For those on a Pixel 6/7 (a/Pro) or Fold, Users will be getting 2 more years of major software support update which is up to the same years as they would have security updates! Honestly I knew that the phones were going to stop getting security updates by 2027-2028 but still I think this is huge. Especially as a Pixel 7 user with GrapheneOS…
What do you think?
Its God send, almost but I am starting to notice poor battery life with my older Pixel 6a so I am still thankful for my current Phone.
I wish the Graphene team would enable safe use of AI features on the newer 9 models.
hmm what’s wrong with the Pixel 6a’s battery, perhaps it has had a rough degradation then? or maybe it still suffers the same worst battery life? If it’s the latter then yeah. I mean it depends on how long you had rhe 6a perhaps too, did it degrade fast?
I didnt take good care of it really. I let it get charged to 100% and drain all the way down to 0% frequently.
Wasn’t this obvious from the very start? It’s easier for Google to support the device fully than only with security patches, so it makes me scratch my head why they used that 3 year number in the first place.
They realised it would be much so much easier to do this rather than creating and maintaining Android LTS releases for each device.
so rough degradation.
My god I’m sorry about that. I hope you’re enjoying the Pixel 9!
The writing was basically on the wall when the Pixel 8 was revealed that it would support OS updates and security updates for the same duration of time. Google just took their time to officially acknowledge the change for the previous devices.
It would be nice to hear the same is true for the Pixel tablet. I hope this will be included at some time
Perhaps you could just replace your battery? In a shop or do it manually with iFixit’s kit?
That would be true if they included the Pixel Tablet. It isn’t on the list of devices getting 5 years of software updates, despite being a 7th gen device.
yes it unfortunately it’s not, and considering that google is dropping the tablet for the pixelbook android device, i don’t see this changing…
The OS update policy for the Pixel Tablet comes with:
Yes, but as this topic is about, all other 6/7th gen Pixel devices now explicitly offer OS updates for the full five years from release. For whatever reason, the Pixel Tablet appears to be an exception at this time. This is surprising given that the hardware is essentially identical and it will take a not insignificant amount of resources to maintain an LTS branch of Android with security updates for the tablet. This is why people have been speculating Google would offer five years of OS updates for 6/7th gen devices. It didn’t make sense for seven devices models, and it certainly doesn’t make sense for just one.
Well that is ctually not good for your battery i learned. That was the case with older bstteries. I learned that newer batteries are best charged in non full cycles.
Anyway these are not issues a user should have to care about. Just swap the battery when it gets bad.
This is a very good, pro-consumer move.
Well this is nice. Love to see less e-waste being created. Though I run graphpenOS, so this wasn’t really a issue for me.
Love to see all the pro-consumer moves recently.