> BTW: iPhones regularly get software updates for around 5 years. How's that for extending the lifetime of devices? Android phones are lucky to get significant software updates for more than one year.
After Android devices stop getting updates, you can continue with alternative OS or you can use F-Droid basically forever. All your apps will have updates.
When Apple devices stop being supported, they turn into bricks.
When apple device stops being supported, it’s just not getting any more updates. It’s not going to get bricked, you can keep using the phone until foreseeable future.
Also, the general consumer does not care if you can flash a rom from xda. They care about the official updates.
> If effectively means it is absolutely unsafe to use anymore. Security bugs are found in browsers all the time.
Aren't the base operating system and the browsers (installed through an app store of some kind) separate? Even if the phone's operating system is not receiving any more updates, there will still be updates to the browser for a while. For instance, a quick search tells me Firefox is still being updated for Android 4.1, an operating system which is long out of support.
