Highlights a much better policy than Google with respect to their Pixel phones. Pixel 2 was released at the end of 2017 and stopped getting updates at the end of 2020. I was kinda pissed, as I really felt no other compelling reason to get a later model phone. I might get a Pixel 6 when it's released later this year because 5G network availability is starting to become a real thing, but at this point I feel like only 3 years of support for a flagship phone is bullshit.
The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
21–30 of 83 posts
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#22This is why I bought an iPhone 12. I had a Samsung Galaxy S8 before it and I was perfectly happy with it, except for the fact that it had reached the end of its scheduled security updates. The battery life was still good enough for my light usage, it still ran my apps without a hitch, and the OLED screen still looked great, but it had not received a proper software update in over a year and it had just received its f…
Why not just unlock the bootloader and install a custom ROM? As you describe it your phone still worked perfectly fine.
This is a really bold use of "just". Many people (even technically competent ones) don't want to bother, if they have other options.
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#23Big deal. I just installed ubuntu 21.04 on a ten-year-old machine. There is no non-evil reason why the latest OS cannot run on yesterday's hardware.
If anything fails in your ubuntu install, you'll go and find the answers on Ask Ubuntu or so, whereas people expect their smartphones to "just work" and work consistently without changing driver settings.
That creates test and QA work on Apple's part. They also have a pretty good breakdown how many devices of which build type are still out in the wild - and at some point, it simply becomes uneconomical to still support a given device version.
You aren't wrong to point out that incentives are wrong since we don't pay for the Android/iOS version, so the manufacturer makes more money retiring support early, but IMO Apple is doing a pretty good job here, esp. considering how much smartphones have evolved during that time.
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#24It is worth noting that not all iPhones are bought on day 1. 6s was discontinued September 12, 2018 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_6S) and customers may have bought these phones later.
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#25Big deal. I just installed ubuntu 21.04 on a ten-year-old machine. There is no non-evil reason why the latest OS cannot run on yesterday's hardware.
Calling the dropping of support for any single piece of hardware by any group of people, for-profit or non, open source or closed, "evil" seems pretty dramatic.
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a huge difference between a ten-year-old laptop/desktop and a ten-year-old phone—or, more accurately, laptops and desktops have advanced a lot less in the past ten years than phones have. It would be a much better analogy if you were to say you'd installed the latest Ubuntu on a machine from twenty years ago (though even that may be generous, given that the iPhone was only 4 years old 10 years ago, while the…
Or maybe installing the latest upcoming version of OSX on a mid-2014 Macbook Pro, which if I'm not mistaken, will not work.
It'll work if you install a piece of software that changes the device identifier.
You are right though that Apple retires support after 6-7y. That surely could be longer considering how desktop/mobile CPUs have stagnated over the last 5-10y.
It's just unlikely to change given Apple makes no money supporting old computers apart from repairs.
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#27iPhone 5s (2013 IIRC) is also still receiving security updates for iOS 12.5.x.
While I love that Apple provides security updates for older iOS releases (The iOS 12.5.2 security upgrade from March[0] for eg) - Apple doesn't have any guarantees around it.
The closest guarantee you get from Apple is that "iPhones on the latest iOS release are supported". The latest iOS list of supported devices is at [1], and Wikipedia[2] also considers that as the "list of supported devices", because Apple refuses to provide clear guarantees.
The Apple guarantees are on service[3], and only seem to apply for Hardware issues[4]. If someone has a better citation for iPhone 5s being officially under security support, I'd love to update https://endoflife.date/iphone accordingly.
[0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212257
[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/iphone/iphe3fa5df43/io...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_and_iPadOS_devices...
[3]: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201624
[4]: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/370530/is-ios-12-s...
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#28This is why I bought an iPhone 12. I had a Samsung Galaxy S8 before it and I was perfectly happy with it, except for the fact that it had reached the end of its scheduled security updates. The battery life was still good enough for my light usage, it still ran my apps without a hitch, and the OLED screen still looked great, but it had not received a proper software update in over a year and it had just received its f…
Same. Only recently replaced my 6+ with a 12. I used my old phone constantly for 6 years. And, it was still pretty useable at the end. Amortized over that much time the new one is a reasonably cheap upgrade.
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#29It is worth noting that not all iPhones are bought on day 1. 6s was discontinued September 12, 2018 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_6S ) and customers may have bought these phones later.
The non-S iPhone 6 was discontinued at the same time, and did not even get iOS 13 one year later.
Re: The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15
#30Highlights a much better policy than Google with respect to their Pixel phones. Pixel 2 was released at the end of 2017 and stopped getting updates at the end of 2020. I was kinda pissed, as I really felt no other compelling reason to get a later model phone. I might get a Pixel 6 when it's released later this year because 5G network availability is starting to become a real thing, but at this point I feel like only…
Same for Sony. Got like 2.5y support and that's it, not even regular security updates.
I am thinking about switching to iPhones. I just hope the anti-trust case forces Apple to allow other App stores or side-loading. That and the back button is what keeps me on Android, and I am sure I could accustomed to whatever gesture means "back" on iOS.