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Sorry, there's not enough revenue or developers to support 5-10 year old hardware. As a consumer you should have realized by now that when you buy these applian

by guelo 9y ago

Sorry, there's not enough revenue or developers to support 5-10 year old hardware. As a consumer you should have realized by now that when you buy these appliance computers they will only be supported for a few years. But nothing stops you from continuing to use your hardware with the old software.

acdha 9y ago
That’s only true if you need to make all of your money off of the original hardware sale, which is why Android phones tend to fall out of support much sooner than iOS since Apple still benefits from iCloud, iTunes, App Store, etc. sales but Samsung, et al. don’t have an equivalent revenue stream. Your last sentence isn’t often correct either: I have a 2012 Toshiba TV. The hardware is in great shape but of all of the apps it shipped with only the Netflix and Vudu apps still work because everything else broke when Google, Yahoo!, etc. stopped SHA-1 support. I agree that no new features is a reasonable policy but at a minimum you need basic security & compatibility support for 5-10 years.
- yoz-y 9y ago
  Not all developers can or want to have alternative revenue streams. It is completely unreasonable to expect a developer to support software for 10 years if you are not paying for this service. Sadly, on Apple platforms there is no way of doing paid upgrades so there goes that.
  - acdha 9y ago
    > Not all developers can or want to have alternative revenue streams. It is completely unreasonable to expect a developer to support software for 10 years if you are not paying for this service 1. We’re talking about hardware vendors 2. Why is the tech industry magically different from everything else? I get safety recalls on things which are 5-10 years old but e.g. Lenovo can’t seem to ship Android security updates which Google gave them more than 1-2 years after release. > Sadly, on Apple platforms there is no way of doing paid upgrades so there goes that. This is why developers use advertising, in-app purchases and subscriptions, or releasing major versions as new apps. The point wasn’t that the status quo is perfect but that it’s extremely wasteful and needs to change. The tech industry has a lot of people who thought that cycle of rapid growth was innate but are starting to realize that things are saturating in most segments. Buying a new device every 2 years only works if they’re very cheap or dramatically better.
    - yoz-y 9y ago
      The original article is written by a software developer and for me the topmost comment used the term developer meaning 'software developer'. Maybe a problem of language, but I have never seen the word developer used to describe a hardware manufacturer. From the standpoint of hardware I definitely agree that it should not be made with a 2-3 year lifespan in mind, especially because of the toll it takes on the environment. > This is why developers use advertising, in-app purchases and subscriptions, or releasing major versions as new apps. None of these are a good replacement because they do not solve the problem. If you wish to have an old version of the app available for users which did not update the only option is releasing a new app but then you can not give a discount to old clients. In app purchases and subscriptions pull everybody into the release cycle. The current status quo is not good but from the software perspective I do not know how it could change. The prices were pulled down so far that supporting old platforms is not sustainable, unless you are one of those companies which get their money somewhere else.

by guelo 9y ago

acdha 9y ago

That’s only true if you need to make all of your money off of the original hardware sale, which is why Android phones tend to fall out of support much sooner than iOS since Apple still benefits from iCloud, iTunes, App Store, etc. sales but Samsung, et al. don’t have an equivalent revenue stream. Your last sentence isn’t often correct either: I have a 2012 Toshiba TV. The hardware is in great shape but of all of the apps it shipped with only the Netflix and Vudu apps still work because everything else broke when Google, Yahoo!, etc. stopped SHA-1 support. I agree that no new features is a reasonable policy but at a minimum you need basic security & compatibility support for 5-10 years.

yoz-y 9y ago
Not all developers can or want to have alternative revenue streams. It is completely unreasonable to expect a developer to support software for 10 years if you are not paying for this service. Sadly, on Apple platforms there is no way of doing paid upgrades so there goes that.
- acdha 9y ago
  > Not all developers can or want to have alternative revenue streams. It is completely unreasonable to expect a developer to support software for 10 years if you are not paying for this service 1. We’re talking about hardware vendors 2. Why is the tech industry magically different from everything else? I get safety recalls on things which are 5-10 years old but e.g. Lenovo can’t seem to ship Android security updates which Google gave them more than 1-2 years after release. > Sadly, on Apple platforms there is no way of doing paid upgrades so there goes that. This is why developers use advertising, in-app purchases and subscriptions, or releasing major versions as new apps. The point wasn’t that the status quo is perfect but that it’s extremely wasteful and needs to change. The tech industry has a lot of people who thought that cycle of rapid growth was innate but are starting to realize that things are saturating in most segments. Buying a new device every 2 years only works if they’re very cheap or dramatically better.
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    The original article is written by a software developer and for me the topmost comment used the term developer meaning 'software developer'. Maybe a problem of language, but I have never seen the word developer used to describe a hardware manufacturer. From the standpoint of hardware I definitely agree that it should not be made with a 2-3 year lifespan in mind, especially because of the toll it takes on the environment. > This is why developers use advertising, in-app purchases and subscriptions, or releasing major versions as new apps. None of these are a good replacement because they do not solve the problem. If you wish to have an old version of the app available for users which did not update the only option is releasing a new app but then you can not give a discount to old clients. In app purchases and subscriptions pull everybody into the release cycle. The current status quo is not good but from the software perspective I do not know how it could change. The prices were pulled down so far that supporting old platforms is not sustainable, unless you are one of those companies which get their money somewhere else.