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There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

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Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#241

Post by erikb »

gumballhead wrote: post #214

I often get sympathetic comments for being an Android developer because of this. It's honestly not that bad. Android provides backwards compatible support libraries for whatever SDK you're supporting, and was designed from the beginning to handle diverse screen sizes and hardware. By far a bigger problem is manufacturers shipping their own version of Android that is sometimes incompatible with the SDK. I've had to im…

Why not see it the other way around? You can totally go and develop an app that just runs on Samsung Galaxy S8 and nothing else. But with the Android SDK you get the option to support a range of other devices as well with a little overhead. That's far better than with IOS where you only get to support one device type, just maybe different versions of it.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#242

Post by erikb »

userbinator wrote: post #48

With current and older devices working perfectly well, and new devices being even less serviceable and more user-hostile with greater efforts towards planned obolescence, is it any wonder that people just aren't "upgrading" any more? I don't consider this a problem, but a sign of an ecosystem that is gaining stability. In fact I'd say it's even better, from an e-waste perspective, that the amount of churn has decreas…

I'm a little surprised that this is happening on the complete market. Usually when you get less modifyable versions of a product to serve a more broad and simple userbase, you still have these edge cases for tinkerers. There's certainly a big market for that but for some reason nobody is trying to serve that market. Not even relative new comers like this Chinese company Xiaomi or what their name was.

I'd certainly spend $100 more for a configurable phone.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#243

Post by willtim »

jlarocco wrote: post #55

Perhaps the real problem is sloppy development practices that make staying up to date so important. Unfortunately, nothing is going to change because the companies making these phones (and other software based products) see it as a way to drive sales.

It's even more fundamental than that. The world is built on C and C++, both of which were designed a long time ago and without safety and security in mind.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#244

Post by tscs37 »

mindslight wrote: post #240
tscs37 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is secure on mobile. Secure is not a binary property, it's a spectrum of options and possibilities which heavily depend on your environment and your threat model. You either get security updates at the possible downside of sending more data to some database of a known vendor or you get the very possible risk of being part of a slide on DEFCON Fail Panel by some unknown blackhat. I choose a known advesary over a…

At its core, digital security is a binary property equivalent to mathematical proof. Since universal security is neigh impossible (two people can keep a secret if both are dead), we then predicate it on various trust relationships / threat models - what one is secure against . The modern non-technical but security-conscious person concedes that their devices are pwnt by (ie they are forced to trust) AppGoogAzon anywa…

That's a rather narrow mindset. As previously explained, security is not binary, even in the circumstances you mentioned.

I don't know all the players in the. Surveillance industry but I'm not as paranoid to believe they are worse the. Black hats.

You probably also have little probability of knowing the actual intentions or motives, which actually helps little in threat mitigations.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#245

Post by greenhouse_gas »

maksimum wrote: post #159
crx087 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen a prepaid device literally self-destruct from a combination of market segmenting and artificial firmware restrictions. Edit: There was no CM support, no way to delete bloatware, forcibly disabled SD storage support, and non-optional updates that eventually rendered the device unusable. The two end-user choices were to either remain offline or get stuck in "not enough free space" loops.

Sounds like my Republic Wireless Moto X running Android 2.3 from 2013. It still works, but usability has degraded significantly.

Did you look into Cyanogenmod/LineageOS?

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#246

Post by eloff »

muzani wrote: post #178
userbinator wrote: post #48

With current and older devices working perfectly well, and new devices being even less serviceable and more user-hostile with greater efforts towards planned obolescence, is it any wonder that people just aren't "upgrading" any more? I don't consider this a problem, but a sign of an ecosystem that is gaining stability. In fact I'd say it's even better, from an e-waste perspective, that the amount of churn has decreas…

I had an older phone with 4 GB space. I could keep about 15 apps running on it. A lot of these apps were important - Waze, WhatsApp, Slack, Uber, camera, etc. So that left me switching between a budget of about 60 MB for games and unnecessary apps, though I can squeeze in a little more by clearing all the caches. Now suddenly Samsung bugs me to update to the latest version of Android. The new update would take up hun…

I ended up in a situation like that too, except the update auto-downloaded taking up most of my free space, but not leaving enough to install it. I didn't figure out how to reclaim the space so I spent months stuck without being able to install apps or updates before I gave in and bought a higher end phone.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#247

Post by Nition »

johnchristopher wrote: post #56
sizzzzlerz wrote: post #19

I've got a 7 or 8 year old Google Nexus phone. Google stopped updating the OS 5 years ago. The only impact I've noticed is that newer apps won't run on and older OS. For me, however, that really isn't a problem since I use it for making and receiving calls and texts, and checking my email. Right now, I'm in no hurry to lay out hundreds for a new phone, Apple or Android, that will be obsoleted in just a couple years w…

Why would making and receiving calls and texts and checking email not work on current devices in a couple of years ?

No, the OP means any new phone will just be obsolete again in a couple of years, so why bother if their current obsolete phone is good enough anyway.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#248

Post by fnl »

gonzo41 wrote: post #150
shp0ngle wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security, basically. If you care about your privacy, you should care about security (can't have one with the other). You need updated phone for that.

Not having a smart phone is probably up there with being serious about security.

Fully agreed. Running a smartphone and worrying about its security seems at odds. Rather, we should treat our "phablets" like public, insecure terminals, with "spy" sensors anyone can access given sufficient effort.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#249

Post by JepZ »

One fact I was not completely aware about: Even if you have updated your Android device with a Custom ROM (e.g. Lineage/Cyanogen) to a newer Android Version you most likely still have an old Kernel.

So yes, I am very happy that I can still run Android 7.1.2 on my 5 year old S3, but at the same time it runs on a 3.0 Linux kernel which was originally release in July 2011. As far as I know, that is because some drivers (e.g. the graphics driver) are closed source and are only available as binaries. Therefore, they were never properly integrated into the Linux kernel source and when the kernel changes nobody cares about them.

Yes, I know about the discussion about stable ABIs, but even with a stable ABI, I would still be stuck with an outdated buggy graphics drivers, because the kernel developers only care about source they can access.

To sum it up: I would like to have a product which does not only have an up-to-date userland software, but also a more or less current kernel.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#250

Post by mindslight »

tscs37 wrote: post #244
mindslight wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At its core, digital security is a binary property equivalent to mathematical proof. Since universal security is neigh impossible (two people can keep a secret if both are dead), we then predicate it on various trust relationships / threat models - what one is secure against . The modern non-technical but security-conscious person concedes that their devices are pwnt by (ie they are forced to trust) AppGoogAzon anywa…

That's a rather narrow mindset. As previously explained, security is not binary, even in the circumstances you mentioned. I don't know all the players in the. Surveillance industry but I'm not as paranoid to believe they are worse the. Black hats. You probably also have little probability of knowing the actual intentions or motives, which actually helps little in threat mitigations.

It's not a "narrow mindset", but a formal basis that fosters analysis.

It's true that drive by black hats could be looking to snarf up all the personal information they can, and selling it into the corporate surveillance databases. I just think it's less likely than they're looking for a quick hit to defraud some banks.

It's not a matter of "paranoia" (there we go again with the handwavey maligning subjectivity!), but of looking at the outcomes. It's paradoxical - the things we think of as "bad" really are not that worrisome, because the shared goal is to correct them. Meanwhile the things we think are "just the way it is" form an insidious creeping trend.

I have very little fear of say my bank account being drained, because if that actually were to happen, then we're in general agreement that it will be made right - from bank policy on up to common law. Whereas if my de-facto mandatory insurance rates mysteriously double, there is both little immediate recourse and many people will even argue in support based on the just world fallacy!

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