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7 years of updates for what? The S24 models and up? Or all phones up to 7 years ago? It doesn't specify, and the cynic in me makes me think it's only on 2024 models as a selling point.

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I maintain https://endoflife.date/samsung-mobile and this is extremely frustrating. Google was clear when they bumped the support that it only applied to Pixel 8 and above. Why can't Samsung clearly publish a press release.

Google Pixel end-of-support info:

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en

GrapheneOS end-of-support info (for Google Pixels):

https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support

Man, that page is gold. Thanks for creating it

It's likely going to be recent devices. Older devices Android was tightly coupled to kernel version, didn't have a good hardware abstraction layer for drivers, etc. Basically android has been working on restructing itself under the hood over the years to be more maintainable. Further, older devices will be on LTS kernels which will already be outside their support window, so there's a ton work to be done updating the device tree to upgrade to a newer LTS kernel.

Short windows made sense simply because it was a lot of work to maintain old devices. Now that there's a more solid separation of concerns, longer support windows make sense.

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