One of the main complaints about LG smartphones has been the poor level of software support that wasn’t up to scratch on its flagship smartphones, and simply terrible on the lower-specced models. After years of switching mobile strategies in the hopes of coming up with a winning combination to halt the 23 quarter loss-making streak and the subsequent announcement that it was closing down its mobile business, LG finally tries the one strategy that was obvious to almost everyone. You got it, LG has promised up to three years of software support for most of its flagship smartphones.
In a statement on its website, LG has announced a ‘Three Year Pledge’ for OS updates, which at first glance would appear to be very impressive and more than a hint of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.
Anyway, this is the gist of LG’s message:
“The three OS update guarantee applies to LG premium phones released in 2019 and later (G series, V series, VELVET, Wing) while certain 2020 models such as LG Stylo and K series will receive two OS updates.”
With LG continuing to make phones throughout the second quarter to meet its contractual obligations to carriers and partners, the public commitment to continuing to develop OS updates and security patches is to be expected.
There’s some ambiguity over the wording of the phrase “…receive up to three iterations of Android operating system updates…”, in that it’s thought that an iteration may not necessarily mean a bump in OS versions, and may actually just refer to a security patch. That being said, LG is pretty poor at security patches as well, so owners of its handsets may just be happy to see an update of any sort rolling out to their devices.
Without beating up on LG too much, it is good to see it both acknowledge that software updates are important and promise that it won’t leave its last batch of flagship smartphones marooned on an ancient version of the Android OS. It’s just a shame that LG didn’t try the concept before it shut down its mobile business.
[LG]
