As part of our ongoing efforts to keep our users safe, Google will no longer allow sign-in on Android devices that run Android 2.3.7 or lower starting September 27, 2021. If you sign into your device after September 27, you may get username or password errors when you try to use Google products and services like Gmail, YouTube, and Maps.
Android 2.3.7 was released on 21 September, 2011. That’s ten years of support. I think that’s fair.
I disagree. I think 10 years of support is nothing. 20 year or lifetime support is routine in industrial and commerical settings. I dislike planned obsolecence at the best of times but when a device is usable but for the manufacturer decided to flip a bit this way or that way I begin to question their entire design ethos and management and attitude. Portability and scaleability and long term support are not new inventions. Cutting users off at the knees and effectively removing what they had, which is what Google are doing, is a pretty scuzzy trick. “Security” is the oldest excuse in the book for people covering up their own failings. Instead of taking Google at their word where is the questioning? Not just reasons or excuses but explanations.
I could not agree more.
My phone runs Android 8 and I don’t think I want to upgrade 7 years from now unless the phone gets damaged.
I should be able to keep it as long as it remains in mint shape.
Used a HTC Evo 3D (4.0.3) from nov 2011 until may 2021 when it stopped charging.
Where are the fucking Android upgrades ? Don’t touch the drivers if that cannot be updated, update the OS without changing the ABI.
With 3G going the way of the dodo in the US over the next year and a half or so, even if Google supported Android 2.3.7 for 20 years, devices simply won’t be useful away from a WiFi connection anyways.
The switch from analogue to digital obsoleted a lot of phones overnight but mobile phones were fairly niche ad huge at the time and there was a strong case to change. It simply wasn’t possible to keep analogue going because frequencies are a limited resource.
In the UK the government botched network roaming whereby towers would be 100% shared. This means not everyone can access 2G either as a primary service or as a backup and there are still blakspots if you’re on the wrong network. The excuse at the time was “security” with GCHQ citing too expensive or complicated or somesuch. The current government and the regulator OFCOM are so hands off with regulation you cannot get a straight answer off them with respect of service provision and switch of dates.
Some networks still provide 2G while others will close down 3G by 2025. This is super annoying as it means I will have to throw two perfectly working phones in the bin. It’s also going to impact my laptop internal 3G modems. Lenovo in their infinite wisdom whitelist the internal socket so even if I had a 4G modem which would fit as the laptops are out of support that is not going to happen so I’m going to have to use dongles or tethering.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/196632/uk-2g-infrastructure-shutdown.pdf
https://hyphabit.io/2g-network-closure-uk/
And the support here should come from the manufacturers.
Unless google sold the devices they really are not a party to it. (and their support for their own devices is excellent).
So what you mean is. What the manufacturers of these devices are doing is a scuzzy trick. But it was 9 years ago when they released the phone and gave 1 update if you were lucky. They don’t even say security as an excuse. People just accept it.
Many of the older Android versions have unpatched security holes. Major security holes. It’s why Android got banned when I was running an IT department.
The Android OEMs are pretty crappy and really don’t care once the device has been sold. Most are, and were, appliance companies whose solution to the problem is, “Buy a new device.” They don’t understand software, and they don’t care about sustainability or longevity of the device.
It’s gotten better as companies who understand software have entered the space, but not that much better. Apple is still the best company in the space.
You’re in the UK; you can get the fairphone. 🙂
I should also mention, major parts of the phone are probably get close to burning out. They’re silicon, but still mechanical things. Radios, CPUs, batteries.
Old technology will be unusable. I can still boot up my old comodor3 64. Works just as great as it did back in the 80s. But with the online service age, that 2011 phone is a brick of ewaste, and even if it can be made to run something like lineage without google services, its not the same as it was from the factory, its a different experience.
Yeah, but like @ponk said below, you can always use it in an alternative way. Like a retro game console or anything else for that matter.
Yeah, but part of the thrill of old gadgets from my childhood is that they look and work exactly the same as I remember. This can’t be said for the things we’re using now, in 20 plus years they may be used as other things if we are lucky, but they won’t work exactly the same as before.
No need to toss old Android phones.
As long as they can still charge, old Android phones can still be very useful without Google sign-ons, or even without a SIM card, period.
Many of those in my collection of retired Androids have included an FM Radio app — one of those devices is now my kitchen radio/wifi music player.
Another retired Android phone has become someone’s alarm clock.
Yet another is my elderly mother’s COVID-Alert app device (with occasional checks+maintenance+support from me).
Finally, for my more recent Androids, I’ve refused to sign-on the phone to Google/GooglePlay altogether — sideloaded apps only. Some apps seem to take some time trying to deal with the lack of an account, but most work just fine.
Google changed their Playstore system for distributing sideloaded applications. Sideloading is going to be impossible or difficult for phones which Google decided to obsolete for no other reason than they wanted to. Then there is switching off 3G (and 2G). It’s a one two punch to older phones. Then with PC’s there is Microsoft obsoleting everything but the very latest hardware.
People have figured out how to convert the new app store format into the old format, and sideloading still works after the conversion. Apparently, the new format is a superset of the old format.
I agree. Old phones can be useful for other things. I would prefer to be able to install something else, like a full Linux or BSD OS though. A full OS would make it more useful to me.
I think 5 years is more then enough time before an OEM has to release driver source code and whatever else is needed to run a different OS.
I’m including Apple in these statements. They support their devices longer, but eventually everything loses support.
Let me translate modern Newspeak to you:
“To keep you safe” means “to track you, to control you, to make more money”.
I mean, the whole reason this is possible to shut down old versions of android is *because* they can control the device functionality. Android was always full of trackers. But yeah probably some if it is money to allow the older auth methods to work, probably saves them a buck by turning it off. RIP my rooted nook, wherever I lost you years ago.