Sign-in on Android 2.3.7 or lower will not be allowed starting September 27

https://support.google.com/android/thread/118703101/sign-in-on-android-devices-running-android-2-3-7-or-lower-will-not-be-allowed-starting-september-27?hl=en

by mngnt • 5 years ago

76 94 5 years ago

support.google.com

prophesi• 5 years ago

The title is a bit clickbaity. This is for Android versions 2.3.7 and lower, which was released in September 21, 2011.

ainiriand3• 5 years ago

I think the title is perfectly accurate. That is exactly what's going to happen.

n4bz0r• 5 years ago

I wouldn't go as far as saying "perfectly". What is "old"? I clicked thinking my Android 4 device (which I use daily) is fucked.

eptcyka2• 5 years ago

I wonder if iOS5 devices can still log into the apple store.

jfoster• 5 years ago

It could be much more exact by mentioning the version & date that it was released on.

yupper32• 5 years ago

It's click-baity because it withholds necessary information in order to get you to click on it.

Saying the version number or release date would stop most people from clicking on it, because it matters much less.

mdp2021• 5 years ago

Stochastic language ("Topitanians are strong"), "S is P" = "The median of S is P" = "Android 7 will..." (Very stretched interpretation.)

Logical language ("[All/Some] Topitanians are strong"), "S is P" = "All S are P" = "All old Android versions...". Without an explicit quantifier, a statement to be interpreted in logical language easily defaults to using the universal "All": the statement "Coal burns", if not stochastic (envisaging exceptions) but logical, is meant to express that all of the instances do.

"Old Android versions" does not default to "Some old Android versions".

dpwm• 5 years ago

The title of the page conveys more information, albeit in more words:

Sign-in on Android devices running Android 2.3.7 or lower will not be allowed starting September 27

toast03• 5 years ago

It's Android, release date of the OS doesn't matter so much as when was the last device that doesn't upgrade past 2.3.7 released and/or when did that device leave mass retail. Or some other threshold.

A ton of 2.3 devices weren't upgradable to 4. And there were a lot of devices made with 2.3 well after 4 was available. The numbers are probably small though, WhatsApp (where I used to work) ended support for 2.3.7 in early 2020 because the user numbers no longer justified the effort to keep that working. Usage was enough to justify almost a two year notice period though.

kllrnohj• 5 years ago

The number of 2.3 devices still alive is under 0.1%. Independent dashboards like https://www.appbrain.com/stats/top-android-sdk-versions and https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android/m... don't even list Android 2.3 at all anymore the population is so small.

According to https://www.phonemore.com/systems/android/2-3-6-gingerbread/ it looks like ~2014 was the last new Gingerbread device released?

citrin_ru2• 5 years ago

It's a sad state of Android ecosystem that on 10 years old hardware you can run only 10 years software because vendors rarely provide updates after end of sales date and at the same time they make it very hard to install something like LineageOS (e. g. use locked bootloader and closed-source drivers).

I have a 15 years old notebook and can install a modern Linux/FreeBSD versions on it, but I cannot upgrade 7 years old smartphone.

zozbot2344• 5 years ago

That's really an issue with the embedded ecosystem in general. Pre-Android devices were far worse.

xbmcuser• 5 years ago

good

orf• 5 years ago

I wonder what the technical reason behind this is?

m45t3r• 5 years ago

Probably TLS version and maybe Google wants to drop Google Play Services from very old devices?

spankalee• 5 years ago

Those phones are insecure.

dleslie5• 5 years ago

Only because Google stopped supporting them.

pvarangot• 5 years ago

Yeah because everything after 2.3 isn't...

The reason is that it's not cost effective.

ggggtez3• 5 years ago

My guess: new TLS bug, or new WebView bug. These systems have no way to update without carriers back porting fixes, and Android H had such a small run that I doubt any carriers are willing to back port whatever fix is necessary.

CJefferson• 5 years ago

Note that the original title is "Sign-in on Android devices running Android 2.3.7 or lower will not be allowed starting September 27". Android 3 was released February 22, 2011 -- I haven't seen any devices running Android that old in a while.

walrus01• 5 years ago

Four years ago, in some of the poorest developing nation markets on earth, the local currency equivalent of $60 Android phones for sale in local stores (random cheap Mediatek chipset and 3.5" screens), were running either Android 4.0 or 4.4

vagrantJin• 5 years ago

Can confirm this to be accurate. My own device is running 5.1.1

baybal23• 5 years ago

Yep, 4.X Android is still going strong, almost like Windows XP.

It's because it's the last Android version Google released without turning it unusable without Gapps.

It is simple to customise. Put any of the crazy CyanogenMod era skins on it, and then customise UI any way you want with your own brand look.

And it is simple to code for, unlike overengineered APIs of later Android versions, with simple raw filesystem access being a particularly highly sought feature.

Abishek_Muthian• 5 years ago

Not to mention the forced online education due to pandemic, I wouldn't be surprised if even Android 2.3.7 usage has up ticked due to that in poor countries as many children are dependent upon donated smartphones[1][2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27903630

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27911090

toast03• 5 years ago

Android 3 wasn't generally available for phones; it was mostly tablets.

Ologn• 5 years ago

Yes. Officially, every version up to Android 2.3 was for phones. Samsung wanted to make a tablet and made one with 2.2 and 2.3, even though Android did not officially support tablets for those versions. Android 3.x was a version just for tablets (Honeycomb). Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) merged the phone ability of the 2.x branch with the tablet ability of the 3.x branch - 4.0 was the first Android version which officially supported phone and tablet.

blihp3• 5 years ago

IIRC, exclusively tablets. I seem to recall Google saying while they wouldn't prohibit phone use, they we're going to help manufacturers with it and that they'd have to wait for Android 4.

fomine3• 5 years ago

Honeycomb was even closed source except some GPL

lostmsu• 5 years ago

Yeah, why was the title editoralized by removing the affected versions? It is the most important part of the announcement, and was present in the original title.

dang• 5 years ago

Yes, the submitted title ("Old Android versions will no longer be able to log into Google account") broke the site guidelines: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." We've fixed it now. Thanks!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

remus• 5 years ago

I wonder what proportion of android devices are running <3.0?

opencl• 5 years ago

The stats from Google lump everything under 4.1 together at 0.2%.

I would link to it but Google removed the chart from the web a while ago and just tells you to look at it in Android Studio's new project wizard.

david_allison• 5 years ago

Android Studio doesn't allow you to target less than Android 4.1 (also lumped at 0.2%)

Screenshot from the Project Wizard: https://i.ibb.co/bgjQQ4W/image.png

sslayer• 5 years ago

Imagine if it was your 10 year old Tesla!

gjsman-10005• 5 years ago

Imagine if it was your Tesla after 10 years of no software upgrades.

(Except all Teslas are still receiving updates.)

And also signing into Google on Tesla accomplishes what exactly?

tempest_• 5 years ago

They still updating that original roadster ?

ggggtez3• 5 years ago

This assumes that your phone hasn't had any updates for 10 years.

If your Tesla had no updates for 10 years, you probably would also be wise to not check your email on it.

dleslie5• 5 years ago

I have a Nexus S with a decent battery; and while it _can_ log in, the relevant Google services and apps that it ships with are broken beyond usability.

It would be nice if Google endeavoured to keep old Android working and security patched, rather than force a faster e-waste cycle.

gjsman-10005• 5 years ago

Android 2.3+ accounts for less than 0.2% of devices. It doesn't really force an e-waste cycle when its that microscopic already. The e-waste cycle has already occurred.

By that logic we'd still be supporting the Space Shuttle, the NES, the Sega Genesis, the Apple II, the Altair, the 80286, the Laserdisc player, the Video CD, the Kodak cameras... We should never drop legacy, ever.

Plus, your Nexus S actually got 4.1.2, which means it's still supported even after this.

djaychela• 5 years ago

I'm not sure that logic holds - many of the devices you mention will still work (space shuttle aside) - whereas that will not be the case with these older android devices.

While it may be 0.2%, it'd be interesting to see what numbers that actually equates to.

pizza234• 5 years ago

Android 8.0 is not supported anymore, and it suffers from very serious security vulnerabilities.

Versions up to 8.0 constitute around 20% of the phones (as of June 2021¹), which creates a significant amount of e-waste, particularly embarrassing when considering phones like the Nexus 5x, which is a perfectly usable model.

[¹] https://www.statista.com/statistics/921152/mobile-android-ve...

snypher• 5 years ago

How many gajillion Android devices are sold per year? It seems misleading to use a percentage of a giant unknown number.

Edit; if there are 3 billion active android devices, this is putting 6 million into landfill?

dleslie5• 5 years ago

With a cap kit, battery replacement (if relevant), then the NES, Genesis, Apple II, Altair, 286, Laserdisc, Video CD, and Kodaks still work just fine.

Importantly: they are repairable.

My Nexus S is a paperweight because Google kept it relatively closed. My BlackBerry Priv is even worse, since I can't root it.

citrin_ru2• 5 years ago

Android 2.3+ accounts for less than 0.2% of devices. It doesn't really force an e-waste cycle

Because it is already forced in multiple ways and most devices which can run only 2.3 are already on landfills.

dredmorbius• 5 years ago

There are billions of Android devices. A tenth of a percent of billions is double-digit millions.

Google+ userIDs were for a long time effectively new Gmail and Android registrations. Those peaked at about 3 billion before the automatic assignment of a G+ account was broken in 2015. Conservatively, there are likely well over 6 billion such registrations, which would be 12 million Android 2.3 devices.

Small fractions at Google scale are large numbers.

Realise too that Android shows up in numerous devices, including some embedded tools, as well as tablets, e-readers, and other systems a casual reader might not be aware of.

blihp3• 5 years ago

What the parent is saying is that even though you can still login, the functionality of the other gapps has been hobbled for a long time. I can confirm a variety of problems with old Android 4-6 devices. This includes a no longer functional Play store on a couple of devices, YouTube app slowly but surely failing etc.

ncr100• 5 years ago

Can a person download Google Chrome without Google Play Store / Google Account?

I tried and failed.

gjsman-10005• 5 years ago

You can sideload the APK downloaded online from APKMirror, and that will work.

slim• 5 years ago

Why would you do that? There's a million webview based browsers readily available for download from f-droid or directly from github

toast03• 5 years ago

Because Chrome would give you an updated browser engine. I don't think I want a gingerbread webview, thanks.

wing-_-nuts• 5 years ago

I know this is for a very old version of andriod, but man, it would be really nice if they just said 'android x has these spec requirements, you can try to update any device to any version at your own risk.

Why do smart phone manufacturers get to decide what version of andriod I can run?

zozbot2344• 5 years ago

but man, it would be really nice if they just said 'android x has these spec requirements, you can try to update any device to any version at your own risk.

You can try and run an android GSI, if your device is recent enough to support those. Though even GSI's come in a variety of 'flavors', so they're not literally one-size-fits-all.

yjftsjthsd-h2• 5 years ago

Why do smart phone manufacturers get to decide what version of andriod I can run?

Because they (and the chip vendors) are the ones writing drivers and never upstreaming them or porting them to new enough kernels to support newer Android versions.

fsflover2• 5 years ago

If you want a device with lifetime updates, consider a GNU/Linux phone, Librem 5 or Pinephone.

zozbot2344• 5 years ago

Alternately, consider postmarketOS for your older devices. Though I doubt that any device which shipped w/ Android 2.3 or earlier would run pmOS all that well; even if you managed to get all the hardware working with free drivers, tight limits on RAM and internal storage are generally a showstopper.

caymanjim• 5 years ago

There's no evidence that those phones will support indefinite updates, and plenty of reason to think that they won't.

fsflover2• 5 years ago

Running mainline kernel pretty much guarantees lifetime support. It does not matter whether the companies who made the smartphones will exist. My 12-year laptop works fine with latest Debian.

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

euanc• 5 years ago

This could cause some problems for archiving and preserving historic apps, famous persons' devices, and data from those devices.

extrememacaroni• 5 years ago

hackernews: I can't believe 10+ year old hardware and software is forcefully made obsolete

also hackernews: man do I hate working on and maintaining legacy stuff

rafaelturk• 5 years ago

oh the irony!

Sign-in on Android 2.3.7 or lower will not be allowed starting September 27

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