So in the case of Android, you would have phones with replaceable batteries running old OS’s that the manufacturer abandons unpatched security holes.
Give me a phone that can run the latest OS for five years that I can take to the Apple store and get the battery place for $79 ($29 until the end of the year) any day.
Besides, the processors that are in most low end and midrange Android phones are so horrible compared to 4 year old iPhones, I can’t imagine them keeping up with new software.
No updates is another issue. But it is a problem created artificially. Somehow my 10 year old Core 2 Duo I'm using as HTPC is still getting updates and is working perfectly fine.
> Besides, the processors that are in most low end and midrange Android phones are so horrible compared to 4 year old iPhones, I can’t imagine them keeping up with new software.
Again - it's mostly software problem.
I have Motorola Moto E LTE(2015 - 2nd gen) with 1GB of RAM and it's working perfectly fine with Lineage OS [without google services] + F-Droid. I'm using it for Jabber communication (Conversations), podcasts (AntennaPod), GPS (Osmand), e-mail checking (mostly notifications from my bank ;)), calendar (DAVDroid), searching web (Firefox) when I want to check something on the go (bus/train timetable, address etc.) and everything works fine.
My friend had same model and he replaced it because everything was slow with "official" android.
I also have to change my phone. Reason? Battery. Changing it is difficult(https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Motorola+Moto+E+2nd+Generation+...) and paying someone to do it doesn't make any sense (labor + new battery would cost more than this phone is worth...).
No updates is another issue. But it is a problem created artificially. Somehow my 10 year old Core 2 Duo I'm using as HTPC is still getting updates and is working perfectly fine.
The issue is not artificial. Before around the Core 2 Duo, processors and hardware were getting faster at such a rapid clip and the software was taking advantage of it that you really had to upgrade often to use modern software.
My Dell Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz laptop from 2009 has:
8GB RAM - still the standard amount of RAM on most consumers.
A 1920x1200 display - it was one of the last laptops that had screens with that resolution before everyone moved to 1929x1080 and that resolution is still better than the average consumer laptop.
Gigabit Ethernet - most laptops these days don’t come with Ethernet at all and for those that do, gigabit Ethernet is still the standard.
250GB hard drive - of course now hard drives are SSD but most laptops still only come with < 500GB hard drives.
In 2009, an almost 10 year old computer would have had much lower specs than what was then a modern computer.
You see the same ramp up in mobile hardware that happen with computers. It just happened a lot faster.
And it doesn’t matter why the Android ecosystem is such a mess when it comes to upgrades. But it is.
Not only is the 6S from 2015 still getting official updates - so is the 5s from 2013.
Also, the processors in iPhones are so much better than in the typical Android phone, the phones have more headroom for upgrades.
Give me a phone that can run the latest OS for five years that I can take to the Apple store and get the battery place for $79 ($29 until the end of the year) any day.
Besides, the processors that are in most low end and midrange Android phones are so horrible compared to 4 year old iPhones, I can’t imagine them keeping up with new software.