> USB-C is going to mean I can get rid of all these lightning cables
Bought a Motorola G6 in 2018 for €199. It takes "fantastic" photos, and came in a "stunning new" (!?) color of black(ish). It's pretty much indestructible, runs Firefox with uBlock Origin, and it's "better for the environment" because every year you don't buy a new phone, the environment is happy.
> and it's "better for the environment" because every year you don't buy a new phone, the environment is happy.
This seems wrong. I am still on an iPhone Xs Max from 2018 and it still gets software updates. It looks like the last software update on the G6 was in 2020. The lack of even security patches limits the life of the phone for many people.
The primary reason I'll eventually need to upgrade is because of 5G support. Coverage is getting worse as 3G has been shutdown and all new towers are focusing on 5G. My battery life sucks now too, but that can solved easily.
The older iPhones still hold resale value pretty well too, which means most iPhones have a second life as a "cheap" option. Combined with the software updates you mentioned, that's pretty good for the environment. The best case scenario is most iPhones get to be used by multiple people and new iPhones contain a lot of recycled material. That's not too far from reality.
The problem with tech is nothing is ever "good enough." Sure, you could make a phone that is durable for 10 years... but someone will invent new battery chemistry, CPUs will get considerably more powerful/efficient, and Sony will come along with even better camera sensors.
So it's really not possible for that high-end "old" phone to keep up after a few years. That's true for most consumer tech, even if the pace is slowing down somewhat. An expensive LED TV from 2013 will not compare favorably with a good value mid-range one today.
We can either stop innovating, which is also bad for the environment (technology improvements allow for vast efficiency and energy-use improvements in a huge range of products), or we can make sure things have a lot of re-use value. That can be done through the used market with good repairability and software support, and by making sure phones can be recycled and also use a lot of recycled materials.
People have been saying that the new iPhones are unimpressive/shit for years. Yet, compare an iPhone X to an iPhone 15 and the leap is clear. Incremental improvements are unimpressive, but do build up over time. You can only realize that by taking a pause and look back where you were 10 years ago.
I also still have an XS and don't plan on upgrading until updates stop. I thought it was this cycle, but apparently not. Supported until 2025. That's pretty reasonable!
I have an 8 plus and the only reason I'm gonna buy the 15 this year is because they're no longer supporting it. 6 years of support for a phone is pretty damn good.
> The lack of even security patches limits the life of the phone for many people
Maybe. (I'm not one of them, but ok.) But that doesn't have much to do with the environmental impact? It's still greener to keep phones longer, even if they don't get updates.
Android is notorious for aging out phones much faster than Apple. You could use 8+ year old phones with the latest security updates up until very recently.
I've been with Android since my the very first G1. I'm not an iPhone hater, I think they are great phones, I'm just happy with Android (for now) and see little reason to switch yet. That being said, the one thing that could probably make me switch is this issue right here.
I have the Pixel 5a, it was released in August 2021 and Google only guarantees support for that model up to August 2024, that is for both full OS updates and just security patches. As of the Pixel 6 series and after, you get 3 years of full OS updates, and 5 years of security patches (that's 2 extra years after full OS updates stop).
To compare, the iPhone 13 series was released in September 2021 and will continue to get support up to 7 years after its release (Sept 2028).
So far my Pixel 5a has been the best (reliability-wise) phone I've ever hard and it sucks to know that after August 2024, I'll be vulnerable to future security vulnerabilities.
Samsung offer only slightly better support by increasing the full OS support to 4 years instead of Google's 3 for the Pixel. Same 5 year for security patch. That's not enough for me to go back to Samsung and deal with their OS bloated with apps I can't uninstall (it's been a while, maybe it's better?)
My 4a potentially just got its last update. If I don't any security updates going forward, not sure if I'll put a third party image on it or toss it. I'll probably try the first, and if it does work well, the second.
GrapheneOS receives OS updates for another year. It's pretty simple to flash with a web-based installer.
If it feels too slow, try disabling "Secure app spawning". It's a security improvement over Google's Android by GrapheneOS but increases app startup time. Especially on slower devices like the 4a.
By far the biggest intrusion window these days is your browser. Latest firefox with ublock origin is simply the safest of them all, saving bandwidth, blocking youtube ads, saving battery, your eyes and so on.
Plus, currently plenty of androids have 5-6 years of guaranteed security updates. To be honest I wouldnt ever want to use much older phones even if patched up to date, too clunky, making bad photos (I have kids so this is top priority), not up to most network standards and so on
Probably all of them, but that’s only cause, unless things have changed, it takes 3 years to get said updates in the first place.
I remember before I switched to iPhone I would wait and wait and wait and wait for the latest android and updates and a whole new version of android would roll out before I would even get the previous version.
Samsung promised 3 or 4 years of updates in 2019, and then updated that pledge to 5 years for the flagships. What's exciting about Samsung's pledge is that it made this promise for some of the mid-range models in the A series, which are fairly affordable.
My S21 Ultra is in its 3rd year and regularly updated. Should get 5 years of updates, and I intend to keep it until then.
Also, the writing is on the wall that the EU will force phone makers to years of updates, changeable batteries and availability of spare parts.
It's also noteworthy that Google has the ability to update many system services via Google Play. The poor track record of updates from phone makers basically demanded it. In other words, an Android device that hasn't received any system updates in a year or two is still fairly usable.
I have an A70..I was just looking for when it will lose its software updates. The last update I have is from Dec 22, but I can't find information when it will expire.
You asked which Android phones get five years of security updates? Directly from Google, only the Pixel 6 and up, most likely in reaction to Apple's better support policies. Other manufacturers? You have to research it because it varies: https://www.androidauthority.com/phone-update-policies-16586...
Ideally Google would mandate a minimum number of years for both feature and security updates that matches theirs of three and five, respectively. Having said that, these really are wasting assets thanks to storage wearing out, but that's true of all phones, regardless of manufacturer.
It really isn't, given how much of Android will get updated during those security fixes only years. Many of the builtin apps will still receive feature updates, likely even beyond that window.
Iirc Apple iOS includes more features than Android in the core OS. Google Services still receive updates and only things like the UI and system settings stay the same. Most people I know don't care at all about updates.
But I agree, it's great how Apple supports devices for 6 years with major updates. It would also be possible for Android phones if SoC & phones manufacturer actually cared.
I have an ancient ipad. It still gets major updates, but not necessarily all of the best features from those updates. Maybe that is a hardware limitation or maybe not.
I also have a Pixel 5. It received Magic Eraser, which used to be a key feature of newer Pixels, as part of a regular Photos app update.
I'm still getting major updates too, but, tbh, they aren't that critical. Chrome, GMail, Maps, YouTube, Calendar, Messaging, the app store itself (including UI) and the core web browser will keep getting updates well beyond the end of life.
There really isn't a direct comparison here, but I wouldn't switch in either direction due to updates.
If I’m not mistaken, apps that use embedded web views don’t use the installed version of Chrome do they? If that’s the case, that’s a major security issue by itself.
Their pledge has started in 2019, and the promise for 5 years of updates is fairly new. I remember they first promised 3 or 4 years of security updates.
Apple has unparalleled support for older devices, I think we agree.
For operating system updates, Samsung pledged 4 years of updates for the flagships starting with S21.
The difference between Android versions isn't big. I also mentioned in another comment that on Android, to cope with phone makers not pushing for system updates, Google can update many system components via Google Play. And apps remain compatible. Being 2 versions behind the latest Android is OK.
While Firefox on iPhones does not allow extensions like uBlock Origin, Orion browser will allow you to install both Firefox and Chrome extensions, including uBlock Origin.
Ancient android might not get security updates, but is actually still very usable. The vast majority of apps will still at least run and talk to their servers on a 10 year old phone.
I have a nexus 5x which I wanted to repurpose for… anything at all. It can’t even update itself anymore. Play services update just locks up or whatever. Play store is broken and can’t install anything. The thing is useless as a smartphone.
My iPad 5 got an iOS update last month-ish? And a security patch last week. All of my kids run iPhone 8.
These days "security" has been perverted so it is mostly not about protecting you from attackers, it's about preventing you from accessing your own data or running the apps that you want. You are the threat that they are securing against. Less "secure" means more freedom for you. Less "secure" can also mean more real security for you since you have to leave the mainstream which is what actual attackers target.
And a lot of the complaint is about "cases where customers reported being fraudulently induced into
making payments", which would agree with the ancestor comment.
Honestly I don't know. I copied and pasted the text and punctuation from the original document and it put them there. I also didn't do the research. The office of Senator Warren did. You can quibble with them. :)
It’s not that you’re completely and totally wrong that makes me mad, it’s that you state everything with such an authoritative tone that people won’t doubt it and will get into a bad situation based on what you’re saying.
> Once you notify your bank or credit union about an unauthorized transaction (that is, a charge or withdrawal you didn’t make or allow), it generally has ten business days to investigate the issue. The bank or credit union must correct an error within one business day after determining that an error has occurred.
I've had multiple family members wait months to sort things out like that. Visa fraud experience is usually immediate, checking/savings accounts not so much.
Kitkat(Android 4.4) is 10 years old and I have experience with it. You can't update Signal since last year and you can't use it anymore since soon after that. Whatsapp didn't work anymore after May. And most(all?) of the phones bought 10 years ago didn't have kitkat yet.
Those two are the apps that survived the longest (Try getting any matrix client to work on it). Others broke sooner, most of them because the app developer has to enable TLS1.2 to be able to use it for HTTP APIs and many web servers disabled responding to older versions a while ago. Firefox (the one which allowed all extensions) still works. Great! But I can't message anyone anymore. On a phone.
TBH I put most of the blame here on app developers (supporting older stuff is not that hard) and some of it on the device manufacturers.
I'd actually like to see a list of real world security incidents that occured on EOL android devices. Not out of date browsers. (Chrome can still be updated) but devices no longer getting OS security updates.. something tells me it's very very rarely if ever an actual issue in real life.
In the article it explains how Google and the ransomers are doing a cat and mouse thing. If your phone is not keeping up, that could definitely be an issue.
An anecdote, but I've never heard anybody from my social circles to have their phone hacked. I keep reading about all these holes, but somehow they don't seem to be widely exploited in the real world.
Plenty of people do it... And it doesn't actually backfire often - the worst that seems to happen is your phone will self-install unremovable adware if you visit the wrong website.
And? My android phones last on average 3 years, do everything I need and cost less than €200. The exception is the current Fairphone 3 I am using, which I paid 350€ and I am expecting to use for at least 5 years, possibly 7. How can one justify paying 3x the cost if not just to continue keeping myself tied into Apple?
The hardware on those 300 euro phones are awful. iPhones last longer in both software support and actual usability.
> How can one justify paying 3x the cost if not just to continue keeping myself tied into Apple?
It's not rocket science. The experience you get using an iPhone vs a cheap Android for 5 years is not even close to comparable, and while you do pay a ridiculous premium for an iPhone, there are obvious reasons why someone would want to.
The hardware is just fine. My old Nokia 6 from 2018 can still play Mario Kart just fine.
I hate to see that I am starting to sound like an activist, but I also hate to see how even the supposedly smarter-than-average people in tech lose all sense of perspective when they see shiny overpriced trinkets.
Why should we care if "the experience is not even close to comparable", if it is brought by a trillion dollar corporation who denies people even the most basic rights and fights as dirty as it can to keep its unfair advantages?
(And please notice that the above paragraph also applies to Google and Samsung, so please don't make it sound that I am arguing for team Android here)
My iphone is currently 6 years old, and still getting security updates from Apple. It works as well as it ever did (I spent €60-ish for a battery replacement a year or two ago), and I hope to get at least another year out of it yet.
It cost me about €600, and I also enjoy knowing that I've generated that much less e-waste compared to my prior Android life, where I had to discard phones every 2 or 3 years.
First, let me point to Fairphone which is also providing 7 years minimum of updates, but most importantly, it does not lock me into their OS and I can install anything I want (in the case, MurenaOS).
Second, I'd love to be proven wrong, but I can bet good money that if we look at a distribution of activated iphones per model, we will see that most users probably stay a lot less than 6-7 years.
Third, it's not about iPhone vs Android. It's the fact that we are discussing things like "getting security updates" when in fact we should be asking ourselves "why aren't we free to install whatever system we want on our own device?" I don't really care so much about the fact your phone cost 600 or 6000€, what bugs me to no end is that we are effectively paying trillion-dollar corporations to let them remove our freedoms.
Is that what the majority of people are buying, or are you just pushing down some numbers while forgetting that it does not reflect the reality of the consumer market?
My last two iPhones have been the SE model and I know a number of friends who have one. The previous smaller iPhone SE (2016) was a lovely phone and still getting updates.
What I was responding to was that it makes little sense to talk about "Androids aging out faster" as some kind of valid justification to pay the premium price of iPhones.
If you manage to make do with the cheaper version of iPhones, ok. But your case (and mine) are outliers, and even in that case Apple's products are not better from an ethical/environmental/fair trade point of view.
Are we stuck in a loop here? I'm not arguing about the price of any particular model. I'm arguing that (a) most people buying iPhones are not doing with "longevity" in mind, they are just buying the "most phone they can afford" and trade every 2-3 years and (b) even the ones that are buying iPhones based on "longevity" (i.e, TCO) are ignoring the fact that there are other alternatives with similar characteristics while being better from an ethical standpoint.
Not if you compare with the Fairphone. The Fairphone uses materials that are a lot easier to be recyclable and is supported for as long as Apple devices.
Looks like you are talking about two different things in one sentence. About security updates -- while it is true that Apple provides security updates much longer than Android phones and this is something I care a lot about, I need to point out that the vast majority of people (outside HN or similar "tech forums") don't upgrade phones due to lack of security features but lack of latest features, missing nice cameras, or if the battery has bad battery or damage.
Wow, I don’t think that’s true at all. Most people can’t afford a new phone that frequently. I know amongst my techno elite friends your estimate holds, but for almost everyone else I know they rarely upgrade and it’s more about when it physically falls apart than any desire to participate in an upgrade cycle.
IDK, maybe apple price-dropped today and T-Mobile hasn’t caught up, but that’s similar to what I’ve seen in the past when I’ve looked at buying through them.
0% interest isn’t $0/m. When you live paycheck to paycheck, as most Americans do, that’s a very important detail. Most people don’t have disposable income.
But even that do they don’t value phone upgrades. When I see their ancient phones I sometimes remark they can get a phone with monthly terms and they just shrug and say the sad device with cracked screens and ancient cameras and crap display resolution and brightness is good enough for them. It baffles me, but most people just use their phone for texting, occasionally a map, and a crappy camera. Only in my tech friend circle do people keep up.
64% are living paycheck to paycheck, now whether they opt to get a new smartphone or not is not clear.
What is clear is the statistics you linked and I could find were polls of either people buying a new phone, which would be structurally biased towards people who are buying phones make frequently and are not buying used phones, or they were surveys of people with some relationship with a mobile or tech related site or product. These don’t seem like very unbiased surveys - but they do seem like sources apple or a phone maker would care about. “Of the people we care about in our marketing, they buy every 2-3 years.” I know in my family my wife’s family inherits our old phones and would ever show up in such a poll, nor do people buying off eBay, or even used from Amazon, etc.
Maybe a single mom working three jobs to raise their five children really does feel compelled to have the newest iPhones and puts her kids needs behind a high resolution screen, but I somehow believe she’s just not counted in market surveys of phone buyers.
Living paycheck to paycheck doesn’t mean there isn’t room in there budget to do anything else. They may spend $20 less per month on food to buy a phone. Do you really think that households who are making six figures “who are stretched thin” have no discretionary income to reallocate?
If given a choice between every single citation I could find on the internet and your anecdotes of what your family does, which one do you think is more reliable?
I already cited why I don’t believe the sources I could find as well as those you provided are reliable of a common experience as they’re clearly designed to be market research among those people who regularly upgrade smart phones. That’s a much more useful metric if you’re a smart phone company than a census style survey. They aren’t trying to make a social statement but optimize their release cadence. What people do who don’t upgrade regularly or buy their products new aren’t interesting to them, so they aren’t designing these surveys to capture people not already in their product cadence orbit. But, I suspect I can guess which you consider more reliable.
I’d not the median household income is 70k, which means half of all households make less than that. The median personal income is $40k.
Again, we aren’t getting remotely close to 99% of people are upgrading every 2-4 years.
> I already cited why I don’t believe the sources I could find as well as those you provided are reliable of a common experience as they’re clearly designed to be market research among those people who regularly upgrade smart phones
On the entire internet every source cites 2-3 years but you choose not to believe it because it doesn’t support your worldview?
And in the US, even the MVNOs that are targeted toward lower income buyers subsidize phones where you get them for “free”.
But you’re telling me on the entire internet you can’t find one statistic that supports your claim?
Not sure about 8 years, but I know at least 3 people who use iPhone 8s still and have no intention of stopping, so that's 6 years. I know at least one person who had an iPhone 5 until it broke earlier this year.
I only stopped using the 8+ because it got destroyed, and "upgrading" to a newer used one was almost the same price. Otherwise I'd still be rocking that touch button.
I guess this will only lengthen as we go forward, as the initial jumps between successive phones were large, and they are much more incremental nowadays. An iphone XS is good for 5 more years easily.
Anecdata: I have a friend who refuses to update from an original iPhone SE because he hates the larger form factors AND because it functions perfectly fine for his needs.
I know multiple people still using an iPhone X (2018), for whom cost is not an issue.
The main reason for the majority of the general population to upgrade is because the phone literally breaks (screen, stops charging, radio malfunctions, etc)
My iPhone 7 will be 7 years old in a few days, so close. I haven't found the need for anything that has gone into new phones since then that would justify the cost.
On a 6 year old iPhone 6 here. Solid, charges quick, no battery issues, good pics, you name it. I may upgrade to go all USB-C but may wait to see if the 15 has issues.
My daily driver phone is an iPhone 7+, which Wikipedia tells me is from 2016. It works great and people often compliment the pictures from its camera.
That's not "8+ years old" but it's in the ballpark :)
You said "I'd guess 99% of the population makes a phone last 2-4 years." Which is obviously false if the average is 3 years. An interesting data point neither of these articles have is the standard deviation. One of the articles says 8% of people wait more than 5 years.
For me at least the battery seems to degrade significantly after 2+ years. I have a OnePlus 7t that is 3 years old and I use it heavily almost every day. I should consider wiping it to see if that improves battery life.
Several of the phones I've upgraded from were due to the onboard storage wearing out. A couple were because of water damage, which is less of a concern these days.
The charging cable was obviously not the leading factor when the purchase decision was made. It doesn't matter much that a different platform that runs different software and has different capabilities had models available with USB-C. Different phones for different folks and that's ok.
I think people forget that Lightning predates USB-C by a few years, and the alternative at the time (USB Micro B) was hot garbage.
Should Apple have stuck with Lightning for an entire decade? No. But any switch away from Lightning was going to cause pain for customers already invested in the ecosystem, and there was a time when that ecosystem actually made the most sense.
I think it has a bigger impact than you realize. The last iPhone I owned was the 3GS. I don't particularly like iPhone or Android; I'm hardly a fan boy. But, I'm seriously looking a iPhone 15 variant as my next phone.
I have USB-C for virtually everything and have no interest in dealing with keeping a second set of cables for one device. It's an extra expense, headache, and environmental waste I don't want. The change to USB-C makes an iPhone a viable option for me. I look forward to a refreshed SE line with USB-C as well.
I'm not thrilled about all the cables and dongles/adapters eventually going to landfills, but believe the move will be better in the long-run. I wish Apple made the move earlier.
I'm not underestimating the impact of the switch and I am as in favor of it now as I was years ago. All else being equal, I would go for the USB-C device every time.
The point I was trying to make was that an android phone having USB-C isn't the most important factor for the person who posted. This is evidenced by the fact that they purchased the iPhone anyway even though USB-C options existed.
Then buy a used iphone, which will not be made obsolete a year later due to lack of software updates, but continue to get new ones for 8 years and actually has the hardware capabilities to drive it for that long.
This is what I do. I just upgraded last year from an iPhone 6 to 8, and it's working great for me. The next stop would be an 11 I think, and that's only if I end up getting into the Peak Design ecosystem and the dashboard mount's built-in wireless charging capability doesn't work with an 8.
Just bought a Moto g42 for ~113€. Gonna buy another one as a spare since one of my hobbies is destroying mobile phones. My favourite phone so far. OLED display, Headphone jack, 5000mA battery, LineageOS support (Android 13, Motorola still on 12), totally worth it IMHO.
My G6 has lately been getting extremely laggy. 8 seconds to launch Firefox + uBlock, 4 seconds to get a keyboard after tapping the address bar; I don't use it much for more than texting or calling people, but it's a bit ridiculous. And there used to be plenty of space on the 32 GB built-in storage (and there's always abundant space on my 256 GB uSD for photos and media) but even with fewer apps installed now there's less space available.
Have you ever had to reflash yours or anything like that?
No. I don't have many apps (very few in fact) but did not notice anything speed-wise. The plastic cover tends to get dirty and is hard to clean, but I can live with it.
Those people who point out that these phones don't receive regular updates, please note that at $199 you can buy a new phone every 4 years and still be more environment friendly.
Android phones need replaced much more often than iPhones, due to how slow they get and lack of updates. There is a reason the resale value of iPhones is 2-5x any Android phone.
Bought a Motorola G6 in 2018 for €199. It takes "fantastic" photos, and came in a "stunning new" (!?) color of black(ish). It's pretty much indestructible, runs Firefox with uBlock Origin, and it's "better for the environment" because every year you don't buy a new phone, the environment is happy.
It also has USB-C, and a 3.5 jack.