Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

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There's a flaw with that list ... it makes it seem like iOS 5 is supported on iPhone 1 and iPhone 3G. It isn't and there's nothing you can do about it.

It is deceptive, and for HTC G1, the first Android device, official support may not be good, but you can painlessly install Froyo on it, because it isn't locked and Froyo works well on it. You can also install Gingerbread for that matter, but CyanogenMod dropped the support for it because of severe hardware limitations.

Basically if you get a Google blessed phone, like the Nexus One, or the Nexus S, or the next Nexus, you will be able to install the latest Android as long as the hardware itself is capable enough.

I do agree that iPhones are a lot more comfortable.

The chart cuts off after 3 years - the point is that the original iPhone was supported with the current version of iOS for 2 years after the last one was sold (minus two days - iOS 4, the first version to drop support, came out June 21, 2010).

On AT&T, at least, most iPhone customers are eligible for an upgrade after 18 months because of the cost of their plan, so everyone was eligible, by a significant margin, for an upgrade before their phone was droppped.

Not true if you got a 2nd generation iPhone. You could have gotten a 3G as the latest phone and been unsupported for 9 months on an 18 month contract.

True, and I've heard that iOS 4 didn't run so well on the iPhone 3G in the first place. However, even once support was dropped, the iPhone 3G was still on the current major version (4.3, a relatively minor update, is the version that dropped 3G support), and it doesn't seem like apps required 4.3 until well after that version was out. That's a big difference than being 1-3 major versions behind on Android (especially considering the rather substantial changes in each major version of Android).

If you bought it when it came out, no. If you bought it near the end of the lifecycle, sure.

Supporting phones 24 months after selling them does hold some merit, as that's the upgrade cycle the consumer is contractually incentivized to meet.

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