Source: Hayato Huseman / Android Central

The iPhone X set the stage for $1,000 flagships back in 2017. Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 wasn't far behind, with the phone launching at $929. Ever since then, phone prices have been regularly trending upward, and the latest Android flagships now start off at $1,000. The regular Galaxy S20 retails for $1,000, with the Galaxy S20 Ultra starting off at $1,400. Then there's the Verizon-exclusive Motorola Edge+ which also costs $1,000, and even Xiaomi is getting in on the action with the Mi 10 Pro, which retails for €999 ($1,080) in the UK.

Sure, the corresponding hike in prices is attributed to improved hardware, with phones these days sporting much better displays with high refresh rates, larger camera modules with dedicated telephoto lenses, and 5G connectivity. The new connectivity standard alone has led to a $100 to $200 increase in prices from the previous generation.

Android phones now have much better hardware, but the software update cycle is unchanged from previous years.

And while Android flagships are substantially costlier now and feature much better hardware than a few years ago, one art that hasn't changed is software updates. Most brands are still only committed to offering two platform updates and security updates for three years, and that's true even for $1,000 flagships. That needs to change.

As my colleague Joe Maring pointed out, the software experience is more important than any other spec in 2020. Hardware has been commoditized for some time now, and if you want a phone with the latest specs, you don't have to spend $1,000. Regardless of how much you've paid for your phone, if the software is sub-par, you're going to have a bad experience.

In that context, software updates matter more than ever. New platform versions bring a host of new features, and while Android 10 did not introduce many visual changes over its predecessor, there were a lot of changes under the hood. But with brands only committed to two Android version updates, only phones released in the last two years will get the latest Android update — leaving tens of millions of devices out in the cold.

Android phones have fared poorly against the iPhone in this area for years, and while Google tried to change that by requiring brands to offer at least two platform updates, not all manufacturers have complied with that rule. Motorola typically commits to only one platform update, and it took endless user backlash for the brand to agree to delivering two updates to its Edge+ flagship.