Owners of a slightly older Pixel will be able to keep using their phone a little longer, as OS release time increases for a few phones.
Owning a phone often means knowing that you only have it for a few years until it’s upgraded, but that appears to be changing. Manufacturers are gradually getting behind long term phone ownership, and Google could well be the best example of that, using last year’s Pixel 8 range to announce seven years of updates for the new phones.
When Google announced that change, suddenly the new and recent Pixel phones become a lot more interesting, offering a phone that could go the distance, almost as if Michel Bolton performed a song solely for the handsets.
There was only one problem: while the Pixel seven-year program applied to models from the 8 and higher, including this year’s Pixel 9 Pro XL and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, it didn’t stretch to Pixel models from before this.
Good news then that Google is making an attempt at rectifying this.
The Pixel team has noted that owners of both the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 ranges will see two more years of operating system updates, suggesting five years in total for the handsets.
That’s an upgrade on the three years for previous models, moving to five years for operating system updates and five for security updates, as well.
We’re checking with Google’s local arm to find out whether these changes will kick in automatically, or whether they’ll even apply to Australia, but it does seem likely, and that can only be good news for consumers.
