“It’s better to burn out than to fade away!” wailed Def Leppard in 1983, the year that cell phones became commercially available. Given that app stores wouldn’t arrive for another couple of decades, the band can be forgiven for not anticipating how the primary way of obtaining apps would affect how long such devices remained viable. (Besides, one shouldn’t read too much into the words of a band whose lyrics included “Gunter glieben glauten globen.”)
Which major mobile OS platform does a better job of keeping apps available for devices as those devices age? Particularly in this age of sustainability consciousness, smartphone companies are doing more to keep their users up to date. Apple generally supports iOS upgrades for up to six years. And at the launch of the Pixel 8, Google announced that the phone would receive seven years of software support, including OS updates.
