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>The best way to do good for the environment is to create a reliable product with sustainable materials that serves it's purpose for as long as possible and the

by qplex 9y ago

>The best way to do good for the environment is to create a reliable product with sustainable materials that serves it's purpose for as long as possible and then continues to deliver value through re-use. >That's exactly what they're doing No. Only a couple of days ago there was a NY Times article posted here on how the iPad has become obsolete just because the software isn't being updated anymore.

coldtea 9y ago
>Only a couple of days ago there was a NY Times article posted here on how the iPad has become obsolete just because the software isn't being updated anymore. Like with the WMDs, don't believe all you read on the NYTs. And generally, don't get your tech news from the mainstream press. The iPads that are left behind are those released before 2013 -- so like 5 years ago. And even those will still function just fine, just wont get any new updates. Now, consider how Android phones and tablets often don't even get an official update to the next version of Android than the one they came with for comparison...
- qplex 9y ago
  If you are arguing for the environment it certainly does not make any sense that fully functional hardware becomes obsolete because of software. Android devices at least have the option for 3rd party software. No such luck with iDevices. Also it's not a fair to comparison between _all_ of the Android vendors in one bucket and Apple.
  - innagadadavida 9y ago
    You are being very creative with “obsolete”. I use an iPhone 4s and it is not obsolete by any means. It works just fine. Don’t blame the manufacturer if you want the latest shiny new gadget and expect all the bells and whistles to work on hardware >5yrs old.
    - qplex 9y ago
      Let me quote the article I referred to: >"My attempt to install an alternative browser ended with this message: Firefox requires iOS 10.3 or later." A Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 2013 - same age as that iPad - has Android 7.1 with all the latest bells and whistles (Firefox). I expect to upgrade to Android 8.0 (LineageOS 15) later this year. Edit: The author tried to install Firefox because Safari had become so slow it was unusable.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        The hardware is not obsolete even without an "alternative browser".
      - innagadadavida 9y ago
        Please link to the benchmarks that show safari to be slower than Firefox. If an app developer choos s to stop supporting older iOS, that is something Apple has no control over. You are fundamentally at odds with what Apple provides. You have the freedom to choose android and lineagos and maintain all that yourself. If that works better, Good for you and no need to depend on Apple.
        qplex 9y ago
        Obviously it's impossible to provide such metrics since you can not run Firefox on older iPads. It does not run on Android < 4.1 either, but the devices remain useful since you can update Android even if the vendor support is long gone. Thus an Android tablet with similar hardware as the iPad has potential for a longer lifespan. I've not yet seen any valid arguments to counter this.
        innagadadavida 9y ago
        The argument agianst using some hobby OS is that of security and trustability and maintainability. If you are personally comfortable doing it - good. Not everyone does, though.
askafriend 9y ago
The reason extremely old iOS devices (not just iPads) are not receiving OS support any longer is because iOS 11 switched to 64-bit architecture (dropping 32-bit support) and all apps written going forward will be compiled for 64 bit processor architectures. Apple is industry leading in terms of software support for their hardware. Which other manufacturer provides OS updates for 4+ years? Certainly not any of the Android OEMs. It's not as black and white as "it's supported" or "it's not supported". There's a lot of context around certain decisions that gets filtered out of articles like the one you're referring to.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  microsoft? linux distros? Lets not pretend ARM devices falling out of support isnt anything but OEM apathy, its not like the hardware suddenly stopped functioning.
- qplex 9y ago
  For the end user it's black and white - can you run that app on your device or not? Android continues to run everything also on a 32-bit CPU and iOS does not.

by qplex 9y ago

coldtea 9y ago

>Only a couple of days ago there was a NY Times article posted here on how the iPad has become obsolete just because the software isn't being updated anymore. Like with the WMDs, don't believe all you read on the NYTs. And generally, don't get your tech news from the mainstream press. The iPads that are left behind are those released before 2013 -- so like 5 years ago. And even those will still function just fine, just wont get any new updates. Now, consider how Android phones and tablets often don't even get an official update to the next version of Android than the one they came with for comparison...

qplex 9y ago
If you are arguing for the environment it certainly does not make any sense that fully functional hardware becomes obsolete because of software. Android devices at least have the option for 3rd party software. No such luck with iDevices. Also it's not a fair to comparison between _all_ of the Android vendors in one bucket and Apple.
- innagadadavida 9y ago
  You are being very creative with “obsolete”. I use an iPhone 4s and it is not obsolete by any means. It works just fine. Don’t blame the manufacturer if you want the latest shiny new gadget and expect all the bells and whistles to work on hardware >5yrs old.
  - qplex 9y ago
    Let me quote the article I referred to: >"My attempt to install an alternative browser ended with this message: Firefox requires iOS 10.3 or later." A Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 2013 - same age as that iPad - has Android 7.1 with all the latest bells and whistles (Firefox). I expect to upgrade to Android 8.0 (LineageOS 15) later this year. Edit: The author tried to install Firefox because Safari had become so slow it was unusable.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      The hardware is not obsolete even without an "alternative browser".
    - innagadadavida 9y ago
      Please link to the benchmarks that show safari to be slower than Firefox. If an app developer choos s to stop supporting older iOS, that is something Apple has no control over. You are fundamentally at odds with what Apple provides. You have the freedom to choose android and lineagos and maintain all that yourself. If that works better, Good for you and no need to depend on Apple.
      - qplex 9y ago
        Obviously it's impossible to provide such metrics since you can not run Firefox on older iPads. It does not run on Android < 4.1 either, but the devices remain useful since you can update Android even if the vendor support is long gone. Thus an Android tablet with similar hardware as the iPad has potential for a longer lifespan. I've not yet seen any valid arguments to counter this.
        innagadadavida 9y ago
        The argument agianst using some hobby OS is that of security and trustability and maintainability. If you are personally comfortable doing it - good. Not everyone does, though.

askafriend 9y ago

The reason extremely old iOS devices (not just iPads) are not receiving OS support any longer is because iOS 11 switched to 64-bit architecture (dropping 32-bit support) and all apps written going forward will be compiled for 64 bit processor architectures. Apple is industry leading in terms of software support for their hardware. Which other manufacturer provides OS updates for 4+ years? Certainly not any of the Android OEMs. It's not as black and white as "it's supported" or "it's not supported". There's a lot of context around certain decisions that gets filtered out of articles like the one you're referring to.

throwaway2048 9y ago
microsoft? linux distros? Lets not pretend ARM devices falling out of support isnt anything but OEM apathy, its not like the hardware suddenly stopped functioning.
qplex 9y ago
For the end user it's black and white - can you run that app on your device or not? Android continues to run everything also on a 32-bit CPU and iOS does not.