With the Pixel A-series phones and now the Pixel 5 being not the highest end chipset (which is fine!), I can’t help but to think Google should consider the more Apple route—especially in the past—of selling previous year’s models instead of making new budget models.

Traditionally, part of the reason this has been avoided is because Qualcomm (the company that makes most smartphone processors) does not support new software running on their processors after very long.

However, with Google’s efforts at decoupling the Android OS from the underlying hardware stack, it seems like it should be possible to support a hardware platform indefinitely if you really wanted. This would really bring that point home.

Another reason they might not do this is if Qualcomm just stops selling those older processors. Which makes sense, I suppose—but then I wonder if refreshing the internals without totally redesigning the phone every year would also be an option? Again, like Apple tends to…

Basically I guess: if Google is going to pretend to be the Apple of Android, I wish they would actually replicate these sorts of fundamental aspects that seem to actually matter instead of more surface-level things.

This thread brought to you by me switching from a Pixel 3 to a Pixel 2 temporarily and it being… absolutely fine? The phone feels just as fast, runs the exact same software, supports all the same apps, etc.

Google could sell this as a brand new budget phone today.