6 ms·

A bit extreme but I empathize your position. I’m okay with the PalmOS phones from 2005 not working anymore. Their 2G/EDGE data doesn’t work and the Wi-Fi standa

A bit extreme but I empathize your position. I’m okay with the PalmOS phones from 2005 not working anymore. Their 2G/EDGE data doesn’t work and the Wi-Fi standard they used aren’t compatible with anything anymore either. Not to mention they were incredibly slow and unwieldy even when they were new.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
On the other hand, my desktop is from 2011 and it works fine and Linux happily supports it; 15 years isn't that impractical any more. As time goes on, the pace of change slows and longer life is reasonable; early Android devices may well have been genuinely obsolete inside a year, but current devices aren't even that slow after 4-5 years.
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  For current phones I think 5 years is a good support window, the batteries don't last much longer than that. But if replaceable batteries make a comeback (and I hope they do with the push from the EU), then I definitely agree that more like 10 years should be demanded as reasonable. Especially for something like Android where if you compare a flagship from 5-7 years ago with a brand new Android Go phone the level of performance & feature set is not really that different. So it's not like the OS gets to actually start expecting things like a high end Vulkan capable GPU & neural net accelerators or anything. It still has to work with what is essentially old hardware anyway just in a brand new body.
  - saidinesh5 5y ago
    Batteries and flash storage too wears off on modern day phones imo. So anything beyond 5 years is asking for a lot on a typical smartphone where people share lots of memes and videos everyday.
    - nielsole 5y ago
      Replacing flash chips is probably not beyond the local repair shops capabilities.
  - shard 5y ago
    I gave my tween kid a Galaxy S8 (released 2017) recently and it suites her needs fine. I'd prefer if I don't have to upgrade her phone for another 2-3 years. I'm having trouble finding an Android Go phone released this year, the most recent I can find are from 2020, like the Nokia 1.3. Compared with the Galaxy S8, the Nokia has a lower rez camera, less RAM, lower quality build, lower quality display, lower spec SoC, no biometrics, and no fast charge. Perhaps there are higher spec'd Android Go phones, but at least a 3-year-gap is not enough to overcome the premium-vs-entry-phone tier difference.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    I’ve had a shop replace the battery in my iPhone 6S three times, for ~$50 each time. The batteries aren’t user replaceable, but they are absolutely replaceable.
    - zerof1l 5y ago
      More accurately, the batteries are replaceable, it's just that Apple designed the phone and battery in such a way that replacing it for a regular consumer is too much. You can still replace it yourself, but then you can void your warranty.
      - GeekyBear 5y ago
        >Apple designed the phone and battery in such a way that replacing it for a regular consumer is too much It's pretty easy to find videos showing you how to replace those batteries. >Jerry Rig Everything: iPhone 6S Battery Replacement in 3 minutes (Easy Method) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZBQO1-kQTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZBQO1-kQTQ
- cjsplat 5y ago
  "my desktop is from 2011 and it works fine" Nope - you just think it does. It has been spectre'ed and friends to oblivion. I don't know if security support horizons are going to expand as CPU manufacturers clean up their hardware, but the rear view mirror is a support permutation nightmare.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    I... promise it does. I mean yeah, it can't run untrusted programs at the same speed as before, but it's still perfectly serviceable. And since it can run mainline Linux, it will continue to get those security mitigations with or without the manufacturer helping.
    - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
      Most people don't think fine == it simply does the stuff I ask. Baseline security is a part of many people's requirements.
  - Melatonic 5y ago
    Hasnt that been mitigated with firmware updates and OS patches? I know I isntalled both specifically for Spectre mitigation and it slowed down certain things that I thankfully do not use much. My CPU and Mobo are from 2014
    - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
      Not...well.
    - pabs3 5y ago
      Systems and CPUs that old don't get microcode/BIOS updates any more.
  - throwaway81523 5y ago
    Spectre is a serious concern for virtualization hosts. For a single user desktop, if you're running hostile code that's going to carry out a spectre attack, you are already pwned, so spectre vulnerability is just frosting.
- foresto 5y ago
  For some of us, it's not impractical at all. I have hardware from about that time (plus a six-year-old GPU) that plays many modern games. The 1-5 year upgrade cycles that so many companies are pushing seem criminally wasteful to me.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    It depends what happens to the hardware when they offload it. I'm 100% on board with companies rotating their machines out every few years and selling them to the second-hand market (because that's how I get good hardware at great prices:D). So long as everyone just sells old stuff off, by the time a machine actually gets thrown out for good it can have had a decade+ of life across owners, and everyone along the way got it for cheap.
    - foresto 5y ago
      Few tech manufacturers support reuse in any meaningful way, and I seldom see it in practice. While I'm glad you've managed to include it in your own life, my comment was about the bigger picture. I think we can and should do a lot better as a society.
- dangus 5y ago
  The desktop computer was a much more mature piece of tech by 2011. If you were in 2011 you couldn’t really say the same about a desktop computer from 2000. You’d be comparing a 2/4/6/8 core 64-bit processor to a NetBurst Pentium 4. I think it’s reasonable that relatively young phones aren’t usable at this point in time. But maybe in 2030 I might expect to be able to keep using a phone from 2020, assuming I’ve replaced the battery.
nescioquid 5y ago
Consider what consumer technology might look like if products were designed with this sort of time horizon in the first place. I'd expect hardware to be more generally upgradeable/repairable extending its service life and at the very least I would not expect to see products assembled by drowning them in glue. It feels to me like the generational difference in hardware products has been flattening out so 15 years may not be an outrageous practical service life, really.
Teknoman117 5y ago
I would be fine with Google dropping support, but they should at least let us run a mainline Linux kernel or something on them so that if people want to keep providing support after Google drops them we can. That behavior is the only reason that 15+ year old machines can still run current Linux. There's at least someone out there interested in keeping them working.
- floatboth 5y ago
  Snapdragon 845 and 855 mainlining is going pretty well. e.g.: https://fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/mobile_kernel_snapdragon_845/ https://fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/mobile_kernel_snapdra...

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

On the other hand, my desktop is from 2011 and it works fine and Linux happily supports it; 15 years isn't that impractical any more. As time goes on, the pace of change slows and longer life is reasonable; early Android devices may well have been genuinely obsolete inside a year, but current devices aren't even that slow after 4-5 years.

kllrnohj 5y ago
For current phones I think 5 years is a good support window, the batteries don't last much longer than that. But if replaceable batteries make a comeback (and I hope they do with the push from the EU), then I definitely agree that more like 10 years should be demanded as reasonable. Especially for something like Android where if you compare a flagship from 5-7 years ago with a brand new Android Go phone the level of performance & feature set is not really that different. So it's not like the OS gets to actually start expecting things like a high end Vulkan capable GPU & neural net accelerators or anything. It still has to work with what is essentially old hardware anyway just in a brand new body.
- saidinesh5 5y ago
  Batteries and flash storage too wears off on modern day phones imo. So anything beyond 5 years is asking for a lot on a typical smartphone where people share lots of memes and videos everyday.
  - nielsole 5y ago
    Replacing flash chips is probably not beyond the local repair shops capabilities.
- shard 5y ago
  I gave my tween kid a Galaxy S8 (released 2017) recently and it suites her needs fine. I'd prefer if I don't have to upgrade her phone for another 2-3 years. I'm having trouble finding an Android Go phone released this year, the most recent I can find are from 2020, like the Nokia 1.3. Compared with the Galaxy S8, the Nokia has a lower rez camera, less RAM, lower quality build, lower quality display, lower spec SoC, no biometrics, and no fast charge. Perhaps there are higher spec'd Android Go phones, but at least a 3-year-gap is not enough to overcome the premium-vs-entry-phone tier difference.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  I’ve had a shop replace the battery in my iPhone 6S three times, for ~$50 each time. The batteries aren’t user replaceable, but they are absolutely replaceable.
  - zerof1l 5y ago
    More accurately, the batteries are replaceable, it's just that Apple designed the phone and battery in such a way that replacing it for a regular consumer is too much. You can still replace it yourself, but then you can void your warranty.
    - GeekyBear 5y ago
      >Apple designed the phone and battery in such a way that replacing it for a regular consumer is too much It's pretty easy to find videos showing you how to replace those batteries. >Jerry Rig Everything: iPhone 6S Battery Replacement in 3 minutes (Easy Method) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZBQO1-kQTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZBQO1-kQTQ
cjsplat 5y ago
"my desktop is from 2011 and it works fine" Nope - you just think it does. It has been spectre'ed and friends to oblivion. I don't know if security support horizons are going to expand as CPU manufacturers clean up their hardware, but the rear view mirror is a support permutation nightmare.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  I... promise it does. I mean yeah, it can't run untrusted programs at the same speed as before, but it's still perfectly serviceable. And since it can run mainline Linux, it will continue to get those security mitigations with or without the manufacturer helping.
  - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
    Most people don't think fine == it simply does the stuff I ask. Baseline security is a part of many people's requirements.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  Hasnt that been mitigated with firmware updates and OS patches? I know I isntalled both specifically for Spectre mitigation and it slowed down certain things that I thankfully do not use much. My CPU and Mobo are from 2014
  - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
    Not...well.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    Systems and CPUs that old don't get microcode/BIOS updates any more.
- throwaway81523 5y ago
  Spectre is a serious concern for virtualization hosts. For a single user desktop, if you're running hostile code that's going to carry out a spectre attack, you are already pwned, so spectre vulnerability is just frosting.
foresto 5y ago
For some of us, it's not impractical at all. I have hardware from about that time (plus a six-year-old GPU) that plays many modern games. The 1-5 year upgrade cycles that so many companies are pushing seem criminally wasteful to me.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  It depends what happens to the hardware when they offload it. I'm 100% on board with companies rotating their machines out every few years and selling them to the second-hand market (because that's how I get good hardware at great prices:D). So long as everyone just sells old stuff off, by the time a machine actually gets thrown out for good it can have had a decade+ of life across owners, and everyone along the way got it for cheap.
  - foresto 5y ago
    Few tech manufacturers support reuse in any meaningful way, and I seldom see it in practice. While I'm glad you've managed to include it in your own life, my comment was about the bigger picture. I think we can and should do a lot better as a society.
dangus 5y ago
The desktop computer was a much more mature piece of tech by 2011. If you were in 2011 you couldn’t really say the same about a desktop computer from 2000. You’d be comparing a 2/4/6/8 core 64-bit processor to a NetBurst Pentium 4. I think it’s reasonable that relatively young phones aren’t usable at this point in time. But maybe in 2030 I might expect to be able to keep using a phone from 2020, assuming I’ve replaced the battery.

nescioquid 5y ago

Consider what consumer technology might look like if products were designed with this sort of time horizon in the first place. I'd expect hardware to be more generally upgradeable/repairable extending its service life and at the very least I would not expect to see products assembled by drowning them in glue. It feels to me like the generational difference in hardware products has been flattening out so 15 years may not be an outrageous practical service life, really.

Teknoman117 5y ago

I would be fine with Google dropping support, but they should at least let us run a mainline Linux kernel or something on them so that if people want to keep providing support after Google drops them we can. That behavior is the only reason that 15+ year old machines can still run current Linux. There's at least someone out there interested in keeping them working.

floatboth 5y ago
Snapdragon 845 and 855 mainlining is going pretty well. e.g.: https://fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/mobile_kernel_snapdragon_845/ https://fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/mobile_kernel_snapdra...