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Even on the latest model Pixel phones Google still refuses to commit to more than 3 years of Android updates... They have at least lengthened the security update timeline to a whole 5 years.

I bought an iphone around the launch of the Pixel 4, which is now nearing it's end of support. Meanwhile Apple has provided the latest updates to devices that launched 7 years ago.

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I could be wrong but I think qualcomm is the biggest obstacle for google in supporting older phone versions.

they won't ship updated drivers for new android versions for old phones.

And they will charge OEMs quite a big sum for every new Android versions on an old phone.

But given that Google now uses their own SOCs, rather than Qualcomms, they can provide updates for their phones for a lot longer.

The difference being that since every app dev expects iphones to be on the latest ios version, as soon as your phone goes out of support it will become obsolete quickly. Android has a larger install base of users on old os versions, so you can expect support even if you aren't on the latest one. New ios versions usually have the disadvantage of being poorly optimized for older models, and I personally have never cared much about the new features. So staying on the old os version indefinitely might be a better option as long as apps still support it.

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