OS updates with nearly all features for at least 5 years, of course they can't create a NFC device into a phone that doesn't ship with one... I would love to see _any_ Android phone with support for 5 years, that does not come from google directly. it would be a no brainer if something exists in the 200-300€ range. because I don't care which phone I have, it just needs to be long liveable and have a price below 400€. currently I use used iPhones, which I get relativly cheap.

I think he's pointing out a vital difference in update paradigms here. Taking an example of an update that added NFC processing to a phone, iOS devices would get the update even if NFC were the only feature in it and their device didn't support NFC (and that feature would just be turned off or "crippled"). Android users, on the other hand, just wouldn't get the update at all.

In reality, what we see is a bunch of features bundled together into a single update. If one of those features is NFC functionality, iOS phones will get that update minus NFC (and any other features their hardware doesn't support), while Android phones often just won't get that update at all if any of the features (e.g. NFC) aren't supported by the hardware. This also explains, in a basic sense, why iOS devices get updates for longer periods, while Android devices "fall off" or aren't promised updates for as long.

There's, of course, pros and cons to each of these update strategies, as many times it becomes "mandatory" to update (for security updates, to get maintenance/support, to get some other necessary features, etc), and iOS-style updates have historically been too much for device memory/processing/resources to handle (effectively making the phone so slow you're required to buy a new one[1]), while Androids not getting the update at all also requires you to buy a new one.

Neither approach is foolproof, but I think that's what he's referring to by "Google updates tend to be all or nothing" and "Apple updates often mean some subset of the full operating system updates, or a crippled version".

[1] There's enough resources out there that no single one tells the whole story, but there's plenty at https://www.google.me/search?q=ios+update+made+phone+unusabl... and at least one previous class action lawsuit over iOS updates rendering phones "inoperably slow".

> For Apple, updates often mean some subset of the full operating system updates, or a crippled version.

A bit harsh, no? If new software requires hardware, why should that be considered "crippled"?

I find amazing that my 2013 iPhone5 can play games (Hearthstone) that some 2015/2016 Androids can't.

> If new software requires hardware, why should that be considered "crippled"?

Because I do not own that hardware, so for me uses the software is effectively crippled. I don't care why, only the outcome matters.

I wouldnt even mind not getting new features so much, but this also effectively means that my security updates are tied to new hardware; how is that acceptable?

What iOS update only included security updates based on hardware features?

Yeah... I didn't realize how annoyed I'd be on this when I bought my Nexus 6.

Not getting the latest just seems lazy and makes me want a flip phone that has good audible support. All of the crap that is getting added is just obnoxious and does little to help me use my phone.

Bonus points if anyone can tell me why enabling bluetooth will make it so my phone can't charge to 100% anymore.

What can it charge to instead?

It seems to change. For a couple of days, it couldn't charge and all. Even turned off, it would stay at 6% when plugged in. Cycled all of the radio devices on/off and it got to 25% but wouldn't go higher. Did one more cycle on/off of Bluetooth, and it went to full.

I'm blaming Bluetooth because it has been going to full charge fine for a few weeks and I turned Bluetooth back on to connect some headphones and the pattern repeated.

It's 3 years from the device's release. You get the next two major OS updates (which occur at ~1 and ~2 years after release), and then another full year of security updates, up to but not including the third major OS version.

The catch is that you can buy an Apple phone everywhere, but for instance Google decided simply to not offer the Pixel in my country.

Also, they stopped updating my Nexus 4 long time ago, something that Apple does not with their devices.

Hence, I am not "succumbing to Google marketing" again. I have now updated to a Moto, which used to be a Google company. Let's see how long it takes to update...

This round of updates for Moto will be interesting, as it has a light skin. Completely dependent on Lenovo ownership, and they haven't been making the best choices lately.

FWIW, I still get security bugfix system updates on my 2015 Moto 3G, as recently as two months ago. Here's hoping they keep up this level of support.

My Moto X Pure (2015) has no carrier relationship and a very lightweight Android skin. It's still running Android 6.0.

I can't imagine them putting in development resources when they could just sell you a new phone.

Supposedly Lenovo has mentioned that future devices will drop even that skin.

Reflect for a moment; what was the 'new' price of the Nexus 4 vs the 'new' price of the iPhone at the time?

A Nexus 4 was a 2012 phone with 2GB ram, and 8GB storage (entry model) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_4

An iPhone 5 is the comparable year device. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5 It had entry specs of only 1GB of RAM, but 16GB of storage. The apps would also be native binaries instead of 'java' apps, meaning less storage was needed.

IMO what killed support on the older Nexus phones was /mostly/ the insufficient entry level storage.

I'm sure 1GB for iOS is comparable to 2GB of RAM for Android.

not to diminish the rest of your argument, but my understanding is that java apps should be smaller than native apps (not significantly, since a huge part of apps' storage requirement is for assets, not code)

My experience around this time was that Android apps where much much smaller than similar iOS apps. Somewhere on the order of a 10x difference for apps without a lot of assets.

The iPhone 5C with 8GB storage is still supported by Apple. Although not for much longer as it won't support iOS 11, and the OS takes up almost half the space on the phone.

IMO what killed support on the older Nexus phones was /mostly/ the insufficient entry level storage.

This is provably false. The Nexus 6 plenty of storage space (32GB or 64GB) and does not get Oreo. Google's Nexus policy is to provide security updates for 3 years (or 18 months after the device stops selling, whichever is longer):

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/01/google_eol_for_nexu...

Also, the average Android app size is smaller:

https://sweetpricing.com/blog/2017/02/average-app-file-size/

I thought the reason is Qualcomm not giving what it takes to support a newer firmware on their soc. I have a Nexus 5 on lineage and I'm on Linux kernel 3.4.0.

Yes but Lineage OS can indefinitely support a fair chunk of Android 7.x on an old kernel without official help from Qualcomm.

Google chooses not to with AOSP past a timeframe.

My Moto G3 (2015) came with Android 5.1.1, and got an Android 6.0 upgrade. That's it. It has had two or three security updates since then, but it's still Android 6.0.

Despite that, it's been overwhelmingly the best phone I've had: cheap even unlocked, stable, no bloatware, waterproof.

My Moto G1.5 came with KitKat and was starting to suck on Lollipop after an update caused incurable excessive battery drain and constant app crashes. LineageOS Nougat restored the old hardware to its former glory. You would do well to do the same. Lollipop/Marshmallow is a liability.

Yes, the limited availability of Google Store and Google hardware in general is a huge failing of the company.

I really don't understand why they so commonly fail to bring best Android devices to markets with most Android penetration - they're practically giving the market share away to Apple's aggressive price cuts lately.

My understanding is that it is not enough to ship the device to a country, you also need an very large ad push and deals with local operators in order to actually sell it.

However, it should be mentioned that the pixel was sold in even less countries than the previous generation ..

Google really need to step up its game.

Not having an ad campaign is an extremely poor reason to refuse to ship EU-wide when they ship to Germany. The operator excuse is not valid in the EU. The EU is supposed to be a single market.

The reason is they simply cannot do it. It's very different shipping a high end phone in units of 100 million vs shipping a high end phone in units of 500,000.

This is why most android high end devices are really tiny market share.

They can't compete with Apple-- AT VOLUME. Apple's supply chain is where they are hugely competitive. This goes for Samsung etc.

So on android, genuinely high end phones are prestige items to make android look good, but the mass of android phones are low end cheap phones that can easily be mass produced.

Apple has been known to buy 10,000 prototype modeling machines and put them into production because they were the only ones on the market that could do a particularly manufacturing step that was needed for that model... google is never going to do that.

In fact, I don't think google has ever made any phones (excluding Motorola) themselves-- all the Pixels are rebrands of other makers devices.

The Nexus line are the phones that are manufactured by various other device makers. I think the Pixel is actually made directly by Google.

The Pixel is made by HTC.

But we still don't know (do we?) who made that pixel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook_Pixel

Google made that one.

I would really like to see Google take Oreo as an opportunity to set an example and push the pixel 2 with something like 10 years of support.

I am not holding my breath though

That's a pretty unreasonable desire. Technology changes so much in 10 years that it wouldn't be feasible to support a generation of phones for that long.

10 years ago was the original iPhone. How much of a money sink would it have been for Apple to support the original iPhone until now?

10 is almost certainly high. However, the rate of innovation does seem to have slowed down. To the point that all of my other devices from 5 years ago still act like new. My phone? Meh.

What will really kill this is lack of user servicable batteries.

I agree. I am very happy with my Nexus 5 and I intend using it until the hardware gives up.

For context, 5 years ago people were still using the iPhone 4S, as the iPhone 5 wouldn't be announced for another 2 months.

That's not really comparable.. the ecosystem is mature now.

But sure I am going far with 10 years.. and phones would need serviceable batteries to last that long.

What ecosystem becomes mature after just 10 years? A hard drive 10 years after the first one was invented in 1956 looked like this[0]. Is that mature? Phones are mature compared to 10 years ago, but whatever they evolve to in the next 10 will dwarf them.

[0]: http://images.computerhistory.org/storageengine/1966_Ferrite...

The smartphone was invented long before the iPhone. This is 10 years after it went mainstream.

And in ten years that iPhone has not changed much, except that the CPU/GPU rapidly caught up to current standards. The only other dealbreaker toward using it today is 3G support, and that's a 9 year old feature. If the iPhone 3G had the same relative performance to 2008 desktops as the current iPhone has to 2017 desktops, it would probably still be viable.

Maybe 10 years is a bit too high, but we're talking about high end phones here. I'd be surprised if the actual hardware wasn't acceptable 7 years down the line.

Okay, let's say 5 years. I'm still using my first generation Nexus 7, and it's still working fine.

There's no rocket science in maintenance support (eg security patches) for 10 years. That's the only thing that is necessary to keep the device usable.

All the apps on the app store will be written assuming more powerful devices with newer API versions.

And yet, most PCs built 10 years ago can still run most modern software that is written for modern PCs.

Demonstrating how much Microsoft bends over to maintain backwards compatibility. Something that for all their other flaws they should be applauded for.

You mean the APIs. But I wasn't talking about those, but rather the hardware - the only thing that you need there is ABI (or at least API) stability for drivers. So you can pull the same thing off with Linux, as well. Basically, modern desktop OSes can run on decade-old hardware, although they will have reduced functionality due to some missing features.

Which is why the sales have dropped more than 30% over the last couple of years.

Obviously, OEMs don't want this trend to continue.

or atleast ~4 years like iOS devices get.

iPhones now seem to be supported for 5 years now:

- iPhone 4s was supported from iOS 5 to 9.

- iPhone 5 receives iOS 10 updates, but will be out for 11, so iOS 6 to iOS 10.

- iPhone 5s will receive iOS 11. That makes iOS 7 to 11.

To be fair, Samsung phones do sometimes get software features years before the Google and Apple phones (e.g. split screen multitasking).

> Everybody else will be probably 4-6 months late.

I am on OnePlus2 and still using version 6 because maintainers do not give a crap about 2 year old phone and it will never get updated at this point.

Flagship my ass.

I don't have to buy a new Apple Phone for immediate updates to the OS .... my 6, 6+, SE, and 7 will all be able to update on day one.

Am I missing something about your comment?

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