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Makers under obligation: EU Commission plans more reliable Android updates

13.9.2022

Translation: machine translated

A proposal by the EU Commission provides for three years of system updates and five years of security updates for smartphones and tablets. This would make Android devices in particular usable for longer.

The EU Commission is concerned about the sustainability of electronic products and for this reason has already USB-C zum Standardanschluss erkoren. Now the availability of software and security updates are coming into focus, as the Googlewatchblog has discovered.

Manufacturers have a maximum of four months

. In a initiative aimed at improving the sustainability of smartphones and tablets, the EU Commission is looking at software updates, among other things. These are identified as a building block that can increase the useful life and thus the sustainability of the devices.

The EU Commission's draft stipulates that manufacturers must provide their devices with software updates for three years and security updates for five years. Apple already fulfils these requirements with iOS. Among Android manufacturers, only Google and Samsung have so far made promises about these periods - in Samsung's case, this only applies to the top models.

The EU Commission is not only concerned about the duration of software support, but also about speed. The draft stipulates that manufacturers must bring security updates to their devices two months after publication. For function updates, they have four months. For Android 13, this would mean a deadline of 16 December 2022. Yet some manufacturers are only targeting early 2023 and others are not giving any timelines at all.

The Commission is collecting feedback on the initiative until 28 September 2022. It intends to deal with it in the fourth quarter. After that, it would still have to go through the EU institutions. This could lead to changes in the initiative. It is unclear what sanctions will be imposed on manufacturers who do not comply with the requirements and what the consequences will be for countries outside the EU.

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Jan Johannsen

Senior Editor

Jan.Johannsen@galaxus.de

When I was but a young student, I'd sit in my friend's living room with all my classmates and play on his SuperNES. Since then I've had the opportunity to test out all the newest technology for you. I've done reviews at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, and have now arrived at Galaxus.de.

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