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There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use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Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#331

Post by pjmlp »

briandear wrote: post #323
pjmlp wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am happy for you, that you can afford spending several hundred euros/dollars/yen/whatever every couple of years for OS updates. Majority of us have better things in life to use our money for.

However, a large number of people on HN are software engineers who make their living writing software for these devices; it would seem like a crowd that loves tech like React “Native” might consider the latest devices somewhat important to their business. If developers are running old devices and old OSes, then it follows that they aren’t developing around the latest capabilities because they themselves don’t use the…

Just because I am a software engineer, doesn’t mean I am willing to spend more than 600 euros every three years for the privilege of having an updated device.

That are more important things in life.

If Google wants us to actually use the latest features, then they should force OEM to upgrade to Treble and push to their devices.

Not to force us to buy an Oreo device, hoping that this time around OEMs will actually push updates on ALL devices.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#332

Post by CommentCard »

eloff wrote: post #246
muzani wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Back up or sync important contacts and data, and then do a factory reset to restore the original OS. Make sure to turn off auto-updates as it will keep downloading them after the restore. It's a shame that phones keep losing features like micro SD.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#333

Post by kuschku »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #330
kuschku wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be a long legal discussion to properly answer your question, but luckily OEMs make it easy for us: On most phones, there are zero external kernel modules loaded. The SoC vendor bakes it all into the ketnel, and the OEM gets the kernel as a blob. Which means all of it is subject to the GPL.

Yep, I had to go sleep (yeah, that dreadful thing!). But this was my main area of attack. You compiled the drivers directly into the kernel. Making it all GPL. Now, as a strict reading, I have to have the device to make the request. That's not difficult. Ive phones from a lot of US named companies. I just want the rights enumerated in the GPL as granted to end users. I'm no kernel maintainer. Just a cranky person who…

> I just want the rights enumerated in the GPL as granted to end users. I'm no kernel maintainer. Just a cranky person who wants the GPL enforced as any license.

Yeah, it turns out it’s not that easily enforcable. There are still court cases going on, but the current legal situation seems to be that unless you’ve contributed significant code to the kernel, you have no legal leg to stand on.

Because the OEM is simply saying "yes, we violated the GPL, and infringed the copyright of the developers", but the only ones who could sue against that would be devs that contributed significant amounts of code.

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

#334

Post by amelius »

jhasse wrote: post #322
amelius wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it doesn't run my banking app.

Most banking apps are available for Android, which uses the Linux kernel.

Yeah, it uses the Linux kernel, but I wouldn't call it a "Linux phone".

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

#335

Post by akoncius »

WillReplyfFood wrote: post #283
alphonsegaston wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this entirely, but there are some pretty bad iOS vulnerabilities out in the wild now (e.g. KRACK wpa2). It’s pretty dangerous to avoid updates nowadays. I think what needs to happen across the industry is a complete decoupling of “feature” from security patching. Too many people are exposed because of exactly the kind of unwanted UI upgrades you describe.

Better have a bricked phone but secured phone? That is basically your argument? Security is used to euthanize perfectly working systems and harass users for money. Security has become dangerous for the user in that aspect.

It’s not “perfectly working” if it is wulnerable to many hacks.

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

#336

Post by ben_w »

majani wrote: post #327
ben_w wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this had been tested recently and shown not true? A psychological illusion or something? I’ve never noticed any significant, let alone dramatic, speed change on any given device from iOS 3 on the original iPad onwards.

Apps that represent light websites like Google and Facebook are now 300mb+. With such memory hogging updates, few people with older phones are going to update.

Size is not speed.

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

#337

Post by pksadiq »

jhasse wrote: post #329
pksadiq wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not true, as the Linux kernel is still GPLv2. So while you could swap out the userspace GNU utils, the device manufacturer can still lock the bootloader which is perfectly fine with the GPLv2. Yeah, probably. But the presence of packages like GNU libc can make it harder for the manufacturer to lock the device. > ... kernel version due to proprietary binary blobs which nearly every phone uses. Sadly, binary b…

> Yeah, probably. But the presence of packages like GNU libc can make it harder for the manufacturer to lock the device. glibc is LGPL, so I don't see how that should change anything? > (as it is a violation of GNU GPL). IIRC it's a gray area.

> glibc is LGPL, so I don't see how that should change anything?

glibc requires libgcc[0], which is GPLv3 (with runtime exception). The same for libstdc++[1].

[0] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/Libgcc.html [1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/license.html

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

#338

Post by uuoc »

CommentCard wrote: post #332
eloff wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Back up or sync important contacts and data, and then do a factory reset to restore the original OS. Make sure to turn off auto-updates as it will keep downloading them after the restore. It's a shame that phones keep losing features like micro SD.

> It's a shame that phones keep losing features like micro SD.

Phones keep losing features like micro SD (and like end-user replaceable batteries) because too many purchasers do not value those items highly enough to refuse to buy any phone that lacks an SD card slot or a user-replaceable battery.

Start refusing to buy any phone which lacks a micro SD slot, and the manufacturers will bring back the micro SD slots (granted, purchasers need to send the makers feedback that they refused to buy phone X due to lack of a microSD (and lack of a user replaceable battery)).

But buying a phone (any phone) which lacks one or the other simply signals to the makers that it is ok to drop those features, because the phone still sells.

I bought a brand new Android phone about 4-5 months ago. It has both a microSD slot (now holding a 128G SD card) and a user replaceable battery. I picked it because it had those features and I valued their presence. If enough others would get fed up with the lack of one or both, and start refusing to buy any phone without one or both, things would turn around.

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

#339

Post by gsich »

koffiezet wrote: post #319
gsich wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No updates for Android devices pretty much confirms this.

That's quite the opposite. It's hw companies not used to having to support their stuff after it leaves the door. To keep supporting this, they should plan/calculate this in from the get-go. They don't plan anything, so now you have devices that don't get updates. Supporting/updating devices requires active planning, but then you get cries over companies that actually do perform updates and get the whole 'planned obso…

Android device manufactors are not solely hardware companies. Samsung surely is not, they do publish updates for some time, then they stop doing that. This is planned. As time progresses your device becomes less usable, not because of the hardware, but of the software and bugs/security issues within.

So if your (example) Samsung device gets updates for 2 years, then the planned obsolescence for that device is 2 years + a few months. The amount of months depends on the severity of the security issues discovered. Also, it may not be "planned" obsolescence, but it sure is "accepted" (from the vendors point) obsolescence. Which is even worse.

On a side note, as a customer I don't care about internal structures of companies. I want updates. If they can't deliver that, open source everything.

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

#340

Post by userbinator »

spookthesunset wrote: post #216
userbinator wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust the community on XDA composed of actual users and developers who are also users, more than the faceless corporation whose profit largely comes from extracting as much of your personal information as possible and monetising it.

I’d rather trust a faceless corporation with a reputation to keep over a bunch of faceless anonymous dudes on a forum.

They're not anonymous, they're pseudoanonymous, which also means carrying a reputation; and if anyone tries to deceive, the community is not entirely full of idiots, unlike what a lot of others in this subthread seem to imply --- all it takes is for someone to find out and provide proof, and the news will spread widely.

The fact that people seem to be scared of and are basically unwilling to make their own decisions of trust in deference to central authorities says a lot about the state of society today... "distributed trust" and communual free sharing was the norm, until companies started to herd users into their walled gardens and control them by using the "security" argument.

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