Edit: not sarcastic, 100% serious.

I have 5+ year old Android phones that have no issue with banking apps. I'm not sure where this rhetoric is coming from, but it doesn't align with my experience on Android.

Capital one/wells fargo requires android 8+. Citi bank 7.1+. (I stopped looking it up at this point). 8 was released in 2017. So assuming 2 years of major OS updates, that means roughly phones from 2015 can still work with it.

Also... even if the app stops working, you can use a web browser still.

Phone batteries die off long before this becomes a reality.

My local bank requires 9 or above

>Also... even if the app stops working, you can use a web browser still.

It's not uncommon at all for banks to have a website that's virtually impossible to use on mobile browsers.

This thread is discussing a phone with replaceable battery. For at least 5 years.

I think the relevant question is whose phone lasts 6-7 years? Because you might well replace the battery a couple times over the life of the phone and that's fine.

Anyway I just got a whole new iphone 8+ out of a failed battery replacement and it was showing all kinds of OS and application glitches, just as the moto G I had before it did too. The flash and DRAM doesn't last forever, the practical lifespan of the handset itself is about 3 years for complete stability, 4 years for moderate glitchiness, and 5 years for complete unusability, same pattern across both phones.

But yes, this means I will be using a 2017 phone for another 4 years, so the software lifespan probably needs to be close to a decade, and Android's lifespan is absurdly far from that level.

I would not surprise if we'd gradually get longer software support on future phones as time goes on.

That belongs on https://twitter.com/shituserstory

I want to buy a new phone when trying to access to my money

So that an IT manager at the bank can put a check mark next to a policy OKR

OK.

But surely banks ought to. If you care about having a banking app, then you ought to care transitively.

But it is not much of as a problem right now. They definitely try to push people towards more secure and up-to-date systems, but as now, you still can bank from insecure systems as well, and allow your account to be stolen.

If you buy something in a store, you have no certainty that your CC number doesn't end in the hands of store personnel.

> Besides, if someone gets your credit card number and purchases something, you can charge it back.

You have to keep an eye on it. It is easy to overlook if the amount small is enough.

All in all, I wouldn't call this good security practice.

It’s some real “serpent eating its own tail” sh*t if I ever saw it.

I know it sounds extreme, but it's time to send the signal that it's not ok to force people to throw electronics to landfill because of shiny new APIs.

I only change phones when they die in some form, so 300 euros every 5 years on average is more than enough, I am not buying phones with laptop prices.

I have anyway access to Apple devices via project assignments in consulting projects.

Not really, and definitely not with more modern ones. I have an iPhone 11 from 2019. It was released with iOS 13. It is now running iOS 16.1.1. It is as snappy as the day I bought it. I'm considering a phone upgrade, but that's because of the improved camera, not performance (or even battery life).

My old iPhone 8 (2017) is still getting updates, and now is moderately pokey with nontrivial apps, but the OS is fine. And I get it with regards to apps, as the perf and battery improvements between the A11 and the A13 chips was pretty significant.

I mean.. that is (on average) roughly 2.5 years old. If your phone was expensive and is still fairly new, then it's not going to be affected by the stuff that pertains old, mid-tier phones, before it gets even older than those.

That's not an Apple/iPhone property but I find it fascinating, that they are able to sell it as such.

And when you slot that against Android options, 3.5 years is a lot for a usable, secure life of a mobile device. I can safely assume I'll get five years of good, secure perf out of any Apple device from the last five years and another 2-3 years (at minimum) of tolerable performance, and that's pretty hard to argue with in this market.

Don't get me wrong, it's not enough and I'd like it to be better; I'd like all hardware reusability to be better. I'm pretty big on it; I still have an iPad 3 and a Nexus 7 in use as house kiosks (which sidesteps the security issue that phones necessarily have). But if I am maximizing useful life, buying Apple devices has been less fraught for most, if not all, of my adult life.

As you tell yourself, the iPhone 8 isn't its former self with its original iOS version.

Even if that weren't the case, a six-year-old iPhone 8 has out-survived the useful, secure life of, what, every Android device not made directly by Google? Hell, a 3.5-year-old iPhone 11 has out-survived the useful, secure life of the overwhelming majority of Android devices, too. And, further, given that A11->A13 was the most significant period of perf improvement and energy reductions (the A14/A15 are moderately faster but the tail certainly appears to be here), that bodes well for its continuing usefulness.

Apps or OS doesn't matter, they are interwined.

Did you actually daily drive one? Because I did use an iPhone 6S for its full software support span (7 years) and yes, by the end of 2022 it was definitely the fastest kid on the block. But to run messaging apps, play music, grab quick pictures and scroll memes in the subway, it's more than fine.

IIRC, there was only one prominent case of that happening (slowing down noticeably), I think it was iOS 7 on the iPhone 4 but I might be wrong about that. And I think they fixed it a bunch in 7.1, so it wasn't even for that long.

But ever since then Apple really hasn't pushed updates that slow the phone meaningfully. Instead they gatekeep new features to newer models that can support it, which makes sense.

Ok. Sure Jan. I think the majority will take that slow phone in a heartbeat.

As long as the apps they use work ok I'm not sure the majority cares about updates security or otherwise.

If people could choose a longer period of updates, I don’t really expect any to refuse.

Most people will access all facets of their life on their phone, from social, to financial, to work. If anything, the risk is only going to increase as time goes on.

Second is even if an android version lagging behing on security features from later versions, play store enforce enough harsh policies on app submissions requiring access to external data and collect user data, that you can trust most of it. Sure some apps can slip under their radar but play store bots can eventually catch up to them.

Only rich people care about iPhones, or those that buy everything on credit.

Minimizing a group of people does nothing but stroke your own ego. There are many reasons to buy an iPhone. There are many reasons to buy an Android. Buying one or the other says nothing about you as a person and implying otherwise is absurd and childish.

We’re not on Reddit; this is supposed to be adults having conversations not preteen fanboys blindly worshipping a mobile OS.

Price is a clear advantage for Android phones. Does that make me an Android worshipper now?

In fact running across that old phone is what convinced me to switch.

I usually get the latest and greatest from work every 2 years. Then I pay a nominal fee to get it for myself (because of taxes or accounting or something).

I get a new phone from the company, my old one goes to my SO. Their old one goes either to my kid or to mine or my SO's parents, depending on which part of the lifecycle they are at.

Can't do that with Android, the 5-6 year old ones would be so bad and out of date that I wouldn't want to be the one doing tech support for them.

Only nice thing on Android is the aftermarket ROMs since it's AOSP. Sadly from my experience the aftermarket ROMs for newer OS iterations arent polished or miss features that the OEM roms had.

The Google Pixel receives new android versions and security updates for a longer period of time than any other android phone, but that's fewer than the equivalent iPhone

The bottom line is I don't think this is solvable with technology. Google should have gotten much tougher with OEMs once Android got widely accepted.

The Android team is the one to blame, several times on Android Fireside sessions they have answered that they rather have the fragementation of the ecosystem where partners are allowed to experiment and come up with new ideas.

Well one of the ideas is to sell newer devices instead of free beer upgrades, with Google's complacency.

I still rather be on Android, because even with them screwing up Sun and leaving it to implode, I like that they push a managed OS no matter what.

Those that unaccept it and keep diving into the NDK with GL based UIs, always get a few scars in the process.

There are too many benefits for the OEMs to dump phones on the market and not update. No reason to care otherwise so far, sadly.

Hyperbole much? That's a ridiculous claim. I've been sporting a "renewed" Samsung S10E since early 2021. There's still nothing it can't do. Prior to that I owned a Galaxy S7 since 2016! That's a 5 whole years without any phone issues on an Android phone. I turned on the S7 a few months back and after an update, all the apps still work.

not that iphone are any better. you have zero idea what you get on a new ios for old devices since the binaries are not the same. only thing you can be certain is the extra slow down loop

Google moved the web browser component to the Play Store because Android's OS updates are so bad. They had no choice but to do it.

Apple could do it too if they wanted to but they don't need to because they actually provide OS updates for a decent period.

My point was that old Android phones "not working" after a few years is complete bs. The S10E was launched in March 2019 and still going strong.

EDIT: Looks like the S10E is still getting monthly security updates too: https://doc.samsungmobile.com/sm-g970f/xeo/doc.html

https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-android-updates-114...

Never used it though, my last 3 phones were all from Nokia. It's pretty much the only manufacturer that still releases new stock (Android One) models regularly.

(Excluding too-expensive-for-my-taste Pixels and some Motorolas I could never find in my country).

Hm? Writing this on g30 and Motos aren't popular here for years.

Edit: like I bought the cheapest Samsung last year and the experience is night and day.

Android One = nearly the same stock Android you'd get on a Pixel, no (non-Google) bloatware, no custom UI.

It was never quite popular, but if you scroll through the Wikipedia list of devices (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_One), you'll see it's pretty much only Nokia nowadays.

Some Motorola models as well, but I couldn't find those specific models back when they were still new and I was looking for a phone.