It breaks down with 5 years of major OS updates and 7 years of security patches. Yesterday, Nothing confirmed the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 as the SoC of choice...
Read that as five years of major OS updates and seven years of security patches.
Haha, we can expect to see similar announcements from other manufacturers, because the EU now mandates software support for new devices.
Even if you’re outside of the EU, you’ll benefit from this. Since the OEMs have to do it anyway, they’ll likely push the updates to all markets and market it as if they’re being nice. Nope. They’re just complying with the law to the bare minimum.
Starting on the 20th of June 2025 (just two days!), the EU is enforcing a minimum of 5 years of updates on all smartphone/tablets sold after they are withdrawn from the market.
I.e. if a model is sold for 2 years, it must receive software support for 7 years. Just like this Nothing Phone.
This is like all the fast food places in Canada proudly announcing their hormone and antibiotics free meats. Yeah no shit dip shit, it’s the law, as if if you were allowed your meats wouldn’t be 90% antibiotics and growth hormones.
Software updates can be deployed regionally either based on carrier or by product SKU. If there are different SKUs for North American vs EU phones, which is almost universally the case because of differing regional requirements such as radio technology, target price points and so on. That means that phone model ‘X (NA)’ could have a different update schedule than ‘X (EU)’.
Why? money, of course. There is a small cost to supporting a SKU for updates, even if it’s the same software that’s already being deployed to another SKU. That increases if the two SKUs have different processors (Samsung does this). On top of that, longer update schedules means people aren’t replacing their phones as often, which means theoretically less sales - though I find that claim dubious as many people replace their phones long before they lose software support.
So yes, while it’s possible that a company might honour a 7 year update schedule outside of EU, it would be by their choice to do so.
I cant find any information about wether this does include phones that where already being sold because i would be surprised if those that don’t comply on a hardware level will just disappear.
Hmm good point. I would have thought if they’re still selling that phone after the rule comes in then they should have to comply, seems like a bit of a loophole if they can keep selling old devices that break the rule, right?
Haha, we can expect to see similar announcements from other manufacturers, because the EU now mandates software support for new devices.
Even if you’re outside of the EU, you’ll benefit from this. Since the OEMs have to do it anyway, they’ll likely push the updates to all markets and market it as if they’re being nice. Nope. They’re just complying with the law to the bare minimum.
Starting on the 20th of June 2025 (just two days!), the EU is enforcing a minimum of 5 years of updates on all smartphone/tablets sold after they are withdrawn from the market.
I.e. if a model is sold for 2 years, it must receive software support for 7 years. Just like this Nothing Phone.
Source.
This is like all the fast food places in Canada proudly announcing their hormone and antibiotics free meats. Yeah no shit dip shit, it’s the law, as if if you were allowed your meats wouldn’t be 90% antibiotics and growth hormones.
Software updates can be deployed regionally either based on carrier or by product SKU. If there are different SKUs for North American vs EU phones, which is almost universally the case because of differing regional requirements such as radio technology, target price points and so on. That means that phone model ‘X (NA)’ could have a different update schedule than ‘X (EU)’.
Why? money, of course. There is a small cost to supporting a SKU for updates, even if it’s the same software that’s already being deployed to another SKU. That increases if the two SKUs have different processors (Samsung does this). On top of that, longer update schedules means people aren’t replacing their phones as often, which means theoretically less sales - though I find that claim dubious as many people replace their phones long before they lose software support.
So yes, while it’s possible that a company might honour a 7 year update schedule outside of EU, it would be by their choice to do so.
Fml when i bought a new phone last month out of fear the upcoming ones would get a price jump from tarrifs…
How’s that a bad thing? Unless they’ve already stopped selling that model then you’ll benefit!
I cant find any information about wether this does include phones that where already being sold because i would be surprised if those that don’t comply on a hardware level will just disappear.
Hmm good point. I would have thought if they’re still selling that phone after the rule comes in then they should have to comply, seems like a bit of a loophole if they can keep selling old devices that break the rule, right?