I wish we could just download & apply these hotfixes and patches ourselves…
Surely it’s only device drivers that really need to come from the manufacturer?
Planned obsolescence. Many devices wouldn’t get an update. Plus, the bootloader being locked and no root meaning you can’t do anything.
Always buy a phone which will receive updates for a long period of time and/or is unlockable.
Options like Fairphone, Pixel, Oneplus. Samsung provides 7 Yrs of features and security updates but cannot be unlocked.
Yep, I have a Fairphone… it can operate with an unlocked boot loader…
I’m not an Android developer, but reading more it seems that where I thought the modular kernel would allow patching, it does seem to be a monolithic compiled object.
So, ok, I could probably dig out the source for AOSP / LineageOS patches, but possibly not for the GKI.
Doesn’t exactly help when most Android phones more than a year old won’t get these patches for many months or even years – if at all.
My phone is long overdue a replacement, I’m stuck on android 12!
