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Comment by tuetuopay | Hacker News Reader

> It runs Android 12 and will be supported for three years of monthly security updates and two major Android version upgrades.

And that's why I stick to iPhones for long-lasting devices, those two major versions are a joke. Apple has the crown with seven on the iPhone 6S. When will someone make Android phones other than Pixels with non-abysmal software support? Yes, I know you can install alternate ROMs on your phone, but this is not what the general public does, especially with a phone at this price point. The average joe will definitely change his phone after three years when they cannot install whatsapp or messenger or their banking app anymore.

That said, kudos to Nokia for entering this market, I genuinely hope it will be profitable enough for them to keep it up!

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> when they cannot install whatsapp or messenger or their banking app anymore.

Hyperbole much? That's a ridiculous claim. I've been sporting a "renewed" Samsung S10E since early 2021. There's still nothing it can't do. Prior to that I owned a Galaxy S7 since 2016! That's a 5 whole years without any phone issues on an Android phone. I turned on the S7 a few months back and after an update, all the apps still work.

that's at least 3 years each using a phone with absolutely no security updates to network, wifi, cryptolibs, html/js engine etc.

not that iphone are any better. you have zero idea what you get on a new ios for old devices since the binaries are not the same. only thing you can be certain is the extra slow down loop

The HTML/JS engine does get updated, it's contained in a component called "Android System WebView" on the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

A big benefit of Android, its modular and bits and pieces can be updated independently. Part of the reason iPhones require to have long term OS support is the fact that their browser would otherwise be stuck at an old version.

You have it backwards. In the early days Android didn't have any components in the Play Store and Apple still provided updates for much much longer than Android manufacturers.

Google moved the web browser component to the Play Store because Android's OS updates are so bad. They had no choice but to do it.

Apple could do it too if they wanted to but they don't need to because they actually provide OS updates for a decent period.

Regardless of the history though, now, Chrome (+ webview) and Firefox on Android receive at least one update per month (sometimes more frequently). Thats a plus.

Samsung supports 4 years of updates as of last February. The S10E is in that window, too.

https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-android-updates-114...

On the S7 I got security updates up until September 2020 IIRC. I anticipate the S10E will continue to receive security updates for just a little while longer and it's currently on Android 12.

My point was that old Android phones "not working" after a few years is complete bs. The S10E was launched in March 2019 and still going strong.

EDIT: Looks like the S10E is still getting monthly security updates too: https://doc.samsungmobile.com/sm-g970f/xeo/doc.html

Yes, I had to throw away my perfectly capable phone because my banking app refused to work at some point because the version of Android was too old and the phone stopped supporting newer versions of Android.

Edit: not sarcastic, 100% serious.

Security updates are a must. Without them it's not a usable device

Not everyone cares about security updates.

> Not everyone cares about security updates.

OK.

But surely banks ought to. If you care about having a banking app, then you ought to care transitively.

Banks don't care about security. See e.g. credit cards where the numbers are just printed in plain sight for everyone to copy them.

It's supposed to never leave your pocket or your hand. Besides, if someone gets your credit card number and purchases something, you can charge it back. The vendor is supporting the risk, not you.

> It's supposed to never leave your pocket or your hand.

If you buy something in a store, you have no certainty that your CC number doesn't end in the hands of store personnel.

> Besides, if someone gets your credit card number and purchases something, you can charge it back.

You have to keep an eye on it. It is easy to overlook if the amount small is enough.

All in all, I wouldn't call this good security practice.

Do they really? All they care is about some particular version of Android (like any other app). I don't think I ever saw any banking app which would check for presence of some particular security updates (not even sure if it's possible).

AFAIK if I use a bank app on an insecure phone, and they stole my money, the bank should give it back to me. Authentication is their job after all.

But it is not much of as a problem right now. They definitely try to push people towards more secure and up-to-date systems, but as now, you still can bank from insecure systems as well, and allow your account to be stolen.

Right, like the good old "we care so much about security that we blocked rooted devices, but we make no effort whatsoever to check the security patch date":)

None of my banking apps will work on a rooted phone, so I need to keep a 'clean' android phone around if I care to use their app. (I don't.)

Banks don't even do 2FA properly. They don't care.

Not everyone cares about using condoms for one night stands. Would you apply the same approach to Windows workstations?

I, personally, do care. But I saw lots of computers with old Windows, like XP, 2003 and so on. On my current work we have dozens of customers with Windows Vista which causes lots of headache and significantly limiting us with development tools. Well, it works for them, so who am I to judge. All I can see is that not everyone cares about security updates, including Windows workstations which handle quite important data.

The fault is not with the bank, but with the vendor of the phone. The hardware is perfectly capable of running newer Android versions, but the phone simply doesn't support them.

This is especially the case with lower end phones. My mother (an immigrant whose family communicates via WhatsApp, and other free services) buys a new phone every year or so because her BoA, or transit app can’t be used without the version of Android that was never released for her phone.

It’s some real “serpent eating its own tail” sh*t if I ever saw it.

> Security updates are a must. Without them it's not a usable device

That belongs on https://twitter.com/shituserstory

Don't be arrogant and wrong at the same time. Not a very good combination.

As a bank customer

I want to buy a new phone when trying to access to my money

So that an IT manager at the bank can put a check mark next to a policy OKR

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

I have 5+ year old Android phones that have no issue with banking apps. I'm not sure where this rhetoric is coming from, but it doesn't align with my experience on Android.

Capital one/wells fargo requires android 8+. Citi bank 7.1+. (I stopped looking it up at this point). 8 was released in 2017. So assuming 2 years of major OS updates, that means roughly phones from 2015 can still work with it.

Also... even if the app stops working, you can use a web browser still.

Phone batteries die off long before this becomes a reality.

Chase now requires 9+

>I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

My local bank requires 9 or above

>Also... even if the app stops working, you can use a web browser still.

It's not uncommon at all for banks to have a website that's virtually impossible to use on mobile browsers.

Yeah, using the website is cumbersome compared to using the banking app, in my bank's case, especially on mobile.

Even at 9, thats supported from devices bought in 2016 or later. Who's battery lasts > 6-7 years?

But why should the device life be limited by the battery?

This thread is discussing a phone with replaceable battery. For at least 5 years.

> Who's battery lasts > 6-7 years?

I think the relevant question is whose phone lasts 6-7 years? Because you might well replace the battery a couple times over the life of the phone and that's fine.

Anyway I just got a whole new iphone 8+ out of a failed battery replacement and it was showing all kinds of OS and application glitches, just as the moto G I had before it did too. The flash and DRAM doesn't last forever, the practical lifespan of the handset itself is about 3 years for complete stability, 4 years for moderate glitchiness, and 5 years for complete unusability, same pattern across both phones.

But yes, this means I will be using a 2017 phone for another 4 years, so the software lifespan probably needs to be close to a decade, and Android's lifespan is absurdly far from that level.

2017 and above android phones are generally considered to be mature enough on both hardware and OS version side compared to a decade-old phones released on 2015 and below.

I would not surprise if we'd gradually get longer software support on future phones as time goes on.

Can’t carriers lock OS versions? I remember a long time ago circa Android 4 I had to replace a bunch of deployed devices because Verizon wouldn’t allow upgrades.

If you're using a banking app to do online banking, security doesn't seem to be a priority in the first place. Or what is your banking app's second factor for authentication? Fingerprint? On Android? On the same device you bring with you everywhere and use for surfing all sorts of websites?

Can’t you use web app tho? I only seen one bank that would limit features on a web app (I don’t understand why), but there are tons of banks out there nowadays, many digital ones with features where no traditional bank will ever even dream to implement.

I suggest you complain to your bank about it. If you can, maybe switch to another one if they don't fix the issue.

I know it sounds extreme, but it's time to send the signal that it's not ok to force people to throw electronics to landfill because of shiny new APIs.

Though I'm on android 9? Five year old phone and while I'm not a power user nothing seems to care? Apple apps are much more picky of versions.

Security is a complicated matter; you only realize you should have cared when it's too late.

What Apple apps? I just went from an iPhone 10 (6 years old) to 14 last week and I didn’t have any change in my apps.

The difference here is that an iPhone X (damn, that came out 6 years ago?) is still supported

I guess what they meant is that third-party apps are much stricter on iOS (at least partly because Apple updates faster and for longer, probably). I was on Android 8 (2017) until recently without any issues, whereas iOS apps only seem to support 1-2 versions back generally. Plus the Safari rendering engine doesn't update independently so you can't fall back to the web.

That's because the iPhone 10 is still being supported so you likely have the latest iOS version

iPhones drag to a crawl after a couple of OS updates when the hardware is no longer up to the stuff of the latest iOS versions.

I only change phones when they die in some form, so 300 euros every 5 years on average is more than enough, I am not buying phones with laptop prices.

I have anyway access to Apple devices via project assignments in consulting projects.

> iPhones drag to a crawl after a couple of OS updates when the hardware is no longer up to the stuff of the latest iOS versions.

Not really, and definitely not with more modern ones. I have an iPhone 11 from 2019. It was released with iOS 13. It is now running iOS 16.1.1. It is as snappy as the day I bought it. I'm considering a phone upgrade, but that's because of the improved camera, not performance (or even battery life).

My old iPhone 8 (2017) is still getting updates, and now is moderately pokey with nontrivial apps, but the OS is fine. And I get it with regards to apps, as the perf and battery improvements between the A11 and the A13 chips was pretty significant.

I wasn't talking about the modern ones, naturally they still aren't old enough to suffer from that.

As you tell yourself, the iPhone 8 isn't its former self with its original iOS version.

It's also six years old and where it's pokey tends to be apps, not the OS. The browser, mostly. Turns out we all like to write a lot of JavaScript, I guess?

Even if that weren't the case, a six-year-old iPhone 8 has out-survived the useful, secure life of, what, every Android device not made directly by Google? Hell, a 3.5-year-old iPhone 11 has out-survived the useful, secure life of the overwhelming majority of Android devices, too. And, further, given that A11->A13 was the most significant period of perf improvement and energy reductions (the A14/A15 are moderately faster but the tail certainly appears to be here), that bodes well for its continuing usefulness.

80% of the world doesn't care about those performance enhancements at the price of a laptop replacement.

Apps or OS doesn't matter, they are interwined.

I have bad news for you about the performance of flagship Android devices from 2017, man.

I am all ears, given the devices I have around here.

> Not really, and definitely not with more modern ones. I have an iPhone 11 from 2019. It was released with iOS 13. It is now running iOS 16.1.1. It is as snappy as the day I bought it.

I mean.. that is (on average) roughly 2.5 years old. If your phone was expensive and is still fairly new, then it's not going to be affected by the stuff that pertains old, mid-tier phones, before it gets even older than those.

That's not an Apple/iPhone property but I find it fascinating, that they are able to sell it as such.

I bought mine at release, to replace an iPhone 6 (which itself replaced an Android device of higher spec because I was tired of the treadmill and a friend sold it to me used). So mine's closer to 3.5 years old than to 2.5.

And when you slot that against Android options, 3.5 years is a lot for a usable, secure life of a mobile device. I can safely assume I'll get five years of good, secure perf out of any Apple device from the last five years and another 2-3 years (at minimum) of tolerable performance, and that's pretty hard to argue with in this market.

Don't get me wrong, it's not enough and I'd like it to be better; I'd like all hardware reusability to be better. I'm pretty big on it; I still have an iPad 3 and a Nexus 7 in use as house kiosks (which sidesteps the security issue that phones necessarily have). But if I am maximizing useful life, buying Apple devices has been less fraught for most, if not all, of my adult life.

I’m now to the point where I frequently have first party apps crash on my iPhone 7, plus the screen has phantom touch issues. I really don’t want to replace it though.

See my comments elsewhere but this is handset damage (flash and DRAM wear and battery performance leading to processor throttling) and would go away if you had your handset replaced with another 7. It's not the hardware spec that's the problem, it's your particular unit.

You're definitely right that some of the slowdown is due to physical wear. I have had the battery replaced once, about 2 years ago back when Apple was offering it at a reduced price, but it's back to "significantly degraded" status. I have a hard time thinking that the system software load increasing over time doesn't also have a significant impact, though.

I was using an iPhone 10 with the latest iOS versions until last week and didn’t have any issues

Now try the same with an iPhone 5.

If we are going back to 2012, how are the Nexus 4 and Samsung Galaxy S3 holding up compared to current Android phones?

It was a random model, as iPhone 11, released in 2019 wasn't what I consider old, rather those on their last update legs.

Well I'm happy to have a bit slower phone to be able to use it fully for 7 years, with all security updates and current apps (again, with their respective security updates).

Did you actually daily drive one? Because I did use an iPhone 6S for its full software support span (7 years) and yes, by the end of 2022 it was definitely the fastest kid on the block. But to run messaging apps, play music, grab quick pictures and scroll memes in the subway, it's more than fine.

When doing projects on Apple ecosystem, yep.

So you’d prefer a phone that has no updates, functional or security, to one that is slower? Because that’s the reality for functional updates after less than two years, and security after 3 for this phone. 7 major OS updates is over twice as long.

Ok. Sure Jan. I think the majority will take that slow phone in a heartbeat.

Why not? A phone that has no updates, functional or security still can do a lot of things very well.

It’s also a massive security risk.

How often do you run into security riskd when using your phone everyday?

Considering the increase of putting your entire life into your phone, your phone’s security should honestly be among those you care about the most.

Most people will access all facets of their life on their phone, from social, to financial, to work. If anything, the risk is only going to increase as time goes on.

Would you know what to count? Most wouldn't.

First is common sense, computer viruses is a so common knowledge thing that scares many people, even my parents who are dummy on technology fears them and avoid suspicous sites and malwares from unknown sources, same thing carries for apps (ie. don't install from second sources)

Second is even if an android version lagging behing on security features from later versions, play store enforce enough harsh policies on app submissions requiring access to external data and collect user data, that you can trust most of it. Sure some apps can slip under their radar but play store bots can eventually catch up to them.

Given androids market share vs iphone... the majority are indeed taking a phone with no updates over a slower phone.

As long as the apps they use work ok I'm not sure the majority cares about updates security or otherwise.

I mean, no. Their market share says nothing about people’s wants and needs on this topic, it just means that on the whole the Android package is more appealing. Which could be for many reasons, of which price is going to be the biggest.

If people could choose a longer period of updates, I don’t really expect any to refuse.

You don't get longer updates without increasing the price. If people did really care about updates outside of HN it would be a marketing feature.

The fact that Android phone releases (like the one we’re commenting on right now) generally announce the supported feature and security updates indicates that it very much is one already, at least on the Android side.

It is no different from how feature phones and smartphones used to be.

Only rich people care about iPhones, or those that buy everything on credit.

Or, you know, those that want their phones supported for longer than two years.

Minimizing a group of people does nothing but stroke your own ego. There are many reasons to buy an iPhone. There are many reasons to buy an Android. Buying one or the other says nothing about you as a person and implying otherwise is absurd and childish.

We’re not on Reddit; this is supposed to be adults having conversations not preteen fanboys blindly worshipping a mobile OS.

Who is worshipping iOS here then?

Nobody. Did you even read the comment you replied to? The one that says there are reasons to buy each OS? Pointing out a clear advantage is not worshipping, it’s just pointing out a clear advantage.

Price is a clear advantage for Android phones. Does that make me an Android worshipper now?

After a couple of OS updates any iPhone is still faster than an average Android phone sold at the time.

They really don't.

IIRC, there was only one prominent case of that happening (slowing down noticeably), I think it was iOS 7 on the iPhone 4 but I might be wrong about that. And I think they fixed it a bunch in 7.1, so it wasn't even for that long.

But ever since then Apple really hasn't pushed updates that slow the phone meaningfully. Instead they gatekeep new features to newer models that can support it, which makes sense.

My experience does not align with this at all. I've been using an iPhone XS for nearly 5 years. Other than wishing it had a more powerful camera, I haven't felt the need to get a new phone at all. Sure, it's not as snappy as my wife's brand new iPhone 14 Pro, but I can easily live with it for another year or two.

Fairphone that's mentioned in the article has 7 years of support (IIRC).

Never used it though, my last 3 phones were all from Nokia. It's pretty much the only manufacturer that still releases new stock (Android One) models regularly.

(Excluding too-expensive-for-my-taste Pixels and some Motorolas I could never find in my country).

> and some Motorolas I could never find in my country

Hm? Writing this on g30 and Motos aren't popular here for years.

Edit: like I bought the cheapest Samsung last year and the experience is night and day.

G30 isn't an Android One phone.

Android One = nearly the same stock Android you'd get on a Pixel, no (non-Google) bloatware, no custom UI.

It was never quite popular, but if you scroll through the Wikipedia list of devices (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_One), you'll see it's pretty much only Nokia nowadays.

Some Motorola models as well, but I couldn't find those specific models back when they were still new and I was looking for a phone.

Honestly modern Motos are as close to the stock A. as you can get. Not really sure about E4, flashed it to LOS pretty soon, but g8 and, now, g30 has a minimal Moto integrations and some are actually useful, eg on g30 I finally adopted MotoActions (flash by chop-chop and camera by uugh doggo shake? lol) despite ignoring them for years, since XT720/RAZR. With g30 I even left the default launcher, it is good enough that I didn't bother.

I am an iPhone user. Irrespective of software update, the device gets really slow at 3yrs mark, forcing me to change. So I do not know if supporting a phone software for >3yrs is a good idea or just marketing.

It's the oems fault in this case. And they have no excuse. Google has modified the architecture of Android to make it possible for oems to update as quickly as possible, as well as all of the previous efforts to enable updating user-facing features without updating the OS. But it's all still a kludge compared to iOS.

The bottom line is I don't think this is solvable with technology. Google should have gotten much tougher with OEMs once Android got widely accepted.

I agree about it being impossible to solve the update issues with tech.

There are too many benefits for the OEMs to dump phones on the market and not update. No reason to care otherwise so far, sadly.

They had their chance with Project Treble, and took the decision to make updates optional and not a requirement for Play Store contracts, so naturally nothing changed.

The Android team is the one to blame, several times on Android Fireside sessions they have answered that they rather have the fragementation of the ecosystem where partners are allowed to experiment and come up with new ideas.

Well one of the ideas is to sell newer devices instead of free beer upgrades, with Google's complacency.

I still rather be on Android, because even with them screwing up Sun and leaving it to implode, I like that they push a managed OS no matter what.

Those that unaccept it and keep diving into the NDK with GL based UIs, always get a few scars in the process.

Yeah my wife’s old iPhone 8 Plus still gets updates, still runs. Many of my android devices from that time are dead, no more updates, and/or borderline unusable due to random android slowdown performance issues.

In fact running across that old phone is what convinced me to switch.

Yep, that's the lifecycle of iPhones.

I usually get the latest and greatest from work every 2 years. Then I pay a nominal fee to get it for myself (because of taxes or accounting or something).

I get a new phone from the company, my old one goes to my SO. Their old one goes either to my kid or to mine or my SO's parents, depending on which part of the lifecycle they are at.

Can't do that with Android, the 5-6 year old ones would be so bad and out of date that I wouldn't want to be the one doing tech support for them.

Not to dismiss, but I have a pixel 3, still snappy, android 12. It was released 1 year after iphone 8 if I'm not mistaken, but still, it's about ~5 years from today

Also Pixels usually gets less official OS iterations than iPhones.

Only nice thing on Android is the aftermarket ROMs since it's AOSP. Sadly from my experience the aftermarket ROMs for newer OS iterations arent polished or miss features that the OEM roms had.

Less official?

They meant fewer, as in "Android gets fewer official OS iterations than iPhone."

what they mean is iPhones receive updates (OS upgrades and security updates) and are officially supported by Apple for a longer period of time than any Android phone.

The Google Pixel receives new android versions and security updates for a longer period of time than any other android phone, but that's fewer than the equivalent iPhone

Small to medium Android phone manufacturers need to team up and support a single ROM instead of maintaining individual flavors like this which only last for a few years.

My current Nokia phone has 3 years of support

Samsung offers 5 years of support.

Certain models and only starting last year. So an improvement, yet still requires one do research.

It will likely be running LineageOS (formerly Cyanogenmod) for a decade to come.

£149.99 with 3 years of software updates + repairable sounds good enough to me.

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