Weekend poll: How important is update support in your next smartphone?

Tech companies tend to follow each other — it’s how we get trends in the first place. Apple, for example, dragged its heels on adding an always-on display to the iPhone; fast-forward a year and half later, and Samsung has a similar experience available by default on One UI 6.1. That’s why it didn’t come as much of a surprise when, just a few months after Google announced the Pixel 8’s policy for seven OS upgrades, the Galaxy S24 series launched with the same promise. But not everyone seems to be on the same page.

This week, OnePlus COO and president Kinder Liu made headlines in the easiest way possible: by comparing these upgrade policies to moldy sandwiches. Liu’s argument — something echoed by eco-minded OEM Fairphone — boils down to this: you can’t promise to keep the software on a smartphone updated when the hardware isn’t designed to hold up for as long. It’s the equivalent of refreshing a sandwich’s fillings (the software) while allowing the bread to get moldy (the hardware).

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