I have a Pixel 4a (with Calyx) for a few years already (start of 2021) and it's still going great. The battery is okay. Everything works nice. It's smooth. It runs everything perfectly fine.
This makes me glad to see that hardware wise this phone was really built to last, I can't even count how many times I dropped it so hard that I was scared to see the damage (which was always either nothing or a broken screen protector)
But software wise I'm screwed as security updates are already gone from Google and I only get the extended support from Calyx which will also end soon.
Now I'm forced to choose between having a phone that is insecure or buying a new one.
So thanks Google for the high quality hardware, but what's up with this software planned obsolescence??
I know this isn't exactly right to repair, but it also kind of is because if Google decided to ditch the 4a, they should be forced to open source the software so that the public can actually repair it.
I'm sure that some of their latest updates can be modified slightly to work for the 4a, but they don't care and for them this is a win-win since they don't have to maintian support and they get new customers who would otherwise be satisfied with an "old" phone.
What happened to the days when an old phone meant a phone that was already crumbling to pieces, and not a fully functional computer that is slightly older then a toddler?
Completely false. If you enable advanced data encryption, your iCloud data is encrypted such that even Apple cannot access it.
Which is why they introduced Legacy Contacts for next of kin… if someone with an iPhone dies, and their relatives want access to the deceased’s data but no-one knows the phone passcode or the iCloud credentials and don’t have legacy access, they can spend hundreds of millions of dollars suing Apple and Apple will be unable to provide access.
As someone who has actually worked on a system like this in another capacity, it really does works as advertised.
Sure, your iCloud data is encrypted, but what about all the metadata that Apple collects from your phone or on the files in iCloud? What about everything else you're doing on your phone? It's not just about having access to the data of your files.
Also, not having encryption on by default is creepy and purposeful.