OnePlus announces that it will spend four years of major updates and five years of security patches on its highest-end smartphones. This is the second manufacturer after Samsung to make a commitment in this direction.
During a round table organized with various international media, at which Frandroid was able to attend by videoconference, OnePlus announced a major innovation. His high end phones now go to four years of major updates and five years of security patches.
Concretely, this means that a smart phone like a OnePlus 11 which should be released early next year with Android 13 should be updated to Android 17, with the added bonus of a year’s security patch.
The brand did not give an exact list of the ranges that will be affected by this novelty, but it did speak of “flagships”. It is therefore expected that the numbered OnePlus will benefit from it, that is, the heirs of the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 10 Pro. Doubt remains as to the heirs of the OnePlus 10T.
As for the more accessible ranges of OnePlus Nord, we do not know if they will be aligned for three years or if they will remain for two years, which would create a very, even too large space between the different ranges of the brand.
Why this might change everything
For some time now, no smartphone brand can announce a product without the same question arising: how long will it be updated? The number of Android updates and security patches has become a central element of brand communication.
Gary Chen, head of the unified software team for OxygenOS and ColorOS confirms this: “We know people want to keep their phones longer. » It is also now, if we are to believe this survey conducted with our communityan important purchase criterion (at least for regular readers of Frandroid).
Except that here, since February 2022, a single brand has dominated all the others on Android. At the time of the presentation of his Galaxy S22, Samsung has indeed announced that it has moved to four generations of Android. Since then, a consensus seemed to have been established. There was Samsung, the very good student with four years, the bad students who only updated their phones for two years and therefore, a large majority of high-end models which were satisfied with three years, thus becoming the tacit standard.
With this transition to four years for OnePlus, we feel that this balance is about to change. Now that there are two “good students” in four years, we suspect that the subject will become more and more pressing. We wouldn’t be surprised if Oppo aligned itself very quickly with OnePlus, given that the manager who announced this novelty is also working on ColorOS, the Oppo interface.
Google, often singled out for its three years of updates despite its expertise in the matter (Google manages Android support, we remind you) will be under more and more pressure for its Pixels. Xiaomi, Honor, Motorola: all players are in this race.
Why only four years?
Another direct consequence that we will be able to study in the weeks to come is that Apple is gradually losing one of its biggest advantages. Indeed, iOS 16 currently supports models up to five years old. With now five years of patch looming at Android, the gap is narrowing.
OnePlus answered a question from a rather legitimate journalist: why stop at four years? Why not more? The manager, Gary Chen, gave two reasons: “In terms of cost, it is very complicated to offer more. Even Samsung doesn’t go that far. Moreover, it is a great commitment. We cannot promise ten years if we are not sure that the current hardware will be able to run the software in ten years. However, at this stage, we think we can commit to four years, no more. »
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