[klackerz]

The best thing about Xiaomi is that they support their products very well. Almost all of their phones get security updates each month. That is a rare thing in Android nowadays especially with Motorola announcing that they will stop updating their phones with the new security updates. [1]

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/07/motorola-confirms-tha...

[maxerickson]

How did you go from However, because of the amount of testing and approvals that are necessary to deploy them, it's difficult to do this on a monthly basis for all our devices. It is often most efficient for us to bundle security updates in a scheduled Maintenance Release (MR) or OS upgrade., which is a quote from Motorola, to Motorola announcing that they will stop updating their phones with the new security updates.?

Keeping up with the monthly updates would likely be preferable, but batching them is still a long way off from how you've characterized it.

[post_break]

Because anyone who has watched Motorola after their acquisition from Lenovo knows they will stop updating phones very quickly. In under a year in some cases.

[cptskippy]

While I agree with you, it's still just speculation.

[unethical_ban]

Lenovo is a $56B company, and they are claiming it's infeasible to test a dozen phones against several versions of Android.

[maxerickson]

Yes, please feel free to take them to task over that.

But while you are doing so, please avoid misrepresentations as egregious as Motorola announcing that they will stop updating their phones with the new security updates. (and less egregious ones too).

[brazzledazzle]

It might be more charitable to assume their intent wasn't to mischaracterize.

[maxerickson]

That's why I used the word mischaracterize. It doesn't really examine intent, it points at the result.

For instance, you can mischaracterize something by not understanding it or by not being informed at all about it or by intentionally lying.

[brazzledazzle]

Fair point. The tone I perceived definitely seemed accusatory. It seems I'm the one that should have been more charitable. Sorry about that.

[klackerz]

Well that phrasing is misleading I admit. But what would the reaction be if Microsoft started to have security updates every three months or so for Windows.

[pestaa]

I have a Xiaomi Redmi 1S phone. It has not received any update of any kind in the last 3 years, it's still running on Android 4.3.

[leaveyou]

That's because you probably bought the phone from a re-seller who re-flashed a "custom global ROM" (compiled by who knows who) which does not receive OTA updates because it's not compatible with the official releases. This is what happened to me. After noticing that I don't get the updates for a while I started to investigate and I re-flashed one of the official ROMs from http://en.miui.com/download.html.

[pestaa]

Thank you for the info! I'll have to try this.

[klackerz]

They do security updates for Redmi 1S regularly though afaik. They also update their phones with the new version of MIUI. MIUI 8 is coming for Redmi 1S next month. [1]

[1] http://en.miui.com/thread-301820-1-1.html

[Sarang235]

I also have a Redmi 1s phone and I have been getting the updates regularly

[cptskippy]

The worst thing about Xiaomi is their invasive software. In order to use a Mi Fit band you have to create an account with them and grant their app every permission under the sun.

I love their hardware, it's a frugal premium grade that's hard to come by. I just wish it were more open and their software wasn't so questionable.

[al_chemist]

That's interesting, because when I've got my Xiaomi Mi3 I've compared it with my Samsung Galaxy Tab. Mi3 was rooted, had almost no crapware and allowed me to pick what permissions app gets. On the other hand Tab required Samsung Account and rooting it voided guarantee.

Mi Band vibrates on incoming connection, sms and apps so maybe that's why it requires permissions to phone, sms and notifications.

[cptskippy]

Take a look at the permissions required by the official "Mi Fit" app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xiaomi.hm....) vs the indie "Tools & Mi Band" app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.zdenekhorak...).

The official app has more features admittedly, but nothing that justifies the level of permissions it asks for. At most it should need access to the camera/photos to allow you to set a profile photo, and full network access to create/sync your account data to the "cloud".

Nothing that the official app does justifies the following permissions it asks for:

  Device & app history

    retrieve running apps
    read sensitive log data

  Identity

    find accounts on the device

  Location

    approximate location (network-based)
    precise location (GPS and network-based)

  SMS

    receive text messages (SMS)

  Phone

    directly call phone numbers

  Photos/Media/Files

    access USB storage filesystem

  Wi-Fi connection information

    view Wi-Fi connections

  Other

    view network connections
    connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
    read Google service configuration
    draw over other apps
    control flashlight
    reorder running apps
    modify system settings

[keverets]

Even better is Gadgetbridge (available on F-droid): https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge

It's not as slick as the official app, but requires much less in the way of permissions and is more flexible.

[ianai]

That's not all that's questionable about them.

[yompers888]

Would you care to elaborate?

[ianai]

well, http://www.zdnet.com/article/former-pentagon-analyst-china-h...

[cptskippy]

Xiaomi isn't explicitly mentioned in that article and I have no doubt they put backdoors in their products for the Chinese Government. I guess my question is, would you feel differently if they were a US company and it were the the US Government holding the keys to backdoor?

There's a reason China has been investing in developing it's own CPUs and telecommunications hardware and it isn't so that it can more easily spy on others. It's because they themselves no longer wish to be spied on... and maybe so they can spy on everyone else a little too.

I'm not saying it's right. I don't know what I'm saying actually. I'm just going to grab some tin foil...

[drzaiusapelord]

Everyone I know with a Xiaomi is on an ancient version of Android and their phones are largely considered disposable. They might do the monthly security updates (all Android OEMs should be doing this) but that's very different than keeping up proper OS updates.

Considering how cheap the Nexus line is, I'm not sure why people even both with the super-budget phones. You get a lackluster experience, few if any OS updates, worse everything, etc just to save $75 or so. A Nexus can last you years compared re-buying a new budget junker annually.

I really wish the mobile market and buyers could mature to the point where we start talking about environmental responsibility here. We shouldn't have to buy phones this frequently and filling up landfills with this stuff. My Nexus is getting old and is still fine. My laptop is at least 6 years old and after an SSD transplant, runs like a a top.

[nimrody]

My Xiaomi MI3 (international version) is almost two years old and now got automatically upgraded to Android 6.0.

(No doze support and it revoked my root access but still nice!).

[fizzbatter]

No doze? Any idea why? Seems like an odd thing to be missing (and an awesome feature to boot)

[nimrody]

No idea. There's an app that's supposed to test for doze and it says "hw sensors: ok" (or similar) but "config: off". Like it's configurable somewhere but wasn't enabled by Xiaomi.

My guess is that Xiaomi already has a similar feature (perhaps less sophisticated) called "Autostart". Most app aren't allowed by default to wake up in the background and kill your battery. Only some (e.g., whatsapp) are whitelisted and, of course, you may whitelist additional apps yourself.

Overall, I'm happy with the battery usage of my Mi3. I prefer the Xiaomi Apple-like UI over Google's standard -- but that may be just a habit...

[arvinsim]

> Considering how cheap the Nexus line is, I'm not sure why people even both with the super-budget phones.

Might only be true in the US. At least in my country, it is neither accessible to buy nor cheap.

[ewheeler]

yes. my Xiaomi Mi4C gets an update every week. sometimes some minor regressions, but they're always fixed the next week. i certainly prefer that to the typical android software update cycle from most manufacturers/carriers

[mi_sucks]

the updates pushed by MIUI team are just font size changes of the clock

or a new wall paper in the stock

or a new option on swipe right

They have sold millions of phones , ask them, on how many phones have they given

--- android version update.

[ewheeler]

i got my Mi4C in April 2016 and it has received several OTA android version update and monthly android security patches. there are certainly many insignificant UI changes, but there have been android updates occasionally in the last four months.

similar to what others have mentioned, the place where i purchased it added google apps in a way that prevented regular updates. once i re-flashed and reinstalled google apps, i've gotten updates every week

[geekodour]

I've been using Redmi 2. It's only around 75$, It has good support and roms and the MIUI os itself is beautiful too. They are doing the right thing, I can't care much about privacy stuff till I am getting my things done.

[baybal2]

Meizu and Bubugao roll updates weekly