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Samsung Won't Be Forced To Update Old Smartphones (bbc.com)
Samsung will not be forced to update the software on its mobile phones for years after their release, after it won a court case in the Netherlands. From a report: A consumer association had argued that Samsung should update its phones for at least four years after they go on sale. Regular software updates can address security problems but older models do not typically receive all the latest updates.
However, the court rejected the association's claims.
Samsung produces some of the world's best-selling mobile phones running Google's Android operating system. Google regularly produces software updates that address newly discovered security flaws, and offers these to phone manufacturers such as Samsung. It is often up to the phone manufacturer to distribute the update to its customers. Consumer group Consumentenbond said Samsung was not distributing updates in a "timely" manner. Samsung said it guaranteed consumers in the Netherlands would get software updates for two years after a handset first went on sale in the country. The court ruled in Samsung's favour and said the claims made by Consumentenbond were "inadmissible" because they related to "future acts."
Samsung produces some of the world's best-selling mobile phones running Google's Android operating system. Google regularly produces software updates that address newly discovered security flaws, and offers these to phone manufacturers such as Samsung. It is often up to the phone manufacturer to distribute the update to its customers. Consumer group Consumentenbond said Samsung was not distributing updates in a "timely" manner. Samsung said it guaranteed consumers in the Netherlands would get software updates for two years after a handset first went on sale in the country. The court ruled in Samsung's favour and said the claims made by Consumentenbond were "inadmissible" because they related to "future acts."
consumers won't be forced to buy Samsung phones
Of course they don't want to update anything. How are they supposed to convince you that your 1-year-old phone is now outdated garbage and that you must buy a new one if you don't want to be left behind? Never mind that the old phones end up crunched into little toxic bits and shipped off by the tonne to some asian country to be 'recycled' (as if !) only this fiscal quarters' profits matter; the environment is someone else's problem.
Just last year I got a Galaxy S Relay 4G. That's almost six years old now.
It has a slider keyboard, and the last update for it was 4.1.2 Jelly Bean--meaning you can still write to the external SD card.
I'm frankly glad there are no further updates. Later Android versions just remove user-centric features in favor of corporate interests.
Why phones from Apple are better.
1 - Privacy
2 - Free updates for years and years after release
3 - Privacy
When your market is so insignificant that businesses make up a slightly larger country just to deal with you.
...when it comes time to get another phone. As if I needed any more encouragement to stay with an ecosystem that supports their phones for in my experience at least 4 years.
Yeah Samsung doesn't impress me, ever. Not their phones, not their microwaves, not their TVs.. nothing they make, I want.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Phones explode, the don't update software; the devices look pretty but degrade soon thereafter. I'm not an iphone fan but these scammers at samsung need to be called out.
go figure - lousy phones, lousy company.
...requiring all packaging and marketing materials to state "This device will not receive security updates after [date]"
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pretty sure you're as Russian the fake rabid trump supporters
Version 6.0, Two generations out of date is the most popular version. That would be like iOS 9 was still the most popular version. But 11.3 is. I wish our governments would grow some balls and say no updates no tax breaks.
It is not just Samsung other manufacturers are in the same boat. The Motorola G4 Plus for example was sold with the promise that it will get Oreo in a future update. It yet to see an OS update 9 months after release. In a few months, Google will release the next version of Android. At this point it looks Lenovo/Motorola has played a bait and switch.
While desktop OS support multiple 10-year old hardwares it a pity that Google has not been able to come up with a update mechanism which can support phone older than 2 years. Whatever updates Google provides is limited to a few devices, My 4-year old Android non-Google phone is still very capable and meets my needs but the fact that it has no security updates scares me.
you could probably make some change rooting and flashing new images on unsupported samsung phones.
I'd be happy if they'd just stop pushing updates that completely broke things, or caused the phone to slow down to the point of uselessness.
And I don't want to take the time to search for information on what the new icons mean, why new forms of advertisement are popping up and how to disable them ("notifications" anyone?) Just, leave my damn phone alone, already.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
it's just turned off by default. See here.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If the city can force me to mow my front yard, then why can't Samsung be forced to post firmware updates?
The court ruled in Samsung's favour and said the claims made by Consumentenbond were "inadmissible" because they related to "future acts."
So Samsung does not have any phones older than 2 years? Or maybe the judge means that because Samsung hasn't distributed updates, they can't be sued for not updating because you can't sue someone for.. not.. doing something? No that doesn't make any sense either.
Systemd, Windows 10, and Samsung.
This is utterly negligent on the part of both Samsung and the court.
In any case, Android is now doomed. Itâ(TM)s rhe windows of the smart phone industry. Shit design, full of bugs, and just really shitty.
So not only are they not required to update old phones, but they're allowed to lock the bootloaders so users can't even update them themselves.
This is textbook "forced obsolescence" but they'll continue to BS that it isn't.
build a bare bones android OS with just enough software to run the phone & wifi, and txt msgs, camera, gps, browser, email, (including audio) but all the extra apps and addons be locked out, at least that way it will still be functional as a bare-bones smartphone, i do like samsung's hardware they make a great phone but there are some annoyances in the software side of things, like apps that can not be uninstalled, only disabled, especially third party apps that are not required for a phone to function
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Nobody wants an easily globally infectable monoculture. Smartphones are already worse than indistinguishable.
"fragmentation" has become a brain-dead meme, parroted without thinking, like a polical mantra of the always-afraid.
Choice is a good thing! (Yes, hello, fake two party system! ;)
Modern versions of Android (>7) allow easy updating, even with manufacturer drivers and modifications, as they are kept separate. So changes are not a problem anymore.
More and new features does not equal bad things or bloat anyway. Otherwise you'd be running CP/M and complain about DOS 1.0.
My phone has nearly stock Android, and a few very sensible additions copied from LineageOS. :)
It is not anyone's fault, if you picked and hence rewarded a bad manufacturer for your un-innovative utterly featureless slab of meh.
Making this work, I have the good luck to have a company-provided phone, but they have a policy of buying one generation back to keep the price down. So I'm already starting a year into the service life of the phone. I think we're hitting the point now where phones are good enough for a lot longer than two years, so people are going to slow down on the upgrades. If the manufacturer stops providing updates, consumers will be using phones with security vulnerabilities.
Apple might give support for a few years after the *introduction* of a device, but the kids' ipads stopped getting updates less than 3 years after we bought them. Yes, they were "older" models, but were still shipping to apple stores.
LineageOS, was a good choice, but they have stopped issuing updates for my SIII.
Does your homophobic ranting go down well with all your vegan hipster buddies?
Since they become malware motels, maybe they should lockup.
After 2 years, their resale value will be $ZERO.
if a model stays on the market, at least somewhere and in some quantity, then, that means they'll be stopping updates while the damn things are still actually selling.
it should be, a minimum, of three years after a device is discontinued and samsung and all first-party resellers have depleted their inventory of them.
Yep.. no update? Fine. I'm going to sue you for selling me a defective device, knowing about it, and not offering a remedy.
And plastered all over Samsung's PR BS: we take our customer's security and privacy seriously.
As long as we can get a LineageOS on it with working features, it matters less what the manufacturers do. But they can't abandon it, keep the bootloader locked, and not provide programming info. These are Internet devices and they become dangerous when they're abandoned in a locked or oblique state.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
My 128MB S6 edge just received another update. That's three years out from the date of purchase. But I'd be disappointed with anything less than five years support from Samsung for a phone they stuck a full retail $1600AU price tag on.
Maybe it should be a function of price? You pay less, you get less. But you can only make an informed decision if the manufacturer is required to make a minimum commitment.
They should state an end date at purchase.
Just checking my Samsung Note 3, and its running 7.1.2 (must get around to updating it..)
Because you know what? its not that hard to run other software on many (even most) Android hardware.
Whats not to like? I just run the official software until they drop support, then move to a generic.
Lineage in this case.
...in a world where your payment turns to monopoly money after two years.
Requiem for the American Dream
In the end, it was too painful to deal with Samsung and Android. The system was as unstable as a Windows Vista machine. And got tired of waiting for an OS update. After ditching my iphone 3G back in the day for the freer Android, I find myself back with an iPhone 6s+. Supported with the latest OS how many years after the phone was released? Yes, quite a lot. And iOS is pretty stable. Not as flashy and not as configurable as Android, but good enough. Went from a phone that crashed every 2-3 days to a phone that has months of uptime.
After GDPR, we could think about a Planned Obsolescence Protection Regulation (POPR)
After all why they donâ(TM)t sue Samsung for one of the past skipped updates they intentionally leave customers vulnerable Then court may consider it admissible?
Two years after it "first went on sale" is insufficient and ridiculous. Try more like Four Years after it was Last On Sale and you are talking about a more reasonable solution. When someone buys a phone for $800+ you expect more than one year of software support, especially for the security updates. At those prices expecting an average invesment of $400 per year extortion fee is completely unreasonable for the abverage user.