As soon as they dropped the Nexus line, things went downhill fast. IMO the nexus 5 was peak android.
The nexus 5x had a major bootlooping issue.
Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
221–230 of 370 posts
Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Desktop Linux doesn't actually do that unless you're trying to use a rolling release distribution. The way stable distributions work is that the packages largely remain the same for a given major version throughout its lifespan, but individual packages can still receive security updates.
I've had "stable" distributions fall over upgrading between their major versions. But you missed the point that Android's system image is immutable and updates are atomic. A user can't screw it up. This is not an insignificant feature, and it's something you also get with something like Fedora Silverblue. Which then also doesn't let you pick and choose what updates to get.
Major version upgrades occasionally break things because they're a new feature release but are then trying to migrate configuration from the existing system. But the same thing happens with "atomic" upgrades if you're trying to migrate existing configuration, because the bug is really in the migration system that didn't properly handle that configuration variance, not because the packages aren't upgraded atomically. Which is why phones sometimes do break on major version upgrades for the same reason.
Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
#223Google destroyed the battery on the Fitbit Charge 5 with an update that apparently could not be rolled back or reset. Never admitted fault, never said what the issue was, and very little was offered to affected users. Vowed to never buy Google hardware again...
https://www.androidcentral.com/wearables/fitbit-charge-5-bat...
Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
#224Hi, (soon to be ex) Pixel 4a user here. Regardless of why this update has happened, the way Google have went about this update is sketchy at best, and deceitful at worst. To be plain: this phone has been EOL for 1½ years now. This update has appeared out of the blue and specifically decimates the battery + charging capabilities. My most charitable view is that Google have found a major fault with the Pixel 4a battery…
>Hi, (soon to be ex) Pixel 4a user here. Regardless of why this update has happened, the way Google have went about this update is sketchy at best, and deceitful at worst. To be plain: this phone has been EOL for 1½ years now. This update has appeared out of the blue and specifically decimates the battery + charging capabilities.
See the Fitbit Charge 5 issue from 2023 and it just happened again with the Sense and Versa...
https://www.androidauthority.com/fitbit-sense-versa-3-batter...
Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
#225Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the 4a is on extended support, is not recommended, and cessation can happen any time now? https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices
Is that different on lineageOS or just not as clearly stated?
LineageOS devices are subject to desupport at any time, when the maintainer(s) makes the decision to retire it (and no volunteers appear to replace the maintainer).
With the sunset of 3g, many devices that were not capable of 4g were retired.
That being said, Lineage still does support several Pixels that Graphene has desupported. In fact, I am typing this on a Pixel 3a XL which is in this category.
The original Pixel, Pixel 2 and 2XL are still supported by LineageOS:
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#google
Graphene has explicitly removed everything prior to the Pixel 4, including:
Pixel 3a XL (bonito), Pixel 3a (sargo), Pixel 3 XL (crosshatch), Pixel 3 (blueline), Pixel 2 XL (taimen), Pixel 2 (walleye), Pixel XL (marlin), Pixel (sailfish).
Edit: This extended support does come at some risk. The chipsets used in Android can sometimes have showstopper bugs. Sometimes, these cannot be patched, although maintainers will go to great lengths to find solutions. The "firmware age" is reflected in the "vendor security patch" date in Lineage - the older, the more dangerous.
Graphene largely does not allow this.
Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This has been solved" is an arrogant way to put it.
Only if it hasn't actually been solved. LTS releases resolve the conflict between providing a stable system that receives only security updates and separately maintaining dozens of separate branches.
They don't solve the problem, though, they merely reduce its scope. Ubuntu's LTS versions only last five years for free users, and they currently have to maintain seven of them.
Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
#228After Google Pixel 3 Google went really anti consumer in so many fronts that switching out of it was a no brainer and while you can be tempted by the latest shiny, their level of contempt for their core customers just keeps surfacing. They're too big to care and will keep doing it until people vote with their wallets en masse, for a sufficient amount of time.
Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
#229The pixel 4a battery life saga was what made both me and my entire extended family never even consider buying a pixel phone again (and move to Samsung or iPhones). Google denied the issues existed forever, then shipped a fix that somehow made them even worse, and made the phone unusable for years. I hope we were not the only ones.
Samsung with Nova Launcher is pretty usable. It has its annoying quirks but probably closer to your old experience than a full iPhone switch.