Hacker News Reader

Comment by tinus_hn | Hacker News Reader

If only there were phones that did exactly what you wanted

The Pixel 5's security update end of life is in two weeks[0]. This is a phone that launched October 2020.

My iPhone XS which I bought in 2018 just got the iOS 17 update and it's working pretty well.

I want to be able to load whatever I want on my phone, but I also don't want to have to buy a new phone every couple years (or sooner! Looks like the 5a is still in production with security updates ending in 11 months) to get Android updates, or even security updates.

[0]: https://endoflife.date/pixel

The rumors are that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will launch with a promise of 7 years of updates, including not only security fixes and bug fixes but also feature drops. We’ll see what’s announces next month, but Google might be about to jump ahead of even the iPhone on this point.

Disclosure: although I have worked for Google in the past, I haven’t worked for them in more than 8 years, never worked on Android or Pixel beyond internally testing pre-release Android OS versions, have never had anything to do with setting their lifecycle policies, have no inside information on these rumors, and am not speaking for Google here.

Google absolutely is not about to jump ahead of Apple until they make good on that promise. Call us back in 7 years.

> The rumors are that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will launch with a promise of 7 years of updates

I’m not sure promises by Google are worth anything at this point.

I'm having trouble thinking of Google breaking any explicit promises like "Pixel 6 and later phones, including Fold, will get updates for at least 5 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US"? What are you thinking about?

The fact that it has a history of not following through and killing projects. Most recent being Stadia, in my memory, https://kagi.com/search?q=google+stadia+promise&r=no_region&...

That seems pretty different from breaking an clearly worded promise?

Another example: when free high quality (slightly downscaled) photo storage turned into paid after I had used it as backup of almost sll my photos during my android days?

(To be fair, both Dropbox and OneDrive has done the same: offered free storage without specifying a time limit for jumping through some hoops, then IIRC:

- in the Dropbox case: suddenly just introduce a time limit

- in the OneDrive case just tell me one day that they didn't want to do this more and I need to take my data out quickly or pay to avoid losing it )

For google you were not forced to take your data, old data was not counting towards new limit

For me it seems to be.

I have used the free compressed photos option the whole time and one day I was suddenly many many gigabytes over limit.

hard doubt it's bc of old data. It could be a bug in the system, but most probably It's either bc you uploaded from another device/browser or bc of gmail or after the free period ended

But compressed images were free forever until they weren't, right?

nope, it was unlimited compressed for a specified timeframe*(for other phones) and free unlimited compressed forever for pixel 2 to pixel 5(and unlimited uncompressed for og pixel). Google didn't break their promises * Actually it wasn't about timeframe, google afaik didn't say that other smartphones will get unlimited compressed forever, just that it's free for that time

English is not my first language, but I am good enough that I still think I was justified to be (slightly) surprised when they started charging.

> I'm having trouble thinking of Google breaking any explicit promises ...

"Don't Be Evil" famously springs to mind.

Yeah, my wife’s Pixel 3 came with unlimited photo storage too. It was a selling point… of course, that went away when it became inconvenient for Google.

It was supported for exactly the amount of time promised; I don't see your point here?

I cannot remember them telling that unlimited photo storage wasn't unlimited?

I was also burned, in my case by the "free forever" or something "high quality photo storage" (as opposed to full quality).

I understand nothing is truly free, but I expect when a large scale company offers something for free they have thought it true and aren't planning from the start to weasel out once you have uploaded a few thousand images using their solution?

Well, I have learned my lessons:

I don't trust Google anymore.

As some said it took a while to stop trusting Google because they had to burn through a mountain of goodwill, but here we are.

On the first Pixel generation it was unlimited for the lifetime of the device, from Pixel 2 onwards it was unlimited storage for 3 years, in case of Pixel 3 which launched in Oct.2018 it was unlimited until 31st January 2022.

I understand your frustration, but this was communicated by Google already at launch.

Google specifically said what benefits you get with each pixel: unlimited original with first p, from 2 to 3 or 4, unlimited original for 3 years and unlimited compressed after, for p5 just unlimited compressed. Google didn't broke any of these claims

I think a challenge of pixels and android in general is they don't seem to care about how well older hardware works with new os releases (or even some updates). I have an iphone se and it seems to work just fine after installing multiple os releases. Pixel type phones seem to struggle after a few os releases, as well as android in general. I should say I usually end up buying one generation behind cur on pixel.

So on top of google's short timeframe to allow 'next os release' support, apple does a better job on keeping older gen phones working well across multiple os releases.

This is one of the first generations of Pixel phones, maybe the first, where Google has had sufficient top-to-bottom vertical control over everything from the CPU on up to plausibly make this kind of promise. Apple got there before Google did, but Google may have finally arrived there.

Again, I have no inside info on this despite having worked for Google many years ago. We'll see what the announcement is on October 4.

Yeah, and also google did a poor job with lens coating on P7 so that lens flare is ruining any photo with too many light sources And the phone overheats with camera/video turned on for more than 15 mins, even 30fps 1080

Just spitballing here but it's possible that Android's openness is exactly why Google Pixel doesn't have better resources to have long term support. Some bean counters probably determined that Google doesn't make enough money to have teams supporting older Pixels. Samsung is taking a ton of profits from Pixel and the end result is piss poor Android support on Pixels.

Guess what? Samsung doesn't care about long term Android support. They're in it to sell phones. It's better for Samsung if Android's ecosystem continues to drop older phones.

At some point, Apple realized that long term support is a competitive advantage they can leverage. Due to their enormous profits, they can increase their support costs. With their closed ecosystem, Samsung can't come in and pull their shenanigans to undercut Apple.

IMO, Android’s openness is exactly why the Android experience on older phones suck.

I'm not sure openness is the sole factor reducing support duration.

Windows 8 was released in 2012 and was supported untim 2023 and Microsoft for sure hat _a lot_ more platforms to support than Google / the Android Team.

I would argue that a closed system is a lot easier to support for a longer time (because one can mandate changes/depreciations). But for a open system, there must be another factor coming into play, may it be money or a simple "don't care".

Samsung has pledged 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates recently.

I’d like to see 7-8 years of security updates, but it’s decent.

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

Imo it's bs in the context where fairphone 5 will have 8y of os updates

Pretty sure Samsung has sold more SKUs than fair phone has sold actual phones. It’s a pretty ridiculous comparison. Have they even been shipping phones for 8y?

and what? Parent comment was saying google does not have resources, I gave an example of a company with much less resources but that can do this

Saying "why can't BigCo support BillionsOfPhones, when fair phone can support AFewPhones" doesn't make sense.

1. We don't know FairPhone can follow through, they're small/young and may not exist in 8y, or may not have money to pay for support. 2. Even if FP succeeds, they accomplished a much easier task than BigCo is expected to.

Nr of phones doesn't matter, nr of models matters. How many models have google launched? 8? Fairphone did 5, not that big difference. And apple how many? >15 generations with huge support. So here we have both a small company with big support, a big company with big support (and even samsung now provides more years of os updates lol) and here we have google, a big corp that "can't" do this bc they are big... suuuuuure

To be fair, Google is also developing most of Android, so they already have a lot higher costs. Tough S*t, I know, but if Google drops android, I'd like to see how much support/progress someone like FairPhone can really provide. Only apple really has a fair comparison. I agree Google just hasn't supported long cycles because they didn't care, not because they can't. But you have to recognize they have a much bigger task. I would also assume that Google + Samsung's support is a lot more comprehensive than FairPhone's

Google obviously has the resources. The bean counters decided that they want profits instead of building up a loyal customer base.

My main point is that if Pixels sold as many phones as Samsung, it is very likely that Pixel would put in the resources to support older phones. Competition within the Android space does not equate to better long term service.

So you want everything like Android, but you want a magic wand that means you won't get exactly the same outcomes as Android.

Ultimately it was the need to buy a new phone every couple of years even when I otherwise wouldn't need to that pushed me to Apple devices. I only this year had to replace my daughter's iPhone 7, but not because it wasn't supported as a 4 year old device. Granted it won't get iOS 16 or 17 but 15 is still supported.

So you want Apple to not be able to earn money from you having the device, yet spend money on providing security updates for it.

Graphene OS.

At least when I looked into it, Graphene stops supporting pixels as soon as Google does.

GrapheneOS supports devices 1 year after they stop receiving updates by the OEM.[1]

E.g. my Pixel 4a stopped receiving updates last month but will probably receive Android 14 updates until the next release.

[1] https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime

A closed system makes long-term support easier.

The parent just said the iPhone is what they wanted. Is it hard to believe that someone could both like Apple and look forward to a world with more control over their phone?

It’s not hard to believe someone would like to have their cake and eat it too. That doesn’t make it a reasonable demand though.

The parents say the iPhone is what they want and that is because the iPhone is the phone you can’t accidentally break by installing alternative stores or apps or making the wrong settings. If Apple is forced to allow alternative stores, apps and settings that can break the system, the iPhone is no longer the phone they wanted.

> If Apple is forced to allow alternative stores [...] the iPhone is no longer the phone they wanted.

I just re-read it and couldn't find the part where they said that. Do you have a direct citation from the parent, or are you just floating a guess to support your opinion?

I read the comment as a generic statement about parents/old people, but as it refers to the parent comment it indeed makes little sense

It's hard to believe yes. If people buying decisions won't reflect their believes the market has no reason to change.

If people's buying decisions aren't impacted by your belief, the market is stuck in a monopoly position. Remember Carnegie steel?

Yeah, I need a phone that can run Apple's GarageBand, (easily my most-used app; hundreds and hundreds of hours, and as I use Logic to create music at home and have for 15+ years, I can open up these iPhone-created files at home, establishing a workflow Ableton, for instance, has completely failed to replicate) - ideally uses iMessage so I can more easily communicate with my romantic partners who both use it; and can run a browser of my choice. I'd also like it to work with my Apple Watch. Any non-iPhone recommendations?

Let’s hope Apple never discontinues GarageBand lest your world collapses

Which phone has iMessage and a non apple app store?

There will be! After the law goes into effect it will be the iPhone.

Feel free to not install internet browsers that you don't like though.

Google search, Youtube and many other properties will only work with Chromium as soon as it doesn't mean saying goodbye to iOS users.

The mindset here is so alien to me. Do people think that the EU is willing to take action against Apple, and yet somehow unwilling to take action against Google?

It's currently happening. Try using YouTube or Google Search on the desktop with, for example, MS Edge. Google will tell you you should download Chrome to work better.

The only reason that's not the case on iOS devices is that they don't have that option.

You have dodged the question. You think that the EU won't take action against Google?

I'm not dodging the question. It is happening now and the EU is not taking action.

They can always go the not-so-subtle sabotage route: https://archive.ph/tgIH9

Yes. A better question is why haven’t they taken action yet?

MS Edge uses Blink under the hood, which is a Chrome fork. The monoculture is all but here, save for dwindling Firefox and Webkit. Everything else that's popular is effectively a Chrome skin, or if you like, Linux distributions packaging up stuff around the kernel (the rendering engine).

I didn't say Chrome would actually make it work better. The fact that MS decided not to maintain their version of Edge is a little frustrating, because more competition would be better. Indeed, that's why I want Safari to remain.

But even reskinned Chrome isn't safe from nag messages to switch to Chrome.

I do think it’s unlikely, or at least unlikely to happen before the damage is done and we’re stuck with a permanent browser engine monoculture.

If they were rolling out policy to quash anticompetitive behavior in the browser space along with requiring Apple to open iOS up I’d be much more comfortable. The two should go hand in hand. I don’t want Google to have any opportunity to entrench Chrome/Blink on iOS.

Chrome is already a monopoly. Youtube is a monopoly. Point me to the EU action against them.

Ontop Google has made it impossible for YouTube competitors with it's dominance with device integrations not just mobile.

There's little point as a creator to post on a platform with zero reach.

It’s pretty reasonable to believe whatever action it takes will be a long ways away, a period during which the user experience will suffer. You don’t have to believe they’ll never act; you just have to believe they’ll act slowly and poorly. For example, the proposal to force iMessage interoperability which makes little sense and introduces security risks.

The EU has already shown itself willing to fine Google for antitrust shenanigans: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/14/tech/google-loses-eu-fine...

When one understands what Google is for, the answer becomes clear.

Google Search, YouTube and many other Google properties are also subject to the same Digital Market Act regulations. Google is a designated gatekeeper, same as Apple.

The DMA largely regulates essential platform services, so it has little to say about YouTube steering users to Chrome, neither of which are platform services on iOS.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com