Slashdot Mirror
Android P Drops Support For Nexus Phones, Pixel Tablet (theverge.com)
Google has launched the first developer preview of Android P, the company's new mobile operating system that brings new features and improvements over Android Oreo. Unfortunately, developers will only have a small set of blessed hardware to choose from with Android P: the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL. Google's Nexus smartphones and Pixel C tablet will not get Android P when it's fully released. The Verge reports: Eventually, Android P will ship on new phones from other manufacturers, along with the handful of handsets that third-parties bother to update, but there are a couple Android mainstays that won't get to enjoy this marvelous future: Google's Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P phones, and the oft-forgotten Pixel C tablet. As Ars Technica confirmed with Google, those devices won't be getting Android P when it's released fully. Also, as Android Police notes, there's no Developer Preview image for the Nexus Player, which came out in 2014, so it might be done getting updates as well. It's 2018, and we're beyond the two years of major OS update support these devices were promised, so this isn't hugely surprising. All three devices will continue to get monthly security updates through at least November of this year, but they'll remain stuck on Android 8.1 for an underlying OS as far as official Google updates go.
You are getting majorly screwed by Google.
That is not much of a surprise. Last year the Nexus 6 was dropped, the year before the Nexus 5.
Let's be frank: What point would there be, to upgrade your phone, except for the dying battery and the OS not getting security patches?
We have been at "good enough" for about a decade now.
And this is precisely, why open source and modular hardware are so important. They save you a shitload of money.
(A shitload is the official unit of measurement amounting to exactly 1.0 "iPhone X"s.)
Android users: OMG we don't get updates, it's a ploy to get us to buy new phones.
iPhone users: OMG our updates slow our devices, it's a ploy to get us to buy new phones.
All users: OMG {insert our favourite feature here} doesn't exist anymore.
All users: OMG {insert feature we never needed before} I need this now and can't get it!
Mine sure won't need any OS upgrades anymore, since it can't even boot.
I'm still getting security updates on my iPhone 4
Android? No thanks.
In hindsight, she might have been better off with .. holy fuck I can't believe I'm saying this .. Samsung.
You can't think of some OTHER unmentionable name she REALLY would have been better off with? One that actually does get support for years? One that is actually serious about security so you don't have to play sysadmin with your wife's devices?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Check the link below. Scroll down to and open "Nexus devices" under "When you'll get Android updates" to see when Google will not guarantee updates.
https://support.google.com/nex...
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
They've stopped supporting my Nexus tablet, and now my wife's Nexus phone.
And since I refuse to run a proprietary version of Android with someone's branded shit in it (looking at you, Samsung) ... then I'm afraid Android is pretty much dead to me. Because it comes down to proprietary and obsolete, or Nexus and obsolete.
The reason I bought these Nexus devices is because I expected to get extended support, and a pure build of Android. I realize there was no promise of forever, but this isn't nearly long enough for hardware which works just fine.
Fuck you, Google. If this is the length we get support for our Nexus devices, why the fuck would I buy another one?
Android has become far too much of a moving target, and the market is way too fragmented as every company turns it into a shitty platform to hawk their own crap. Android was a nice idea, but it's just not holding up to its promise. Owning an Android tablet is pretty much pointless to me now, so I'm not replacing mine, just switching back to an iPad.
If Google won't support the Nexus devices, then the entire Android ecosystem is pointless. Every device maker has their own store, their own wallet, and their own crap I have no fucking interest in .. so fuck it, I'm over Android.
I'm not wasting more money on another Android device. Nexus were the only Android devices which made any sense, and if they're abandoning them, then Android has lost all value to me.
People update their phones like they update their pants. Worse you can't get an update, even a security update because some manufacture wants to force you to update your phone; the phone that still works. My parents had the same phone in the house for thirty years. You made calls on it; it rang. We moved and they didn't take it with them. It was just a thing. This throw away culture is really weird. ... do the math, I did. It is five and half dollars a day. OK, that is like a pack of cigarette too but every day. Another addictive substance. Look at your pay check, look at the Apple Tax, then just buy a phone that is a phone, does what you actually need to do. No tax included. Probably good for four or five years. That is an investment.
Watch the move Idiocracy. You will see where we are being driven too. Apple is the worst! They release like four new phones a year! That means the phone you bought for $500 is worth
It's just a phone. I hope young people will start doing the math, otherwise they are idiots. A nation, planet of idiots. Wow. It is an enabling device, like a toaster. Nothing else. When you make it into a status symbol you fall victim to a company. They like victims as they support the bottom line.
I know. I dropped the landline, $65 a month, which I rarely used, kept DSL, but not through Verizon. California law lets you have naked DSL, though do have argue with Verizon about it; they really want the unused phone fee. Then I valued a phone, service provider and how much I use a service. I am a thinking person and I save money, thinking the solution through to the logical conclusion. This is not difficult.
As to Google not being able to retrofit their OS on hardware they designed? That is disappointing as I have been expecting more from them. Not my first time with Google. They made the Moto G and sold the division off and there is no support anymore. Talk about buyer's remorse. That is also why I stopped buying Apple product; they are pretty but getting one fixed is an adventure, one you don't want to take.
I bought my Nexus 5X quite late (bit more than a year ago). This is my third Nexus phone - started with Nexus One, then Nexus 4, now this one).
I didn't expect to get much more than two years of core Android updates from it and it seems that's what I'm going to get.
I'm not disappointed by that - two years for a relatively low end phone (I paid AUD$450 for it new) isn't too bad. But I am massively disappointed by the fact that Google have erased the Nexus line and expect me to jump up to a top-tier phone - over twice as expensive - so that I can make sure I get the latest operating system updates reliably.
There's Android One but after reading their website I still can't figure out exactly what the hell it is. I think it's basically the latest version of Android but if you buy one of those phones, you're "guaranteed" to not get any of the usual vendor crap installed on top of it.
Of course it doesn't matter because I can't seem to buy them in Australia anyway without going through importers.
I feel like Google is missing a massive opportunity to have a Google-branded mid-range phone. But many of my friends were happy to shell out for the Pixel so maybe I'm just a grumpy cheapskate outlier :D
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So is Nabisco or whomever currently owns them getting a kickback on this or does it being not even related to the baked goods market free them for violated the naming rights ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Your phone won't stop working. I still have a fully functional Galaxy S4. Sometimes I run into apps I can't install, but otherwise it's not broken.
You learnt a lesson. Phones aren't worth $1000+ no matter what people in the office are buying. Live and learn.
Ninety percent of all Nexus 5X and 6P phones have already bootlooped. There is no point in supporting the tiny community of Nexus users whose phones still work,