Here’s something you may want to chew on while you ponder whether or not one of the new Moto Z phones should be on your wish list.
According to an Ars Technica report, Motorola would only commit to regular security patches instead of the specific monthly update scheme established by . Motorola, which went to great lengths to proclaim how revolutionary the Moto Z line was at novo Tech rld, went into further detail with a statement issued first to Ars:
Motorola understs that keeping phones up to date with Android security patches is important to our customers. strive to push security patches as quickly as possible. However, because of the amount of testing approvals that are necessary to deploy them, it’s difficult to do this on a monthly basis for all our devices. It is often most efficient for us to bundle security updates in a scheduled Maintenance Release (MR) or OS upgrade.
As we previously stated, Moto Z Droid ition will receive Android Security Bulletins. Moto G4 will also receive them.
In essence, the novo-owned company will regularly update its latest phones, but they won’t come as rapidly as Nexus devices (to be fair, very few phones do). It’s worth noting the Motorola’s recent track record isn’t great, as the 2015 Moto X tends to get security releases about once a quarter. And even the just-released Moto Z is on the May security patch, placing it two months behind.
The impact on you: How a company treats security updates is one of the details you should consider when deciding on your next smartphone purchase. There’s plenty of malware, though with regular updates good practices you should be fine. It’s easy to check if you have the latest Android security patch, which is issued every month by . Being smart should keep you safe, but if those monthly updates are important you may want to look elsewhere.