Android 14 Officially Releases for Pixel Phones 20
Android 14 is out today, along with a new Pixel phone. The OS is shipping to supported Pixel devices now, which means the Pixel 4a (5G) and every variant of the Pixel 5, 6, and 7, plus the Fold and Tablet. From a report: The big feature this year is a somewhat customizable home screen. You can pick from several different lock screen clock styles and customize the two bottom app shortcuts. This feels like a response to iOS 16's lock screen widgets (a feature Android used to have back in the 4.2 days) but not nearly as customizable. It's honestly hard to highlight a second Android 14 feature because this is one of the smallest Android releases ever. The first feature Google mentions in its blog post is a new wallpaper picker. On the Pixel 8, Android now has a built-in text-to-image AI wallpaper maker, presumably a feature that lets the Android team adhere to Google's "mandatory AI" company mandate. There's also a new monochrome theme if you're tired of all those "Material You" colors.
Starting The Countdown Now (Score:2, Interesting)
How long will it be before Google declares those Pixel phones "unsupported" and thus "obsolete" ?
After all, isn't that what Google has become known for in it's technology products & services ?
Start The Countdown Now
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They'll probably draw a line at Tensor chips.
Which work fine under LineageOS too.
Sounds like I might be buying a Pixel 8 in 2025 tho!
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Half of them, that is everything up to and including the Pixel 4a, are already out of support. Pixel 5 will be gone this month and Pixel 4a 5G next month. It's really ridiculos.
Re:Starting The Countdown Now (Score:5, Informative)
Hey I'm not gonna say it isn't fun to rip on Google for short lived products and cancellations but the Pixel line is one area where they have set clear dates and as far as I can tell lived up to them. Hell I was surprised to see a version of the 4A get this update.
They spell out who gets what updates and when those stop.
Learn when you'll get software updates on Google Pixel phones [google.com]
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Google can set all the dates that they like - it looks like GOOD PR, but it's still just their word, a 'verbal' promise.
How do we really know that they won't ghost us in the future when they realize it might have been a bad business idea?
Think about it. What guarantee do any of us have that Google will keep it's word in the future?
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You have as much guarantee as any company has to anything they say. Microsoft says Windows 10 is supported until 10/25, could they drop that and stop support for any non-enterprise people today? Absolutely. Apple could drop support for older iPhones today.
Historically though we are on version 8 of the Pixel now, have any of the phones not received updates as they said they would?
The primary reason Google came out with Nexus/Pixel phones was to set a good example for other OEM's who Google was tired of get
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Microsoft has held to all their promised EOL dates. Apple has never said anything but if you have a 64 bit device then you're still receiving updates. Even th iPhone 6S still gets updates. I'll believe google when 7 years has progressed.
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Sure, that's fair but Google has held to all it's dates on Previous Pixel phones so we have as much history to accept that as we do those other companies I would say.
That said I would be more impressed if there are people using working Pixel 8 phones in Q3 2030 but that's a different matter (I know I wouldn't)
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No it hasn't. Until recently, Google promised that Pixel update bulletins and updates would be released on the first Monday of each month (Tuesday if Monday were a holiday). They've broken that promise for several months now. Even though they no longer make that promise, it was made at the time they introduced Pixel 7 series and older phones. ("I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further.")
They have confirmed tha
Re:Starting The Countdown Now (Score:5, Informative)
Seven years guaranteed full updates and support. Might be more, but they guarantee the first 7.
That's more than Apple guarantees, btw. More than anyone else, as a matter of fact.
It's fair to jump on Google about a lot of things, but not this, not about the Pixel line. You are just talking out your ass.
Re: Starting The Countdown Now (Score:1)
Let's see how this plays out, 6 years from now, before getting all congratulatory. They may be raising the bar for Android, but Apple's been doing this so long they barely ever mention it.
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Seven years guaranteed full updates and support. [...] More than anyone else, as a matter of fact.
The Fairphone 5 came out last month and promises 8 years (5 AOSP releases).
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That's a decent looking phone. I like the general philosophy they seem to have.
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Seven years guaranteed full updates and support. Might be more, but they guarantee the first 7.
That's more than Apple guarantees, btw. More than anyone else, as a matter of fact.
It's fair to jump on Google about a lot of things, but not this, not about the Pixel line. You are just talking out your ass.
Having been an Android fan for some time, Google have gone to great lengths for years to uncouple Android from Google expressly to make it much easier to update, things like unbundling Google services to allow them to be updated independently or removed entirely. I understand why the early versions of Android were so tightly integrated but hardware has evolved to the point where they can run a general purpose OS and all the applications on it.
7 years may seem excessive, the longest I've had one phone is
Mandatory? (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's "mandatory AI" company mandate
First, it's clearly not just Google with this mandate. Second? AI as it exists today is a toy for most, a tool for those with the brain-power to realize it's mostly just pre-sorting your research for you, but I can't understand the push to lace it into absolutely everything. Well, hang on. I do understand it. Because as it exists today it's also a MASSIVE data-suck, and the companies obsessed with AI everything also tend to be the companies that have become obsessed with scraping user data. So, "mandatory AI" may actually be translated today almost directly to, "mandatory data-suck for all users in all programs always." And frankly, we already have plenty of that going on.
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The way Google uses AI on Android is actually useful.
The AI phone butler thing is great for screening calls. The AI image editing tools work decently well. Voice recognition and transcription (including of phone calls and videos on random websites) has been done on-device and with a very high level of accuracy for years now.
The only major new feature (not just an upgrade) I've see on the Pixel 8 is the ability to generate wallpaper from prompts. I'm sure that won't lead to any embarrassing subversions of th
Is the temperature fixed? (Score:2)
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Mainline wont be carrying this (Score:2)