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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m not sure promises by Google are worth anything at this point.
(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 )
I have used the free compressed photos option the whole time and one day I was suddenly many many gigabytes over limit.
"Don't Be Evil" famously springs to mind.
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.
I understand your frustration, but this was communicated by Google already at launch.
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’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...
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.
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.
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".
E.g. my Pixel 4a stopped receiving updates last month but will probably receive Android 14 updates until the next release.