This longer-term support, while still not as long as I'd like it, I'd a big part of why I switched from Android for the device I mostly use. I still keep a few de-crapified/de-bloated Android phones for audiobooks, music files, and as a KDE Connect controller for a media PC, largely thanks to F-Droid, but the security updates on this hand-me-down iPhone give me some peace of mind.
If/when this XR dies or is no longer supported and another old-but-good gift phone is not in the works I'll probably look for a cheap-enough, good-enough Android and stop paying for Apple One. As I get older and the desire for novelty is replaced by the expectation of consistency and reliability for communication, information (a web browser), and a decent camera, I just want this device that I'm used to to keep working.
I was an Android user for ~6 years, but as you said, I want something consistent and reliable. Android was never that for me.
I bought an iPhone 11 Pro four years ago and still like it. Occasionally I'm tempted for a newer iPhone, but there's no compelling reason to buy a newer model.
You aren't alone. I really wanted the 2020 SE to be the 5-year phone but the battery just dies too fast, it's not good for a day even when starting on 100% charge with battery saver mode on and replacing it takes a week because they have to send the unit to god knows where a service center is actually located. And the new battery will just cook itself after a year anyway, so I'm very seriously considering the 15, especially since it comes with USB-C so I can ditch half the cables.
I'd gladly take a thicker SE with a more robust battery. It isn't a fashion item anyway anymore.
This is certainly alleviated a bit on Android by having most of the core apps updatable separate from the OS itself. I know people who are running 5+ year old Android devices that are only just starting to think about upgrading.
They still do security fixes for iOS 15 which is the iphone 6S in 2015 so 8 years.
The last security update for iOS 12 was 7 months ago too.
IMO that's a generous period for security updates.
Their usefulness is honestly more limited by app developer's support of the old api's, and the increasing bloat of web apps rather than Apple's support. It would be better of course if we could homebrew on them after that but I'm not sure I'd call it pitiful.
There have been huge architectural changes under the hood. Granted, most end users are oblivious to them (eg. Neural Engine generational changes, GPU, SoC, etc)
FWIW, iOS 15 updates are still being released for these devices. A. week ago[1], in fact.
Apple does however continue to provide security updates, they released a security update for ios 15 earlier this year. As an iphone 8 user this is perfectly fine for me. My phone works great and none of this new stuff is something I can't live without.
Looking over the list, so much of it seems like application-level changes to stuff like messages, calls, contacts, etc. For a user who has opted out of most of that in favour of GMail, Whatsapp, Signal, and so on, it's hard to see the big draw.
I'm not sure what you mean - the last security update fixed massive 0-day which was an arbitrary code execution caused by the image decoder. CVE-2023-41064
AFAIK every app that uses the ImageI/O api is effected by it, which includes every app you mentioned. You often don't need to even open the message for the image to be decoded.
From my understanding most vulnerabilities are from either the image decoder, text decoder, or webkit which again, effects nearly all apps. All apps can only use the webkit view, which affects nearly all of them to some degree.
I think you might be confusing the attack vector - messages is the easiest to attack since you just sent a regular text. Even if you don't normally use messages, it'll parse the image and you'll be hit by the 0 day. In theory this will work with most messaging apps.
I was referring to the opposite side of things— not the security patches but the actual new features of iOS 17. Rather than being OS-level capabilities that feel like they would impact the whole ecosystem, they're more like app features, and a lot of the app features don't apply to me as I use alternatives to those specific apps.
What are you comparing it to? Python does bug fixes for 2 years, then security updates for 5 [0]. Ubuntu LTS releases do 5 years and you have to pay to get the 10 years [1]. Apple stacks up quite well against any competition I'm aware of here.
You’re comparing the wrong things. A specific release of Python or Ubuntu is only maintained for that long, but you can upgrade to the next version just fine, normally with little effort. (Sometimes it takes more effort, but that’s true of iOS workflows too.) If you have fifteen-year-old x86-64 hardware, you can probably run the latest versions of Ubuntu and Python on it. By contrast (using the figures from this thread), iPhones become less useful after about five years since you can’t get feature upgrades any more and so increasingly apps will stop working, and become unmaintained after about eight years.
What do you mean by “software support”? All I can think of that would be relevant is things like firmware/BIOS security patches. Honestly most people never need or get even that. But even if there’s an unpatched rootkit opportunity (which is unlikely to be practical to invoke), everything else in the stack can still be modern and patched, featurewise and securitywise. I’d say that’s normally good enough.
But even if we allow that, that’s a completely distinct topic, and my point stands; your Python/Ubuntu comparison was still clearly unreasonable.
I have a 7.5 year-old iPhone SE and it has gotten two security updates this past month. In other words, the 5 years you mention is ONLY for entirely new OS versions which old hardware simply can't support. Older phones continue to be supported.
When you can only run one app at a time on iOS, why do you need 8GB of RAM? Outside of high end games or professional editing type apps, this seems hugely overkill for most apps.
You can definitely run more than one app at a time on iOS so I’m not sure what you’re referring to. For me, I am really looking forward to 8 gigabytes of ram because I use stable diffusion on my phone.
