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Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin (www.mercurynews.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of "planned obsolescence".

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[–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

I remember back in the day when I had apple devices where they would push updates for devices long past their capability to actually run the updated software. Rather than refuse the update or get a pruned patch with security fixes only, it would force updates and bloat your phone and grind it into unresponsive unusability after a few years.

I hear that's not so much the case anymore, so that's nice. But I remember. The main reason I upgraded my phone was because of that, the hardware was great, but I could hardly use the software anymore even after clean installs.

My point being, I guess, extended support is great if managed properly but it can also become a bludgeon with which to drive you toward the new generations of devices.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (1 child)

    long past their capability to actually run the updated software

    Well, Apple intentionally slowed those devices down to make the users update, instead of using an insecure device, that would've provided a good experience otherwise.

    And these days Apple is retiring devices arbitrarily for profits too. For example this year they are retiring the Iphone 8, which has better hardware, than the ipad 2018 that is still being supported...

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    That slowness was, at least officially, for the battery health. Do you have the support to prove otherwise?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    These conversations bring the weirdest people out of the woodwork. I remember talking with a guy who explained to me how crap Apple laptops were because you (according to him) can’t customise them. Turns out he’d never owned or even used an Apple laptop. I was like, why do you care?! Especially about something you have no experience with!

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    And then if I recall correctly (though I can’t be bothered to look) didn’t they get sued for slowing phones?

    So people were mad that their phones battery wasn’t holding a charge anymore, “im being forced to upgrade”, so Apple throttled older phones to keep the battery running, aka allowing people to keep their phones longer, and then they got sued for slowing down phones lol.

    I am an apple fan boy, I wont hide that. But it does seem like they tried to do a “good” and make peoples phones last longer, and then got sued.

    Also the whole forced upgrade just isn’t apples game IMO. Do they want you buying the new one every year, of course. But the more important thing is that you keep using AN iPhone at all. Stay in the ecosystem, stay in the app store, stay paying for icloud, etc.

    Going to a new phone gives the user a window to move away from IOS. (Though most won’t haha)

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