Since when is Android 10 out of support?
Since when is Android 10 out of support?
That’s not Google’s/Android’s fault, it’s your device’s manufacturer’s fault. Nothing stopping Lenovo from releasing updates for 5-10 years if they want, they just want you to believe it’s obsolete and hope you’ll buy a new one from them. I mean, it’s a Lenovo, what did you expect?
The ultimate proof it’s manufacturer laziness is that custom ROMs like LineageOS have updates out before the manufacturer does, if ever. I have a Galaxy S7 working just fine on Android 13, upgrade all the way from Android 7. Still runs smoother than the OS it came with too.
It could fall on the chipmakers also. I’m only familiar with Qualcomm, but they provide the kernel and blobs to manufacturers.
The work required to extend the life of an abandoned platform can grow very fast once up stream drops support.
As far as I know, google doesn’t have an official policy on how long they provide security updates, but it pretty consistently been 3 years.
The only reason old versions are still in use is that most vendors release a phone, give it the bare minimum number of updates, then abandon it when next years shiny new model comes out.
iPhones are still better when it comes to updates, but things have been slowly improving. A new Samsung flagship get’s you 5 years of support (4 major upgrades + 1 of security updates). A Google Pixel it’s also 5 years, but 3 major updates + 2 of security updates. Not as good, but not terrible either. It’s still a problem for old phones, but at least from now on it should be better.
We should also keep in mind that when we talk about iOS/iPhones, we’re talking about one company. When we talk about Android updates, there’s Samsung (now good), but also Xiaomi and OnePlus (meh), and brands that release phones with already outdated software (really bad). If we’re looking at $/€/£500+ iPhones, maybe we should compare them to a $/€/£500+ Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel?
And iPhones from 2015 are still getting security patches.
The iPhone from 2015 running an old iOS version is not secure. Apple will release an update to WebKit or something like that to fix something being exploited, but most bugs are not fixed. The equivalent on Android would be receiving an update to WebView via the Play Store, which the user wouldn’t even notice. And this is even more true on newer Android versions that have critical system modules and features backported via Play Store updates
Apple is better than most Android brands at updating their phones and tablets, but don’t make the mistake to assume you’re safe using an old iOS version that was recently updated.
They do the same thing on Macs by the way. A machine gets ~7 years of support and they release a security update to old macOS versions from time to time… they get the headlines, people think they’re using a secure OS, but even Apple admits that most security updates are not ported back.
When did that happened?
Looks like 4 months ago. endoflife.date/android
Isn’t it currently the most used Android version?
According to this source, as of Jan 23, no. 10 is at 18.01%, which is beat by both 11 (23.15%) and 12 (25.29%). This is why you buy a phone with good support, and update your OS. They can’t support everything forever. Progress happens, security changes, and they can’t always backport the fixes, which also takes their talent away from evolving the OS. statista.com/…/mobile-android-version-share-world…
Personally, I get Pixels and install GrapheneOS. They get 5 years of support.
They could keep it alive past five years if they wanted, but that goes against the goal of the project. Five years is longer than most manufacturers do.
“GrapheneOS aims to provide reasonably private and secure devices. It cannot do that once device support code like firmware, kernel and vendor code is no longer actively maintained. Even if the community was prepared to take over maintenance of the open source code and to replace the rest, firmware would present a major issue, and the community has never been active or interested enough in device support to consider attempting this. Unlike many other platforms, GrapheneOS has a much higher minimum standard than simply having devices fully functional, as they also need to provide the expected level of security.”
“unsupported” kinda means nothing in that context. 99% of Apps still will run without issues, you can use the latest Chromium and Firefox based browsers, Play Services are all up to date - so really there is nothing to worry about.
In my opinion Android 6 is the latest really “unsupported” version. With a good chunk of Apps not working anymore and the latest Chromium browsers not working anymore either.