Comment by throwaway030
16 hours ago
My Pixel 3A stopped receiving security updates after less than 3 years. I remember Google did this to start using their own chips in their phones.
Two or three years is not even close to the support Apple provides. It sealed the deal for me and I switched to iPhone.
My Pixelbook from 2017 still receives regular Chrome OS updates.
You're on hacker news though, so you can install linux on it: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Google_Pixel_3a_(google-s...
Pixel devices have historically been really good about letting you unlock the bootloader and install what you want, so even if Google drops support, the community can keep it going.
Apple devices just turn into useless bricks once apple deems them too old. Frankly, I think apple should be legally required to allow users to unlock devices, like you pay for the device, you should be able to use the hardware.
Yes, they've since more than doubled the support lifetimes to seven years.
What about when that “support” is to brick your battery so your phone lasts hours because they know it is defective but don’t want to fix it?
Google’s hardware track record is a joke compared to Apple.
Not arguing with your point about Google, but isn't Apple very often accused of forced obsolescence through updates to their phones? Is there any truth to the accusations of "running slower and dying faster" after a new model releases?
Communication wise, the whole thing (4a in my case, but the others seemed similar) was a disaster. But they offered to fix it for free (via battery swap)
My understanding is that, depending on the phone vendor, such support may only apply to security updates after ~3 years and not feature updates.
It's only been 2.5 years since they said that. I'm sure they will walk back on their word before it has been 7 years.
The increased update timelines by Google, Samsung and others roughly coincided with EU legislation coming into effect that mandates 5 years of updates after end of sales. We'll see.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/From-June-20-EU-gives-smartphon...
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Do you have any part examples of them committing to a specific support timeline on a product and reneging on it? I can't think of one.
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I mean I guess anything is possible, but the Pixel 6 and 7 also are receiving 5+ years of updates, and those sure seem real so far.
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Pixels receive at least 7 years now.