7 ms·

To play devil’s advocate here, I actually think iPhones have some of the best longevity and resale value, compared to virtually any other product or brand - exc

To play devil’s advocate here, I actually think iPhones have some of the best longevity and resale value, compared to virtually any other product or brand - except perhaps if we go back decades to appliances made near the middle of the century. The fact that a device can be perfectly usable for 5+ years is pretty good compared to most other things I find myself buying and replacing in less time. Otherwise I think the only real “solution” to this is to rethink your notion of a phone. Personally I tend to use WhatsApp, email, and other non-phone-specific applications, and don’t use the actual phone feature very often. So theoretically I could use any small computing device and upgrade its components as needed, and not need to have a phone at all.

solstice 2y ago
That could work (given sufficiently good build-out of the data network), but for the mid-term you'd still need to have a way to receive SMS for 2FA etc.
- keiferski 2y ago
  Google Voice or Twilio could solve this, I think?
  - lifestyleguru 2y ago
    Their phone number ranges and oftentimes gray or blacklisted.
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  I want "2FA device in a drawer". Always on, on a mute, receiving SMS, and forwarding them to the system of my choice (CalDAV, email, etc).
- nicolas_t 2y ago
  It gets worse, the banks I use have phased out sms for 2FA. Only using their app on a non-rooted phone is allowed. So getting a dumb phone doesn't work either.
  - lifestyleguru 2y ago
    What's even worse that these bank apps always force an update to the latest version, which also sometimes requires updating the OS of the device. Then you are captive audience so they don't care about UX or your experience, so e.g. at my bank confirming an action takes three taps: "confirm" button inside the app, then checkbox with some kind of consent they always sneak in (dark pattern), then the "yes" system popup.
    - mrweasel 2y ago
      SMS for 2FA is being phased out due to security concerns, but I don't get why they aren't using plain TOTP, so you can use any authenticator app you'd like. My bank did solve the issue in a pretty clever way though. Their phone app is so terrible that I refuse to use it. Sadly there new web version is also terrible, e.g. you can't copy paste when doing a transfer, so rather than being 100% sure the amount is correct, you get to type it in and double check it.
      - iggldiggl 2y ago
        > but I don't get why they aren't using plain TOTP, so you can use any authenticator app you'd like Compared to the non-app solutions I'm familiar with in Germany, TOTP lacks at least two things: 1. There are no guarantees as to what happens to the shared secret (whereas at least some of these alternative solutions use your debit card as a smartcard to securely store the secret). From an individual point of view I guess that's perhaps a welcome trade-off (no backup solution except for manually registering a second key everywhere is part of the reason I'm not keen on Yubikeys and the like for replacing all my logins), but banks might have differing opinions. 2. Perhaps more importantly, you can't really authenticate the individual transaction, because the TOTP is only based on the (fixed) shared secret and the current time. The TAN generator solutions I'm familiar with on the other hand also include the destination account and sum of money to be transferred in the TAN calculation (and those get displayed for confirmation on the TAN generator's display), so a malicious website impersonating your bank's online banking can't forge those things.
skrebbel 2y ago
> The fact that a device can be perfectly usable for 5+ years is pretty good compared to most other things I find myself buying and replacing in less time. Woa. Nearly every other device in my house lasts for 10+ years. Coffee machine, printer, laundry machine, oven, TV, every single one of those is over 10 years old. Our car isn't yet but I very much expect it to last at least that long. The only device I replace about as often as a phone is my laptop. At least the laptop is noticeably better. I concur with the author that phones haven't gotten meaningfully better at all over the last years, yet we're forced to upgrade. It's all planned obsolescence.
- keiferski 2y ago
  I think you’re probably buying higher quality items, yes? Because there’s no way a $50-100 coffee machine or printer is lasting a decade. This can probably be explained by the fact that an iPhone is a “cheaper” (comparatively) high end item. In other words, it’s one of the few high end items that many middle and low income people own. And thus compared to the coffee machines, printers, and other cheap electronics that break after a couple years, the iPhone seems rather durable.
  - Cheezmeister 2y ago
    > Because there’s no way a $50-100 coffee machine or printer is lasting a decade. There absolutely is. Viz. the no-name drip machine I picked up at Goodwill for $10 and is probably older than me. The heating element makes the water boil, and it trickles over the grounds and becomes my morning salvation. Viz. the Brother laser printer ca. 2013 for $99 (in, admittedly, 2013 dollars). I had to replace the toner once, it was slightly annoying. Neither of these items has an app. Longevity ≈ Quality / Complexity where Quality ≠ Price
    - keiferski 2y ago
      Your experience is different than mine, then. At least 50% of the cheap electronic devices I've purchased end up breaking in a year or two.
  - 2y ago
bambax 2y ago
> compared to most other things What other things? In my home most appliances are 15+ years old -- ovens, washing machines, even most Sonos things are around 20 years old. My Yamaha PF-P 100, bought in 1994, still works perfectly well. A smartphone is certainly more complex than a MIDI keyboard, but why would we need to upgrade the OS constantly.
- mplewis 2y ago
  Security.
  - pbmonster 2y ago
    Nothing inherent makes security on 7 year old hardware any more difficult than on 2 year old hardware. Also, we're getting into the differences between upgrades (what OP said) and updates (the thing necessary to keep up with security) here. I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. I would have been perfectly content with only getting security updates since.
    - frackintoaster 2y ago
      This is.. not true. A lot of hardware change is involved in modern mobile device security. Apple has come a long way from the iPhone 7 in hardware security and no amount of patching software is going to introduce a new cryptographic coprocessor.
      - pbmonster 2y ago
        This is true, but most of that hardware security makes the devices harder to access once stolen/confiscated. For everyday use, against online threats, 7 year old hardware can be made extremely secure - it's what Windows 10 and Linux do every day on much, much older hardware. And sure, a cryptographic coprocessor will make accessing encrypted data a lot more snappy. But decrypting that data in software instead will work just as well, albeit slower. Which really doesn't matter for 90%+ of phone users.
ahmedfromtunis 2y ago
I'm typing this on my 5-year old Samsung A30 that, aside from a screen crack I take full responsibility for, is still in perfect working conditions. I never encountered any app that refuses to install despite my device being stuck on Android 11. The only reason this sometimes happen is because of geofencing, or apps built for Pixel phones. I only started to look for acquiring a new device because telecom operators are readying for a 5G launch next year, for which my current device is incompatible hardware-wise. And unless something unexpected is happening, I'm going to get the A35, ie the latest version of the same lineage.
- abtinf 2y ago
  Just out of curiosity (I’m not familiar with the current state of android software support) does your phone still get security updates and, assuming it does, how much longer do you expect them to continue?
  - marsovo 2y ago
    Samsung is top-tier by Android standards. 4 years of security updates and 3 years of OS upgrades (minimum - some devices, such as the premium models, get more than that). Better than Google themselves when last I checked, which is shameful.
    - lynndotpy 2y ago
      Google now promises seven years of OS and security updates. The latest Pixels should be supported until August or September 2031. That said, I don't trust Google, and would recommend filling out the arbitration optout form when you receive the device.
      - throwaway48476 2y ago
        It's crazy that they don't put a scare screen for arbitration before checkout.
xorcist 2y ago
> The fact that a device can be perfectly usable for 5+ years is pretty good No. No, it's not good at all. For almost every other product it would be deemed unacceptable. Beyond unacceptable even. We should not normalize this. My car is > 10 years old. My desktop computer is > 10 years old. My laptop has had both the screen and battery changed. And the fan, multiple times. I don't know how old my laser printer is, probably twice as old, it doesn't see much use. Users would never accept if Linux or Windows stopped supporting five year old architectures. It would be an uproar, and rightly so. A phone no longer a toy, it is a tool among others. Five years is hardly enough to get to know a tool. You should just swap out the battery when it goes bad. You should not have to worry about software at all. That people accept this is a travesty.
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  My wife’s Thinkpad which is less than five years old won’t run Windows 11.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    Is that because of IBM, or Microsoft? Or both?
    - Narishma 2y ago
      IBM hasn't made a Thinkpad for 2 decades now.
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      It's because older computers don't support TPM, the hardware is generally fine because Windows 11 doesn't really need anything that isn't supported by Windows 10 or realistically what was required by 7 or 8.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  For most people a phone is a monthly payment. One of the rewards that keeps them paying is that every few years they get an "upgrade." The phone companies and the mobile carriers very smartly followed the car model of selling: they sell a payment, and when the balance is paid off they offer a trade-in/upgrade (and a new loan). If you resist, you eventually stop getting support. For the same reason, many car dealerships don't work on cars more than 10 years old. They keep their techs focused on the newer stuff, and increasingly pressure owners of older cars to trade them in. Fortunately for car owners, there is a robust market of, and legal requirements to allow, parts and independent service shops for older cars. We don't have nearly that kind of support for older phones.
eesmith 2y ago
> iPhones have some of the best longevity You can't really be playing devil's advocate when you agree with the author, who wrote "Apple seems the best at supporting older devices, and yet I don't actually expect them to support hardware for longer than that." > except perhaps if we go back decades to appliances made near the middle of the century Nokia made some very robust phones far more recently than that. The "Indestructible Nokia 3310" is a meme, http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/indestructible-nokia-3310 http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/indestructible-nokia-3310 .
aswerty 2y ago
If you are saying his experience (which is bad) is the best experience you can get. Rather than playing devils advocate, I think you are supporting his argument. If we were to play devils advocate, I think the best argument is that in an early technology cycle (which arguably smart phones still are). There is a reasonable expectation that the phone will move into obsolescence before the hardware expires. How you square the concept of sustainable/long-lived products and technological advancement is of course the predicament we find ourselves in. The answer is of course modularity and repairability. So companies like Framework or Fair Phone is who you should be buying from (both with their own foibles). Whereas if you look at the philosophy of Apple you shouldn't ever think they value agency of the user/owner.

solstice 2y ago

That could work (given sufficiently good build-out of the data network), but for the mid-term you'd still need to have a way to receive SMS for 2FA etc.

keiferski 2y ago
Google Voice or Twilio could solve this, I think?
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  Their phone number ranges and oftentimes gray or blacklisted.
lifestyleguru 2y ago
I want "2FA device in a drawer". Always on, on a mute, receiving SMS, and forwarding them to the system of my choice (CalDAV, email, etc).
nicolas_t 2y ago
It gets worse, the banks I use have phased out sms for 2FA. Only using their app on a non-rooted phone is allowed. So getting a dumb phone doesn't work either.
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  What's even worse that these bank apps always force an update to the latest version, which also sometimes requires updating the OS of the device. Then you are captive audience so they don't care about UX or your experience, so e.g. at my bank confirming an action takes three taps: "confirm" button inside the app, then checkbox with some kind of consent they always sneak in (dark pattern), then the "yes" system popup.
  - mrweasel 2y ago
    SMS for 2FA is being phased out due to security concerns, but I don't get why they aren't using plain TOTP, so you can use any authenticator app you'd like. My bank did solve the issue in a pretty clever way though. Their phone app is so terrible that I refuse to use it. Sadly there new web version is also terrible, e.g. you can't copy paste when doing a transfer, so rather than being 100% sure the amount is correct, you get to type it in and double check it.
    - iggldiggl 2y ago
      > but I don't get why they aren't using plain TOTP, so you can use any authenticator app you'd like Compared to the non-app solutions I'm familiar with in Germany, TOTP lacks at least two things: 1. There are no guarantees as to what happens to the shared secret (whereas at least some of these alternative solutions use your debit card as a smartcard to securely store the secret). From an individual point of view I guess that's perhaps a welcome trade-off (no backup solution except for manually registering a second key everywhere is part of the reason I'm not keen on Yubikeys and the like for replacing all my logins), but banks might have differing opinions. 2. Perhaps more importantly, you can't really authenticate the individual transaction, because the TOTP is only based on the (fixed) shared secret and the current time. The TAN generator solutions I'm familiar with on the other hand also include the destination account and sum of money to be transferred in the TAN calculation (and those get displayed for confirmation on the TAN generator's display), so a malicious website impersonating your bank's online banking can't forge those things.

skrebbel 2y ago

> The fact that a device can be perfectly usable for 5+ years is pretty good compared to most other things I find myself buying and replacing in less time. Woa. Nearly every other device in my house lasts for 10+ years. Coffee machine, printer, laundry machine, oven, TV, every single one of those is over 10 years old. Our car isn't yet but I very much expect it to last at least that long. The only device I replace about as often as a phone is my laptop. At least the laptop is noticeably better. I concur with the author that phones haven't gotten meaningfully better at all over the last years, yet we're forced to upgrade. It's all planned obsolescence.

keiferski 2y ago
I think you’re probably buying higher quality items, yes? Because there’s no way a $50-100 coffee machine or printer is lasting a decade. This can probably be explained by the fact that an iPhone is a “cheaper” (comparatively) high end item. In other words, it’s one of the few high end items that many middle and low income people own. And thus compared to the coffee machines, printers, and other cheap electronics that break after a couple years, the iPhone seems rather durable.
- Cheezmeister 2y ago
  > Because there’s no way a $50-100 coffee machine or printer is lasting a decade. There absolutely is. Viz. the no-name drip machine I picked up at Goodwill for $10 and is probably older than me. The heating element makes the water boil, and it trickles over the grounds and becomes my morning salvation. Viz. the Brother laser printer ca. 2013 for $99 (in, admittedly, 2013 dollars). I had to replace the toner once, it was slightly annoying. Neither of these items has an app. Longevity ≈ Quality / Complexity where Quality ≠ Price
  - keiferski 2y ago
    Your experience is different than mine, then. At least 50% of the cheap electronic devices I've purchased end up breaking in a year or two.
- 2y ago

bambax 2y ago

> compared to most other things What other things? In my home most appliances are 15+ years old -- ovens, washing machines, even most Sonos things are around 20 years old. My Yamaha PF-P 100, bought in 1994, still works perfectly well. A smartphone is certainly more complex than a MIDI keyboard, but why would we need to upgrade the OS constantly.

mplewis 2y ago
Security.
- pbmonster 2y ago
  Nothing inherent makes security on 7 year old hardware any more difficult than on 2 year old hardware. Also, we're getting into the differences between upgrades (what OP said) and updates (the thing necessary to keep up with security) here. I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. I would have been perfectly content with only getting security updates since.
  - frackintoaster 2y ago
    This is.. not true. A lot of hardware change is involved in modern mobile device security. Apple has come a long way from the iPhone 7 in hardware security and no amount of patching software is going to introduce a new cryptographic coprocessor.
    - pbmonster 2y ago
      This is true, but most of that hardware security makes the devices harder to access once stolen/confiscated. For everyday use, against online threats, 7 year old hardware can be made extremely secure - it's what Windows 10 and Linux do every day on much, much older hardware. And sure, a cryptographic coprocessor will make accessing encrypted data a lot more snappy. But decrypting that data in software instead will work just as well, albeit slower. Which really doesn't matter for 90%+ of phone users.

ahmedfromtunis 2y ago

I'm typing this on my 5-year old Samsung A30 that, aside from a screen crack I take full responsibility for, is still in perfect working conditions. I never encountered any app that refuses to install despite my device being stuck on Android 11. The only reason this sometimes happen is because of geofencing, or apps built for Pixel phones. I only started to look for acquiring a new device because telecom operators are readying for a 5G launch next year, for which my current device is incompatible hardware-wise. And unless something unexpected is happening, I'm going to get the A35, ie the latest version of the same lineage.

abtinf 2y ago
Just out of curiosity (I’m not familiar with the current state of android software support) does your phone still get security updates and, assuming it does, how much longer do you expect them to continue?
- marsovo 2y ago
  Samsung is top-tier by Android standards. 4 years of security updates and 3 years of OS upgrades (minimum - some devices, such as the premium models, get more than that). Better than Google themselves when last I checked, which is shameful.
  - lynndotpy 2y ago
    Google now promises seven years of OS and security updates. The latest Pixels should be supported until August or September 2031. That said, I don't trust Google, and would recommend filling out the arbitration optout form when you receive the device.
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      It's crazy that they don't put a scare screen for arbitration before checkout.

xorcist 2y ago

> The fact that a device can be perfectly usable for 5+ years is pretty good No. No, it's not good at all. For almost every other product it would be deemed unacceptable. Beyond unacceptable even. We should not normalize this. My car is > 10 years old. My desktop computer is > 10 years old. My laptop has had both the screen and battery changed. And the fan, multiple times. I don't know how old my laser printer is, probably twice as old, it doesn't see much use. Users would never accept if Linux or Windows stopped supporting five year old architectures. It would be an uproar, and rightly so. A phone no longer a toy, it is a tool among others. Five years is hardly enough to get to know a tool. You should just swap out the battery when it goes bad. You should not have to worry about software at all. That people accept this is a travesty.

tonyedgecombe 2y ago
My wife’s Thinkpad which is less than five years old won’t run Windows 11.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  Is that because of IBM, or Microsoft? Or both?
  - Narishma 2y ago
    IBM hasn't made a Thinkpad for 2 decades now.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    It's because older computers don't support TPM, the hardware is generally fine because Windows 11 doesn't really need anything that isn't supported by Windows 10 or realistically what was required by 7 or 8.
SoftTalker 2y ago
For most people a phone is a monthly payment. One of the rewards that keeps them paying is that every few years they get an "upgrade." The phone companies and the mobile carriers very smartly followed the car model of selling: they sell a payment, and when the balance is paid off they offer a trade-in/upgrade (and a new loan). If you resist, you eventually stop getting support. For the same reason, many car dealerships don't work on cars more than 10 years old. They keep their techs focused on the newer stuff, and increasingly pressure owners of older cars to trade them in. Fortunately for car owners, there is a robust market of, and legal requirements to allow, parts and independent service shops for older cars. We don't have nearly that kind of support for older phones.

eesmith 2y ago

> iPhones have some of the best longevity You can't really be playing devil's advocate when you agree with the author, who wrote "Apple seems the best at supporting older devices, and yet I don't actually expect them to support hardware for longer than that." > except perhaps if we go back decades to appliances made near the middle of the century Nokia made some very robust phones far more recently than that. The "Indestructible Nokia 3310" is a meme, http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/indestructible-nokia-3310 http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/indestructible-nokia-3310 .

aswerty 2y ago

If you are saying his experience (which is bad) is the best experience you can get. Rather than playing devils advocate, I think you are supporting his argument. If we were to play devils advocate, I think the best argument is that in an early technology cycle (which arguably smart phones still are). There is a reasonable expectation that the phone will move into obsolescence before the hardware expires. How you square the concept of sustainable/long-lived products and technological advancement is of course the predicament we find ourselves in. The answer is of course modularity and repairability. So companies like Framework or Fair Phone is who you should be buying from (both with their own foibles). Whereas if you look at the philosophy of Apple you shouldn't ever think they value agency of the user/owner.