iPhone and iPad customers have lengthy had a significant benefit over their Android friends: longevity. Whereas new Apple units get pleasure from years of OS updates, most Android telephones are fortunate to get updates for greater than a 12 months after buy, leaving many handsets with outdated software program earlier than they’re able to be upgraded.
With the most recent Galaxy S22 telephones, Samsung has closed that hole significantly. Alongside the brand new telephones, the corporate introduced that they may assist 4 generations of One UI and Android OS upgrades and 5 years of safety updates. Which means an S22 purchased right this moment with OneUI 4 based mostly on Android 12 will get OneUI 8 based mostly on Android 16 in 2026.
Apple, in fact, typically helps its units for even longer than that. The iPhone 6s from 2015 is ready to get iOS 15 greater than six years after its launch and the iPad Air 2, launched in 2014, can be appropriate. However consumers don’t know that on the time of buy. We simply have to belief that Apple received’t finish assist after three or 4 years.
And that prolonged longevity shouldn’t be all the time the case. Apple ended assist for the Apple Watch Sequence 1 and a pair of when watchOS 7 arrived in 2020, lower than 4 years after the {hardware}’s launch. We assume the iPhone 14 will get iOS 20, however Apple hasn’t ever put that in writing. We don’t know for certain.
It’s unlikely that any Android gadget will ever assist OS upgrades so long as an iOS gadget, however that doesn’t matter if Samsung affords a assure that Apple doesn’t. Apple customers anticipate their new iPhones to get a minimum of and sure greater than 5 years of updates, and Apple ought to capitalize on its benefit by assembly and exceeding Samsung’s assure.
Once you purchase a brand new Apple gadget, you’ve gotten peace of thoughts that it’s going to obtain a few years of OS updates. Apple might have to put it in writing.
Michael Simon has been masking Apple because the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with know-how goes again to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He is nonetheless ready for that to return again in model tbh.