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[return to "Pixel 8 to have seven years of Android updates"]
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1. nilamo+D9[view] [source] 2023-10-04 15:36:53
>>skille+(OP)
It's always promises about the future, and never suddenly adding support for old products.

Do people have any faith in the these sorts of notices, when nothing ever produced by the company has yet been supported that long?

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2. youngt+bp[view] [source] 2023-10-04 16:35:29
>>nilamo+D9
This!

Why just announce it for new devices, why not announce existing devices will also get updates

Says someone with a perfectly good Pixel 4a that isn’t guaranteed updated after it’s three years old (which happened in Aug ‘23)

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3. celsoa+Bs[view] [source] 2023-10-04 16:46:22
>>youngt+bp
It would be nice if they did that, but if you pay for 3 years of support, then you should only expect 3 years of support. Google is clear about this and haven't failed so far:

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

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4. burkam+WA[view] [source] 2023-10-04 17:16:57
>>celsoa+Bs
"Clear" is pretty generous, I only discovered that support page one month ago when I saw someone mention that the Pixel 5 will end support this month. It is obviously not ever mentioned during the purchase process, and it's not proactively communicated to customers.

I bought a Pixel 5 less than 2.5 years ago, I didn't even consider the possibility that it could be EOL so early so I never sought out that page. I've never had another phone or laptop last such a short time.

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5. celsoa+Yz1[view] [source] 2023-10-04 21:39:45
>>burkam+WA
It's usually on the specs page, but I'm not going to defend the 3 years of support older Pixels had because it's bad. It was a problem on all Android brands (some haven't improved yet).

With this said, updates on Android are different from iOS updates. Things like the browser, camera, gallery, etc, are updated via the app store, so your Pixel 5 still runs the latest Chrome and will continue to do so for years. They can also update system components (media engine, bluetooth, etc) via Play Store updates. Many new features (covid app support, earthquake alerts, etc) are backported via the Play services. On iOS all this requires a system update, on Android it doesn't.

This new Pixel 8 has 7 years of support, which is in line with the 6 or 7 years iPhones get. At least from now on Pixels should be as good as iPhones.

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