With current and older devices working perfectly well, and new devices being even less serviceable and more user-hostile with greater efforts towards planned obolescence, is it any wonder that people just aren't "upgrading" any more? I don't consider this a problem, but a sign of an ecosystem that is gaining stability. In fact I'd say it's even better, from an e-waste perspective, that the amount of churn has decreased.
Even in the low-end/unbranded devices, I'm seeing a gradual removal of hardware features and general lack of parts (screens, cases, etc.) availability, while replacement parts for models several years old are still plentiful.
I had an older phone with 4 GB space. I could keep about 15 apps running on it. A lot of these apps were important - Waze, WhatsApp, Slack, Uber, camera, etc.
So that left me switching between a budget of about 60 MB for games and unnecessary apps, though I can squeeze in a little more by clearing all the caches.
Now suddenly Samsung bugs me to update to the latest version of Android. The new update would take up hundreds of megabytes. My space was already highly limited.
I eventually gave in to curiosity and updated to Lollipop. The phone became unusable because I didn't have the space to install the apps I needed.
As someone who goes as long as possible without performing updates, this is exactly the reason why.
Example: Last time I updated my iPhone, the music app got an update and now they are trying to shove iCloud down my throat. Not to mention needless UI changes when I was more than satisfied with how it was before.
I had a quite high end Android phone from Sony 3 years ago but because it's dual SIM version I maybe receive only one update. I'm running Android 5.0.2 already for 3 years now. My phone works still well but who can count the vulnerabilities I have now on my device...
OK, but it means a billion android devices are vulnerable to various attacks. It would be cool if we could have, idk, backported security fixes for devices that hold tons of critical information?
I'm a little surprised that this is happening on the complete market. Usually when you get less modifyable versions of a product to serve a more broad and simple userbase, you still have these edge cases for tinkerers. There's certainly a big market for that but for some reason nobody is trying to serve that market. Not even relative new comers like this Chinese company Xiaomi or what their name was.
I'd certainly spend $100 more for a configurable phone.
> replacement parts for models several years old are still plentiful.
Data point:
Just replaced a battery in a six years old Samsung smartphone in 20 seconds. It did not even cost me $10. Incredible value compared to the hassle to do this on todays phones, if it is possible at all.
I have an old tablet that doesn't seem to "catch" new updates from Samsung anymore. Perhaps it would be worth rooting or something just to get it current? I would "upgrade" the software if it was available. Buying new hardware isn't something I will do in most situations--the device has to become non-functional before I consider it.
I often get sympathetic comments for being an Android developer because of this. It's honestly not that bad. Android provides backwards compatible support libraries for whatever SDK you're supporting, and was designed from the beginning to handle diverse screen sizes and hardware.
By far a bigger problem is manufacturers shipping their own version of Android that is sometimes incompatible with the SDK. I've had to implement some ugly hacks for Samsung before, which is unfortunate because of how popular their hardware is. It's becoming less of a problem over time though.
The flipside of this is that developers are forced to support versions of their apps that are compatible with previous operating systems. That's bad for developers, but good for consumers.
iPhones shove updates down your throat as a user. They're so persistent that inevitably most people will accept the new update - and even if you're stubborn like me, eventually your apps will no longer be supported under the newer OS's, and you are forced to update to keep using them. The problem is that the OS upgrades invariably slow down older phones, so even if you're perfectly happy with your iPhone to begin with, it starts to act slow as it gets the newer OS's. It's good that Android users can at least avoid this particular kind of planned obsolescence
Gathering the old data from archive.org snapshots was a pain, I'm glad I saved someone else the trouble :)
One thing that's missing from this data is the actual number of devices in circulation, as said in the article it's only the market share among Android devices, and only those which access the Play Store. Having access to that data would make the graphs much more interesting, but unfortunately I have no idea where to get it.
The real problem with mobile devices is that it costs $600-$1000 for a security patch. And when you get it, you'll also be stuck with inferior hardware as a side effect of that very expensive security patch. A device that used to be multifunctional but now is no longer useful for phone calls, music, or videos because it doesn't have a headphone port. One that used to be mobile but now requires you to stay tethered to an outlet because you can no longer switch out to a spare battery. One that's even thinner and more likely to break.
People would like to be secure, but they shouldn't have to pay that much for a security patch and they don't want to downgrade their systems.
>If we look at the newest Android release (8.0, 8/2017), it looks like you’re quite lucky if you have a two year old device that will get the latest update. The oldest “Google” phone supported is the Nexus 6P (9/2015), giving it just under two years of support.
And 2 years is the best-case scenario. Compare to nearly 5 years for iOS devices (which, as far as I can tell was prompted only by a move to 64-bit SoC). It's beyond me that Google hasn't taken a more extreme approach to keeping their devices up-to-date.
My Nexus 6P is eligible for 8.0 under the beta program, the last time I checked, 8.0 was still not available for it in the official channel so I had to switch to the beta program to try out 8.0 on a device.
I bought a flagship device, a Motorola Droid Turbo (1). They finally got android 6 on it a few months ago. Even better is it's so locked down that I have no choice. This is a $1000 phone, why can't I install what I want on it?
I've got a 7 or 8 year old Google Nexus phone. Google stopped updating the OS 5 years ago. The only impact I've noticed is that newer apps won't run on and older OS. For me, however, that really isn't a problem since I use it for making and receiving calls and texts, and checking my email. Right now, I'm in no hurry to lay out hundreds for a new phone, Apple or Android, that will be obsoleted in just a couple years when the vendor abandons it.
Many Android devices of that age and even newer had flaws resulting in the failure to properly validate HTTPS connections as they would accept invalid certificates. As a result, every time I fire up an off the shelf WiFi Pineapple in public and run SSLSplit (not to be confused with Moxies SSLStrip), I get credential after credential, typically starting with e-mail accounts. This is obviously bad because if someone is using an e-mail account on their phone for banking, an attacker could gain access to account recovery.
These are the sorts of transparent attacks you don't notice and which cannot be mitigated with anti-virus or avoiding downloading sketchy apps. The sketchy stuff is already running on the device in the form of the OS and apps you use within it. Note that a large number of these vectors were never publicly disclosed including a vulnerability with Samsung Knox that I reported. When it was in use, the device would accept any cert.
I've got a Samsung S4 laying around that I hadn't used for years (it's 4 1/2 years old). Recently I fired it up just to check some things. As expected, it still runs beautifully for normal Web use across all sites. Other than the small form factor (which some people may prefer), it's easy to see how consumers might stick to older phones.
One fact I was not completely aware about: Even if you have updated your Android device with a Custom ROM (e.g. Lineage/Cyanogen) to a newer Android Version you most likely still have an old Kernel.
So yes, I am very happy that I can still run Android 7.1.2 on my 5 year old S3, but at the same time it runs on a 3.0 Linux kernel which was originally release in July 2011. As far as I know, that is because some drivers (e.g. the graphics driver) are closed source and are only available as binaries. Therefore, they were never properly integrated into the Linux kernel source and when the kernel changes nobody cares about them.
Yes, I know about the discussion about stable ABIs, but even with a stable ABI, I would still be stuck with an outdated buggy graphics drivers, because the kernel developers only care about source they can access.
To sum it up: I would like to have a product which does not only have an up-to-date userland software, but also a more or less current kernel.
I don't think they just drop in an older Linux kernel. I think Android is more like a Linux fork these days. The current version being based on an older/stable Linux kernel.
If Android updates never touched the kernel, how is it drivers break. They must be updating the kernel too.
Having to wait and sometimes pray for your vendor to ship an update is why I chose to stick to the Nexus line of phones until it ended.
My next device may or may not be a Pixel, but the above coupled with the shitty "value adds" like custom file managers and stuff that Samsung et al tend to cram into their already bloated Android implementations pretty much guarantees I'll never by a Samsung or similar.
My wife's Galaxy S3 was slow the day she got it, and it only went downhill from there, to the point that a spare BB Priv felt like an upgrade to her. At that point the Priv was already 2 years old.
edit: can someone explain the down votes? for real, I thought this was a pretty level headed comment. is it just that I dumped on Samsung?
Would be great if Google made a phone that was affordable. As it is now your choices are spending at least $600 or more to get a phone that will be supported, or buying a phone that probably comes with an outdated Android out of the box and that will never get an update.
That is still way to short, especially if you don't buy it on release day. If you buy a nexus device 12 months after release you've already lost 1/3 of it's effective lifetime.
Does this seem like a trend that goes beyond just tech products? Clothes, appliances, furniture (with fiberboard) all seem to have lower longevity today, whether it's from lacking updates/service or just lacking durability.
I still have Nexus 7 running on KitKat 4.2 as I dislike material look and for newer Android versions I always go with phones that ship with customized UI that better correspond to my aesthetics sense. Disclaimer: I am a visual artist as well and hate it when somebody enforces certain style, in my case anything flat, low-contrast, confusing where my brain has to spend >20ms identifying controls.
The last time I tried to install LineageOS on my phone I had to execute a non-reproducible binary of some anonymous haxxor to flash the OS. I remember I could have build my own image from source, but the only documentation was spread over a thread on a message board with a couple hundred pages... and if you screw your build you brick your device.
> We’ve seen that Android devices appear to be getting more out of date over time. This makes it difficult for developers to target “new” Android API features, where new means anything introduced in the past few years.
This used to be more of a problem, but the support library deals with this more nowadays. Not for every change and new feature, but for most of them.
The obvious thing to say is to just get a Nexus/Pixel device and enjoy your updates but I'm sure this isn't an option for some people.
I think the best thing that you can do to ensure you still get security updates is either make sure you get a device with an unlocked bootloader or hope there's a root exploit available so you can put something like LinageOS[1] on it.
I picked up an Essential Phone (on the cheap) for the former even though they appear to be getting timely updates so far (one day behind pixel) if you're willing to sideload with adb (and promises of support for 3 years). Also managed to grab it for < $150 TOTAL (sprint lease after buyout on day 1). They really seem to want to offload some of the stock.
I don't think I'll ever buy an android phone that's not a pixel (formerly nexus) that's not unlocked again.
Perhaps the real problem is sloppy development practices that make staying up to date so important.
Unfortunately, nothing is going to change because the companies making these phones (and other software based products) see it as a way to drive sales.
Why software updates and especially security bug fixes are not covered by manufacturer warranty as it is with hardware issues? Or maybe they are but no one enforces that?
In other words if I buy a phone with 2y warranty (a standard duration in many European countries) it would be reasonable to expect that any security updates (device fixes) will be provided in a reasonable time within that period starting from the purchase date.
My ye olde Samsung Galaxy S4 mini is better software supported at lineageos.org than Google or Samsung ever did. LineageOS even plan to support Anroid 8 on it!
It's better hardware supported at aliexpress.com than any other phone shop.
In its very small lifespan it has become the most modifyable hackable smartphone i've ever owned. :)
Sadly this is the only way to succesfully update my outdated Anroid device. :(
Part of the reason for this mess is the greed of manufacturers, they want us to buy new devices every 2 years. Consider mid-range devices from OnePlus, Xiaomi and Samsung, these are intentionally sold at a lower price to users who like budget phones and if you would see the device manufacturer distribution list these devices top the list in number of units sold, this is especially true in developing countries. These phones seldom get updates after the (T + 2) cycle.
I hope that with introduction of project Treble this trend can be reversed, Google is literally forcing these greedy manufacturers to include Treble if they ship devices with Oreo and above, but this doesn't mean we will see updates as frequent as iOS anytime soon, one thing I observed lately is that after announcement of project Treble almost all manufacturers are releasing newer phones with Nougat 7.1, this is funny considering that it's mid November now and Oreo was released way back in August.
[+] [-] userbinator|8 years ago|reply
Even in the low-end/unbranded devices, I'm seeing a gradual removal of hardware features and general lack of parts (screens, cases, etc.) availability, while replacement parts for models several years old are still plentiful.
[+] [-] muzani|8 years ago|reply
So that left me switching between a budget of about 60 MB for games and unnecessary apps, though I can squeeze in a little more by clearing all the caches.
Now suddenly Samsung bugs me to update to the latest version of Android. The new update would take up hundreds of megabytes. My space was already highly limited.
I eventually gave in to curiosity and updated to Lollipop. The phone became unusable because I didn't have the space to install the apps I needed.
[+] [-] tpallarino|8 years ago|reply
Example: Last time I updated my iPhone, the music app got an update and now they are trying to shove iCloud down my throat. Not to mention needless UI changes when I was more than satisfied with how it was before.
[+] [-] shp0ngle|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tibu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staticassertion|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erikb|8 years ago|reply
I'd certainly spend $100 more for a configurable phone.
[+] [-] karllager|8 years ago|reply
Data point:
Just replaced a battery in a six years old Samsung smartphone in 20 seconds. It did not even cost me $10. Incredible value compared to the hassle to do this on todays phones, if it is possible at all.
[+] [-] sj4nz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumballhead|8 years ago|reply
By far a bigger problem is manufacturers shipping their own version of Android that is sometimes incompatible with the SDK. I've had to implement some ugly hacks for Samsung before, which is unfortunate because of how popular their hardware is. It's becoming less of a problem over time though.
[+] [-] opportune|8 years ago|reply
iPhones shove updates down your throat as a user. They're so persistent that inevitably most people will accept the new update - and even if you're stubborn like me, eventually your apps will no longer be supported under the newer OS's, and you are forced to update to keep using them. The problem is that the OS upgrades invariably slow down older phones, so even if you're perfectly happy with your iPhone to begin with, it starts to act slow as it gets the newer OS's. It's good that Android users can at least avoid this particular kind of planned obsolescence
[+] [-] ajnin|8 years ago|reply
Gathering the old data from archive.org snapshots was a pain, I'm glad I saved someone else the trouble :)
One thing that's missing from this data is the actual number of devices in circulation, as said in the article it's only the market share among Android devices, and only those which access the Play Store. Having access to that data would make the graphs much more interesting, but unfortunately I have no idea where to get it.
[+] [-] Falkon1313|8 years ago|reply
People would like to be secure, but they shouldn't have to pay that much for a security patch and they don't want to downgrade their systems.
[+] [-] matt_wulfeck|8 years ago|reply
And 2 years is the best-case scenario. Compare to nearly 5 years for iOS devices (which, as far as I can tell was prompted only by a move to 64-bit SoC). It's beyond me that Google hasn't taken a more extreme approach to keeping their devices up-to-date.
[+] [-] stevenwoo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrguyorama|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rocky1138|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sizzzzlerz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patcheudor|8 years ago|reply
These are the sorts of transparent attacks you don't notice and which cannot be mitigated with anti-virus or avoiding downloading sketchy apps. The sketchy stuff is already running on the device in the form of the OS and apps you use within it. Note that a large number of these vectors were never publicly disclosed including a vulnerability with Samsung Knox that I reported. When it was in use, the device would accept any cert.
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2-4-Flinching|8 years ago|reply
You are a walking vulnerability. KRACK, Blueborne, just to name a few recently highly publicized vulnerabilities.
You are like the perfect exploit, just waiting to get pwned. You are, Bill Harper.
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saagarjha|8 years ago|reply
There's probably an Android O ROM out there that someone on XDA has compiled for your device.
[+] [-] johnchristopher|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JepZ|8 years ago|reply
So yes, I am very happy that I can still run Android 7.1.2 on my 5 year old S3, but at the same time it runs on a 3.0 Linux kernel which was originally release in July 2011. As far as I know, that is because some drivers (e.g. the graphics driver) are closed source and are only available as binaries. Therefore, they were never properly integrated into the Linux kernel source and when the kernel changes nobody cares about them.
Yes, I know about the discussion about stable ABIs, but even with a stable ABI, I would still be stuck with an outdated buggy graphics drivers, because the kernel developers only care about source they can access.
To sum it up: I would like to have a product which does not only have an up-to-date userland software, but also a more or less current kernel.
[+] [-] jiggunjer|8 years ago|reply
If Android updates never touched the kernel, how is it drivers break. They must be updating the kernel too.
[+] [-] shadowtree|8 years ago|reply
Both Android and iOS have made awesome progress on all fronts, from security to stuff like AR and ML.
You can now have a supercomputer in your pocket - just using it for phone/texts is such a waste.
[+] [-] na85|8 years ago|reply
My next device may or may not be a Pixel, but the above coupled with the shitty "value adds" like custom file managers and stuff that Samsung et al tend to cram into their already bloated Android implementations pretty much guarantees I'll never by a Samsung or similar.
My wife's Galaxy S3 was slow the day she got it, and it only went downhill from there, to the point that a spare BB Priv felt like an upgrade to her. At that point the Priv was already 2 years old.
edit: can someone explain the down votes? for real, I thought this was a pretty level headed comment. is it just that I dumped on Samsung?
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ruytlm|8 years ago|reply
With Pixel now dropping the headphone jack, I'm starting to look elsewhere. Here's hoping I get some more life yet out of my 5X.
[+] [-] nextos|8 years ago|reply
I liked running LineageOS or CopperheadOS on an inexpensive device with good updates.
That said, some cheap devices which are well supported on LineageOS have decent updates.
[+] [-] flukus|8 years ago|reply
That is still way to short, especially if you don't buy it on release day. If you buy a nexus device 12 months after release you've already lost 1/3 of it's effective lifetime.
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|8 years ago|reply
That's a good question.
[+] [-] foota|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SteveGregory|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Double_a_92|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmitriid|8 years ago|reply
And they cost significantly less than in the golden days of yesteryear or whatever passes for the mythical past these days.
[+] [-] scribu|8 years ago|reply
Otherwise, it’s just survivorship bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
[+] [-] abiox|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitL|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goalieca|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelthelion|8 years ago|reply
I guess paying $150 for a fully up-to-date phone that was worth $700 just two years ago isn't such a bad deal.
[+] [-] Rotareti|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ologn|8 years ago|reply
This used to be more of a problem, but the support library deals with this more nowadays. Not for every change and new feature, but for most of them.
[+] [-] ryuuchin|8 years ago|reply
I think the best thing that you can do to ensure you still get security updates is either make sure you get a device with an unlocked bootloader or hope there's a root exploit available so you can put something like LinageOS[1] on it.
I picked up an Essential Phone (on the cheap) for the former even though they appear to be getting timely updates so far (one day behind pixel) if you're willing to sideload with adb (and promises of support for 3 years). Also managed to grab it for < $150 TOTAL (sprint lease after buyout on day 1). They really seem to want to offload some of the stock.
I don't think I'll ever buy an android phone that's not a pixel (formerly nexus) that's not unlocked again.
[1] https://lineageos.org/
Edit: On second thought some of what I wrote is probably not correct[2].
[2] https://twitter.com/CopperheadOS/status/852833915073056769
[+] [-] jlarocco|8 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, nothing is going to change because the companies making these phones (and other software based products) see it as a way to drive sales.
[+] [-] 5ilv3r|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nigma|8 years ago|reply
In other words if I buy a phone with 2y warranty (a standard duration in many European countries) it would be reasonable to expect that any security updates (device fixes) will be provided in a reasonable time within that period starting from the purchase date.
[+] [-] b3lvedere|8 years ago|reply
It's better hardware supported at aliexpress.com than any other phone shop.
In its very small lifespan it has become the most modifyable hackable smartphone i've ever owned. :)
Sadly this is the only way to succesfully update my outdated Anroid device. :(
[+] [-] anad7|8 years ago|reply
I hope that with introduction of project Treble this trend can be reversed, Google is literally forcing these greedy manufacturers to include Treble if they ship devices with Oreo and above, but this doesn't mean we will see updates as frequent as iOS anytime soon, one thing I observed lately is that after announcement of project Treble almost all manufacturers are releasing newer phones with Nougat 7.1, this is funny considering that it's mid November now and Oreo was released way back in August.