Google Drops Software Support for Pixel 4a Just 3 Years After Its Release

[forbiddenlake]

This is exactly as advertised since release, and Google has already (two years ago) changed to promising 5 years of security updates for Pixel phones.

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705

[nightshadetrie]

iOS in comparison gets both security and OS updates for 5

[stringtoint]

Unfortunate - I didn't know till today. I had been wondering why I hadn't receive an update for September yet.

[sach1]

CalyxOS has decent Pixel 4a support, in my experience. I bought my 4a last December specifically because it was supported (and the right price on Ebay). Install was pretty straightforward, and they don't have as stringent a support cycle as GrapheneOS, although I did not try installing that one.

[irq-1]

So is there an F-Droid like service to update the OS? Can it be done manually?

[mdaniel]

I'm guessing the answer is mostly no, since GrapheneOS was the most Pixel-friendly AOSP project I knew of, and they're also "buy a new phone, n00b" https://grapheneos.org/faq#legacy-devices

https://doc.e.foundation/devices and https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#google both list quite a few of them, but unknown if it's that they are currently available but once the blobs get locked it'll be the same story: unsupported

And, of course, going with "community" distros also nuke Play services and thus almost certainly will not allow Google Pay or other niceties