Yes, this is tongue-in-cheek, however it does remind me of the famous "I need a new car, the tank is empty" (or, in earlier times "the ashtray is full") quote of senseless consumption. Hardware-wise those devices should be able to last much longer than this, were it not for the planned obsolescence of limited memory space, OS-update mandated slowdowns and eventual abandonment.
Hardware can last a long time if it is made to last. It can remain useful for many more years than the 2- or 3-year update cycle. My phone is 6 years old, I'm typing this on a 13 year old laptop, both still work fine for daily use. Both have user-replaceable parts, both can be upgraded.
I expect mainly because in the world of tech, things only have a life of maybe 2 years before they're considered 'old'/'obsolete'/'stupid looking' etc.
Memory, megapixels, storage, screen, speed etc are all advancing so quickly that it doesn't make any sense to bother making something that'll last beyond a few years.
It would however be cool and responsible to make these devices more environmentally friendly, but that's a hard sell to some.
I'm sort of glad I didn't spend the extra on my first MP3 player - 32mb of wonderment.
That is the point I was making. The devices last (as we both have experienced), but today it is "fashionable" to dispose of them and buy new ones on a schedule much shorter than their lifespans (because of some new gimmick that provides an inconsequential improvement in the usability of the newer model).
Even if the processor continued to work, the flash storage and battery in these devices aren't going to keep working forever. If we want to have longer lived devices, these parts will need to be standardised and user-replaceable
Planned obsolescence is why I will never invest more than 100 euros into a phone. I will always wait to buy low-priced, fast enough for me hardware.
I still remember how my macbook pro started to be slow and unusable after OSX updates.
My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think you need to upgrade your hardware, the hardware is just fast enough to do certain things with today's software. At one point, software should stop changing so often. Then maybe we won't need to toss hardware anymore.
I don't like Apple products, but it surely is funny that they realized they were making durable products and started to see it as a problem.
Old mobile phones aren’t transmitting priceless scientific data.
Long-term updates to old devices are a drain on the people updating them. You start a hardware company and let’s see how long you and your little team of really expensive engineers keep updating last year’s product.
Currently all of my PCs, laptop and DSLR are over 5 years old and running strong. I am still using my HTC evo 4g I got 5 years ago...I replaced the battery once but that is all.
It is a shame we live in this world where things are thrown out every couple years...cars become "too expensive to fix" after a couple years (or totalled by insurance companies due to minor accidents).
I wish there was an easy solution...but I don't see anything changing when the major corporations encourage this type of planned expiration date.
Stop trying to make hardware last forever. Who here would like to use hardware from 2017? iPhone x anyone? The lifetime of these devices is defined by the reasonable update schedule of the consumer, which is based on moores law. 5 years is a reasonable update schedule. Then put one in a museum and live in the now. You get this much time forget the nostalgia https://www.bryanbraun.com/your-life/months.html
"All tech, including wearable tech, used to be expected to last at least 10 years."
I think you have odd perspective here, because you're talking about tech lasting for a decade, but you're also explicitly omitting anything with a computer in it ("run an operating system").
"A 35 year old Commodore 64 is every bit as fun as it was when it first came out, and every bit as capable, but a piece of tech that's only 3.5 years old probably has a blinking jewel in the palm of its hand."
The hypothetical 35-year-old Commodore, however, can't do most of the things I ask my 3 year old laptop to do. Durability wasn't the issue; the rapidly increasing capability of newer and more capable computing platforms was.
We're at a point now where Moore's Law & related phenomena seem to have slowed a bit. Ten or fifteen years ago I always upgraded my laptop every 3 years. Now I can go longer, and typically only upgrade when there's a compelling reason (higher RAM ceiling, e.g., or external factors like the economics of extended service plans). Phones are the same; in the earlier years of the cell phone era, I got a new phone nearly every year because that meant smaller and more powerful and therefore more useful. In the Smartphone era, two years became the norm, and nowadays it's routine to see folks with 3 or even 4 year old phones.
The tl;dr is that there's no conspiracy or malignant intent here; it's just that shit gets better, and so the upgrade makes sense for most people. I mean, maybe you can get a 35-year-old Commodore running as a novelty, but I sure wouldn't want to try to do my job with one.
Most people replace their phones and laptops every 2 to 5 years. Too fast to see any problem under normal usage.
Most game consoles and TVs are unlikely to do enough logging to wear out their storage. But if they did, especially if they cost as much as a car, it probably would make the news.
Cars tend to last a decade or two. They shouldn't stop working because of something as silly as excessive logging.
I really don’t think anyone, including tech people, expects devices to last 30 years. Maybe hardcore collectors do for their media, but not for devices.
Though I will say my 14 year old Palm TX is still alive and kicking...
Right, what I’m trying to say is that the obsolescence schedule of tablets and the rate of development does not match hardware like cars refrigerators well. Large physical items like that with other primary purposes should last a decade or two, at least.
I would think the best solution for this is to have swappable, upgradable tablets. Maybe basic operations built in, and a dock for a tablet that you could change whenever.
For any of this to function well, the manufacturers either have to work closely with competent consumer software companies, or become one themselves. It reminds me of the situation where cell phone carriers are expected to update the ROM on your old android phone, and often don’t do so regularly, because they’re not competent software or hardware companies.
I love when people say that and apparently think it's admirable/amazing that a device would still work 6 years after its release.
But most devices used to work a lifetime. My motorcycle was made in 2009 (14 years ago) and is in pristine condition. The previous one was over 25 years old when it got stolen (by someone, presumably, who thought it was worth the risk). Blenders from the 40s still work. Not to mention non-electrical tools like hammers and such, which last for generations.
Parts of my home desktop computer are over 15 years old; the case itself was made in the 1990s.
It's one thing to get newer devices that do new things, and quite another to have to throw away old ones that should still be working fine.
Phones have no moving parts, there's no good reason they should become obsolete.
I don’t really. Hardware generally doesn’t get less useful with age, just less efficient than new/current hardware. Handing that inefficiency off to someone else doesn’t do well for our overall carbon footprint.
Instead, buy things that last, use them until you can’t, then recycle them: https://www.techdump.org/
They're not flipping a kill switch on these devices. They just won't be running the newest OS. I don't see how these two things (software updates and hardware longevity/recyclability) are at all related.
That worries me when this sort of obsolescence is baked into devices that are meant to last long, like vehicles or appliances. I prefer when the short-lived stuff stays on a separate device.
Rather ignores the elephant in the room: the hardware itself and its lifespan.
-The design lifetime for current consumer devices is a single digit number of years; if you're lucky you might get twice that. Any battery powered devices will have their batteries fail well before that.
-Some parts, like electrolytic capacitors and the lubricants in HDDs, age whether they're being actively used or not.
-Reparability is pretty close to nil on modern devices even with specialized equipment. Without that equipment and the supplies needed to use it, it is simply nil.
Before maundering about software and proprietary this and SaaS that, the author needs to define what hardware platform they _realistically_ expect to have available after a societal collapse. After about 5-10 years into the collapse, it will probably be a lot less than they think.
Yes, this is tongue-in-cheek, however it does remind me of the famous "I need a new car, the tank is empty" (or, in earlier times "the ashtray is full") quote of senseless consumption. Hardware-wise those devices should be able to last much longer than this, were it not for the planned obsolescence of limited memory space, OS-update mandated slowdowns and eventual abandonment.
Hardware can last a long time if it is made to last. It can remain useful for many more years than the 2- or 3-year update cycle. My phone is 6 years old, I'm typing this on a 13 year old laptop, both still work fine for daily use. Both have user-replaceable parts, both can be upgraded.
Both run free software.
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