this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
26 points (100.0% liked)

Android

17681 readers
10 users here now

The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!

Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.

🔗Universal Link: !android@lemdro.id

💡Content Philosophy:

Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.

Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id

For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id

💬Matrix Chat

💬Telegram channels / chats

📰Our communities below

Rules

  1. Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.

  2. No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.

  3. Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.

  4. No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.

  5. No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.

  6. No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.

  7. No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.

  8. No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.

  9. No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!

  10. No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.

Quick Links

Our Communities

Lemmy App List

Chat and More

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
ijeff@lemdro.id
ladfrombrad@lemdro.id
Paradox@lemdro.id
multimoon@lemdro.id
mikestevens@lemdro.id
Devgard@lemmy.world
limerod@reddthat.com
Netrunner@lemdro.id
26
Qualcomm wants OEMs to have easier time updating Android (www.androidauthority.com)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by limerod@reddthat.com to c/android@lemdro.id
5 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

TLDR

  • A Qualcomm executive told Android Authority that the company is working to make it easier for OEMs to keep devices with older Qualcomm chipsets up to date.
  • The company understands that updating older devices is currently “complicated,” not to mention expensive.
  • There will be some announcements on this topic “later this year,” presumably surrounding the launch of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.
top 5 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 25 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Do they? Presumably they'd open source and upstream their firmware or at the very least provide longer software support if that were the case.

[–] Markaos@lemmy.one 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, even the TLDR makes it sound more like Qualcomm is yielding to the pressure from OEMs who want to be able to offer longer updates

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

What's funny to me is that you could say Apple is the reason for this.

Apple's had longer OS support for their phones than any Android manufacturer for a while, but then Google started catching up when they got their own chips and now Samsung and the others are pushing Qualcomm to quit their bullshit.

I do use an iPhone myself currently, but if Qualcomm opens their shit up enough that OEMs can provide at LEAST 5 years of software updates to their flagships, I might go back to Androidland (though I'm not sure what to even consider, I dislike Samsung and OnePlus disappointed me so hard with the OxygenOS->ColorOS switch that it's literally the reason I went to iOS.

I suppose any Android phone would be good if I ran a custom ROM like I used to, but a couple of years ago bank apps in my country started checking the integrity of the bootloader and whatever. I couldn't find any way around it back then, but maybe there's something now?

[–] fossphi@lemm.ee 4 points 4 months ago

No, that'd be too easy. We can't have that. Please buy new chips.

[–] sudotstar@fedia.io 6 points 4 months ago

I'm cautiously optimistic about this, because Qualcomm has been actually putting in some work to get the mainline Linux kernel more supported on their Snapdragon X Elite laptop CPU: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/qualcomm-goes-where-apple-wont-readies-official-linux-support-for-snapdragon-x-elite. This doesn't necessarily mean the same benefits will come to their mobile chipsets, but I'm hopeful that there is some runoff benefit from their new laptop efforts here.

While I do not expect to see Android devices with future Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipsets immediately booting mainline kernels on release, this might be a step towards achieving something closer to that. Those efforts will certainly make it easier for phone manufacturers to release updated kernels, and therefore Android releases, for their devices, or at least stop using Qualcomm as the excuse for not doing so (see e.g. Fairphone 4's software support roadmap: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9979180437393-Fairphone-OS).