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It's the exact same story with Windows and Linux. Many old PCs running Windows XP that cannot handle Windows 7's minimum requirements are being wiped by geeks a

It's the exact same story with Windows and Linux. Many old PCs running Windows XP that cannot handle Windows 7's minimum requirements are being wiped by geeks and are installing Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, or some other distro onto these devices. As long as Linux, postmarketOS or LineageOS are the "weird apps" geeks install for their friends' devices, I highly doubt they'll ever gain any real exposure outside of tech circles.

JoelTheSuperior 9y ago
In fairness though I'd say the issue is far less pronounced with desktop and laptop hardware than it is with mobile devices. I can get a PC from 10 years ago and install Windows 10 and it'll most likely run absolutely fine - really rather well in fact. On the other hand, many people would probably be quite frustrated if they had to use a phone that's even three or four years old. It amazes me how people react even when I tell them I'm still using an iPhone 6 Plus that I bought in 2015.
- SomeHacker44 9y ago
  I am using the same phone. I just wish I could get Spectre fixes on an iOS 10 release.
- dejv 9y ago
  I am still using iPhone 5S, 16GB and it still works great. Marketers did a great job convincing people that they need to renew their phones every two years (or less)
  - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
    It's not marketers. It's that it used to be free (baked into the plan) so there used to be no advantage to not get a phone every two years. Do while the free phone went away (for this in the cell phone market, did plans get any cheaper?) the purchase styles didn't.
  - lucb1e 9y ago
    Galaxy Note 2 here. What are they at, the Note 8 or something? My device just won't die after I put Cyanogenmod on and stopped things from autostarting/wakelocking (battery life is great again). Just like my bluetooth headphones. I had to re-solder a weak connection twice, but after adding some hot glue to keep it in place the second time, it hasn't broken anymore. The battery life is still better than advertised, and I've been using it daily for 3-4 years. "Throwaway" is a culture, contributing to the problem just as much as (or maybe even more than?) planned obsolesce.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    Problem with iPhone is when Apple decides to pull the plug with iOS support. Android devices suffer from the same problem with their vendor, but then you can flash it with e.g. LineageOS (+ microG if you wanna avoid Google) or postmarketOS.
    - josephg 9y ago
      True; although Apple keeps supporting their old phones for quite awhile. iOS 11 still supports the iPhone 5S, which came out in September 2013. Only 6% of ios devices use an ios 9 or earlier[1]. 4.5 years is pretty good in this market - last I checked you were lucky to get 2 years of software updates from most android vendors. According to usage stats about half of all android phones are stuck on an operating system from 2014 or earlier[1]. I don't want to think about the security consequences of most android phones never having security updates installed. 4.5 years still is nothing on postmarketOS's 10 year target. Bravo. [1] https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ [2] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
      - Fnoord 9y ago
        Yes, my mother has that phone (I recommended it) not only does it still get updates it also has a small form factor with the latest one in that family being the iPhone SE. Downside is its expensive to get a battery replacement, and you're probably due after 4,5 years. Just because phones run an old Android version, doesn't mean no patches get backported. For example, the official firmware for FP2 runs Android 6 with a patchlevel of (last time I checked) Dec 5. Furthermore, other "postmarket OSes" such as LOS already extend life. The problem with these is firmware updates for chips, and hardware bugs.
        josephg 9y ago
        > Just because phones run an old Android version, doesn't mean no patches get backported. It’s a bit of a separate problem but I’ve seen an awful lot of ignored software update notifications on the phones of relatives over the Christmas break. Is there data on the install rate of security hotfixes?

JoelTheSuperior 9y ago

In fairness though I'd say the issue is far less pronounced with desktop and laptop hardware than it is with mobile devices. I can get a PC from 10 years ago and install Windows 10 and it'll most likely run absolutely fine - really rather well in fact. On the other hand, many people would probably be quite frustrated if they had to use a phone that's even three or four years old. It amazes me how people react even when I tell them I'm still using an iPhone 6 Plus that I bought in 2015.

SomeHacker44 9y ago
I am using the same phone. I just wish I could get Spectre fixes on an iOS 10 release.
dejv 9y ago
I am still using iPhone 5S, 16GB and it still works great. Marketers did a great job convincing people that they need to renew their phones every two years (or less)
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  It's not marketers. It's that it used to be free (baked into the plan) so there used to be no advantage to not get a phone every two years. Do while the free phone went away (for this in the cell phone market, did plans get any cheaper?) the purchase styles didn't.
- lucb1e 9y ago
  Galaxy Note 2 here. What are they at, the Note 8 or something? My device just won't die after I put Cyanogenmod on and stopped things from autostarting/wakelocking (battery life is great again). Just like my bluetooth headphones. I had to re-solder a weak connection twice, but after adding some hot glue to keep it in place the second time, it hasn't broken anymore. The battery life is still better than advertised, and I've been using it daily for 3-4 years. "Throwaway" is a culture, contributing to the problem just as much as (or maybe even more than?) planned obsolesce.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  Problem with iPhone is when Apple decides to pull the plug with iOS support. Android devices suffer from the same problem with their vendor, but then you can flash it with e.g. LineageOS (+ microG if you wanna avoid Google) or postmarketOS.
  - josephg 9y ago
    True; although Apple keeps supporting their old phones for quite awhile. iOS 11 still supports the iPhone 5S, which came out in September 2013. Only 6% of ios devices use an ios 9 or earlier[1]. 4.5 years is pretty good in this market - last I checked you were lucky to get 2 years of software updates from most android vendors. According to usage stats about half of all android phones are stuck on an operating system from 2014 or earlier[1]. I don't want to think about the security consequences of most android phones never having security updates installed. 4.5 years still is nothing on postmarketOS's 10 year target. Bravo. [1] https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ [2] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      Yes, my mother has that phone (I recommended it) not only does it still get updates it also has a small form factor with the latest one in that family being the iPhone SE. Downside is its expensive to get a battery replacement, and you're probably due after 4,5 years. Just because phones run an old Android version, doesn't mean no patches get backported. For example, the official firmware for FP2 runs Android 6 with a patchlevel of (last time I checked) Dec 5. Furthermore, other "postmarket OSes" such as LOS already extend life. The problem with these is firmware updates for chips, and hardware bugs.
      - josephg 9y ago
        > Just because phones run an old Android version, doesn't mean no patches get backported. It’s a bit of a separate problem but I’ve seen an awful lot of ignored software update notifications on the phones of relatives over the Christmas break. Is there data on the install rate of security hotfixes?