Google’s Pixel phones have been enjoying three updates for years, the longest lifespan on the Android / iOS side. Now Samsung has printed the envelope and offered four years of security updates, beating Google’s Pixel phones into their own game.
One aspect in which Android has always lagged behind iOS is updates, with iPhones receiving as many as six years of updates, while some Android phones are lucky to get two years. In this area, Google’s Pixel series took the crown and offered three years of updates to their phones, including monthly patches and three major Android versions. The original Google Pixel was gradually updated from Android 7.1 Nougat to Android 10 – an extension of the original promise to offer just two major updates.
In turn, Samsung was not too late from the point, bringing two years of monthly updates and two major Android versions, usually followed by a year of less frequent security updates to keep devices safe. Today, Samsung announced that their Galaxy devices – including phones and Android tablets from 2019 – are now promised a fourth year of security updates.
In doing so, Samsung threw down the gauntlet and gave Galaxy phones more updates from Google’s Android operating system than Google itself. If Google is to continue to push Pixel line software features and updates, they will have to meet this challenge by giving Pixel phones at least another year of updates.
Fortunately, there has never been a better time for Google to implement something like this. Late last year, Google and Qualcomm introduced a phone system to make it easier to receive four-year updates, including three major Android updates, starting with phones starting with the Snapdragon 888 and Android 11. As the Pixel 5a , presumably to arrive later this year, with a new enough Snapdragon chip, it could easily receive a full update plan for four years.
But what about Google’s older pixels? The original Pixel and Pixel 2 are already obsolete to receive updates, and the Pixel 3 is currently on schedule to receive this fall’s Android 12 update as one of its last, followed by about two final security updates. This is confirmed by the Google Store – where you can still buy a revamped Pixel 3 – only promising updates until October 2021. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S10, which was released a few months after the Pixel 3 series, is now at least sometimes security updates in 2023.
As the Pixel series stagnates in camera ingenuity, allowing other OEMs to catch up, and now Samsung is the forerunner for Android devices with a long lifespan, Google needs to sharpen its game if the Pixel series remains relevant going forward . The best way to do this is to offer an extra year of security updates for the final OS update of a phone, even if it is not according to the same monthly schedule.
Even better, because Google can regain its crown as the king of Android updates, it can be a fourth important update of Pixels and five years of security updates – for example the update of the Pixel 3 series to next year’s Android 13 followed by security updates until late 2023. If four years of updates will become the norm on Android, it is Google’s responsibility to continues to push the boundaries in a way that encourages other businesses to be better, as the Made by Google brand has always done.
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