A new smartphone again? Rethink unhealthy culture of frequent upgrades
(www.straitstimes.com)
from fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 27 Sep 2023 10:35
https://lemmy.world/post/5819393
from fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 27 Sep 2023 10:35
https://lemmy.world/post/5819393
SO. MUCH. THIS.
threaded - newest
Reduce. Repair. Recycle.
Most phones, break this at every step.
A big part of it is built in batteries that are difficult to replace. My phone has a removable battery and is on its third one now… still works fine and does everything I want it to, after 10 years of use.
Edit: It’s running Lineage Os 18 (android 11) not the original android 5(?) it came with, so security updates are not an issue.
It’s honorable that you struggle through 2013 Android, but using an internet enabled device that hasn’t received security updates in at least 7 years is a horrible idea.
Upgrade to a Fairphone at least, so you can keep replacing parts while also maintaining a base level of security.
Wish I had heard of fairphone before I bought a pixel. I have to decline Google assistant popups every fucking day
Is google pixel so bad? I thought those are solid phones…
No, it’s just that on Lemmy anything that isn’t open source or self hosted is basically the devil.
Google Pixels are great phones, but they come loaded with Google Services and this is what this commenter complains about.
No it’s a very good phone, but I prefer to leave assistant off, and damned if it doesn’t pop up about once a day to ask if I’m it really really sure I don’t want to turn it on. Gets annoying
You can put a rom on it. Like grafino West, or calix OS. That’ll get rid of the assistant pop-ups.
I realize the names are wrong, but this is Google voice to text. I’m going to stand by Google’s decision. This is clearly how they should be spelled
Pixels are the best phones to use for Graphene OS. You could also install some other degoogled Android distro, like LineageOS.
Do you mean a pop up from accidentally summoning Google assistant from holding the home button? I’ve had that issue on a couple Android phones and have had good luck going into settings and disabling it.
No I disabled the assistant. I tend to always do that, because in the past I’ve found them to be nuisances. This is the first phone where I’ll fart and it pops up “want to turn Google Assistant on?”
Pain in the ass.
He could be using a ROM with up to date security patches, I believe some phones from that era still have active custom ROM communities.
I was considering that, seems unlikely to me, though.
Hell you can run Android 11 on a Galaxy S2.
You’re correct, I’m running Lineage Os 18 (android 11)
I run Lineage Os 18 on it. (Android 11) with the latest security patch being from august 2023, so it’s pretty much up to date.
This 100% since my screen has a small crack in the corner, I need a new screen just to get to the battery.
Because of this they want me to leave my phone with them for up to 30 days while they order the parts. It’s an iPhone XR. How can they not have parts?
I know it’s because apple makes it difficult on purpose.
Also there are not Apple Store in the country where I live, so I have to go through an authorized provider.
I’ll get a 15, but then I’m taking this phone to an unofficial repair shop to get it fixed up for cheap.
why would you keep buying Apple
Gonna take a couple guesses here.
did you mean vendor-locked?
So cringey. Some people do like Apple products. Nothing beats the Mac/macbook, Apple Watch, iPad or AirPods in their respective categories. Android and iPhone are basically feature wise the same so get what you like.
But, how is it any different than being vendor locked into android with their wearables or tablets or chromebooks? Apple made an ecosystem that works well together. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s bad.
Apple’s anticompetitive, vendor lock-in features would make for a long, long list. I’ll leave some sources I found quickly: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in#Apple_Inc pcworld.com/…/apple_marketing_locks_you_in.html
I’m not an android fan by any means, it’s just the better option right now. Android is free software, I’m writing from an Android phone that has software from no corporation, not even Google. Can you compile iOS from source and remove Apple’s software from it? I don’t think so.
Even without installing custom ROMs, in any Android phone you can install apps from third party stores. In iPhones you can only get them from the App Store. You want to use a browser which isn’t a Safari skin on iOS? Not possible either. There’s a long list of similar anticompetitive behavior.
Your first comment was about a family of devices and now you only talk about the iPhone….because that’s the only device that has an open source alternative. Google/android/chrome offerings to every other category are worse than apples offerings, stuff is half baked. I’m all for open source but there is no denying how smooth all of apples devices just work with each other. That means something too. Not being open source do not equal bad automatically either.
I personally don’t care about taking source code and compiling it or installing custom roms. I have other hobbies that take my time. I want a devices that work 99% of the time without effort straight from the box.
If you enjoy non-apple products that’s great but this place just feels like the early days of Reddit where everyone is so anti-Apple because it’s cool. They do some shitty things (like basically every company ever) but they also do some really cool things too, like a family of 6 different products working seamlessly together.
they have sunk cost fallacied themselves
There are a few reasons like their extended software support and their built in text recognition and translation features.
I don’t live in my home country and this is very very useful.
Since everyone in America uses iOS and iMessage only, I’m kinda locked into iMessage for communications.
I know there are other messaging apps, but no one has any of them. There are people I communicate with just a few times a year and I can’t ask them to download an app just to occasionally chat or catch up.
I also use very few google services. In fact if you don’t count invidious I only have a gmail account which I use for no personal stuff like Netflix accounts and stuff.
The good news is in a pinch you can fry an egg on a 15
.
And here I am with my S4 running lineage Os (android 11)
Phone is on its third battery but doing fine, and does everything I want it to.
That’s awesome
Wow, I commend you! I replaced my s5 3.5 years ago because it was feeling very sluggish, I can’t believe what is like using an s4 with modern apps!
I actually find it’s less sluggish with android 11 than it originally was… but then again I don’t have a lot of apps on it, mainly firefox, Rethink (firewall), Voyager (lemmy frontend that uses firefox), Adaway, and a few other ones. I don’t have any games or anything on it, I only game on my pc anyway.
The bloatware that it originally came with did nothing for performance, that’s for sure.
I'm still using my S5.
I still have four new replacement batteries. I expect another 4-6 years with it.
If only new batteries were easily swappable…
flip phones have those, but i've never had to swap one. the longest i've had one before it broke was ~ 7 years and a charge still lasted about half as long as when it was new (2 weeks vs 4).
they actually fit in a pocket and last a lot longer between charges. i don't 'need' the internet on me 24/7, so i'll keep getting those as long as they're still made.
Yes, I have one of those as well, but a smartphone is something I carry anyway.
Well, that’s good, but most other people either need to or want to.
They will be in the EU
Yes, blame it on the consumer and not on the companies that spend an incredible amount of money to first hire marketeers that think all day long of the best way to push ‘new’ products, and then run costly campaigns to spread the word.
While these sorts of practices are legal, consumers need to be educated.
I have another idea - get rid of capitalism.
Great idea, what are we replacing it with?
Yeah, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater just yet. Capitalism is an incredible engine, but it needs guard rails.
I agree, I don’t think any one system is the answer, they all have their strengths and weaknesses… a combination of them would be a better idea.
The whole infinite growth mentality caused by companies being public on the stock market is the real poison I think. So lets just axe the whole thing. No more stock market, every company is private again.
Which means no more stock speculators, or stock buybacks, or market manipulation schemes. Just companies selling their products to consumers based on their own metrics.
Well, for starters, this obliterates most people's retirement plans, so that's a bit of a hurdle.
That aside, what would happen is private equity firms and investment banks simply buying up most public companies, so I don't really see the grand improvement here.
I hate so much this talking point:
the system has captured the retirements, so we can’t abolish it.
Like if we need this load of bull to support retirement, we should rethink everything from the ground up.
The point is that, whether you like it or not, abolishing something that most people are very strongly relying on for the last third of their life is something that's going to be incredibly complicated and met with a lot of opposition.
By all means, re-think away as you like, but don't be surprised when a lot of people aren't exactly a fan of what you come up with.
Provide food and shelter as a human right first, then dismantle everything else, and let people do what they enjoy.
To be honest, you cannot achieve capitalism with guard rails.
Rich individuals will accumulate money then bribe or donate to politicians to earn more money thus more bribes then more influence and so on.
Take USA as an example, big corporations have monopoly on almost everything and you as a citizen cannot do anything about it. Sure you can vote but either way, donations to politicians always win.
EU is better but not much. After GDPR, every website would interrupt you to say how they will sell your data and tell you to leave if don’t like it.
With humanity.
That is not an answer. You’d have credibility if you said, “I’m actually not sure.”
I’ll stick with Capitalism, then…
That’s a vague platitude.
Capitalism works becuase we live in a transactional reality. Food could not grow on trees of the tree didn’t take capital (I.e. resources such as nutrients from the soil, light and heat from the sun) to grow that apple. If farmers did not account for the resources the tree needs the tree would simply die.
The issue with capitalism today is that we over apply it and forget to help people who truly need help, and thanks lobbying by sociopathic business owners, we have created a system where we much engage with learned sociopathy to survive and function. We look down at the homeless sick and needy and invent backstories to justify their suffering. They must be drug abuses, violent, lazy, etc cetra.
Capitalism has nothing to do with resources. I think insurance is a great example of that.
We sell nebulous ideas all the time.
If anything our economy is based off of services now.
I would argue ability to provide a service is in it’s self an abstract form of capital.
Time, energy and willpower can also be viewed as a capital. There’s a reason business owners will pay people to be doing work they could easily do themselves. And I think it’s important that we as a society recognise that any time or energy spent transactionally should be properly compensated.
Of course we shouldn’t fall for the trap of trying to maximise and optimise every last ounce of capital in our lives, its important to learn to let go of our posessive human nature. But we should appreciate when we are giving and taking things to and from other people.
Why am I suddenly seeing so much discussion about capitalism these days? This is way above the usual background level of how often this topic gets brought up in various circumstances.
It's a convenient abstract entity that can be used as a general boogeyman and blamed for all things.
For sure, some things are indeed a direct consequence of capitalism, but lots of other problems come from the simple existence of things having costs, scarcity existing, and humans not being completely selfless. No amount of economic re-arrangement is going to get you away from those things, but it's nice to imagine so.
I need security updates not education.
I don't really like this trend of absolving consumers of literally all agency in how they spend their money. Outside of practices that intentionally try to make older products obsolete like purposeful throttling - which should absolutely be shamed and made illegal - no one is holding a gun to your head and telling you to buy the new phone or else. If someone decides that a product is a worthy use of their money and decides to purchase it, then so be it. People aren't children and can decide how they'd like to spend their money, and I really don't see what's wrong with a company trying to convince you to do so. People can make their own choices, and that includes financially poor ones. They can also choose to prioritize different things than you or I might.
Ultimately, if you don't want to buy a new phone, don't. They're really quite good nowadays and tend to last a while. There will of course continue to be shiny new things, and if having the newest thing is truly important to you, you can decide to spend your money on it. Or, you can also not. But to say that consumers have essentially no choice and are simply the poor victims of marketing with no real agency at all is reductive to the point of being almost patronizing.
Consumers have very little choice when it comes to things like cars, electricity company, cable company, etc. In that case it is appropriate to put blame on the companies who have a captive customer base. But with other products like phones, there is nothing compelling consumers to buy the latest except FOMO and greed.
Absolutely, and for products and markets that are essentially necessary to life, there's a much stronger case to be made for strong regulation since the potential for exploitation is much higher (the nightmare that is the entire healthcare industry exemplifies this perfectly, since market forces don't work well when you're unconscious or will otherwise die).
But for luxury items, which high-end smartphones undoubtedly are? Yeah, consumers can take a little bit of accountability.
<img alt="" src="https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/4e247154-1592-4145-a65e-fb6c82d5821d.png">
Could you have made a more vacuous comment? Obviously people shouldn’t buy every new toy that comes out, that doesn’t change the fact that 90% of the blame—and 90% is a hard floor—belongs to the people who waste the Earth’s resources pinching it off in the first place and then waste even more in protectionism and generally making sure there are as few viable alternatives as possible.
The fundamental truth is that companies would not make a bunch of new phones if there were not people that wanted to buy them, for one reason or another.
And it's not as if the smartphone market isn't littered with failed products and ideas. Marketing can do a lot, but it's not able to generate demand for a product that consumers simply do not want. You might remember the pushes for 3D displays, WiMAX, modular phones, styluses, the recent push for foldable devices, etc etc. These failed because consumers simply did not want them. Motorola, HTC, LG, etc failed because consumer did not want their products and they were generally inferior.
Again, you do not need to buy a new phone every year. There are people who do voluntarily want to do that though, and so companies will provide products to meet that desire. I simply do not understand this compulsion to insert yourself into a blatantly voluntary transaction, with the customer wanting a new phone, the company providing one, and you stating "Actually, you're being exploited."
This meme comes to mind.
Given that one big reason is “Planned obsolescence”, you’re still pointing the finger entirely in the wrong direction.
You can’t scroll Facebook for five minutes without seeing people complain that “They don’t build stuff like they used to anymore” or “All this Chinese junk just falls apart in 5 minutes.”
Consumers want reliable, long lasting products that they don’t have to replace all the time. They just have no way of reasonably obtaining them.
If consumers were actually as hungry for constant upgrades as you claim, phone manufacturers wouldn’t put so much effort into making their products impossible to repair.
This is the thing that I'm genuinely not entirely convinced of. More than anything, I think a lot people want shiny new stuff as cheaply as they can get it, and that most consumers will generally opt for that over a more expensive but more durable alternative, even if that's not what they'll actually tell themselves. "Chinese junk" succeeded because masses of people preferred a cheaper product over a more expensive domestic one. Plenty of people raged against removing headphone jacks, for instance, but ultimately, those phones still sold very well. If there was really a huge demand for phones with headphone jacks, why would Samsung etc. not plop one in there and capture that demand? I would speculate it's because it doesn't actually exist to a super significant degree. Plenty of Android phones had removable batteries for long while, but as they started to go away, you didn't see a huge group of people flock to the phones that kept them. Ultimately, consumers generally showed that they would opt for better waterproofing and slimmer design with a more annoying battery replacement procedure than a bulkier phone with easily removable batteries (though I am intrigued to see if the EU will actually be able to successfully mandate them).
So, while I do agree that consumers do want reliable and long-lasting products, they also want maximally cheap products, and products that feel new and sleek and luxurious. These are contradictory aims, and it seems to me that consumers' revealed preferences are towards novelty and price, not durability, though I'd also say that I think this is shifting somewhat. Each new generation of phones is offering fewer genuine innovations and improvements, and at least in my experience, consumers are noticing more and more that even mid-range phones are perfectly adequate and that any phone can last several years. As I understand, this has been reflected in declining sales over the last several years.
What, like there’s some kind of ethical standard of consumerism that people are failing to live up to? Take the corporate dick out of your throat and take your L with dignity instead of grasping at straws to be Right and “win” an online argument. Why even try? You really think you’re gonna be the guy who changes people’s hearts and minds and has them say “yes, it’s actually the changing whims of the market that drive corporations to produce waste, they definitely don’t forcibly create their own market through manipulation and abuse”? Are you really trying to be the Rosa Parks of convincing people that there is ever even one case where a corporation isn’t automatically to blame for the existence of their own fucking product? You think consumers should just “not buy”, yet you don’t say that companies should just ignore the market and release new products less frequently? “Oh well that’s not realistic because they’re just not gonna do that” you’re going to say, willfully uncomprehending that you’re reinforcing my point and pretending you just got a gotcha. Get real.
It's comically bold to talk about dignified discourse while casually throwing out homophobic phrases like "take the dick out of your throat".
At any rate, your true colors are showing brightly enough that I, empowered consumer that I am, will see myself out of this conversation. Enjoy your iPhone 15 Pro Max that you just had to buy. Truly, it must be hard.
“Oh shit that was embarrassing, better pretend to be smugly aloof and then ‘abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past’.”
Literally every time. Do you people get a phrasebook or something?
Whelp, your point can still be made without the first sentence. The fediverse has this reputation of being unfriendly which push newcomers away, so we’ll have to do something about it ourselves. Something as simple as not being snarky unless it’s absolutely necessary would help the fediverse community a lot. Cool template btw, I’m going to save for later.
What I was doing was being generous. I’m not going to shed any tears if people who spend all day on Facebook and Instagram think the fediverse is too hard to figure out and too unfriendly. Barriers to entry are a good thing when you have barbarians at the gate. That mostly means the drooling masses from corporate social media who ruin everything they touch, but it also means le epic wholesome keanu chungus morons from reddit and beard-stroking corporatist pontificators from slashdot and hacker news. The dweeb I was responding to is from the latter camp, and I really don’t feel any obligation to help make the fediverse into a place where people like him can expect a positive reception for pinching off loafs like his opinion.
Imagine how shocked I was to discover that our friend pimento64 also casually revealed themselves to be a homophobe.
Care to explain what the fuck you’re talking about?
I don't.
Imagine how shocked I was to discover that our friend BraveSirZaphod casually revealed themselves to be a maniac who butchers teenage runaways in his basement. No, I don’t care to explain it.
Edit: oh of course you’re the same fucking dude. Get a real hobby.
Yeah. Blame it on the consumers indeed. Are you a adult or not? Put the tendies down and put your big boy pants on and realize that you need to take responsibility for at least some of your actions.
Same goes for all those dopes that pre-order every game that gets released and then we all wonder why the industry releases so many unfinished games that need patches and updates. That’s because consumers are rewarding these game developers for releasing shitty software.
Gotta be honest. Yes blame us. It takes two to tango.
At one point in my life there was this anti consumer movement culturally that got absolutely destroyed and buried. Maybe we’re all just sheep without any free will controlled by Steve jobs of the world. But I feel like we refused to keep certain fires lit and now we’re all freezing. That’s our fault.
Most of it was super obvious too. When ads started invading, some people were pissed. But there was always way more people saying ‘who cares’. But things like ads fuel this consumerism to get people buying and idolizing the tech channels or kardashian lifestyle with all the bling and flash of new. Now we have a generation who probably think anti consumption lifestyle is just flat out crazy talk. Like how do we not have any counter culture anymore to the lavish consumerism culture. Almost every culture has an opposition but that one seems like it’s non existant in a world consumed by ads products
I’m not saying consumers are not to blame, but i have objections against the phrasing; as if it’s primarily blaming consumers. I myself am not quite a minimalist, but do have strong tendencies in that direction. So, i never cared about fashion, or buying the newest gadgets. And i know there are people who are the complete opposite. However, i do feel that companies fuel the greed of consumers big time.
While consumers need to educate themselves/be educated by their caretakers and schools, i feel the heart of the matter is the marketing culture and the tendency of companies of hiding shady practices, like profiting from child slaves who have to mine precious metals, or women slaving away in factories for long hours, while risking their lives and bodies due to unsafe machinery, buildings and being bullied by their
employeesemployers, for a shamefully low salary. Edit to replace the word employeesYeah I think it’s very strongly both. I manage to resist consumption quite frequently and prefer to fix stuff up when I can. But also I’m not immune to propaganda.
The systems at play require us to mindlessly consume. When a significant portion of people took to repairing our stuff they blocked us from doing it. They promoted these ideas and did their best so that both culture and counterculture were ones of consumption. Hell they promoted the idea of bundling phone purchasing into your phone contract so it became an every 2 year upgrade. I wound up being the weird one for not since I buy my phone outright when the old one doesn’t work anymore. Fuck, I’ve had to argue with internet providers’ sales people that I own my own equipment and only want what I want, and sometimes they ignore my demands and throw such things in anyways. And they start in on it when you’re a kid.
But we keep doing it. The fact is these nice things are nice. Upgrading feels good. And when it’s easier to upgrade than to not it can take dedication to consume less. They set this culture up, but we perpetuate it. New is nice. Better is nice. We like these things. It’s a hell of a lot easier to show off a new phone than to brag about refurbishing yours. Just consume and dispose.
Welcome to Singaporean news, where everything is the fault of the consumer.
I think what people are missing here is that although a new phone comes out every year, not every consumer is on the same upgrade schedule.
If I keep my phone for five years then that’s four phones in not getting.
While I agree with you and work on the same timetable I think their point still very much stands.
Look at cars, for example. A model is defined by it’s generation with each model year generally only having small upgrades, if any. With much of our lives if we were to wait that long we’d not miss one generation but instead feel five or more generations behind the curve.
There’s so little of a need for a new phone every year that Apple now sells the iPhone 13, 14, and SE on top of whatever generation is current because they know that the newest tech is just not worth it anymore. Samsung does exactly the same thing and no amount of high-horse whining from Android users will change the fact that those companies are just as bad about it.
We love to throw functional shit in the bin. We love to have overpowered stuff on the off-chance we might need it one day every couple years and we’re too pathetic to either just deal with it or to simply borrow/rent a better thing for that one instance(90% of truck and SUV drivers can absolutely go fuck themselves).
How many people are actually getting a new phone every year? I don’t think I’m poor but maybe I am? Everyone I know keeps their phones for at least a few years and then replaces them when they are no longer functional.
Still. Every 3 years feels like too often, but that’s around the time things stop working - likely due to planned obsolescence and updates designed to make older phones work worse.
Should we really blame the consumer for replacing something the manufacturer designed to break after a short time? What’s something else you pay $1500+ for that is useless 3 years later?
I know a few folks who do, but most of them have a hand-me-down cycle they follow. I get a new phone every 2-3 years and hand the old phone down to a friend or family member with something older.
.
When it’s my kids, no. I have some family members that will pay me a little bit for devices I pass off, and while I’m not particularly financially set, I do well enough for myself, that I can sometimes eat the cost if I know, it’s gonna benefit someone who couldn’t buy themselves a new phone as often as I can pass it off.
Same here, but I have teens. Parents get new phones every 2-4 years, teens get “new-ish” phones with new batteries. Apple supports their phones about 6 years, so we have them the full supported life and get a little money back on trade-in. Hardware is pretty obsolete by then, so I wouldn’t want to keep them longer
New batteries have been reasonably priced and easy to get done. We spend a little more for better cases so the phones usually last, however replacing a screen means replacing the phone
Don’t bother with cases and just get AppleCare+.
A glass screen protector is £20-30, replacing the display under AC is £25.
A decent case like a Mous one is £50. Replacing the device under AC is £79.
Plus the phone looks nicer, temps are better, and it’s less cases being manufactured.
You are way overpaying for screen protectors and cases…
I don’t think you understand. I am not paying for them.
I have AC+.
Either you buy high quality screen protectors for your £1000 device or you don’t bother. The same for cases. Mous for instance are extremely durable, but not as good value as AC.
I’m 12 months in and not had a claim but best believe before the two year mark my phone WILL have an incident and for £79 I get a replacement with a new battery and all.
Or I could buy a case that holds no value, my phone can still break and then it’ll cost me more money. Than just having insurance which is guaranteed to make me whole again.
I fully understand what you’re saying, I just don’t agree with you on the value. You are ignoring good value cases and screen protectors, inflating the costs there, then not factoring in the initial $200 (or whatever it is in your local) of buying AC+ and only looking at the deductible.
I’m glad it works for you, but I don’t think your numbers are sound or agree with you conclusion.
That’s fair.
Just to add the extra info, I pay £9.99 per month for apple care.
Say I buy a case for £5 and a screen protector for £5 and I break my screen. I’m now out of£10 and the price of a new display, last time I looked it was £189, likely more these day.
So that one break costs more than the whole year of AC plus the excess.
Are you saying that if you have a case then you’re never going to break your phone?
Sure I could have a year without breaking it, but as I said after two I will break it on purpose to get my monies work and have a brand new (refurbished to new standards) handset.
Your original argument was that you’d reduce the amount of cases being manufactured and now you’re talking about purposefully breaking your phone to get your money’s worth.
You’re paying £120 a year plus for something that might happen, plus a deductible if it does. I’ve never broken a smart phone screen and I’ve always had a cheap Spigen case, so your numbers make no sense to me and are a waste of money. But that’s me, if you’re hard on your phones or are constantly breaking screens then maybe it makes sense for you, only you can say.
Again, you do you. I’m just writing this for other people that might see your original comment and think it’s the best choice financially.
I don’t think there were ever that many of us who read Adbusters every month, but it’s likely even fewer now.
I think that reality TV and social media influencers have had as much to do with people embracing conspicuous consumption as a culture as much as advertisers have.
I think along this line of reasoning when it comes to evaluating myself. It’s how I keep myself in check and “sharpen” myself as a person. I like to remind myself of how often I fall short of it though. I also like to remind myself of the things that I have going for me that others might not have had.
When I play the more charitable viewpoint of other people’s life experiences out in my head, it’s usually pretty easy to see them getting where they are. There’s a lot of suffering in this world, and large, effectively international companies are finding ways to exacerbate that in order to keep their businesses growing. It’s nice to sit down after a long day and veg out to short little videos, where each gives you a little chuckle or smile. It’s not that hard to get caught in the trap.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I agree completely that the path we’re going down is concerning and scary, and individuals can absolutely put the work in to make their lives better and elevate above the mainstream, but for any given person, that can be very difficult for any multitude of reasons, and we can’t forget compassion for them.
And that make their phones expensive enough to repair that buying a new one is a logical fiscal decision.
I always say this. You’re one person. Facebook was once a trillion dollar company that hired teams of engineers, phds, and marketers to device the most abusive ways to keep your attention. There are literal studies showing how insta promotes depression in young girls and yet they’re still allowed to operate.
Social media’s marketing schemes are the new generations tobacco industry.
Though i agree with you, i never feel like ‘i’m only one person’. For instance, if someone turns off the lights and recycles their trash, they often say; how does it help, i’m only one person after all. But there are so many people thinking the exact same thing and together we can help change the world.
So, yes, companies should be changed and i think this is also about politics and economics, which are usually conservative and greedy. But i never feel like the things i do are in vain; i’m standing with perhaps millions of invisible people who care about the environment and try to do their best and who all might be thinking; i’m only one person. Many people do want to change and try their best, but it’s time that all these conglomerates are being forced to change for real, instead of getting subsidized, and just greenwash their products.
Why not both? For example: one of the advantages if Iphones is the long software support. Why then are people buying a new one every year? I‘m still rocking an IPhone XR and while the batterie is down to 80%, I haven‘t encountered an app that brings it to it‘s knees.
I ain’t reading this but I would like to. Anyone got a paywall free version? I tried 12ft.io to no avail.
…edu.sg/…/20230926-STHM-Opinion-B03-30x42-D.pdf
Thank you
My last phone had a cracked screen, loose USB-c charging port that required me to wiggle the cable to charge it, and a battery that drained the last 20% in about an hour. Finally I upgraded, but I still use that last one, plugged in with the wire taped to the back so it stays there, as my streaming box
My old iPhone phone gets sent to a developing country to be used by another person.
It’s not going to landfill just yet.
It’s impossible if the vendors stop shipping os updates. I can’t use an out of date phone for my works 2fa push. Kept my phone for 5 years and it was still going, but the planned obsolescence got me.
Have work issue you a hardware FIDO token (such as a yubikey) or give you separate cell phone just for work. They legally can’t make you upgrade but if your phone can’t get enough security updates to install an Authenticator it is probably time to upgrade to be honest.
the thing is most of the phones are fully capable of running the modern version of the operating system they shipped with but the vendors stop supporting the products to make you buy more shit
Writing this on an iPX which got its last update this week, 6 years old now but I’m just waiting for my banking apps to require iOS17. People will blame development costs for excluding older phones but there is no reason iPhones should not get iOS updates for 10+ years to save App developers the work.
Well there is, if you wish for apps created by others than large corporations with hundreds or thousands of developers. It will get better with time now when progress is slower.
But phones 10 years ago were absolutely trash compared to those we have today.
My dad still uses my iPhone6, still perfectly usable, admittedly that is a 9 year old phone but I’m not seeing anything making that one obsolete in the near future.
As you say modern phones are not progressing that fast any more, it’s time we made Apple and Google support OS updates for longer. Apple certainly charge app developers enough for the burden to be on them and not the 3rd parties.
I don’t think iPhone 6 had 5G cellular or WiFi6. As those become dominant, iPhone 6 will seem hopelessly slow.
No more updates. Probably no more parts, like batteries.
There have been a lot of hardware improvements over time. iPhone 6 might text and talk, but most of use use a phone for a lot more. It’s time
First and foremost, don’t feel pressured to get a new hand tablet with a ten-lense DSLR stapled to the front every single year.
I know Straits only used a picture of an iPhone to get more clicks, but Apple is the least of the offenders when it comes to this. iOS 17 runs on phones released six years ago (including the last iPod touch!), and security updates go a couple years further back than that. I wish Android phones could guarantee that kind of lifespan.
Battery replacement sucks on every smartphone except for obscure modular phones that suddenly lose support or the company goes out of business. But the newest iPhone actually makes it easier to replace the battery (read: still sucks a bit). So, while you have to jump through hoops, you can replace the battery on every smartphone (usually through official channels, but also by other means if needed).
What needs to happen is the masses need to be taught that it’s okay to keep your phone for a few years. Phones need to regarded like cars. Drive it until you can’t, THEN get a new car. And when you do, consider a newer used car. Once that becomes commonplace, then companies will be forced to tone down their release schedules.
This isn’t talked about enough. Apple at least for now support more older models than most if not all androids. The key is not to buy into the marketing. Phones today are good enough and mature enough to not need to be at the bleeding edge every other year. Just get a new case, new wallpaper and swap the battery before deciding a new phone.
Honestly if you care about camera improvements, get a second hand semi decent mirrorless or point and shoot camera. Way more fun. And easy replaceable battery and storage.
Agree with all of this, however there isn’t any need to tone down release schedules. There being a new product doesn’t force you to buy it, however it does mean that when you do come to buy it there is a fresh model available. For example imagine if they adopt a 3 year release cycle and you break your phone on year 2.9, now you’re forced to buy a model with a 3 year out of date feature that will itself be obsolete faster, especially since a new model is round the corner. This isn’t the best system. Better the phone companies keep making the latest tech available, so when you do need to buy you can get the phone with the longest life ahead of it.
that’s why Apple forces replacement parts to be paired with the original device, making impossible for repair shops to scrap and reuse parts of broken iPhones to repair others.
ifixit.com/…/we-are-retroactively-dropping-the-ip…
Guilty as charged. I get a new phone about every two years. Do I need a new phone every two years? Absolutely not. All essential features work just fine on older devices. Why do I still do it? Probably because I’m too enthusiastic about new hardware.
I hand down my old devices to family members, and when I hand a device down, the receiver hands their device down to another family member. So the phones I purchase are actively in use for at least six years. 6 years is around the point where Apple drops support for major new iOS updates, and eventually also security updates. Batteries get old and replacement costs tend to get very close to the remaining value of the device itself.
I’m not trying to justify buying a new smartphone for myself every other year, but there’s only so much you can do as a consumer. Sure, there are aftermarket ROMs for many Android devices that extend software support, but that’s hardly something everyone can install and maintain. You can get replacement batteries from trustworthy brands for fairly little money, but then you either have to replace them yourself (which isn’t trivial for many people), or pay someone more money to replace it for you.
In my opinion, only a small (or at least lesser) portion of the blame is on the consumer. The EU and other governing bodies need to step in and require manufacturers to:
If all this is in place we can start blaming the average consumer.
Still, people like me aren’t completely innocent, I’ll admit that. I know that I’m just fine using older devices. I used a first generation iPad Pro 12,9" for a long time. I think it had a dual core A9X SoC. I eventually upgraded to an M1 iPad Pro and sure, the old device was way slower (or rather the new device was a lot faster), but I’m not doing anything with the new iPad that the old one couldn’t handle somehow.
You could maybe even put a small portion of the blame on developers (or rather, people in charge at software companies). Many apps use frameworks like React Native to port their apps to mobile, and while it’s better than Electron, it’s still nowhere near as efficient as a true native Swift UI or Android (don’t know how their current UI framework is called) app. Huge companies that clearly have the budget to make individual, native apps for each platform rarely do this anymore (Discord, Instagram, …). Building efficient apps would likely make customers less annoyed that their old phone is “getting slower”.
I for one feel like the hardware hasn’t actually gotten better “enough” since I got my Galaxy Note 9. All the “improvements” feel marginal at best and don’t give me the impression that they’d impact my user experience enough to justify the loss of a headphone jack.
Fuck ALL that jackless horseshit.
AND I still can, and do, use wireless earbuds!
Whenever the cable of my trusty wired ones might get in the way.
(Which is seldom)
I for one feel like the hardware hasn’t actually gotten better “enough” since I got my Galaxy Note 9. All the “improvements” feel marginal at best and don’t give me the impression that they’d impact my user experience enough to justify the loss of a headphone jack.
Fuck ALL that jackless horseshit.
AND I still can, and do, use wireless earbuds!
Whenever the cable of my trusty wired ones might get in the way.
(Which is seldom)
you'd have to nationalize hardware production and service. for-profit companies would not accept a zero-profit decade-long obligation like that.
They could be if device makers, app developers, and Google didn’t actively try to make it harder.
What about new phones is driving you to get a new one? The industry has been stagnant for quite a while now and every year it feels like the only selling point is “camera improvements”. If anything I think phones have lost features over time with the last worthwhile phone being the Galaxy S10 with everything since being a downgrade in multiple ways.
I think it’s weird to get enthusiastic abount something and then bored with it in two years.
If it was worth getting enthusiastic about, wouldn’t it last me longer? Lol.
5 year old Oneplus 6.
Does everything I want it to. Everything still works. Rooted. No ads. Still runs fast. Never used up 80% of storage.
Only notable issue is my battery. If i’m away from WiFi and I’m using it a lot (listening to YouTube ad free on fire fox) then I’ll run outta battery by the end of the day.
Near as I can see cell phones hit a plateau 4 years ago. And unless you have a phone with built in obsoletence - there’s no reason to upgrade anymore for the average user.
Eventually, when your phones gives out,.consider a pre-rooted Fairphone.
5 year warranty, decade long software support, and everything is easily user replaceable including the battery.
The steps are in this order. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Keep your own phone for now to reduce
Wow! That sounds right up my alley.
I found out the last time I bricked my phone that the number of people willing to help me had gone from ‘help in minutes - live help’ to ‘answers via a forum - hours and days response time’ and that’s why my phone hasn’t changed anything major in 8 months. I’m too afraid to mess anything up.
I looked at this today. Aside from the initial investment this seems to be amazing.
Makes me with I cared more about my privacy to take advantage of the options.
And that I had the motivation to learn more phone based programming…
I’ve book marked it for future investment
The default wallpaper looks so much like testicles photographed from below and I can’t unsee it
.
I was skimming the comments just for this, I’m baffled by nobody else seeing what I saw! Though I see a butt. Why aren’t people mentioning that weird image?
I only upgrade when my phone literally dies or can’t support criticial software and security updates anymore. I upgraded from an iphone 6s to a 12 Pro Max 2 years ago and will probably hold on to this phone until it’s no longer supported.
gosh, I love my Fairphone.
Gee willikers it sure is swell huh!
Me too!
Fairphone 4 with weekly android 13 updates here! ( lineageos )
Oh dang that’s neato!
problem is planned obselescence… dont buy it? fine… a few more years we will do it for you to by dropping support for the one you are using
Batteries are the biggest culprit for this even beyond software support. They degrade predictably over time… thus they are disposable. But with no way to replace them on most phones that means the entire device is disposable.
ez, make them removable again???
Something something upcoming law
We’d love to!
I think the EU is going to require this soon
The key is make them easily removable.
If it’s ‘removable’ but it requires heating the edges of the phone up to 120F and then prying apart a sheet of hair-thin glass without breaking it, then most people won’t bother.
If it’s 4 Philips head screws then you’ll find a lot more people doing it.
Unfortunately, the economics for device manufacturers are clearly in the adhesive category- cheaper to assemble, and they’d rather a user buy a new device than service the old one so they DGAF how hard it is to service.
The only exception is companies like Fairphone catering to a niche audience of nerds who value repairability. Most people don’t even consider how hard something is to fix when buying it.
Sadly I think legislation is the only way to fix this. You have to legislate either a. that the battery be removable and replaceable without tools or ‘with standard fasteners and not adhesive’ or something like that.
The only way to really fix this is to stop gluing phones together.
i’m still waiting eagerly for fairphone in the US :(
Apple supports its phones for at least 6 years. You definitely don’t need to upgrade every 2, 3 or even 4 years.
But but but! If I don’t get the newest shiny toy as soon as it releases, how will people know I support them? /s
The fairphone and terracube are starting to take off. Being able to replace hardware was a staple in early cell phone design and hopefully will come back.
I would consider these if they weren’t still using Android. Anything with Google involved is unacceptable to me.
Fairphone allows you to unlock the bootloader and install an OS of your choice.
See …fairphone.com/…/9979154556817-Google-free-Androi…
Fairphone is also pretty expensive to standards in my country as well. Although, a great concept.
Fairphone is well supported by open-source Android distributions like Lineage and /e/OS. Not all Android is involved with Google.
I wonder why nobody has made some sort of headphone Jack module already
Yeah… the old terracube has one and I loved it. Now I have a USB c to audio adapter and it sucks.
“I’ll just pop right out of this here USB slot so easily and inconvenience you at random times, and you’ll thank me for the tiny space you saved” -Dong
Just don’t buy a fucking new phone every couple years
Right? My Pixel 4a still works like new but Google’s dropping support so I have to get a new one or run a custom ROM. And the new phones don’t have headphones jacks!
All that said, I mostly use Bluetooth headphones anyway now, and it’s rumored that Google will switch to a 7 year support cycle, so I might just grab a Pixel 8 on Black Friday.
I still got a 3a! It’s definitely on the slow side these days, even with root.
Luckily it’s much better now. My 6a has a 5 year support cycle, so I’ll definitely get bored before the support ends. Also like you said, the 7 year support rumor too, which I think would be really good. Don’t think they should be supported longer then that.
I’ve been reading about LineageOS for my 4a. Looks like it comes with a lot of caveats, and certain Google Apps not working. As much as I hate it, I do actually need some of that, I’m kinda stuck on stock android for now. Probably gonna grab the 8 or 7a on Black Friday.
assuming it uses MicroG, yeah it still lacks a lot of compatibility. I am using GrapheneOS and it has sandboxed google play, which basically gaslights the google play services into thinking it has full device access, but limits it to just a regular app that can be installed/uninstall at will. It’s pretty cool and is like 99.9% compatibility with regular stuff which is cool.
Google Play system updates are a thing since the first Pixel, and still continues to be updated to this day. So there still is some form of system updates.
Samsung S7 (same year as the first Pixel) when it reached end-of-service had to have a few security updates due to some pretty big android exploits. Pixel however did not need a security update because Play system took care of it. So even though your Pixel reached EoS, it actually didn’t really.
Honestly, why? If it works for you now, why wouldn’t it work for you then?
Because modern apps may not support old OSs. And because security, I’m not sure if Google will still release security updates, but security is important.
Jailbroken ios 15 dopamine iPhone 12 user:
“Yeah I’m not upgrading for a long time “
Sure, let’s blame consumer for corporate policies
It’s both really. Too many people rock a cracked screen, then upgrade it as soon as they can. Rather than looking after their device or getting it repaired.
But at the same time, corporations limit device longevity due to bad practices. Like limited security updates, planned obsolescence and anti-repair policies.
In short, not enough people care enough, and the companies prey on this. Attacking the “upgrade culture” is valuable, as legislating against these bad practices can only happen if the people exert enough political pressure
Same situation as plastic straws. Let’s blame the public for using straws, when actually it’s industries and corporate policies that refuse to adopt better practices.
Phones have to easily repairable before you can blame consumers for upgrading. Cell phones are pretty essential for modern life and most of us don’t want to be without them for long. The upgrade allows for people to not have to worry about what to do when something out of warranty breaks. It is like fixing your car. In warranty, the manufacturer or dealer takes care of things. Out of warranty, you have to find a repair shop. Finding a repair shop is difficult. Trying to get a second or third quote on a broken car is difficult and costly.
The alternative is to make repair shops have transparent prices and make it easy for them to get oem parts. The other option is to force companies to warranty their phones for longer. Until the government does one of those you can’t blame consumers.
It is possible to find phones that are easy to repair in Europe. I think they are going to hit the American market in a few months.
theverge.com/…/murena-fairphone-4-us-release-date…
So now that people have options, it is really on the consumer side.
Yeah, but that’s an insanely recent development
I know about the fairphone. It just now became available for sell in the US No one except maybe IT people know about it. Consumers have to know about the choice to make it. It is also ridiculous to point to one choice that isn’t available yet and blame the consumers.
I meant now that there will be an option. Plus, I’m not blaming, that would make no sense because I thought the phone wasn’t out yet.
Yep. When you can’t easily replace a battery it’s a strong (intentional?) disincentive by the manufacturer that pushes people towards buying a new phone. If you need to surrender your phone for a day or three to get the replacement done, people would rather sign a new contract for a phone than be without.
Dawg, I only upgrade phones and laptops once every 8 years or so. These things are EXPENSIVE, I can’t afford one more often than that.
My current tablet came out in 2014, that’s when I got it. It’ll be a decade old in just a few months.
Besides swapping the battery out twice over the years, it still works great and does everything I need it to do. Fantastic big AMOLED display, too.
Which tablet is it?
Yea, idk, I’m upgrading my phone after 3 years, and if this buyer comes through I’ll have paid $100 for that 3 years of use.
I think a lot of people treat the idea of upgrading often as the old become ewaste immediately or is just kept in a drawer. But selling my used gear while it still has value keeps my overall burden down and devices much cheaper. I upgraded to the Pro Max this year, and out of pocket after this sale I’m spending $350. If I had had the Pro Max before I’d probably be getting another $100 or so for my used device. I’ll do the same thing in 3 - 5 years depending on if/when I have an incentive to upgrade again.
Laptops and tablets are a different story since they don’t keep their value quite as well as iPhones do, and if I’m honest have a much smaller impact on my daily life.
Most of those older $300-400 Android phones are ewaste for the most part after 3-5 years. Higher-end everything is more valuable and generally lasts longer. $50 work boots vs $400 work boots.
Modern $300-400 phones however I think will last 5 years easily in terms of performance depending on your needs.
I’m still rocking my Galaxy S8! Gonna keep it till the battery is toast.
Replacing the battery is not too hard too
S7, hoping to move up soon, but the paper aint really been there and it’s not like Pokemon Go’s a high priority in my life
Ok but first manufacturers must “rethink” planned obsolescence and right to repair
This.
we don’t “this” here.
But apparently you do diss.
Planned obsolescense is a myth. It’s just cost-benefit that makes old tech crappy. Tech keeps getting better, and supporting the old device is a pain for no extra money. And phone architecture is stupid so they need every single part supplier to provide updates if they want to update the OS, unlike PCs where the hardware is better-abstracted.
You’re either a troll or an uninformed idiot who has never done operating system development. A properly modularised OS can allow for minimal upkeep for older hardware. A leading example is Apple’s .kext system allowing for near 10 years of OS support both on macOS and iOS. Not that I think Apple is a great company but they do have some really good software development practices.
Also regardless of the technical explanination above, accepting a constant flow of e-waste for the sake of a new shiny year is just unethical regardless of the supposed reason.
Sir, you can prove someone wrong without insults. You need to chill a bit.
Shh corporation bad giv updoot.
Sorry about that but it really boils me when people defend poor software development practices when making the point of supporting hardware for a long time is difficult.
I actually did do operating system development, at least back in school. But comparing Apple to everybody else is insane when Apple controls the full vertical stack of end to end hardware. You may as well compare them to the driver support on Nintendo or Toyota.
And also there’s the problem that the Android OS is based on Linux which handles the “wierd new hardware” problem by recompiling the kernel, which doesn’t work so well with closed-source binary drivers. And that’s before even getting into the ARM architecture.
I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted because your argument is right. Apple has a rather small number of hardware devices to support. That makes long term support a lot easier.
Edit: I mostly disagree with your previous argument though. Planned obsolescence is alive and thriving. I’ve seen so many PCB layouts where heat sensitive parts were placed right next to heat emitting ones that I cannot believe this is by accident.
I’m playing around with OS development only as a hobby currently. I don’t know much about black box insides of macOS however I have used third party drivers as well as looked into how the kext system is structured and it really seems like a master class of software engineering. Having the drivers structured hierarchically under categories/subsystems and with multiple kernel API revisions supported means the kexts work over a wider lifespan.
Also comparing Apple to the rest of industry is not completely unreasonable for one reason. Modern register level documentation is hidden under shitty NDA’s and aren’t even complete half the time, with the usually poorly written SDK being used as documentation instead. Even better is when parts of the SDK are fucking binaries with no hopes of figuring out where the bug lies. The top dog of course is no SDK whatsoever and instead opting to release a fixed, factory compiled linux kernel release for Android only. I believe this is what Qualcomm mostly do and why those Android releases have a fixed lifespan of 3-5 years. When this is how over half the Android phone SoC market operates, I wonder how half of them make it to market working as well as they do.
Linux on the other hand is just a mess (In more ways than one. I have low opinions of it). That is not a good example of modular driver support. The unwillingness of the Linux community from both userspace applications / libraries and kernelspace to maintain a versioned API system with rigorous testing for compliance and to instead create a moving target is nothing short of a fucking joke. It’s no wonder Android can’t easily maintain cross-generation support. Then there is the lack of support for running different versions of libraries side by side as necessary.
I run a Linux server for home use as it’s still king in this regard and have sometime attempted to use Linux as a desktop. However I eventually come to the same conclusion that it’s just too unstable and “patched together”. My daily driver is still a mac, no matter how much I want to move away due to Apple’s worsening business practices.
Sorry for getting heated. It just really boils me when people defend poor software development practices because it the “industry standard”. I disdain manufactured e-waste stemming from rubbish software development practices.
it’s not just phones or devices that need updates, though. None of my refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers have ever lasted more than 10 years; I think the average is about 5 years before they stop working, get all rusty or a very expensive piece breaks so they are not worth repairing. Meanwhile all of my granma’s old kitchen appliances are still working perfectly after 60+ years of service.
Sure, it might be just that over-optimizing their production so they are more performant while being cheaper to make is also making them less durable, but I don’t see a lot of motivation from companies to go out of their way to build durable things either. And it’s not that I think Corporate = Bad; as you say it’s a cost/benefit thing, it’s just that the “benefit” companies try to maximize is their shareholders’, not our planet’s. It’s on Politics to create a legal framework where some of the cost to our planet is shared with companies (so they have incentives to make things durable/repairable again) and on us consumer to choose wisely what to buy, when and from whom.
I agree. I’m tired of always blaming the end users for everything
At work my manager still rocks an old Motorola g5 plus. He says phones have reached peak performance and there’s no point of upgrading. Hes a humble, down to earth guy also make $210k/ year.
Oh I loved that phone! I still have it but I didn’t have the balls to replace the built in battery so I reluctantly decided to upgrade
He replaced the battery by himself. Ordered stuff from ifixit.
Peak is definitely not true, but there is no point in upgrading for the foreseeable future.
I hope my phone lasts me decades. I don’t really see it being incapable of doing what I need it to unless we radically change how we use our phones.
I’m sure people have felt the same way about PCs, too. Ever since Sandy Bridge, there hasn’t really been a reason for most PC users to upgrade unless they were gaming or did some other CPU-intensive task.
I’ll tell you right now your phone wont last a decade.
That battery, even with light usage, will eventually degrade to the point you’ll have to charge it multiple times a day to keep it alive.
and then you’ll have to do the math and decide between getting a new battery and just getting a new phone.
Thats the decision i had to make when I needed a battery for my old phone… Did the math and found the cost of a new (to me) used phone was close enough to the cost of the replacement battery + labor that it was more value to me getting the newer phone, with newer OS, and still in the receiving update window than putting a aftermarket battery in my old phone.
Granted, the math gets heavily skewed in favor of a new battery if you are well experienced in cellphone disassembly and know you can do it without breaking the screen or back. I’m not, and any savings would go out the door if I broke anything, which is why I was going to let a professional do it.
I would listen to you, but I was using my previous phone for 5 years and noticed no degradation in battery life. I only upgraded to this one because it was free.
Sorry man, maybe you’re right and time will tell. But we’ll just have to wait and see. This phone has a significantly larger battery, too.
If there was no degredation after 5 years and thousands of charge cycles, then you need to rush your phone off to scientists so they can discover the miracle materials inside it 😜
The problem is that there are security updates that those old phones need and aren’t getting. The whole “let’s tie the operating system binaries to the hardware” thing was always dumb, somehow Windows can handle binary-blob drivers that aren’t built into the OS.
Paid content, really?
…edu.sg/…/20230926-STHM-Opinion-B03-30x42-D.pdf
I dunno, my phone’s always start to have issues if I keep them too long. Boot loops, frequent crashing, random resets, functionality failing to work as it did when new, lack of security updates, etc. The hardware is built to fail
…no longer receiving updates.
Also it was hella expensive back then. You can get a Pixel 8 for the same price with 7 years of updates. Way better value.
Yeah :( I love my 2017-2018 phone to death (it’s a Pixel 2 XL, and in the ~€400 phone market they are still trying to beat its camera quality 6 years later - and since it’s a Pixel it’s still more fluid than several phones I try in store, like €400-500 Samsungs, that display evident stutters that mine does not), but it has started with the random crashes and “dying” (boot loops followed by not turning on anymore) for a few minutes / hours before coming back to its senses occasionally
Yeah, I’d still be using my galaxy note 4 if it didnt start having so many issues. Used that phone for what seemed like 6 years. Well built, but the replaceable batteries that were reliable were harder to come by. It had boot loop issues, it had some sort of memory corruption defect that was common with note 4s.
I got my phone for free, thankfully, from Visible. They were going to make me upgrade, but I never did and they just decided to send me a new phone instead.
First time I’ve gotten a new phone for free since I was a kid.
Somewhat related. My grandpa has had a Nokia flip phone since I was a kid. It’s around 20 years old. It’s survived so much abuse. He’s replaced the battery in it about a dozen times. He got a call last year from ATT saying due to the 3G shut off and other network changes his phone will no longer work. They upgraded his plan and sent him an S21 all for free. First new phone he’s ever had since the Nokia. I’m dreading the experience in 3-4 years when he calls me that the battery sucks and shit acting up.
He could sell the S21 and get a Fairphone instead? At least then the battery is still replaceable along with other components.
Legalize Right To Repair Ban Planned Obsolescence
Boom, solved the problem. But once again it’s easier to shame Joe Q. Public than hold the real criminals accountable.
Won’t solve the problem of people spending 1000+ dollars a year on the latest and newest because they need it as a status symbol to fill the vacuous hole where a personality would be.
and I’d wager more people are buying new phones every year for that reason, than due to forced obsolescence.
Isnt gonna solve the problem entirely but will make a huge difference. Cant say anything about the iphone craze in US but at least here most change their mobile only when issues pop up and repairs get too expensive or impossible.
It’s not even everywhere in the US, where I live there are people still using flip phones out of necessity.
And I’ve only really ever changed smart phones twice myself, new phones are just too dang expensive.
living from the ego is a choice. everyone is free to examine their values and beliefs, and choose a life that supports their well being. not doing this is pricy.
Some people will do that regardless, but I would keep all of my phones for longer if the batteries were easily changeable and they didn’t eventually grind to a halt. I loved my Pixel 3a and would still be using it today if I could.
I mean if they can afford that, good on them I guess? But it really would help for the rest of us who ya know, don’t base their personality on whatever they’re lugging around in their pockets.
Ban glue in non-waterproof electronics. I remember when I didn’t need to risk destroying a device with a heat-gun to open it up and repair it like 10 years ago, but y’know, everything needed to be thinner.
Thats one thing that boggles me… I’ve never heard a single person go “Y’know, this phone is nice…but I wish it was thinner and more fragile”.
I’m convinced they just want to make phones thinner, and push screens further to the edge (or in the case of Galaxy, around the edge and down the side) just to make them more likely to break when dropped.
You’re on Lemmy. That means you’re probably not a “form over function” shopper, y’know?
True
I get where you’re coming from, and maybe I was just lucky, but holy hell my note 10+ was a TANK despite the reach around screen. Miss that phone already, I got talked into swapping when I moved and had to change Internet not long ago. A month after having my pixel 7 pro, and one fall from the edge of my desk onto the carpet, and the bottom half of the screen shits itself lol
In waterproof ones too. It isn’t hard to make use of stainless steel screws and a simple O-Ring (see computer waterblocks).
Reminder that industrial handheld computers, despite being way more water and everything else resistant than an iPhone will ever be, and whose environmental resistance is absolutely critical to their function and not just a marketing bullet point, are also repairable and upgradable. They work for decades with periodic maintainance which is actually why heavy industry seems so “behind the times” on upgrading their equipment, they simply don’t have to because their existing gear is so resilient.
If what you seek is a repairable phone, check out the Fairphone 5. Got mine for a week now (transparent édition), incredible little machine. Not as waterproof as an IPhone, but way more repairable. And supported until at least 2028 (maybe 2031).
I have a fairphone 4 and I love it.
Yep. I’ve had a pixel 6 for the past 2 years. It’s still phenomenal. Zero issues with it. I’m keeping it another year.
maybe it’s my personality or i’m old but i keep my things (including tech) until they become unusable. i’ve never thought about upgrading my phone every couple of years. i kept my last phone for 6 years (it became a brick), my current phone is from 2018.
I intentionally buy things that I know I can use until they are unusable. I do not often buy anything from apple.
Me too. My phone is 10 years old, my microwave is 40 yrs old, my car is 24, my home theater amp is 25.
I take pride in taking care of my stuff and making it last as long as possible. It’s something I got from my grandmother who wouldn’t let anything go to waste. (She was a refugee from ww2, so she knew a thing or two about making things last and making due.) Obviously not everything can last that long, but if you get good quality things chances are it’ll be around a lot longer than if you just buy cheap or flashy stuff.
In the era when everyone seem to be taking out expensive contracts for new phones every year I have had just 4 smart phones in the past 20 ish years. They all reach the stage where they are just too slow for modern apps but I think we might finally be in the stage where compute power progress has slowed that the current phone might get an open source Lineage et el on it for a decent period of time with multiple battery swaps.
Me too. my phone is from 2017 and I’m fine with it. It’s part of your personality, to preserve things. Associating personality traits to being “old” or to any stigmatized aspect in our society is a dirty trick to manipulate people (in this case, used to force people into consumerism). Just be yourself, and don’t feel bad about it.
I bought a second hand flagship from 2019 and surprisingly seamless keeping up with the new ones. And always keeping it on an optimized manner. The only apple device i have is ipod touch 6th gen, yes its old but still working serving my music needs. Also bose speakers from 2000s they get dusty pretty easy but still functioning up to this day.
It’s good practice to buy at least one or two new smartphones per year.
Thank you for the tip, Mr Business Man!
Battery degrades every six months, and most batteries sold are either cheap but fake or QC-passed but as expensive as a brand-new phone.
Dude the downvotes, it’s a joke. Should I put /s? lol
Battery degradation is real, but typically lithium batteries in phones should last 18-24 months before their noticeability bad enough to want to warrant a replacement.
But, if you’re constantly leaving it in a hot car, draining it to near 0%, or otherwise stressing it out, it will will significantly worse off, even at 6 months.
I still use my Galaxy S8. Works just fine, could use a new battery.
I still use my S9.
Actually after 2 years I got a S21 or whatever and gave the S9 to my daughter. But that one died after 2 years, so I took back the S9 and have been using it for another year.
On a s7 edge right now, but it’s really showing its age
I sill have my s9. I have had it for years, but I think next year I might change, only because this ones battery is starting to drain a little toofast.
Bold of you to assume I don’t lose or break my phone every year or two
Yeah, the thing with phones is they’re used every single day, and see a lot more wear and tear than say, a Kindle or a laptop. Not everyone wants to fork out for an OtterBox or some other ultra tanky case.
I try and go four years between updates, but for my Pixel 4 that meant a warranty replacement on year two due to a charging defect, and buying another used Pixel 4 off a coworker three months ago when mine got water damaged. The replacement just shuts itself off randomly multiple times a day, and that’s fine for a couple months but I’m really looking forward to upgrading to the Pixel 8.
We probably shouldn’t treat phones like leading cars, upgrading every year because something shiny and new came out, but upgrading regularly just due to wear and tear makes a lot of sense.
Phones could be more resilient to wear and tear in the first place, though. Glass in the back is the stupidest thing ever.
I have a Pixel 6 and it’s like they specifically engineered this thing to be as drop-prone as possible. Without a case, it’s SO slippery.
My phone is plastic, it’s still getting long in the tooth now
My last upgrade was from an s7 to an s21. I finally had the money to buy it outright/unlocked, and jumped on it when I saw the model had a plastic back.
Only downside is that AT&T won’t let me use visual voicemail because I didn’t buy it with their bloatware. I know it can be fixed, and I’ve tried a few things, but I just gave up in the end because it was too much hassle.
It’ll probably be a long while before I upgrade again, but the fairphone does have my attention now. I’m already used to not having visual voicemail, so I’m sure I can adapt more to have the Samsung bloatware gone too. But I probably have another 3 to 4 years left with my s21 for now
Have you tried a rugged phone?
I would probably still be using my Pixel 2XL if the battery didn’t die. Or a Nexus 6P if that didn’t die from the hardware defect they got sued for. Probably even the OnePlus One before that too, but that may be a bit old for daily use
The 2xl was fantastic. I’m on the 6 now and I miss how light it was, but the higher refresh rate is nice.
I stopped using mine a few years ago, because it would not hold charge, and would also just shutdown at 20%. Upgraded to a Galaxy Note 10, because it was new at the time, and I managed to get it at a 600$ discount. Deeply regret getting it, by this day.
My mom still uses her 2XL today, however we’ve upgrading her to a new phone next week
Have a Note 10+
Screen needs replacing : $450 + tax (cdn) Only one more year of security updates
Bought a “renewed” s23 for $700. I didn’t want to but it didn’t make sense to sink so much into the old phone even though it worked fine. It pained me to give up the SD card slot…
I feel that. I was rocking an S8 I got Black Friday 2017, but I finally had to upgrade in March to an S23. The battery just couldn’t get through the day anymore and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of swapping the battery myself. I couldn’t ship it somewhere to get it done either as I use it for work purposes.
I was perfectly content with the S8, otherwise. I could have used it for another 5 years if the battery was easily swappable.
I’m hoping my S23 will last me another 5.5 years (I enabled battery save mode so it only charges to 85%, which is more than enough for me). And by that point, I hope Fairphone has a flagship that’s good enough to switch to.
Using a phone that long is risky due to the lack of security updates, especially if you’re using it for work. People not using phones longer is a problem, but the bigger issue is manufacturers killing support so quickly to force people into upgrading.
I recently upgraded after 5 years on an iPhone because it reached the end of its support cycle. I considered another iPhone because 5 years of support is great, but really didn’t feel like paying another $1000+ for what is essentially the same phone I was already using, just with a different body. So I went with a used Pixel 7 on ebay and installed GrapheneOS on it, and I’m very happy with it. I’m getting the same 5 years of support, a more secure OS, and I’m recycling at the same time!
Smartphones have been “good enough” for a while now. Enough power and battery to do all the things needed for enough time before running out of battery.
IMHO there are 2 reasons we still regularly upgrade.
I’ve had a few phones over the years some of them I “legitimately” just broke (one had a cracked mb after a bike accident) I broke my second to last phone trying to replace the battery (thought I would be able to, broke the screen). The fact that everything is glued down and made to not be replaceable irked me so much that my current phone is a Fairphone. Replacing the battery takes 1 minute and requires no tools. Replacing the screen takes like 5 min and 8 screws. I plan on using this phone for at least 5 years more if possible. But I understand not everybody can shell out 600 dollars for an “OK” phone.
It’s actually planned obsolescence by phone companies pushing updates that artificially cripple our phones and making us believe that they are becoming worthless. Every single phone will slow down over time, even if you reset the whole thing to clear out whatever you’ve installed. Sure, you’re going to need a new phone eventually when software advances past the technical limits of your device, but that’s not what’s happening; nothing has changed that much since you bought your phone but suddenly your phone is slow and not working nearly as well and the only thing to “fix” it is to buy a new phone.
It’s all a scam to make us all carry around tracking devices and to spy on us. Phones are garbage and belong in the trash can.
I keep seeing the complaints, but do enough people actually upgrade yearly? Because anecdotally (including online communities in this) I have seen most people claim that they only upgrade every 3-5 years and I think that’s sensible as an upgrade cycle and will only get longer now if my own feelings match the general populace.
I personally have found myself needing an upgrade every 3 years on average and think I’ll find a way to go longer with phones which don’t lose security updates around the exact time the battery starts swelling on my old phone (my previous reason for upgrading and seems to be happening again)
In the US at least, I think most people get their phones through their carrier and are stuck on a contract paying it off for ~3 years. I think rich people and enthusiasts/fanboys are the only ones who upgrade every year or buy it unlocked at full price from the manufacturer.
Most people in the world buys full price from manufacturer. And they are not rich or enthusiasts at all. It’s just in the US the consumerist mindset of paying $1500 over 3 years for a $800 phone is enforced by the carriers. And the ones who go out of that mindset to fanboy, buy $1500 overpriced phones. Most people aren’t buying flagship phones. Mid and low performance phones are perfectly serviceable for the vast majority of people.
I am not in the US and not locked into a contract and neither is anyone I know IRL but nonetheless we do upgrade at the same cadence. As for the people who upgrade their phones yearly, unless they’re keeping the old phones in a locked box I think it is not that bad if those old phones see use as an upgrade for someone else (either given or sold as a second hand device) or even if those phones run duty as a makeshift device.
I personally think it only becomes a problem if it’s literally e-waste or if the majority of people were upgrading yearly (which is again because it’ll lead to the first problem but felt like putting it separately too). If it’s playing some role in the world it’s okay¹ in my book.
^(1: I wonder if people who use their old phones as a secondary device (eg: a music player for running)^) ^(are creating e-waste or not. As in if it would’ve been better if they used only one device for both purposes and either gave/sold the old phone or didn’t buy a new phone in the first place. After all one could make the case that battery degradation would make them need an earlier upgrade)
its not some conspiracy. the more complex, durable and water proof a phone is, the harder its going to be to repair or replace a component or battery. the nice thing is that now that the technology is mature and basically good enough to do anything fairly well, people won’t need to upgrade for tech or feature reasons anymore. Now it will just be a trade-off between durability and water/dirt resistance, and repairability.
Also, people have no clue how to care for batteries. phones get left in hot cars at 100% charge, left in the sun at the beach at 100%. There is no BMS or hardware battery protection mechanism that can protect against that. Those batteries are fucked and will need to be replaced. And replacement means breaking the water seal around the phone, so it’s annoying and expensive. it’s just the way it is. you are responsible for your battery, and the better you treat it, the longer it will last.
That waterproof/durability argument doesn’t really hold up. We had waterproof, durable Android phones with user replaceable batteries a decade ago. They were made primarily of plastic, and had a nice thick gasket around the battery cover.
That’s part of the problem with all these phones made of “premium” materials like glass and titanium. They serve no functional purpose, they only make the phone more expensive and less repairable. And of course, both of those things are great for manufacturers that want to sell you a new phone when you drop it ONE time and the glass front and back crack.
Back when I had a plastic phone I didn’t even use a case, I beat the hell out of it and it never broke, and I replaced the battery myself in thirty seconds.
I laugh at the stupid titanium thing on the iPhone. It’s such a stupid marketing ploy by Apple. Like, it’s impressive of course, from a manufacturing and engineering point of view, working with titanium is always difficult and challenging. But Jerry Rig Everything disassembled the thing and the titanium is a 1mm veneer around the border of the phone. It has absolutely no structural or protective function at all. The frame is cheap and reliable old aluminum. And the titanium is covered in a disgusting plastic coat that peels and scratches just as easily as any paint over aluminum or plastic. It’s such an obvious scam made to justify overcharging for a boring, dull and standard phone.
We have had watertight user serviceable with external batteries handheld amateur radios for decades. Your arguments are baloney. Phones are only this way because manufacturers want them to be this way.
but they are nowhere close to as thin, and nowhere close to the same complexity
Samsung S21 Ultra that I got in September of 2021
I’ll probably go another year before upgrading, depending on how much it makes sense financially.
It’s not about more reusable hardware it’s about software being constrained to support existing hardware rather than ditch it to save a fee bucks on development.
Does anyone have a full article?