Apple’s extended iPhone software support is putting Pixel and Galaxy to shame

Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. Learn more.

At WWDC 2026, Apple just announced the next generation of its OS updates for its ecosystem of products. Chief among these updates is iOS 27, the next version of iOS, which Apple has confirmed will be available on iPhones as old as the iPhone 11!

Apple has confirmed that iOS 27 is coming to the following iPhones:

The big surprise here is that even the iPhone 11 series from 2019 (launched with iOS 13) is getting iOS 27. The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max, which launched in 2018, were only officially updated to iOS 18, so Apple was expected to drop support for the iPhone 11 series at any time now. With iOS 27 on the way, the iPhone 11 series is on track to get seven years of major platform updates, rivalling the update promises of more recent Android flagships. If you bought an iPhone 11 in 2019 and are still holding on to it, you could theoretically get a battery swap and get a few more years of use out of it.

For context, Google launched the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL in 2019 with Android 10, and officially updated them to Android 13. Samsung launched the Galaxy S10 series that year with Android 9.0, and updated these phones till Android 12. These flagships received three years of platform updates (and Samsung delivered longer security updates), but you can clearly see the gap between Apple on one hand and Google and Samsung on the other. Both of these absolute powerhouses from the Android world were essentially put out to pasture years ago, while the iPhone 11 continues to march on.

It wasn’t until Pixel 8 (2023) and Galaxy S24 (2024) that Android flagships reached a seven-year update commitment . Better late than never for us Android fans, but Apple is proving that they didn’t need a marketing pledge to actually deliver that kind of longevity to devices that are already more than half a decade old.

Before we give Apple a total pass here, we need to address the elephant in the room: hardware boundaries. Yes, the iPhone 11 will boot iOS 27 when the stable version drops this fall. However, don’t expect it to run the heavy-hitting AI workflows Apple showcased today, like the deeply integrated Siri AI app. What you will get is core platform stability, critical security patches, and secondary quality-of-life improvements to the interface. For a phone approaching its seventh birthday, that is a stellar deal.

Thank you for being part of our community. Read our Comment Policy before posting.