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Don't iPhone routinely get 7 years of support?
The iPhone 6s came out in Sept 2015, it can't run the latest iOS, but it can run the previous version which is still getting security updates.
iPhone 6s isn't even the oldest iPhone still receiving security updates, according to the page you linked.
Ctrl+F for "iPhone 5s", and you will see that it received a security update less than 2 months ago. And that's a phone released in September of 2013, making it almost a 10 year old phone by now.
If more Android phones provided longer support, it would be a reason for a lot of people to move back to Android from iOS.
iOS is still pretty far behind android, apart from being faster and looking nicer. Bad notification system, bad keyboard, no split screen mode, inability to turn off animations, no proper cellular data tracking.
> apart from being faster and looking nicer
And less crashes, longer support, better security (imo). I wouldn’t call that “far behind”, but more like just personal preference. These points matter much more to me than the inability to turn off animation.
I’m sure those things matter to some people bit they don’t seem to matter to a lot of people. Readers on HN are most definitely not typical.
And you can't turn off wifi and data for Apple services which means Apple spies you all the time.
* press F to doubt *
What I'm surprised to not see here is no mention of firmware updates. The Fairphones still use Qualcomm SoCs which only receive 2Y firmware updates.
I wonder how they get code to "Qualcomm closed-source components".
That means only the software side would be receiving the 7 years. Seems I'm not the only one who has wondered that https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1444035302822223872
tbh, seems like false marketing, Samsung and Apple support their SoC firmware for that full support period.
Yes, it is an article on android authority about android providers for people interested in the android ecosystem
I just wish phones could be more like computers in this regard, but now even my ThinkPad P51 has been cut-off from Windows 11.
I remember the issues with Vista being gimped by hardware and getting a bad rap but at this point we have so much power, there’s no performance reason why they can’t make Windows 11 work on even a T420.
The future kinda sucks, maybe I should fully embrace Linux because it runs like a dream on all of the above mentioned laptops which is why I feel like Windows has no good excuse.
I’ll cut companies some slack since I know the federal reserve and our scam of a financial system is constantly making everything more of a race-to-the-bottom than it would otherwise naturally be, and of course there’s the hardware security excuses, but there’s clearly some collusion between hardware and software makers to help each other out in more ways than just ease of compatibility…
> there’s clearly some collusion between hardware and software makers to help each other out in more ways than just ease of compatibility
In Apple's case, the hardware and software are by the same company, yet they support their phones the longest of anyone.
> our scam of a financial system is constantly making everything more of a race-to-the-bottom
The money-printing funds weirder things cause it encourages passive investing, I think. Like, the moment they pulled back on that last year, dumb stuff like weird cryptocurrencies and Google's side bets instantly vaporized, but things like the smartphone industry were less affected.
There’s sort of a thing where you can’t just have a sustainable company because if you don’t increase your profits you end up losing money, just like how not getting a pay raise is actually a pay cut.
Inflation seems often glossed over as no big deal in theory but in reality it doesn’t balance out cleanly at all. So basically cutting costs and finding ways to increase profit becomes more than just investor motivated and here we are in the future where labor is expensive (also due to regulatory/liability burden) and materials are cheap so things end up being increasingly boring and stripped away.
Just compare architecture from 200 years ago and today and it’s a visual economic metaphor for everything else, and the side-effect of vanishing elegance and culture is like a twisting of the economic dagger.
Old phones are getting passed on to others and more phones = network effect to sell services. Apple already makes a killing on icloud.
Everything old is new again.
Computers as consumer electronics was the reality of 8 and 16 bit home computers, which the PC clone market became the exception, only due to IBM's failure to control it.
Turns out that with that model it is easier to make money from, than selling computer parts and free OS updates .
The other old thing was heterogeneous hardware. We had x86-Wintel for a long time, with all the emphasis on generic CPU speed and RAM and desktop OSes. People took that level of homogeneity for granted. Now hardware and software are each getting more specialized.
New smartphones are more stable than they used to be, though. Used to go obsolete way faster.
in a way software is getting less pinholed to a specific os thanks to Electron.
Third-party software on desktop is, yeah. The two big mobile OSs are resisting web apps, though.
Your thinkpad isn't missing out. There's no option to never combine taskbar icons.
I paid for this utility that fixes that problem: https://www.startallback.com/
It makes no sense to me that Windows does not have this option available. Some of us find it hard to work without this basic functionality.
I'm happy to hear that the Fairphone is getting regular updates, and I'm very happy with my Fairphone 4.
And it's still possible to switch to LineageOS if you want to. (I've been meaning to try, but haven't had the energy to do it.)
With apologies to very hard working volunteers I'm sure, I have to say: I am bloody petrified of the state of LineageOS and the idea that after-market Android OSes have any relevance. This is really such a sad missed opportunity for Google to have created a useful boisterous place of innovation & interest, so far.
There are some good signs. LineageOS 19 & 19.1 has done a very good job getting Android 12L on all kinds of old phones, which shows incredible incredible promise that Android has never had before. Many predate Project Treble (hoisting drivers to run in userland, targetting an Android framework not-a-kernel (but kind of also it's own different kernel), rather than targeting the ever-moving kernel), but supposedly that will help keep things moving forward too.
And I'm probably just missing something or expecting to much... but there are sooo few moderately current phones supported. The LineageOS 20.0 nightlies[1] page has a few dozen phones. And the lion's share harken from considerably before 2020. I'm shopping for phones (with my current touchscreen cracked & digitizer quite on the fritz now), and this has been quite chilling an indicator.
Don't forget graphene os [0]. It is only for google pixel devices but they have the newest phone supported.
I recently decided against a 1+10 Pro for a 9 Pro. Price was a factor, as was the fact that they are not massively different in capabilities. But the final nail in the coffin was alternative rom support. Both are not officially supported by Lineage (yet?). But there are inofficial builds for the 9. Apparently OnePlus stopped supporting some tool that is needed to safely develop roms without risking to brick the phone.
FP2 is currently supported at Android R by /e/: https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP2
> Fairphone’s CFO, Noud Tillemans, told us the company sold around 120,000 devices last year — up from around 88,000 in 2021 and 23,000 in 2018. [1]
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/31/fairphone-growth-capital-r...
The Fairphone 2 is still supported by /e/OS (on Android R)
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP2
The beauty of open source.
It’s pretty sad that 7 years is considered a long time in the ever disposable phone world…
I'm rocking the 1+ 6T w/ Android 13 still