Apple
Apple has taken the rare step of publicly committing to a software support timeline for one of its products, as noted by MacRumors. A public regulatory filing for the iPhone 15 Pro (PDF) confirms that Apple will support the device with new software updates for at least five years from the “first supply date” of September 22, 2023, which would guarantee support for at least until 2028.
Apple released the file in compliance with new Product Safety and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) regulations from the UK that came into effect at the end of April. As this plain-language explainer from the Center for Cybersecurity Policy and Law summarizes, the PSTI regulations (among others) do not mandate a specific support window for manufacturers of Internet-connected devices, but they do require companies to publish a concrete support window and contact information for someone in the company who can be contacted with bug reports.
As publications like Android Authority have pointed out, five years is less than some Android phone makers like Google and Samsung have publicly committed; both companies have said they will support their latest devices for seven years. But in reality, Apple usually hits or exceeds this seven-year timeline for updates—and it does so for iPhones released nearly a decade ago, not just its newest products.
The 2017 iPhone 8 and iPhone X, for example, are still receiving iOS 16 security updates. The 2015 iPhone 6S and 2016 iPhone 7 were receiving iOS 15 updates as early as March 2024, though these appear that the last few months have dried up. Each of these iPhones also received major new iOS versions every six or seven years, though not every phone that gets an iOS update supports every feature that newer devices get.
So Apple’s five-year promise is less notable because it’s an improvement or departure from the norm, but more because Apple virtually never commits to written software support timelines.
Take those iOS 15 updates—Apple offered them for nearly a year and a half to iPhones and iPads that didn’t meet the requirements for iOS 16 or 17, but then suddenly (seemingly) stopped releasing them. There has never been a public commitment to continue releasing iOS 15 updates after the release of iOS 16, nor has there been any announcement of discontinuing iOS 15 updates; we can only assume based on the fact that multiple iOS 16 and 17 updates have been released since March without any corresponding iOS 15 update.
The situation with Mac is the same. Apple’s decades-long practice has been to support the current version of macOS plus the two previous versions, but this policy is not written anywhere.
Contrast this with Microsoft, which generally commits to 10-year support timelines for new versions of Windows and publishes specific end-of-support dates years in advance; when Microsoft makes changes, it’s usually to expand the availability of updates in some way. Google has made similar commitments for Chromebooks and officially certified ChromeOS Flex devices. These public timelines can tie a company’s hands, but they also make it easier for individuals, businesses, and schools to plan technology purchases and upgrades, and make it easier to know exactly how much support they can get. waiting for a used “hand-me-down” or refurbished system.
Although the PSTI regulations only technically apply in the UK, it’s unlikely that Apple would go to the trouble of releasing iOS security updates to some countries without releasing those updates to all of them. But because the five-year support timeframe is much shorter than Apple normally offers, it probably won’t matter much. If Apple exceeds its stated support timeline, the PSTI Act requires it to publish a new timeline “as soon as possible,” but for now, that date is a long way off.
