Some research

Leaving aside the rather fanboysh way it's phrased in places, this is an interesting piece of work. The infographic suggests there are no Android smartphones still 'in support' (i.e. can be upgraded to the latest OS version) two years after they hit the shelves. While the iphone does fare slightly better, we know equally that Apple do 'abandon' their devices in a period not that dissimilar - I assume the 3GS will only be in support for another 6 months or so, meaning iPhones only last another year or so, so the same questions do more or less apply.

is this reasonable? Should we be expecting more long term support? or should we accept that as most contracts last at most two years, two years is about as long as we should expect to get support on the device? Or should OS upgrades be made available to all phones as long as they are technically capable of running them, even if we're effectively giving the supplier no money to do so?

The knee-jerk reaction is to say 'of course they should be supported' but is that actually a commercially viable condition? Especially in a ecosystem like Android when there is such a range and diversity of devices. Does Android's built in advantage of diversity turn out to be a disadvantage when it comes to long term support? Or is it simply the case that Motorola/HTC/etc are a bunch of twunts?

Jon

I think three years really is the maximum.

Many of the people I know with a 3GS are really wanting to upgrade, because the can see developers using the new hardware and they are being left behind. There is little Apple/Google/Microsoft/etc. can do about this, if better hardware is introduced, developers will use it, and they will somewhat dictate how long a device is usable for.

You might hope to at least get "security updates" for a few years if something important crops up.

However, I don't think people should expect "feature updates" for hardware that's over two years old. If the phone only does exactly what it did when you bought it, then why is that a problem?

Let's put it this way: People who keep their phone for years (3y+) are people who don't buy smarphones. They have a phone just as tool to make calls and send messages. They don't care about bells and whitles.

Also people who buy smartphones and keep if for longer than two years don't care about upgrade of their software. If they wanted latest and greatest software they would also get latest and greatest hardware (e.g a new phone as soon as their upgrade is due).

Some might argue that some people don't care about software but they care about security patches etc. But we all know that a majority of consumers don't care about security otherwise nobody would be using android and 9/10 phones would be BBs.

So those who care about security AND want to keep their phone for a long time (3y+) are a minority and therefore it is not feasible for manufacturers to keep spending money on updates that most people won't care about.

I've had my Sensation since September and have had 2 over the air updates since I got it.

htc, Samsung and the others have agreed to support their phones for at least 18 months to 2 years - i.e. as long as it is still on contract, it will get updates.

The Desire should, allegedly, get 4.0.

+1