Article refrains from drawing conclusions, instead presenting the data. Android is doing better at moving users to newer versions, but the overwhelming majority of users don’t have the current Android OS version nor the previous version, combined.
Article refrains from drawing conclusions, instead presenting the data. Android is doing better at moving users to newer versions, but the overwhelming majority of users don’t have the current Android OS version nor the previous version, combined.
Google and flagship variants of Samsung are only ones offering 7 years of support. There is technically Fairphone but it’s not available in multiple countries. In my country, even the so called budget Pixel 8a currently retails beyond what most consumers would ever splurge on a device. There is only Samsung in the proper mid range segment that offers 4 years of OS upgrades. Chinese OEMs that often dominate the market won’t give you anything over two.
Software support is expensive. If you can’t afford a €400-€500 phone, you’ll end up with the models where every cost cutting measure is applied. Nobody is paying for seven years of support on a phone that’s normally sold for €100 because they can’t afford anything better.
Samsung is doing five years of support (four Android version updates) for a phone released for €300 half a year ago. If you buy a Samsung Galaxy A25 5G for about €190 now, you’ll still get almost 4½ of upstream support and three Android version upgrades. I don’t think expecting more than that is reasonable.
Xiaomi is doing four years of support on a phone released for €240. I think the price/support for Xiaomi scales quite well compared to Samsung, so Chinese phones aren’t universally bad either. However, Xiaomi’s OS is shit so I wouldn’t want to be stuck with that for four years.
If you go even cheaper than that, you get HMD(“Nokia”)'s 2 upgrades/3 years of security updates program. Not much, but you can’t expect much for a phone retailing at €140. I’m surprised they can even cover the cost of materials on those things, let alone OS development.
My biggest gripe is the lack of security updates, to be honest. They’re a lot less work to implement, and most patches come straight from Google. Even mid range phones should at least get those as long as they’re available. It’s not like there’s a kernel upgrade necessary to patch a bug in the Android Java internals. I can live with not getting Android 15, but at least patch the damn Android framework bugs! The exception to that is, of course, driver support from companies like Qualcomm, who do offer maintenance contracts, but usually at a price that cost-cutting brands aren’t willing to invest in, because that keeps prices nice and low.
I think we’ve been spoiled by getting Windows for free for so long. It makes sense for macOS software to be free if you look at those prices, but after Microsoft abused their market dominance to force Windows everywhere (rather than having the consumer buy Windows for €100), people just expect software to be maintained for free. If you’re not willing to spend money on the software, you’ll need to pay that money upfront by buying a device with a support lifetime that matches your expectations.
(for American readers: prices mentioned include 21% VAT)
I wasn’t spoiled by Windows. I was spoiled by Android’s relative, Linux. :p
I love Linux, but it has the same problems. The Android equivalent of Linux on the desktop is custom ROMs, which often support hardware longer than the manufacturer did, just like on Windows. Linux on the desktop is free because manufacturers put in the work for free, which is why a lot of cheapo Chinese hardware often has issues with working well on Linux, as they don’t do that.
Someone could make a universal Linux for Android, bring it out as a GSI for everyone to flash, but nobody is putting in the effort to make that possible. Instead, people work on their own little tweaked branches for specific devices, because that’s a lot easier than unifying everything into a dynamic, universal system. They’re all tiny projects, often done by a group where each device gets one or two maintainers who do the work in their free time, all for free, just like Linux!
Attempts at bringing a third party OS to phones have been made (Ubuntu Touch) and are still being made (PostmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch (the non-canonical fork), Jolla’s Sailfish), but they’re even less popular than Linux on the desktop. There are also very few developers behind it compared to free operating systems like Linux or one of the BSDs. But, sadly, running Linux on a phone is like running Linux on the desktop in the early 2000s: it mostly works, if your hardware happens to be supported.
I was positively surprised to see that nix mobile distros(if one could call that) were easily swappable. Something as simple as putting in a different image on microSD card and flashing it. But there were so many issues from screen issues to unoptimized apps to even call quality problems. It has a long way to go.