I owned the original Nexus 5 phone and Nexus 7 tablet. I love both of these devices for their design but both had serious issues.
The Nexus 7's storage degraded, which rendered the device unusably slow. I thought it was the upgrade to the next version of Android that did it, but downgrading it did not fix the issue. There's been some workarounds that made it slightly more usable but ultimately it was a serious hardware defect that made it unbearably slow to use even with these workarounds.
The Nexus 5 had a bootlooping issue — I had the issue occur on my first Nexus 5, 2 weeks out of warranty. Fortunately Google was kind enough to send me a refurbished one... that shortly after had the same bootloop issue.
My opinion of Google has gradually deteriorated over time to the point now where I actively avoid using anything made by Google because 1) they can't do hardware right and 2) they sunset way too many products for me to feel comfortable using them. So the promise of 7 years of OS updates on a hardware device by Google just seems empty and maybe pointless because I don't trust the device itself will continue functioning, even if the updates keep coming... which I have doubts they will.
While I was still using Android, my Samsung Galaxy S6 was probably the most headache-free experience I had, even with the complete lack of feature/OS updates but as it stands, my iPhones have all been rock solid devices, so that is probably what I will continue using unless something drastic changes.
I have to admit, I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum there, having had both devices
I loved my 2012 Nexus 7, and was a Day 1 upgrader to the 2013 model (my Mom enjoyed the 2012 for many years for eBooks and Facebook)
My Nexus 5 I was also a day 1 purchase, upgrading from a slowly deteriorating Galaxy S2. Unfortunately I had to replace it much earlier after I slipped and fell on uneven concrete and shattered the screen
If Google could just take the SoC of the Pixel 6/7/8/whatever and stuff it in the housing of the Nexus 7 2013, give it a modern battery and a nice OLED screen it would truly be the best tablet on the market. But instead they want "bigger" and are chasing after the iPad with the new pixel tablet
> But instead they want "bigger" and are chasing after the iPad with the new pixel tablet
I bought a 11" tablet BECAUSE it is much bigger than a phone, so I can comfortably watch videos and read technical documents. I might have considered as small as 8", but 10" was really the minimum in my mind.
Given that most android phones are 6-6.5" already, why would anyone buy a 7" tablet in addition to their phone? Maybe as a throwaway gift to a child? Would the market be large enough to be worth it?
My 2013 Nexus 7 refused to die- I used it until late 2022, when I finally replaced it with a Samsung Galaxy Tab A, which is almost as good though I miss the "pure Android" minimal experience; I don't care for Samsung's additions to the base Android platform.
My thought when I read it as well. I've owned Nexus 4, 5, 6, Pixel 1, 2, 3, 4 and finally gave up. Half of these phones were purchased because the previous model crapped out. I am not a heavy phone user either. I think I stuck with them because there was always some integration with Google and iPhone that didn't make me happy, but whatever it is must have been solved by the time I got an iPhone because I'm on three years with mine. Probably won't replace it for another three years.
> The Nexus 7's storage degraded, which rendered the device unusably slow. I thought it was the upgrade to the next version of Android that did it, but downgrading it did not fix the issue. There's been some workarounds that made it slightly more usable but ultimately it was a serious hardware defect that made it unbearably slow to use even with these workarounds.
It's worse these days than in the nexus days. Google slaps extremely cheap NAND into their phones and it ends up failing after 2-3 years of daily use. Everyone I know that uses pixel phones either cycles through a new phone yearly or gets bitten by a sudden hardware failure and swears off the brand entirely.
Frankly, Google are too cheap and they expect their users to not care. I will never forget them trying to push the idea the Nexus 10 felt like a premium device . . . to whom exactly? Shame as well, as in some important respects it was way ahead of the curve, even if fatally flawed.
Samsung hardware (and Huawei if you can still get and use it) is superb by comparison, but they just can't help themselves when it comes to the creepiness of the user experiences.
> I will never forget them trying to push the idea the Nexus 10 felt like a premium device
To be fair Nexus 10 was a premium device (with its 2GB RAM and 2560x1600 screen in 2012). I still have mine and runs without any issues (except the degraded battery).
> Samsung hardware (and Huawei if you can still get and use it) is superb by comparison
Nexus products weren't _technically_ made by Google. 5 was LG's design and 7 was Asus'. During this era Google specifically stuck to working on the software while passing on the technical designs to other partners.
After the rug pull of the Pixel Pass, I'm done with Google. That was one of the scammiest things they've ever done. I'm still fucking pissed about it and it's been a month.
I hate Google management (as opposed to the company's good products). I signed up for You Tube Premium Lite just 9 months ago. Received by email this morning (below), they tell me I was one of their first subscribers, but they're discontinuing the product and canceling our business relationship without prejudice and without looking back. How has this become a way of doing business?
Hi Bill,
Thank you for being one of our first Premium Lite members.
We're writing to let you know that after 25 October 2023, we will no longer be offering your version of Premium Lite. While we understand that this may be disappointing news, we continue to work on different versions of Premium Lite as we incorporate feedback from our users, creators and partners.
We will cancel your membership on 25 October 2023. Your Premium Lite benefits will expire at the end of your billing cycle and you will not be billed further.
I am not sure why people think it was scammy? Pixel Pass was a glorified device financing option. Unlike Apple iPhone Upgrade Program where you trade in your phone. The upgrade isn’t free you still need to pay monthly for next two years when you upgrade. You can still upgrade for much cheaper with 0% financing. Also when you subscribe to Spotify or Netflix is there an expectation that you get the same price you signed up for when they increase price? That is the same happening here. For two years people got the Pixel Pass were paying for the device financing + perks. They only paid for device they got and not for any future device. Take a look at Pixel financing cost it is much cheaper than Pixel Pass and when you finance you have the option to trade in old phone and get reduced finance rate.
I was done years ago and look upon with admiration those done with them a decade or two ago.
Google is just YouTube to me now. I am amazed at how their management hasn’t seriously tackled the reputational crisis their company has. That being their reputation for abandoning their products to save Google money at their customers expense.
Google at this point is a PR machine for Microsoft and their commitment to long term support and I don’t even like Microsoft.
My Nexus 7 had the same issue. It's a shame really because for the first 18 months I owned it I loved it. In it's prime, I think it's still my all-time favorite device.
Once it slowed to the point of being unusable, I gave it to my son to tinker with. He loaded an alternative OS on it and that worked for a while but eventually it also slowed. Last I knew it was serving as a print server for his 3D printer although now I think it lives in a bin with other outdated hardware and about 100 cables that we haven't thrown out yet.
Owned a Pixel 1 in the past, and it started to suffer from the same issue, so this may be an inherent problem in flash storage (at least as it's implemented in mobile phones).
I really tried to ride that train, had a Nexus 6, which got stuck in an unrecoverable boot loop after a year, after that a Nexus 6P which bricked itself similarly, and then a flagship Samsung Note something, which couldn't be charged because of "moisture in the port" after a year, despite it being completely dry, after which the battery inflated so much it blew open the whole case.
Then I bought an iPhone 11 Pro and it "just works" to this day, with no replacement needed in sight. After years of being that guy who explains the "dangers" of walled garden ecosystems to my boomer iPhone parents, I joined their gang and have been living carefree since.
I don't think Google do thermal cycling on their phones as part of the development cycle.
If they did, the phones would be much more reliable. If the phone can survive cycling between -25C and 85C 2000 times, then it will most likely survive many years in your pocket.
They should also test weeks of salt spray and hours in a tumbler with sand dust and lint.
Are you sure that wasn't a Nexus 5X? I'm still using a Nexus 5 (running some LineageOS fork) as a media controller.
I had a Nexus 5X that bootlooped, so I traded in its replacement for a Pixel 2, but its microphone died, and its replacement had a perma-locked bootloader... but the Nexus 5 is still doing fine.
It was both, but they bootlooped for different reasons. Nexus 5 had a faulty power button that could fail in a couple of ways. Nexus 5X was something about how the components on the PCB were constructed being of iffy quality. You could get lucky and never have the 5 fail whereas the 5X was/is guaranteed to fail. I bought a 5X purely for device testing. It was basically unused 99% of its lifetime (6+ years) and eventually started bootlooping last year.
Yes, it was a Nexus 5. There's been several phones that have had this issue from Google... which is all the more reason I wouldn't buy another Google hardware device.
I still have a functional Nexus 7 that I used as an ebook reader for a long while until replacing it with a kobo e-ink device. The N7 still boots. I wonder if there's anything useful I could do with it. It paid for itself many times over in the first 3 years and everything at this point is just bonus.
The nexus 7 storage was an issue with one particular flash module that was used in some of the units. It can even be replaced though it's a lot of work requiring specialised tools unfortunately.
Yeah I feel like Samsung has a very good value proposition in 2023. I guess my biggest thing is it requires you to remove all the bloat and adware as a prerequisite.
Same. I had both those devices and at the time of purchase they were a great value contrast to the iPhone/iPad. But, after the issues you describe I went back to iPhones and never looked back. Google had a great opportunity that they squandered.
The problem isn't so much that Google has a hard time old phones on their OS maintenance team books, and even just phoning in the effort to keep them working (hah). It's that they actively don't want to do any work that isn't sexy and supporting new products. I don't think their teams are incentivized to do so.
Let me play it out with an example.
At Apple, a team/individual might be actively told to have to use an iPhone 8 for their daily use, so they get to experience what it's like for a user with an older phone. They solve the users' pain by solving their own pain, and commit to making the experience actually better with future iOS releases. Not just keeping it working but actually making it better if possible.
Google has shown time and time again that they're not thinking like that. Or at least not setting up the company to be rewarded like that.
I will also posit that the single-handed ownership of the iOS app store makes deficiencies fall squarely on Apple, so they are more directly blamed/responsible when phone performance gets worse. With Android, and so many reasons a team could claim that other factors are causing negative trends in performance, who cares to keep making an old phone better?
I agree with the theme of your post, but I think it's often overlooked that Android doesn't necessitate full operating system updates to deliver new functionality as iOS does. Owners will regularly receive updates to basic apps such as phone, calendar, contacts, etc. through the on-going Play Store updates, even after 3 years.
This often gets brought up, but it's only because of a similar ill-discipline to what the comment you replied to is talking about.
AOSP has basic apps for all of those use cases, but presumably because it's much sexier to work on closed source in-house apps that get to be updated as often as the team feels like instead of being forced to work in the margins of the OS update schedule... they languished to the point of unusability.
I'm not even sure if they'd all run on the latest version of Android, some of them are still using Kit-Kat era UIs last I checked
But the phone is still worthless and unable to be used once it stops getting security updates.
eg google killed my last pixel by cutting off security updates like one month before a full login bypass was discovered. I mean cute, I could still get updated apps... but anyone in possession of my phone could login as me.
As a former Googler who worked on some Android things I can say that this is untrue. There are many other reasons why Android devices don't keep up with iOS but a lack of Googlers using them is not one of them. There are many thousands of Googlers using outdated Android devices and there is a rich internal bug reporting culture.
Anecdotally, this doesn't match my current experience working on this stuff at Google. I see a lot of effort put into backwards compatibility.
Now I'm not talking about policies, and this may or may not be true for everyone involved, but the generalisation that this isn't being worked on or incentivised does not appear true to me.
I think 15 years is too much given how fast technology is churning.
So I think 15y might slow that down (but maybe that's good? I'm not sure). It would also probably increase prod/maintenance expenses, which would likely just be offloaded to the consumers unfortunately.
I do agree with your sentiment, though. There should be a minimum, and something like 6-8 years seems sensible to me!
I just switched over to IPhone after a solid three years on a Pixel 4a 5g and am having some adjustment pains with iOS related to lack of these features. Live transcription is another super useful feature I truly value during long, annoying calls with call menu options (IRS, hospitals, etc), since it is so helpful to see what the previous options were without having to listen to the entire damn menu again.
Then there are small annoyances like not having the option to enable auto-space after punctuation like commas and periods in messages, even with third-party keyboards like swift keybaord. And not being able to set a separate ringer and alarm volume. I keep my ringer volume very low during the day, but I depend on a loud alarm. Got to work late today as a consequence of this!
I'm already considering switching back to pixel 8 once it releases next month, especially due to the increased support. Only thing holding me back is tensor chips not yet being on par until around 2025 when Google releases its first fully custom chip.
Honestly the processor speed in the Pixel 7s is plenty fast enough. I can't imagine getting any benefit from a faster processor. I'm sure faster is better in some sense but given that there's no perceptible lag or anything I'm not sure what you'd want it to be faster for. Chrome starts in around half a second, pages render quickly, etc.
Yeah I agree. The main one for me is being able to make all the display elements smaller (I have good eyesight). iOS seems hugely zoomed in to me and the display scaling really helps show more information in information dense apps like spreadsheets.
I also really appreciate the network diagnostics you get from an app like NetMonster.
I don't use either of those features, but the one reason I stick with Pixel phones is bloatware. The amount of useless bloatware that comes with most phones is horrid. I went with a Samsung tablet because Google (at the time) stopped making tablets. The tablet hardware is good, but even after 2 years of owning the device, I still get nagged constantly for not using samsung specific apps/features that I have zero use for. Google does do some nagging on Pixel phones for their silly features, but I have found them much easier to turn off.
My single feature that keeps me on Android is notifications. I want an unobtrusive visual only (I never want my phone to vibrate or make a noise unless my wife or kid is calling) indication that there's something needing my attention. On Android a tiny icon appears in the status bar. On iOS it's an obnoxious pop up banner or nothing at all.
Has Google copied the "Focus" feature that allows you to have different notification settings for different activities?
For instance, when I set my focus to "at work" I may decide to mute all notifications for social media apps and send calls that aren't from my family straight to voice mail. When I'm at home or at the gym, I may want my notification settings to be completely different.
Without that feature the Android notification system is much less flexible.
my iphone is permanently in one of the focus modes and it works surprisingly well. it's work/sleep unless I expect a message or a call late night (sleep mode automatically declines calls.) there are some high priority notifications that go through in work mode, but honestly never bothered with figuring out how to make an app high or low priority or how to configure my own focus mode. it's enough for me that messages from my family pop up a high priority notification and most everything else doesn't.
I'd still be happy with just my (GrapheneOS) Pixel 3, if only it were still getting closed blob security updates.
Instead, I've had to replace it repeatedly: Pixel 3, Pixel 4a, Pixel 5, and now Pixel 6a.
Each model upgrade was a regression in size and weight. The only improvement I liked was in the cameras, but photography-wise they're still only cameraphone snapshot grade, so not a worthwhile upgrade to me. I would've rather been able to keep using the Pixel 3.
I'm looking forward to keeping the Pixel 6a awhile (once the carrier flakiness that coincided with the move the other day settles down).
(Edit: Unless there comes out some local ML model that I want that needs more processing hardware.)
I bought Pixel 6 after using Pixel 3a. "On paper" size-wise it seems nearly the same (1mm+ in each dimension) but in reality I feel like having a brick now, to the point I still prefer using my 3a on the go.
I didn't realize but 147g vs 207g makes for an enormous difference. Also 1-2mm in each dimension and now it can't fit my pockets anymore.
However, Call Screening is now available on iOS 17 (called Live Voicemail)
I've purchased my first iPhone as of a few days ago now that they have that... I'll miss Hold for me, but it's not enough to stop me from the Pixel bugs/hardware issues I've been experiencing. The iPhone 15 is amazing so far!
I'm a long time nexus/pixel user also considering switching to iPhone. For me, it's more about wanting a good integrated smart watch, and the pixel watch seems overpriced and has a weird half-baked FitBit integration in typical Google style, and I don't want a Samsung watch or generic fitness tracker.
One thing that's been holding me back, though, is notification management. I love the little app icons at the top and the pull down shade and such. I don't have that much experience with iOS, but it seems notifications work fairly differently. Has that been an issue for you?
iOS now supports live voicemails. Functionally equivalent to call screening, except a slightly different prompt.
The nice thing is this is on everything that runs ios17, instead of just the latest. Android seems to unnecessarily silo special features into just pixel phones for no apparent hardware reason. Often times you can sideload (with root access typically) the special pixel only features on any phone.
Nothing yet to compare to hold for me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was coming soon.
> iOS now supports live voicemails. Functionally equivalent to call screening, except a slightly different prompt.
Not really. For one, the caller knows that there's someone on the other end reading it live, as opposed to live voicemail where you don't know whether your message will be seen immediately or whenever the other person decides to check their voicemails. Also call screening allows you to prompt follow up questions which you can't do with live voicemail.
Samsung comes with screening pre-installed as well, although I think it's just partnership with third party and not in-house solution.
But I imagine you can find the functionality simply on play store
While they were at it, they could have also fixed the emergency call bug that - to my knowledge - still exists, and is an instant no from me to any pixel phone.
I think the less advertised feature of iOS 17 “Personal Voice” is probably laying the ground work for features like this along with the “Voicemail Screening” feature people are mentioning. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/17/ios-17-personal-voice-f...
I think a meaningful "sustainability" goal could be to build devices that can last longer and be used longer without the need to buy the "latest" gadget. Building robust software and hardware should be part of that thinking.
On a side note a younger kid in family used this unix tool called "sed" and asked me if such advanced tools existed during "my time". I told her I was not born even after 10 years had passed since its invention.
Absolutely! It's barely touched on in the article, but it's the first "R" in reduce, reuse, recycle. By reducing our need to consume because we want updates or need security patches, we don't need to buy a phone every couple of years.
Together with the EU's replaceable battery law, this is a good step in that direction.
Unfortunately it pushes against planned obsolescence which makes companies more money, so we'll see how long the promise of updates lasts...
Yeh I doubt this will ever happen in a way that provides real value for pixel owners… when they started using their own chips it was meant to be 5 years, then turned out to be 3 years of updates.
They’ve had the opportunity for I provide security updates for their old pixels for years but chose not too. So this is just marketing fluff to get a few more sales…
And in typical Google style after 3 years they’ll say “yeh… about those 7 years, we really meant 3”
I think they are referring to the Pixel 6 [1]. If the same happened again, Google might announce that the Pixel 8 will receive 4 or 5 years of major Android version updates and 7 years of security updates.
However, the alleged leaked specs for the Pixel 8 explicitly state "7 years of OS and security updates" [2], so I think they do actually intend on 7 years of major Android version updates.
Honestly, pixels are the phones to get.
With grapheneOS, you get a dailyable, trustable phone, with crazy good cameras and long support cycles.
And it's usually cheap, they drop fast in price, but the 8 is really expensive for some reason, lets hope it follows the same trend and just drops in price.
Something no other phones can't do, certianly not your blackbox iphone(even if apples marketing says otherwise.)
I generally agree though barely stayed with Pixel+GOS after my last Pixel refused to turn on after plugging it in before a nap, leaving me with a totally bricked phone, no way of recovering local data on the device, and a $100 bill to replace it since the screen was cracked - despite it being dead because of manufacturer defects, and a broken screen having no bearing on it's death.
If I wasn't such a fan of GrapheneOS, I would have ditched Pixel so fast.
I agree to a an existent, if you live in a supported country, you can find pixels for much cheaper with flagship features you wont find in anything in a similar price.
It'll take a lot more than that to get me to buy a Pixel phone (or any other Android, really).
1. Google needs to build up the reputation that they support phones for 7 years, currently there is no device from them that was ever supported that long.
2. Pixels are not officially sold in my country, even though I am from the European Union. I need to buy from a 3rd party with at least 50% markup and dubious support.
3. Even if I were to buy a Pixel phone, 50% of the differentiating features are not available in my country (or barely any country outside of the US) - like call screening, hold for me, book me a reservation (I forgot the name of this feature).
Do you have an overview of what Pixel devices didn't get their promised security updates? I've gone as far back as the original Google Pixel and they seem to have stuck to their update policy in for that device (https://web.archive.org/web/20161122015826/https://support.g...):
Pixel phones get security patches for at least 3 years from when the device first became available, or at least 18 months from when the Google Store last sold the device, whichever is longer.
I'm sure Pixel customers who didn't read up on the software support duration were disappointed that they only got three years of updates, but Google seems to have kept their promises with Android at the very least.
IoT crap is a different story, though. Then again, I don't think there's a single IoT vendor that I trust to provide security updates for a normal amount of time.
Readit News
The Nexus 7's storage degraded, which rendered the device unusably slow. I thought it was the upgrade to the next version of Android that did it, but downgrading it did not fix the issue. There's been some workarounds that made it slightly more usable but ultimately it was a serious hardware defect that made it unbearably slow to use even with these workarounds.
The Nexus 5 had a bootlooping issue — I had the issue occur on my first Nexus 5, 2 weeks out of warranty. Fortunately Google was kind enough to send me a refurbished one... that shortly after had the same bootloop issue.
My opinion of Google has gradually deteriorated over time to the point now where I actively avoid using anything made by Google because 1) they can't do hardware right and 2) they sunset way too many products for me to feel comfortable using them. So the promise of 7 years of OS updates on a hardware device by Google just seems empty and maybe pointless because I don't trust the device itself will continue functioning, even if the updates keep coming... which I have doubts they will.
While I was still using Android, my Samsung Galaxy S6 was probably the most headache-free experience I had, even with the complete lack of feature/OS updates but as it stands, my iPhones have all been rock solid devices, so that is probably what I will continue using unless something drastic changes.
I loved my 2012 Nexus 7, and was a Day 1 upgrader to the 2013 model (my Mom enjoyed the 2012 for many years for eBooks and Facebook)
My Nexus 5 I was also a day 1 purchase, upgrading from a slowly deteriorating Galaxy S2. Unfortunately I had to replace it much earlier after I slipped and fell on uneven concrete and shattered the screen
If Google could just take the SoC of the Pixel 6/7/8/whatever and stuff it in the housing of the Nexus 7 2013, give it a modern battery and a nice OLED screen it would truly be the best tablet on the market. But instead they want "bigger" and are chasing after the iPad with the new pixel tablet
I bought a 11" tablet BECAUSE it is much bigger than a phone, so I can comfortably watch videos and read technical documents. I might have considered as small as 8", but 10" was really the minimum in my mind.
Given that most android phones are 6-6.5" already, why would anyone buy a 7" tablet in addition to their phone? Maybe as a throwaway gift to a child? Would the market be large enough to be worth it?
It's worse these days than in the nexus days. Google slaps extremely cheap NAND into their phones and it ends up failing after 2-3 years of daily use. Everyone I know that uses pixel phones either cycles through a new phone yearly or gets bitten by a sudden hardware failure and swears off the brand entirely.
Samsung hardware (and Huawei if you can still get and use it) is superb by comparison, but they just can't help themselves when it comes to the creepiness of the user experiences.
To be fair Nexus 10 was a premium device (with its 2GB RAM and 2560x1600 screen in 2012). I still have mine and runs without any issues (except the degraded battery).
> Samsung hardware (and Huawei if you can still get and use it) is superb by comparison
Nexus 10 was built by Samsung.
Hi Bill,
Thank you for being one of our first Premium Lite members.
We're writing to let you know that after 25 October 2023, we will no longer be offering your version of Premium Lite. While we understand that this may be disappointing news, we continue to work on different versions of Premium Lite as we incorporate feedback from our users, creators and partners.
We will cancel your membership on 25 October 2023. Your Premium Lite benefits will expire at the end of your billing cycle and you will not be billed further.
Google is just YouTube to me now. I am amazed at how their management hasn’t seriously tackled the reputational crisis their company has. That being their reputation for abandoning their products to save Google money at their customers expense.
Google at this point is a PR machine for Microsoft and their commitment to long term support and I don’t even like Microsoft.
Once it slowed to the point of being unusable, I gave it to my son to tinker with. He loaded an alternative OS on it and that worked for a while but eventually it also slowed. Last I knew it was serving as a print server for his 3D printer although now I think it lives in a bin with other outdated hardware and about 100 cables that we haven't thrown out yet.
It's worth pointing out the Nexus 5 released 10 years ago and things have definitely changed (improved, IMO) in that time.
Then I bought an iPhone 11 Pro and it "just works" to this day, with no replacement needed in sight. After years of being that guy who explains the "dangers" of walled garden ecosystems to my boomer iPhone parents, I joined their gang and have been living carefree since.
If they did, the phones would be much more reliable. If the phone can survive cycling between -25C and 85C 2000 times, then it will most likely survive many years in your pocket.
They should also test weeks of salt spray and hours in a tumbler with sand dust and lint.
Are you sure that wasn't a Nexus 5X? I'm still using a Nexus 5 (running some LineageOS fork) as a media controller.
I had a Nexus 5X that bootlooped, so I traded in its replacement for a Pixel 2, but its microphone died, and its replacement had a perma-locked bootloader... but the Nexus 5 is still doing fine.
Let me play it out with an example.
At Apple, a team/individual might be actively told to have to use an iPhone 8 for their daily use, so they get to experience what it's like for a user with an older phone. They solve the users' pain by solving their own pain, and commit to making the experience actually better with future iOS releases. Not just keeping it working but actually making it better if possible.
Google has shown time and time again that they're not thinking like that. Or at least not setting up the company to be rewarded like that.
I will also posit that the single-handed ownership of the iOS app store makes deficiencies fall squarely on Apple, so they are more directly blamed/responsible when phone performance gets worse. With Android, and so many reasons a team could claim that other factors are causing negative trends in performance, who cares to keep making an old phone better?
AOSP has basic apps for all of those use cases, but presumably because it's much sexier to work on closed source in-house apps that get to be updated as often as the team feels like instead of being forced to work in the margins of the OS update schedule... they languished to the point of unusability.
I'm not even sure if they'd all run on the latest version of Android, some of them are still using Kit-Kat era UIs last I checked
eg google killed my last pixel by cutting off security updates like one month before a full login bypass was discovered. I mean cute, I could still get updated apps... but anyone in possession of my phone could login as me.
Now I'm not talking about policies, and this may or may not be true for everyone involved, but the generalisation that this isn't being worked on or incentivised does not appear true to me.
So I think 15y might slow that down (but maybe that's good? I'm not sure). It would also probably increase prod/maintenance expenses, which would likely just be offloaded to the consumers unfortunately.
I do agree with your sentiment, though. There should be a minimum, and something like 6-8 years seems sensible to me!
Deleted Comment
Call Screening - https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/9118387?hl=en
Hold for me - https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/10071878?hl=en
They're immensely valuable and I feel Apple is absolutely dumb for having equivalents baked in already. If they did, I'd happily switch over.
Then there are small annoyances like not having the option to enable auto-space after punctuation like commas and periods in messages, even with third-party keyboards like swift keybaord. And not being able to set a separate ringer and alarm volume. I keep my ringer volume very low during the day, but I depend on a loud alarm. Got to work late today as a consequence of this!
I'm already considering switching back to pixel 8 once it releases next month, especially due to the increased support. Only thing holding me back is tensor chips not yet being on par until around 2025 when Google releases its first fully custom chip.
I also really appreciate the network diagnostics you get from an app like NetMonster.
Samsung is probably the worst.
For instance, when I set my focus to "at work" I may decide to mute all notifications for social media apps and send calls that aren't from my family straight to voice mail. When I'm at home or at the gym, I may want my notification settings to be completely different.
Without that feature the Android notification system is much less flexible.
Instead, I've had to replace it repeatedly: Pixel 3, Pixel 4a, Pixel 5, and now Pixel 6a.
Each model upgrade was a regression in size and weight. The only improvement I liked was in the cameras, but photography-wise they're still only cameraphone snapshot grade, so not a worthwhile upgrade to me. I would've rather been able to keep using the Pixel 3.
I'm looking forward to keeping the Pixel 6a awhile (once the carrier flakiness that coincided with the move the other day settles down).
(Edit: Unless there comes out some local ML model that I want that needs more processing hardware.)
I didn't realize but 147g vs 207g makes for an enormous difference. Also 1-2mm in each dimension and now it can't fit my pockets anymore.
However, Call Screening is now available on iOS 17 (called Live Voicemail)
I've purchased my first iPhone as of a few days ago now that they have that... I'll miss Hold for me, but it's not enough to stop me from the Pixel bugs/hardware issues I've been experiencing. The iPhone 15 is amazing so far!
One thing that's been holding me back, though, is notification management. I love the little app icons at the top and the pull down shade and such. I don't have that much experience with iOS, but it seems notifications work fairly differently. Has that been an issue for you?
The nice thing is this is on everything that runs ios17, instead of just the latest. Android seems to unnecessarily silo special features into just pixel phones for no apparent hardware reason. Often times you can sideload (with root access typically) the special pixel only features on any phone.
Nothing yet to compare to hold for me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was coming soon.
Not really. For one, the caller knows that there's someone on the other end reading it live, as opposed to live voicemail where you don't know whether your message will be seen immediately or whenever the other person decides to check their voicemails. Also call screening allows you to prompt follow up questions which you can't do with live voicemail.
On a side note a younger kid in family used this unix tool called "sed" and asked me if such advanced tools existed during "my time". I told her I was not born even after 10 years had passed since its invention.
Together with the EU's replaceable battery law, this is a good step in that direction.
Unfortunately it pushes against planned obsolescence which makes companies more money, so we'll see how long the promise of updates lasts...
They’ve had the opportunity for I provide security updates for their old pixels for years but chose not too. So this is just marketing fluff to get a few more sales…
And in typical Google style after 3 years they’ll say “yeh… about those 7 years, we really meant 3”
Pixel pass anyone?
However, the alleged leaked specs for the Pixel 8 explicitly state "7 years of OS and security updates" [2], so I think they do actually intend on 7 years of major Android version updates.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22735485/google-pixel-6-...
[2] https://www.91mobiles.com/hub/google-pixel-8-pro-specificati...
And it's usually cheap, they drop fast in price, but the 8 is really expensive for some reason, lets hope it follows the same trend and just drops in price.
Something no other phones can't do, certianly not your blackbox iphone(even if apples marketing says otherwise.)
If I wasn't such a fan of GrapheneOS, I would have ditched Pixel so fast.
1. Google needs to build up the reputation that they support phones for 7 years, currently there is no device from them that was ever supported that long.
2. Pixels are not officially sold in my country, even though I am from the European Union. I need to buy from a 3rd party with at least 50% markup and dubious support.
3. Even if I were to buy a Pixel phone, 50% of the differentiating features are not available in my country (or barely any country outside of the US) - like call screening, hold for me, book me a reservation (I forgot the name of this feature).
IoT crap is a different story, though. Then again, I don't think there's a single IoT vendor that I trust to provide security updates for a normal amount of time.