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Comment by TwoNineA | Hacker News Reader

My wife's iPhone 6 (4 year old phone) is still snappy and will get iOS 12 in a few weeks. My Pixel XL (2 year old phone), to be fair, it's snappy but it's EOL in OS updates this fall. All while the iPhone 6 will most possibly get iOS 13. Maybe I am a sucker for Apple keynotes, but this emphasis on long term use makes me seriously consider to upgrade my XL to an Xr especially seeing how the 5S will get iOS 12.

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I used my iphone 5 until last year and it was still in perfect working condition after replacing a new battery and I sold it for $120 and used that money to buy iphone 8 which i will hold on to as long as it is supported by apple.

By last year my 6Plus got really slow and sluggish with the release of iOS11 to the point it was barely usable for me. Switching between apps took ages and somestimes i waited seconds for the Keyboard top pop up. Hopefully iOS12 will be better for old devices. In the end I got a good deal on a used 7Plus and am happy with that.

eol after 2 years? wtf google

3 years technically: the 2 years old Pixel gets Pie, the 3 years old Nexus 5X and 6P do not.

It's partly the hardware manufacturers /processor makers fault as they stop providing drivers for older devices۔ The latest Android verions though google has made it that the Android can be updated without needing driver updates for the different chips so I expect google to update devices for longer in the future۔

Apple uses chips produced by third parties for its radio and until recently graphics(?) but it doesn’t have that problem.

Apple makes it own drivers though for iOS so it's still possible for them to update where as the drivers for Android come from the manufacturers. That's the reason google has moved to break Android in parts so that they can update the os without needing new drivers from the manufacturers. Will probably still take 2-3 years before Android devices at least google sold Android devices are updated for longer other manufacturers probably still won't. Samsung comes to mind they produce most internals themselves but still don't update where as Nvidia has been updating its shield tv for 4+ years because they control hardware so its possible.

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