cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/2136203 (!samsung@lemdro.id)
Samsung is an industry leader when it comes to Android OS and security updates. There are only a few Android manufacturers that can match the four years of Android OS and five years of security updates that it provides. Never one to rest on its laurels, the company is now actively considering to expand the […]
Samsung is an industry leader when it comes to Android OS and security updates.
Great on them for considering doing the right thing, but they are not much of a leader if they only react after Google announced 7 years of support for the Pixel 8 😂
… Unless they top that with 12 years…
Google hasn’t actually done the 7 years of support yet. If they were serious about long term support it wouldn’t have been just an announcement. They would be rolling out Android 14 to all the pixel devices from 7 years ago.
They won’t do that, because older Pixel phones used Qualcomm SoCs and Qualcomm didn’t support these SoCs for more than three Android versions.
They might technically be able to extend support for the Pixel 6 and up (Tensor SoC), depending on the contract and who, Google or Samsung, is responsible for providing the chipset drivers. But even if it is technically possible to extend support, it is probably also unlikely to happen due to the additional expenses it requires.
Overall it’ll be interesting to see how many phones actually live long enough to see their final update after seven years. Considering I already had to replace the battery on my three year old Pixel 5 once (which initially came with Android 10 and got updated to Android 14). USB connectors and broken screens are also common failure points for aging phones.
This doesn’t stop Google supporting the older Qualcomm phones. It just means they need to be responsible for the drivers, or contract Qualcomm to do it (which will cost Google extra).
That literally doesn’t make any sense. When Samsung announced it was going to 5 years it didn’t update all the stuff in the past. It’s a new thing starting with the new devices. They might give a little extension to devices still getting updates, but devices that already stopped getting updates are likely to have been upgraded from already and possibly harder to continue supporting.
Samsung was the leader. Google had to respond after years of being behind someone that doesn’t even work directly on the OS. Doesn’t stop Samsung being a leader if they change and go even farther.
Maybe they could open source their drivers so custom ROMs are easier to make
They have a ton of phone models, it’s gonna be difficult task for them to maintain all of them beyond 5 years.
The 5+ years updates could be just for their flagship/premium line up.
Yep, AFAIK their current policy of 4 years upgrade only covers devices that use One UI (the lower end models uses One UI Core which have some features stripped). So that means only A5x and up devices.
