4 ms·

What you're proposing isn't a good thing. It's an ugly, environmentally unfriendly, anti-consumer model. How many people are debt-financing their $800+ iPhone?

What you're proposing isn't a good thing. It's an ugly, environmentally unfriendly, anti-consumer model. How many people are debt-financing their $800+ iPhone? How much value is that extracting from people, and what are the opportunity costs for them? What's the environmental impact of phones becoming nothing more than expensive bricks after 2-3 years due to lack of vendor support, coupled platform DRM that prevents re-use? What happens when market choices disappear along with the very concept of ownership? This dystopian ideal of inescapable corporatism may be a commercially viable, but it's not remotely ethical.

mchahn 11y ago
> phones becoming nothing more than expensive bricks after 2-3 years due to lack of vendor support, coupled platform DRM that prevents re-use? I have repurposed my old Samsung android phones around the house as displays on the walls. They all have the net connection shut down and I use the wifi. They all work great and I see no reason they won't work until the hardware dies. I know this is only one data point. Can someone describe how other models of phones can become bricks? Edit: People less weird than me can still use the phones like tablets are used without a radio connection.
- teacup50 11y ago
  > Can someone describe how other models of phones can become bricks? iPhone's have a fully DRM'd trust chain, starting with the bootloader, which is itself on-die and immutable. Installing a new OS image requires online activation with Apple's servers, which return public-key signed installation permission. Unless there's a vulnerability that allows jailbreak, you're not installing non-Apple-approved software on that device. That's the future of the fully centralized/cloud-based 'software iteration business model ... making inroads into the hardware market'
  - mchahn 11y ago
    Ah, I understand what you are saying now. Technically, not being able to install new software isn't bricked since you can still run the old. I only run the browser on my old phones so I didn't notice this.

mchahn 11y ago

> phones becoming nothing more than expensive bricks after 2-3 years due to lack of vendor support, coupled platform DRM that prevents re-use? I have repurposed my old Samsung android phones around the house as displays on the walls. They all have the net connection shut down and I use the wifi. They all work great and I see no reason they won't work until the hardware dies. I know this is only one data point. Can someone describe how other models of phones can become bricks? Edit: People less weird than me can still use the phones like tablets are used without a radio connection.

teacup50 11y ago
> Can someone describe how other models of phones can become bricks? iPhone's have a fully DRM'd trust chain, starting with the bootloader, which is itself on-die and immutable. Installing a new OS image requires online activation with Apple's servers, which return public-key signed installation permission. Unless there's a vulnerability that allows jailbreak, you're not installing non-Apple-approved software on that device. That's the future of the fully centralized/cloud-based 'software iteration business model ... making inroads into the hardware market'
- mchahn 11y ago
  Ah, I understand what you are saying now. Technically, not being able to install new software isn't bricked since you can still run the old. I only run the browser on my old phones so I didn't notice this.