However, EU regulation introduced in June 2025 requires that all smartphones sold on the European market receive software updates for a long time. The directive does not specify a minimum price for this rule to take effect. The EU explicitly states that software updates must be available for five years after a device is no longer sold.
Motorola’s lawyers have apparently studied that legal text closely, and now the company appears to be ready to confront the EU Commission. Their interpretation is that the EU does not actually require updates to be provided at all, but only requires that if updates are offered, they must be free of charge. However, we are not aware of any case in which a smartphone manufacturer has ever charged money for security patches.
If I’d drop more than 1k on a phone I’d expect that thing to get updates until the sun explodes.
That iPhone 8 (plus) was like 750. So like a hundred a year. I literally am the person than spends less on phones out of my entire social circle.
Edit: also I’ve had three android (not so) cheap phones—one handed down to me, previous to the iPhone 4, that I had for a few months. And my current and former work phones, provided by my company—and hated (still hating the current one) the hell out of them, utter trash full of ads and uninstallable spyware.
750 eur in 2017 is more than 900 eur in todays money. Like I said, if the phone is 1k or almost that amount, it better have insane support. And while I can’t help with work phones, as those are subject to your company, if you ever need the info for a personal phone: there is nothing you can not deinstall using adb. You can uninstall anything including system apps to the point the phone can’t boot anymore, so don’t go too wild.
Also don’t get me wrong, I hate both apple and google equally. But my cyanogenmod phone had updates from 2012 to 2019 and was 180 eur new. We need vialble linux phones sooner than later.