this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
61 points (100.0% liked)

Android

407 readers
1 users here now

The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!

Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.

πŸ”—Universal Link: !android@lemdro.id

πŸ’‘Content Philosophy:

Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.

Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id

For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id

πŸ’¬Matrix Chat

πŸ’¬Telegram channels / chats

πŸ“°Our communities below

Rules

  1. Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.

  2. No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.

  3. Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.

  4. No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.

  5. No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.

  6. No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.

  7. No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.

  8. No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.

  9. No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!

  10. No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.

Quick Links

Our Communities

Lemmy App List

Chat and More

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
ijeff@lemdro.id
ladfrombrad@lemdro.id
Paradox@lemdro.id
multimoon@lemdro.id
mikestevens@lemdro.id
limerod@reddthat.com
Netrunner@lemdro.id
61
Android Auto will soon stop working on older devices (9to5google.com)
submitted 10 months ago by ijeff@lemdro.id to c/android@lemdro.id
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
top 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] IHeartBadCode@kbin.social 18 points 10 months ago (5 children)

What's getting yanked is that older phones won't connect to Android Auto enabled vehicles if the phone is running Android Nougat. It must be Running Android Oreo or later.

For those not remembering, Nougat was released in 2016 and went out of support in 2019. By the most recent metric (Dec. 2022) about 4% of all Android devices currently run Nougat. So this will affect all fifteen of the people still running this OS.

Most devices that were originally sold with Nougat have an upgrade path to Oreo. The bigger problem is folks who purchased devices with Marshmallow (orig. 2015) or Lollipop (orig. 2014) who stopped receiving upgrades past Nougat. These are the devices that will most likely be impacted by this change.

Personally, I like to keep my devices for at least five years, so them deprecating 2016 and earlier is okay with me.

[–] skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On the one hand: I don't see a reason for Google to keep supporting old versions.

On the other hand: pushing an update to an old device and sabotaging it by showing an "install updates" popup (as if that's even possible for devices still running Android 7, that's bullshit) is just dickish.

The old version of Android Auto works perfectly fine. Show a popup once if you want ("your device will no longer receive Android Auto updates, third party apps may stop working") but don't actually disable anything that's working perfectly fine.

Google pulled that shit before. I would understand if they had a customer support department that'd get flooded when newer hardware stopped working, but all Google has is a forum that no Google employees ever pay any attention to.

[–] XTornado@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The issue is they probably want to change serverside stuff without caring about the old stuff and the alternative to the update and it's prompt is that it will simply crash, show errors, hang or whatever....

[–] skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't really see what server side stuff an app on the dashboard of a car would need. Their Google Maps API works all the way back to the one installed with Android 2, and failing that users can install a number of navigation apps. Same with their music app (they already killed Play Music anyway).

The only thing I can think of is that they'd be killing Google Assistant on old phones, but that wouldn't mean the rest of Android Auto couldn't still work.

[–] XTornado@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

No idea but I don't see why would bother with that if it isn't because it breaks in nasty ways (maybe with possible legal consequences?).

[–] erwan@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago

We need to get to a point where smartphone work for more than 5 years. Hardware wise the battery is the only part that is guaranteed to need to be replaced.

Now whether they do it by stopping the race on Android version or supporting every device is up to them.

Desktop OS (Windows or Linux) support any version as long as the PC is powerful enough. Why on phone we're limited not by the capabilities of the CPU but its release date?

[–] PixTupy@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

Damn, android os versions sound so tasty.

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

All 120 million, actually.

[–] clgoh@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

How many of them have a compatible car, and are using it?

[–] esserstein@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 months ago

What's this is version numbers? I don't know if this whimsical naming thing works for other brains but between android, debian, R, etc, etc, it no longer registers for me...

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why hasn't someone made an open-source implementation of the Android Auto client?

We already have open-source implementations of the AA head unit, and we have the AAwireless project.

I'd be kinda cool to run Android Auto on a Linux phone.

[–] Daxtron2@startrek.website 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

be the change you want to see in the world

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago

I kinda want to tbh, seems like an interesting project, but the whole thing seems really complicated and I might hit a road block with client certification.

[–] Moonrise2473@feddit.it 6 points 10 months ago

A forced nag screen "please buy a new phone to continue" seems shitty, can't they just stop targeting that specific android version instead of bricking the functionality with an automatic update?

I don't see the issue of using an older version of Android auto on an older phone, just stop getting new features...