5 ms·

> I'll never understand why companies make such customer hostile decisions. Because they can. John Doe will think "oh, I just need to shell out some money to g

by tdkl 11y ago

> I'll never understand why companies make such customer hostile decisions. Because they can. John Doe will think "oh, I just need to shell out some money to get it working again", or "oh, the system needed an upgrade anyway". The mobile bonanza (well, that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware) in last couple of years perverted the word "upgrade" from "a software upgrade, which adds new features and ads value to existing purchased product", to "needing to buy a new device to keep on going with existing performance". I'm happy to see this hasn't spread to the desktop PC. Yet.

usaphp 11y ago
> that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware I hope you are not referring to Apple, because compared to other companies , iPhones and iPads are the one who can run current software on older devices with almost no issues. Samsung and other android manufacturers on the other hand have not supported older devices at all until recently (and even now not as good as Apple does). My first gen iPad still runs perfectly fine
- reitanqild 11y ago
  Don't forget Sony. They are pretty reliable about updating their Z-series. Full disclosure: have a Z3, mostly for this and because it was waterproof. The screen is now partially detached in the top after less than one year of use which annoys me but I hope to get it resolved under warranty.
  - tacticus 11y ago
    they also decide to disable normal features because fuck you. android auto does not work on the z3 compacts at all because of their decision to remove the USB charge mode from the phones.
    - reitanqild 11y ago
      Didn't know. Would be interested if anyone could provide an explanation as to why a company would do that. Also: anything else they have disabled?
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  Yep. I have an iPhone 4S that still works great. Granted, iOS 9 is a bit slow, but that's to be expected. It's much better than my 4-year-old PC, which can barely handle today's games, for instance.
  - tdkl 11y ago
    Your 4 years old PC can render the UI on Windows fine though. When did you have to buy a new more powerful GPU for newer OS to work as it was before? See difference between iOS 8 and 9, who introduced stuttering in two and one year old devices.
- mrgordon 11y ago
  So true. Google even turned off the DNS for the activation servers for their Android 2.1 devices (at least for the HTC Wildfire) so I could no longer log in with Google to get into the phone and do anything at all. Contrast this to my first generation iPhone which still works despite being several years older...
- switchbak 11y ago
  I have a first-gen iPad, and it most certainly does not run "perfectly fine". Most apps aren't released for those old versions, some even seem to get removed automatically. I think the Android world is worse, mind you - but old iOS devices are still left to rot. My 2.5 year old Google TV box being abandoned by Google (can't even log into the app store) was infuriating.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >I have a first-gen iPad, and it most certainly does not run "perfectly fine". Most apps aren't released for those old versions, some even seem to get removed automatically. Well, 5 years time in the mobile/tablet space is like 20 years time in the PC space. Consider the changes in capabilities, cpu and gpu power, etc. In that sense, it makes sense that most NEW apps are not released for the older versions -- how many apps are released for Windows 98 today? Sure, it's "only been 5 years" but then again that's related to the technology space. E.g. most would accept that a 20 old year PC/OS wouldn't get much support, but that would sound too soon in other industries, where even a 50 year product can still be supported. Besides, as you say, this is much better than the Android situation -- since most devices are sold with an OLDER than the latest version, and most vendors don't care to provide updates for older devices.
- bigiain 11y ago
  Looks over at my first gen iPad stuck back on iOS 5... It still works fine, but it's hardly because Apple are doing me any favours (past building a good product back in 2010, and "supporting it" with OS updates until 2013...)
  - tl 11y ago
    iPad 2's performance on iOS 9 makes me wish they had made something around iOS 5-6 into an LTS version for older devices.
    - tdkl 11y ago
      Here's a blast to the past to cry about : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iwh3lDeCME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iwh3lDeCME iOS 5 smooth 60 FPS responsive interface, compared to 9 stutter fest. What added value does the iOS 9 bring to the table then ? The content in Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc. is all the same.
      - thesmok 11y ago
        I have an iPad 2 which I updated to the latest iOS knowing it will decrease performance. Why? I wanted Apple Music and iCloud drive. And performance is still acceptable.
- cgriswald 11y ago
  I have a less-than-a-year old iPhone 6+ that runs like a legless alligator ever since I upgraded to iOS 9. Your first gen iPad isn't supported by iOS 9 and there are a lot of apps that don't support it either. But backward compatibility does not preclude Apple from being an upgrade company. Apple may not have invented the hardware upgrade cycle, but they've mastered it. That's what their keynotes and media interactions are all focused on. Their employees go out of their way to check if you have an "upgrade" available. I've had a phone that has never been in contract and they even offer to use that line to give me a "free" upgrade to my main line. I could go on... But the point is, the upgrade cycle is what Apple is all about.
  - lostlogin 11y ago
    Something must be wrong with it then. My 5s runs great on most recent release. It's axtually better than when I bought it. How many devices get better as they age?
    - tdkl 11y ago
      iOS 9 introduced stutters in scrolling performance compared to iOS 8. If you're not sensitive enough to 60fps, you don't notice it. But that silky 60fps animations were the reason why iOS was praised in the first place.
      - lostlogin 11y ago
        It's not that I'm not sensitive to that, it isn't there on my phone. Well, with one exception and that's an app that I wrote so I suspect the problem may be the implementation.
        tdkl 11y ago
        Well, test it on iOS 8 if you can, because I've noticed that all apps with Listview (don't know how it's called on iOS) stutter when scrolling. Not flick scroll, but when you keep the finger on the screen and swipe and down. For instance Twitter app, Settings app (in Cellular data particularly).
lsc 11y ago
>The mobile bonanza (well, that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware) in last couple of years perverted the word "upgrade" from "a software upgrade, which adds new features and ads value to existing purchased product", to "needing to buy a new device to keep on going with existing performance". I'm happy to see this hasn't spread to the desktop PC. Yet. I can't tell if you are joking, honestly. If you remember the '80s and the '90s and the early to mid aughts, there was a joke about how "what Intel gives, Microsoft takes away" - the idea was that every few years, you needed to buy a new and dramatically faster PC to do exactly the same sorts of things you would do before. This PC would be massively faster than the last one you bought, and it would probably cost a little bit less. Microsoft would come up with a new version of windows or office that you needed to upgrade to if you wanted to be able to open documents from other people in the office, and that new version would require a new and much more powerful computer. Especially by the '90s, a lot of times these software upgrades felt really pointless, like your stuff was getting slower, but you didn't get any better features. Around the time that everyone quit writing PC software and focused on the mobile bonanza, as you put it, this seemed to stop. Old PCs are just fine for workstations. but, of course, now the upgrade treadmill is on mobile.
- tdkl 11y ago
  You can't convince me that worsening the experience on a device in 30 minutes (time for OTA update to finish) is to be expected. Example: iOS 9 update. Although I don't agree with many practices MS does lately, I'll admit that they're doing a good job with Windows performance being better and/or at least not worse.
  - lsc 11y ago
    > You can't convince me that worsening the experience on a device in 30 minutes (time for OTA update to finish) is to be expected. Example: iOS 9 update. I can tell you that in the late '90s and early aughts, well, they weren't OTA updates; you actually paid for physical disks, but yes, worsening the experience was completely expected. that's why you bought a new computer at the same time. I am telling you it's the same idea.

by tdkl 11y ago

usaphp 11y ago

> that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware I hope you are not referring to Apple, because compared to other companies , iPhones and iPads are the one who can run current software on older devices with almost no issues. Samsung and other android manufacturers on the other hand have not supported older devices at all until recently (and even now not as good as Apple does). My first gen iPad still runs perfectly fine

reitanqild 11y ago
Don't forget Sony. They are pretty reliable about updating their Z-series. Full disclosure: have a Z3, mostly for this and because it was waterproof. The screen is now partially detached in the top after less than one year of use which annoys me but I hope to get it resolved under warranty.
- tacticus 11y ago
  they also decide to disable normal features because fuck you. android auto does not work on the z3 compacts at all because of their decision to remove the USB charge mode from the phones.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    Didn't know. Would be interested if anyone could provide an explanation as to why a company would do that. Also: anything else they have disabled?
enraged_camel 11y ago
Yep. I have an iPhone 4S that still works great. Granted, iOS 9 is a bit slow, but that's to be expected. It's much better than my 4-year-old PC, which can barely handle today's games, for instance.
- tdkl 11y ago
  Your 4 years old PC can render the UI on Windows fine though. When did you have to buy a new more powerful GPU for newer OS to work as it was before? See difference between iOS 8 and 9, who introduced stuttering in two and one year old devices.
mrgordon 11y ago
So true. Google even turned off the DNS for the activation servers for their Android 2.1 devices (at least for the HTC Wildfire) so I could no longer log in with Google to get into the phone and do anything at all. Contrast this to my first generation iPhone which still works despite being several years older...
switchbak 11y ago
I have a first-gen iPad, and it most certainly does not run "perfectly fine". Most apps aren't released for those old versions, some even seem to get removed automatically. I think the Android world is worse, mind you - but old iOS devices are still left to rot. My 2.5 year old Google TV box being abandoned by Google (can't even log into the app store) was infuriating.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >I have a first-gen iPad, and it most certainly does not run "perfectly fine". Most apps aren't released for those old versions, some even seem to get removed automatically. Well, 5 years time in the mobile/tablet space is like 20 years time in the PC space. Consider the changes in capabilities, cpu and gpu power, etc. In that sense, it makes sense that most NEW apps are not released for the older versions -- how many apps are released for Windows 98 today? Sure, it's "only been 5 years" but then again that's related to the technology space. E.g. most would accept that a 20 old year PC/OS wouldn't get much support, but that would sound too soon in other industries, where even a 50 year product can still be supported. Besides, as you say, this is much better than the Android situation -- since most devices are sold with an OLDER than the latest version, and most vendors don't care to provide updates for older devices.
bigiain 11y ago
Looks over at my first gen iPad stuck back on iOS 5... It still works fine, but it's hardly because Apple are doing me any favours (past building a good product back in 2010, and "supporting it" with OS updates until 2013...)
- tl 11y ago
  iPad 2's performance on iOS 9 makes me wish they had made something around iOS 5-6 into an LTS version for older devices.
  - tdkl 11y ago
    Here's a blast to the past to cry about : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iwh3lDeCME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iwh3lDeCME iOS 5 smooth 60 FPS responsive interface, compared to 9 stutter fest. What added value does the iOS 9 bring to the table then ? The content in Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc. is all the same.
    - thesmok 11y ago
      I have an iPad 2 which I updated to the latest iOS knowing it will decrease performance. Why? I wanted Apple Music and iCloud drive. And performance is still acceptable.
cgriswald 11y ago
I have a less-than-a-year old iPhone 6+ that runs like a legless alligator ever since I upgraded to iOS 9. Your first gen iPad isn't supported by iOS 9 and there are a lot of apps that don't support it either. But backward compatibility does not preclude Apple from being an upgrade company. Apple may not have invented the hardware upgrade cycle, but they've mastered it. That's what their keynotes and media interactions are all focused on. Their employees go out of their way to check if you have an "upgrade" available. I've had a phone that has never been in contract and they even offer to use that line to give me a "free" upgrade to my main line. I could go on... But the point is, the upgrade cycle is what Apple is all about.
- lostlogin 11y ago
  Something must be wrong with it then. My 5s runs great on most recent release. It's axtually better than when I bought it. How many devices get better as they age?
  - tdkl 11y ago
    iOS 9 introduced stutters in scrolling performance compared to iOS 8. If you're not sensitive enough to 60fps, you don't notice it. But that silky 60fps animations were the reason why iOS was praised in the first place.
    - lostlogin 11y ago
      It's not that I'm not sensitive to that, it isn't there on my phone. Well, with one exception and that's an app that I wrote so I suspect the problem may be the implementation.
      - tdkl 11y ago
        Well, test it on iOS 8 if you can, because I've noticed that all apps with Listview (don't know how it's called on iOS) stutter when scrolling. Not flick scroll, but when you keep the finger on the screen and swipe and down. For instance Twitter app, Settings app (in Cellular data particularly).

lsc 11y ago

>The mobile bonanza (well, that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware) in last couple of years perverted the word "upgrade" from "a software upgrade, which adds new features and ads value to existing purchased product", to "needing to buy a new device to keep on going with existing performance". I'm happy to see this hasn't spread to the desktop PC. Yet. I can't tell if you are joking, honestly. If you remember the '80s and the '90s and the early to mid aughts, there was a joke about how "what Intel gives, Microsoft takes away" - the idea was that every few years, you needed to buy a new and dramatically faster PC to do exactly the same sorts of things you would do before. This PC would be massively faster than the last one you bought, and it would probably cost a little bit less. Microsoft would come up with a new version of windows or office that you needed to upgrade to if you wanted to be able to open documents from other people in the office, and that new version would require a new and much more powerful computer. Especially by the '90s, a lot of times these software upgrades felt really pointless, like your stuff was getting slower, but you didn't get any better features. Around the time that everyone quit writing PC software and focused on the mobile bonanza, as you put it, this seemed to stop. Old PCs are just fine for workstations. but, of course, now the upgrade treadmill is on mobile.

tdkl 11y ago
You can't convince me that worsening the experience on a device in 30 minutes (time for OTA update to finish) is to be expected. Example: iOS 9 update. Although I don't agree with many practices MS does lately, I'll admit that they're doing a good job with Windows performance being better and/or at least not worse.
- lsc 11y ago
  > You can't convince me that worsening the experience on a device in 30 minutes (time for OTA update to finish) is to be expected. Example: iOS 9 update. I can tell you that in the late '90s and early aughts, well, they weren't OTA updates; you actually paid for physical disks, but yes, worsening the experience was completely expected. that's why you bought a new computer at the same time. I am telling you it's the same idea.