A lot of noise was raised over the Honor 8 last week, as Honor India staff confirmed that the device would not be receiving an update to Android Oreo. Fans of the company and users of the device don’t look to take this lightly, though, as a change.org petition has been raised, demanding the company to provide the update to their older devices.
The Honor 8 was released in July 2016 and is just 18 months old, so Honor’s reluctance to support it is a bit baffling, especially considering the fact that the flagship was marketed as being set to receive two years of updates. According to the petition, the company’s reason of “hardware and software” limitations doesn’t hold water, as cheaper devices like the Honor 8 Lite that was released in 2017 will receive the update to Oreo.
The petition also pointed out the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S6, a device released a year before the Honor 8 is also billed to get an Oreo update. We’re not certain of that at the moment, though, but if Samsung manages to pull that off, it would be a novel development in the Android market, as devices are usually updated for a maximum of two years, due to Qualcomm’s driver-support policies. That said, if the S6 does receive an update to Oreo, it would be a shame if the Honor 8 was snubbed, as the device runs on the company’s in-house Kirin 950 SoC, so support isn’t reliant on third parties.
It doesn’t look like the Honor 8 is the only device to go through that, though, with the Huawei P9, a device running on the same SoC, and released in the same year, also looking to be set for an Oreo snub.
Change.org petitions are rarely effective, for what it’s worth, but there’s a chance this one does bring about its intended change. That would be a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.