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Comment by hansvm | Hacker News Reader

It's a software problem too. To have the same capabilities my phone did when it was new a few years ago, I have to find 3rd party play store backups to get apps with the right SDK to install. The bootloader isn't unlockable. Samsung won't provide updates. Google is actively hostile to providing apps which work (both not hosting the working versions and abusing things like their power over the signing keys to quickly deprecate old Android SDKs).

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> (both not hosting the working versions and abusing things like their power over the signing keys to quickly deprecate old Android SDKs)

Android SDKs aren't getting deprecated. The SDK available on developer.android.com right now can still be used to build an app that runs on devices all the way down to Android 1.5. It's the developers who are dropping older Android versions by raising the minSDK in their apps.

Google Play does allow the developer to keep older app versions available for older Android versions. Again, most developers don't do that.

Google themselves support older Android versions for a very long time. Current versions of GSF and Google Play require Android 4.4, iirc. This came out more than 10 years ago.

yep - my old moto phone was fine, and I didn't add any new apps or desire new functionality, but performance got so bad over time to the point where it was unusable. There's really no attractive business model today in maintaining modest device usage over a long period of time.

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