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Forced to upgrade

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Re: Forced to upgrade

#261

Post by Suppafly »

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #63
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 ar…

>I never encountered any app that refuses to install despite my device being stuck on Android 11.

A lot of 2-factor and identity verification type things technically install, but will be blocked as being insecure by the companies that use them and demand a higher security level. Things like Microsoft Authenticator and Duo Mobile, certain time card systems, etc. Working in tech, I'm generally forced update every few years because older phones stop getting android updates, especially since the android updates are generally the responsibility of the vendor and sometimes the carrier, and not google directly.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#262

Post by Suppafly »

lynndotpy wrote: post #152
marsovo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung is top-tier by Android standards. 4 years of security updates and 3 years of OS upgrades (minimum - some devices, such as the premium models, get more than that). Better than Google themselves when last I checked, which is shameful.

Google now promises seven years of OS and security updates. The latest Pixels should be supported until August or September 2031. That said, I don't trust Google, and would recommend filling out the arbitration optout form when you receive the device.

> and would recommend filling out the arbitration optout form when you receive the device.

Do you assume you'll have some issue with them that will be worth individually suing them for?

Re: Forced to upgrade

#263

Post by Suppafly »

FireBeyond wrote: post #206
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife’s Thinkpad which is less than five years old won’t run Windows 11.

Is that because of IBM, or Microsoft? Or both?

It's because older computers don't support TPM, the hardware is generally fine because Windows 11 doesn't really need anything that isn't supported by Windows 10 or realistically what was required by 7 or 8.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#264

Post by Suppafly »

vundercind wrote: post #156
pbmonster wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing inherent makes security on 7 year old hardware any more difficult than on 2 year old hardware. Also, we're getting into the differences between upgrades (what OP said) and updates (the thing necessary to keep up with security) here. I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. I would have been perfectly content with…

> I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. - Live Photos. I won't consider any device that doesn't have something analogous, now. They're magical. Non-kid-havers may feel otherwise, but making every photo I snap of my kids a "Live Photo" is one of the most important improvements any technology thingy has provided in my en…

Neither of those should require an OS upgrade though, those should be apps.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#265

Post by Suppafly »

lsaferite wrote: post #146
keiferski wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re probably buying higher quality items, yes? Because there’s no way a $50-100 coffee machine or printer is lasting a decade. This can probably be explained by the fact that an iPhone is a “cheaper” (comparatively) high end item. In other words, it’s one of the few high end items that many middle and low income people own. And thus compared to the coffee machines, printers, and other cheap electronics tha…

I'm using the same $9 (yes, 9) drip coffee machine to make my daily coffee for more than 10 years currently. It has an on/off switch and no 'smarts'. It works fine, why should I change it? It's plugged into a smart outlet that I use to make sure it's turned off after an hour. That plug is getting close to 10 years old as well.

You must not have hard water. We get a >$20 mr. coffee every year or so. They'd likely last longer if we cleaned them more often because if you wait too long, it doesn't seem to help.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#266

Post by stefandesu »

creer wrote: post #235
putzdown wrote: post #126

The main message I take from this story is that a decent quorum of consumers want Apple to offer a smaller phone in each generation. The OP seems not to have minded having to upgrade eventually, just not to a “virtual tablet.” I’ve heard others express the same desire.

And really "every other generation" would be pretty nice too. An actually small phone, actually supported for a few years (included in the guidelines for app writers and to remind web page designers that this exists). We could live with "every other generation". That would be better than "Eh, we don't believe in it anyway" kind of reluctance.

I'd be happy with a new mini even every third generation. My 12 mini is still great except for the battery life (even after getting a new battery less than a year ago).

Re: Forced to upgrade

#267

Post by Hard_Space »

obmelvin wrote: post #151
Hard_Space wrote: post #4

This 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…

Why can't your dad keep using his existing computer? Sure, if you make your living on the computer the new laptops are great. But if he's just checking email, photos, etc - I don't know why his computer needs to become a paperweight

Specifically because in each case, no updateable web browser was available any longer. To have your main machine increasingly unable to render web pages, and to suffer growing security vulnerabilities, pretty much bricks the machine for any purpose other than a scanning workstation, etc.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#268

Post by iggldiggl »

mrweasel wrote: post #93
lifestyleguru wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's even worse that these bank apps always force an update to the latest version, which also sometimes requires updating the OS of the device. Then you are captive audience so they don't care about UX or your experience, so e.g. at my bank confirming an action takes three taps: "confirm" button inside the app, then checkbox with some kind of consent they always sneak in (dark pattern), then the "yes" system popup.

SMS for 2FA is being phased out due to security concerns, but I don't get why they aren't using plain TOTP, so you can use any authenticator app you'd like. My bank did solve the issue in a pretty clever way though. Their phone app is so terrible that I refuse to use it. Sadly there new web version is also terrible, e.g. you can't copy paste when doing a transfer, so rather than being 100% sure the amount is correct,…

> but I don't get why they aren't using plain TOTP, so you can use any authenticator app you'd like

Compared to the non-app solutions I'm familiar with in Germany, TOTP lacks at least two things:

1. There are no guarantees as to what happens to the shared secret (whereas at least some of these alternative solutions use your debit card as a smartcard to securely store the secret). From an individual point of view I guess that's perhaps a welcome trade-off (no backup solution except for manually registering a second key everywhere is part of the reason I'm not keen on Yubikeys and the like for replacing all my logins), but banks might have differing opinions.

2. Perhaps more importantly, you can't really authenticate the individual transaction, because the TOTP is only based on the (fixed) shared secret and the current time. The TAN generator solutions I'm familiar with on the other hand also include the destination account and sum of money to be transferred in the TAN calculation (and those get displayed for confirmation on the TAN generator's display), so a malicious website impersonating your bank's online banking can't forge those things.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#269

Post by pbmonster »

vundercind wrote: post #156
pbmonster wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing inherent makes security on 7 year old hardware any more difficult than on 2 year old hardware. Also, we're getting into the differences between upgrades (what OP said) and updates (the thing necessary to keep up with security) here. I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. I would have been perfectly content with…

> I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. - Live Photos. I won't consider any device that doesn't have something analogous, now. They're magical. Non-kid-havers may feel otherwise, but making every photo I snap of my kids a "Live Photo" is one of the most important improvements any technology thingy has provided in my en…

On Android, those features where shipped as apps. PixelCam brought live photos, and Google Lens brought seamless OCR to images.

And really, that's how it should be. Both of those things are not things the operating system does or should do.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#270

Post by pbmonster »

frackintoaster wrote: post #123
pbmonster wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing inherent makes security on 7 year old hardware any more difficult than on 2 year old hardware. Also, we're getting into the differences between upgrades (what OP said) and updates (the thing necessary to keep up with security) here. I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. I would have been perfectly content with…

This is.. not true. A lot of hardware change is involved in modern mobile device security. Apple has come a long way from the iPhone 7 in hardware security and no amount of patching software is going to introduce a new cryptographic coprocessor.

This is true, but most of that hardware security makes the devices harder to access once stolen/confiscated. For everyday use, against online threats, 7 year old hardware can be made extremely secure - it's what Windows 10 and Linux do every day on much, much older hardware.

And sure, a cryptographic coprocessor will make accessing encrypted data a lot more snappy. But decrypting that data in software instead will work just as well, albeit slower. Which really doesn't matter for 90%+ of phone users.

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