TLDR
- A Qualcomm executive told Android Authority that the company is working to make it easier for OEMs to keep devices with older Qualcomm chipsets up to date.
- The company understands that updating older devices is currently “complicated,” not to mention expensive.
- There will be some announcements on this topic “later this year,” presumably surrounding the launch of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.
What’s funny to me is that you could say Apple is the reason for this.
Apple’s had longer OS support for their phones than any Android manufacturer for a while, but then Google started catching up when they got their own chips and now Samsung and the others are pushing Qualcomm to quit their bullshit.
I do use an iPhone myself currently, but if Qualcomm opens their shit up enough that OEMs can provide at LEAST 5 years of software updates to their flagships, I might go back to Androidland (though I’m not sure what to even consider, I dislike Samsung and OnePlus disappointed me so hard with the OxygenOS->ColorOS switch that it’s literally the reason I went to iOS.
I suppose any Android phone would be good if I ran a custom ROM like I used to, but a couple of years ago bank apps in my country started checking the integrity of the bootloader and whatever. I couldn’t find any way around it back then, but maybe there’s something now?