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Buy an iPhone and you might get 4-5 years of official software updates. Android phones typically get 1-3 years of updates… if they get any updates at all. But there are ways to breathe new life into some older Android phones. If you can unlock the bootloader, you may be able to install a custom ROM like LineageOS and get unofficial software updates for a few more years.
The folks behind postmarketOS want to go even further: they're developing a Linux-based alternative to Android with the goal of providing up to 10 years of support for old smartphones.
That's the goal anyway. Right now the developers have only taken the first steps.
[...] At this point the developers behind postmarketOS are a long way from creating a fully functional OS that works on a single phone, let alone an operating system that will provide a decade of software updates for dozens of different devices. But it's a laudable goal that could help keep your aging phones useful (and secure) long after your phone maker stops pushing official updates.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Friday August 18 2017, @04:30AM
That's true but it's not really a moral. The moral of the story is that swinehood hath no remedy. You bought a pig, you have a pig, you can put the pig in a dress and paint it with lipstick but it's still a pig and it's still going to wallow in the first mud puddle it finds.
The smartphones are pigs. They're defective by design, they aren't supported or supportable. They were not made for you, they were made for the phone company and the 'security' agencies, and nothing you can do will ever change that fact.
Trying to support this junk in any way whatsoever is a counterproductive waste of time.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?