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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It doesn't make sense and isn't possible. Firmware and device support code in the OS need to be supported for the lifetime of the device with bug fixes including security updates. It's also best if it does get updated to the new major OS version despite not needing to do it.
There's already a minimum guarantee of 5 years of support for the Pixel 6 and a minimum guarantee of 3 major OS upgrades. Qualcomm provides 4 years of support for their smartphone SoC. The status quo is that there are 4 years of security updates on Samsung devices and others.
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Android fully supports providing security updates to a device for at least 6 years without any difficulty. I don't know where you got the impression that it doesn't. Can easily do 3 years of major updates via Treble and then 3 years of updates on that 4th major version.
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