[lug] OT: Android forced obsolescence

[Davide Del Vento]

I've found that the sad state of affairs is this one described by Micheal.
After all, the hardware and software vendors all want to "just" make money.
With the peanut costs (and/or peanut margins) of their products, they can
only do so (and barely) if they aggressively push for continuous updates.
So either give up reluctantly, or try to do as  Micheal suggested.
Please do share if you find differently and on what you eventually decide
as "best" for you, which can be for us too at our next needed update
(soon!!)

On Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 9:56 AM Michael J. Hammel <
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org> wrote:

> 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
>
>
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