I guess having only one phone every year makes it immensely easier to support than having multiple models at every price range every year. Apple does it, why couldn’t Android phone manufacturers do it?
Apple does it by introducing new models while lowering the price of older ones. That effectively covers the lower budget price tier while not having to make a whole new model for it.
Also we need to consider how phone companies differ from Google and Apple. Those two also generate money off the users purchasing apps and etc, and they have the ability to push users to their services easier. Where as strictly phone manufacturers make money at the sale of the handset, so – as you put it – they’re incentivized to have as much penetration as possible by selling as many models they can.
Tho, I do think people are starting to care about support length as the phone market matures and people wait longer to buy their new phones. Which is why, I think, Android manufacturers are lengthening support (and not out of the goodness of their hearts)
Please educate me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Apple’s model of continuing to sell older flagships, or even reusing old chassis and putting flagship chips inside them cost less money in the long run? I imagine the price for manufacturing the same phone 3 or 4 years later would cut down significantly, no? And by doing that, you also won’t need to spend R&D money on extra models.
Oh indeed! That helps as well. I imagine other manufacturers do this too, but I only follow Apple closely since I was a huge fanboy half a decade ago. So I can’t speak with certainty for them
It’s at least getting better. Samsung, who had a much wider range of phones, moved to 4 years of security updates. Pixels moved to 5 years. Too many other brands to list their support length too. Apple still beats them though.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
I guess having only one phone every year makes it immensely easier to support than having multiple models at every price range every year. Apple does it, why couldn’t Android phone manufacturers do it?
Because they want to corner every price target.
You think the masses care about how long the devices are supported? This is a topic from back in the early days of Android.
Apple does it by introducing new models while lowering the price of older ones. That effectively covers the lower budget price tier while not having to make a whole new model for it.
Also we need to consider how phone companies differ from Google and Apple. Those two also generate money off the users purchasing apps and etc, and they have the ability to push users to their services easier. Where as strictly phone manufacturers make money at the sale of the handset, so – as you put it – they’re incentivized to have as much penetration as possible by selling as many models they can.
Tho, I do think people are starting to care about support length as the phone market matures and people wait longer to buy their new phones. Which is why, I think, Android manufacturers are lengthening support (and not out of the goodness of their hearts)
Please educate me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Apple’s model of continuing to sell older flagships, or even reusing old chassis and putting flagship chips inside them cost less money in the long run? I imagine the price for manufacturing the same phone 3 or 4 years later would cut down significantly, no? And by doing that, you also won’t need to spend R&D money on extra models.
Oh indeed! That helps as well. I imagine other manufacturers do this too, but I only follow Apple closely since I was a huge fanboy half a decade ago. So I can’t speak with certainty for them
Google has two a year, right? One high-end, one mid-range. Supporting both is probably not much more effort than a single model.
It’s at least getting better. Samsung, who had a much wider range of phones, moved to 4 years of security updates. Pixels moved to 5 years. Too many other brands to list their support length too. Apple still beats them though.