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Comment by shantara | Hacker News Reader

Google has a support page that lists the planned obsolescence dates for all Pixep phones: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705

My Pixel 3a is going to stop receiving security updates this May. It’s still a perfectly good phone despite the increasing slowdowns with every system or Play Service update.

I’ve learned my lesson and switched to iPhone as my next main phone, and relegated the Pixel to serve as a backup.

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I actually have a 3a XL, running Lineage.

I am contemplating a switch to /e/os from the original developer of Mandrake Linux. I'm going to try it out on a OnePlus 3 at some point in the future.

MicroG is included with /e/os and Lineage remains hostile to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system)

https://e.foundation/

I use this on my Pixel 2 XL -- it's an unofficial LineageOS fork but from the MicroG developers. It's worked great for me thus far.

https://lineage.microg.org/

I used that for a long time, but the project stopped shipping updates for a few months, so I moved back to Lineage.

The Aurora store also would go offline for weeks on end. I am hoping that /e/os has a better solution than Aurora and a regular release schedule.

/e/ is just a slower-to-patch fork of Lineage.

Good luck.

If the kings walled gardens Apple would say that "we will keep this next iPhone secure and working snappily for basic tasks, web/email/utility apps, for a decade with a possibility to replace batteries" I would actually consider taking a stroll in that greenhouse. Until then, no thanks.

Ten years is a really long time in tech. And you can pay Apple to replace the battery for you.

"we will keep this next iPhone secure and working snappily for basic tasks, web/email/utility apps" --- No Android phone maker can even make this guarantee for more than 2 years.

> No Android phone maker can even make this guarantee for more than 2 years.

Samsung pledges 4 OS updates, 5 years of patches for 2021 and 2022 flagships

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_pledges_4_os_updates_5_year...

It still remains to be proven in practice. Their past track record shows that even for higher end devices the promised monthly updates silently become quarterly, or get delayed or mysteriously disappear as soon as the next year devices hit the shelves.

Do you have proof? My Note 20 Ultra (released in 2020) received 3 updates in the past 35 days -- and this is for a region that's trailing Europe and the US in terms of updates.

https://doc.samsungmobile.com/SM-N9860/TGY/doc.html

Search for “Samsung quarterly updates”. There’s plenty of information online

https://9to5google.com/2021/04/05/samsung-drops-galaxy-s9-do...

https://r2.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-Note/Samsung-Gala...

I have the S9 too. What was unexpected was that it still received monthly updates for 3 years and then down to quarterly updates after that. (Samsung did not promise anything and the usual practice was updates for 2 years *at the time when I bought it*).

S9: https://doc.samsungmobile.com/SM-G9600/TGY/doc.html

Note 9: https://doc.samsungmobile.com/SM-N9600/TGY/doc.html

You can see they still received updates this month.

That's the issue, only flagships. All the more affordable and mainstream models don't get any meaningful software support.

Apple has some horrific practices that I don't agree with when it comes to repairability, but at least it treats its products the same way. The iPhone SE from 2016 still runs the latest iOS version, same for iPhone 7.

I'm mainly taking issue with the original claim of "No Android phone maker can even make this guarantee for more than 2 years."

I don't really care what Apple does because I'm not in the market for iOS phones.

With regards to non-flagship models, Samsung is providing 3 years of updates for the A52, which still beats the grandparent comment's claim.

Samsung phones are laggy day one though, and the UI makes your eyes bleed from disgust.

They do give you around 6 (and that's with full feature updates and for much more than just basic tasks), which is much better than most Android manufacturers. Although Google has promised 5 years for the Pixel 6. You can't easily replace the battery yourself, but it's not expensive to get a shop to do it.

The latest iOS still supports iPhone 6S (2015), and a battery replacement from Apple costs between $40-80 if I remember correctly. Do you have any android device in mind (from 2015) that is still supported and sees regular updates?

Security costs money.

Now you're paying, AND don't have the security.

How does he not have security now?

Price of iOS 0 day vs price of Android 0 day, would be one of my stronger arguments.

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