It’s kind of funny if you think about it that PCs can receive software updates for years and years without issue, but cell phones start to fall off after 2 years and can be considered unsafe to...
It’s kind of funny if you think about it that PCs can receive software updates for years and years without issue, but cell phones start to fall off after 2 years and can be considered unsafe to use once that model no longer has security updates available.
Living proof of the dangers of patent law. Qualcomm doesn't support most of their modems and chips over the long haul because they want to sell more chips. But nobody else can support this stuff...
Living proof of the dangers of patent law. Qualcomm doesn't support most of their modems and chips over the long haul because they want to sell more chips. But nobody else can support this stuff either because Qualcomm owns the IP for the hardware. It's basically untouchable without some serious legal know-how.
At least Apple and Google are starting to support their chips for longer. Even Samsung, thanks to Exynos chips that they make, is starting to extend support. But Qualcomm modems still present a serious cost issue for long-term support, and because they have a legal stranglehold on 5G, UWB, certain Bluetooth specs, and LTE, even companies like Apple with continent-sized war chests can't meaningfully compete (though they are trying -- the next iPhone SE will likely use an Apple modem that might not suck like the iPhone X modem and the Pixel 6-8 modems did).
It's both very funny and very sad how you can flash a custom ROM on an old phone and everything works just fine... except for proprietary Google Play Services and proprietary Qualcomm modems.
Yeah, Qualcomm’s stranglehold and bad actions is the precise reason why I will never buy a Windows ARM laptop. If Freescale ever makes a competitive chip then somebody wake me up. Excluding Apple,...
Yeah, Qualcomm’s stranglehold and bad actions is the precise reason why I will never buy a Windows ARM laptop. If Freescale ever makes a competitive chip then somebody wake me up. Excluding Apple, my ideal ARM laptop is still the Novena.
It was a little rough in the beginning, some of which is just getting used to a non-Samsung way of doing things, and some from the fact that frankly the software wasn't fully baked on release. A...
It was a little rough in the beginning, some of which is just getting used to a non-Samsung way of doing things, and some from the fact that frankly the software wasn't fully baked on release.
A year on, I have no problem recommending the Pixel line at all. Fantastic camera (which is important to me) and the bugs, glitches and other annoyances are much reduced. Not completely gone, but gone enough to cross the threshold where the phone is now genuinely enjoyable to use.
The Giant, un-removable At A Glance section of the home screen still annoys me. Not enough to use a separate launcher, but other than that, everything works great. The phone itself feels very smooth, and although you can tell the CPU isn't quite as beefy as the Samsung lines when playing higher-spec games, it's still very good. Battery life has been fantastic, and I like the fast wireless charging of the Pixel stand.
When this phone eventually ages out in a few years, I'd definitely get another Pixel at this point.
Not certain if I've got the right idea, but do you mean the google home page when you swipe to the left-most page on the home screen? If so, then you can disable it/customise it (in case you...
Not certain if I've got the right idea, but do you mean the google home page when you swipe to the left-most page on the home screen?
If so, then you can disable it/customise it (in case you weren't aware), if that'll help with the annoyances. Its not easy to find, but if you go to Settings -> Apps -> "Pixel Launcher" App, and select "Additional settings in the app", you'll be able to make a bunch of changes, including removing "At a Glance" or the page entirely.
I removed the whole page when it was first added and never looked back.
I do appreciate the heads up, but no, I mean what looks like a tiny weather notification but is actually a quarter of the primary home screen. If I disable At A Glance, I lose weather, and the...
I do appreciate the heads up, but no, I mean what looks like a tiny weather notification but is actually a quarter of the primary home screen. If I disable At A Glance, I lose weather, and the area becomes a clickable calendar link, but it doesn't shrink the size of the open space.
Yeah I have the same behavior where that line for the date persists even if At A Glance is turned off. There's so many little things like that with pixels that make me think they just don't commit...
Yeah I have the same behavior where that line for the date persists even if At A Glance is turned off. There's so many little things like that with pixels that make me think they just don't commit enough thought to the UX. Still think they're the best android line though.
I'm currently on my 6th Pixel and it is 100% the last one I will ever buy. Part of the issue (a large part) is that it's the 3rd in a single year because they keep shitting the bed after official...
I'm currently on my 6th Pixel and it is 100% the last one I will ever buy. Part of the issue (a large part) is that it's the 3rd in a single year because they keep shitting the bed after official Google security updates, and fighting with Google support to get them to admit something was their fault is an enraging multi-day process. The 2 was great, the 4 was great, but the 5 and 7 are absolute crap. Never again for Google hardware or support.
That being said, I've had bad experiences with Samsung too. I guess I'm going to Motorola?
I’m drinking the Apple juice these days, but before that I exclusively bought Motorola phones. Samsung might have some of the best hardware but their software was always janky and bloated....
I’m drinking the Apple juice these days, but before that I exclusively bought Motorola phones. Samsung might have some of the best hardware but their software was always janky and bloated. Motorola doesn’t have the best hardware but their software is usually pretty minimal and out of the way.
Good point of view. I use 4th generation Intel Core, which is like 10 years old. It is till perfect for what I need it to do and actually manages even some modern games. Why should phones be...
Good point of view. I use 4th generation Intel Core, which is like 10 years old. It is till perfect for what I need it to do and actually manages even some modern games. Why should phones be rendered obsolete in quarter the time (or even half the time)? They stop getting updates of the OS and later stops being compatible with apps that were perfectly functioning before...
I hate this. Maybe it is why I don't spend too much money on phones - why would I do that if expensive one will last the same time as cheap one? Yeah, that's probably the point for me.
If the software side won't be disconnected from the hardware side, like PCs do, we won't get anywhere.
It is pretty funny(in a very sad way) how this encompasses several fundamental problems in the way mobile devices are made. About which almost no one(relative to their usage) cares about, probably...
It is pretty funny(in a very sad way) how this encompasses several fundamental problems in the way mobile devices are made. About which almost no one(relative to their usage) cares about, probably because it is not flashy enough I guess.
inability to actually control the phone. Permanently disabling updates, update rollback as the directly relevant missing features out of many
arbitrary security measures effectively controlled by single company restricting alternatives
lack of standardization in os hw interfacing restricting availability of alternatives
lack of standardized batteries(that the company anouncment itself calls consumables)
related - lack of actually treating batteries as consumables and making them trivial to remove
unnecessary bloat coming with effectively every phone further potentionally demanding higher unnecessary performance
inability to install modern os version on older hw. Also synergizes with above point
Seems like there's something google isn't telling us about these batteries. Since they are pushing this update and offering this battery replacement and credit program, there's definitely some...
Seems like there's something google isn't telling us about these batteries. Since they are pushing this update and offering this battery replacement and credit program, there's definitely some battery risk they've identified with these phones, but none of the reporting on the subject seems to know the exact reason. The author of this article seems to think that the battery plan is a ploy to harvest data, but I don't think there's any way the math works out on cost vs. benefit for google. Plus they haven't done this for other phones. I guess google thinks there there could be some liability issue if they say too much. As a vendor, google sucks at customer support in general, and I'm not a fan of this kind of behavior of taking steps to address some battery issue without telling people what's going on.
I have no doubt there's some supplier recall deep in the chain. Probably multiple levels of abstraction deep, which is why an issue that hasn't surfaced in reality in 3.5 years for a fairly...
I have no doubt there's some supplier recall deep in the chain. Probably multiple levels of abstraction deep, which is why an issue that hasn't surfaced in reality in 3.5 years for a fairly popular phone is being addressed in such a vague, broad way.
I don't think the author is insinuating a data harvesting connection here. Instead, it seems to me like Google is communicating really poorly, destroying a device that functions just fine for most people, and people have a right to be pissed. If they could drop the corpspeak and just tell us the exact issue it would be a lot easier to empathise with google. But when they wreck a phone that a lot of people depend on every day with only two days of warning? If these phones haven't burned down houses in the last 3.5 years, are we really that concerned they're going to start tomorrow?
This is the part I was talking about regarding data harvesting. Asking for SSN seems a bit much, but I don't have a pixel 4a so I can't get far enough in the system to see the terms of the...
Google might give you $50 through a third party program that likely gets more than $50 of valuable personal data (including your social security number) out of you, and will likely take $50 of time and effort to redeem.
This is the part I was talking about regarding data harvesting. Asking for SSN seems a bit much, but I don't have a pixel 4a so I can't get far enough in the system to see the terms of the appeasement credit.
Thanks for posting this. I replaced my 4a with an 8 a few months ago, but I really love that phone and kept it as a backup -- I miss the dedicated fingerprint sensor, which was far more consistent...
Thanks for posting this. I replaced my 4a with an 8 a few months ago, but I really love that phone and kept it as a backup -- I miss the dedicated fingerprint sensor, which was far more consistent than the 8's screen-side reader, and the audio jack. I did replace the 4a's battery sometime last year because it wasn't holding a charge as well, so I'm going to do my best to avoid this downgrade disguised as an update.
I haven't had any issues with my 4a, but I was also not on the list of IMEI that was eligible for the free battery replacement. My battery life is much worse than it used to be (I used to be able...
I haven't had any issues with my 4a, but I was also not on the list of IMEI that was eligible for the free battery replacement. My battery life is much worse than it used to be (I used to be able to go 2-3 days on a charge, now its 1-1.5), so I priced out a battery replacement at a local shop and they wanted $120 to do it. I'll have to see how annoying it gets to ignore the update since I never let them autoinstall and decide if it is time to go back to a custom ROM.
FWIW some folks are having issues with the update even if their IMEIs aren't eligible. I'd disable auto updates in developer options for now if you haven't already gotten it, it likely isn't worth...
FWIW some folks are having issues with the update even if their IMEIs aren't eligible.
I'd disable auto updates in developer options for now if you haven't already gotten it, it likely isn't worth the risk. Unfortunately that probably won't keep you safe from this update forever, though.
Hopefully you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't get near-bricked by the update.
I already had the autoupdates disabled, but thank you. I am considering just moving back to a custom ROM. I'd definitely consider buying a new phone if I could get one that was 4a like, meaning:...
I already had the autoupdates disabled, but thank you. I am considering just moving back to a custom ROM. I'd definitely consider buying a new phone if I could get one that was 4a like, meaning:
unlocked bootloader with real ROM support
headphone jack
not gigantic
So far, I haven't found one even close and it is making me consider weird, wacky, and totally inconvenient options.
I find myself in the exact same pickle. I would pay serious, serious money for a 4a with updated internals. Or a Nexus 5 with updated internals. Or even an iPhone Mini with USB-C. I'm so desperate...
I find myself in the exact same pickle. I would pay serious, serious money for a 4a with updated internals. Or a Nexus 5 with updated internals. Or even an iPhone Mini with USB-C. I'm so desperate I'm willing to give up the headphone jack!
Sadly it's rumored to use the iPhone 14 dimensions. So pretty big, actually larger than the 15 or 16. But at least it will have USB-C. Shame we'll get stuck with FaceID tho.
Sadly it's rumored to use the iPhone 14 dimensions. So pretty big, actually larger than the 15 or 16. But at least it will have USB-C. Shame we'll get stuck with FaceID tho.
Oh man, my parents are using 4as on my Google Fi plan. I wonder how this will go down. I did ask them a couple weeks ago how their battery life was, and my dad would go 3 days without a charge....
Oh man, my parents are using 4as on my Google Fi plan. I wonder how this will go down. I did ask them a couple weeks ago how their battery life was, and my dad would go 3 days without a charge. Hopefully this doesn't change.
If you can, see if you can disable automatic updates in Developer Options (a secret Settings section enabled by clicking the version number in System > About 6 times, IIRC). Otherwise you might be...
If you can, see if you can disable automatic updates in Developer Options (a secret Settings section enabled by clicking the version number in System > About 6 times, IIRC).
Otherwise you might be buying two new replacement phones soon.
See the update on the linked post, but unfortunately it looks like the update can still come through with this setup! You can at least hide the OS update notification in Google Play Services...
See the update on the linked post, but unfortunately it looks like the update can still come through with this setup! You can at least hide the OS update notification in Google Play Services notification settings, if your parents don't see (and click on) the notification, it shouldn't install even if it does update.
You can also block the update via nextDNS or pi hole DNS blocking (or potentially in your parents router?) but unless you use an always-on VPN it could still sneak through the cellular network. Better to hide OS update notifications to keep it from ever installing. And while you're at it you can disable some other spammy Google notifications.
Here are 2 good reddit threads on the update. If the update has downloaded and just waiting for a reboot to install I installed nextDNS. If the update has already installed
I used to have a pixel 4a. In February 2024 the screen broke, and I knew software support was coming to an end, so I decided to not fix it. I temporarily started using my old phone, and I am still...
I used to have a pixel 4a. In February 2024 the screen broke, and I knew software support was coming to an end, so I decided to not fix it. I temporarily started using my old phone, and I am still on it even though it has not had software updates in probably five years. The Pixel 4a was pretty much everything I wanted in a smartphone, smaller footprint, good camera, and a headphone jack. The good screen and fingerprint sensor on the back were bonuses. However, I feel like there hasn't been a good smartphone in the past few years, so honestly I am thinking of switching away from a smartphone to a flip phone. The idea of a software update being sent to functioning phones outside of support is a worrying feature that I hope does not happen more often
Likewise. I keep considering going to dumbphone or pseudo-dumbphone route with something like the Titan Pocket or one of the e-ink phones, but security updates hold me back. Then, of course, I...
Likewise. I keep considering going to dumbphone or pseudo-dumbphone route with something like the Titan Pocket or one of the e-ink phones, but security updates hold me back.
Then, of course, I look at the phone store in the Google Fi store and I realise it's actually cheaper to buy a brand new Google Pixel 9 with $800 of subsidies than just buy the $300 simple phone I want. And then I get decision paralysis and kick my 4a down the road another few months.
Security updates are a concern with the emerging pseudo dumbphone market. Also, with them being smaller markets, they tend to not be priced competitively. It is a shame, but I also feel like...
Security updates are a concern with the emerging pseudo dumbphone market. Also, with them being smaller markets, they tend to not be priced competitively. It is a shame, but I also feel like people do not want to abandon the convenience (or even perceived convenience) of a smartphone. One small rectangle that fits in your pocket (kind of) to replace all the dedicated devices of before.
Google talked a lot about how the new pixel phones get 7 years of security updates. But, as I said when they announced it, they have not shown that they mean it. If they meant it, the 4a would...
Google talked a lot about how the new pixel phones get 7 years of security updates. But, as I said when they announced it, they have not shown that they mean it. If they meant it, the 4a would still have updates, and not updates that break core features of the phones.
Like it or not, there is only one phone manufacturer that has shown that they are committed to software updates: Apple. The iPhone 12 came out the same year as the Pixel 4a, and it gets software updates. The iPhone 11, released a year before the 4a, gets software updates. The iPhone XR/XS, released a full two years before the 4a, still gets software updates.
The industry loves to copy Apple, except for the software updates. Please just copy that part of Apple to.
Edit: some people may want to blame Qualcomm. I don’t care. It’s Google’s phone, the blame stops with them. If Google cared about updates, they would compel Qualcomm to support the older chips.
To be fair, they met the (ludicrously minimal) software support commitment they made for the Pixels 1-5a. They actually decided to give the Pixels 6(a) (Pro) an extra coupl of years of security...
To be fair, they met the (ludicrously minimal) software support commitment they made for the Pixels 1-5a. They actually decided to give the Pixels 6(a) (Pro) an extra coupl of years of security updates over the original commitment, presumably because they were already committed to supporting the 7(a) (Pro) for that time period and the hardware was mostly the same.
I do hear you on Apple, though. I got an original SE back in 2016 and used it for 7 years until early 2023. And it still gets some minimal security updates. Unfortunately apps dropped the supported version of iOS in 2023, and even before then stopped testing on the 4" screen size. But I still think that was a good support period.
At least Samsung, Google, and Fairphone are pushing support out to 5-7 years of security (sometimes OS) updates now. And the EU is forcing 5 years for security updates legally for phones released after June 2025 in the EU, I believe. I hope brands like Sony and OnePlus get their act together with support periods and update timeliness instead of forcing consumers to test them legally, but that EU protection is IMO exactly what governments should be doing to help the little people.
It’s kind of funny if you think about it that PCs can receive software updates for years and years without issue, but cell phones start to fall off after 2 years and can be considered unsafe to use once that model no longer has security updates available.
Living proof of the dangers of patent law. Qualcomm doesn't support most of their modems and chips over the long haul because they want to sell more chips. But nobody else can support this stuff either because Qualcomm owns the IP for the hardware. It's basically untouchable without some serious legal know-how.
At least Apple and Google are starting to support their chips for longer. Even Samsung, thanks to Exynos chips that they make, is starting to extend support. But Qualcomm modems still present a serious cost issue for long-term support, and because they have a legal stranglehold on 5G, UWB, certain Bluetooth specs, and LTE, even companies like Apple with continent-sized war chests can't meaningfully compete (though they are trying -- the next iPhone SE will likely use an Apple modem that might not suck like the iPhone X modem and the Pixel 6-8 modems did).
It's both very funny and very sad how you can flash a custom ROM on an old phone and everything works just fine... except for proprietary Google Play Services and proprietary Qualcomm modems.
Yeah, Qualcomm’s stranglehold and bad actions is the precise reason why I will never buy a Windows ARM laptop. If Freescale ever makes a competitive chip then somebody wake me up. Excluding Apple, my ideal ARM laptop is still the Novena.
The 7-year support promise is what got me to switch from Samsung phones over to a Pixel 8 last year. Got real tired of the upgrade carousel.
I'm considering the same switch. How has it been for you? I currently have an s23 ultra and it's likely the last Samsung I'll ever buy.
It was a little rough in the beginning, some of which is just getting used to a non-Samsung way of doing things, and some from the fact that frankly the software wasn't fully baked on release.
A year on, I have no problem recommending the Pixel line at all. Fantastic camera (which is important to me) and the bugs, glitches and other annoyances are much reduced. Not completely gone, but gone enough to cross the threshold where the phone is now genuinely enjoyable to use.
The Giant, un-removable At A Glance section of the home screen still annoys me. Not enough to use a separate launcher, but other than that, everything works great. The phone itself feels very smooth, and although you can tell the CPU isn't quite as beefy as the Samsung lines when playing higher-spec games, it's still very good. Battery life has been fantastic, and I like the fast wireless charging of the Pixel stand.
When this phone eventually ages out in a few years, I'd definitely get another Pixel at this point.
Not certain if I've got the right idea, but do you mean the google home page when you swipe to the left-most page on the home screen?
If so, then you can disable it/customise it (in case you weren't aware), if that'll help with the annoyances. Its not easy to find, but if you go to Settings -> Apps -> "Pixel Launcher" App, and select "Additional settings in the app", you'll be able to make a bunch of changes, including removing "At a Glance" or the page entirely.
I removed the whole page when it was first added and never looked back.
I do appreciate the heads up, but no, I mean what looks like a tiny weather notification but is actually a quarter of the primary home screen. If I disable At A Glance, I lose weather, and the area becomes a clickable calendar link, but it doesn't shrink the size of the open space.
Yeah I have the same behavior where that line for the date persists even if At A Glance is turned off. There's so many little things like that with pixels that make me think they just don't commit enough thought to the UX. Still think they're the best android line though.
I'm currently on my 6th Pixel and it is 100% the last one I will ever buy. Part of the issue (a large part) is that it's the 3rd in a single year because they keep shitting the bed after official Google security updates, and fighting with Google support to get them to admit something was their fault is an enraging multi-day process. The 2 was great, the 4 was great, but the 5 and 7 are absolute crap. Never again for Google hardware or support.
That being said, I've had bad experiences with Samsung too. I guess I'm going to Motorola?
Have you considered using an alternative android distribution?
I’m drinking the Apple juice these days, but before that I exclusively bought Motorola phones. Samsung might have some of the best hardware but their software was always janky and bloated. Motorola doesn’t have the best hardware but their software is usually pretty minimal and out of the way.
Good point of view. I use 4th generation Intel Core, which is like 10 years old. It is till perfect for what I need it to do and actually manages even some modern games. Why should phones be rendered obsolete in quarter the time (or even half the time)? They stop getting updates of the OS and later stops being compatible with apps that were perfectly functioning before...
I hate this. Maybe it is why I don't spend too much money on phones - why would I do that if expensive one will last the same time as cheap one? Yeah, that's probably the point for me.
If the software side won't be disconnected from the hardware side, like PCs do, we won't get anywhere.
It is pretty funny(in a very sad way) how this encompasses several fundamental problems in the way mobile devices are made. About which almost no one(relative to their usage) cares about, probably because it is not flashy enough I guess.
Seems like there's something google isn't telling us about these batteries. Since they are pushing this update and offering this battery replacement and credit program, there's definitely some battery risk they've identified with these phones, but none of the reporting on the subject seems to know the exact reason. The author of this article seems to think that the battery plan is a ploy to harvest data, but I don't think there's any way the math works out on cost vs. benefit for google. Plus they haven't done this for other phones. I guess google thinks there there could be some liability issue if they say too much. As a vendor, google sucks at customer support in general, and I'm not a fan of this kind of behavior of taking steps to address some battery issue without telling people what's going on.
I have no doubt there's some supplier recall deep in the chain. Probably multiple levels of abstraction deep, which is why an issue that hasn't surfaced in reality in 3.5 years for a fairly popular phone is being addressed in such a vague, broad way.
I don't think the author is insinuating a data harvesting connection here. Instead, it seems to me like Google is communicating really poorly, destroying a device that functions just fine for most people, and people have a right to be pissed. If they could drop the corpspeak and just tell us the exact issue it would be a lot easier to empathise with google. But when they wreck a phone that a lot of people depend on every day with only two days of warning? If these phones haven't burned down houses in the last 3.5 years, are we really that concerned they're going to start tomorrow?
This is the part I was talking about regarding data harvesting. Asking for SSN seems a bit much, but I don't have a pixel 4a so I can't get far enough in the system to see the terms of the appeasement credit.
Thanks for posting this. I replaced my 4a with an 8 a few months ago, but I really love that phone and kept it as a backup -- I miss the dedicated fingerprint sensor, which was far more consistent than the 8's screen-side reader, and the audio jack. I did replace the 4a's battery sometime last year because it wasn't holding a charge as well, so I'm going to do my best to avoid this downgrade disguised as an update.
I haven't had any issues with my 4a, but I was also not on the list of IMEI that was eligible for the free battery replacement. My battery life is much worse than it used to be (I used to be able to go 2-3 days on a charge, now its 1-1.5), so I priced out a battery replacement at a local shop and they wanted $120 to do it. I'll have to see how annoying it gets to ignore the update since I never let them autoinstall and decide if it is time to go back to a custom ROM.
I had an issue with their upgrade checker, it wouldn't work correctly with Firefox, but when I switched to Chrome, it said my IMEI was eligible.
Thanks, I did in fact use Firefox and that is so on brand for Google I should have thought of it.
No luck with Chrome either, thanks for the help though.
FWIW some folks are having issues with the update even if their IMEIs aren't eligible.
I'd disable auto updates in developer options for now if you haven't already gotten it, it likely isn't worth the risk. Unfortunately that probably won't keep you safe from this update forever, though.
Hopefully you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't get near-bricked by the update.
I already had the autoupdates disabled, but thank you. I am considering just moving back to a custom ROM. I'd definitely consider buying a new phone if I could get one that was 4a like, meaning:
So far, I haven't found one even close and it is making me consider weird, wacky, and totally inconvenient options.
I find myself in the exact same pickle. I would pay serious, serious money for a 4a with updated internals. Or a Nexus 5 with updated internals. Or even an iPhone Mini with USB-C. I'm so desperate I'm willing to give up the headphone jack!
I think I have heard rumors of a new iPhone SE, which is probably the closest you will get to a mini. The new one will almost certainly have USB-C.
Sadly it's rumored to use the iPhone 14 dimensions. So pretty big, actually larger than the 15 or 16. But at least it will have USB-C. Shame we'll get stuck with FaceID tho.
Oh man, my parents are using 4as on my Google Fi plan. I wonder how this will go down. I did ask them a couple weeks ago how their battery life was, and my dad would go 3 days without a charge. Hopefully this doesn't change.
If you can, see if you can disable automatic updates in Developer Options (a secret Settings section enabled by clicking the version number in System > About 6 times, IIRC).
Otherwise you might be buying two new replacement phones soon.
Thank you for this info, I saved both of their phones from being updated.
See the update on the linked post, but unfortunately it looks like the update can still come through with this setup! You can at least hide the OS update notification in Google Play Services notification settings, if your parents don't see (and click on) the notification, it shouldn't install even if it does update.
You can also block the update via nextDNS or pi hole DNS blocking (or potentially in your parents router?) but unless you use an always-on VPN it could still sneak through the cellular network. Better to hide OS update notifications to keep it from ever installing. And while you're at it you can disable some other spammy Google notifications.
Ah darn, alright I'll see if I can turn off the notifications. Thanks
Here are 2 good reddit threads on the update.
If the update has downloaded and just waiting for a reboot to install
I installed nextDNS.
If the update has already installed
I used to have a pixel 4a. In February 2024 the screen broke, and I knew software support was coming to an end, so I decided to not fix it. I temporarily started using my old phone, and I am still on it even though it has not had software updates in probably five years. The Pixel 4a was pretty much everything I wanted in a smartphone, smaller footprint, good camera, and a headphone jack. The good screen and fingerprint sensor on the back were bonuses. However, I feel like there hasn't been a good smartphone in the past few years, so honestly I am thinking of switching away from a smartphone to a flip phone. The idea of a software update being sent to functioning phones outside of support is a worrying feature that I hope does not happen more often
Likewise. I keep considering going to dumbphone or pseudo-dumbphone route with something like the Titan Pocket or one of the e-ink phones, but security updates hold me back.
Then, of course, I look at the phone store in the Google Fi store and I realise it's actually cheaper to buy a brand new Google Pixel 9 with $800 of subsidies than just buy the $300 simple phone I want. And then I get decision paralysis and kick my 4a down the road another few months.
Security updates are a concern with the emerging pseudo dumbphone market. Also, with them being smaller markets, they tend to not be priced competitively. It is a shame, but I also feel like people do not want to abandon the convenience (or even perceived convenience) of a smartphone. One small rectangle that fits in your pocket (kind of) to replace all the dedicated devices of before.
Google talked a lot about how the new pixel phones get 7 years of security updates. But, as I said when they announced it, they have not shown that they mean it. If they meant it, the 4a would still have updates, and not updates that break core features of the phones.
Like it or not, there is only one phone manufacturer that has shown that they are committed to software updates: Apple. The iPhone 12 came out the same year as the Pixel 4a, and it gets software updates. The iPhone 11, released a year before the 4a, gets software updates. The iPhone XR/XS, released a full two years before the 4a, still gets software updates.
The industry loves to copy Apple, except for the software updates. Please just copy that part of Apple to.
Edit: some people may want to blame Qualcomm. I don’t care. It’s Google’s phone, the blame stops with them. If Google cared about updates, they would compel Qualcomm to support the older chips.
To be fair, they met the (ludicrously minimal) software support commitment they made for the Pixels 1-5a. They actually decided to give the Pixels 6(a) (Pro) an extra coupl of years of security updates over the original commitment, presumably because they were already committed to supporting the 7(a) (Pro) for that time period and the hardware was mostly the same.
I do hear you on Apple, though. I got an original SE back in 2016 and used it for 7 years until early 2023. And it still gets some minimal security updates. Unfortunately apps dropped the supported version of iOS in 2023, and even before then stopped testing on the 4" screen size. But I still think that was a good support period.
At least Samsung, Google, and Fairphone are pushing support out to 5-7 years of security (sometimes OS) updates now. And the EU is forcing 5 years for security updates legally for phones released after June 2025 in the EU, I believe. I hope brands like Sony and OnePlus get their act together with support periods and update timeliness instead of forcing consumers to test them legally, but that EU protection is IMO exactly what governments should be doing to help the little people.