Google Reveals Reasons for Offering 7 Years of Support for Pixel 8 and Details on How it Will Function

Google released the Pixel 8 series last year and promised users 7 years of operating system and security updates. The company had previously offered 3 operating system updates and 2 years of security fixes, making a total of five. So what made Google change this support cycle and was it clearly done with its competitors? Google has finally sent one of its executives to speak publicly about the change and why it was made.

In one of his recent podcasts, Devices & Services Software Director Seang Chau was quoted talking about the decision. Chau mentioned that Google looked at the active user data of all its Pixel users and found that most people actually use one model for more than a few years.

“So when we look at the trajectory of the original Pixel that we launched in 2016 and how many people were still using the first Pixel, we found that the active user base is actually pretty good up until about the seven-year mark,” Chau was quoted as saying in the podcast.

And when they realized that the phone has been actively used for over 6 years, Google decided that it now wants to support the Pixel 8 and newer models with a total of 7 years of OS and security updates. It’s interesting to hear Google say that its data shows that people are using the Pixel for so long, which may be one of the reasons why Pixel sales have never grown as much as the company would have hoped.

We’ve noticed that a lot of people have been complaining about Pixel phones losing performance for a few years, so Google claiming that these phones can actually last for 7 years sounds like an ambitious move. Google’s change in this regard is aided by the fact that since the Pixel 6 series it has used an in-house Tensor chip, which gives the company greater control over Apple’s hardware and software.

But what happens to the 5-year-old Pixel phone when it receives new updates, can users expect to get support for the latest features as well? Chau noted that Google is trying to make software-only features so that RAM or hardware limitations don’t prevent these devices from using the company’s latest features.

Google will probably introduce a new Pixel 8a model in the coming months, as we are eagerly waiting to see if the changed operating system will be transferred to the affordable model as well.