Prominent Android manufacturers commit to supporting phone software for 7 years
Samsung phones now come backed with seven years' worth of security updates and seven generations of OS upgrades.
Hopefully a blow to planned obsolescence
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How relevant to it is this though? Like never - not once - have I ever heard of someone upgrading their phone because their version of Android was too old.
It's far more likely they'll upgrade due to degraded performance and/or battery life packed into these updates with either new features (or more like, anti-features if we're being cynical). Want to use a smartphone for its lifespan? Don't upgrade software unless you absolutely need to. This actually applies to any computers really.
If anything, thanks to manufacturers like Samsung slowly overwriting android with their bloatware crap most people aren't even aware of what version of android they run because it doesn't even look anything like any other version of android on any other phone, unfortunately brands like Samsung succeeded in creating a soft walled garden for users by obscuring the fact they're using anything but 'A Samsung'.
Ask a non-tech savvy user for a USB-C charger, and they'll not know what you mean, but ask them for a Samsung charger and they'll hand you USB-C.
My phone pushes over the air updates every couple of months. These have included android 13 and 14, and various patches.
Android updates aren't something you have to go and get, they come to you. Having the long term support means your phone will always have the latest user features and security improvements, even for non technical users. People can and do install these all the time.
Yes but that doesn't address the fact that people won't throw away their phone just because it doesn't have an update.
Plus user features for most people will be independent of the Android version since not many android features actually make it to Samsung's touchwiz/oneui/whatever-this-month for example
Eventually apps people care about stop supporting the old OS. I liked Android 4 so much and held to it for very long, but fewer and fewer apps were working with it
I have. I would probably use my last phone for at least another year if it didn't loose system updates. There's too much important personal data (bank, photos, messages including medical info...) on the phone to risk using it unsupported. At least to me it is not worth it so I try to buy a phone with reasonably long support and buy a new one soon after the old one looses support.
I have. Multiple times.
Some of my banking apps will refuse to run on older phones as well.
I've worked at companies where security would refuse to let people run the company workspace on an older phone. So if people wanted to work from home, or check the email from the phone, they needed to upgrade.
I do agree, for most people, battery life is more impactful before security runs out. But if you replace the battery, then security becomes the limiting factor
This will have an impact on companies issuing Android phones to employees, which may be required to use an actively supported device for security reasons.
