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Comment by soylentnewsorg | Hacker News Reader

One doesn't have to dream. Flashing a rom on google-branded phones is so simple, a non-tech person can follow a 5min youtube video to do it. The Nexus 6 from 2014 can have the latest android running on it - not just security updates. And unlike an iphone, it has a build that disables some eyecandy that keeps it actually usable and fast. As I understand it if you run the last supported ios on an iphone 5s, with all the patches, you can take a nap while waiting for the answer slider to draw when you get a call. IS that the dreaming you're talking about? During the nap?

I'm a tech guy though. had a nexus 6, now got a pixel2. all custom roms, completely degoogled. In addition to phone tasks, I use the phone for solitaire, basic web reading, and email. I charge once per week. Both phones are extremely easy to flash. No hacking or exploits required.

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That’s all great - but don’t lure people too much into a false sense of security. While your Nexus 6 may run a shiny new version of Android, underneath it runs a crusty old 2017 kernel full of holes of different sizes. The community is great, but vendor support remains important. LineageOS and other projects can’t fix things in kernels they can’t compile - they can only provide security updates for open source components.

That makes Google’s promise here so key. 5 years of updates is 5 years of kernel level fixes. After that, it’s probably left up to the community.

I really don’t recommend people to go out and buy abandoned Android phones to flash software. LineageOS and other community projects are a blessing in many many ways, but they don’t make your phone completely up to date. And that’s something one should make an informed decision about (buying an iPhone, I decided against that).

> underneath it runs a crusty old 2017 kernel full of holes of different sizes

> LineageOS and other projects can’t fix things in kernels they can’t compile

I think that you're wrong on this, that is unless you decided to use term "kernel" above too liberally, referring to all software running on a device. AFAIK, alternative Android images, such as LineageOS, include relevant - and quite up-to-date! - AOSP common kernels (aka Android common kernels or ACKs; https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/andro...), which are open source, plus some manufacturer-specific proprietary binary drivers and firmware (though there exist a related, but slowly-moving, project Replicant focused on creating and maintaining a fully open, i.e., kernel + drivers + firmware, Android distribution: https://replicant.us).

So would you please help me to find an ROM with an up-to-date Android Common Kernel for my i9300 Samsung Galaxy S3?

AFAIK, the only way to run it with working drivers for all hardware components, are ROMs which use the rusty 3.0.101 Linux kernel from back in the day and I think that is what DCKing is referring to. If you want to create a new ROM, you either have to use the old kernel and have an upper Limit of Android 7.x (in this case) or you have to accept, that not all components are supported (e.g. no GPS).

I would be glad if the situation would be different. Maybe it is different for phones you buy today?

Obviously, not all devices have up-to-date kernels. It depends on whether they are supported by relevant Android distributions. That's why I used the phrase "quite up-to-date" instead of just "up-to-date". Unfortunately for you, LineageOS has stopped supporting i9300 Samsung Galaxy S3 with the latest official release being 14.1, which is based on Nougat (Android 7.1.2).

Having said that, I ran across the following post that describes successful installation of LineageOS 18.1 (Android 11) ROM on Samsung Galaxy S3 i9300: https://devsjournal.com/install-lineage-os-in-galaxy-s3-i930.... This is just FYI. So, if you understand relevant risks and feel adventurous, you can try to install it on your device. Disclaimer: I'm neither affiliated with the author of the post, nor responsible for any damage that might be associated with following the advice contained in the above-linked post.

Thank you for looking up that ROM, as I might want to try it out. However, you are also proving my point, even that ROM with Android 11 is still running the old 3.0.101 Linux kernel. You can see it in the video at the last row:

https://youtu.be/K_i29pczfRA?t=10

So congratulations to the guy who made it possible to run Android 11 with that ancient Linux kernel, even when Android officially doesn't support it. And to illustrate what I mean by ancient: Linux 3.0 was released in 2011 and got support updates until 2013 [1]. So even when CyanogenMod/LineageOS supported the Samsung Galaxy S3 the included Linux kernels were old as crap. You can't blame them for it, as they had little choice given that a few crucial drivers are not open source and included in the upstream Linux kernel.

I just wonder if anything has changed for modern devices?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_version_history

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/kernel-7-x-i9300-hybrid.3...

backported 4.2, which includes some of the 4.3 changes as well. supports lineage. 4.1 is a version google supports till 2024, so I'm assuming 4.2/4.3 is going to be even later. So, you got a phone from 2011 that's going to run a modern kernel and latest android till after 2024.

> And to illustrate what I mean by ancient

yes. I would love to see an iphone from 2011 that's going to be running the latest ios and apple kernel after 2024.

Interesting information, good to know.

Given that the kernel still identifies as 3.0.101, my guess is that they just backported some features from 4.x and applied them to the ancient kernel ;-) I am not so sure that qualifies as a 4.1 in terms of Android support.

I think the discussion about which devices live longer is simple to answer: Apple (iPhone) and Google (Nexus/Pixel) do probably the best job of supporting their devices for a while from a manufacturers point of view (in comparison to Samsung, Xiaomi, LG, Huawei, Sony, etc.). However, if you want to spend some time and flash alternative ROMs yourself you are better off with Android due to the large modder community, but it also depends a bit on the device you bought.

My biggest issue on the other hand, is that if the manufacturers would also open source the drivers, they could be included in the Linux kernel and we would not have this discussions, because one could simply use an up-to-date kernel as you can with every PC.

And how does the kernel affect you in any way. Most of the internet runs on old kernels because servers user long term stable kernels anyway. If they ux is good the kernel shouldn't be a problem to you

There are three dimensions:

1. UX: most of the time kernel updates don't affect the user experience. However, from time to time there are scheduler updates which can have positive effects.

2. Security: Being able to run the kernel with the latest security updates is evidently very important to have a system that is not vulnerable to newly discovered exploits.

3. Dependencies: As discussed already, some software components like the Android itself requires certain kernel features and therefore certain versions to let you run the latest versions of the software.

Btw. even LTS kernels are just supported for six years or so.

My biggest problem with the situation is, that 99% of the software is open source (Android incl. the Linux kernel) and just a few vendor-specific drivers make it very hard to upgrade the kernel and therefore the system.

You're welcome and good luck!

It is different for phones made by the people who also make Android. Google. Which is why I was specifically talking about the pixel and the nexus phones sold by google. For example, kernel version 4.9.3 - the latest one (yes, originally released in november of 2017) supports up to the latest Android. In fact, since 4.1 supports the latest Android, and will till June 2024 according to google. I'm going to go on a limb here, and given the current timeline, project 4.9.3 is going to be supported for probably whatever android is released in 2026.

So, Nexus6 released in 2014 will be able to run the latest android, fully security patched including kernel (which is not that important), till about 2026.

Now let's keep in mind that I replied to a guy who said how great it is that ios has more longevity.

> So, Nexus6 released in 2014 will be able to run the latest android, fully security patched including kernel (which is not that important), till about 2026.

This is getting to borderline misinformation here. Sorry to have made you dig in to this position, but please don’t call this fully patched. Qualcomm abandoned the Snapdragon 805 in the Nexus 6 in 2017 (maybe even 2016), and no updates to that platform's kernel drivers or other proprietary components exist. You can patch up open source pieces - those are important too - but that doesn’t count as “fully security patched”. Kernel drivers are a very important vector on any system, on Android especially so.

This is why e.g. CalyxOS has these EoL notices for Google devices much newer than the Nexus 6 here: https://calyxos.org/install/ They’re honest not everything can be updated!

If you choose to run your devices this way, more power to you. It's a legit way of extending a phone's life with some tradeoffs. But please inform others about the actual limitations.

> For example, kernel version 4.9.3 - the latest one (yes, originally released in november of 2017) supports up to the latest Android.

I couldn't find anything online about Nexus 6 kernels that are not some version of Linux 3.10, which despite being an LTS release was EoLed by the Linux kernel developers end of 2017. Would be curious to get any sources on the information that the Nexus 6 has modern-ish kernels available.

It's a rare feat that Android devices get a new major kernel version, _even with_ vendor support.

No, I’m talking about the Linux kernel. You can check this for yourself. Take a look at the roms distributed on LineageOS as the example project and see if they include kernels that are up to date in any way. For older phones outside of vendor support, those kernels will always be out of date.

Some diligent LineageOS projects are known to incorporate some open source kernel fixes sometimes, or grab newer blobs from other phones from other devices. But there’s only so much to they can do. In general, it’s true to say that older devices with community Android support are not completely up to date - the kernels are old, and vendor drivers are not getting updated. Outside of making big usability concessions in projects like Replicant, the community can’t do much here.

Good points. Though I'm a bit confused by your reply. Are you saying that LineageOS folks do not always or, at least, mostly use the latest AOSP common kernels for their relevant ROMs (as opposed to "some open source kernel fixes")?

I don’t know. I’m saying that custom rom use kernels that make your phone work. In the best case that involves shipping 1) the driver and firmware blobs the vendor provided while supporting the phone and 2) a kernel that is binary compatible with those blobs. Because of how Linux works, in the best case (2) is an old kernel of the same major version as the vendor shipped with the phone, with maybe some security fixes that made it into the mainline kernel or in the Android kernel. But if your stock rom has security bugs in e.g. the wifi driver, graphics driver of baseband firmware, your custom rom has those exact same bugs. Even if the custom rom is years newer than the latest vendor update.

Understood, thank you for clarifying.

Just ran across this relevant nice little article, which I found quite interesting: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/android-to-take-an-u.... I hope that people who interacted with me in this sub-thread (and other folks here) will enjoy reading it as well.

Alright - I'll bite. This is a smartphone, not a windows PC with a bunch of services. There is Zero listening on any port. There is no attack surface for any kernel - the only thing there would be a bug in mms. Please share your source for kernel attacks, on any android version, that's not an attack on an app - but on the kernel. No, this is not a google play attack, or an attack on an outdated app - which are updated fine.

In addition, I'm unsure why you think you can't update the kernel on a phone. In fact, updating the kernel is standard procedure for... pretty much all directions on flashing a custom ROM. I had my nexus6 on kernel 4.9.3. There are literally new phones, right now, selling with that kernel version and earlier, with android11.

This is like saying windows server 2016 has a kernel that's outdated, or that windows 10 which came out in 2015 is outdated.

I think you are extremely confused.

>I really don’t recommend

Which is a good thing, because you should not be recommending about things you do not understand on even a basic level.

>After that, it’s probably left up to the community.

right. the entire point of my post. you can load stuff from the community. which includes the community of things like lineage - a big official community that's an llc - a corporation like redhat.

A phone is not a server. It is not a security risk to run an outdated kernel. there are no services running a hacker can connect to. You don't connect to a kernel over the internet. A kernel which is by no means out of date, and is currently running in many datacenters.

Smartphones aren’t servers, but they run tons of services that interact with the surrounding world. Bluetooth, WiFi, etc…

The kernel also still plays a vital and security-meaningful role in processing calls from applications.

Running an out of date kernel could mean strangers ransoming your data, or could mean an attack becomes persistent and starts logging and uploading through reboots.

Running an out of date kernel often does not result in this, and that higher level security matters first.

However, the kernel does have an attack surface through those higher levels, and pwning the kernel still means something.

Those datacenters are running LTS kernels with minor versions updated, or have security patches backported, or have far more limited connections to the world than your phone — only one protocol, one port, one service, for example.

One example, since you asked: https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/android-kernel-vulnerabili...

We are not talking about datacenter servers - we are talking about smartphones. you can run a 4.9 kernel with all security patches applied, just like you can run windows10 with all security patches applied. You can update bluetooth and wifi modems without going to a later kernel version. We call those drivers, not kernels.

The issue you note is only exploitable via a bug if you have an outdated version of the chrome browser. You don't need to update the kernel, in order to update an application.

Seriously, I feel like I'm talking to my wife here, who is not a tech person. Why are you and the other couple of people being purposely dense, and purposely ignoring the content of your own links that doesn't fit your viewpoint?

BTW, after you said smartphones aren't servers, you go on to talk about why an older kernel is bad on servers.

But since you asked, the latest 4.9.3 kernel running on that nexus6 from 2014, that's been compiled appears to be from the end of the year 2019.

Good luck finding drivers for phone wifi, bluetooth, etc. That’s the fking problem — linux doesn’t have a stable driver api, so the binary blobs drivers will not allow people upgrading major linux kernel versions.

If everyone around you is stupid, then maybe you don’t understand the topic at hand?

  > Smartphones aren’t servers, but they run tons of services that
  > interact with the surrounding world. Bluetooth, WiFi, etc…

Sounds like a server to me. Maybe not a webserver, or an SMTP server, or database server, but it is a server running world-accessible services.

> There is no attack surface for any kernel - the only thing there would be a bug in mms. Please share your source for kernel attacks, on any android version

This is after one hasty search. https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-10-01

There are various kernel level vulnerabilities listed. Some weakening privacy over tcp connections, others locally exploitable via a malicious app such as Pegasus.

I don't understand why you call him confused. Perhaps you can approach with curiosity instead.

I'll start by saying I spent a full 5 minutes reading through those and gave up. I asked for an example, you pasted twenty pages of random garbage and said "here, maybe you'll find something in this dump I took - why don't you spend some time and maybe I'll prove you wrong."

In those five minutes of looking through your garbage dump, I found Zero vulnerabilities that do not need either you installing a virus, which then gets root (the vulnerability), or a bug in an application running as root that's out of date, which then of course gives the attacker of the application root. None of those are valid examples, and I'm now bored digging through random garbage.

Any hack, in Any application, will give the attacker root - we're running rooted phones (for the extra functionality).

If you want to make a point, note the actual bug listed that does not need a compromised application. You installing a virus then the virus getting root does not count. The thread is about a kernel bug giving a remote attacker control of your phone. Applications and drivers like your modem can be updated without you updating the kernel. The latest N6 kernel is 4.9.3, with updates from the end of 2019.

There’s an example of it on HN front page right now, where a terminal application without privileges can trigger a kernel bug.

for those times when I run that terminal application on my phone. which is already rooted, so it's doesn't need the kernel bug to get root. it can just run.

Your phone might be already rooted, but that's not true in general, and doesn't mean that the kernel doesn't have an attack surface on phones.

Do you also run all your programs as root on desktop? Wtf.

Also, regarding your previous post, modern Android and ios is lightyears ahead in security than any desktop os out there, for good reason (majority of people interact with their phones, and store much more sensitive data there)

>Do you also run all your programs as root on desktop? Wtf.

yes. always have. same in windows where I also don't use antivirus. and this is what most tech people do for their personal equipment. because the one issue I had, in my 30+ years of using computers, and 20+ years of doing it professionally as a dev, sysadmin, and storage admin, I only once got a virus.

i'll tell you a little secret too. yes, it's wtf to people who don't know what they're doing and need the safeguard against when they screw up. I know enough to not screw up. now go pipe a bash script from a webpage to sh to install something, because that's what the installation manual for your game said to do.

Anyone saying they know enough not to screw up, most definitely knows hardly anything. Also, screwing up is not about knowing enough, it’s about being human, who make mistakes.

Running anything under root is just insanely stupid.

I think you're terribly naive if you think a phone kernel has no attack surface. It is absolutely a security risk to run an outdated kernel. It has nothing to do with whether there are services running for a hacker to connect to; it's about whether it's possible for an attacker to trigger buggy behavior somehow, whether that's sending malformed packets or Bluetooth frames or invoking patterns of syscalls that cause bad things to happen. Heck, here's an obscure bug in Linux on the front page of HN right now, which Android is based on: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-simple-li... Also, I know GP was specifically talking about upgrading the kernel, but keeping drivers patched is much harder without vendor support, and there's likely to be more attack surface there.

your phone is not a linux server. yes, if you install a virus or an outdated app, someone can daisychain a priv escalation using a kernel bug. no need for that though - my phone is already rooted.

Your car has pieces that run linux too. Guess an attacker can make you crash.

> drivers

since this is about iphone and android comparison, guess what has those same driver blobs form those same exact manufacturers. apple doesn't make their own bluetooth chips. oh, btw, the drivers get updated just fine, since that's part of the kernel and os, which all get updated just fine.

google supports kernel 4.1 till 2024 for android 11. the nexus from 2014 runs 4.9. so probably 2026 kernel and android, fully patched - 12 years.

oh, sorry, did you forget this thread started with a guy claiming ios is great because you can put later versions of the OS on there? where's that iphone from 12 years ago running the latest version of ios, and still performing fast? because that's what this thread is about.

I really don't get why you're so hung up on this server thing. Yes, a phone is not a server. But it still runs a lot of complicated software. Software has bugs. We haven't found all the bugs yet. Hence, it's important to keep all of the software as up-to-date as possible for when people find some of the bugs.

> Your car has pieces that run linux too. Guess an attacker can make you crash.

Actually, yes... https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig... http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-usenixsec2011.pdf

> the drivers get updated just fine, since that's part of the kernel and os, which all get updated just fine.

Just because the kernel is getting updated does not mean the drivers and firmware are also getting updated. Drivers are specific to hardware, and if a vendor stops shipping updates for some chip that is no longer used in newer phones, then you aren't going to get updates for that chip.

> since this is about iphone and android comparison

This isn't about iphone and android comparison, not for me. You made naive claims about kernels not having attack surface and unimportance of staying updated, and I am responding to those claims.

I'm not sure I'm the one confused here. Not really willing to get combative on what security priorities one should have, but I'll stick to mine.

> I had my nexus6 on kernel 4.9.3.

I find this very hard to believe, as no evidence of Nexus 6 kernels that are not Google's original 3.10 shipped exists that I can find. Even PostmarketOS that looks to update kernels links to LineageOS fork of the 3.10 kernel on their page for shamu/Nexus 6.

Unless you mean a custom kernel from "some guy on XDA" that names itself 4.9.3 like this one - which is just kernel 3.10 with some branding on it. It says so right in its description: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/kernel-sm-4-9-3-o3-graphi... . Kernel 4.9.3 is a weirdly specific point release to be on in modern times anyway - there's kernel 4.9.0 all the way up to 4.9.287 - so it'd definitely be oddly specific if that's what you had.

Outside of valiant community efforts like Replicant and PostmarketOS, who have an extremely hard time getting working or feature complete kernels running, Android devices getting new kernels is almost unheard of. Even with vendor support. Community ROMs have to stick with what the vendor gave them to have a functional device.

It's not the kernel security updates that are important in regards to this 5 year promise, those are all open source and can be applied to any device a ROM (such as CalyxOS) supports. It's the proprietary firmware blobs that are the big deal, and what this 5 years promise from google means is that those blobs, required for certain hardware on the device, will receive 5 years of security updates. And that's good, because those are the security vulnerabilities that e.g. the CalyxOS team cannot patch themselves (no source code).

This is why CalyxOS now makes it clear what devices they support are still getting full security updates (kernel + firmware blobs) or just kernel updates. I believe the most recent CalyxOS patch added the ability for the user to see in settings the month and year of the last firmware security update for their device vs their current kernel security update.

I love the openness of android, and the explicit permission to root your phone.

But iphones have amazing longevity. The iphone 5s you mentioned came out in 2013 - which is 8 years ago now. Back then Obama was still in his first term. Maybe it is way too slow to handle the most recent version of iOS, but I'd rather a phone vendor that releases operating system updates for 8 years than a vendor who releases updates for only 2 years (like you get with certain android vendors.)

Last year I replaced my iphone 6s with an iphone 12. The thing that astonishes me is that I didn't need to. After a battery replacement, my 5 year old iphone was still running fine. It still runs the latest OS, and it ran every app I threw at it with aplomb. I really only upgraded it as a personal indulgence. Its still in use by a friend.

I'm absolutely on board with complaints about apple's lock in. I'm disgusted by some of the documents that came out in the epic court case, and I wish you could easily root iphones. But it feels like a stretch to complain about their longevity.

I love the iphone. I get my wife the latest and greatest every two years, and I forget about it. If she had an Android anything, I'd be spending at least an hour per week on tech support. It's absolutely worth the inflated price for me, and the fact that it's extremely limited in possible features is a bonus. Just like I used to love stick, but now an automatic tranny is great, as my enjoyment is the destination not the trip.

Now as far as the iphone 6s being usable - that's my point. It is usable, on the old OS it was designed for. Because you can't load your own OS on it, it will never run the latest. While the Nexus does run the latest, and is completely usable. I do remember when my brother loaded some latest ios on his iphone 5S, and it literally became too slow to answer a phonecall.

Apple's lock-in is in my opinion a feature for its target market. That's why they get like $1200 from me every two years. Me, my concern was battery life. For that I needed to not have crap that keeps phoning home and waking up the phone. Imagine charging once per week. While not an issue now, I used to travel a lot. Country-hopping trips. Yes, you can charge at the airport, tied to a full charing pole for an hour. Yes you can charge while sleeping on the plane and have a usb cable hanging in six inches in front of your face getting in the way. Or... You can literally not worry about it for a week.

There are of course other things - I want to chromecast my screen or cast a movie from a pirate streaming site (not the youtube app). I want toggles on my lock screen and home screen to turn off data/wifi/bluetooth. I want to turn on the flashlight if I press both power buttons when the phone screen is off. I more importantly need a filesystem that I can store OVAs on that I can take to customer sites for demos - why would I carry a usb stick when my phone is always with me. I want a web server running on it and my laptop to dump a backup of itself onto the phone daily. This means the phone phone software needs to recognize that the phone hardware is a computer, not a toy for 5yo kids. My wife on the other hand needs it to be a toy, because if it wasn't, she'd do everything possible to get viruses, delete everything, and screw something up. So I got an android, she has an iphone.

Now, you think I'm complaining about longevity. Let's see the reality though.

The post I'm replying to touts the iphone's longevity compared to Android. I point out Android has much, much longer longevity and he has it backwards. You then declare I'm complaining about the iphone's longevity.

Now, normally I would normally unload on you with all kinds of funny (for me) things at this point, because you now fit into a certain category of people, but this isn't the place.

As I said, I agree with most of what you said.

> Now as far as the iphone 6s being usable - that's my point. It is usable, on the old OS it was designed for.

That phone was running the latest OS when I gave it to my friend last year. I think it might have been running faster thanks to ios 13 (or whichever version improved performance). I believe you when you say your brother's iphone 5s became unusable with subsequent updates. But my 6s kept chugging along just fine, updates and all.

I'm delighted there's solutions for android phones like what you're talking about. This sort of thing is really important - I mean, they're fully fledged computers capable of way more than we're able to use today. Its crazy that people throw them out after a few years. My iphone 12 is faster than my 2016 macbook pro. And I still occasionally code on that laptop. If I could run OSX on my phone and use my laptop as a terminal for it, that would be really sweet. But I can't because Apple doesn't care, and I'm locked out of making changes like that on my own hardware. Using old phones as web / file servers would be fantastic.

Companies like Apple are actively incentivized by the market to make their old products feel worse over time. And for that reason I'm always impressed when occasionally they release an OS update that improves performance across the board.

I guess my take is, Android phones have an awful history of dropping official support for recent devices. I'm delighted the hacker community can and has stepped in to clean up android's mess. Its a shame they have to, but such is life.

I'm sad you can't do that on Apple devices, but one saving grace is that, the 5s aside, apple seems to do a much better job of official software longevity than android. I'm expecting my iphone 12 to last 5-10 years. I do wish the battery lasted all week though - that sounds phenomenal.

I completely agree with you. If you want simple, if you want OTA updates from the people who made your phone, if you don't want to worry about it - iphone is perfect, i buy them for my wife.

But the discussion in this thread was specifically about the claim that iphones unlike android have a long life of updates. That's like saying "my dell from 2010 came with windows vista, windows vista is not supported, the computer has a short support life. Umm, no, you put Win10 or Linux on it, and can probably put win11 on it, and in 30 years still put the newest linux on it.

I'm not covinced companies are out to "make their old products feel worse over time". It's just the inevitable consequence of the steady march of technological progress. A 10-20% per year performance improvements and new radio/camera hardware just add up over time and means that your old phone is worse than a new one. And that's before you take into account any degradation in things like nand and battery that they try and make fail gracefully (even if the PR messaging occasionally goes very wrong on that front).

There is of course also a degree of investing time writing to the new hardware more than the old one, and just cutting down features that don't fit due to lack of processing power or just lack of underlying tech on older hardware, but it's not something that being able to throw a different OS on seems likely to fix?

People aren't comparing their old phone to the new hotness, but to how it was when it was new. I think it is reasonable to assume that planned obsolescence is a thing and that OEMs make their products slower on purpose so people buy new ones.

> I'm not covinced companies are out to "make their old products feel worse over time"

I don't think they're trying to make their old products worse over time. But I also don't think companies generally care that much about making old products work better over time. One of the parent commenters noted how well modern android runs on really old nexus phones if you strip out the "modern" animations and useless features. There's nothing stopping google doing this. People would love it. So its notable that they don't. Apple got a lot of good will from me a few years ago when they focussed on performance in ios 13 (or was it 12?). That OS release made my phone feel new again. After that update I think it ran faster than it did when I bought it.

Another way to think about it is that when you buy a product, your incentives and the company's incentives are aligned. You want the best phone. The company wants your money, and knows they need to deliver a good product to get it. After you've bought a product, the company's motivations aren't as well aligned with yours.

Arguably a company sells more phones in the long run when they have a good reputation for delivering on quality, and supporting their products. Eg, a few years ago some of my friends would buy every single blizzard game simply off the back of their reputation.

But most companies don't take advantage of this, and mistakenly focus on short term sales even if it harms their reputation. And, in turn, their long term profits.

As someone much wiser than me said, service and support is a form of marketing to repeat customers.

> get my wife the latest and greatest every two years, and I forget about it. If she had an Android anything, I'd be spending at least an hour per week on tech support.

That's... An odd thing to say. I'm not sure what you're saying about your wife, but I've never had anyone, young or old, have a problem with an Android phone that would require anywhere near that amount of time.

>If she had an Android anything, I'd be spending at least an hour per week on tech support.

I highly, highly, highly doubt that.

Considering how static phones honestly are after initial setup, when you've installed the apps you need and configured the few things you need configuring, you never touch anything that's not an app.

try installing 5 random apps per week from the google app store and report back to us with the results. make sure to change your phone to mandarin and look for apps from china. repeat in japanese and cantonese. this is what my wife does. she's a language teacher and translator.

What are the issues she faces and does the iPhone work better for that?

I've got to hard disagree with many of the points here based on my own experiences.

My whole family has Android phones from different makes except 2 people with iPhones and they don't need hours of tech support. Your experience may be different, but I think most people using Android phones would agree that for the most part it just works.

For the battery life and the latest iOS, once you upgrade your iPhone to a later version, it is hard to go back, and you need hacker chops to do that if it is even possible. Later versions of iOS do often reduce performance and battery life.

On top of that, iPhones have smaller batteries so even with a tightly-integrated OS, what happens is that with active use, the battery level drops precipitously. Sure they last ages when not touched, but what's the point of that when a video call drops the battery by 50% because the battery itself is smaller?

Most people stuck to power banks these days are people using iPhones, especially the smaller iPhones. Androids have taken care of the battery issue by going with 4000 mAH+ batteries.

> If she had an Android anything, I'd be spending at least an hour per week on tech support First: I hope your wife doesn't read this ;-) Second: I can believe this to be true if-and-only-if you tried to run it on a language setting you can't read! Third: One gets comfortable with whatever phone+ecosystem they familiar with or use the most and that is not a basis to claim one is superior to the other. For that person, yes it might be superior(experience), but it cannot be extrapolated to the general population. In my little circle, if anything, I hear complaints and "how to get this done on my phone" requests way more from iPhone owning family members and friends than the ones with Android phones. But this doesn't just make Android a superior OS over iOS, because it is just 1 data point. While Apple does provide updates for older devices, the devices are barely usable. Foremost, you most certainly will need a battery-swap on anything older than 3 yrs (not a cheap proposition) and their devices seem to get progressively slower (in my albeit limited) experience.

Apple and Android ecosystems and user-bases are wildly different so a true apples-to-apples comparison (pun-intended!) is not trivially possible.

Obama was in his first term for 20 days of 2013, not overlapping with the release of the iPhone 5s.

Oops - thanks!

This sounds brilliant. If you were to start fresh today, what device would you use? My aged iPhone is on its last legs, and I’m looking for something on the small side (preferably Nexus 5 sized at most) that I can degoogle and use for telegram, HN, reddit, music, and podcasts. It seems like every older phone has a gotcha, like nonfunctional cameras or missing wireless bands. 7 days of battery sounds magnificent.

Samsung S10 and S10+ looks to me like the place to be, flashed w/ a custom degoogled ROM. Nokia Maps (here wego), Open Camera, something like Aptoide, K9 mail.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/c/samsung-galaxy-s10.8693/

I did a lot of research earlier, because I don't use a case, dropped my pixel 2xl, and the glass on the corner cracked. I ended up just putting a dab of epoxy on it instead though. I use the carbonOS ROM on the pixel, which os only for pixels I think. You do have to go through a lot of system services and turn off the unneeded ones though. Lots of useless stuff like "carrier services" and "sprint dm" and a bunch of other crap - just google them one by one. An app like Fibers is great too - I use it to do things like display percentages instead of icons, and when I need turn off half the screen pixels. You can do that in low brightness situations like reading this site in bed w/ the lights off, and you can't tell it's half the resolution. Adguard is great too - blocking ads at the DNS level saves quite a bit of battery when online.

Now here's the main thing - I do spend a couple of hours per day using it - either for email or reading sites. I get about 4 days from 90% to 25%. I never go below 25% or above 90% - my battery is like new 3+ years later. Another feature that an iphone can't have - an app having access to limit your max charge limit. I'm just guessing that 100%-0% is going to be about 7 days, so I can't fully promise that.

Also, a couple of banking apps don't work. The Uber app doesn't work either - you have to use the website versions.

All of that sounds good except for the phone size.

I'd go for a Pixel 5, but... no 3.5mm jack is a dealbreaker.

So I guess the Pixel 4a is my only real choice.

Why not 5a? Had headphone jack + other improvements for maybe 150 more...

Sadly it's just too big for me. The 4a is about as large as I'd go. And I'm even skeptical of that because as networks phase out 3G and even some 4G bands in favor of 5G, phones that don't support 5G will become increasingly hard to use. Talk about planned obsolescence!

You're ok w/ a pixel5 size (6" screen) but you're not ok w/ s10 size (6.1" and has headphone jack)? And the actual phone size of the S10 is smaller than the nexus 5 you mentioned.

The S10 is larger than the Pixel 5 or the Nexus 5:

https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Google-Nexus-5,Samsun...

The Pixel 5 is larger than the nexus 5, but it's almost in the range of reasonableness. The S10 is well past that size range -- there's no way I can reach the top of the screen.

Admittedly, it is nice that the S10 includes a headphone jack. But phone size is even more important than that to me. Guess I'll keep using my 2016 iPhone SE for a couple more years!

For 5 years of real support you will need to just get the pixel 6 when the roms you are interested in are ready. Graphene, Calyx, and Lineage will support it, but it might take a few months for their teams to get up and running. They are all very fast though.

Graphene and Calyx only support the devices as long as google is putting out the security updates, so all the phones before the 6 will only get the ~2/3 years that Qualcomm limits updates to. I am not sure how lineage is able to support devices for so long after vendors stop supporting it themselves. They are a super dedicated community of volunteers, though. [Here](https://grapheneos.org/faq#legacy-devices) is where Graphene talks about why they drop support after vendors don't officially support the device anymore

Of these projects Calyx and Graphene are the easiest to install. Graphene you only need a chromium browser and to allow unlocking your bootloader in the developer part settings, and over webusb the whole wipe, install, and flashing of their key so you can re-lock it. Calyx has a script you download to do the same. Lineage is a hair more involved.

> Flashing a rom on google-branded phones is so simple, a non-tech person can follow a 5min youtube video to do it Lol, this reeks of how little you understand how much a non-tech person is capable of. A vast majority of Android users won't bother or know how to flash the ROM.

Wasn't Apple intentionally slowing older phones with updates? I remember reading some news about it.

They throttled performance depending on battery capacity, because the alternative was that the battery could not keep up with a sudden spike, powering off completely.

The problem was that they didn’t notify users, and after people in France winning a lawsuit, they now have it opt in I think? Nonetheless, it was a feature made in good faith.

The optics of that were absolutely terrible. They could have announced it in WWDC and made people aware of it. Instead they raised a shitstorm for no good reason.

Good intent or not, the management execution of it was completely botched. They could have even come out on top by projecting that they care about older devices' usability, if they had announced the feature; it was a no brainier and PR/marketing person worth their salt would tell that. Which makes me question the bit: "good intent on their part" :-|

Yup, planned obsolescence is real and a part of every megacap's strategy.

Apple was intentionally lowering power usage on old phones with failing batteries, in order to prolong battery life and get you more use out of them.

Can you run banking apps on custom roms? The Barclays app refused to run on mine a few years ago, but maybe something changed since.

it's not a custom rom thing. they check for root and sometimes google play. i have to turn off root if i run a banking app. uber won't work - i use their website version. vanguard app runs perfectly fine on my custom rom, downloaded from the aptoide store.

Monzo, Starling and Curve all work for me on a custom rom. I haven't rooted my phone though.

I just flashed my pixel 2 to lineage 18 now that it's not receiving updates, and I was disappointed to discover that because of SafetyNet, I can't use Google pay in stores or install the Netflix app. So to me it's still less than ideal.

It does not matter if it is a 5 min youtube video, that just wont happen to the majority of the population. Most people can't even change their battery in their car.

Yeah I am running CalyxOS on my pixels, works splendid

Just adding my vote for the pixel 2 with custom Roms and OS. A breeze, efficient, and light.

it's def not for the iphone crowd though. also the crappiest lineageOS support ever - but lots of other roms.

I got the panda version. after 2 months in my side pocket, the white paint that for some reason the google geniuses decided should cover the also white plastic, started peeling off. From rubbing with my leather wallet. completely irrelevant to the functionality, which is the good part about it. searched it and everyone w/o a case is having the paint peeling issue. but... it's a much better issue than the entire phone, front and back being made of glass that breaks and costs $100+ to replace, and falls frequently because it's too slippery to hold in one hand.

which rom?

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