The Original Google Pixel Will Get One Final Update In December (theverge.com) 47
Google has confirmed to The Verge that it will release "one final software update" next month for the original Google Pixel and Pixel XL. From the report: As of yesterday, it looked like the original Pixel was done getting updates, as Google released its November security update for most Pixel phones, but nothing for the Pixel or Pixel XL. Google tells The Verge that the Pixels won't get that November update, but it says December's "encapsulates a variety of updates" from the November and December updates that were issued for other Pixels.
It wasn't too surprising to see that Google's original Pixels didn't get yesterday's update. When Google announced the phones in 2016, the company said they would get two years of guaranteed Android version updates and three years of security updates, which is also reflected on Google's support page. That said, Google surprised Pixel owners earlier this year by letting them run Android 10, which is one more year of Android than Google originally promised, and now, they have one final update to look forward to as well.
It wasn't too surprising to see that Google's original Pixels didn't get yesterday's update. When Google announced the phones in 2016, the company said they would get two years of guaranteed Android version updates and three years of security updates, which is also reflected on Google's support page. That said, Google surprised Pixel owners earlier this year by letting them run Android 10, which is one more year of Android than Google originally promised, and now, they have one final update to look forward to as well.
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Are you intending to argue that they should get updates 3 years from said date?
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The official policy is 3 years from first sale, and 18 months from last sale. So if you don't buy the device when it's new and shiny, but instead wait until they are about to cancel it, you only get a year and a half. That seems sleazy to me. Not unusually so, but typically. But "typically sleazy" is not much of a marketing slogan.
24 month financing with 18 months of updates (Score:2)
So if you don't buy the device when it's new and shiny, but instead wait until they are about to cancel it, you only get a year and a half. That seems sleazy to me.
Especially when smartphone installment loans (and the ETF-driven subsidy plans that preceded them) are for 24-month periods. Then you're underwater for the last six months as you're still paying on what amounts to a computer whose system software gets no security updates.
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So if you don't buy the device when it's new and shiny, but instead wait until they are about to cancel it, you only get a year and a half.
That's what I did and 3 years later it's getting its final update. Not 18 months.
Also it still gets updates via Google Play, this just means it won't get Android 11.
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Depends are they updates or bug fixes, bug fixes should continue to occur until all the bugs have been removed.
When it comes to Android updates, they are blocking installing of new versions purposefully by locking the phone and preventing users from installing it. So quite a bit different than just not doing updates, they are purposefully preventing people from updating by blocking easy access to updates, no accident, doing it on purpose.
No more updates unlock the phones and allow users to update at will h [medium.com]
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> bug fixes should continue to occur until all the bugs have been removed.
Should we tell him?
Iphone 6 (Score:2, Informative)
Googles support for their products sucks.
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Googles support though still sucks.
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I wish I had mod points for this.
There's no reason why Google can't match Apple's 5+ year support windows. They don't even have to port over the newest Android this far down the line; if they just kept supplying security updates for a couple more years, that would be perfectly fine.
Instead, people are going to have to chuck out phones that cost several hundred dollars and are only a few years old. They're not outmoded for what they need to do, the only thing stopping them
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To be clear Google is still supplying security updates for the Pixel, and many even older devices.
There are two kinds of update in Android. There are updates to the core OS, which are ending, and there are updates to all the Android components that have been separated from the core OS, which are continuing. The latter comes via Google Play Services and offer security updates to Android components, as well as mitigation for issues in the underlying OS that can't be patched.
Google moved most of the infrastruc
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The iPhone 6 was released in 2014 and can run the latest version of IOS
Googles support for their products sucks.
No, google's support massively stinks. Apple's better than google but sucks otherwise. I'm typing this on a thinkpad W510 which is around 10 yeas old. Lenovo didn't lock the bootloader, used pretty standard parts and had official ubuntu support which means it's supported more or less in perpetuity. It's happily running 18.04. The keyboard is getting a bit crap now, probably more due to spills tha
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And yes I agree with you.
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Oh cool. Any others in particular? I'm a BBC person myself, though I've not touched it in years sadly. So many things to do...
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I get to "rescue" boards from old scientific equipment to salvage the CPUs, RAM, ROM, etc from the boards so I have a reasonab
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Oh I completely misunderstood. I figured you had one or two, not an entire and rather impressive museum! I've only got a BBC Master, a standard micro, with associated peripherals including an obscure ROM expansion pack. The only other machine I have is a Jupiter ACE with the original manual. That's the really obscure one in my "collection".
This sounds more than a hobby, have you considered starting some sort of museum?
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So the idea is to get as many working as I can, and sell them off as part of my retirement fund.
I HATE seeing them go to landfills, we have become too "Throw away" for our own good.
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There is not a big enough population in New Zeland to run such a boutique museum, and the museums I have talked to said they would probably use the collection to sell/swap for other items they are more interested in.
That is a shame. A museum of working vintage and antique computers would be a pretty amazing thing. Especially considering the importance of the rise of computers in history.
I HATE seeing them go to landfills, we have become too "Throw away" for our own good.
Definitely!
Mission Impossible. (Score:2)
stopped years ago (Score:3)
I have an original Pixel and it stopped getting updates years ago. It wouldn't have bothered me so much but it was really quite good hardware and all my other devices of the era were still getting chrome updates, but that was impossible on the pixel. To me, this seemed like quite an inherent flaw with the whole platform, since the browser was so linked with the platform it is impossible to update.
I've now stopped using it, and given it to my mother to use. She seems happy enough, but I wonder about all the chrome security updates she's missing out on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:stopped years ago (Score:4, Informative)
I have an original Pixel and it stopped getting updates years ago. It wouldn't have bothered me so much but it was really quite good hardware and all my other devices of the era were still getting chrome updates, but that was impossible on the pixel. To me, this seemed like quite an inherent flaw with the whole platform, since the browser was so linked with the platform it is impossible to update. I've now stopped using it, and given it to my mother to use. She seems happy enough, but I wonder about all the chrome security updates she's missing out on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That's not normal, in several ways. The Pixel platform has been getting updates all the way until this month. Also, Chrome is separated from the OS and gets updates regardless of the Android OS itself. And "years" ago is extra strange because the Pixel has only been out for three years.
You're describing a device that stopped getting updates within its first year, in a failure mode that isn't at all normal (inability to get app updates as well).
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I have an original Pixel and it stopped getting updates years ago.
That should not be possible. Can you please email me (my slashdot username @google.com)? I'd like to look into this. Does your mother live near enough that you can check some things on her phone?
my other devices of the era were still getting chrome updates, but that was impossible on the pixel.
Umm, Chrome is updated via Google Play, along with all other apps on the phone. If you disabled automatic updates in Play, and if you also never went into Play to check to see if there were updates and manually accept them, then you wouldn't get updates. But that should be the only way.
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Phone? The original pixel wasn't a phone, it was a laptop.
Google Play isn't available on the old version of ChromeOS...newer versions, perhaps.
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Phone? The original pixel wasn't a phone, it was a laptop.
Google Play isn't available on the old version of ChromeOS...newer versions, perhaps.
Ah!
The article is talking about the phone, not the Chromebook, and so was I.
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Phone? The original pixel wasn't a phone, it was a laptop.
Google Play isn't available on the old version of ChromeOS...newer versions, perhaps.
Ah!
The article is talking about the phone, not the Chromebook, and so was I.
BTW, the Chromebook Pixel received updates up until August 2018.
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august 2018??
Well, I am pretty sure it stopped before then, but my memory isn't what it used to me, and I have no way to prove it...anyway, that is 'years ago', just.
I can't check at the moment, but next month I'll try to remember to take a look, since you've made me wonder if there are some updates waiting, or I accidentally disabled them, or something.
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august 2018?? Well, I am pretty sure it stopped before then, but my memory isn't what it used to me, and I have no way to prove it...anyway, that is 'years ago', just. I can't check at the moment, but next month I'll try to remember to take a look, since you've made me wonder if there are some updates waiting, or I accidentally disabled them, or something.
August 2018 is the date cited in the Wikipedia article about the Chromebook Pixel -- though with a "citation needed" tag. So, I googled it and found an Aug 28, 2018 /. article [slashdot.org], which linked to an Aug 27, 2018 droidlife article [droid-life.com]. So (as usual) Wikipedia appears to be right. Just to be a good citizen, I added the citation.
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Fair enough. Anyway, support stopped way before the end of life of the hardware, imo. I consider it a significant disadvantage that Chrome itself can't be updated independent of the platform, like it can on pretty much anything else.
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Fair enough. Anyway, support stopped way before the end of life of the hardware, imo. I consider it a significant disadvantage that Chrome itself can't be updated independent of the platform, like it can on pretty much anything else.
You could always run some Linux distro on it, and run Chrome on that. Set up right, your mom probably wouldn't notice a difference, and you can automate the updating of Chrome, and the platform.
Granted that setting that up isn't a project for a typical person, but you are a slashdotter with a fairly low UID :P
(Also granted that like most slashdotters with low UIDs, setting stuff like that up probably stopped being fun for you years ago. It did for me.)
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Yeah, I could, I guess...but, yeah, no. It's not really about the hardward, so much as the platform being flawed. Ideally, I'd like to get another chromebook, but the same thing will happen in due course...probably sooner than I expect, like with the pixel. Yeah, I'd probably just get her a normal laptop which doesn't require much work to set up at all, and try to get her used to just launching chrome.
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I guess that's a problem of Google's own making...a name that spans different types of products.
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I have an original Pixel XL and it got last month's update, and will get next month's presumably.
Chrome is a separate app too, it's updates via the Play Store so will keep getting updates even after the Pixel stops getting app updates. Mine was updated last night.
Why is yours not getting updates? Something broken?
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The original Pixel was a chromebook. not a phone.
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It got an update as recently as late last month.
Not sure what's up with your device. I'm running Android 10 and recent security updates.
I expect I'll keep using for at least another six months before I think about a new(er) phone. I'm agreeing with you that it's good hardware. HTC, once upon a time, built really good stuff; IIRC, that's what Google bought, then brought out the original Pixel.
Wishing it would get security updates for longer. My last HTC phone was really great and
This is my first and last Pixel phone (Score:2)
Wow. Without security update, my working and pretty fast Google Pixel XL will then be a brick for me.
And on the environmental side, phone industry is a big mess. Hardware companies (laptop, tv,... and especially phone) should be forced by law to support their crap at least 10 years. Why buying a new phone every 2-3 years just to be able to have security updates?
We need to support good initiative like Purism Librem 5 phone (I already ordered mine): replaceable parts (battery, M2 modem card, ...), OS/software