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There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use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Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#431

Post by iainmerrick »

2-4-Flinching wrote: post #189
deathanatos wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, like the parent poster, am running the latest update for my phone. Yes, I know I'm a walking vulnerability, but short of purchasing a new phone, there is nothing I can do about it. IIRC, updates for my device were cut off before it was even out of warranty , and I'm sorry, I'm not dropping — I can't drop — $600 every year and a half on new hardware just to get new software. Vendors need to support devices for the…

You don't have to drop $600 every year and a half. Which would only be $34 a month over that period. You can drop $600 every 3 years with google devices and have monthly security updates. You could save $17 every month for that 3 year time to buy the next phone. If you want to stay secure you will, if it not a priority you wont.

Or you can spend $200 and get a pretty good, non-flagship phone, with software that's (usually almost) as up-to-date as the flagships.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#432

Post by iainmerrick »

pjmlp wrote: post #234
adventured wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a Samsung S4 laying around that I hadn't used for years (it's 4 1/2 years old). Recently I fired it up just to check some things. As expected, it still runs beautifully for normal Web use across all sites. Other than the small form factor (which some people may prefer), it's easy to see how consumers might stick to older phones.

I used my S3 until it died on me, a couple of months ago.

The S3 and S4 were pretty nice! Very slow flash, like every other Android back then, but good screens and very capable GPUs. (Since then screen size increases have outpaced GPU speed bumps, so modern phones don't always draw any faster.)

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#433

Post by pc86 »

Bartweiss wrote: post #426
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…

Samsung deserves a special shout-out for making their impossible-to-remove apps also impossible to move to remote storage, so their useless garbage takes up a solid amount of device storage even while disabled. It's frustrating how often smartphone customization/upgrading feels like an actively hostile process.

I recently switched from iOS to a Galaxy Note 8, and the sheer amount of garbage on the phone at setup is astounding.

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

#434

Post by uuoc »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #369
uuoc wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 (gr…

Curious, what phone was it?

Motorola Moto E4 (unlocked version).

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

#435

Post by uuoc »

gambiting wrote: post #398
uuoc wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 (gr…

I don't think that's so clear cut. I'm looking for a new phone now and I refuse to look at anything without a headphone jack. I've been repeatedly told online and by my friends that I'm weird - the headphone jack is dead, the ship has sailed, it's too late now etc etc. But how else can I vote on this if not with my wallet? I want a phone with a headphone jack but the choices are becoming narrower and narrower - and i…

> Pixel 2 doesn't have a jack and no one cares.

And this is exactly the problem. That no one cares. If enough cared, the first phone without a jack (iPhone, right?) would have been a sales flop, and maybe the message would have gotten back to leave the jack in the phone.

Instead, it sold, which tells the makers that dropping the jack was no big deal, people still bought it anyway.

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

#436

Post by scarface74 »

vetinari wrote: post #383
scarface74 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. It's all Google's fault. I don't have to wait for the manufacturer to update my Windows PC. Heck I was able to install Windows 7 on a Mac Mini without any support from Apple. Not to mention I updated a 9 year old Dell Core 2 Duo to Windows 10.

Your PC, including your Mac Mini, has BIOS/UEFI/other firmware with both boot-time and run-time services. Additionally, it has a hardware, whose sole purpose is to detect and enumerate all the other hardware. Mobile phones and other embedded devices have none of this.

There was nothing stopping Google from designing such as system -- just like Microsoft and Intel did.

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

#437

Post by uuoc »

marcosdumay wrote: post #410
uuoc wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 (gr…

Why would people value an SD card if the apps all refuse to use it? The entire thing is a shit storm, every player seems to be against the end user (that is paying for everything, go figure). There's a protection racket on the form of patent rights enabling the shit to go on, but it can not reasonably survive on this shape for very long.

> Why would people value an SD card if the apps all refuse to use it?

Valid point, but the apps may just be refusing because most phones don't have an SD card anymore, and the authors are either being lazy or don't care (I don't know which) and simply failing to code in support for something they think seldom exists anywhere.

Although in my case, all my apps that I care about using the SD card are using the SD card. But then again I have 98% FDroid apps installed, so those may just be better behaved apps.

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

#438

Post by scarface74 »

vetinari wrote: post #389
scarface74 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The carrier doesn't lock down iOS. Every iOS user worldwide can update to iOS the day it is released if the phone is compatible.

This is a function of market share and customer loyalty, and thus Apples ability to tell carriers to f-off. iPhones will sell regardless whether the given carrier does sell them or not. On the other hand, iOS updates do cause problems and then it's the carriers, who scramble to modify their networks to make iPhones work (remember when Brits didn't have mobile data for a few days after an update?). They would not do i…

Apple rested control from AT&T and the few mobile carriers around the world that were selling the iPhone during the first year with less than 10 million devices sold. There was no reason that Google couldn't do the same. You even had to wait for Nexus updates back in the day that were sold by Verizon.

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

#439

Post by viraptor »

vetinari wrote: post #375
viraptor wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I keep hearing this, but what's the actual presence of malware on Android? If you're not installing shady apps from the Play Store, what's your actual level of risk? I wish I could quantify that. It's a hard task. But the store is not the only possible vector. On an old Android you're running a very outdated version of Chrome when looking at any pages / ads. That would be the most exposed/insecure element in the sy…

Chrome on Android is updated separately from the OS release. Even old Androids have new Chrome. This is not the Safari-on-iOS situation. The same is valid for the system WebView, but "only" since Android 4.4. It is updated via Play Store, independently from the base system.

I was responding in the context of:

> As someone who goes as long as possible without performing updates

I take that to mean without updating the apps either, not just the os. I've seen people reject any kind of upgrades.

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

#440

Post by gsich »

jiggunjer wrote: post #355
gsich wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My phone doesn't become obsolete because of that. It's because I'm not allowed to use many apps without updating them after a certain time. These newer versions are slower and use more resources. Even with regular updates my phone would be unusable after enough userland development.

An unfixed remote code execution (lets say through the SSID, exaggerated example) doesn't make your device obsolete?

The software update case you wrote is a good example of planned (or accepted) obsolescence by the developer.

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