How long should they provide software updates for? 3-years? 5-years? 10-years? What would be an acceptable cut off date for providing updates? I wouldn't expect companies to provide updates for their old hardware forever, but what would be an acceptable date that will benefit both consumers and the company itself.
As this article aptly demonstrates every time a phone is bought it is an opportunity to leave an ecosystem.
The manufacturer cannot guarantee that that the phone sold to a consumer will be replaced with a phone from the same company. So it's definitely within the interest of the company to support the phones for longer to keep consumers in the ecosystem.
What if vendors released the source code for the hardware drivers after the devices fall out of official support? Even if nobody at the company has time to support the hardware there is always a chance that the community can take over.
This is how Linux maintains driver support for hardware long past the point where it doesn't work on modern Windows or MacOS. I've noticed several occasions where the support stops because the kernel was updated and nobody wants to make the effort to port the drivers forward, especially since those drivers were delivered as a binary blob.
Right, that's the calculation any consumer good producing company has to do. When we buy industrial equipment we pay a huge markup for vendor promises that they'll support for 10+ years. It's painful at the time but we have automated manufacturing equipment that's been running 20+ years. When I purchase controllers, sensors, motors, etc. it cost me double or triple what I could have paid but now I'm happy I did.
But I also know that our products (PCs and printers) can't have that same support model, we'd be out of business and we don't have a lucrative ad business that could buy us customer loyalty via loss leaders. I think 5-8 years is reasonable.
They offer five years of security updates on the Pixel 6 and eight years of security updates for any chromebook from 2020. Nest and Chromecast devices also all get five plus years of updates. The minimum should be this across all android/chrome OS manufacturers though.
If you buy a Pixel 6 today you get OS updates until October 2024 and security updates until October 2026 which is shown on Google support pages. Similar to if you were to buy an iOS device except you'd only have past experience to go off because they won't actually promise you anything.
What I want is for them to commit to supporting a device for some number of years after it's introduced so I know what to expect when I buy one. It should be one of the things manufacturers compete on.
At least as long as their main competitor, which currently has a phone that has been supported for 6.5 and will probably remain supported up until 8 years from its release date (iPhone 6S).
Or improving updates. Why can my Linux distro not care what model I whatever I have but every bit of android is specifically tailored to that exact phone model
It's easy you know from testing when your silicon or other parts of the phone are going to degrade beyond the point of it being useable. If you sell hardware that is not obsolete for your customers but you make it obsolete because of software you pulled the trigger to early.
I'm aware that if you buy a game on Windows and play it on Linux, it might be tagged as a Windows game purchase. Wonder if this 0.1% truly tells the whole story.
Not using Google Maps is difficult, but it can be done. I'm currently using OsmAnd from F-Droid and it works awesome. I would recommend it to anyone trying to live without Google services.
Not at all, and going with what the article talks about, Apple Maps is a viable option. Although a lot of the users out there don't have Apple products.
Not only do I use OsmAnd, but I prefer it to Google maps (and not just for privacy reasons). For whatever reason, I always find it a bit fiddly to set up initially, but once I've got it working, it's really nice.
Mapquest is surprisingly still going, and it seems better than Google Maps in my limited experience with it. When visiting Orlando, FL a couple of years ago, the Mapquest app generated optimal and correct directions while Google Maps was generating erroneous ones.
I've tried IF before and was very similar to caloric restriction. Many people point out the point that a diet has to be followed and when you fall thru, you will gain the weight back all over again. Imho, IF is easier to do than conventional diets.
It definitely can be. For me, I don't get hungry until late morning, and can usually hold off until lunch. I only really feel the need to eat 400-800 cal during the day, which is around 30% of my daily needs (depending on exercise and goal number)
What has Apple invented? As far as I'm aware, they have patents of re-purposing other inventions, or design patents. But cannot think of anything they "invented" that didn't already exist before.
They were the first to mass market capacitive touch/multitouch. I believe they acquired many of the underlying technologies, but so far as I know, they were the first to ship a multitouch user interface with a capacitive touchscreen.
I love the Linux app, and the integration on browser extensions and Android app, but the Android app is very limited on features. I love projects like this, and support them as a paid member, just like ProtonMail.
I'm truly hoping that this phone won't suffer the same fate as the Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition. I'm also concern about security updates where most phone makers stop providing them after a certain (& short) period.
