Wouldn't last official sale date be a better indicator of true device support? For example if someone bought it in an Apple store on the last day available, how long period would they have received updates for?
Comparatively, no. Android phones generally get a maximum of 3 years of security updates from launch, not from last device sale date. So, within mobile phones, it's more informative to compare it to their competition. It shows you just how much better Apple is at mobile device support compared to everyone else.
Well, you still get updates through the store way longer than 3 years. With more and more components (e.g. the browser) coming through the store, the picture is not as black and white anymore.
Galaxy S8 on sale at Walmart, Staples, and NewEgg. Likely falls off support in 3-4 months. So Android flagships are close to zero or even negative support time?
This is what got me to finally switch to Apple. Updates take forever. I bought a Samsung off Amazon for testing and for some reason I still have to wait on T-Mobile. And then after a year, maybe two, there just aren’t anymore updates.
It's accurate, though. When I am evaluating devices to buy, a metric I care about is "after I buy this, how long will it remain up-to-date with security patches?" And the answer to that question is "on the day that you buy it, it is already several months behind on security patches and will not improve." That metric is not the be-all-end-all of support, but is meaningful, and low or negative values have the correct interpretation in that context.
Apple uses this metric as well[1]. If something hasn't been sold by Apple for 5 years (but less than 7 years), it's considered vintage and you can still get hardware service and certain critical software fixes, though not necessarily any new features.
The support for MacBooks is actually great. Certain Late 2013 and Mid 2014 Retina MacBook Pros, while considered vintage, will be receiving the Big Sur update[2].
> The support for MacBooks is actually great. Certain Late 2013 and Mid 2014 Retina MacBook Pros, while considered vintage, will be receiving the Big Sur update.
I think it's more likely that Apple's new frameworks don't require any fancy hardware features that aren't available in the Late 2013 MacBook Pros.
It's true that laptop computers have not changed as much over the years. This in large part because Intel CPU's and architecture have not changed as much, while iPhone CPU's have improved by leaps and bounds.
I wonder how much this might change when Apple Silicon comes to the Mac.
It feels like smartphones are stabilizing as well. I don't see myself needing to replace my iPhone 8 for a while, even though there have been three more generations afterwards. An iPhone 5 felt much more outdated at the time of the 6s/SE.
> I think it's more likely that Apple's new frameworks don't require any fancy hardware features
Mojave and higher isn’t “supported” on the cheese grater Mac Pro’s despite it running more than fine, including with FileVault 2 enabled on the boot volume (which an Apple exec tried to claim was technically not possible).
No, because devices can be and sometimes are sold with software that is already out of date. The better indicator is how long software support is provided for a device from beginning to end.
If I buy a new phone from the manufacturer and it's already unsupported, that's really bad. I don't care if it was supported for 8 years before I bought it.
Hah. This bit us when I got my mother an iPhone SE (2016) to replace her iPhone 4 a year or so ago. I tried to restore from iCloud backup and it kept failing, and finally it dawned on me that the OS may have been out of date. Skipped the restore, updated the OS, and wiped the phone. The restore worked correctly.
On the flip side, the Apple guys have a lot of patience to deal with my stubborn ass trying to activate an iPhone 4... the non-SIM servers were taken offline years ago so I popped in a SIM and off I went.
Sure but that doesn't change how long they supported after end of sale which wasn't in 2013 but at least until 2017. So ~3 years of software updates from end of sale. Still OK but not anything special.
To not be special, there must be many phones out there getting the same or better support. What are they? Who sells these many other smartphones that have had 3 or more years of updates from last sale?
Certainly not the Pixel phones, they get 3 years support from first launch only, and they're supposedly the gold standard for Android software support. It's pretty much the reason they exist. Yet after last sale support for the 5S matched the Pixel's from launch support, and we don't even know that this is the last update the 5S will get.
You decided to count the days of support in a completely uncommon way that no one usually discusses but decided that three years was ok based on the common way people count, which is since initial release.
For example in mid 2017 it was still officially sold by Apple in India (source: https://www.iphonehacks.com/2017/05/apple-iphone-5s-iphone-s...).