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Forced to upgrade

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61–70 of 303 posts

Re: Forced to upgrade

#61

Post by bambax »

keiferski wrote: post #38

To play devil’s advocate here, I actually think iPhones have some of the best longevity and resale value, compared to virtually any other product or brand - except perhaps if we go back decades to appliances made near the middle of the century. The fact that a device can be perfectly usable for 5+ years is pretty good compared to most other things I find myself buying and replacing in less time. Otherwise I think the…

> compared to most other things

What other things? In my home most appliances are 15+ years old -- ovens, washing machines, even most Sonos things are around 20 years old. My Yamaha PF-P 100, bought in 1994, still works perfectly well.

A smartphone is certainly more complex than a MIDI keyboard, but why would we need to upgrade the OS constantly.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#62

Post by amatecha »

chr15m wrote: post #26

This situation doesn't happen with hardware running an open source OS. For example laptops running Linux can upgrade basically forever. Why are community maintained open source OSes better at this than commercially maintained proprietary OSes?

Yup, I use computers from 2012 which are still running the absolute latest software just fine. Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, etc. :)

Re: Forced to upgrade

#63

Post by ahmedfromtunis »

keiferski wrote: post #38

To play devil’s advocate here, I actually think iPhones have some of the best longevity and resale value, compared to virtually any other product or brand - except perhaps if we go back decades to appliances made near the middle of the century. The fact that a device can be perfectly usable for 5+ years is pretty good compared to most other things I find myself buying and replacing in less time. Otherwise I think the…

I'm typing this on my 5-year old Samsung A30 that, aside from a screen crack I take full responsibility for, is still in perfect working conditions.

I never encountered any app that refuses to install despite my device being stuck on Android 11. The only reason this sometimes happen is because of geofencing, or apps built for Pixel phones.

I only started to look for acquiring a new device because telecom operators are readying for a 5G launch next year, for which my current device is incompatible hardware-wise.

And unless something unexpected is happening, I'm going to get the A35, ie the latest version of the same lineage.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#64

Post by mplewis »

bambax wrote: post #61
keiferski wrote: post #38

To play devil’s advocate here, I actually think iPhones have some of the best longevity and resale value, compared to virtually any other product or brand - except perhaps if we go back decades to appliances made near the middle of the century. The fact that a device can be perfectly usable for 5+ years is pretty good compared to most other things I find myself buying and replacing in less time. Otherwise I think the…

> compared to most other things What other things? In my home most appliances are 15+ years old -- ovens, washing machines, even most Sonos things are around 20 years old. My Yamaha PF-P 100, bought in 1994, still works perfectly well. A smartphone is certainly more complex than a MIDI keyboard, but why would we need to upgrade the OS constantly.

Security.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#65

Post by lars_francke »

thefz wrote: post #34

Wasn't EU's right to repair law also mandating at least 5 years of updates? Just make 10. With all the money these companies make, they can dedicate some people to taking care of legacy hardware.

An additional regulation that will come into effect soon (fully only in 2027) is the Cyber Resilience Act which will require all manufacturers to provide at least security updates for however long a "reasonable user" expects to get security updates.

The recitals say: "In determining a support period, a manufacturer should take into account in particular reasonable user expectations, the nature of the product, as well as relevant Union law determining the lifetime of products with digital elements."

and

"The support period for which the manufacturer ensures the effective handling of vulnerabilities should be no less than five years, unless the lifetime of the product with digital elements is less than five years[...]"

So....it's a bit up to us to ask vendors for updates for older devices so that we can maybe slowly move the baseline of what a "reasonable user expectation" is.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#66

Post by harywilke »

thefz wrote: post #37
dataflow wrote: post #8

When 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…

We are talking about Apple, who is willing to chop off a feature from a product just to sell you the 39$ dongle later. The couldn't give less shits about the environment.

Ah yes, the company that famously designed their headquarters with zero regard to the environment. The company that included a leaflet titled 'Why the brown box?' back in the 90's when they switched to unbleached cardboard shipping boxes for their computers. Nope they have never given a though about the environment. It's just not in their corporate dna.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#67

Post by TheDong »

chr15m wrote: post #26

This situation doesn't happen with hardware running an open source OS. For example laptops running Linux can upgrade basically forever. Why are community maintained open source OSes better at this than commercially maintained proprietary OSes?

The richest company in the world became the richest company in the world in part by forcing its users to buy new hardware regularly.

Linux doesn't have a financial incentive to delete the code that supports 5 year old processors, but Apple does have such a financial incentive.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#69

Post by 9x39 »

chr15m wrote: post #26

This situation doesn't happen with hardware running an open source OS. For example laptops running Linux can upgrade basically forever. Why are community maintained open source OSes better at this than commercially maintained proprietary OSes?

Open source OS's also don't do anything for the typical person in a feature sense so there's way less to go wrong and way fewer users to ever discover/report issues. Non-technical users want to run specific hardware like new displays or accessories or use apps like a game or a specific commercial program, not run an OS. Without those users, there's no need to grow the feature set as aggressively.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#70

Post by coldtea »

chr15m wrote: post #26

This situation doesn't happen with hardware running an open source OS. For example laptops running Linux can upgrade basically forever. Why are community maintained open source OSes better at this than commercially maintained proprietary OSes?

Because community maintained open source OSes don't need to make money.
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