Funny, the comment types here are the same as on Youtube:
- “I still run Android and it is totally fine, will never switch Android just got worse!”
- “Well, money”
- “Companies need to support phones longer”
- “I just use LineageOS on that device”
- Misinformation
It’s not like the end users typically get any choice… either the service provider makes an update available or they don’t.
Your choice is making sure to buy a well supported, timely updated device. If you can’t is a different issue. But, if you don’t is on you. Vote with your wallet.
Your choice is making sure to buy a well supported, timely updated device.
Sure, that choice is currently available, but it wasn’t when many of those devices were purchased. For example, I’m currently using a Galaxy S10e which had just about the best support of any Android phone. Now I’m stuck on Android 12. I actually planned on using it with Lineage, but somewhere between my S7 and the S10e, Samsung stopped using Exynos in their Canadian phones, and I didn’t realize it. The hardware is still more than good, and as others have pointed out, with Play Service updates, the software isn’t really obsolete either, it’s just a concern I’m not getting security updates.
Vote with your wallet
Buy new device if old one isn’t supported anymore
Hmm
I don’t blame the users. There’s usually no way to upgrade android versions, so we get stuck unless we replace the phone, and most people can’t afford to replace their phones so often. I’d go further and say that people shouldn’t be supposed to replace their phones because of a new software version. The android’s distribution model is flawed, we should be able to upgrade our phones the same way we upgrade linux distros. If it was possible, then I would blame users for running unmaintained software.
Google really needs to decouple the hardware from the OS. There’s no good reason newer Android couldn’t be installed on older phones.
Google doesnt do anything here. The OEMs need to port the Android kernel to older hardware.
They often just support one LTS kernel.
But Android even supports the LTS kernel for 6 years now.
Google develops Android and thus is responsible for it’s update scheme. They already changed it quite a bit in the last years with GSIs and Project Treble but there’s still no real seperation that would allow the same drivers and hardware blobs to be used independent of the Android Version or updating the Android version without these needing to be included every time.
That’s what needs to change.
Their own phones have support for the mainline kernel. It is the vendors that dont want to upstream their drivers and produce half-proprietary garbage they dont publish, so nobody can update these devices.
My 4GB phone was perfectly usable on Android 11. It upgrade itself to android 12 and it’s basically can’t keep a second app in background anymore.
Try a lighter custom ROM if you can. LineageOS’s implementation of Android 14 is still usable with a 4 GB device.
Changing ROMs is a huge pain. Not only it can brick the phone, full backups were basically made impossible long ago. It’s best to do it as soon as you purchase the phone and that’s what I am gonna do.
Agreed. Now if only I could find a good device. I am very picky with hardware. I want a Motorola phone with a headphone jack and Lineage OS that works in the US.
I will note that you need to do a complete wipe when changing Roms. It breaks random things in the OS
Nah, it’s pretty easy. I’ve done it many times myself. You have to be pretty unlucky or stupid to brick a phone.
It works well with a 3gb device. I honestly was expecting it to croak but it works better than new phones with Google junk.
The update ecosystem is still continuously being crippled by both the device vendors, and for some fucking reason, the carriers
