As an IPhone holder I’m happy Google is doing this to force the market to support devices for longer. Apple will be pushed to go further than 6-7 years of software support.
this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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Yeah. Pixel 8 and 9 series have 7 years by spec. I think Samsung matched it with their latest Galaxy S series. It's one of those rare and fleeting moments when competition works to our benefit.
Indeed. However the root problem were CPU and other hw drivers AFAIK, not Google. Making their own SoC made it possible to bypass those greedy manufacturers and extend support.
100%. Qualcomm is the piece of shit you're thinking of. They refused to provide more than 3 years of driver updates for their SoCs for more than decade, despite the heavy work Google did to make updates from vendors dramatically easier with Project Treble. Now that Google have their own SoC and began providing longer support, Qualcomm magically began offering longer support too. The Galaxy S24 that ships with QC in NA has 7 years of support. With all that said, Google is only doing this because they're a minority player and offering support makes people like me buy their stuff for this. If they grow to a significant market share, you'll see them stop extending the support or even shorten it, in order to increase sales. Just like Qualcomm.
Qualcomm announced that they will provide driver support for Snapdragon 8 Elite for 8 years iirc.
So, the competition (from Google in this case) really works miracles.
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True.
Samsung's update policy for their lower end models is pretty atrocious. While on paper they offer updates for a couple of years, it you look more closely, you'll notice that the update intervals get larger and larger as time goes on. You might not get important updates for half a year. Sure, still better than not updates at all, but a pretty awful policy for security updates.
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It’s one of those rare and fleeting moments when competition works to our benefit.
More competition is always better for the consumer.
Fairphone have been offering 5 years of support for years... and ethically sourced materials, replacable parts (inc. nokia style batteries that you can replace)
Not to mention acceptance of alternative OS installations
Fairphone is actually worse than Google when it comes to updates. Even their flagship phone is still on Android 13. Even the Pixel 6 runs Android 15 at this point and with this news it is guaranteed to get at least Android 17. Google has always been offering 5 years of support for the Pixel 6 and 7 series. What they didn't promise until this announcement was additional feature/OS upgrades, but when it comes to that they were already ahead of Fairphone.
When it comes to alternative OSes, Google actually makes it very easy to install them. That's one reason why GrapheneOS and the likes chose Pixel phones as their primarily supported phones.
IMHO, security updates are more important than OS updates, and Fairphone is good in that regard. I'd be hard-pressed to even name a killer feature from the last few versions of Android (or iOS, for that matter).
Absolutely, security updates are much more important than feature updates. Upgrading to newer Android versions is mostly useful to have access to newer Android APIs (apps eventually will require newer versions, although that usually takes quite a while). Another benefit of newer Android versions might be added security features.
The fairphone 5 is on android 14 and android 15 has only started to be deployed 2 months ago.
Ok, that endoflife.date site apparently isn't quite up-to-date then. But even still, Android 14 was released in October 2023 and as far as I can tell, Fairphone released their Android 14 update only in July 2024. I'm not saying Fairphone's update policy is terrible or anything. It certainly is better than that of many other vendors, but if you want updates as quickly as possible, you are probably better of with a Pixel phone. Of course repairability is an entirely different matter.
Isn't the main reason for GrapheneOS to choose Pixels that Pixels have the Titan security chip?
Yes, there are multiple reasons, but that security chip was very important to them. An easy way to install the OS was also quite essential.
Fairphone has a great approach and I would love to buy an EU phone with replaceable parts, however I've read pretty underwhelming things about their software support. in that sense, paying 90€ every 3-4 years to get the battery replaced on a pixel,would be a better bet. That,plus the pixel a variants are very competitively prices and you get huge bang dor your buck.
I wish fairphones were cheaper...
At its price point, it's very underwhelming.
I also did the math and I could get an average phone (used) every year for three years before I break even. And those average phones would be more powerful with each iteration.
Unless you're bought into eco-friendly minimal waste messaging, it's really hard to choose fairphone.
Yeah, I admit they cost more, but I'm not playing high perf games on it, so it's absolutely fine - no apps struggle.
And the eco thing has to start somewhere and that's not something Google's aiming for (afaik)
Plus, watching other's expression when I swap a battery to be fully charged in 60 seconds is great.
People also could get extended support via CalyxOS and GrapheneOS on the Pixel Models.
And wireless charging, the reason i own a pixel not an fairphone. Maybe next it will be a shiftphone, but thats hopefully far in the future.
For the Pixel 6 and 7 series Google has promised 5 years of security updates right from the beginning. What's new here is that they now also offer feature and OS upgrades for that same time period. Certainly nice to have, but not essential.
As a pixel 6a user I'm excited I'll get a few more years of support and use out of this phone.
Open source....forever software updates until nobody cares to update the bloody thing.
You would like postmarket os as it is foss and software support is 10 years atleast.
Huh, they support a lot more hardware than they used to, that's pretty amazing! I may have to try it out.
Any idea if MMS is supported properly yet? That has been my main hurdle, and it looks like my other issues (battery life and audio quality) may be resolved by picking other hardware than the PinePhone.
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Android is as closed as an open-source project can get.
Sweet. This will likely mean extended GrapheneOS support too.
GrapheneOS would have received feature updates for the full duration of 5 years anyway, since they don't separate feature updates from security updates.
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113603951027289464
Android doesn't have any long term support branches for older versions of the mobile OS.
It was clear they'd likely provide 5 years of OS updates for 6th/7th gen Pixels rather than 3 from the start. Documentation clearly hinted at it by saying they'd provide 5 years of security AND features updates.
If only the fucking phone would work that long.
My Pixel 6 Pro was replaced twice within the two year warranty. Always for display errors(Display crapped out partially or has sudden "green flashes" when in maximum low light setting). Each time was a customer service nightmare and took ages. The current arrived damaged (they send you refurbished phones which in theory would be okay if they would actually be refurbished - last one was still reeking of smoke) and the FP did not work, additional loading only works when the cable is pushed in to the maximum by hand. When contacted they refuse further customer service claiming their service period ended (it did not, legally they are obligated according to the laws here), but their customer service agents do not give a shit. "It's written here" and "then sue us, lol!" are quotes.
The problems with the screen are known and there are hundreds of posts about it online. Each listing similar troubles.
I really loved the phone when it worked. Great camera, perfect size for me, clean OS, a lot of bang for the buck. But shit like that made me get a Samsung.
I'm sorry you dealt with all that. My anecdote is that my 6 Pro has worked flawlessly since day one and I'm not kind to it.
I replaced my OS on day 1 so it's not the same but I've also had no issues aside from a brief power draining issue that got patched shortly after.
still happily using a pixel 4a, your mileage may vary
The 4a was beast tbh. Loved that one.
My Pixel 7 Pro worked very good so far.
The Pixel 8 I bought for my mother was faulty but after the RMA everything was honky dory for her and she seems happy.
My Pixel 6 pro needed one replacement, for a dead green circle in the corner.
They insisted it was my fault, and I loaded unapproved software that did it (I didn't, I'm boring with my phones these days).
It got replaced, I had to pay to get it replaced (25USD)...
The phone was a disappointment, though, from day 1.
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If only they would send me a free volume button since their factory one broke...
Good thing my pixel 6 battery is marshmallow now and I was forced to buy a new phone 2 weeks ago....
While anecdotal, my family, friends, and co-workers have consistently seen them fail due to an unrecoverable software issue within 2-3 years. Extended support means very little when one expects failure within current support. Providing that support is cheap marketing.
I got mine around release, which means it's 3 years 2 months, no issues so far.
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My Pixel 6's batterie is already pretty weak :/
Replace the battery :)
Here's some BS. My phone's battery replacement cost $220. ($100 for battery, and $120 to be serviced) That was the same price as buying a refurbished version of the upgrade.
I missed the days of just replacing the battery with a screwdriver.
Im looking forward for "User replaceable batteries" 2027 in EU.
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I bought the Pixel 7 Pro and omg it was hot garbage, they had an unresolved bug open for like 3 months that caused scrolling to basically work only sometimes. It was impossible to use I had to return it within a week. Worse phone buy I've had in ~15 years.
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