5 ms·

I had to respond, not because I think you are wrong, but because I have had almost exactly the opposite experience and conclusions from you apparently. > iPhon

by xnyan 1y ago

I had to respond, not because I think you are wrong, but because I have had almost exactly the opposite experience and conclusions from you apparently. > iPhone 7 I still have one as a TV device for me and my son to watch paw patrol. I can only speak for the set of apps I use on it, but as of a few hours ago they all still work (streaming, email, browser. no banking or other apps in that class). I am looking to replace it as it's no longer getting updates as of this march. >This phone is not that old Kind of very confused by this. It's 9 years old, it just stopped getting security updates three months ago. Is there anything even close to that outside of the iphone world? I do own android devices, I don't have anything android and nine years old that can turn on much less run an application.

ryandrake 1y ago
I think it’s weird how confused people get when you suggest a 9 year old electronic device should work. Every computer in my house is over 10 years old. My A/V receiver and home theater speakers are 15 years old. My TV is 18 years old. My electronic thermostat is 11 years old. While they no longer receive firmware updates, they all continue to work as well as they worked on the day I bought them. For some reason, nobody expects this of phones and tablets. The manufacturer cuts you off from updates and now somehow you’re obsolete! The 3rd party developer ecosystem pulls their old-device-supporting apps, and suddenly the device is useless. I don’t know why we accept this! What is so special about phones where we allow them to be considered obsolete so quickly?
- abtinf 1y ago
  > My TV is 18 years old … they all continue to work as well as they worked on the day I bought them. This is unlikely to be true. The process is slow so you may not have noticed it, but the tv is probably much dimmer than when it was brand new. You may have a reasonable point about device longevity, but comparing full blown, internet connected, general purpose computing devices to an A/V receiver is obviously intentionally obtuse.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    It's a Hitachi 42 inch plasma and it still looks absolutely beautiful. Not a single problem with it in almost two decades. Want to know what failed first? The goddamn Mac Mini I have attached to it as a HTPC, where, after "upgrading" to Big Sur or Monterrey, suddenly Apple just up and decided to drop 1080i resolution support (the TV only supports 1080i, not 1080p). The weakest link, in terms of longevity, is always the software developer.
    - pasc1878 1y ago
      You have undercut your case here. The TV works and had not been upgraded. The mac mini works if you did not upgrade it. The weakest link is doing an upgrade, it does not matter which hardware.
      - ndiddy 1y ago
        I think it’s unreasonable that Apple sold a device that is capable of displaying 1080i and then disabled it in a software update. Doing stuff like that encourages users to not update and leave themselves vulnerable to security threats.
- dcow 1y ago
  It may be an unfortunate relic of the carrier upgrade economics. Most people, in the US at least, on a subscription phone plan get essentially a new phone for free every 2 years. Things are changing a little lately and now it’s not quite a free phone but a heavily discounted one, but it’s still pretty reasonable to expect most of your uses won’t have phone much more than a few years old. I guess that means if we want to see this change we need to stop trading up every other year. Which would mean carriers need to stop charging $70/mo for a phone line. Etc. I don’t upgrade my thermostat yearly, the economics are different, and so the product approach is too. My thermostat also doesn't come everywhere I go on a daily basis and doesn't run apps (it’s not a general purpose computing platform that needs to grow more powerful as software becomes more demanding. Also I have to add: phones are a fashion statement. Old phones do work, they’re just not cool. Nobody cares about the AV receiver sitting in your tv console as long as it’s amplifying audio. The tech hasn’t changed in years. Well unless your receiver does video, in which case I am certain your 15 year old audio receiver is not capable of 4k 120 HDMI handling. Update that TV to a 4k panel and your receiver will need a bump too.
  - matwood 1y ago
    The one thing in phones that was pulling people along to upgrade was the camera, but even that is leveling off now.
  - testing22321 1y ago
    > get essentially a new phone for free every 2 years What you mean to say is the payments for the phone (and the interest for the loan) are just bundled into the monthly plan. The phone is categorically not free, the payment is just obfuscated to the point that many people don’t understand.
    - dcow 1y ago
      Of course. Either way you’re getting what you pay for and there’s no way to select “I don’t want a free phone every two years take $15 off my monthly payment please”. It kinda is moving that way now, though. The monthly cost for new hardware is increasingly more optional and better delineated from the phone service. But thats’s new stuff—it will take awhile for things to percolate down.
- socalgal2 1y ago
  I am sympathetic to the argument/feeling that somethings last a long time therefore all things should last a long time. > What is so special about phones where we allow them to be considered obsolete so quickly? The phone / computer works exactly as it did when you bought it. What changed is everything around it. That's not true of those other things. New video codex, new services, new sites, new apps. Let's pick ChatGPT. They have app. It's about 2 years old? It strictly costs them more money to cover older hardware than just not supporting it. And, going forward, each year they want to support the newest phones/OS but keeping support for both strictly increases costs. I work on a project that run on nearly every device (Windows/Mac/Linux/iOS/Android) and we are always evaluating which devices we can stop supporting and what new devices we need to add to our testing infra going forward. Your 18yr old TV is great. It works exactly as it did when you bought it. But for example, let say your TV was 25 years old. It wouldn't have HDMI and there for, without expensive adapters, would not work with an XBox, PS5, Switch (afaik). The point is, your TV does exactly what it did when you bought it. No changes. For a smartphone to keep working requires constant changes. As a simple example, HEIF images didn't exist before. JPEG's with gain maps didn't exist. Zoom didn't exist. Etc... Your phone needs constant updating. Your TV, A/V receiver, speakers, thermostat do not. It costs money to keep the phone up to date. It costs nothing to keep the TV, A/V receiver, speakers and termostat up to date because there is nothing to update
  - chii 1y ago
    But apple explicitly tries to make the environment around the old phone obsolete. They have an incentive to do so. Your old TV still works even with an adaptor - but there's no such a method for the phone. I want my phone to work until the hardware fails, not when apple decides they want to push people to buy a new one next quarter.
    - Terretta 1y ago
      > "I want my phone to work until the hardware fails... But apple explicitly tries to make the environment around the old phone obsolete." As of December 31, 2022, U.S. telcos* decommed the 3G tech phones of the mid-2000s used. As long as your iPhone can still use the telco network, it still does the functions it shipped with just fine. A phone's environment depends on a lot more than its hardware maker. (FWIW, thanks to its different incentives than other handset makers, Apple continues to offer the longest average OS support of the hardware and OS giants. Google's Pixel 8 is the first to bump Google's 3 years to match Apple's 7, and Samsung's S24 also finally matches 7 years. So on current devices, they stepped up, but on devices before 2023, Apple's support is more than double theirs. Arguably, these two finally stepping up were in response to the "environment" of Apple's incentives and EU regs.) * Verizon was the last. AT&T turned off its 3G network on February 22, 2022. T-Mobile dismantled Sprint's 3G CDMA network on March 31, 2022, and its own 3G UMTS network on July 1, 2022.
- kristianp 1y ago
  I agree. Phones aren't increasing in performance all that fast any more and the use cases haven't really changed. OS and sdk makers should start to consider their tools "mature" and stop breaking compatibility with each and every update. Something like the Go 1.0 compatibility promise.
- pabs3 1y ago
  > My TV is 18 years old. Here they have turned off analog TV signals over a decade ago, and the national broadcaster are about to turn off standard definition digital TV signals in favour of high definition.
eviks 1y ago
> It's 9 years old, it just stopped getting security updates three months ago. Is there anything even close to that outside of the iphone world? Of course there is, just take a look at any computer/laptop.

by xnyan 1y ago

ryandrake 1y ago

I think it’s weird how confused people get when you suggest a 9 year old electronic device should work. Every computer in my house is over 10 years old. My A/V receiver and home theater speakers are 15 years old. My TV is 18 years old. My electronic thermostat is 11 years old. While they no longer receive firmware updates, they all continue to work as well as they worked on the day I bought them. For some reason, nobody expects this of phones and tablets. The manufacturer cuts you off from updates and now somehow you’re obsolete! The 3rd party developer ecosystem pulls their old-device-supporting apps, and suddenly the device is useless. I don’t know why we accept this! What is so special about phones where we allow them to be considered obsolete so quickly?

abtinf 1y ago
> My TV is 18 years old … they all continue to work as well as they worked on the day I bought them. This is unlikely to be true. The process is slow so you may not have noticed it, but the tv is probably much dimmer than when it was brand new. You may have a reasonable point about device longevity, but comparing full blown, internet connected, general purpose computing devices to an A/V receiver is obviously intentionally obtuse.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  It's a Hitachi 42 inch plasma and it still looks absolutely beautiful. Not a single problem with it in almost two decades. Want to know what failed first? The goddamn Mac Mini I have attached to it as a HTPC, where, after "upgrading" to Big Sur or Monterrey, suddenly Apple just up and decided to drop 1080i resolution support (the TV only supports 1080i, not 1080p). The weakest link, in terms of longevity, is always the software developer.
  - pasc1878 1y ago
    You have undercut your case here. The TV works and had not been upgraded. The mac mini works if you did not upgrade it. The weakest link is doing an upgrade, it does not matter which hardware.
    - ndiddy 1y ago
      I think it’s unreasonable that Apple sold a device that is capable of displaying 1080i and then disabled it in a software update. Doing stuff like that encourages users to not update and leave themselves vulnerable to security threats.
dcow 1y ago
It may be an unfortunate relic of the carrier upgrade economics. Most people, in the US at least, on a subscription phone plan get essentially a new phone for free every 2 years. Things are changing a little lately and now it’s not quite a free phone but a heavily discounted one, but it’s still pretty reasonable to expect most of your uses won’t have phone much more than a few years old. I guess that means if we want to see this change we need to stop trading up every other year. Which would mean carriers need to stop charging $70/mo for a phone line. Etc. I don’t upgrade my thermostat yearly, the economics are different, and so the product approach is too. My thermostat also doesn't come everywhere I go on a daily basis and doesn't run apps (it’s not a general purpose computing platform that needs to grow more powerful as software becomes more demanding. Also I have to add: phones are a fashion statement. Old phones do work, they’re just not cool. Nobody cares about the AV receiver sitting in your tv console as long as it’s amplifying audio. The tech hasn’t changed in years. Well unless your receiver does video, in which case I am certain your 15 year old audio receiver is not capable of 4k 120 HDMI handling. Update that TV to a 4k panel and your receiver will need a bump too.
- matwood 1y ago
  The one thing in phones that was pulling people along to upgrade was the camera, but even that is leveling off now.
- testing22321 1y ago
  > get essentially a new phone for free every 2 years What you mean to say is the payments for the phone (and the interest for the loan) are just bundled into the monthly plan. The phone is categorically not free, the payment is just obfuscated to the point that many people don’t understand.
  - dcow 1y ago
    Of course. Either way you’re getting what you pay for and there’s no way to select “I don’t want a free phone every two years take $15 off my monthly payment please”. It kinda is moving that way now, though. The monthly cost for new hardware is increasingly more optional and better delineated from the phone service. But thats’s new stuff—it will take awhile for things to percolate down.
socalgal2 1y ago
I am sympathetic to the argument/feeling that somethings last a long time therefore all things should last a long time. > What is so special about phones where we allow them to be considered obsolete so quickly? The phone / computer works exactly as it did when you bought it. What changed is everything around it. That's not true of those other things. New video codex, new services, new sites, new apps. Let's pick ChatGPT. They have app. It's about 2 years old? It strictly costs them more money to cover older hardware than just not supporting it. And, going forward, each year they want to support the newest phones/OS but keeping support for both strictly increases costs. I work on a project that run on nearly every device (Windows/Mac/Linux/iOS/Android) and we are always evaluating which devices we can stop supporting and what new devices we need to add to our testing infra going forward. Your 18yr old TV is great. It works exactly as it did when you bought it. But for example, let say your TV was 25 years old. It wouldn't have HDMI and there for, without expensive adapters, would not work with an XBox, PS5, Switch (afaik). The point is, your TV does exactly what it did when you bought it. No changes. For a smartphone to keep working requires constant changes. As a simple example, HEIF images didn't exist before. JPEG's with gain maps didn't exist. Zoom didn't exist. Etc... Your phone needs constant updating. Your TV, A/V receiver, speakers, thermostat do not. It costs money to keep the phone up to date. It costs nothing to keep the TV, A/V receiver, speakers and termostat up to date because there is nothing to update
- chii 1y ago
  But apple explicitly tries to make the environment around the old phone obsolete. They have an incentive to do so. Your old TV still works even with an adaptor - but there's no such a method for the phone. I want my phone to work until the hardware fails, not when apple decides they want to push people to buy a new one next quarter.
  - Terretta 1y ago
    > "I want my phone to work until the hardware fails... But apple explicitly tries to make the environment around the old phone obsolete." As of December 31, 2022, U.S. telcos* decommed the 3G tech phones of the mid-2000s used. As long as your iPhone can still use the telco network, it still does the functions it shipped with just fine. A phone's environment depends on a lot more than its hardware maker. (FWIW, thanks to its different incentives than other handset makers, Apple continues to offer the longest average OS support of the hardware and OS giants. Google's Pixel 8 is the first to bump Google's 3 years to match Apple's 7, and Samsung's S24 also finally matches 7 years. So on current devices, they stepped up, but on devices before 2023, Apple's support is more than double theirs. Arguably, these two finally stepping up were in response to the "environment" of Apple's incentives and EU regs.) * Verizon was the last. AT&T turned off its 3G network on February 22, 2022. T-Mobile dismantled Sprint's 3G CDMA network on March 31, 2022, and its own 3G UMTS network on July 1, 2022.
kristianp 1y ago
I agree. Phones aren't increasing in performance all that fast any more and the use cases haven't really changed. OS and sdk makers should start to consider their tools "mature" and stop breaking compatibility with each and every update. Something like the Go 1.0 compatibility promise.
pabs3 1y ago
> My TV is 18 years old. Here they have turned off analog TV signals over a decade ago, and the national broadcaster are about to turn off standard definition digital TV signals in favour of high definition.

eviks 1y ago

> It's 9 years old, it just stopped getting security updates three months ago. Is there anything even close to that outside of the iphone world? Of course there is, just take a look at any computer/laptop.