5 ms·

It's only planned obsolescence if the lifetime of a product is artificially shortened by design choices. It's not clear this applies here.

by ska 6y ago

fsflover 6y ago
I would say it is artificially shortened by design choices. It is a perfectly capable device, the harware is still fast and secure. However, I am just not allowed to fix the software, even if I have enough resources for that. This is exactly why we need free software.
- ska 6y ago
  > I would say it is artificially shortened by design choices. The design choices have to be made to artificially shorten the life, not for any other purpose. For example, I can make a device cheaper and use cheaper materials that wear out faster - that's not planned obsolescence. However if I include a little plastic tab that I know will break before everything else for no good reason other than making it break faster - that is. I suspect you'll have a hard time arguing compellingly that the purpose of apples closed update system was to shorten the useful life, rather than as a side effect of other product and design goals. Phones are sort of a bad example, because for a long time the replacement cycle was driven by actual technical obsolescence, arguably only relatively recently has this ceased to be the case.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    > the purpopse of apples closed update system was to shorten the useful life, rather than as a side effect of other product and design goals So what is the reason to prevent updates of software after the support is over? This is a classical software anti-feature.
    - ska 6y ago
      I suspect the main driver was consistency of experience. Obviously they didn't always nail this.
    - google234123 6y ago
      IT's a ton of work to make and push updates.
      - fsflover 6y ago
        I am not speaking about making updates. I am speaking about preventing users from making them.
        zepto 6y ago
        You know the answer to that - it prevent large classes of social engineering attack and is part of the overall security model.
        fsflover 6y ago
        Even when the device is no longer supported?
        zepto 6y ago
        I fully support allowing the device itself to have alternative OS installations after the end of official support. The reason 1st gen iPads don’t have this is fairly obvious though - the unlocking feature is itself a likely vector for attacks e.g. by law enforcement unlocking tools, etc. I’m not sure what it would take to enable it to be done securely without destroying the overall security model but it’s clearly not trivial, and would take some investment that certainly wasn’t possible at the time the 1st gen device was released.
splix 6y ago
I cannot replace a battery on a perfectly working iPad otherwise, and Apple is charging almost a price of a new device to replace it for me, i.e. they are basially forcing me to buy a new one. Wondering, can that be called a planned obsolescence or not?
- Karunamon 6y ago
  If we're talking about an unsupported devices, aren't the downsides of third party repairs basically moot? There are any number of above-board companies that you can ship your device to and will do a battery swap for you so long as batteries are available.
  - splix 6y ago
    Yeah, that's what I did. Found an unofficial repair and replaced the battery for less that $100. Anyway, I don't think it should be so hard to replace a battery. And I still remember times when I was able to replace battery manually at home.
    - ska 6y ago
      > And I still remember times when I was able to replace battery manually at home. This is definitely an issue, but it's not the same issue as planned obsolescence.
      - fsflover 6y ago
        Why is it not the same issue? By preventing the users to replace the battery, you force them to buy a new device after a couple of years.
        ska 6y ago
        > Why is it not the same issue? Because the design choices are pretty easily argued to have been made for reasons other than reducing user access, but have the side effect of reducing user access. Both size/weight constraints and case integrity drive you to the same sort of thing. To be clear, I think it's fine to call out a company for planned obsolescence, and I think it's fine to call them out for emphasizing size, etc. over user serviceability. I just don't think it's useful to pretend they are the same thing.
Der_Einzige 6y ago
We know for a fact that Apple was artificially lowering their battery capacity, and that's most likely just the beginning. The PR speak about it being done to protect batteries is BS and we all know it. It incentivizes more purchasing. Much like how the GTA5 loading bug was never solved because it led to more advertisements for digital currency being forced upon one's eyes... Every update I get on my mac, or Iphone slows it down. Bloat and "protecting the users battery" are the root causes, and ultimately Apple is one of the best examples of a company "artificially shortening" things via design choices.
- zepto 6y ago
  > We know for a fact that Apple was artificially lowering their battery capacity. This is completely false.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    Apple artificially decreased the performance (not lowered the battery), which is why they were fined.
    - zepto 6y ago
      Firstly, thanks for confirming that that the parent poster was posting a false statement. Secondly, as you must be aware, the reason Apple decreased the performance was to extend the useful lifetime of the battery. The fine was because they didn’t explain this properly in advance, not because they did it. They still in fact do alter the device performance to accommodate aging batteries and make them last longer. This is a really silly issue to raise if the argument is about Apple shortening lifetimes of devices or batteries, since it makes the device usable for longer.
      - fsflover 6y ago
        Imagine your phone with a still good working battery gets significantly slower "to extend the useful lifetime of the battery"...
shard 6y ago
I'm going a little bit on a tangent here, and this may not apply so much to recent Apple phones, but Apple phones had planned obsolescence in terms of the design of their physical appearance such that you can tell almost instantly which generation it is. This allows broadcasting of status, that this person can afford the latest while that person can only afford to use a 2-year-old phone, thus artificially driving the upgrade cycle.
- zepto 6y ago
  That isn’t planned obsolescence, because the people who upgrade for status reasons don’t destroy their phones - they either pass them on or trade them in. Arguably it’s the opposite of planned obsolescence - even used phones are not obsolete and are still in circulation. It’s also worth pointing out that this is Apple’s stated policy - they want phones to last longer so that more people have them and they can continue to sell services to them.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    > That isn’t planned obsolescence, because the people who upgrade for status reasons don’t destroy their phones This has nothing to do with the definition of planned obsolescence. It does not matter what people do with the old phones.
    - zepto 6y ago
      It obviously does. If the phones are still in service, then by definition they are not obsolete.
      - fsflover 6y ago
        Reread the thread. In this thread, the OP is speaking about design obsolescence.
        zepto 6y ago
        > Reread the thread. In this thread, the OP is speaking about design obsolescence. I don’t need to reread it. My response applies to design obsolescence. Relatively few people upgrade every year these days. The fact that the old devices are still desirable negates the idea that people don’t want them because they look outdated. I.e. changes in design are not causing people to stop using the devices. For design obsolescence to apply to Apple, workable devices would need to be retired from service early because they were no longer seen as desirable. That isn’t happening.

It's only planned obsolescence if the lifetime of a product is artificially shortened by design choices. It's not clear this applies here.

by ska 6y ago

It's only planned obsolescence if the lifetime of a product is artificially shortened by design choices. It's not clear this applies here.

fsflover 6y ago

I would say it is artificially shortened by design choices. It is a perfectly capable device, the harware is still fast and secure. However, I am just not allowed to fix the software, even if I have enough resources for that. This is exactly why we need free software.

ska 6y ago
> I would say it is artificially shortened by design choices. The design choices have to be made to artificially shorten the life, not for any other purpose. For example, I can make a device cheaper and use cheaper materials that wear out faster - that's not planned obsolescence. However if I include a little plastic tab that I know will break before everything else for no good reason other than making it break faster - that is. I suspect you'll have a hard time arguing compellingly that the purpose of apples closed update system was to shorten the useful life, rather than as a side effect of other product and design goals. Phones are sort of a bad example, because for a long time the replacement cycle was driven by actual technical obsolescence, arguably only relatively recently has this ceased to be the case.
- fsflover 6y ago
  > the purpopse of apples closed update system was to shorten the useful life, rather than as a side effect of other product and design goals So what is the reason to prevent updates of software after the support is over? This is a classical software anti-feature.
  - ska 6y ago
    I suspect the main driver was consistency of experience. Obviously they didn't always nail this.
  - google234123 6y ago
    IT's a ton of work to make and push updates.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      I am not speaking about making updates. I am speaking about preventing users from making them.
      - zepto 6y ago
        You know the answer to that - it prevent large classes of social engineering attack and is part of the overall security model.
        fsflover 6y ago
        Even when the device is no longer supported?
        zepto 6y ago
        I fully support allowing the device itself to have alternative OS installations after the end of official support. The reason 1st gen iPads don’t have this is fairly obvious though - the unlocking feature is itself a likely vector for attacks e.g. by law enforcement unlocking tools, etc. I’m not sure what it would take to enable it to be done securely without destroying the overall security model but it’s clearly not trivial, and would take some investment that certainly wasn’t possible at the time the 1st gen device was released.

splix 6y ago

I cannot replace a battery on a perfectly working iPad otherwise, and Apple is charging almost a price of a new device to replace it for me, i.e. they are basially forcing me to buy a new one. Wondering, can that be called a planned obsolescence or not?

Karunamon 6y ago
If we're talking about an unsupported devices, aren't the downsides of third party repairs basically moot? There are any number of above-board companies that you can ship your device to and will do a battery swap for you so long as batteries are available.
- splix 6y ago
  Yeah, that's what I did. Found an unofficial repair and replaced the battery for less that $100. Anyway, I don't think it should be so hard to replace a battery. And I still remember times when I was able to replace battery manually at home.
  - ska 6y ago
    > And I still remember times when I was able to replace battery manually at home. This is definitely an issue, but it's not the same issue as planned obsolescence.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      Why is it not the same issue? By preventing the users to replace the battery, you force them to buy a new device after a couple of years.
      - ska 6y ago
        > Why is it not the same issue? Because the design choices are pretty easily argued to have been made for reasons other than reducing user access, but have the side effect of reducing user access. Both size/weight constraints and case integrity drive you to the same sort of thing. To be clear, I think it's fine to call out a company for planned obsolescence, and I think it's fine to call them out for emphasizing size, etc. over user serviceability. I just don't think it's useful to pretend they are the same thing.

Der_Einzige 6y ago

We know for a fact that Apple was artificially lowering their battery capacity, and that's most likely just the beginning. The PR speak about it being done to protect batteries is BS and we all know it. It incentivizes more purchasing. Much like how the GTA5 loading bug was never solved because it led to more advertisements for digital currency being forced upon one's eyes... Every update I get on my mac, or Iphone slows it down. Bloat and "protecting the users battery" are the root causes, and ultimately Apple is one of the best examples of a company "artificially shortening" things via design choices.

zepto 6y ago
> We know for a fact that Apple was artificially lowering their battery capacity. This is completely false.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Apple artificially decreased the performance (not lowered the battery), which is why they were fined.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Firstly, thanks for confirming that that the parent poster was posting a false statement. Secondly, as you must be aware, the reason Apple decreased the performance was to extend the useful lifetime of the battery. The fine was because they didn’t explain this properly in advance, not because they did it. They still in fact do alter the device performance to accommodate aging batteries and make them last longer. This is a really silly issue to raise if the argument is about Apple shortening lifetimes of devices or batteries, since it makes the device usable for longer.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      Imagine your phone with a still good working battery gets significantly slower "to extend the useful lifetime of the battery"...

shard 6y ago

I'm going a little bit on a tangent here, and this may not apply so much to recent Apple phones, but Apple phones had planned obsolescence in terms of the design of their physical appearance such that you can tell almost instantly which generation it is. This allows broadcasting of status, that this person can afford the latest while that person can only afford to use a 2-year-old phone, thus artificially driving the upgrade cycle.

zepto 6y ago
That isn’t planned obsolescence, because the people who upgrade for status reasons don’t destroy their phones - they either pass them on or trade them in. Arguably it’s the opposite of planned obsolescence - even used phones are not obsolete and are still in circulation. It’s also worth pointing out that this is Apple’s stated policy - they want phones to last longer so that more people have them and they can continue to sell services to them.
- fsflover 6y ago
  > That isn’t planned obsolescence, because the people who upgrade for status reasons don’t destroy their phones This has nothing to do with the definition of planned obsolescence. It does not matter what people do with the old phones.
  - zepto 6y ago
    It obviously does. If the phones are still in service, then by definition they are not obsolete.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      Reread the thread. In this thread, the OP is speaking about design obsolescence.
      - zepto 6y ago
        > Reread the thread. In this thread, the OP is speaking about design obsolescence. I don’t need to reread it. My response applies to design obsolescence. Relatively few people upgrade every year these days. The fact that the old devices are still desirable negates the idea that people don’t want them because they look outdated. I.e. changes in design are not causing people to stop using the devices. For design obsolescence to apply to Apple, workable devices would need to be retired from service early because they were no longer seen as desirable. That isn’t happening.