The rumors are that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will launch with a promise of 7 years of updates, including not only security fixes and bug fixes but also feature drops. We’ll see what’s announces next month, but Google might be about to jump ahead of even the iPhone on this point.

Disclosure: although I have worked for Google in the past, I haven’t worked for them in more than 8 years, never worked on Android or Pixel beyond internally testing pre-release Android OS versions, have never had anything to do with setting their lifecycle policies, have no inside information on these rumors, and am not speaking for Google here.

I think a challenge of pixels and android in general is they don't seem to care about how well older hardware works with new os releases (or even some updates). I have an iphone se and it seems to work just fine after installing multiple os releases. Pixel type phones seem to struggle after a few os releases, as well as android in general. I should say I usually end up buying one generation behind cur on pixel.

So on top of google's short timeframe to allow 'next os release' support, apple does a better job on keeping older gen phones working well across multiple os releases.

This is one of the first generations of Pixel phones, maybe the first, where Google has had sufficient top-to-bottom vertical control over everything from the CPU on up to plausibly make this kind of promise. Apple got there before Google did, but Google may have finally arrived there.

Again, I have no inside info on this despite having worked for Google many years ago. We'll see what the announcement is on October 4.

> The rumors are that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will launch with a promise of 7 years of updates

I’m not sure promises by Google are worth anything at this point.

I'm having trouble thinking of Google breaking any explicit promises like "Pixel 6 and later phones, including Fold, will get updates for at least 5 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US"? What are you thinking about?

The fact that it has a history of not following through and killing projects. Most recent being Stadia, in my memory, https://kagi.com/search?q=google+stadia+promise&r=no_region&...

That seems pretty different from breaking an clearly worded promise?

Another example: when free high quality (slightly downscaled) photo storage turned into paid after I had used it as backup of almost sll my photos during my android days?

(To be fair, both Dropbox and OneDrive has done the same: offered free storage without specifying a time limit for jumping through some hoops, then IIRC:

- in the Dropbox case: suddenly just introduce a time limit

- in the OneDrive case just tell me one day that they didn't want to do this more and I need to take my data out quickly or pay to avoid losing it )

For google you were not forced to take your data, old data was not counting towards new limit

For me it seems to be.

I have used the free compressed photos option the whole time and one day I was suddenly many many gigabytes over limit.

hard doubt it's bc of old data. It could be a bug in the system, but most probably It's either bc you uploaded from another device/browser or bc of gmail or after the free period ended

But compressed images were free forever until they weren't, right?

nope, it was unlimited compressed for a specified timeframe*(for other phones) and free unlimited compressed forever for pixel 2 to pixel 5(and unlimited uncompressed for og pixel). Google didn't break their promises * Actually it wasn't about timeframe, google afaik didn't say that other smartphones will get unlimited compressed forever, just that it's free for that time

English is not my first language, but I am good enough that I still think I was justified to be (slightly) surprised when they started charging.

> I'm having trouble thinking of Google breaking any explicit promises ...

"Don't Be Evil" famously springs to mind.

Yeah, my wife’s Pixel 3 came with unlimited photo storage too. It was a selling point… of course, that went away when it became inconvenient for Google.

It was supported for exactly the amount of time promised; I don't see your point here?

I cannot remember them telling that unlimited photo storage wasn't unlimited?

I was also burned, in my case by the "free forever" or something "high quality photo storage" (as opposed to full quality).

I understand nothing is truly free, but I expect when a large scale company offers something for free they have thought it true and aren't planning from the start to weasel out once you have uploaded a few thousand images using their solution?

Well, I have learned my lessons:

I don't trust Google anymore.

As some said it took a while to stop trusting Google because they had to burn through a mountain of goodwill, but here we are.

On the first Pixel generation it was unlimited for the lifetime of the device, from Pixel 2 onwards it was unlimited storage for 3 years, in case of Pixel 3 which launched in Oct.2018 it was unlimited until 31st January 2022.

I understand your frustration, but this was communicated by Google already at launch.

Google specifically said what benefits you get with each pixel: unlimited original with first p, from 2 to 3 or 4, unlimited original for 3 years and unlimited compressed after, for p5 just unlimited compressed. Google didn't broke any of these claims

Google absolutely is not about to jump ahead of Apple until they make good on that promise. Call us back in 7 years.

Yeah, and also google did a poor job with lens coating on P7 so that lens flare is ruining any photo with too many light sources And the phone overheats with camera/video turned on for more than 15 mins, even 30fps 1080

Graphene OS.

At least when I looked into it, Graphene stops supporting pixels as soon as Google does.

GrapheneOS supports devices 1 year after they stop receiving updates by the OEM.[1]

E.g. my Pixel 4a stopped receiving updates last month but will probably receive Android 14 updates until the next release.

[1] https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime

Just spitballing here but it's possible that Android's openness is exactly why Google Pixel doesn't have better resources to have long term support. Some bean counters probably determined that Google doesn't make enough money to have teams supporting older Pixels. Samsung is taking a ton of profits from Pixel and the end result is piss poor Android support on Pixels.

Guess what? Samsung doesn't care about long term Android support. They're in it to sell phones. It's better for Samsung if Android's ecosystem continues to drop older phones.

At some point, Apple realized that long term support is a competitive advantage they can leverage. Due to their enormous profits, they can increase their support costs. With their closed ecosystem, Samsung can't come in and pull their shenanigans to undercut Apple.

IMO, Android’s openness is exactly why the Android experience on older phones suck.

Samsung has pledged 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates recently.

I’d like to see 7-8 years of security updates, but it’s decent.

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_pledges_4_os_updates_5_year...

Imo it's bs in the context where fairphone 5 will have 8y of os updates

Pretty sure Samsung has sold more SKUs than fair phone has sold actual phones. It’s a pretty ridiculous comparison. Have they even been shipping phones for 8y?

and what? Parent comment was saying google does not have resources, I gave an example of a company with much less resources but that can do this

Saying "why can't BigCo support BillionsOfPhones, when fair phone can support AFewPhones" doesn't make sense.

1. We don't know FairPhone can follow through, they're small/young and may not exist in 8y, or may not have money to pay for support. 2. Even if FP succeeds, they accomplished a much easier task than BigCo is expected to.

Nr of phones doesn't matter, nr of models matters. How many models have google launched? 8? Fairphone did 5, not that big difference. And apple how many? >15 generations with huge support. So here we have both a small company with big support, a big company with big support (and even samsung now provides more years of os updates lol) and here we have google, a big corp that "can't" do this bc they are big... suuuuuure

To be fair, Google is also developing most of Android, so they already have a lot higher costs. Tough S*t, I know, but if Google drops android, I'd like to see how much support/progress someone like FairPhone can really provide. Only apple really has a fair comparison. I agree Google just hasn't supported long cycles because they didn't care, not because they can't. But you have to recognize they have a much bigger task. I would also assume that Google + Samsung's support is a lot more comprehensive than FairPhone's

Google obviously has the resources. The bean counters decided that they want profits instead of building up a loyal customer base.

My main point is that if Pixels sold as many phones as Samsung, it is very likely that Pixel would put in the resources to support older phones. Competition within the Android space does not equate to better long term service.

I'm not sure openness is the sole factor reducing support duration.

Windows 8 was released in 2012 and was supported untim 2023 and Microsoft for sure hat _a lot_ more platforms to support than Google / the Android Team.

I would argue that a closed system is a lot easier to support for a longer time (because one can mandate changes/depreciations). But for a open system, there must be another factor coming into play, may it be money or a simple "don't care".

Ultimately it was the need to buy a new phone every couple of years even when I otherwise wouldn't need to that pushed me to Apple devices. I only this year had to replace my daughter's iPhone 7, but not because it wasn't supported as a 4 year old device. Granted it won't get iOS 16 or 17 but 15 is still supported.

So you want everything like Android, but you want a magic wand that means you won't get exactly the same outcomes as Android.

A closed system makes long-term support easier.

So you want Apple to not be able to earn money from you having the device, yet spend money on providing security updates for it.