Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
This phone was released in 2020. Mine is barely used. I was a bit WTF when I found out.
From an older article I found off Internet, Google justifying this policy:
"""
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.”
"""
Mine is still usable because you still get app updates and it's not like it stops just working but it's a bit uncomfortable to use out-of-security-updates phone. Waiting until the new iPhones get out next week.
Why can't companies support their products for a longer time. I've heard the best way to reduce e-waste is to keep using the stuff you have as long as possible.
Of course. It's always been "reduce, reuse, repair" before "recycle". But there's a reason corpos want you to focus on the least efficient way to reduce waste and ignore the others.
Obviously the cycle has to be longer for companies that keep older phones on the market as a lower cost option.
US carriers want postpaid customers, because they're more profitable and less likely to churn.
Having an incentive to swap phones at the end of a (typically 2 year) phone upgrade cycle helps them sell renewals back into a new postpaid plan.
Google, in typical Google fashion, probably doesn't care. It's used to end users not being its actual customers.
Apple has been supporting iPhone models for 6 years without any fanfare about it. iOS 15 supported the iPhone 6S, which was 6 years old at the time. iOS 17 that just got announced will only now drop support for the iPhone 8 released in 2017, 6 years ago. At certain points 7-year old phones have received all updates.
Google's excuse about driver and firmware support does not and should not apply to the Pixel, which is a first-party device. I applaud Google for getting better here, but the linked article and the general reality of the Android ecosystem continuing to be a shitshow is really inexcusable in the face of their primary competitor doing the right thing for over a decade, quietly and competently.
The SoC/Modem at the heart of the (pre 6) pixels is not first party, though. If qualcom says "yeah, we're not going to bother backporting $newIssueFix to the kernel fork we used during chip development/bring-up" then there's not a _lot_ that google can do about it unless there's a contractual agreement in place.
Apple has been using "first party" chips for their phones since the A4 processor (~ iPhone4) which is why they're able to keep compiling new OS/Kernel for their older hardware so long as the device is performant enough to actually run it.
It's not a coincidence that google has been investing _heavily_ in making most of android super composable; large chunks of the HAL and system level components can be updated even if qualcom/mediatek ... etc don't do the work to get a newer kernel working.
1. They should have a contractual agreement in place.
2. Google is one of the world's largest companies and one of the largest tech companies, they're also one of Qualcomm's largest customers alongside Samsung (who is also an Android-based handset manufacturer) after Apple started making their own basebands. They have /significant/ market leverage.
It's excuses. Where there is a will, there is a way. The problem is that there isn't a will. Apple cares about device longevity and quality, Google does not. It's market segmentation in action. There is no reason anybody that can afford an iPhone should ever buy an Android device, because Google and their partner companies don't respect you as a customer. Consequently most Android devices are sold to people who can't afford an Apple device, otherwise they wouldn't submit themselves to this mistreatment.
Not really. QCM is in a position of power here. Where _else_ is samsung/google/apple going to go? This is slowly changing, but QCM modems are still in a league of their own... and they know it.
> Apple cares about device longevity and quality, Google does not. It's market segmentation in action.
This is a tenuous point at best. Apple isn't exactly rushing to make repair of their devices easy / accessible which is essential for a product to have a long life. Google doesn't have a lot of say over what other OEMs do w/r/t their hardware support.
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My whole point is that it's not a happy/meaningless coincidence that as soon as an OEM moves away from QCM for the CPU, the promised support period grows.
Apple absolutely repairs their devices or replaces them for customers at reduce/no cost and recycles the components. They have an entire program for this called AppleCare. Millions of devices have been repaired by AppleCare. The only thing Apple is bad about is allowing independent third-parties to do repairs.
Google is stating here they won't even do first-party repair, nor will they supply parts for third party repair. This is not even in the same ballpark. You are making a false equivalence to try to distract from the fact that Google is uniquely bad here and has no respect for their customers.
"You support it for 6 years or give us code, else we will take our million chip order to competition" should be enough
I severely doubt that if you offered qualcomm a trillion dollars they could not support the hardware for another 3 years. In fact it would be much less than a trillion dollars in practice.
What you're fundamentally saying is, qualcomm isn't going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and google is not willing to write the check to make it happen, and that's still on them.
So QCM should just get to name their price and google should pay it?
I said that this wasn’t a “not available at any price” situation, it’s a matter of figuring out a cost that works.
Google (and other phone vendors) want to pay zero ($0), and the law currently allows them to externalize this cost onto their customers and society at large (e-waste going into landfills, unpatched OSs promoting malware, etc) instead. And they do.
QCM has:
a) YEARS of RnD -> Patents on cellular tech. b) YEARS of experience making the modems (on both ends of the link!)
compared to the other players in the space.
Where is google going to go here?
Can't do huawei because sanctions. Can't do MediaTek or Samsung because their modems are inferior in almost every way (speed, bandwith, power consumption ...).
Intel never was a serious player and I don't think they're in the space at all anymore.
sadly nobody cares about the ways in which android generates its copious e-waste streams with its own planned obsolescence, the “but the e-waste!” deflections stop the moment you suggest that maybe android vendors should be legally required to provide first-party parts supply and software updates. All the communism and “it’s what’s right for the planet” vanishes in a poof of fanboy.
nobody really cares about cables generating e-waste or whatever horseshit, it was always about finding a way to use the legal system to resolve the arguments the android fans couldn’t win in the marketplace of ideas, and sticking a thumb in the eye of their fellow man.
> Can't do huawei because sanctions. Can't do MediaTek or Samsung because their modems are inferior in almost every way (speed, bandwith, power consumption ...).
Google has been using Samsung modems since the Pixel 6.
"This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." (with apologies to Douglas Adams!)
The various google/android/pixel discussion forums are _full_ of "the p6/7 is a regression compared to p4/5" threads. I can confirm that I get much more reliable connectivity with my p4 compared to my p6 and my p7 is only marginally better than the 6.
Regardless, my *whole point* is that it's not a coincidence that we start getting "extended support periods" when QCM isn't supplying the CPU. Up until ~2020 (when the p6 would have been under development) there was no serious competition in this space and that's why google and pretty much every other android device used QCM. Now that there's a second option that's even remotely close to QCM in performance, the OEMs are taking it ... and we're getting extended support as a result.
Samsung will have "won" when even QCM has to capitulate and starts offering extended support.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/qualcomm-to-supply-apple-wit...
Not sure your argument holds as much water as you'd think.
Exactly :). QCM likes to sell both but also recognizes that selling half is better than none.
It's better nowadays as Samsung is providing even longer support than Google itslef
> "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
If you can afford an Apple device, there's nearly no reason why you'd submit yourself to the mistreatment of being an Android customer, consequently those who buy Android devices, especially the bottom-dollar ones that never receive a single update post-purchase are those that can't afford better in the moment. Exactly like the cheap boots vs good boots in this classic allegory.
Vines' theory doesn't try to analyze /why/ things are the way they are, it's an observation of the higher cost of being poor. I am simply pointing out that the allegory extends to mobile phones, apparently, because there is a higher cost to being poor when your device gets security (and other) updates for half the length of time or less, or is made with lower quality and less powerful components, so has to be replaced more often.
A base model iPhone is $800, a typical base model Android phone is around $200. That base model iPhone will get full iOS updates for 6 years, and security updates for 8 years, and is made of high quality components, and apps on the app store will generally work on that device for its entire lifespan (~8 years). That base model Android phone may never receive an update after release, but is generally guaranteed at most 1 year of updates, it is made with the cheapest components available as a low-margin device, and there are many apps on the play store that won't work on the device on the day its bought because it's not powerful enough, it will require replacement in roughly 1 year when it can no longer be updated (or more likely becomes broken, with no support). Over the same 8 year span that the iPhone base model user spends $800, the Android base model user will end up spending $1600 to maintain a phone with updates.
Of course, there are flagship Android phone models as well. But even in that case the story is worse for Android, because you'll spend $1000 on an Android phone instead of $1200 on an iPhone, and you'll get 3 years of updates and no support, vs ~8 years of updates and support. In time-adjusted dollars, the iPhone is actually cheaper than Android, but it has a higher entry cost in the general sense than the Android phone. It's matching nearly identically to the allegory, which is why I pointed that out.
The fact all modern devices, technologies, and our society in general is going to hell in a handbasket doesn't really matter in the context of what I am saying, but yes, I agree, enshittification ruins all.
Until very recently, Google did not own the SoC, so it shouldn't be surprising that Apple is better at support given their vertical integration. At Apple, if the hardware isn't working as expected for a SW team, they send an email to a manager and it gets fixed or someone gets hammered by senior management. But the relationship between Google and a chip vendor isn't so smooth; that's just the nature of organizations.
Google has made a smart choice by trying to bite off the SoC and try to be more vertical. It will make support much easier for them in the long run.
That doesn’t make sense to me. There may be classes they can’t fix, but there must be many they can.
[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/apple-agrees-to-settlement...
Meanwhile, Microsoft released a security update to Windows XP in 2019
This makes me wonder if we instead should be counting number of years of OS updates from when it's last available new.
It's not really 5 years. For example, if you buy a Pixel 6a today, a product that is not yet discontinued, you'll get less than 4 years support.
Unless you accept Google's misleading framing of "from when the product was first sold", rather than the more reasonable "from when a consumer bought it, unless they bought it after it was discontinued".
"When the product was first sold" is a meaningless date to a consumer who chooses to buy a product and this framing needs to die.
This attitude is why I will never ever buy a Google product.
This is the article:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypxpx/google-is-forcing-me-...
Only 3 years?
Terrible non-answer. It's a great experience for the first three years and then the experience becomes much less great, which was the whole point of the question.
Lots to dislike about Samsung's efforts to wring a little extra money out of their phones, but it's amusing that their platform support is better than the people who make the platform.
Because they are not legally required to.
If law was "support it for 6 years since last sold device or open source everything including vendor drivers" then we'd get that support.
I work for a semiconductor company on Android. The answer is simple; money. There is no revenue from the consumer market to support software updates on Android for longer than the required period and it costs money to perform this support. Android changes rapidly, and it takes reasonably skilled, hard to find people to perform software support for security sensitive systems. The work is not sexy and is thankless.
I can guarantee you if someone figures out a way to charge the user a fee for security updates, vendors and OEMs would jump on it. But Google has no such program that I am aware of and OEM's/vendors aren't in the position to market one.
I know absolutely nothing about phones/android and was able to get lineage to work in a few hours, and now it's 15 minute every couple of months to keep everything up-to-date.
Yes, you can simply not buy Sony because of this behavior, and you can simply not buy samsung because of their spyware, and can not buy huawei or other chinese vendors. And by the time you count up all the android vendors you shouldn’t buy from the conclusion is obvious: it’s simply a better support model to just buy an Apple if you care about device longevity.
But since we all live on this same planet together, we need to do something about e-waste, and android is just fountaining devices into landfills with planned-obsolecence 1-2 year device cycles. This is something that - if you really do care about e-waste - needs to simply be outlawed. You sell the device, you support it for 5 years from the last year it's sold.
Google just doesn't get or care about customer support in my experience.
But I think the thing to do is get the extended warranty. They'll just swap you out. Wish they were a little tougher though.
Going to Android, however, meant my Apple Watch would not be terribly useful anymore, so I was left with the decision of "do I buy a Google watch, or do I just go back to one of my 'dumb watches'?"
I opted for the latter, and now I'm kind of glad I did. The watch I am wearing right now is a Casio from 2016 that still works fine, doesn't need to be recharged every day, and ironically I can get fixed by a whole bunch of places for a very cheap rate should it ever break.
Obviously it doesn't do as much as the Apple or Pixel watches do, but honestly I wasn't using most of the features in the Apple Watch anyway, and for telling time I actually think the Apple Watch kind of sucks.
Also, for those wondering, I really really hate the Pixel 7 Pro.
[1] Before anyone says anything, I have reported the phone stolen to both Apple and the NYC police, and they have all the relevant IMEI stuff so in theory it shouldn't be turning up in any kind of black market.
Granted, I don't really use the complications either, but I think they look cool on the watch face :)
Absolutely loving having a normal set of hands, charging once a month (depending on my workout schedule can be once a week), and still having all of my features.
Come to think of it, having an LED screen of any kind is a big red flag where one doesn't have to exist. It's as true for guitar pedals as it for wristwatches - just one more thing that can break and may as well brick your device when it breaks unless your repair game and supply chain is strong.
As for battery life, 5 days to 10 weeks depending on the model and how you use it...
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/general/how-long-will-my-g...
It’s just “I ditched Apple and I’m happier”, which of course gets voted up.
> Also, for those wondering, I really really hate the Pixel 7 Pro.
Also, I did mention at the end that I really hate the Pixel 7 Pro. I think it's a pretty awful piece of hardware and I am counting the days until I allow myself to buy something else.
Not disagreeing, just curious. My Pixel 6 Pro seems fine, but I don't have much to compare it to.
Here's a list of complaints in no particular order:
> Firefox on Android doesn't properly background tabs. I didn't know this and had lots of tabs open and my phone battery would literally be like four hours total. This is obviously Firefox's fault, not the phones, but it was a bad first impression.
> Similarly, ProtonMail also sucks up all my power; if I don't turn on "power conserving" mode for protonmail, I only get like 13 hours of battery life. Again, not directly the phone's fault but a bad early impression.
> The camera is dreadful compared to what I had with the iPhone 12 Pro Max. It's not horrible in really bright conditions but it's terrible even in "general indoor lighting".
> The audio quality with bluetooth seems to "clip" a lot, even with stuff like LDAC codecs, and even playing a raw FLAC file with VLC.
> The overall interface is just mildly stuttery which isn't horrible but is mildly annoying.
> Google Pay seems to work sometimes, but it almost always rejects the first attempt.
There are more, but those are the biggest complaints. Uninstalling Firefox on Android made my life substantially better, so that's good, and maybe I'll find enough stuff that I actually like about it to where I want to stay within the Pixel ecosystem.
As of right now, though, I'm just wishing I bought another iPhone.
I missed the “dodged a bullet” aspect you were going for on the watch. That makes sense.
Devices cost a few $.
I guess that managing a warehouse for spare for all their products would cost way too much.
I'm sure they don't make spare at all. They just buy one complete product made and packaged in Asia.
I give up and just use eBay for parts.
The reason we don't have one is the embodied carbon tax would have to be 100,000x higher for a Rivian EV than it would be for a smartwatch, while superficial 20th century environmentalist doctrine concentrates on the relatively negligible portion of "e-waste".
To me the easier approach is to make exclusive supplier contracts illegal in the retail segment. A third party repair shop should be able to buy the same parts as Google and offer a repair service if Google is unable to provide one.
Edit: Forgot Google bought Fitbit, but I still would bet Fitbit outlasts the Pixel Watch.
For me it's been good enough to overcome "I could take it or leave it" - it's handy for reading alerts without pulling out the phone, and Google Assistant even works most of the time.
It's also nice to keep the phone on silent and just get a buzz on the wrist for calls and alarms. Plus smarthome integration if you do that.
That said, most repairs are done offsite so anything they can’t do on the spot they just trade you a refurbished one and do it on their own time offsite.
I say “refurbished” but Apple calls it a “replacement” model. This seems like a distinction without a difference at first but Apple has two streams, “refurbished” and “replacement”.
The former you’ll see on their refurbished shop and might have minor signs of usage, the latter is used in their replacement process and always looks like a brand new one that you buy new (even though the fine print says it could have signs of usage).
I always prefer replacement over repair if I have the choice, because you’re essentially handed a new device.
In rare cases, > 3 coming back for the same issue, they’ll simply give you a new current retail model if your issue seems tied to a design issue in the model you own (e.g. this happened sometimes with the MBP GPU issue and later with the keyboard issue) so it always pays to keep badgering them if your issues aren’t resolved.
if(dirty || badBattery || badAccessories) { repair() }
else { recycle() }
...And they'll probably abandon it or sell the business to squarespace in a couple years anyway.
Again let me recap here:
- company that drops support, with no access to parts at all - company that provides support for almost a decade and limited access to parts
And somehow you see that and say that the first one is better?
Nuts.
Not that Google is any better, they're all inexcusably terrible, anti-consumer, e-waste generating operations.
> Apple opposing and derailing right to repair legislation
I guess you didn’t hear the latest news[0]?
> they're increasingly serializing parts
A pedantic minor correction: they haven’t so much increased it as people have started noticing stuff that had been serialized prior
> such that perfectly working components from 2 brand new Apple devices can't be swapped between them
They can be swapped, the device doesn’t block it outright or refuses to boot (with the exception of biometrics).
The problem is that some of the calibration and configuration is component specific, so in certain cases a replacement has unintended consequences, which, because it’s Apple, gets explained a purposeful attempt by Apple to break non-authorized repairs.
Personally to me this is rather hilarious notion because Apple isn’t known to be shy about being explicit in their messaging, case in point would be the messaging when replacing a battery.
The simple fact of the matter is that calibration is simply part of the repair and if not done, the repair isn’t done properly.
It’s the same as replacing your tires without aligning them and then blaming the car manufacturer for all the vibrations you feel during your rides.
Just about now the conversation then shifts to who gets access to calibration tools.
Currently Apple, Apple Authorized Service Providers, independent repair shops that are part of the free Independent Repair Provider Program and customers using the Self Service Repair service have access to these tools.
That covers pretty much all scenarios, with the exception being cowboys that want to go at it alone because they don’t want to subject their skills to any form of scrutiny.
I think it stands to reason that they then use their unimpeachable skills to transfer the control chip that holds the calibration data.
0: https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/23/23843506/apple-california...
If you're using quotes, you should be quoting something I actually said, rather than making stuff up. Don't worry, I'll tell you exactly what I think, so you don't have to do that.
Apple is well known for forcing customers to swap expensive internal components (instead of repairing them) and contributing to greater e-waste. They force suppliers to not sell parts to independent repair stores. It sounds like you're not very familiar with it, so I won't blame ya.
I have the option of not taking my car to the dealership and instead doing simple stuff like oil changes myself, or taking it to a mechanic I trust. I'd like the same option for my electronics. If you don't trust anyone except Apple, you can keep going to them.
I’ll do you one better, they often swap out the entire device.
The customer doesn’t have to wait for a repair and can walk out with a working device, the defective device meanwhile is send off to one of their repair centers for further assessment.
I don’t know if this contributes to more e-waste because I don’t know the percentage of devices repaired, stripped for parts to be reused and stripped for parts to be recycled.
What I do know is that they heavily invest recovery of parts and other environmental focused processes and that they make extensive information on it available[0] just so they can brag about for 20 seconds during their keynotes. It seems unlikely to me that, despite this, they secretly bury a bunch of e-waste in their backyard (so to say).
> They force suppliers to not sell parts to independent repair stores. It sounds like you're not very familiar with it, so I won't blame ya.
They have no issues providing parts to independent repair stores, provided they’re part of the Independent Repair Provider Program[1]. The main requirement of which is that the technicians get certified, certification fees are waived and there’s no fee to join the program.
I can hardly blame them for wanting to make sure the parts end up in skillful hands if the repair is going to be advertised as done with genuine Apple parts, because the customer will sooner blame Apple than know to blame a shoddy technician.
> I have the option of not taking my car to the dealership and instead doing simple stuff like oil changes myself
Have at it, go change that oil[2].
> or taking it to a mechanic I trust. I'd like the same option for my electronics.
And you have. Like with cars you can go to a mechanic you trust that can’t get their hands on OEM parts and will use imitation parts or you can go to a mechanic you trust that does have access to OEM parts.
With cars it’s actually a bit more complicated because it depends on the car make, model, the part in question, the region you’re in and some other factors.
But without devolving into a new tangent, you have those same options.
0: https://www.apple.com/environment/
It reminds my of the Type 3 [0], but a little bit cheaper.
https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-galaxy-watch-4-classi...
The lack of a bezel is probably part of why the Pixel Watch is so damage-prone.
I find that I will never purchase any Google products and encourage others to not also.
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Apple_Smartwatch Has some guides
Point is that they will provide some sort of service for you until it hits "obsolete" status which is 7 years.