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Yesterday, at its Made by Google event, the company announced the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. And one of the more mind blowing announcements from the show was the fact that the new models are getting seven years of OS, Security and Feature Drop updates. That’s nearly double what the nearest competitor offers. And it means that your Pixel 8 which launched with Android 14, will get Android 21.
But, that is only for the Pixel 8 series. Understandably, that has left a lot of Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro owners in a tough spot. Where there barely a year old phones will still only get three years of OS updates and five years of security updates. That is quite far behind the competition, since Samsung does four years of OS updates and five years of security updates, as well as a few other Android OEMs.
The move from three years to seven years is a big one for Google, and it likely has to do with the new Tensor G3 chipset in the Pixel 8 series. But if you do own a Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro, it’s worth it to sign the petition. Get Google’s attention and tell them you want more support for your devices.
Why does this matter?
Why does seven years of updates matter? Well, it means you can keep your phone longer. It means that you won’t be ditching your phone after a year or two and causing e-waste. It also means that your phone won’t be outdated in just a couple of years. All good reasons for Google to add the seven year promise to the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro too.
However, the important thing to remember here is that, the update timeline usually has to do with the processor. SoC’s are only supported for so long. And that’s up to Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek and others to support them longer. Yes, the Tensor G2 and now G3 are Google processor, but they are really just a rebranded Exynos chipset at heart. There’s a lot of technical reasons why the Pixel 7 series might or might not get moved to the seven years of updates. But we are hoping for the former.