[zejn]

I have a few phones that I am afraid to use. They're not that old, but the manufacturers have stopped shipping updates for them. This is a much needed regulatory innovation, since there was very little hope any company wanted to provide OS updates for longer than a few years.

Shipping OS updates to 5 years after the sale of last phone is going to make the phones work longer and lower the amount of stupid and fixable security issues present in all the outdated phones now in the wild. I hope.

[Avamander]

At the same time I can run the latest OS on my 10-year-old ThinkPad brick. It's slow and ugly, but it works for the purposes I want to use it for.

It's absolutely crazy how we're basically forced to accept that mobile devices just expire when the OEM decides so. Unless you go into extreme lengths to build your own custom ROM, which might not even be properly doable (when the device becomes EOL).

[Sayrus]

> Unless you go into extreme lengths to build your own custom ROM

And even then, while you get software updates on that custom ROM the firmware usually just isn't updated anymore so security is still an issue.

[ta1243]

I run ubuntu 2404 on my 2017 thinkpad fine, although I have replaced the battery (and about to again), upgraded the ram etc, not expecting to replace it for some more years yet.

My iphone 12 mini is from 2020 and is fine, so 5 years. Next ios release still supports 2019 iphone 11s, dropping the 2018 era, so apple seems to give 7 years for a phone, which doesn't seem terrible for closed source software.

[vbezhenar]

I can't run Windows 11 on my 10-year old computer, and Windows 10 will EOL soon.

[fsflover]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44318420

[user_7832]

Friendly reminder that if you are really interested, you can run Win 10 IOT LTSC till 2031. Also, I seem to remember that Win 11 LTSC doesn't need a TPU (and hence can be installed on older hardware).

[tunduhwaepuguh]

reinstall can do it

[ClumsyPilot]

> Unless you go into extreme lengths to build your own custom ROM, which might not even be properly doable

Also the process is prone to unexpected issues, bugs, etc.

[jakub_g]

FWIW things have dramatically improved in recent years. For example, latest Pixels claim to have 7 years of support [1].

I wonder how it will work in practice though, as often the quality of QA for system updates for old phones drops over time, and major bugs and perf regressions are being shipped.

[1] https://endoflife.date/pixel

[Y_Y]

Isn't it obvious that the solution is to decouple the software from the manufacturer? They have every incentive to not let old devices be used, even though it works just fine for old-school computers.

[bpfrh]

I mean it kinda is already with android being made by google.

The hard problem is not even necessarily building android, the hard problem is afaik the custom firmwares needing a very specific kernel version to work with and having security issues of their own.

If you then want to decouple software completly form any hardware chip it get's complicated fast, are usb ICs software?

Do all ic manufactures now need to hire external companies for their firmware?

[spaqin]

The hard problem only comes because manufacturers break GPL licenses and do not disclose source code. And the whole secure bootloader thing on top, trying as hard as they can to keep you in their ecosystem.

[Y_Y]

Do your USB controllers ever need updates? Consumer PCs rarely end up having new firmware flashed to components, but applications and drivers are still frequently updated without much fuss.