The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs.
Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips.
It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years.
Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money.
It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years.
Yes.
Hardware vendors love Open Source. It essentially cedes all control of the market to them.
They spend minimal time/money/effort on software development and updates because surprise, surprise --- it doesn't produce profits, it consumes them. Hardware is where they make all their money.
The only realistic way to get long term software support on Android is from Open Source. This means installing a replacement, 3rd party Open Source ROM. This is the first thing I do when I buy a new phone --- and I won't buy a phone that doesn't have good 3rd party support.
I have a Moto G4 Play from 2016 that gets regular software updates running e/OS. The last update was May 14th. This is my backup phone (I have a backup for everything that is considered "essential").
My primary phone is a Moto One 5G Ace (2021) which also has excellent support from e/OS and it's currently cheap as dirt considering the hardware specs. Only $129 from Amazon with 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, Snapdragon 765 processor, 2 day battery and microSD expansion.
If I accidentally leave it in an Uber or drop it in a toilet, it's sad but no big deal. I just switch to the backup until the replacement arrives. Try that with your $1000 iPhone.
> The only realistic way to get long term software support on Android is from Open Source. This means installing a replacement, 3rd party Open Source ROM.
What ROM do you use and what level of support does it provide? I was interested in third-party ROMs until I read this part of the GrapheneOS FAQ[1]:
> GrapheneOS can only fully provide security updates to a device provided that the OEM is releasing them. When an OEM is no longer providing security updates, GrapheneOS aims to provide harm reduction releases for devices which only have a minimum of 3 years support. [...] Harm reduction releases do not have complete security patches because it's not possible to provide full security updates for the device without OEM support and they are intended to buy users some limited time to migrate to a supported device.
So, what exactly do people mean when they claim that third-party ROMs provide "long-term" support? Do they just allow older phones to run newer versions of Android, albeit without full security updates?
Do they just allow older phones to run newer versions of Android, albeit without full security updates?
The "full security updates" GrapheneOS references has to do with proprietary device drivers. This is an unrealistic over-reaction in my opinion.
Why abandon perfectly functional hardware based on some unknown possibility that exists with both old and new hardware? Newer, supported devices could easily have these same sort of issues. They really don't know and the OEM does not offer any guarantee or certification otherwise. If the mere possibility of a bug is enough to abandon support, they really shouldn't support anything because this possibility always exists.
Most security issues occur in the OS or can be mitigated in the OS. Without physical possession of the device, access to drivers passes through the OS.
Except that popular chipsets (ie: get community support due to device saturation) do see vulnerabilities published past the point of support. I trust Qualcomm's ability to develop their modem driver (which is an entire Linux install) very little, and I trust it's ability to stand the test of time to be even less.
I'm not sure I'm saying it's a total loss, but I feel a bit lost on what to do as well. Do I think Google will support their Tensor chips longer? Not really.
I feel like I still lean towards buying a portable hotspot, a small Android tablet, and calling it good. I already get calls over VOIP and SMS/MMS over jmp.chat so I don't really need a "cellular phone". But also, ugh, those portable hotspots are probably even more of a vendor-ware security nightmare. At least I could upgrade them independently and somewhat treat it as isolated, if I only connect over Wifi? Maybe?
If the mere possibility of a bug is a show stopper, you really shouldn't use anything because this possibility always exists --- with all hardware and software.
I think there's a difference in saying "software tends to be buggy, security can't be perfect" vs "I'm using a baseband modem running out-of-date Linux, that has DMA to my entire phone, that the manufacturer has stopped supporting, and there's active CVEs".
> Without physical possession of the device, access to drivers passes through the OS.
With all due respect, that is not a wise take on modern device security. At all, all, all.
How's the camera? For me, the camera is more important than anything else on a phone, and thus far I've been stuck with Pixels because, despite the shorter support period (and absolutely mind-bogglingly bad customer service), that software does amazing things with old camera hardware .
Genuine question: why give yourself the headache of coupling having a great camera to choosong a phone then, if it's important to you? Why not have a compact camera as well as whatever phone, and carry that when quality matters?
If "average quality" in everyone of those things was not acceptable to you and you actually needed the best of the best, and best quality could not be had in most phones....then yeah that might make sense. I doubt anyone actually cares to have absolutely top tier performance in every one of those categories though, and what most phones have is "good enough". Which is why/how phones ate all those functions. They do most of them "good enough" and "good enough" is all that most consumers care about.
Caring about performance in at least one of those categories is not that uncommon and carrying a dedicated device for that isn't crazy. I have used stand alone GPS receivers before even when I had my phone, and deciding that you need a better camera seems not crazy at all.
> Genuine question: why give yourself the headache of coupling having a great camera to choosong a phone then
But I can have a modern high end phone with a good camera. I can’t buy a camera that lets me take a picture, edit the picture on the device, and then the picture automatically gets backed up to iCloud, Google Photos, Microsoft’s One Drive and Amazon Photos and gets synced to all of my other devices.
I don’t have to settle for a low end phone that won’t see any updates after two years where the operating system is created by an adTech company.
While it's certainly not the mainstream set of priorities/preferences, it is possible for someone to have a set of priorities in a phone that precludes the high end cameras, while still wanting a very good camera. And depending on the weighting of those preferences, they might be willing to put up with the inconveniences you outline. It's obvious that you peronally don't share those preferences, which is completely fine. But it doesn't make sense to criticize someone else who does.
There are sets of preferences where it is not possible to satisfy all of them and something must be sacrificed. Some people will choose to sacrifice convenience.
Those are also the stated preference of the original poster
> How's the camera? For me, the camera is more important than anything else on a phone, and thus far I've been stuck with Pixels because, despite the shorter support period (and absolutely mind-bogglingly bad customer service), that software does amazing things with old camera hardware .
If you care deeply enough about any of those things that they're a major concern when choosing a phone, yes, I do make the same argument.
A major audiophile won't be happy with a phone. Someone big into 'caching' isn't using Google or Apple maps. A home theatre -phile won't want to watch something good on a phone.
No cameraphile uses on-camera software to.. do anything. That you can do better on a computer than a phone then goes without saying.
I'm not going to carry it everywhere no, nor did I say that. (Actually I didn't even say it applied to me.) I carry my Panasonic TZ100 when on holiday or otherwise desirous of better-than-phone photos. It fits in my pocket. Not the same one as my phone granted, but nonetheless in a pocket while in a case and straddling a spare battery.
There are audiophiles and audiophiles. A good chunk of them will laugh at Monster cables et al. as much as any of us.
You can appreciate a better DAC than found in most/all phones without descending into gold-plated USB-C charging cables that maintain optimal audio nonsense.
And even that assuming playback of some locally stored file. I'm not sure any of the mainstream streaming Services offer a format/bitrate that it's not possible objectively to do better than.
For the purpose of this discussion it doesn't matter - the germane point is that some people will want a 'better' system regardless of whether your studies agree it is significantly/detectably so.
Although you jest, phone cameras are always not as good as a regular camera due to the physics of lenses, apertures etc being so much bigger in a camera vs a phone.
It's perfectly adequate for my needs and I haven't found any issues with the e/OS ROM support. But if only the best will do for you, this obviously isn't it.
"Middling" appropriately describes Motorola cameras. I've bought Motos exclusively since the original Droid and have finally moved off of the brand because of the camera.
It wasn't an important feature until I started getting potato quality photos of my children doing first-time-ever events.
Yeah, I finally got a Pixel because the camera was hard to beat. I since jumped to an iPhone 13, but honestly the Pixel still camera results were better. iPhone's video is the best of any phone I've used, though.
It's better than almost anything else. I don't understand you people worried about driver bugs in a smartphone.
Facebook isn't going to deploy malware to my phone using Whatsapp, MS isn't going to do that using Outlook, Google isn't going to do that through Google Maps. Everything I used is either by a reputable developer, or open-source from F-Droid.
The only way I'm getting malware is if they manage to: 1) exploit a bug in my up-to-date web browser, 2) bug #1 is used to exploit a bug in the hardware driver. Oh, and of course, since I only visit reputable sites, I'm never exposed to malware. I'd have better odds of winning the lottery.
I don't keep them fully synced. I do back up the "important stuff" on my primary phone to off device storage on a fairly regular basis. So my backup phone can be brought up to sync if need be.
A secret weapon in this regard is an Android open source file manager called Material Files which can create compressed files and speaks SMB. I usually create backups onto a SD memory card and then periodically copy these to local off device storage using wifi.
> The only realistic way to get long term software support on Android is from Open Source.
Or by laws and regulations.
I hope the EU will do something practical in this area, since it seems to be the only entity capable of pushing some useful changes.
Example: the digital markets act, which will force companies like apple to allow for side loading of apps. No us entity even attempted at anything similar as far as i know.
Apple is the only phone manufacturer providing long term software support...
Every single phone shipping with Qualcomm SoCs are at the mercy of Qualcomm. When they want you to buy a new chip, they'll kill support for your current chip, meaning that the manufacturer will have to spend effort making newer Android work with older kernel versions if even possible.
My Sony Xperia Z3 had software support killed by Qualcomm. They refused to provide the binary blobs required to make next Android version work despite the CPU being perfectly capable, as evidenced by the beta builds that only needed a small update from Qualcomm.
I've the same phone, and stock it is pretty bloat-free. Main complaint is the charging; no wireless and the USB-C is not secure and will pop out in most orientations.
I'm seconding the Pixels - they're also pretty much the only phones that allow you to upload your own signing keys, so you can run Google-free GrapheneOS with secure boot enabled.
GrapheneOS stops supporting phones when Google stops releasing new firmware for them for security reasons, so you aren’t going to get longer term support from it.
Technically, yes. The big hangup is that spec sheets for these chips are often hidden behind NDAs, so devs are left reverse engineering existing firmwares. This extra barrier to entry hobbles further development for many phones.
Not really, modem firmware even for wifi and BT is pretty much tied down "thanks" to regulations, you won't get far without an exploit bypassing the signature verification. Governments are apparently very afraid of people modifying their chipsets to be more powerful in range than allowed.
They do have extra 2 years of partial "transitional" support, if I'm not mistaken. But yes, even they will not support them forever as it's not financially feasible without help in the form of first-party updates.
I have been nominated seven straight years for hacker news reader with the least knowledge of security, so I’m embarrassed to ask: what keys would one want to sign and why?
It’s not your keys, it’s the Operating System keys uploaded to your device.
Essentially the same way UEFI secure boot works in the PC world.
You’re telling the device hardware “it’s only ok to run software that’s been signed with the private key that matches this public key”, so that once you’ve done that, you can have confidence that the operating system hasn’t been modified in future by anyone other than the original vendor (as only they have the private key).
The keys that verify that new boot software is allowed, the ones that verify it's coming from _you_ and not some other asshole trying to take over your phone after you rooted it.
>Samsung can do it because they're smart, but Apple does it because they're evil?
Nobody said Apple are doing it because they're are evil, calm down.
Your parent said Apple can afford to give you longer support because they not only make money when they sell you the phone HW, they also keep making money from your iCloud, iTunes and every other third party subscription or SW you buy on Apple App store. Basically, they double dip and monetize you over the entire period of you owning the device. That's exactly what your parent said. Apple's walled garden affords them enough revenue to keep funding SW updates for your old Apple devices which Android makers can't do.
All the other Android makers, apart from Google, don't make any other money after they sell you the phone HW, since Google is the one earning 30% off Playstore sales, not Samsung, or the others HW makers. Therefore they can't afford to pay teams of SW devs to keep pushing you SW updated for your old phone, so many years after you stopped giving them money, especially since they depend on Quallcomm and other semi vendors giving them up to date drivers, which they won't do for free since semi makers also want to sell newer chips rather than supporting older ones for free.
Google could do like Apple in theory, since they own the whole ecosystem stack apart from the SoC and they do have the cash for it, but they don't want to do it because Google sucks at maintaining anything "old" long-term, especially HW, so they keep doing what Google does best and focus on the new shiny while sunsetting the older shinys.
It's ironic that Samsung offers longer Andorid updates for their flagships S-series, than Google themselves do for the Pixels. That says everying about Google.
No, Google just sucks at maintaining an ecosystem.
Microsoft figured out how to license an OS to third party OEMs and still allow end users to update their hardware without depending on the vendor for literally decades.
Heck I was able to just throw a Windows 7 CD in my old first gen Mac Mini x86 1.66Ghz Core Duo and run it for years after Apple dropped support.
They arguably never did. Android updates are all-encompassing, unlike Windows. You still depend on manufacturers of your hardware (motherboard, CPU) to provide firmware updates (BIOS, Microcode). How old is your Motherboard's firmware? You probably don't even know, because most people don't consider these things important, which is a mistake. On Android, generally, firmware updates are included.
You are just describing why Android's update/support model is broken, which is agreeing with the parent comment.
Cleaving the hardware support from the OS support is precisely why the PC ecosystem can sustain much longer support periods, because those are separate concerns. Yes, at some point BIOS feature updates will cease (although usually they will crank out an update for everything going back a decade+ if there is some major vulnerability) but that doesn't mean Microsoft or Canonical or Red Hat can't keep rolling out OS feature updates for another decade on the existing BIOS feature level. And while BIOS security updates are occasionally a thing, the attack surface is much smaller, just like the hypervisor reduces Xbox/PS5 attack surface too.
The problem with Android's model is specifically that it ties these two together, so when the SOC vendor or the phone vendor get bored, the OS updates also cease.
Google has been moving towards changing that, by packaging more and more things as Google Service updates/etc rather than OS updates, but fundamentally the Android model is like your PC not getting Windows 10 because the motherboard vendor doesn't want to package it in a new BIOS image. And that's different.
Sometimes there are genuine feature cliffs, like 32-bit support, or UEFI support, or Windows 11 starting to move towards mandatory TPM. But if the OS vendor is willing to live with the old BIOS feature level, the BIOS vendor or the System Integrator doesn't need to keep packaging the updates for microsoft.
My Mac Mini built by Apple without using BootCamp was able to run Windows 7 just by sticking a DVD in.
How much more all encompassing can you get than that.
I assure that Apple never went out of its way to release firmware for the 1st gen Intel Mac Mini so it could work with Windows 7.
Windows 7 supported all of my Mac hardware - Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet, wifi, and it found the IR sensor for the remote. I never tried to use it.
Even before that, I had more obscure x86 hardware - a 486DX/2-66Mhz “DOS Compatibility Card” for my old Mac that came with Windows 3.1 and had a built in Soundblaster card. I was able to our Windows 95 on it without any updated drivers from Apple.
Part of that is the OS kernel design. Unlike Linux, Windows has a stable device driver API which makes it easy for hardware vendors to release drivers separately and maintain them across versions.
>Microsoft figured out how to license an OS to third party OEMs and still allow end users to update their hardware without depending on the vendor for literally decades.
You're cluelessly comparing apples to oranges. ARM smartphones, for better and for worse, are not like the Windows based IBM X86 PCs in any way when it comes to boot process, OS and drivers interactions.
ARM SBCs which is what all smartphones are, are completely different than X86 PCs which have more open standards when it comes to booting and driver support, versus ARM where it's mostly proprietary blobs different from vendor to vendor.
> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money.
Nonsense.
It’s because they have all the expertise in-house anyway, they get extremely good terms due to their weight and negotiation, and they figure if you don’t change phone now you might do so next year and they’ll get your money anyway. There’s no brand loyalty on the Android side, and fostering it seems impossible (even brand recognition efforts don’t seem to do much).
On what is based your claim that it is impossible to foster brand loyalty on Android side?
Maybe there is a reason that there is no brand loyalty on Android side, a reason that maybe those brands created themselves after seeking instant profits above anything else. Not one android phone manufacturer tried to cultivate long term relations with their customers for any reasonable amount of time. A lot of customers tried variety of android phones exactly for that reason, to find a brand that would not let you down and yet very quicly all promises were broken.
Also even if you don’t buy a new iPhone now, i.e. you keep using your old iPhone, they still benefit if you continue to buy apps (and buy in-app purchases), if you continue to buy from iTunes just for the convenience, or subscribe to Apple Music.
This incentivises them to support all their phones as long as technologically possible.
Other phone manufacturers have the opposite incentive, they want you to buy a new phone ASAP, since they earn nothing if you don’t buy a new phone.
From an e-waste perspective, Apple’s model is definitely better.
There is, in fact, zero hassle. "It just works
"
Also, GrapheneOS updates never remove functionality or battery life.
But yes it only works on supported devices - in related news, iOS does not run on unsupported devices, so what's your point?
I know I can buy an iOS device and get support from the vendor without hoping that some third party will support it out of the kindness of their heart and know that it supports apps from the AppStore.
I can do the same thing with Windows. Microsoft figured this out almost 30 years ago.
Apple just released a security update for the 2013 iPhone 5s earlier this year.
Apple has had security updates for the following iPhones this year: iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 7Plus iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 10, iPhone 10XR, iPhone 10s, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Plus, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro Max, and two generations of iPhone SEs and a couple of iPhone Minis
I ran CalyxOS on my Pixel 3XL and while it delivers on the privacy focus, I think most users would find it too irritating for long term usage. I ended up replacing it with Pixel Experience, which as the name implies is pretty much an up to date version of the stock ROM.
I couldn't be so cold as to give Graphene to my grandmother. That said, I am writing this from Graphene myself, having never touched an Apple device in my life.
With Google Play Services and the Play Store enabled there's almost zero usability difference between the standard Google Pixel Android and GrapheneOS.
Cloud sync that works across all of my devices in a centralized manner. Zero bloatware, adware OS that works out of the box and doesn’t change every year. Consistent experience across devices.
iOS, specifically, all of what I listed there and really nice, fluent system compared to Androids that have frame drops even on top end devices.
> Zero bloatware, adware OS that works out of the box and doesn’t change every year.
Now that’s just blatantly bullshit. The OS takes up at least 9GB. There are many Linux distros that take half of that. Not to mention the OS is preloaded with a lot of Apple’s proprietary apps, most of which are designed to pull you into some kind of sales pitch. Fitness+, Apple Music, iCloud, the entire OS is an ad designed to sell you on their ecosystem.
The most egregious statement, however, is that the OS “doesn’t change every year”. You say this right after the iOS 16 update completely changed a large portion of the OS, and in some very user unintuitive ways.
Not to mention iOS is a glitchy mess even on the latest hardware. Frequently the OS stalls on wakeup, stalls when trying to swap apps, randomly drops wifi when my laptop doesn’t, the keyboard will get stuck on screen, it’ll even skip inputs entirely and freeze for a few seconds.
> Now that’s just blatantly bullshit. The OS takes up at least 9GB. There are many Linux distros that take half of that.
Don’t care about that.
> Not to mention the OS is preloaded with a lot of Apple’s proprietary apps, most of which are designed to pull you into some kind of sales pitch.
Fitness+, Apple Music, iCloud, the entire OS is an ad designed to sell you on their ecosystem.
I’ve been iOS user for almost two years now. The only sales pitch I saw, was at the start about 3 months of free Apple Music. The rest I haven’t saw, as I don’t use fitness app or any other things.
The only thing that I’ve bought so far, was €1 iCloud subscription to increase iCloud storage to 50GB. And I didn’t even see any “ad” for it.
> The most egregious statement, however, is that the OS “doesn’t change every year”. You say this right after the iOS 16 update completely changed a large portion of the OS, and in some very user unintuitive ways.
The only thing I noticed after upgrading to iOS 16 was a slightly degraded battery life and performance which was eventually fixed. The rest stayed majorly the same.
Compare that to mayhem that is Android where it’s Material 1 then Material 2 with apps still lagging behind on Material 1 then it’s material You, now it’s material 3 or whatever.
> Not to mention iOS is a glitchy mess even on the latest hardware. Frequently the OS stalls on wakeup, stalls when trying to swap apps, randomly drops wifi when my laptop doesn’t, the keyboard will get stuck on screen, it’ll even skip inputs entirely and freeze for a few seconds.
Haven’t seen any of the behavior that you’re mentioning.
It's probably the biggest problem in the ecosystem, for all the papercuts I piss and moan over. The existence of an F-Droid style store on iOS would go such a long ways in stimulating competition. Even if Apple defends their right to tax platform payments, the mere existence of no-cost ad-free software would force other ecosystem players to do better. It's a win for FOSS fanatics and paid software stalwarts alike.
Now, if Apple unlocked the bootloader and promised no more ownership shenanigans, I'd never badmouth Tim or his company's software ever again. This website has my word on that.
Eeeh, kinda. A local DNS server is the only way I’ve found, and that causes problems on apps that block the “VPN” status and completely breaks cellular data.
It also doesn’t always work, particularly if the app isn’t covered in your blocklist (which it isn’t always possible to add them in any easy way, because “think different”)/the app hosts ad content directly.
I'm not aware if you can do it the way you mention, but you can used NextDNS and it pretty much cleans most of the ads (I actually haven't seen an ad in a very long time).
I am pretty active in the blocklist community, co-maintain a FOSS network monitor and firewall for Android, was a contributor to AOSP, and run a public DoH/DoT resolver; to me, the writing has been on the wall for the past few years. Plugins like uBlockOrigin, alt web-based front-ends like Invidious, and reverse-engineered apps like YouTube ReVanced will most likely be the only options left in the not so distant future.
It could double as a Ferrari and still wouldn't replace a primary function I want in a phone/personal computer: trusted privacy and confidentiality with auditable configuration by the owner, me.
The reason you don't see long term support on Android is the same reason Linux failed in the desktop: the Linux kernel developers want everything mainlined and are not interested in keeping a stable kernel API for drivers, but in the real world, drivers are closed source.
That is not why Linux "failed"(1). It is because essential software for the average PC user like MS Office and the Adobe suite is not available. For games the situation has quite improved thanks to Valve.
(1) Linux didn't fail, the desktop is already a joy to use imho. It is just waiting till it reaches critical mass, then the Year of the Linux Desktop will be nigh.
Oh right, it's those open source kernel guys. Has nothing to do with incentives to sell phones being aligned with business/profit (i.e. avoiding a phone to be usable well across the 5+ years mark).
This is the reason I want Arch Linux on my phone. I have my option of mobile interfaces (Plasma Mobile is still a thing, right?) or I could literally roll my own (there are i3 mods that allow using touch screens).
I'd love to be able to run a mainline Linux kernel on a standard handset. It would enable a bunch of goofy things, like using old phones as IP wifi security cameras.
I sure miss that "real world" with its blue screens of death from unmaintained binary drivers thrown over the wall by lowest bidders, running with kernel privileges doing who-knows-what behind the scenes. I shudder to think about what that has devolved to today, with the widespread prevalence of shameless user surveillance and all. Meanwhile in the free world, hardware is well documented.
And that’s a problem that needs fixed. Out of any piece of software, the one that connects my hardware to my OS is probably one of the most important.
Although I find it dubious this alone is why Linux historically has failed at desktop. It certainly sucks to deal with, but at least people attempted to use Linux. Personally I would argue that people’s innate fear of change is the bigger problem, in my experience.
I really wish there were more options than the Pixel. Ever since they removed the headphone jack it became obvious that there needs to be more device diversity in the longer-supported space.
> Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs.
I don't think this is particularly relevant. IIRC Qualcomm hardware support includes a handful of binary blobs with restrictive licenses. So if there is a vulnerability in one of those OEMs can't fix it without Qualcomm's support. So it is impossible to promise longer support than Qualcomm will provide. In practice they may be able to support the device longer if they can work around security issues from outside the blob or if no security issues are found, but they can't guarantee it (and without a guarantee there is also less incentive to actually do it).
We are finally seeing Apple, Google and Samsung creating their own SOC with longer software support, hopefully that is enough to disrupt Qualcomm's shitty practices here.
> The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips
Apple and Google make money off you for as long as you use your phone. Qualcomm only makes money when you buy it. Thus, Qualcomm has little incentive to maintain old chips for long. Not because they are evil, that would be another conversation, but because they only make money off newly sold phones.
Qualcomm actually started offering LTS (long-term support) BSP (board support packages) to device manufacturers for a fee. This is why some vendors like Samsung and Microsoft started providing updates for phones with older SoCs for longer than usual: they're paying the additional per-product license fee for being allowed to ship updated firmware.
I'm optimistic that "what it could have been" is what it will eventually be. Originally there was just Apple, and their lock-in driven business model. Competitors could emulate them and still get away with it for a while, but it will get commoditized to the same level PCs are at some point.
Funnily enough, originally people thought it was Apple who commoditized mobile computing and software development by getting it from the clutches of telecom providers
I will say, at least after Apple introduced the smartphone to the masses we did eventually get some amount of commoditization and control as consumers. Not from them, mind you, but they successfully killed the old giants in their bid to take their place, allowing Android to rise and give some amount of control to the people.
I had a buddy who was working on a Linux base for Motorola phones back around 2004/2005. I mentioned this to a EE I worked with back then, who had spent a long time working for Motorola, and he said the carriers "would never allow it."
Having the baseband firmware cordoned off was inevitable
notably the pixel has moved off qualcomm to google silicon and now has 5+ years of support.
if you want the _pure_ android experience, aosp support for pixel hardware has traditionally been very good. (google posts signed binary blobs for google hardware and with the move to google silicon those blobs have been getting smaller or may be completely eliminated now)
Are you saying that Pixel's abysmal long term support record is because Google can't afford to hire kernel and hardware devs? Or does Qualcomm lock them out even with those people after some number of years?
> Are you saying that Pixel's abysmal long term support record is because Google can't afford to hire kernel and hardware devs?
Not can’t, don’t want to.
If it‘s not going to save or make money, company isn’t going to bother. And Google is on a cost-cutting crusade right now so absent an external motivation it’s going to happen even less.
This is a marketing phrase that twists a negative into a positive. Its better to use more objective terms. Gardens give you a perceptions of flowers and fruits.
I like walled garden. Everything appears nice and flowery except for the fact they want to hold you in. You can admire its beauty but can't really trust anything in it due to its darker purpose. Reminds me of the Stepford Wives.
Oh, and what happens then? I’m mostly using Apple devices, but also have a Pixel as a backup phone and a laptop with Linux as a backup laptop. It’s not like I’m locked in the ecosystem entirely.
Quite not true. LOS does not need to hack kernal of all deprecated chips to update everything to much higher android ver. There are no reasons manufacturer can't do that. It's a choice made by manufacturer not Qualcomm.
Samsung is terrible, do not buy ever. They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security.
I would recommend against Google phones, while 'they just work', they have been forcing users via dark patterns to use their services more and more. Its quite easy to get stuck with a google drive monthly fee or use their Maps app which is full of ads.
>"They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security."
What are you on about? Every version of iOS I've used the past 11 years, on every iPhone I've used, has been a buttery smooth experience compared to most (not all; most) things Android, and on top of that I've gotten over 5 years of OS/security updates for each model which is practically unheard of with Android OEMs.
>"Doesnt matter what their security updates are. Those are after the fact."
Of course it matters. Whether you get 6 months, 1 year, or 5 years of updates is a huge deal. Their patches' timing don't differ from that of other vendors: most vulnerabilities are fixed before disclosure, few are exploitable, even fewer are found in the wild.
>"Bezos got his nudes leaked and Jamal Khashoggi was killed."
What stupid, arrogant and inflammatory rhetoric, suggesting that the reason someone died was because of their personal choice of an iPhone instead of an Android phone. Dumb toad.
Nothing ever leaned towards there actually being an iCloud system breach. Everything points to weak guessable passwords and a lack of 2FA being the common vector for these leaks, because if there were a system breach there would have been far more victims and far higher value/content besides celebrities and their private nudes.
I understand that you're feeling emotional because your favorite corporation experienced a security issue. It's important to recognize that many people develop a strong sense of identity and attachment to certain corporations or brands. This emotional connection often stems from the marketing strategies and manipulative tactics employed by these companies.
Corporations invest a significant amount of effort and resources into building their brand image and cultivating a loyal customer base. Through clever marketing techniques, they create narratives and associations that resonate with individuals on a personal level. These strategies aim to evoke emotions and forge a sense of identity tied to the corporation's values, products, or services.
By fostering this emotional bond, corporations hope to maintain customer loyalty and influence consumer behavior. They want you to feel personally connected to their success, so when negative events like a security leak occur, it's natural to feel disappointed or upset.
However, it's important to keep in mind that this emotional attachment is often a result of marketing and manipulation rather than a genuine reflection of the company's character or actions. Corporations are primarily profit-driven entities, and their marketing efforts are designed to maximize their bottom line.
In moments like this, it can be helpful to take a step back and evaluate the situation from a more objective perspective. Consider the actions and decisions of the corporation separate from your personal attachment. It's possible that the security leak was a result of internal shortcomings or external factors beyond the company's control.
While it's understandable to feel emotional about such events, it's also essential to remember that the corporation is not an extension of your identity. Your values, beliefs, and self-worth should not be solely determined by your association with any particular corporation. Instead, focus on evaluating the situation critically, demanding accountability, and considering alternative options that align with your values and needs.
By recognizing the influence of marketing and manipulation, you can maintain a healthier perspective, make more informed choices, and develop a more balanced relationship with corporations and brands.
How is the actual phone (not computing device) hardware on the Pixel?
The last time I had a Google phone was the 2012 Nexus, and I said never again. It had absolutely trash speakers and microphone. I couldn't be talking to someone when it was windy, I couldn't hear them. And when I tried recording a video at a sports stadium, the audio was completely distorted from the noise because the mic couldn't keep up with the noise.
Is the Pixel a good choice for people who spend the majority of their time on the road and not in a quiet office or home?
I have a pixel 6 pro, works great
Never had problems with the microphones, and calls are extra clear because they do some ai nonsense to upscale the audio coming into the phone
My 2 main gripes are:
The modem, I have issues with reception in the strangest locations, I can have direct line of sight to 3 different cell towers and still get stuck on edge till I hit the "Fix connectivity" button in settings, but when it is working (which it does 95% of the time), works great
The camera, amazing photo quality, videos look great, I have nothing against image quality. But the videos this thing takes are MASSIVE, even with HVEC on, a 50 second video can weigh over 300mb. Not sure what's up with that.
Oh also the main shooter camera is mechanically separated from the rest of the phone, so if you shake the phone or whip pan it too hard, you can hear it rattle.
Overall 9/10 though!
I hear the pixel 7 has a better modem
The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs.
Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips.
It's all money. They don't want you keeping a phone for 5 years.
Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden where they can double and triple dip on getting your money.
They also build their own chips.