This is an overall win. The upward pressure is good for everyone, as phones have passed the meteoric rise of speed. Devices have been able to last far longer than their update cycle for a few years now.
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Cool do the same for the rest.
Wait I'm confused are they going to up it to 8 years now for the 8th gen or is the number of years still up to debate? Either way not bad especially if they keep their current practices of being repairable and third party os friendly
Have you read the article
One can dream. Also, given the upcoming EU regulations around replaceable batteries, they may have some work done around this area too. That would be essential for a device with long term support.
Would have loved to see this for my 4A but glad they're looking to extend the support window moving forward. Many phones now are powerful enough to go years past their obsolescence date and chucking them away is just e-waste.
Only 3 years of OS updates, then you need a new phone. Give 5 years directly so you can start thinking about competing with iOS. What is the problem? They have control of the software and the hardware like Apple.
The 'problem' is that supporting 'old' hardware won't net them the same high profit margins to which they've grown accustomed.
Not really true because Apple can do it, higher margins and support OS much longer. The problem is how they design their OS and the amount of work required. Just look at how long time Windows support all hardware. It is possible, all is just software. They just need to take the hugh upfront cost of the software development that can even help other vendors and suddenly you can do a lot of about the big OS fragmentation problem. You want your latest OS to run on like 90% of all devices. Today, I guess that number is down to like 15%.
Custom roms have proven that Pixels could have lasted about an extra 1-2 more android versions before performance really caught up. The Pixel 2 could run Android 13, albeit a bit buggier since it's unofficial. My only guess would be costly reasons for Google to further support those devices longer at the time.
This article is garbage. It never says what the expected change even is. Like is it 5 years? Idk since it never says.
It's pretty embarrassing that Google got outdone by Samsung on the update front. Mid range Samsungs getting more Android version updates than flagship Google Pixel devices should never happen. Google matching or exceeding them is the minimum of what should be expected.
Also the first few generations of tensor just being a rebadged Exynos processor has hit their reputation hard. Everyday users don't know what chip is in their phone, but they do know that cell reception and thermals have gotten worse since the change.
With how terrible my P7P update experience has been (literally every update has made the phone buggier and more unstable) I'm no longer sure if this is a good thing or not. Maybe if they fix their insane QA issues.
Switch to graphene OS
I got my phone through my carrier. Unbeknownst to me at the time, carrier provided phones have locked bootloaders so you can't install grapheneOS on them, or if you can, I haven't found a guide to reliably do so. The phone was $800 off through the carrier so I can't complain too much, but I would have got it straight from Google if I had known prior to buying that you can't install grapheneOS on it.
Wish I could unlock my Verizon Pixel 7 Pro's bootloader so I can put something less robust on it.
My Pixel 5 was going strong until it landed face down on some granite.
#1 reason I'll never buy anything Verizon. Had to prematurely get rid of phones that could've lasted years more.
Doesn't mean much with how bad the QA and overall lifespan of Pixel devices have been unfortunately. Hopefully better this time but hard to want to put money in when the previous generations all had such issues and bad QC.
Extending warranty for the 5As then handing out equally defective devices is a pain. I'm on my 3rd one and I'm really not planning on it surviving over a year since none of the others did and when they died I was sitting down using the phone.
Only thing keeping me on them is GrapheneOS, too difficult to go back after getting a taste of it lol
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