That's a community effort, and from previous experiences some pretty random things can be broken, but if the contributors don't care, they won't even look into it. It's fine, but it's not an alternative to actual updates.
In the same way, mods for games aren't an alternative to the developer just fixing issues.
It is a community effort and it is not uncommon for hardware to be traded between members for establishing some driver or interface with. eBay is part of that.
3 years of Android version updates and at least 5 years of security updates.
But I have to say, Apple's OS version updates are not always quite what they seem. My 2 year old iPad gets OS updates in name only. None of the major new iPad OS features are supported.
That's fine if the hardware just isn't capable of supporting those features. But it sort of muddies the water compared to an Android device that doesn't get a nominal OS bump but still gets security updates and all the new features distributed through Google's Play services.
All security issues are handled on iOS for many years. Yes, feature updates are gated by model because Apple wants to sell new stuff and the new features are a big driver of that.
GrapheneOS on Pixel is probably the best bet right now.
>All security issues are handled on iOS for many years.
Yes, absolutely. I didn't mean to imply anything else.
Google says Pixel 6 will get "at least 5 years" of security updates. We're going to have to wait and see if that's better or worse than what Apple does.
Are you serious? iOS upgrades give you the entire OS experience and upgraded app support with a few flashy features missing.
Compare that to Android where the best case is invisible security updates and guess which causes upgrade anxiety?
I'm an Android developer for a living but I use iPhones because the Android ecosystem is currently optimized for generating e-waste.
SoC manufacturers generally don't make enough money to want to do more than the bare minimum, so unless you're Google making billions off a hundred other angles you don't do OS updates for more than a few years and maybe pay lip service with security upgrades.
>iOS upgrades give you the entire OS experience and upgraded app support with a few flashy features missing.
As you know, Google updates apps and cloud features on a continuous basis while Apple holds back most new features until they release a new OS version. If you look through the list of iPad OS 16 features for instance, you'll see that almost all of them are in fact new apps, app features and sharing/cloud features that Android users would be getting anyway [1].
Of the very few actual OS features, the most substantial one by far is Stage Manager, which is only supported on M1 iPads as esteth has said. This isn't just "a few flashy features".
I'm a bit unlucky with my iPad purchases because this is the second time I'm missing out on the most important new OS features on a new-ish iPad. Granted, nothing of the sort ever happened to me on iPhone. I'm rather happy with Apple's iOS update policy.
Stage Manager will straight up not work on non-M1 iPads.
You cannot keep 4 major apps in memory without seeing an eviction.
Also your comparison doesn't make sense, you're comparing iOS built-in apps to Android 3rd party apps by Google... AOSP's built-in photos and emails apps have barely been updated in the last decade.
All in all if you think iPadOS is letting you down, Android upgrades are a circus that Google refuses to rein in.
>you're comparing iOS built-in apps to Android 3rd party apps by Google
I'm not comparing them, I'm putting them aside for this comparison, because Apple links a lot of regular apps to the release cycle of the OS while Google doesn't do that. That's a separate issue that isn't relevant for the point I was making.
I'm only talking about features that would have to be part of the OS on iOS as well as on Android. There are very few new features of that sort in iPad OS 16. I'm not getting most of them.
I understand that this may be down to hardware capabilities. But Apple does have some wiggle room when it comes to deciding how to implement any new features and how much work to put into making them less resource intensive.
You realize the Gmail app is not the equivalent of the iOS Mail app right? That would be the AOSP email app which only gets updates when Android OS gets updates...
My point is that I didn't get the most important new iPad OS features on my new-ish iPad. Apple simply didn't implement those features in a way that makes them work on relatively recent devices.
>You realize the Gmail app is not the equivalent of the iOS Mail app right?
Yes, but the differences are not relevant to the debate. I'm talking about OS features only, and I'm disregarding regular apps that just happen to get distributed along with the OS for business reasons.
> My point is that I didn't get the most important new iPad OS features on my new-ish iPad. Apple simply didn't implement those features in a way that makes them work on relatively recent devices
Like I said already:
- there was no magical way to make this feature work on your "newish iPad".
- You can even test it yourself: open Safari, open a few productivity apps, and watch the cold starts come flying.
- Stage Manager is not the most important feature, being on the newest development target is since if you're not most updated apps will not support your device in 12 months
> I'm talking about OS features only, and I'm disregarding regular apps that just happen to get distributed along with the OS for business reasons.
So you're arbitrarily deciding which OS features count, cool... you're free to do that... but that's the definition of a strawman.
Apple's approach to an OS places more value on built in apps, so you see a ton of app based features, that use OS level APIs that don't exist until a new OS upgrade.
You're trying to say Apple could just ship them as app updates, but no, they can't. The APIs they're built on don't exist until a new OS version comes out.
>there was no magical way to make this feature work on your "newish iPad"
I don't know how difficult it would have been to support a broader range of devices. There are always trade-offs involved, engineering trade-offs as well as economic ones. Neither of us is familiar with the technical details or with the options they discussed.
Fact is, this major new feature (and others) is not supported on very recent hardware they sold to me. That's disappointing irrespective of the reasons. And it raises the question how meaningful those X years of OS updates really are.
>So you're arbitrarily deciding which OS features count
I'm counting all OS features but not apps that are only linked to OS releases as a sales strategy. Of course they want to show off new OS APIs in their apps when the OS gets an update. That doesn't require syncronising release cycles the way they do. Many if not most new app features do not depend on new OS APIs at all.
Second, _massively increasing multitasking capabilities_ is being given to the models that have _a massively upgraded SoC_ there's nothing artificial about that limitation.
Older iPads cannot not hold 4 arbitrary apps in memory, try it yourself if you want. For anything but the most basic set of apps you'll find something evicted by the time you loop back...
Third, "the" major point of an OS upgrade if any is being on the latest development target. Ask Android devs still targeting versions of Android from 2015 about that...
The Pixel 6 Pro has been update to become a pile of hot trash in my case. The updates have been so bad I'm returning it this weekend, while I received a perfectly functional hone...
I'm sure some will appreciate the (security) updates, because the year or so of OS updates I've experienced have been a constant trend towards the worse.
There's not a single screenshot of the operating system I could see, and I need to unlock the phone and all so assuming this is a custom ROM.
Usually you lose access to things like GPay or certain NFC functionalities, and end up with a not-entirely stable experience anyway. I'd rather a phone that just worked. The half a dozen I had previously at least didn't struggle with the basics!
Google Pay won't work, but everything else has been quite solid for me. Additionally, it is more secure than the stock OS and significantly more protective of your privacy.
My bank decided to abandon their own payment solution in favour of GPay, and the neo-bank or two I do use also uses GPay, while I don't actually have physical cards for these. In short, not using GPay is not an option.
> it is more secure than the stock OS
Maybe, but I don't trust community maintainers (nor auditing) enough. At least Google has a business entity that backs their services, community ROMs have nothing of the sort.
I dabbled in ROMs and the likes previously, but I just want a phone that works like a phone should right now. I've got too many other things to tinker with already.
Re Google Pay, if it's a must-have for you, then so be it.
However, re community maintainers, clearly you have read nothing about GrapheneOS, as security is by far their top priority, at the expense of nearly everything else.
No I do not have the time nor interest to read about every ROM group.
I just want a relible, usable phone, and do not experience safety concerns that would warrant preferring a less convenient experience. I don't think most people do, for that matter.
