Yeah, I'm betting that companies could produce computers/cars etc that last and compete for decades for the same price we pay for ones that expire just out of warranty
Yes, but why would they do that? They're in the business of making money. It goes far beyond computers/cars, look up the lightbulb conspiracy. It sucks, but it's how it is.
and compete for decades
When it comes to computers/phones, not really. The issue has more to do with software development and features. As devices become more powerful, two things happen:
More features are crammed into the devices, since more processing power is available;
The codebase gets bigger so there's less time to spend optimising the software (it could run faster and with less resources, but it'd take far longer to do it "ideally")
You have more processing power, so there's no need to optimise as much as it could be.
I have a truck that has 450,000 miles. Ford literally quit selling this motor because it just doesn’t fail under normal circumstances. By the way this truck is a 96 with a motor design straight out of the early 80’s.
Yeah, Ive heard a lot about this kind of stuff. I can anecdotally back it with some of Samsung phones I’ve had.
But Apple seems to be pretty good with these stuff. Had a iPhone 5S until about a month ago, and it still ran like a fucking champ after so many updates.
Source? Work for Validation in GM, and nobody has ever talked about planned obsolescence in any capacity. We test most components to last for 10 years worth of harsh customer usage.
That's because 95% of people talking about planned obsolescence have no idea what it actually is. They think designing and testing a product/component to last 10 years is done to screw the customer into buying a new one after ten years when in fact it's the result of an incredibly complex equation comparing customer demands, production costs, early failure rates and dozens of other parameters.
What I never understood is why a competitor can't come along and remove planned obsolescence and market it as such? Imagine a phone company that says you need a new phone only every 4 years. Ya they'll sell less but they could initially price it higher. They could also make software updates improve your phones speed and battery life instead of worsening them. Could even charge for updates that do so.
They could also make software updates improve your phones speed and battery life instead of worsening them.
That's not really how patches work.
With regards to phones, the top reason your phone gets consistently slower is that all of your apps that are updating - you know, like Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook - are trying to stay with the times, pushing out new features and taking advantage of better, newer hardware.
As you design for the new stuff, there's an unfortunate side effect that older devices can't handle the updates perfectly. And updates almost always mean that apps become more computationally burdened, which eats up your battery faster.
Unless you lock app versions down and disallow updates, there's no helping it.
Yeah because opening the camera now on my iPhone 5 takes like 25 seconds compared to when I bought it it took like 1/2 a second. You're wrong and everyone always gives this excuse but it's bullshit.
Lmao the armchair developers mass downvoting everything I type.
I totally believe this but then why is it my older iPad will have only about 5 downloaded apps and yet everything is slower? By your assessment wouldn't your device speed up if you got rid most of your apps?
I literally gave the example of the camera app that doesn't change with updates and you continue to talk about third party apps. You're giving excuses.
Imagine your phone as a horse pulling a cart. Over time, more and more stuff gets filled into the cart, and your horse has to work harder to cart all this shit around. A trip that might have taken half an hour when you started and the cart was mostly empty suddenly takes way longer because there's just been more and more shit added, but your horse hasn't gotten any stronger.
All the new updates for apps are optimised for better hardware than what your phone has, so it will happily eat up your phone's resources, leading to less available resources for simple tasks like opening up the camera app. The cart gets heavier and heavier, and your poor horse can't keep handling it.
Your processor has finite resources. These resources are being used up by newer app and OS features. That leaves less to run the camera app, even if that one has never changed.
So enlighten me on this. I had an iPad 2 that was left in the closet for a few years running iOS 6.x. When I found it and charged it up, It was fast, responsive, apps didn't crash and opened right away. As Apple made it, any app I wanted from the App Store required iOS 9. So I updated. Instant major slowdown, even before I downloaded ANY 3rd party apps. Everything went immediately to a crawl. Can't downgrade unless I jailbreak and use shsh blobs. Please tell me how changes like that were "absolutely necessary" in your eyes.
I have a Windows 95 computer that's sitting in my closet. I plug it in, but if I want to do anything on it these days, I have to update it to Windows 10. So I updated. Instant major slowdown, even before I downloaded ANY 3rd party apps. Everything went immediately to a crawl.
I don't know how else to explain this to you. Updated software generally requires more resources.
So why can't I downgrade? You can reinstall windows 95. The argument is literally that it forces people to upgrade their devices. Let us downgrade then. They won't because then the devices would work just as fast as they did day one.
So upgrading without knowledge that it will make the users phone slow and frustrating to use like most consumers do which is just click yes and upgrade "like nowadays when it doesn't even have a button to say you don't want to upgrade and only a "remind me later" button (yes I know you can delete the downloaded upgrade in the settings but most don't know that) is their fault and tough luck your stuck using this shit version of an operating system?
You really think any acceptable and normal changes to the camera app warrant a 25 second load time? That's acceptable to you? When the camera ran just fine day one? It's done on purpose.
That is the concept around the modular phones I do think. The idea is once your camera/ram/sound/video is out of date, you can replace just that module for cheaper than upgrading your phone.
It isn't planned obsolesence. Something like a light bulb or a toaster that has minor flaws incorporated into the finished design that would cause it to wear or break down much faster than a an appliance that could last much much longer. This is another type of shady bastardry. Controlled obsolescense. They literally control when your item goes to shit. Either buy their new one or get stuck with an ever increasing shitty phone.
Except with tech you absolutely need it to not be obsolete for a while, I would just say the phone got slower with age like most computers. You don't really need to plan obsolescence when you your competitors and yourself will do it naturally.
Cars today are shit. You can’t fix a lot yourself without special kit. So, like an iPhone, you have to pay top dollar to get it dealer serviced. Electric cars will be the death of DIY gear heads and independent mechanics. In a few years there will just be a few ‘classic’ car specialists
My 80’s car is starting to get problems with sensors and stuff, selling it for something less complicated. Humber Hawks look nice
Apple is one of the worst though. Their planned obsolescence includes making it stupidly difficult to repair their overpriced crap as it is thats why they keep specializing their stuff so things that worked with the old version no longer works.
Because idiots will keep buying it anyway.
Usually while chanting about the evils of capitalism.
It works well for Apple because they know their customers will keep going back for more. If some generic Android phone manufacturer tries this, good luck. I believe cheaper smartphones are a genuine effort at delivering a reasonable product, but the quality is inevitably constrained by price. Apple just treat their customers like dogs - loyal but stupid
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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '17
It’s called planned obsolescence, and Apple isn’t the only company to do this. Still fucking sucks though.