Germany wants smartphone manufacturers to offer updates for 7 years

Apart from brand loyalty, pricing, and features, one of the reasons to consider a particular manufacturer of your Android handset would be updates.

This is because different handset makers have different policies when it comes to software updates, with some promising at least two years worth of major updates, while some might offer three. Then there are also some that only offer a measly one year.

This varying length of updates can be frustrating for users, which is why over in Germany, the country’s government is proposing a law that would extend smartphone updates by as long as seven years. This is according to a report from Heise Online which quotes a spokesperson for Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics who said that they plan to enforce stricter rules.

This would essentially be an extension of a proposal earlier this year by the EU, which would mandate OEMs to offer at least five years of security updates for devices and to deliver reasonably priced spare parts during that duration. Germany’s new proposal would extend that five years to seven years, which in the tech world is basically a lifetime.

Of course, we don’t imagine that many people keep their phones for five years, let alone seven, but the proposal does give customers that assurance that if they want to keep their phones for extended periods of time, they can still expect support for the foreseeable future.

Source: XDA Developers