Google Sends Final Software Update To Legacy Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P Phones (hothardware.com)

Google has pushed out the final "guaranteed" official software update for Nexus devices. According to Hot Hardware, the November update for both the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P "carries the final build number of OPM7.181105.004, running Android 8.1 Oreo." From the report: The last Nexus smartphones to launch from Google were the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, which debuted in late 2015. Under Google's three-year update policy, both smartphones have received two major Android releases (Android 7.0 Nougat in 2016 and Android 8.0 Oreo in 2017) along with three years of monthly security updates. The monthly security updates should have ended in September, but Google out of nowhere provided a two-month reprieve through November 2018.

Comments

"out of nowhere provided a two-month reprieve"

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldnt the update policy mean how long the device is supported at minimum? So there shouldnt be anything wrong or unexpected with a longer support time frame.

At the same time five year old Apple devices (5S) still receive support and the latest versions. That, coupled with an iOS 12 market share of 60% versus an Android 9 market share of 0.1% speaks for itself as far as "update policies" are concerned.

And before anyone jumps out accusing me of being an Apple fanboy, I have never owned any Apple device and am currently running a Nougat and an Oreo device. However I am really slowly thinking of whether a switch to Apple would be all that bad. While I considered macOS before I always used to rule out iOS because of its golden cage - "used to". The thing that still holds me back for now is Apple's - IMHO - exaggerted pricing structure.

Re:"out of nowhere provided a two-month reprieve"

[Camembert]

"At the same time five year old Apple devices (5S) still receive support and the latest versions. That, coupled with an iOS 12 market share of 60% versus an Android 9 market share of 0.1% speaks for itself as far as "update policies" are concerned."

I have to say what impressed me most about IOS12 on my 4 year old 6Plus is that it has made the old phone operate more smoothly. To the point that I hope it will hold out for another year before replacing to then newest iphone.
I recognise it wasn't always like this, one past update made my jurassic iPad 2 suddenly slow like a tortoise, it was indeed an old device with limited specs and little RAM but it taught me to first check on reports of new IOS on old devices, because annoyingly you can't roll back to the previous version of IOS after the first week or so of release.
Anyway, back to the 6Plus. It wasn't a cheap device when I bought it, but if I can get (as I expect) 5 years of comfortable use out of it, then the yearly price vs. the general satisfaction will have been worth it.

Re:"out of nowhere provided a two-month reprieve"

[AmiMoJo]

Android 9 market share of 0.1%

According to Google 21.5% of Android devices are on Oreo.

https://developer.android.com/...

50% are on Oreo or Nougat, the two latest versions. Where did you get your number from?

Re:"out of nowhere provided a two-month reprieve"

[Anubis IV]

I’ve had a similar experience with my 2013 iPhone 5s. It just received the iOS 12.1 update, which went smoothly, and it feels as if it’s running better than at any point in the last few years. Its (original) battery is no longer able to just barely squeak through a full weekend on a single charge like it could up until earlier this year, but it can still make it through a full day and partway into the next with light use. I may replace the battery at some point this year, but I’m going to try to stretch it to when I upgrade.

I’ve had the money set aside to replace it for a few years now, and I fully intended to replace it this year, but with iOS 12 being so good on it, and with the latest iPhones not really feeling like they offered that much more over last year’s models, I figured I’d give them another year before upgrading.

Real heroes we got here

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, somebody give Google a medal for really going the extra mile to support a product for five minutes. They went way beyond the thirty seconds we see most places and really gave this one at least a dime more. Let's hear it for the heroes of long term support.

Three years, pathetic...

[bradley13]

Three years? Even as a gamer, I am using a 5 year old gaming PC with no problems. My Nexus 5X works fine, and I have no plans to replace it - why should I? Computing devices live a lot longer than three years. While new features can be reserved for new phones, security updates should be provided essentially forever.

Heck, I still have my original Nexus S, from 2010, and it works fine. The Google packages have bloated so much that they no longer fit. However, with root I could uninstall the Google bloat, and it is a fine backup phone.

Re:Three years, pathetic...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The majority of phones don't make it to 2 years. The vast majority don't make it to 3 years"
Source? I doubt that majority of phones wouldn't survive for longer than that, if they were updated and people were not obsessed in getting the new shiniest phone.

Re: Three years, pathetic...

[bradley13]

Wrong. My phone lives in my pocket and sees heavy use. It has been repaired once, and has a couple of chips in the bezel, where it was dropped (good reason to avoid phones with no bezel).

If you take decent care of your stuff, and don't have to have the new shiny, three years is no problem.

Re:Three years, pathetic...

[iampiti]

I live in Europe and most people I know only replace their phones when they stop working correctly.
People upgrading every year are a minority

pathetic really

[gravewax]

This really highlights the sad state of affairs for android based hardware when this is one of the "better" (and I use that word loosely) support policies, a fucking disgrace.

Re:Why bother? (bootloop of death)

[Stormwatch]

10/10 (except no sd card)

Then it's not really a 10/10, is it? Even if it was perfect in every other way, you must deduct a point for no SD and another for no removable battery.

That's bad

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

This three years guaranteed updates policy is a complete and utter BS, Google. Modern smartphones are more than capable of serving the user not just for three years, they may work for up to a decade and this support window just doesn't cut it. It's bad for the environment, it's bad for people (since Google basically forces them to replace their perfectly working devices just to feel safe), it's bad for Android's popularity in general because when you e.g. buy into the Apple ecosystem you can expect more than five years of support and that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth since a lot of Android phones cost as much as or even more than the most expensive iPhones (Samsung Note9 512GB, Huawei Mate 20 Pro 256GB, etc).

This must change.

Re:That's bad

[swillden]

This three years guaranteed updates policy is a complete and utter BS, Google.

It should be noted that Google is, AFAICT, the only phone maker that offers any guaranteed update policy at all. Apple in practice offers about five years of updates, but they make no specific commitments and could change this at any time.

Note also that Google's guaranteed support period has increased to four years on Pixel devices. IMO, it should be five years. I'm skeptical that it makes sense to support devices longer than that, just because such a small percentage of devices actually survive that long. It costs the same to support an old device that has 1000 units still in service as it does to support an old device with 100,000 units still in service, but the benefit is obviously much smaller. And support costs increase as a device gets older and less similar to current generations.

Re:That's bad

[EvilSS]

Speaking of Apple, one big difference here is that iOS doesn't tie security updates to hardware the way Google is doing here (unless, of course, the particular issue is model specific). So if you have an old iPhone with a currently supported OS on it, it will get security updates for as long as Apple is releasing them for that version. I seems crazy that a Google branded Android device with a modern version of Android OS isn't going to get security updates for that OS now because the hardware and not the OS is out of support.

Re:Why bother? (bootloop of death)

[syntap]

Both Nexus 5x's in my family bootlooped, but LG fixed both with a relatively quick turnaround. Annoying and disruptive problem sure, but they fixed it way past the official warranty period. If anything, this increased my confidence in LG because I know if some widespread issue like that happens they will likely fix it.

That said, I didn't have enough confidence to put official Oreo on it... I moved my Nexus 5x to Lineage as soon as I got the phone back. But the other one in the family has been running fine on official release since getting it back.

Huh? Just plug it in the settings screen pop up

[raymorris]

I wonder what the heck you're talking about the.
While I would use Apple's phones and tablets, my employers have been issuing me Macbooks the last few years and I always use multiple monitors with no problem. Just plug it in. The settings UI for it couldn't be simpler, in my opinion.

Re: What's the verdict on Lineage?

[Lothsahn]

My wife and I switched for our Nexus 6. She had significant issues with performance that caused her to switch to a Note 9. Right before the switch, her screen spontaneously shattered, so it was a moot point anyway. The later updates resolved the performance issues for me (but not for her).

We've also had random issues with battery life that appear to come and go with various updates. For now, battery life is good.

Overall, I find it less stable and reliable than the factory supported OS. It's clear that with the bigger resources, Google is able to do much better QA than the one device maintainer (Elektro) than LineageOS, especially with things like battery life. However, it does allow me to postpone a large capital purchase and it's been good as a daily driver.

The problem with LineageOS is that the quality of each device is largely up to the quality that the device maintainer is able to achieve. This is dependent on their time availability, skill, and access to information about the device. Much of Android remains closed source and certain items are difficult/impossible to fix.

These can be flashed to LineageOS

[The_Dougster]

https://wiki.lineageos.org/dev...

I installed that on my 6p. Its extremely nice if I do say so myself. Had to flash the modem and vendor partitions so heads up.