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In this photo illustration, a view of iOS14, the new Apple iPhone update in L’Aquila, Italy, in September … [+]
Google’s excellent Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL phones will receive their latest security update in December 2020, which effectively dismantles the phones.
When I explained this to my partner, who still uses her Pixel 2, she wasn’t excited about a new phone, instead asking why she had to ditch her perfectly working Pixel.
Good question. Why leave out a phone that, three years ago, was cutting edge technology? That doesn’t have any noticeable performance issues and still has a reasonable battery life (you haven’t mentioned any significant drain on battery capacity). The Pixel 2’s photographic abilities that wowed in 2017 are still impressive and the phone still has access to Google’s next-gen AI tech like Duplex.
Google’s feature drop program is also improving older Pixel phones. The first drop in December 2019 bought the Recorder app and the Digital Wellbeing features. The following March and June 2020 feature drops bought enhancements to Live Captions and Adaptive Battery for the 2017 phone respectively. Pixel 2 users get the best of Google’s experience in the same year that their phones will lose vital security support.
Google is a victim of its own success. By focusing on artificial intelligence and using software to mask shortcomings in hardware, it means that there isn’t a huge difference between your older and newer phones. There’s a much bigger gap between Samsung’s Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S8 than there is between a Pixel 2 and a Pixel 5. So it’s harder to justify short OS support (compared to Apple, at least).
Determined iPhone 6S owners are entering their final year of iOS support, happy to have extracted every last drop from a phone purchased when Tik Tok was a sound watch made. That is the true value for money. It’s also the reason why second-hand iPhones are so much more valuable than older Android phones. IPhone 12 buyers can expect to be equally satisfied in 2025.
Earlier this summer, I wrote about how my 2015 Chromebook Pixel was still performing well, despite five years of repeated use and, frankly, without much attention. But Google has set it an arbitrary expiration date upon ending its software support next June. So this expensive piece of metal should be thrown away because someone decided it should, rather than because it no longer works. Making viable technology obsolete for the bottom line doesn’t particularly sound to the consumer or the environment.
In the Android world, Google is one of the best companies for this. Three years of support is two years longer than some Motorola devices. Samsung also just went from two years to three. Not a good look for the platform. Like Apple, it rightly receives criticism for its anti-competitive and aggressive stance on third-party repairs. At the very least, protect your phone with security and software updates for at least five years. It is time for Google to do the same.
