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Colour me skeptical. The biggest problem, as I see, with all these phones is the obsoletion rate of software. If they had pledged to do their best to keep the p

by lake99 12y ago

Colour me skeptical. The biggest problem, as I see, with all these phones is the obsoletion rate of software. If they had pledged to do their best to keep the platform running on the oldest of Android phones, all those phones would immediately be given away or sold cheaply to poor people. They don't need to port all bells and whistles to each of their previous platforms, just the minimum required to keep simple apps (not games, not multimedia) running across all devices. I have a few such "obsolete" devices myself. The only thing wrong with the hardware is that their easily replaced batteries are dead. I'd certainly give them away if they could be of much use now.

ChrisAntaki 12y ago
In my experience, older Android phones can be fairly useful. There are some great audio recording & guitar tuning apps which work offline, making the devices handy for capturing musical ideas. Keeping the devices in airplane mode dramatically increases their battery life. Additionally, if you want to bust out a dedicated charger, they can act as IP cameras. Great for watching your motorcycle when it's parked outside in a city. Here's a KickStarter which aims to use old Android devices to passively collect audio in rainforests, with the aim of halting illegal logging. [1] TLDR: If people choose to write software for these devices, they can remain useful for a long time. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherwhite/rainforest-connection-phones-turned-to-forest-guar https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherwhite/rainforest-...