this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
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Source?
As far as I know, nearly all flagship phones, Apple or otherwise, get about 7 years of update support (~~except Pixel phones with GrapheneOS which get 14~~ ignore; I remembered this incorrectly).
The difference is, even my old phone running Android 8 (a 9yo OS) can still browse the web, run all apps, and perform fine as a phone. An even older phone running Android 4.4 can still run 3rd party apps. iPhones seem to stop working about a year after they stop receiving updates, and they don't support sideloading (also know as running the software you want to run on the device you own).
The oldest iPhone that can run the latest iOS is the 11 from 2019. Apple is still providing security fixes all the way back to iOS 15, which goes back to the 6s released in 2015. So, somewhere between 7 and 11 years for Apple depending on what you are counting as support. As a personal experience, my partners iPad from 2017 still runs fine, though it is stuck on iOS 16 and only gets security updates.
Are you sure about 14 years of support? I think Graphene basically supports things as long as Google does, due to reliance on their source code releases. Double that would be impressive.
https://grapheneos.org/faq
Ah thanks, my bad; I must have remembered incorrectly. I've updated my original comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1upwfda/lets_be_real_no_company_beats_apple_in_terms_of/
Oh trust me, I'm no fan of Samsung, but I tend to value control of my devices over...whatever it is Apple does. I had an iPhone until I discovered replacing the home button myself artificially bricked the device due to DRM forcing customers to go to an Apple store for repairs. Never again
Your Android 8 phone absolutely can not run every app lol. That’s a straight up lie that even people here won’t believe.
iPhones have the longest security update and os update plan out of any manufacturer.
https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/9-phones-with-the-longest-software-support-samsung-iphone-pixel-and-more
Also worth noting that up until about 3 years ago finding an Android phone that was supported for even 4 years was almost impossible. Apple have been doing 6-7 years of full OS version updates and 8+ years of security updates almost since the start.