github.com/guardianprojec
What could possibly go wrong holding back dependency upgrades and even forcefully downgrading them to support ancient end-of-life Android versions released in 2014 and end-of-life since after 2017?
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Each major Android version receives 3 years of monthly security updates. In the first year, there are also monthly updates with assorted improvements and quarterly updates with major enhancements. 2nd/3rd year are LTS support. Nexus/Pixel phones have never used the LTS support.
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Android 9 was released August 2018 and has been end-of-life since February 2022.
Pixel 3 launched with Android 9 and ended up on Android 12. It's EOL due to end of SoC support. It could have had a full 3 more years of updates on Android 12 if the SoC was still supported...
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Meanwhile an iPhone 6S released nearly seven years ago is still supported and will be for at least four more years. This is why I switched even if I didn't want to. Google needs to do better.
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Pixel 6 has a minimum of 5 years of support which is pretty close to getting the full use out of the 6 year Linux kernel LTS branch support. It could perhaps be guaranteed to be supported longer if they were confident in the ability to switch LTS branches.
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I was under the impression they were divorcing the hardware from the OS in terms of support but those efforts rarely seemed to go anywhere. Hopefully the Pixel 6 makes it possible for other venders to support 5 years, we are past the point where 2-3 year upgrades make any sense.
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It's already the case that the major OS version can be upgraded for the system image while still using a previous major OS version for the code providing the device support, i.e. the kernel drivers and HAL. it doesn't mean you don't need to keep providing security updates for it.
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