iPhone XR and XS live on in iOS 18, amid Google brags over OS support

Apple has announced the compatible iPhone devices for iOS 18 and, somewhat surprisingly, the company isn’t dropping a single device from the line-up that currently has access to iOS 17.

That means the 2018 iPhone XR, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max phones will be supported until at least September 2025. That would mean a full seven years of support for these iPhone models.

Apple’s decision to retain the 20218 iPhones into a seventh year comes after a Google executive hailed Android as the new longevity standard for smartphones.

It came after Apple revealed to UK regulators that the iPhone 15 Pro Max would receive at least five years of support for security updates. That wasn’t to say it would be only five years in total, just at least five years of promised support were guaranteed. That didn’t stop Google spotting an opportunity to assert superiority.

Google and Samsung, after years of lagging behind Apple in terms of lengthy support for the hardware, have recently extended both operating system and security upgrades to seven years following the release.

VP of Engineering for Android Security Dave Kleidermacher said last week: “Apple has finally published a purchase-time commitment – 5 years – two years LESS than Android flagships from Google (Pixel) and Samsung.”

“Apple deserves a lot of credit for providing 5+ years of security updates for a long time. But now it’s time to acknowledge iOS is no longer offering the best security lifetimes in the smartphone industry. Android is.”

Those comments don’t hold up particularly well when an Apple phone will enter seven years of support this year. The Pixel 3 released on that date lost support for new updates after Android 12, with Google about to release Android 15 to the masses.