Google Is Forcing Me to Dump a Perfectly Good Phone | Hacker News Reader

Google Is Forcing Me to Dump a Perfectly Good Phone

vice.com

I wrote a thread[0] on Pixel 3 (trying to convince Google to extend the support) a few months before it went EoL[3] (Oct '21). Here's the important bits:

- 10M+ Pixel 3 devices that were sold worldwide

- 72% of Pixel 3's estimated lifecycle emissions are from its manufacturing[1]. Using your phone is _not the source of most of the emissions during a phone's lifecycle_.

- It has gotten worse over time, but Google hasn't offered better guaranttes. Pixel 5's emissions-over-lifetime are 30% higher than that of Pixel 3.

The alleged reason Google can't offer support beyond 3 years is because of Google's dependence on Qualcomm for the support[2]. Apparently Qualcomm asks for a ridiculous amount of money to support any chip beyond a measly 2-3 years. Apple gets away with it by building their own chips, and Pixel 6 is guaranteed to be supported for 5 years as a result.

However, the fact that Google - one of the world's richest corporation can't convince or pay Qualcomm to support a perfectly functional device in 2022 is astonishing.

[0]: https://twitter.com/captn3m0/status/1427908406086553601

[1]: https://storage.googleapis.com/mannequin/sustainability/repo...

[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/the-fairphone-2-hits...

[3]: https://endoflife.date/pixel

I want to answer that Qualcomm-is-the-issue again.

You're pointing out how ridiculous it is, but let me expand:

So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$. That's 10c/device. The VoLTE license costs more than that. The H264 license costs more than that.

Also Pixel makes Android, so surely, Android can't become incompatible with older hardware because of Android, or if it does, it's Google's own doing!

There is the question of security of binary blobs for which Google doesn't have the source code, ok!

Well let's see: - Billions (ok, maybe just hundreds of millions) of Mediatek devices have their bootrom "open". Should we stop upgrading those, because of physical access issue? - Everyone considers 2G utterly broken, allowing downgrading attacks, thus Google gives Android 12 the possibility to disable 2G. Yet, Google "refuses" devices launched with Android 11 Treble HALs, like devices launched with Snapdragon 888, to have this "disable 2g" [1] - Pixel 6 stayed 45 days on an """obsolete""" security patch

So, maybe we should stop saying that security is the alpha and omega, and all or nothing. It is important. Reducing our e-waste is more important.

[1] This is a weird thing, related to Treble, Google Requirement Freeze, and Vendor System Requirements, I can explain in details if anyone is interested

I'm writing this message from a Fairphone 2 released in 2014 with Android 5, now updated to Android 10 thanks to the company still providing support for it 7 years later. And it has a Qualcomm snapdragon. A small company in the netherland is successful doing it. If Google wanted they would have done it. They just don't want. ps the Pixel 3 is also supported by Ubuntu Touch.

> So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$.

I'll second the request for a source for this, $1M seems ridiculously low.

> So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$.

Do you have a source for that? That does seem pretty low.

Part of the problem here is that SoC drivers are hacked on top of the kernel (and are not merged in-tree). So SoC vendors have this pile of legacy and hacked-on code they need to cherry-pick every time the Kernel changes an interface they used (which is a lot) [0]. Of course, that costs and fortune and hampers the sales of newer chipsets so it’s not in the SoC vendor’s interest to do so.

I was hopeful with Windows Phone running a build of NT that the platform would still have the same strict ABI compatibility for drivers as the desktop version has. So you get kernel updates and the existing drivers just work.

Now, with Windows getting some emulation support for Linux (one of their Subsystems for Linux effectively translates system calls and execution happens in the NT kernel) I wonder if they could ship a phone running NT with an Android userland.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_binary_interface

While Qualcomm is assuredly partially at fault here for encouraging piles of one off unsupportable devices without backwards compatibility with the previous SoCs they are also largely a victim of things outside of their control (although its good business for them to force everyone to buy a new phone every couple years). Plenty of blame can also be found with:

Arm, who has refused to bundle or assure system IP compliance to the level of their CPUs (aka interconnects, interrupt controllers, iommu's, pcie bridges, etc). Meaning that even very basic things like how one gets an interrupt isn't reliable, and somewhat worse are the buggy implementations of arm system IP that are allowed to reach the market.

Google, for failing to provide platform standard interfaces, similar to what the Arm server vendors enforce via SBSA/SBBR. Meaning that every single phone is doing low level platform mgmt in proprietary ways. That includes its own power mgmt, led blinking, etc, a good part of the time actually in the linux kernel, or via proprietary hooks in the linux kernel. Further despite making more money on the android ecosystem than RH+suse+canonical put together their changes are generally dwarfed by other much smaller players (although they have hired a bunch of maintainers over the past couple years).

Linux itself, for failing to provide a stable/backwards compatible driver API. Meaning a small simple driver either needs to spend months upstreaming (if that is even possible, see GPUs) or man years of maintenance keeping up with the kernel churn over the lifetime of the device. Further the arm/kernel community encourages a "everything in the kernel" (everything from firmware functionality, to the actual machine descriptions in the form of all the DTs) attitude which completely fails to grasp the huge number of bugs and device varieties on these arm devices. Its rumored that QC by itself had a million plus lines of out of tree code a few years ago. Its likely that this attitude could more than double the number of lines of driver code in the linux kernel if just the past few years of Arm Soc's were fully supported.

So, the combination of the three are the perfect storm of massive overhead for supporting the couple hundred phone models in existence. Imagine for a moment if every PC model made in the past 10 years required a few (tens) of thousand lines of kernel changes, how unworkable that would be.

There aren't enough engineers to solve this as a brute force problem, the solution is to look at the PC market and consider that maybe it would be better if there were actually some standardization in the phone space.

(pretty sure most people will miss this answer, but anyway)

So, to clarify things considering all the answers:

- Qualcomm's development cost is shared amongst all OEMs (Except Google), because all OEMs share the same development branches Qualcomm-side. So 1M$ isn't 1M$ for Qualcomm but more

- Qualcomm's development cost is shared amongst a lot of SoCs. Qualcomm have like one shared tree per year. So one development tree spans maybe 10 SoCs, including XR, automative, IoT, and smartphones. So yeah, from Qualcomm's PoV, it's not 1M$ additional revenue it's much more.

- "Extended support" is +30% of support time (so just one additional year). My source tells me that the actual content of "Extended support" varies a lot. Sometimes it's just security patches, sometimes it's Android major upgrade

- Qualcomm "standard" support is 3 years,

- My source is currently writing a full-blown article about Android upgrades. Not sure you'll trust them more than me though

Also don't discount that most of your APPS themselves will still get security updates (as long as they keep compatibility with your Android OS version - which is likely for awhile) and realistically poor app security often worries me more than the OS itself. Android is (overall) a pretty secure system. Unless some massive exploit is released past my phones final security patch I am not that worried about using my device longer.

Supporting it for 3 extra years for $1M is only $333k per year, which probably only pays for 2 junior developers.

Would you like to be one of two developers whose responsibility is looking after all security patches and the build and release process for a 100 million line codebase?

Sounds cheap to me.

I'm calling BS on this. There is no way you can get years of extra support out of Qualcomm for $1m.

As for e-waste, well unlike other major manufacturers every Google phone can be unlocked and you can install any OS you want. So there is no need to discard the hardware after support ends. You just have to bear the support costs yourself. Too expensive? Well, you're the one saying it's not too expensive, so why not start a company to provide extended support for devices like this? Charge $1 per device, that's a healthy profit over the $0.10 you claim it costs.

> So, as an order of magnitude, the price asked by Qualcomm for extended support is 1M$.

....and even if that estimate is two orders of magnitude too small, it's still basically pocket change for Google, which (based on about 30 seconds of Googling, so if I've misread I apologize) has been making tens of billions of dollars per quarter the past few years in net income.

[edit] Figured I'd link the source of my figures for clarity: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-...

Meanwhile the original iPhone SE from 2016 can boot the latest iOS. And you can get a battery replacement from Apple right at the store, same day for... 49$! It just works.

In just 4 months the Pixel 3A is officially getting EoL'd. This phone was released in 2019 (fall), same time as the iPhone 11. It just shows the wide gap between iOS and Android.

> Apparently Qualcomm asks for a ridiculous amount of money to support any chip beyond a measly 2-3 years. Apple gets away with it by building their own chips

I can believe it. Qualcomm makes money per chip sold, Apple makes money by building an ecosystem. Linux support is a cost center for Qualcomm past the initial launch kernel, and we can only imagine there's a difference in caliber between the engineers writing patches and hacks around the kernel at Qualcomm vs building the OS that powers the iPhone.

Not defending Google here at all, but that $49 battery change was a hard-fought victory from Apple.

Ofcourse it just works. Apple makes software and hardware for Apple.

> we can only imagine there's a difference in caliber between the engineers writing patches and hacks around the kernel at Qualcomm vs building the OS that powers the iPhone.

Android has to work everywhere from dodgy tablets running Kitkat to flagships phones that cost an arm and a leg.

Oh woe. What a hard life Apple engineers have. Oh, how brilliant they are. The world would crumble without them. Woe.

> However, the fact that Google - one of the world's richest corporation can't convince or pay Qualcomm to support a perfectly functional device in 2022 is astonishing.

Not really. You need to compensate Qualcomm for a pile of lost sales from people not getting new phones.

> You need to compensate Qualcomm for a pile of lost sales from people not getting new phones.

Why would people continue to buy phones with Qualcomm chips? The fact that my 4th gen iPad still works and my mom uses it to watch youtube and browse internet is one of the top 3 reasons I would pay a bit extra for Apple devices.

Why does Apple support iPhones for 7+ years? And why does Samsung support phones for 5 years instead of 2-3 like most other manufacturers? They would sell more phones, their suppliers would sell more chips

So what are the non-Qualcomm phones that have longer support?

Samsung right? So who is going to compensate Qualcomm for their lost sales because they're shit to consumers?

[deleted]

The Pixel 3 was a great phone. If https://lineageos.org/ or https://calyxos.org/ had been able to come up with an AI assisted camera which could match the Google Camera app (The lens is trash, Google uses software to make good images) then it would have been great.

Benefit of actual quality camera lenses is these open source OS can still provide good photos using a stock android camera app.

You can get Google Camera on anything: https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/

I have never had an issue with the stock camera on GrapheneOS, and struggle to understand what better quality one could want... AI to fill in colors and details...potentially wrong?

What "support" does Google need from Qualcomm after three years beyond driver/firmware blobs, which three years into a SoC's lifetime should be pretty stable?

We're talking about a company that maintains its own fork of the Linux kernel with something like 19,000 patches against mainstream. Anything not in a blob should be easily within their abilities to address.

Also, Nexus and Pixel devices have a long history of software and hardware problems, many of which are immediately obvious within a day or two of devices hitting people's mailboxes, and are never fixed over the life of the phone. It's not like google seems to be picking up the phone very often to talk to Qualcomm for support, even during a device's development, much less after?

The Pixel line jumped the shark when Google started permanently carrier-locking phone bootloaders for Verizon.

Can you guarantee that no one will hack Qualcomm's "blobs" tho? And if Qualcomm says "that's your problem, we only support it for 3 years", now you have millions of customers calling you a liar when you say "sorry can't fix the security issues, it's in Qualcomm's code that we don't have access to". They won't blame Qualcomm they will blame google. That's why I had real hope for Intel there for a while until they sold off their modem chip business.

You need access to the software that runs those SOCs which is owned by Qualcomm. Qualcomm isn't just going to give the sourcecode of those SOCs for Google engineers to tinker around with it. It creates all kinds of crazy legal problems.

It's not just the main Android OS that needs to be patched, the chips have their own proprietary software too.

The problem is that after 3 years, most of those chips have gone EOL and QC wants to put their resources into developing new chips because that's where the revenue comes from (e.g. how they pay their employees). Meanwhile new security flaws keep getting discovered on EOL chips that provide zero new revenue.

So what do you want here? Do you want the break neck pace of innovation to continue which is ultimately very good for everyone? Or should we spend all of our time making sure your Apple IIc still has security patches for 2022? At some point you just have to move on and that's just the trade you make for all technology. You can't simultaneously benefit from this cycle and then bemoan it. If all we ever did was make security patches for your Commodore and AppleIIc you wouldn't have a Pixel3.

I haven't owned an Android device in a while but I always thought the argument here is if the manufacturer stops supporting the device, you can always get support through the community via custom ROM's.

With so many devices in the wild, I wonder if the Pixel 3 will become our generations HTC HD2 (which got community support for seemly an eternity).

Yeah, custom ROMs.

Most devices never get custom ROMs any longer than you would get regular updates anyway (since newer Android versions would not run on this chip).

Custom ROMs are a mess anyway:

- Untrusted sources

- Random annoying bugs (What, you need a camera?? Pff)

- Flaky "Android-Experience" (Yeah, you might be able to install Google Apps... after the 6th try)

- Device is "untrusted" - no Google Wallet or banking apps without yet another hack

- "Security Updates? You can get a full image every 2 weeks if you want that, but no idea what is included and what will break, sorry"

- Performance and stability of the device usually takes a big dive

Most importantly: You cannot build AOSP for a device, if there is no support from the firmware (Qualcomm), which is the main reason why there are no Android updates in the first place - at least that's the problem nowadays.

> ...I always thought the argument here is if the manufacturer stops supporting the device, you can always get support through the community via custom ROM's.

That doesn't apply for kernel support. Custom ROMs generally use the last supported kernel from some official ROM. Then they start to accumulate known security vulnerabilities, because they never get updated again.

While adding ROMs to the Pixel line (if unlocked) is pretty easy, however other Android phones is usually a nightmare and only geeks will ever attempt it. I only did it because of EOL android phones. I gave up about 3 years ago and just got an iPhone. I do still have an Pixel 3 with CalyxOS on it tho. I like the hackability of android, but it's just not worth it. I just don't like mobile hacking, I do that with my desktop, pi's, and various embedded boards that are much more open to fun hacking.

That's the argument here, but as a defense of Google, it's a really bizarre argument. If a volunteer-run effort like LineageOS can manage to get recent AOSP Android (including all the hardware-dependent bits) running on a Pixel 3, what's Google's excuse?

See my other answer somewhere below: I still use my HD2 from 2009 today.

My honest opinion is that I think the whole Qualcomm thing is a canard. What I think is really going on is that after three years the batteries are at death's door. Too many people will just replace/trash the phone rather than know to replace the battery.

My 3a xl battery is at 91% design capacity(1), 3385 mAh, and is still utterly sufficient and far better than any other phone I've had.

Hardly death's door...

(1)As measured by Accubattery just now

iPhones have the same issue, and users either live with it or get their batteries replaced. We need replaceable batteries to make a comeback. Maybe the right to repair movement can get us there.

I'm still using a Pixel 2, now 4.5 years after I got it (lack of security is easy: don't put or do anything I care about on the phone, turn off the power when having sensitive conversations nearby). It can go two days between charging.

Wish my phone could report a bad battery. I installed Accubattery which reported 68% of designed capacity. I went to one of the ubiquitious mobile stores in Indian cities and got a new battery and charging port. The guy said battery doesnt look bulged and port doesnt look work either, so if I still have issues, he will replace a board. He is right, and I have to do that shortly.

That's absolutely not true, as the other comments mention, there's still plenty of battery life after 3 years.

Not everyone watches youtube or plays games on their phone. With light usage, a phone that might only last 2-3 hours of youtube watching, can last all day instead.

Pixel 3A user here. Battery works great 2.5 years in. Should I be worried?

Google is going to skimp and cut corners wherever they can to save money and trim the fat (e.g. cutting off google apps for business free, less and less ad yt ad revenue, accelerated EOL of devices and services, etc). This is what happens when you've barely innovated in the past few years (compared to early-mid 2000's). Google is essentially the Intel of Web 2.0 companies. They blew their huge lead dicking around with a billion messaging strategies, social media strategies (obsessing over fb), corporate scandals, etc and lost a lot of customer mind share and good graces in the process. It also doesn't help that Microsoft has found their stride again in recent years.

Wasn't Project Treble supposed to reduce Google's dependency on Qualcomm updating their drivers?

https://www.xda-developers.com/list-android-devices-project-...

The OP covers this in the article:

> I’ve bought too many Android phones over the years believing Google when they say they’ve figured out how to be better with updates, whether it was the Google Play Store promise or the Android One promise or “Project Treble.” None of it has mattered. It’s too little, too late from Google.

which links to https://www.theverge.com/22881882/android-12-google-pixel-6-..., which says:

> By its nature, Android is a fragmented ecosystem. There’s no straight line from Android 12 to the Galaxy S21 or OnePlus 9 — every major update sees handoffs between the manufacturer, carriers, and Google, all of which result in delays. Initiatives like Project Treble seem to have helped speed up some parts of the process, but unless Google takes some drastic actions, nobody can completely fix the problem.

Case in point, Treble came out in 2017, one year before Pixel 3. Didn't help.

This is one of the things that keeps me with Apple. They're far from perfect in the reliability front, but they will keep supporting the software for much longer than I expect my phone to last. Looks like the oldest phone they still support is the 6s, and typically they support phones for a bit under 7 years after launch, and 5 after discontinuation.

Obviously they get slower and fewer features, but that's better than "Good luck LOL".

Yes, this. The 6s came out in 2015 and is still supported. I used one until just a few months ago. Worked great.

The 5 years for Pixel are for security updates only. OS updates are still 3 years. IMHO it's still too low, but it's a (small) step up.

They can only stay rich if we waste and reconsume again and again. That is how ads industries thrive. Apple and Samsung are what are today because we overbought their product. Almost everyone I know at least got 3+ phones (1 current 2 in the drawers). Even got one with 15+ phones (collection he said). As long as we behave to reward companies that do this, we will continuously getting new companies or existing companies adopting this strategy. I don't see "treehuggers" using antiquated Nokia phones and routinely seen many of my environmentally conscious frens having new iphones EVERY 2 years even if their old phones are working fine and they can easily go into a cheap repair shop to change the battery. As for security reasons, yeah, "frens" actually pasting post-it passwords and no idea what is yubi keys and never bother doing 2FA.

Given Google's track record we will see exactly how well supported it is in years 4 and 5. I expect it will be just the bare minimum.

You're correct. Google is promising 3 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates.

Apple foresaw this and made the appropriate investments because they explicitly value device longevity. Google could easily do the same.

I’m not sure if Google wanted… they could support a phone for much more than ~3 years.

Older android phones slow down / get really janky as time goes on. Even when they’re still supporting it.

It’s one of the reasons I left Android. Longer term lives for Android phones is pretty bad, flashing your own ROMs aside (I was done with that long ago).

>ridiculous amount of money

This is a strange red herring because it is ridiculously expensive, but not meaningfully so on a per-handset basis.

Software development teams are ridiculously expensive. Going from two to four years might require a doubling in staff. You need teams dedicated to old architecture, conservatively $1m for 5 people. Your best engineers will want to move on to newer problems.

The problem compounds. These teams could be instead working on newer products with greater potential return, so they're billable at $4m for 5 people per year. 4 additional years of support is $16m. (This is fairly lean, but should be about the right order of magnitude +/- 1).

With 13m sold, that's about $1/handset. Apple/Samsung budget for this. Google chooses not to.

How many emissions are we talking about here?

> However, the fact that Google - one of the world's richest corporation can't convince or pay Qualcomm to support a perfectly functional device in 2022 is astonishing.

This reasoning is... really bad. If I were a "rich corporation" and decided to sale a product at a loss or significant reduction in margin for a feature that obvious(based on sells numbers) was not a factor in deciding to buy the phone or not, I wouldn't be a "rich corporation" for very long.

The "richness" of a company has nothing to do, marginal cost does. It obviously didn't pencil out.

It's not that simple: Google makes money off of other services, a fair fraction of which is from Android users. If an Android user has a phone which is >3 years old, they are still likely to be buying apps through the Android store, using the phone to access Google's paid services, or generating data which Google uses for their ad sales.

The underlying problem with Android is that they're competing with Apple, where all of those sources generate ongoing revenue from older hardware devices, but haven't found an effective way to share revenue between the different parties involved to pay for long-term support. Apple has no problem shipping iOS updates because they don't need you to buy a new phone nearly as much if you're subscribing to iCloud, using Apple Music, and buying from the App Store.

I don't think you have any basis for saying "was not a factor in deciding to buy the phone." Do you really think people buying the Pixel 3 knew it would only be supported for 3 years? Also, Google would not lose money if they supported the phone longer at a few pennies per phone. The Pixel phones (and others) are advertising and data delivery devices. Google makes money every time you use them.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had a Nexus 6P and after that experience I promised myself that I will never buy a Google hardware device ever again. The company has the wrong mentality regarding its handsets and how to take care of the customers who buy them.

If you pick and choose your hardware correctly (waiting for reviews and news of major defects to come out), you can do fairly well -- my SO has the 4a, and it works admirably for her. Had a 3a before that and she only upgraded because the screen broke and it would cost more than the phone to replace it.

But I'm inclined to agree. Just look at the 6 and 6 Pro. They rolled out an upgrade, ruined cellular connectivity for a good chunk of users, and then all of the engineers peaced out for the holidays, with no way to downgrade to a usable release for effected users other than wiping their entire phone and starting from scratch. For their flagship phones.

With word that the 6a is ditching the headphone jack and rear fingerprint sensor, and also inching up in size to gargantuan phablet dimensions, it'll be easy to switch away in the future.

I jumped off when the third Nexus 5X replacement Google gave me also bootlooped. Total junk and probably the most frustrating product experience I've ever had.

The writing's on the wall when it comes to Android SOCs now anyway, Apple phones from 4 years ago perform better and still get updates. They have their own issues, but they're not existential level problems.

Yeah, I jumped ship earlier. I had the Nexus One, Nexus S, and Galaxy Nexus (which was a horrible phone) and then jumped to an iPhone 5. It's hard to find hardware as consistently good as the iPhone and after the redesign from 12 onward it's been really great (I wish they'd keep the mini around).

I would have thought Google finally bringing the hardware design in house with the pixel phones would let them create a real competitor, but they seem to be just okay?

Lack of focus maybe? Might just be a case of commoditize your complement, in this case the complement for Google is the hardware.

The last time I bought a Google-branded phone, they cut support after only 18 months. I’ll never buy a Google hardware product ever again.

> Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had a Nexus 6P and after that experience I promised myself that I will never buy a Google hardware device ever again. The company has the wrong mentality regarding its handsets and how to take care of the customers who buy them.

Regardless, as of 2020 the only non absolute shit Android phones are Pixels. Essential, which was another non-shit Android, is dead because rather than re-iterating its boneheaded founder decided the market was in the TV remote control like device.

Samsung's flagship phones push ads as a part of the operating system. Let that sink in. On a $1,200 phone!

OnePlus can't make its interface not crash. Neither can it convince the carriers to whitelist its profiles in the United States for 5G and Wifi calling.

Have things changed in the Android space, though?

My impression is Google's are still the most updated. I've had a Nexus S, 4, 5 and currently have Pixel 3. I've never really had any problems with the Google-managed devices. Motorola and Samsung... let's just say I will never, ever buy a phone from them ever again. The choice is between Pixel and iPhone. But after the Pixel 3 I will not pay for the "premium" class Pixels.

I had one of those defective google Nexus 7 tablets which suffered from bad hardware and software rendering the device unusable. It died after a year. Well not completely dead, it booted but was so slow as to be totally unusable. Google did nothing to compensate save for some bullshit discount on a new nexus device. Like I'm going to give them more money after telling me to go fuck myself.

I also bought a Nexus/Pixel 5 phone or whatever around the same time and that too had issues after 2 years. I forget the issues but it had to be rebooted frequently, at least once a day due to slowdowns. Replaced with an HTC that ran much better for 4 years until I accidentally killed it.

After those two turds I will NEVER buy google garbage ever again.

My Pixel XL bricked itself one morning due to a software update that triggered some kind of hardware bug. Great phone until that point, then poof, and it wouldn't even connect with a debug connection to my PC to replace the firmware or recover itself.

I've put it on a shelf until I can get time/money to recover the data from the flash, but lesson learned.

I bought a Samsung.

I had the exact same experience! Had a Nexus 6p, it boot looped and I sweared off Android forever. Ever since then I've been iPhone only and I have no complaints --- went from the 8 plus to a 13 Pro Max recently, but honestly it was a vanity upgrade and was not necessary at all.

It's hit or miss, I have had a number of Nexus and Pixel devices and haven't had any issues.

Well, they also have the wrong mentality on virtually everything else that Google does. They've shut down many more half-baked projects, far more than their successes. Google at least to me was/is solely successful at search, and ads. Even those are quickly turning to junk and the bane of the entire internet. Google should be busted up, sooner than later. But that's just me!

Problem is, I've been fooled by Apple, Samsung and Google. I'm running out of people to buy phones from.

Same here, except it was the Galaxy Nexus that pissed me off so much to switch to Apple.

Other hardware companies tend to have even worse update policies...

Honestly, Google needs really needs to do better. Samsung has raised the bar by supporting its devices with 4 years of patches: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295639/samsung-galaxy-d.... And frankly, how hard/expensive would it be to support these devices for far longer? Google is a massive company, and I see little reason why that can't employ a team of devs backporting patches to older phones. Current versions of Windows and Linux run happily on decades-old hardware, so a phone should at least be able to get patches for known security issues for a decade. Dev resources would be far better spent on this than yet another hamfisted attempt to build a messenger app that they'll kill in a couple years anyway.

> Samsung has raised the bar by supporting its devices with 4 years of patches

For all its warts, Apple set the bar and Android as a whole has never really reached it. The 6S is still supported right now, right? And we're on the 13?

I really hope there would be some regulations enforcing a decade of software support, not just for the operating system but also to provide drivers for hardware. After that, having to continue providing support or provide the source code with a permissive license and documentation.

Pixel 6 gets at least 5 years of security updates and 3 years of Android updates.

The problem is usually complexity and opportunity cost.

Once you have a team that can keep Android patched, someone at Google is going to use them to speed up another product or create a new one.

Why not add another team more? First, the situation will repeat itself, other needs would be prioritized higher. And there is a limit on the number of teams an organization can manage without non-linear manager cost increase.

Linux runs on old hardware because big corporations own old hardware and are willing to pay to not have to replace it. Replacing a phone is a cost for the individual owner. And my experience with company phones is that they are seen as a retention perk. So newer flashier phones are worth the cost, it could be different in other industries, thou.

One common solution to these problems is regulation. The government forces phone makers to patch the software for X years. Now there is a strong incentive to do so if the phone makers want to continue operating in that market.

To be fair, part of it is due to supporting the SoC, and that means dealing with Qualcomm. Samsung has the advantage of being able to develop their own SoC's and so can support them for far longer with updates and such

Google has actually started extending its security update policy for its hardware to 5 years. I don't know what "enough" is, but as someone who has to do these updates (ironically, for Fitbit devices, yes we are owned by Google now) I will say that continuing to ship updates for products you shipped 5 years ago is far from trivial. It forces you to develop in ways that are not natural for people that work with hardware (the natural thing is to branch per product, but good luck managing that if you need to land a security fix on the 15 or so products we shipped in the last 5 years). This is manageable now that we're owned by Google, but prior to the acquisition it was a serious drain on my team. And folks on my team would tell you that they don't love it even today -- having to support 5-yr old MCUs when you're trying to keep your BOM down can be very challenging, especially managing available memory.

> It forces you to develop in ways that are not natural for people that work with hardware

My employer still upgrades 10yrs old TV boxes just fine. (Rocking Linux 5.4 LTS, launched on 2.6)

It is not natural for companies whose business model is selling hardware. Or course their business incentive is not to make long-term support!

But my employer's business model isn't about selling hardware, but a service, hence the incentive to upgrade perfectly working hardware.

That's pretty funny considering the amount of tech consumers that hate having subscriptions attached to their hardware. There's no happy ending :^)

Yeah, a pure service model would be lovely in many ways. If I ever start a company that makes HW (fat chance) my experience at Fitbit means it will certainly be service-based.

Thanks for contributing first-hand experience. Your story highlights how dysfunctional historical hardware dev practices are for the connected age. Forking for each product absolutely does not scale in an era of continual updates, and manufacturers that don't figure this out are not gonna make it. People don't forget having to discard working hardware because of some stupid software EOL.

The memory limits of old devices is a real problem, and I don't know the solution besides doing the hard work to fight the the bloat, and produce a modular solution. Apple pretends to support the Apple Watch 3, but you can not upgrade the os without a hard-reset every time because the local flash can't hold the update and user config at the same time. But I can't help wonder if they _really_ need multiple GB for the core OS in a watch.

Heh. Not going to comment on Apple Watch for obvious reasons, but I will say that we measure free memory in 10s or 100s of bytes on most of our older products. Even a single GB would be amazing, but also amazingly expensive.

Google has generally supported Chromebooks for about 6 years and just recently seem to have started extending that duration to about 8 years. Some recent Chromebook launches have support through 2029.

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

If Google can do this for Chromebooks, most of which aren't even designed by Google (although usually based off reference designs), clearly they can also do this for the actual phones they make and sell under the Pixel brand. And Chromebooks span quite a wide variety of hardware capabilities, from school-targeted low cost models with eMMC and <4GB RAM all the way up to devices with NVMe and gobs of RAM on cutting edge CPUs from a variety of manufacturers, both ARM and x86.

Chrome OS is proprietary (Chromium OS is not) and it also cannot be modified by any manufacturer. Every chromebook manufactured also is developed with Google being aware so that the chipset and underlying hardware can be supported. It's quite a different licensing model than Android and that's most likely why giving eight years of updates was much easier.

> It forces you to develop in ways that are not natural for people that work with hardware (the natural thing is to branch per product...)

The problem rather seems to be that close-to-hardware developers are unwilling to adapt to modern software development practices: modularity (i.e. drivers and sane HAL), automated (regression) testing and, at least for some cases, even using version control.

Since the market hasn't managed to achieve that, the government needs to step in and mandate stuff like repairability, longevity and update support - then there won't be any other choice than to drag the industry by its ears into the 21st century.

> having to support 5-yr old MCUs when you're trying to keep your BOM down can be very challenging, especially managing available memory.

And again, the answer is government regulation: when the tradeoff between extra cost on the BOM vs ability to update shifts towards extra cost for an actual Linux-capable CPU, you won't have that problem any more.

You seem to saying a lot of things here rather declaratively. I will speak to my experience only, but we have used version control, drivers, various HALs, and automated testing (plus some manual, this is HW after all and some end to end tests are simply not worth automating) throughout my time here. So those things have not been holding us back.

With respect to government regulation, every dollar on the BOM is $2-3 to the customer. Many of our competitors are not based in the US. When buying memory you’re probably competing for supply against large car companies who have longer contracts with more committed volume. These are just facts, but they affect what the solution space here looks like.

Not your responsibility I know but given that Google can't seem to be able to notify everyone who is impacted by their GSuite changes I do worry about the path they seem to be going down. To me it seems that very simple things are falling by the wayside more and more these days which doesn't bode well for the future.

Been there with 30-year support-life (HC11 FTW!).

Do you see any prospects in terms of Fuscia making long-term support perhaps a matter of just keeping legacy drivers within the available mix?

I don't know much about Fuschia. I'd be surprised, though, if updatability wasn't a major concern. Part of why I don't know much about it, though, is that AFAIK it's 64-bit only, and the MCUs we run are 32-bit affairs.

Google's big argument to say they aren't upgrade pixels, is that they can't guarantee security of binary blobs. Fuchsia does nothing to help this.

Sorry to go off topic, but do you have an insight on what is going on with the Versa Light issues?

Unfortunately not with such a broad statement. Our CS team is usually abreast of issues with products that are in market and keeps me and others in the loop when there’s something we need to fix from an engineering side.

It's bizarre that a company like Google doesn't realize that supporting older devices actually helps them in the long term. Apple has the most dedicated customer base in the world who will gladly upgrade all their devices every year or two, yet even 6-8 year old iPhones and iPads regularly get software updates. This increases the value of Apple devices across the board and sustains a very large resale marketplace. This means more people are coming into the Apple ecosystem at the low end and eventually working their way up.

If I know that my $900 purchase is going to be worthless in 2-3 years, why will I even bother?

I dropped my iPhone 11 and the screen got destroyed send it out for repair and picked up my old iPhone SE from 2016. Updated it to iOS 15.2 and it trucked along without problems until the replacement was here. Amazing. (I have to admit I got the battery changed when they had the free battery exchange program running).

Google's business is selling ads, Apple's business is selling hardware.

Too many customers don't know the difference between buying an appliance and something to watch ads from Google.

LineageOS supports the Google Pixel 3 with LineageOS 18.1 (aka Android 11). It's definitely worth giving this a shot and you can revert to the standard Google release if you'd like. Word of warning on Verizon devices, though. If you bought from Verizon, they generally place an OEM lock on it. So, the device is "unlocked" in terms of carrier, but locked in terms of OS. Don't buy Pixels from Verizon.

How To: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/blueline/install

Download: https://download.lineageos.org/blueline

I did this on my Pixel 2, but unless I’m mistaken you have to unlock the boot loader to do it, leaving your device completely unsecured if someone has physical access to it.

I gave up and got a phone from a manufacturer who provides true 6+ year security support. I was surprised to find that iPhone was essentially the only option.

grapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org) also still supports the Pixel 3, albeit in legacy/sunset phase now

LineageOS is cool and can prolong the device usability but some apps may not work (Google Pay, banking apps) if they detect an unofficial system (via SafetyNet). And you likely won't get future vendor blob upgrades (from Qualcomm), not improving the security risk problem.

Hm.. i wonder if i can roll back to before Google completely changed all the UI a few months ago. That alone almost made me throw it out and buy an iPhone

I recently switched to an iPhone 12 for this reason. It's been almost a year and I still hate iOS. It's significantly dumber than Android and has some truly baffling UX choices. However, the phone is undeniably better than any Android phone I've ever used so I can't convince myself to switch back.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. I used nothing but Nexus and Pixel and finally switched to an iPhone 11 Pro from my Pixel 2 in 2020 and I have the same opinion.

The phone itself is so much better, but the UX is so bizarre and full of what seems like "its this way because its always been this way" stuff. Almost every day I go to change a setting, and have to choose between the "Settings" app, or the app itself. It still irritates me that I can't assign a specific sound to an app. So now when I get a generic notification sound I have to check my phone to see if its urgent (food delivery) or trivial (twitter), because Apple forces both of those apps to sound the same.

Why do you even have "trivial" notifications like Twitter making a sound? You can allow only truly "urgent" apps to make sounds, so there's no confusion.

> So now when I get a generic notification sound I have to check my phone to see if its urgent (food delivery) or trivial (twitter), because Apple forces both of those apps to sound the same.

It's not ideal, but I've disabled sounds + banner and lockscreen notifications for almost all of my apps, allowing them to only display notifications in the notification centre. It lets me check trivial notifications when I want instead of being interrupted by them.

The one that really gets me is not having a separate slider for alarm and notification volume. Slept through my alarm the first night, now phone stays in silent all the time.

As a current Pixel 3 user, I think this article is slightly hyperbolic. The phone still works great other than a worse battery, definitely not "garbage". The author is making it sound like the phone stops working. But then again I still use Windows 7 which also doesn't have security updates.

Did we read the same article? Without security updates, you really shouldn't rely on a phone for banking/payments/secure messaging. Google has effectively killed the Pixel 3 for real usage.

You should be able to throw LineageOS on there as long as you don't have a locked Verizon bootloader. But there are a lot of caveats to that, in terms of which apps will work when rooted, which won't etc. etc.

Yeah - and it's worth noting that you still get updates for your browser and messaging apps (because the android version isn't too old). Just don't install risky apps. If you're a minimalist, you're fine with a phone that stopped getting base system updates in the last year or two. I still use a Galaxy S8 that got its last security update 10 months ago.

If there's a vulnerability like stagefright in the base system that could make many up-to-date apps vulnerable, you'll hear about it on the news.

It's not hyperbolic, your security profile and risk aversion is just different from the author's.

What drove me off of Android was my bank stopped supporting my device because of security updates. When I bought the phone it was a just released LG flagship, I got a full 18 months worth of sporadic at best updates, followed by nothing.

My bank disabled the app on my phone some 4 months later, when some major vulnerability was still unpatched on my phone. They told me to get a new phone, so I picked up an 2016 iPhone SE and went on my way.

Frankly I don't get why you still use Windows 7. For the Pixel I understand that you make a choice between throwing perfectly good hardware and security but for 7, I'm not aware of any PC that can run 7 that can't run 10.

It's really dangerous to suggest that it's okay to continue to use anything Internet-connected that doesn't get security updates.

> “We find that three years of security and OS updates still provides users with a great experience for their device.”

What about the 4th year?

It's ludicrous to throw a perfectly functioning thing to buy a new one just because the gazillion dollar company behind it needs to make even more money without regard to the environment (oh but rest assured the next version will be 5% greener ... yeah right).

My Pixel 4 XL will be EOLed at the end of the year (bought it in January 2020) and I'm torn between security and wastefulness.

There are several aftermarket OSs that work on the Pixel 4. LineageOS is one of those. You might consider going that route if you want to sustain your hardware.

This makes me wonder if there's a market for "save my phone", where you send your cellphone in and have a new OS installed...

But are they secure though? AFAIK Google doesn't support the Pixels longer because Qualcom doesn't offer security updates for its chips.

Funny how LineageOS can afford to support the Pixel 3, while Google can not.

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#google

I do use Lineage base OSes and I'm really thanksfull to its contributors allowing me to extend the life of my devices for years, but there is still a tradeoff in term of security, the firmware blobs which are closed source cannot be updated so those do not receive any security update. Unfortunately, there's not much that can be done about that without forcing manufacturer to open source those blobs or maintain their hardware for longer periods of time.

Yeah supposedly, but I wasn't able to buy a used Pixel 3 that wasn't boot locked. I tried 4 of them, all were locked by the carrier.

Should be illegal imo to stop supporting a phone that's also locked. All it does is generate waste.

iPhone 5S

First released September 20, 2013; 8 years ago

Operating system iOS 12.5.5, released September 23, 2021

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5S

Where is the f'ing legislation forcing these companies to provide software updates for a number of years? The e-waste this kind of abandonment creates is unimaginable. I'm so frustrated that my government continues to do jack shit about issues like this that really matter and instead tries to ban encryption every six months.

Honestly I doubt congresspeople worry too much about the price of buying a new phone.

European union is working on legislation that manufacturers must declare lifespan of product for consumer to make a informed choice. Plus there is talk about 5 to 7 years of security updates being required to sell in Europe.

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/06/germany-eu-require-7-ye...

the government should not legislate software updates. no one is forcing you to buy a google phone

filibustered

My 3a XL has been completely and totally bug-ridden since upgrading to Android 12. I have used Android for the last 12+ years across inumerable phones, and this is the worst Android experience I have ever had.

- Sometimes I'll unlock my phone and the stupid new fade in effect gets stuck half way and my phone screen will just be dark until I sleep/unsleep.

- Sometimes the buttons in my top menu decided to just not render, like yesterday when I was under my car trying to activate the flashlight. Requires a full restart.

- The Google Assistant crashes every single time I try to use it, and I'm a big fan/user of Google Assistant. I just can't use Google Assistant. She goes to reply and it just dies mid reply. Every. Single. Time.

- So much more little crap. My phone has become completely unreliable.

When I got the OTA upgrade 6-ish months ago I was certain "oh, Google will fix these problems in no time." My phone is very quickly reaching EOL and I suspect Google is not going to fix any of this.

I am, for the first time, contemplating switching to iOS.

The UI changes still piss me off.

Example: You can no longer flip WiFi on/off with a swipe (to expose tray) and tap. There's an extra tap and they removed the automatic re-enable, which I got used to.. so I find myself turning WiFi off when I'm out somewhere to avoid connecting randomly, and then I go home and blow through several GB of data accidentally.

Also getting lots of google assistant crashes.

And sometimes it just starts glitching out, virtually tapping all around the screen on it's own. A month ago it dialed 911 when I was trying to restart, and I had to apologize to the operator.

I'm probably going to switch to iOS after 10 happy years on Android.

> A month ago it dialed 911 when I was trying to restart, and I had to apologize to the operator.

Yup, I had mine do that too. The UI was frozen so I couldn’t hang up. I had to hold the power button and power cycle. They called back, and I apologized profusely.

My god, I'd heard that Android support over time was not great, but 3 years? That's really, really short.

I'm a gadget nut, so for a long time I got a new phone every 18-24 months -- and for most of that time, the year over year gains on phones were sufficient to justify the upgrade, at least for some users.

But we're in a more mature market now. YoY updates on phones are pretty incremental. I kept my iPhone 8 for about 3 years before handing it off to my wife (who, lest you think me a jerk, absolutely DID NOT WANT to spend the money on a new phone for her), who then used it for almost 2 more years.

The phone I replaced it with is an 11Pro. I expect to get AT LEAST 3 years out of it. (What finally tempted me out of the 8 was the camera, which I assume is a common story no matter which kind of phone you like -- they got a LOT better between 2016 and 2019.)

Pixels are high-end Android handsets, right? I would have assumed that they'd have similar useful lives; I don't blame Android folks for being up in arms, because sunsetting a 3 year old handset is just BANANAS.

no, Pixels are not high end Android phones, upper midrangers at best usually, nowhere close to Samsung/Xiaomi high end, heck they even use years old cameras without upgrade

I guess given Google's position within the Android world I expected their phones to be upper-end. Thanks for the correction.

Does Samsung provide a longer support life?

Everyone always talks about how, with Google's free web services, "you get what you pay for" - however, Google's hardware division seems to be aspiring to reach that same quality standard as the rest of the company:

> In response to an email asking Google why it stopped supporting the Pixel 3, a Googles spokesperson said, “We find that three years of security and OS updates still provides users with a great experience for their device.”

How long should they provide software updates for? 3-years? 5-years? 10-years? What would be an acceptable cut off date for providing updates? I wouldn't expect companies to provide updates for their old hardware forever, but what would be an acceptable date that will benefit both consumers and the company itself.

As this article aptly demonstrates every time a phone is bought it is an opportunity to leave an ecosystem.

The manufacturer cannot guarantee that that the phone sold to a consumer will be replaced with a phone from the same company. So it's definitely within the interest of the company to support the phones for longer to keep consumers in the ecosystem.

Pretty sure that's the whole point of pixel 6.

Apple now is managing to give 7 years of support for iPhones, so that’s a good number to aim for.

What if vendors released the source code for the hardware drivers after the devices fall out of official support? Even if nobody at the company has time to support the hardware there is always a chance that the community can take over.

This is how Linux maintains driver support for hardware long past the point where it doesn't work on modern Windows or MacOS. I've noticed several occasions where the support stops because the kernel was updated and nobody wants to make the effort to port the drivers forward, especially since those drivers were delivered as a binary blob.

Right, that's the calculation any consumer good producing company has to do. When we buy industrial equipment we pay a huge markup for vendor promises that they'll support for 10+ years. It's painful at the time but we have automated manufacturing equipment that's been running 20+ years. When I purchase controllers, sensors, motors, etc. it cost me double or triple what I could have paid but now I'm happy I did.

But I also know that our products (PCs and printers) can't have that same support model, we'd be out of business and we don't have a lucrative ad business that could buy us customer loyalty via loss leaders. I think 5-8 years is reasonable.

5 years minimum - 7 years would be competitive with apple.

The thing is - apple has the history / reputation here. Google has promised updates forever with various initiatives, rarely delivers.

Apple doesn't actually promise much here that I know of, but seems to deliver and deliver.

What I want is for them to commit to supporting a device for some number of years after it's introduced so I know what to expect when I buy one. It should be one of the things manufacturers compete on.

At least as long as their main competitor, which currently has a phone that has been supported for 6.5 and will probably remain supported up until 8 years from its release date (iPhone 6S).

How about improving software standards so it can last longer?

Why must software always need to be updated? Software can be stable.

This industry makes throwaway software just so it can keep pumping hardware forever.

It's easy you know from testing when your silicon or other parts of the phone are going to degrade beyond the point of it being useable. If you sell hardware that is not obsolete for your customers but you make it obsolete because of software you pulled the trigger to early.

Forever, until they release the firmware source. It's a "shit or get off the pot"-type situation.

> then you’re vulnerable to every security flaw discovered since your last patch.

You do continue to get security updates to Chrome and Google Play Services for many years. The App Store and other external systems may protect you from some other vulnerabilities.

An iPhone gets updates for longer, but the cheapest iPhone costs 3x the price of the Nokia phone I have, so only comparing support period is nonsense. I buy a cheap phone so they are cheap to replace (broken/stolen/lost, often when travelling).

> For millions of years, these metals formed underground

Also geological and biological processes on the surface: some ores are formed underground but some are not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_genesis

Am I taking crazy pills? Everyone here is saying "Yeah, but how long should we ask them to produce updates? Let's not be unreasonable."

People, the mobile hardware ecosystem is fundamentally broken. On my desktop PC, I can keep upgrading Windows versions until the hardware craps out. I can move to Linux if Windows doesn't run well or has some functionality that's not compatible with my machine. There's an already existing model, but we don't apply it to mobile and we suffer through these locked-down ecosystems where Qualcomm and other hardware providers have the final say in when your hardware becomes unsupportable.

The answer to the question of "how long should we expect Google to provide updates for a device?" is to reject the question and say "why can't Google just release the software that I then install on my device?"

If the answer to that question is "well, because the devices are locked down and a software company can't actually make platform-agnostic software in this environment," that's a problem.

I'm really surprised at the lack of support for recent pixel models... especially considering how terrible the pixel 6 release has been.

For the first week I couldn't get it to charge because they didn't include a power brick and my existing power bricks, my PC's USB ports, etc. would charge slower than the battery discharged by sitting idle talking to 5G towers. Like literally plugged in with screen off it would drain the battery.

Then the second week there were 2 days where my phone calls would fail to complete on my end but continue to ring on the other end. Really annoyingly frustrating failure mode.

To top it all off, they removed the toggle for turning off the cell modem.. You have to open up a menu every time you want to change internet types.

I've loved the pixel 2 so much it lasted until now... but google seems to be turning into the bloated carrier they tried to displace by launching fi.

Two thoughts:

1. Just get a new phone every two years. Sell or donate the old one. It's not being "dumped". Or keep as your backup phone.

2. As the owner of a 2004 Volvo who will soon be looking for a new car, should I be concerned that the same issues will soon plague cars? Have they already?

for 2. Yes to some degree, at least in terms of degraded functionality It's happened in the past with built in navigation systems where the manufacturer stops releasing updated dvds with new maps, and recently with the retiring of the 2G/edge cellular network - https://www.thedrive.com/tech/43187/how-the-3g-shutdown-in-2...

All too common. I've had several devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) killed because Apple stopped providing any sort of software support until practically everything I used them for bitrotted away. The only old Apple device I have that still works fine is my iPod Nano, since it's too dumb to have this problem.

I also have had to replace two otherwise pristine phones as 2G (Motorola Razr) and 3G (iPhone 5) services were discontinued, so there's that too.

My Pixel 2 will be the last Google phone I own. I really shouldn't continue using it but since I take excellent care of my electronics it works just as well as the day I bought it so I'm reluctant to ditch it until it actually develops problems.

It's going to be far more cost effective for me to move to an iPhone and I never thought I'd ever say something like that non-ironically.

I use a pixel 2 as well, what sort of iPhone are you thinking? I'd like something as small as the pixel 2.

I'm using Samsung galaxy s8. I'm 3rd owner of it. Immediately when I got it almost 2 years ago I rooted it disabling my self to obtain latest updates for this phone. And I'm not whining about it loud.... I just don't get it why someone had to write about losing updates whole article? There are more important problems (real one)

This is why I buy iPhones.

My mother has my old 2015 iPhone 6s. It runs latest iOS 15. Got a new battery at an apple store in under an hour mid last year. Looks like it just came out of the box.

It’s over 6 years old now.

Doesn't Google publish the images for their phone, making it easier to load custom ROMs?

https://www.androidauthority.com/unlock-pixel-3-bootloader-9...

Then

https://lineageosroms.com/blueline/

Done, now your phone will be supported damn near forever.

----

I get that Google themselves should be supporting their phones for longer. I completely agree. I just can at least say that they've given you the tools to still use the phone after the updates stop.

That's a damn sight better than other manufacturers... e.g. Nokia 6, the bootloader is locked, and I had to pay some kid in some random country to unlock it for me with his reverse engineered tool.

So no, I give Google a lot of shit about their behaviour, but phone updates? Could be longer but I won't hold them to it.

> lineageosroms[.]com

While that site links to official LineageOS builds, that's not the official LineageOS website.

- https://lineageos.org/

- https://download.lineageos.org/blueline

I bought 4 used Pixel 3 devices and all were bootloader locked by the carrier.

Verizon refuses to unlock Pixel 3 devices if you don't have an account with them.

> The planned obsolescence is frustrating enough, and I’m certainly annoyed that I have to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone when I really shouldn’t have to.

You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone. That's the problem. We don't need these things. We want these things.

Did you miss the part where using an unpatched, always internet connected device is a huge liability? That's the point, he can't not get a new phone because they're cutting off security patches for the one he is using.

That might have been true in 2010, but it certainly isn't anymore. I need a QR code on my phone to prove that I am vaccinated. My banking, insurance and bills all are on my phone because no company will send paper anymore. It's also the device I use to take pictures, although I suppose you could classify that as a "want" more than a "need".

Bottom line is: I have a Pixel 3 and it works flawlessly. It takes better pictures than my friends newer phones and just plain does everything I need it to. I bought it in 2019 so that's more like 2 years of update as the end consumer. I don't care about Android 13, but I want security updates and honestly feels like I gave them enough money to pay for it.

If security updates were truly that critical, Google would push a play services update that would immediately kill all Google service connectivity to underscore that a no-longer-supported device is forbidden to use and force everyone in poorer countries to go forth and purchase a new one.

I think it's time someone ask if Google's vaunted claims about being carbon neutral count all of the Android and Chromebook hardware that Google forces consumers to discard due to their poor support lifecycle. I think they hide the sheer environmental waste tsunami behind third party manufacturing.

(tbh, this might be a good area to kill two birds with one law/stone: Force companies to account in their environmental impact for decisions which drop product support. Dropping updates from a hardware model then is weighted by the carbon cost of all of them in use. As governments turn the screws on environmental regulations, this may also help product support lifecycles and more long-lived products.)

First part there I was suggesting two years ago. Very glad to see this as almost common sentiment in the thread today.

Still hoping that Fuscia will have some advantages in legacy support, but personally not buying any Android phone.

Reading only the title, I thought "I am having this problem exactly now!". However, it is not about lack of security updates (it's an old Motorola phone). It is a smartphone that belonged to my late father who passed away in 2020. He had a google account with password and the phone has a pattern to draw in the lock screen.

I know Google and the phone manufacturers are concerned with the stealing of phones, so they make it as hard as they can to use a phone without authorization, even if you try to reset the phone and erase all user data. Does anyone know if there is a process to remove a google account from a phone even if I have to prove to Google that he died of natural causes?

Perhaps for an end user, but from a developer POV, the Pixels are some of the most developer friendly Android devices -- very easily rooted, little unnecessary bloatware by default compared to the likes of Samsung, Huawei etc.

It's always funny to me that companies pay developers to make worse versions of Android instead of just not doing that. Although obviously it's to force in some unremoveable shovelware.

Until last month I was still happily running a Google Nexus 6. For the past 5 years, I have been getting regular updates for it via Lineage OS (running Android 11 now). The only reason I had to stop using it is because the cell networks in the US are dropping support for its radio hardware.

Still using my Nexus 7 tablet from 2013 (running Android 11 via Lineage OS). Huge shout-out to the awesome folks at Lineage who are keeping these devices viable for years!

Honestly, when I went to buy a new phone, one of the biggest factors I considered was if it was popular enough with the custom-ROM crowed to be supported long-term...

My Windows machine is something like 5 years old. Microsoft will keep supporting it until 2025 and even by then I will probably have switched it to Windows 11.

Smartphones go unsupported after a few years? Why do we put up with this?

I kept my OG Pixel for 5 years and had the battery replaced twice (2.5 years and ~4 years in). It worked fine until the last moment when it just died on me (like, absolutely bricked).

I stopped getting software updates after 3 years but the hardware continued to be very capable until the very end. The battery was expected to degrade after some time, and the phone didn't feel as snappy with modern apps, but it was perfectly fine as a phone.

I'm now on a Pixel 5 and expect to go through something similar. It is absurd to me that people switch phones every 2-3 years (or even annually).

The main problem is SoC lock-ins. You can find aftermarket AOSP for Android devices.

Sadly it's inferior of the days where you can run a mainline OS on 20 year old device (eg. it is possible to run 32bit Windows 10 on first Intel MacBook from 2006).

Another thing is apps, usually us developers drop "legacy" OSes as it's hard to support them (or worse a mobile store enforces dropping such support). So someone with old phone can't even use it anymore.

There are some "open-source" SoC or more environmental/reusable approaches but it's just a drop in the ocean.

If you want to run a phone effectively forever, I am afraid that you need to turn to the free software community, and give up a lot in terms of app compatibility and the many other benefits of living within a mainstream ecosystem. Going the Free Software route is not easy in my experience.

The good news is, one of the great benefits of Pixel phones has always been that the boot loader is unlocked. So, realistically, you can run your phone as long as you want. There are many Free options to keep that going, if that is truly what you value.

Guys, we're all frequent readers of HN here and it's pretty clear Google is not a company that we can trust. Data privacy, product stoppage, advertisement collusion, their search engine becoming an ad engine, obsolescence, monopoly, we're talking about a company that collects huge fines every 6 months. There is nothing good in Google World, so please, let's all change the world together and stop using the services of inhuman companies.

Viable, better alternatives need to be built before that is possible

I currently have a Pixel 5a. I got it via the Google Fi "Subscribe and Save" option, which works out to a pretty decent discount from the retail price on top of paying it in installments over 2 years.

I don't know how many of these subscriptions Google is selling, but it will be interesting to see what happens in when a bunch of Google Fi customers start becoming eligible for their upgrade to a new phone subscription around November 2023.

Will customers upgrade immediately to the then presumably extant 'Pixel 7a', or wait?

If customers wait for the next (hypothetically, a 'Pixel 8a') model to come out, will that actually be offered as an upgrade, or will the upgrade offer stick to the older model for a while?

Because of these unknowns, the calculation the customers have to make is interesting: On the one hand, the 5a should still have almost another year of updates, so not upgrading immediately is viable and saves money, and if you wait your upgrade may be to a newer phone.

But, if the '7a' remains the upgrade offer for a while even after the '8a' comes out, what is gained from maxing out the life of the 5a phone at the tail end is lost from shortening the life of the '8a' upgrade from the head end.

I just bought a new phone because OnePlus just stopped supporting my 6T which was released in November 2018, so for all intents and purposes 3 years ago as well.

It was (well, is, I'm still using it while I await its replacement) a perfectly good phone aside from some wear on the USB-C port which I would have had serviced had this not happened.

Frankly, if manufacturers aren't willing to continue to offer support for these devices they should just stop making phones.

It says a lot about corporate brainwashing and propaganda when the comment here asking "Is it really a security risk?" is flagged dead and downvoted to hell. They really found the perfect excuse to squeeze users into increasingly authoritarian "upgrades" and gradual loss of control.

The only security is really for their profits, not for you.

Once you realise, the truth will set you free. No wonder they're scared.

I think about phone updates as layers in a stack.

At the lowest level of the stack we have software written in literal ROM. As such, it can't be updated without switching out the hardware. For an example of a vulnerability here search for "iPhone Checkm8". No doubt there are examples in the Android ecosystem too.

Next layer up there are operating system updates. Unfortunately these are hard to compare across ecosystems as the scope of what an operating system is is poorly defined. Things like the web browser, HTLM rendering engine and SMS app are part of the iOS operating system. But on Android they're just apps and are updated the same as any other app.

At the top of the stack we have app updates.

Knowing what might contain known unpatched vulnerabilities helps me determine my risk and behaviours to combat it. For example I may not be comfortable running disreputable apps on an unpatched operating system. But on the same phone I may not worry about visiting websites as the browser is up to date.

Personally I use web apps as much as possible and native apps as little as possible, so most of the security issues that affect old phones don't concern me.

The entire mobile ecosystem is an insecure exploitative dumpster fire. People are way too willing to trust it, because companies spend billions of dollars on advertising to push it. But ultimately you should do the least amount of computing possible with it, and favor traditional user-representing PC operating systems that have been developed over decades.

> Installing security updates is the one basic thing everyone needs to do for their own digital security

This is only true to the extent that you trust a device. My phone is way down on my trust DAG. When I setup services for it to access (eg rsync or CalDAV), I basically consider it an attacker. It is a herolte that stopped receiving microG/Lineage updates, but continues working alright for my purposes. Would it bother me if a drive by attacker got ad hoc access to my occasional usage? Of course. But they're nowhere near positioned to exploit my information as much as the Advanced Persistent Threats that the phone shipped with would have!

Furthermore most exploits are going to require interaction, so if you aren't browsing websites on the phone then staying patched matters even less. Of course you have to avoid giving in to the massive temptation of the surveillance industry pushing you to do all these things in your phone. They do this precisely because it is one of the least secure environments and thus they can better exploit you - you're not particularly thinking about opsec when you're relaxing on the couch.

But alas the upgrade treadmill still marches on and it looks like I will have to upgrade that phone if I keep wanting native voice, due to the looming AT&T 4G deprecation. Although I'm tempted to just keep on using it with VOIP-over-data because the less money going to that fetid ecosystem the better.

Still using Pixel 3XL, perfectly good phone with a processor that is faster at multicore than that in Pixel 5. I'm with the author here, sad to see this perfectly good phone getting obsoleted artificially.

https://browser.geekbench.com/android_devices/google-pixel-3...

I still use a Pixel 2 as my phone and I had no idea it was EoL. I've been using this thing for more a year after it is apparently not getting security updates. That's extremely fucked up that this isn't communicated to users. Many people I know are using androids that are totally out of date. This is a giant security concern I now have for our society.

For all the talk about replacing these every 3-4 years, I think I'd be a lot less upset if every 3 years actually felt like an upgrade. A slightly bigger screen, a 10% better camera, less buttons? Why do I need a new one? Apple may be getting a lot of positive credit in this department, but, by and large, what's the difference between an 11 and a 13? The incremental hardware differences are so small it's easy for them to build on the same OS over time. Google used to be my go to, and the google devices especially because they were more "vanilla" android at the time. I left a few years ago because google branded devices were so similar to Samsung (Samsung even manufacturing many of the "Nexus" devices at the time) that the vanilla feeling was fading away.

Is there even a "stock" android option anymore? I honestly can't say as I've just bought into Apple's stuff for overall device compatibility with my other stuff.

Perhaps the most angering part is that both Google and Apple will greenwash the issue away as during product launches (which is where all attention is) where they will emphasize how very sustainable they are.

That's the tactic to get away with piss poor aftercare. It's time for regulation and I mean harsh regulation. A product should be supported for as long as the reasonable duration of its hardware life cycle.

I have 7 year old smartphones that still work just fine. So you're going to be delivering support for a long time, even up to a decade.

Unwilling to do it or technical excuses? No problem. Refund the phone. I have a working paid device, you broke it. It's not my problem that your security model is like Swiss cheese. It's your defect, not mine.

Battery replacements are to be made dead simple as it always was before. This is actually a key reason why people needlessly buy a new phone.

All reasonable repairs should be possible to be carried out anywhere, including by the customer themself. You're going to document the process and supply the components.

You may think of this as an angry extreme rant, but I'm serious. The point is that the pain should be put where it belongs. When you make a crappy product, the producer should feel it, not the consumer. This creates the incentive for the producer to create a product that doesn't break down so easily. Likewise, producers are a much larger factor in sustainability compared to a consumer, so they should drive it.

Speaking of security, it's laughable that in a digital society, we accept that everything requires forever frequent updates otherwise its insecure. What does that tell you about the foundation of our computing? It's garbage. Yes, I know, "programmers produce bugs", "hackers are creative", but that's an explanation, not an excuse.

How long though? This is the painful economics of technology.

I think a more pointed argument is the relationship the software, hardware, and consumer has in this.

As consumers we really can only vote with our purchasing and much of it is mired in learning by induction what we do/don't want.

The walled garden and immense control of iOS is great until it isn't. The open landscape and diversity of Android is great until it isn't.

The hardware manufacture and telecoms are an added pain in the mobile ecosystem. They want a hook into getting advertising in front of you so some of this hardware is subsidized through bloatware and system level apps that can't be removed. I have an Amazon Prime app that I cannot uninstall (only hide) because it is a system app!?! Hardware manufacturing is a loss at the start of the sale and supporting it is an added cost.

The economics of the system are problematic and going to iOS will only work long enough until it doesn't. Point I'm making is the problem is upstream.

I am still using my HTC HD2 from 2009 (running Windows Mobile 6.5) - meanwhile, since 2020, I do have two sim cards, because banking apps do not work on the HD2 and I have a spare Pixel 3a (always on wifi).

The HD2 SSL certificates stopped working about 7 years ago, but I set up an internal nginx proxy that downgrades SSL certificates for me, when at home. I find the RSS-Reader particularly good, because it does not show images, which often disctract from content. Also, the Garmin app works with offline maps, doesn't expire and requires no subscription, and the HD2 is small - therefore quite good as a hiking companyon. It is on its 5th battery so far - this one lasts about a week on daily use, which is often more than new phones today. On the other hand, the Pixel 3a was the smallest phone I could get in 2020, and it is still too big to fit in my pockets.

What? The Google Pixel line is one of the few smartphone lines continuously supported by every major open source mobile operating system.

CalyxOS: https://calyxos.org/docs/guide/device-support/#supported-dev...

GrapheneOS: https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices

LineageOS: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

All three are still delivering essential security updates for the Pixel 3. The author could have made a stronger argument by picking a different smartphone to complain about.

None of these can fix security issues in the binary blobs provided by the chipset manufacturer. And since this includes display drivers a security issue in the binary blobs is open season for every App on your phone.

If an App or website has access to an API backed by a binary blob supplied by the hardware vendor then keeping Android itself up to date will not protect you.

(Has anyone tried to exploit an old Android phone via WebGL? I’d presume that it’s feasible to exploit display driver bugs that way, which makes browsing the web on a phone without current security support problematic.)

You could buy Fairphone. What I do for now is to buy used phones with broken screen and replace it myself. I did it with Pixel 1 and now with Pixel 4a. It helps to keep costs down and I feel better about myself. Other than that I would go with Fairphone for their software support.

Call me an idiot, but for corporate work stuff I am still using my 2XL that hasn't received updates in a long time.

As this is company provided hardware I actually just don't care to switch to a Samsung (as the company only offers these if I do not want to pay additional money - and why would I for a company provided phone)

The phone still lasts longer than a day, I can use it to read my mails, see appointments, use slack, ms teams and use it as a 2nd factor to access corporate stuff.

It just works.

I don't see me throwing it out if I am not forced by It because of security reasons (but I actually doubt they care as long as they can install corporate spyware on these devices).

Why would I trash the ressources that went into making of this thing, as long as it does what it should?

this is a long article about a weird flex. The device is still very much usable for majority daily usage and until hardware starts to go shouldn't be tossed out or even feelings of pressure to ditch it. Weird. Have had old Nexuses, Moto Gs etc lying around in case something goes wrong with current device and they're all still very usable even if the OS is a few versions back. Any regular apps still work and have their own security built in via SSL, passwords, 2FA, whatever, which is enough for the average user. Overreacting.

And as mentioned numerous times they've been slowly improving the commitment to longer device updates etc! The technology is more suited to it/not as fast-moving as previous years.

The author is dumping his Pixel 3 and seems to be very concerned about wasting hardware.

If only he knew about CalyxOS:

> If you have a Pixel 3 or newer, you can install CalyxOS on your own device.

https://calyxos.org

Knowing about ROM flashing and being able to do it or wanting to spend the time on it are very different things.

The author specifically says they want their phone to be a reliable appliance. I do not think they have the appetite for reflashing the ROM, nor should a consumer be required to do so.

-----

This is from the website, this is not something an average person should attempt:

Open a terminal on your host computer, change to the directory where you saved device-flasher, and then run:

shasum -a 256 device-flasher.darwin

And ensure the result says 04b4cf9912d853e0f108b42a756fd74db7a11cc6c951e05820e96d28ce56e543.

CalyxOS won't update the multiple binary blobs (drivers, firmwares) on your phone, so no that wouldn't change much to the article.

Plus countless other options which all work for Pixel devices. It's why I bought Google hardware, to install a custom ROM.

Funny how third-parties offer updates for free, where Google will not. I guess it's part of how Google makes money.

Say what you will about Microsoft, but Windows support is designed to last a long time.

windows phone?

Of course google, and everybody else, wants us to throw away the phones and other products after 3 years, I don't know if anyone noticed but USD 100K cars start to break a lot after 3 years (the usual warranty) so you have to buy extremely expensive replacement parts (10x price of the new one) and get dragged into a "subscription" or buy a new car. The planned obsolescence is real and everywhere, from cars to light bulbs, software, hardware, and now is even easier for them with internet connected devices, even if the device works they just pull the plug of the service and render it useless.

- LineageOS images are usually released for years after a phone's official Android support is dropped. Just ditch your official Android image for LineageOS, and most people won't even notice the difference.

- If you're more brave and Linux-inclined, you may also opt for PostmarketOS.

- Next time, avoid buying hardware released by Google. Those guys are religiously following the Apple book when it comes to hardware: premium stuff with high profit margins, that gets deprecated within 3 years so they can just reiterate. If you buy Google products, you are funding planned obsolescence.

Nothing will change until a large scale/large target hack or until ecology activists can successfully get photos of huge piles of e-waste in front of people.

Needing to trash your phone every 5 years is still ridiculously wasteful. Just stop making so many new phones. Regulate it so it's so illegal/expensive that they can't keep doing this. I can't even stop using smartphones if I wanted to, because the people who came up with 2FA decided to make the Authenticator App a mandatory part of modern life, instead of physical security keys like they should have.

If you didn't already know, the standard OTP schemes used in many systems have desktop and hardware security token implementations. Doesn't help with systems that use non-standard schemes unfortunately.

It's too bad ubuntu's and firefox's UIs for phones died.

Maybe it is time for linux to stop obsessing over PCs and move to mobile.

But given how badly they continue to screw up desktop Linux with balkanization and failed support of settings and other things... well, maybe it's an opportunity to do it right, but I doubt it.

But the need is there. You'd thing there would be a company to do this. Maybe now that hardware in phones is somewhat stabilized, a competing long term support OS company will appear.

It probably is a lot of grunt work and labor, so it won't scale and SV won't fund it.

In the spirit of recycling, let me repeat the remark I made on the thread about the problem of software subscriptions: this is what you get for not supporting FOSS, especially its R&D.

If Android is what I get for $800, I'd hate to see what I get for free.

>Unless you routinely destroy your phone within two or three years, there’s no justification from a sustainability perspective to keep using Android phones. Of course, Apple is only good by comparison, as it also manufactures devices that are difficult to repair with an artificially short shelf life. It just happens to have a longer shelf life than Google.

Most of the iPhone users I see are using a phone they purchased within the past three years. Does the average iPhone get used for longer than the average Pixel?

Yes, because that old iphone is handed down to a kid or sold to someone else. The android resale market was trash last I looked. I still have family using iPhone 7 pluses but the battery is showing wear (but thats pretty cheap to replace).

We can't tell because Apple is a little opaque with the devices that are in the wild, and Pixels are such a small slice of the entire Android population. What we have are only third party accounts of the iPhone population, e.g. https://deviceatlas.com/blog/most-popular-iphones

According to that (maybe selection-biased) source, it looks like the most popular iPhone is the one released the same year the first Pixel was released. We can't conclude anything about which is used longer, but Android app updates are required to target API level 30 I think for Android, which is no longer supported on the first Pixel, so there's probably a pressure that urges users off of that phone. I'd be surprised if percentage-wise, a larger share of Pixel users are on the original Pixel than iPhone users on iPhone 7.

> Most of the iPhone users I see…

Instead of making knee-jerk anti-Apple assumptions, you might try to check some facts.

edit: apparently the statistics I linked are behind a paywall, but the stats from the app I'm working on show me that approx 10% of users are on iPhones that are 7 years or older.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/626631/smartphone-market...

My iPhone 6 held up fine for 6 years and was still getting security updates last fall.

I think iPhones get 6-7 years of support. I believe the new Pixel 6's are up to 5 years.

People love to bash apple for their “expensive” products but I see it as I’m paying for support as well. My 3(?) years old iPhone XR works like new, receive regular updates and the battery still hold fine (never changed it).

Whereas my android phone before that never saw an update besides a couple odd security patches after a lot of delay.

I intend to use this iPhone until apple drop support for it. Maybe in a year or two I will replace the battery. But so far it’s the best phone purchase I ever made.

I'm surprised no mentioned what an absolute shitshow Android 12 is. Getting "stuck" on Android 11 is a blessing. I regret updgrading from my Pixel 5 to the 6.

At first I thought that a good way out of this is to install Calyx OS or similar AOSP onto the Pixel, but then checked the Calyx support website [0] and, because they source the proprietary bits from Google, it's the same problem as the post elaborates...

[0] https://calyxos.org/news/2021/05/14/security-updates/

I am waiting for delivery of my new iPhone. I am switching from Pixel 2 XL which looks brand new and is fully functional and does everything I need. There is literally not a single thing that I miss in this phone other than newer OS and updates.

I have been delaying this decision for a year, but as a professional I can not continue using a phone that is not regularly updated. And so I will switch to a platform that will allow me to keep the device alive for much longer.

For all the crap that Apple gets, I gave a friend my old iPhone XS Max purchased in December of 2018 that still gets updates, and doesn't seem to have any EOL warnings. Since the hardware doesn't appear to be showing any wear, I think there's a reasonable chance my friend will get two more years out of this phone.

I think 5-6 years is a fairly reasonable amount of time for nearly any computer, let alone something that lives in my pocket.

I've dealt with this my whole life, I'm just on my second smarthpone ever since I try ro use it for as long as possible. I know not having security updates is bad on paper but what is the real risk? I guess I can study what vulns each update patches but I can't imagine it's stuff I have to worry about when I'm just making basic use of it, not sideloading app or rooting my phone or anything.

I have also the same issue now with my Samsung Galaxy note 10 plus. This device has insane specs (12 GB of RAM, really good camera and display, the battery still last over 1,5 days, and could still be usable in the next 3 years. I would though need to replace it next year, only because of the lack of security patches.

This is really crazy, when i think that i am still getting updates on a 7 years old laptop (both windows and linux).

If it has software, it's not your property, and since software is everywhere, your right to private property is gone.

You can't eacape this, now even batteries refuse to work without a software update.

https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/148496134391649485...

> You can't escape this

You can. Use a "dumb"phone.

Funny how "dumb"phones are better at reliability. No need for updates, and battery lasts for more than a week.

Funny how they still offer replaceable batteries, even though they cost a fraction of "smart"phones.

To avoid financing the software-planned-obsolescence empire, you can use a combination of cheap second-hand "smart"phones for maps and chat apps that are important for you, and a dumb phone for reliable stuff like alarms, calls, and SMS.

This is basically why I treat my phone as an untrusted device. The rest of the world wants me to use my phone as an extension of myself, but I treat it only as a portal to the public world. Security updates are almost irrelevant if there is nothing too sensitive on the phone. In particular, I don't have my gmail account on my phone, and I don't have access to monetary information on my phone.

> In 2021, an estimated of 57.4 Mt of E-waste was generated globally [1]

This is an increase over 2019 and before. The way things are designed and companies drive for profits on electronic things leads to more and more e-waste.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste#E-waste_data_...

There should be a federal law of a tax for non-user-serviceable batteries and a requirement to support devices with security updates for 20 years.

20 years is very extreme. It's not realistic for anyone to support 20 year old hardware.

I was eventually forced to upgrade my iPad because the YouTube app stopped working due to a required update that was unavailable for my device. Several others such as banking apps stopped working before that.

Before that I had to ditch my otherwise perfectly fine OnePlus phone for similar reasons. I went with a Nokia because they promised several years of Android updates, so we'll see how that pans out.

Quite annoying.

> I was eventually forced to upgrade my iPad because the YouTube app stopped working due to a required update that was unavailable for my device

Which iPad is this? I’m running YouTube Premium on an iPad Air from 2013 - soon 9 years old.

You know, I am so bummed Microsoft gave up on a mobile OS. I feel by this time they would've been be a real refreshing alternative to the <expletive>show we have right now.

At this point the only safe bet is S-series Samsung which are part of their enterprise program.

Nokia wad okay-ish for a while but I don't think I would buy one today.

Someone stops the guy from installing unofficial ROM especially in Pixel phone with easily unlockable bootloader?

Let's ignore the fact the phone is perfectly fine even without latest security patch even without unofficial ROM. How exactly would someone exploit his phone if he is using newest versions of secured apps? The odds of attack on his phone are next to zero.

I'm amazed that Lineage OS still supports Pixel 1 while Google can't provide support and updates for Pixel 3. Google just doesn't care about long term support which makes business sense since most people want to upgrade phones in 2-3 years. However it is completely antithetical to themselves calling an environmentally responsible company.

I get that I'm not the target market here, but the headline is quite amusing.

I bought a Pixel 3 specifically _because_ it had support in Lineage and I could whack microG on it.

I have some >8 year old tablets running Lineage and variants.

I do wish though that Google would just IBM PC the ecosystem though. It'd make 1% less money or whatever, so it ain't ever happening.

I would agree also as 3a user. The phone has been my favorite for a long time and its usage is pretty sweet for the price point. But the overall lack of support that google is showing for its old devices is saddening and has kinda put the nail in the coffin for getting a iphone and rolling with it at such a high price point.

Not that having another big player would solve the problem, but I do wish we at least had Microsoft still in the game as a foil against Google and Apple.

In lieu of that, it's still on my very long to-do list to figure out how to flash my Android phone to finish extricating myself from the Google ecosystem. One of these days...

People are ditching their smart phones it seems https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60067032

Havent had a phone for years now, too much hacking and surveillance for my liking, glad to not be drinking the Kool-Aid.

For Linux based devices (including Android devices), a lot of the problem is lack of support for the device in Linux mainline. Devices that are supported in Linux mainline generally get updates pretty much forever (think your laptop). Of course, getting mainline support is a lot of work that is costly.

A related post I read recently:

"Musings on long-term software support and economic incentives" https://veronneau.org/musings-on-long-term-software-support-...

Just because a device stops receiving security updates does not automatically mean its instantly unsafe to use. Unless you are a high profile target or a serious exploit comes out you can probably safely still use that device for quite awhile. If you want to be confident in your security then that might require some extra steps on your part monitoring what exploits are being released but with a hugely popular device like the Pixel I doubt that is very difficult. Tons of people are going to be using them regardless without any thought to security.

That being said this whole 3 years of security updates is of course totally stupid and we deserve more. And manufacturers look to be realizing this. But if the rest of the phone hardware wise is also on a similar obsolescence cycle then is software updates the real problem here?

Our devices are becoming more and more disposable in many ways and we need to target the root of the problem - if you can easily replace your battery and your 5 year old phone still does everything you need then there will be much more consumer demand in turn for longer software update support.

Apple are bastards because they lock out users from modifying hardware. Google are bastards for not supporting older hardware. Microsoft were bastards for not having apps. There was the opportunity for a triopoly but snapchat was, depressingly, more important at the time.

I keep my old phones as backup for either myself, or that poor soul you come across whom just smashed their screen and do not have money for a new one.

Or sometimes I just keep it in my car as a an emergency phone / for pandora / for maps. It almost never goes to waste that way.

Unrelated, but I think the latest Android update is ghastly and I have no way of changing back to how it looked before. I'm all for progressive design but some of the new UI changes (for example the clock app which I use every day) make it way less usable for me.

I buy cheap (but not bottom-tier) Android phones. I've been happy with Motorola phones. If they stop getting updates after a few years, I can replace them without feeling like I'm scrapping a phone that I paid a lot of money for.

Pixel phones are way out of my price range.

Not to mention that if you root them or install a custom firmware to keep using your device, most banking apps, Netflix and any games will simply refuse to run or weirdly crash (e.g. the Nintendo Switch companion app - which is a voicechat ffs).

One could load Cyanogenmod or a Linux based phone. Old electronics is a reason we must by law requiere manufacturers to have open devices. A phone should function like a personal computer. Open boot loader, standard boot process, standard chassi.

> I think of phones in much the same way I think of refrigerators or stoves.

Is that so?

I've never heard anyone complain about their fridge not receiving security updates any more, making it dangerous to use.

(Though the Internet of Idiotic Things wants to change that, of course.)

How about expecting at least 1 year of service for every $150 in the price of the phone.

I'm still using my Google Nexus 6P that I purchased five and a half years ago. Yes, it hasn't been updated for years but I almost never download new apps to it and I haven't been compromised so far (as far as I am aware).

I was a Pixel 3 phone owner and switched to an iPhone after using Android since I bought my first smartphone over 10 years ago. The author nailed it: Google's lack of ongoing software support for their hardware is a problem.

https://calyxos.org/news/2022/01/19/android-12-changelog/

On thing where google / android / pixel really shine is for google workspace integration and work profile. I do BYOD, and I ve got a work profile, with segregated apps and content. You have no equivalent with iphone.

Truly we have built our house on sand when devices depend on a steady stream of security updates to remain safe. We are in the bleak dark ages of computing where the idea of shipping bug-free code is laughed off as a fantasy.

Mega corps marketing themselves as carbon neutral, but in reality they don't give two fck about the environment. If they did, they will try to support these devices avoiding people to dump them to jump on a new one.

Perhaps one of the strongest arguments for owning Apple tech is that they support their devices for long after everyone else would stop doing so.

Android has classically been a dumpster fire compared to Apple on this front.

The really odd thing is that my daughters 3XL just died - it was under guarantee so I returned it and they gave me a new one. It's got a years guarantee to go! Can I return it because there are no updates?

Wait so the actual google flagship only gets three years of support?

It's not an ideal solution, but when I have to get a new phone the old one becomes my tv remote. I'm not too worried about security updates on a device that just has netflix and kodi on it.

If your device is no longer able to get updates, and there is no viable alternative OS that you can run, it is no longer perfectly good. Perfectly good for electronics recycling perhaps.

Thanks to this article I learned that my perfectly functioning OnePlus 6T received its last update in November, 2021. I think enough is enough and I will switch to Apple as soon as I can

It's a good point. If you work at Google, just know that I'll be doing the same. If Google refuses updates for perfectly good hardware, then I'll move to the iPhone.

Are there any rumblings of Google making its own chips? I figured it wouldn't be that big of an organizational leap considering they already produce their own TPU's.

I have had a 2XL, 4XL, and now a 5a... and the 5a looks nice but is actually a piece of crap. I can't recall EVER having a phone with this many network hiccups.

Just install an alternative android OS on the phone and it will last you longer. Pretty sure Graphene supports the pixel 3. Probably Calyx. Probably /e/OS.

You don't have to switch to iPhone, why not switch to the Fairphone instead, which principles and ethics are exactly the one the author is looking for?

One possible solution is to flash a custom ROM.

> One possible solution is to flash a custom ROM.

Been there, done that, got the tshirt (a nice CyanogenMod one). Then I switched to iPhone years ago, and my regret is that I should have done that WAY earlier.

I had a: Nexus S, Galaxy S3, Sony XPeria Ultra, Nexus 6, Moto S. All those were bought with custom ROM support in mind. My experience was love and hate:

- Clean minimal Android is really NICE.

- Not having (insert Facebook bloatware here) on your phone is NICE!

- Custom ROMs break often, the moment you move away from a big project like CyanogenMOD (later LineageOS), you are pretty much depending on one or two people. If those people change phones, you are sol. Hell, it happens with big projects as well.

- Some apps don't work unless you install Magisk to bypass Google's Safetynet.

- One slight mistake flashing a device and you risk in having a nice paperweight.

- Flashing/modding your phone takes a LOT of time.

- Bootloader unlock might void warranties (might not be legal) but as an individual I can't fathom to sue a megacorp.

I realized that my time was way more precious than fiddling often with a phone, so I just went over to the iOS camp, never looked back. My mom is now using my old iPhone 6S Plus with latest and greatest version of iOS.

That's probably a good option for someone who writes for Vice or you and I, but for the average user that's pretty unfeasible. I think even with this knowledge, the point of the article still stands.

> One possible solution is to flash a custom ROM.

Honestly, that's way too much trouble to actually be a solution. Custom ROMs should be a hobbyist thing for people who want to spend their time tinkering with their phone, not a way to support a not-very-old device.

This will get you updates for Android itself, but still not for any of the vendor blobs like drivers.

Isn't the Pixel fairly well supported in terms of custom ROMs which in turn unlock access to more recent security updates?

> So here I am, with another piece of premature junk, made by the company that pledges to “maximize the reuse of finite resources” and “enable others to do the same.”

Some pledges are cheaper than others. Bottom-feeding pledges (whether well-intended or malicious) do not detail the steps that will be taken to implement them. As such they live in the misty realms of wishitude, along with campaign promises, and depend on trusting customers to imagine a positive outcome.

No no! If you can't control the software your device runs, you can't consider it "perfectly good".

“Forcing” is melodramatic, they dropped support. They aren’t directly advising you to stop using your device or else.

After all, it's just business for them. This is why I also transferred to iPhones because of this one.

even worse, verizon won't unlock the bootloaders on the now unsupported phones so you can't even install a third party supported rom.

also, i don't care how much fawning comes out of the press... the pixel 6 is an enormous impractical behemoth that barely fits in half my pockets.

Is the Pixel 3 outside the standard window for EOL, or is a 3-year lifecycle par for the course?

Regulation to require jailbreaking any device that reaches EOL or support would be welcome.

Google's phones aren't locked - they're already 'jailbroken' when they're new. What would that regulation accomplish here?

I tried to read the article but it does not have a perfectly good cookie reject button.

What else is new? AT&T recently forced me to dump my perfectly good OnePlus 6.

surprised to see no mention of CalyxOS [0], which is still pushing security updates to their oldest supported phone, the Pixel 2.

[0] https://calyxos.org/

I own a pixel 3 in good working condition.....do I really need to get a new one?

Yeah but Apple is the bad guy. Yet, my iPhone from 2016 runs the latest iOS.

Well I used to have nest smoke detectors. My recent call to ask why all of my nests have stopped working came with a “oh well, your on firmware v1 and we aren’t releasing for that device anymore.” So I have a thousand bucks worth of smoke detectors going in the trash. The box said 7 years, but the firmware updates ended after 6, so recycling here we go. But the thing HN needs to understand is that the way google enforced expiring was to make the smoke detectors, one after the other, start chirping at high volume, often in the middle of the night, and with no warning in the app. So even if a corporation deciding that I have to replace all my smoke detectors after 7 years is reasonable, understand that the devices are worse than bricked — they are literally beeping to be replaced and there is no way to stop the behavior. We ended up with a stack of them on a counter trying to figure out what was going on, as one after the other hit their manufacturing date and expired in the same way. It was strangely dystopian. Like the company has spoken and you peons must upgrade.

My favorite call was after I put in the next thermostat and had a $1500 bill. Apparently if your kids come home from school and it’s hot, they crank the AC down but being young they just turn the dial all the way. We learned of it after a particularly hot period (the kids would apparently always adjust it up again before we got home from work). This the system “learned” to make it arctic cold at 3:25 every day and stop doing so before 6. A well time vacation later, and our utility company was sending us quickly to the bill (it was regularly less than 300). Google support said, “yea, we hear about problems like that all the time,” and told us, “my suggestion would be to turn off the learning feature of your thermostat and just use it as a regular thermostat.” Ok. Will do. But wow, to find out it wasn’t an unusual use case was mind blowing.

I stopped using Google for devices some time back because of firmware issues with support on phones. I realized after we have a series of iPhones hit 5 years or even six years old that I found them, batteries barely holding a charge but still working, charging for use above a drawer filled with my old android devices which were collecting dust, but were years younger, that the value isn’t there. Our form of response to the current fast fashion electronics industry to to use our devices as long as possible. Apple is a better value in that respect, despite their outright hostility to independent repair — which definitely dents their reputation in our house — so we ended up standardizing on their technology. Common sense environmentalism is making sure you minimize how much you buy.

It’s interesting how much the longevity of devices (and privacy concerns) are becoming the major criteria for which devices we allow into our lives these days. Google has failed us repeatedly and lost our trust and we probably won’t ever buy another device from them. There was a time when I loved and adored them. Their growth seems to have lost what made them special in their DNA (transforming towns with savior Internet service, connecting the Worlds information > explaining yet another ocean of ad fraud, sunsetting every product we liked, afore mentioned firmware bugs) and we kind of look at them as the company we used to love. Honestly makes me sad. It was at one point one of the best hacker groups on the planet, insanely innovative, and run like one.

I hope durability and reliability becomes a major tech trend.

ahem, this is the main reason i ditch android for iphone a few years ago... Apple devices keep on running years after they supossed to

is design flaw from the industry, top brands should do better

Its not just Google. All the network providers in America are pushing forced consumption down consumer throats by giving a deadline for upgrading their phones - beyond which it would stop working.

I have two perfectly working (though a little older) phones - OnePlus 3 and a Galaxy S6 Edge. From February both these phones will not work with my phone carrier. I am aware that these are older phones and don't receive security patches etc, however I was perfectly fine using them and didn't have any issues with it. Too concerned about the consumerist lifestyle that is forced by this capitalist economy instead of providing updates/upgrades to their user till the phone's full life.

Same for Google/Android and Samsung. My perfectly fine working and unblemished like-new Galaxy S8 is now off of regular updates, and behind a couple versions of the OS.

So, it and I are basically running on borrowed time until a vulnerability strikes.

It should definitely be mandatory to provide support any device over a certain level of cost and total sales for at least 7 years. Sure, people hate regulations and mandates, but otherwise we're stuck because a herd of sociopathic managers would rather pad their bonus pool then do the right thing, which is entirely within every company's budget, from Qualcom right through Smasung and Google.

A new Moto G Pure is $140. You’re gonna be fine.

Apple does the same thing with phones and macs.

iPhone 6 still get security updates sometimes, just can’t be used with latest iOS

ok boomer. maybe ask your kid to install a custom rom for you since you can't figure it out

This is what happens when you don't buy an iPhone.

Here you vice crybabys:

https://download.lineageos.org/blueline

It was always a security risk because google has always been spying on you…nobody is forcing you to buy android phones.

This is not a helpful attitude.

I have plenty of issues with Google's posture on privacy, but I don't expect them to steal credentials for other services, drain my bank account, blackmail me based on personal information, or any such thing. Conflating the two removes a lot of much needed nuance from the discussion.

You say this like there's an alternative. Closed source iOS that scans all your messages for CSAM?

Ironically I hated financially supporting Google but felt I had no choice but to get a Pixel to use GrapheneOS and have 5 years of security updates

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