Apple Software Support for older devices puts Android to Shame

It is no secret that for many years now that android manufacturers have had a bad tendency of not upgrading the software on their devices after feature updates were made available to them by Google.

This tendency by Android smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and even Google but to a lesser extent is the Achilles heel of the Android platform. The main reasons listed by many industry insiders for the delayed updates is often Google's hands-off approach to Android with regards to the opens source nature of the platform. Android is based on code from the Android Open Source Project or AOSP which means that anyone with the technical know-how can create their version of the software i.e CyanogenMod (R.I.P). This has led to a very high number of fragmentation which makes adapting each feature update Google releases to the various flavours of Android is a lengthy and sometimes an impossible task even though Google licenses Android out to these manufacturers which really only means they (Google) license the rights to use Google play services like the Playstore and Gmail etc. Manufacturers can always opt to use their own storefront to service apps to their users.

On the other hand, IOS from apple is run differently from the model of android in that its a closed source operating system where Apple controls the software and hardware of their phones leading to no fragmentation in the phone segment although they still do suffer from product stack fragmentation when moving from iPhone to Mac. The reduced development and update time and control of hardware are why Apple can support older devices years after they have been released with new feature updates.

Indeed Google has made some strides in addressing the issue of fragmentation by creating the android one programme where if manufacturers meet certain requirements they can receive android updates faster for a period of 2 years and an additional period of 3 years of security updates. The list of manufacturers on this list is however still rather small with the only notable names being most Nokia smartphones and some Xiaomi smartphones.

Google also has created the Pixel line of products which is the re-brand of the old Nexus brand which focuses on being the closed off Android counterpart to the Apple iPhone where Google controls both the hardware and software of that particular line of products but even than Google still fails to support their oldest line of Pixel devices beyond the upcoming release of Android 11.

Google has also launched project mainline that will seek to decouple certain modules in Android from the main OS to become individual components that can be updated through Google play services and the number of these decoupled components is rising year on year. The issue of fragmentation will continue to plague the vast majority of Android users for years to come but at least something is being done about it.