Forced to upgrade
herman.bearblog.dev
Forced to upgrade
1–10 of 303 posts
Re: Forced to upgrade
#2I felt this way when I was forced to upgrade from IPhone 6s. That was a little different in that with that phone iOS had become too much for the device's limited RAM, and UI concepts meant for the edge-to-edge phones were being forced on phones on which they make no sense.
In early 2023 I "upgraded" to an iPhone XS 256GB. It took a while to get used to FaceID from TouchID, but it's fine. Perhaps this will be its final year? I'm conscious iOS 19 might abandon support. Apple have replaced the battery once and replaced a speaker at the same time (I guess there know the go bad but it's not enough to do a recall). It's a great phone and I too will be a little bit when I'm forced to abandon it.
Re: Forced to upgrade
#3[flagged]
Re: Forced to upgrade
#4This also counts for desktop Macs. Twice in the last 20 years I have had to explain to my elderly Dad that even though his expensive Mac could last another thirty years, it's now a paperweight, or something to be 'repurposed'.
I have wondered sometimes if hardware manufacturers actively seek out significant road-mapped hardware changes (such as Intel>ARM, etc., in case of Apple) in order to keep sales rolling in and stop folks 'sitting on' their well-functioning tech.
Re: Forced to upgrade
#5I'm still daily-driving an iPhone 7, so I sympathize. A few apps have complained about the older OS; so far I've been able to react by deleting the apps.
Smartphones cause a truly astonishing amount of waste (https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/12/11/right-to-repair-...: ~151 million phones discarded in the US each year, as of 2018), to say nothing of the various social follow-on effects that are being argued to death elsewhere. I was a very late smartphone adopter and I'm already trying to reduce the amount I depend on this thing; too much of their marketing always struck me as being more akin to new sneakers than life-improving tech.
As a dev I understand the challenges of supporting older hardware. As a conscious consumer, I wish there were another option available in the market, and I haven't yet decided what I'll do when my current device finally needs to be retired.
Re: Forced to upgrade
#6This also counts for desktop Macs. Twice in the last 20 years I have had to explain to my elderly Dad that even though his expensive Mac could last another thirty years, it's now a paperweight, or something to be 'repurposed'. I have wondered sometimes if hardware manufacturers actively seek out significant road-mapped hardware changes (such as Intel>ARM, etc., in case of Apple) in order to keep sales rolling in and…
You have to be quite cynical if you see Apple's transition to ARM only as a ploy to get people to replace their Intel based machines. I am sure it is a nice bonus, but performance and efficiency just went through the roof.
With yearly iPhone releases it is harder to justify upgrades. Like for author - upgrading from working phone to newer model while not gaining anything significant is stupid.
Re: Forced to upgrade
#7I'm still daily-driving an iPhone 7, so I sympathize. A few apps have complained about the older OS; so far I've been able to react by deleting the apps. Smartphones cause a truly astonishing amount of waste ( https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/12/11/right-to-repair-... : ~151 million phones discarded in the US each year, as of 2018), to say nothing of the various social follow-on effects that are being argued to…
Yearly phone upgrades are akin to new sneakers. People want the latest thing, they do not need it. Phones have not improved for years in significant ways. There has been no new features. Only improvement has been cameras, but really how good of a camera does your average person need in their daily lives?
Re: Forced to upgrade
#8When you make the decision to not support older hardware (whether directly or indirectly), you're making a decision that the maintenance burden you're trying to avoid is more important than the environmental impact of users disposing of & buying hardware.
Which... maybe it is; who am I to suggest different priorities for other people. But it would be nice for engineers and businesses to at least think about this and make such a decision consciously.
Re: Forced to upgrade
#9This also counts for desktop Macs. Twice in the last 20 years I have had to explain to my elderly Dad that even though his expensive Mac could last another thirty years, it's now a paperweight, or something to be 'repurposed'. I have wondered sometimes if hardware manufacturers actively seek out significant road-mapped hardware changes (such as Intel>ARM, etc., in case of Apple) in order to keep sales rolling in and…
You have to be quite cynical if you see Apple's transition to ARM only as a ploy to get people to replace their Intel based machines. I am sure it is a nice bonus, but performance and efficiency just went through the roof. With yearly iPhone releases it is harder to justify upgrades. Like for author - upgrading from working phone to newer model while not gaining anything significant is stupid.
If the computer here is 20 years old, then we are talking about PowerPC based Mac. So two transitions over this devices lifetime: PowerPC -> Intel -> ARM.
Re: Forced to upgrade
#10If you were on an iPhone 8 and wanted to upgrade but keep TouchID, the SE3 is still a fine device.
It's possible I'll grab one before the SE4 just to hold on to TouchID a bit longer.