[lug] OT: Android forced obsolescence

[Michael J. Hammel]

FWIW - I've decided to drop Android because of the service provider
allowing, even pushing, apps I don't want.  The voicemail app is
particularly annoying.  In general, my phone is just for voice and
text.  I have an alarm clock on it and a list app for my groceries. 
There are a few others but I don't use them much.  My biggest use would
be when I finish my pisentry camera system so I can ssh tunnel to my
house and watch the dogs remotely with a browser.

So instead of Android I will be - eventually - moving to PinePhone:
https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-beta-edition-linux-smartphone/?v=0446c16e2e66  I have a phone distro for PiBox under development but it's very far
from being usable.  But at least with PinePhone I don't have to build
the hardware myself anymore (I tried - I'm not very good at it).  And I
can use a Linux distro, not Android, so it's more akin to my world.

PinePhone supports a wide array of Linux distributions.  
https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Software_Releases#JumpDrive

And a wide array of phone carriers.
https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Carrier_Support

The question, of course, is how long THOSE distros will support it. 
The advantage is you can spin your own and support it as long as you
like.

So it's a trade off - do you need them to support it, or do you want to
do it.  I prefer the latter.  Mostly because I have better control of
what apps I can use on the phone.  Or write myself, for that matter.

But that's just me.

Let us know what else you find.  I know there are some other open
source phones out there, like Ubuntu's (I don't like Ubuntu so I'm not
using their phone), but I haven't kept references to them.

Good luck!

On Sat, 2021-07-24 at 17:18 -0600, Steve Sullivan wrote:
> When I purchased a Pixel 1 phone back in 2016, one big
> advantage was Google's commitment to update the software.
> But surprise -- support ended back in 2019.
> 
> Summarizing from
>   https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705
> 
> Google only supports Android for about 2 years.  The end
> of support is ...
> 
>                 End of           End of            End of
>   Phone         Version updates  Security updates  Phone support
> 
>   Pixel 5       October 2023     October 2023      October 2023
>   Pixel 4a(5G)  November 2023    November 2023     November 2023
>   Pixel 4a      August 2023      August 2023       August 2023
>   Pixel 4       October 2022     October 2022      October 2022
>   Pixel 3a      May 2022         May 2022          May 2022
>   Pixel 3       October 2021     October 2021      October 2021
>   Pixel 2       October 2020     October 2020      October 2020
>   Pixel         October 2018     October 2019      October 2019
> 
> So this is worse than planned obsolescence -- it's forced
> obsolescence.
> 
> Any suggestions for a phone with better support?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> 
-- 
Michael J. Hammel
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org
michaelhammel at acm.org