Just checked the wikipedia page today and it says that it’s “Unsupported”.
When did that happened, isn’t it currently the most used Android version?
“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.
13 is the latest Android version. 10’s been out of support since 12. And 14 is currently being previewed.
Lol this was an interesting ride from, “why don’t my games work” to “turns out my phone OS is unsupported.” Came across both of your threads independently.
When did that happened?
Looks like 4 months ago. https://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. https://www.statista.com/statistics/921152/mobile-android-version-share-worldwide/
Personally, I get Pixels and install GrapheneOS. They get 5 years of support.
5 years of official support, typically custom ROMs keep it alive even longer, basically until it’s too hard to keep fixing broken features.
They could keep it alive past five years if they really wanted, but that goes against the goal of the project: namely security. But five years is already longer than most manufacturers do, so it’s nothing to turn your nose up at.
“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 It cannot do that once device support code like firmware, kernel and vendor code is no longer actively maintained.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.”
I don’t miss Android Auto as I never used it on stock, but I get others do. I miss Google Wallet’s tap-and-pay on the off chance I forget my wallet or not wanting to pull it out, but that’s a convenience thing and it’s not hard to pay with a physical card instead. That’s really it for me, to be honest.
This is the way, although I wonder if Graphene OS utilises any of the ML capabilities the pixel devices are capable of, at least in terms of hardware
As far as I know, google doesn’t have an official policy on how long they provide security updates, but it has pretty consistently been 3 years after release.
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.
Meanwhile, in 2023, iPhones from 2018 still get the latest iOS. And iPhones from 2015 are still getting security patches.
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). [edit: not to mention different price ranges.] 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 fixes are not backported.
