The same thing happened recently with the Chromebook I purchased for my significant other. She's a very light computer user, so we thought it was a perfect device. It was great, until one day she received a message saying, essentially, "this device is no longer supported and is now insecure". Meanwhile, I've got an Ubuntu distribution running on a 10 year old computer in my basement (and soon will on this Chromebook).
I certainly won't buy another Chromebook to have it unsupported in 3 years.
I think it should be more, but it's on par with MacBooks
Other than that, few vendors sell 6 year old computers. Since Apple is often put up as model company here: 2013 had the iPhone 5s which was sold until early 2016, and the end-2013 MacBook Pro (based on Haswell) which was replaced by its successor in 2014 (based on Haswell-Refresh).
> Monster-branded Beats products are considered obsolete regardless of when they were purchased.
Interesting. Thanks for the link.
It appears that the hardware is older than I assumed (yet perfectly capable for browsing the web), which begs another question: I bought this thing brand new a few years ago. Should it be up to the consumer to ensure that there is life left for updates? I will be certain to now, going forward. But I can't expect less-savvy consumers to do the same. It looks like there are models on that list that will stop receiving updates in less than 2 years for sale as new computers on Amazon...
The Win 7 VM we (sqlitebrowser.org) use for our Windows nightly builds stopped receiving Windows Updates a few months ago.
Microsoft seems to have decided to not honour the (legit) serial from MSDN. With no warning or explanation.
2. They offered free upgrades to Windows 10 for a long time (a year?)
3. Replacement cycles for consumer desktops/laptops are short relative to OS cycles, with some internet stats saying ~5 years on average.
4. You can still run Windows 7, you just won't get security updates. You're free to repair it on your own... If you can.
5. Just because you buy an OS doesn't mean you buy lifetime support and updates.
You literally can't. It's proprietary software that you have a limited license to. This isn't like a deprecated Linux distro that you can always jump in and patch the security issues yourself.
Hell I'm sure if these tractors ran on free software, there'd be a business out there competing against the manufacturer by fixing old tractor software if it meant pulling in consulting fees from the farmers. But they can't, because we live in a world where you don't own software, you lease it.
So basically forever = 10 years as far as you are concerned? I have an elixir of immortality that you might be interested in.
Sleazy bastards.
Fixed that little lie for you. I still have two hard drives with Win10 still half-installed because I sure as fuck did not authorize Microsoft to change my computer, yet somehow they re-enabled automatic updates and forced that shit onto my systems..
Would you bet your house on the same happening on any other platform?
Android drops APIs left and right, apps just a couple years old stop working. MacOS is even worse, and Linux graphics stack is beyond comprehension.
Even stuff like OS research (which is what we need if we want a proper security model and a system not written in a horribly unsafe language) is virtually dead because the second you bring up some new experimental system, geeks are going to gang up against you with "what about my legacy proprietary applications, and what about drivers! this is worthless! everyone should just use linux!"
All electronics makers should be required by law to supply security updates and spare parts for devices for at least 10 years after the point of sale (not after the release date).
Another thing I think would have a big impact is requiring all consumer electronics with a battery to have a user accessible method for replacing the battery. This used to be standard with all consumer electronics until very recently.
These laws aren't just needed to protect the customers from corporate bullshit, they are critical for the survival of our environment. Designing electronics to last for 2-3 years is devastating.
Let's start by requiring then that chip vendors sell and support their chips for at least that long?
To stick to "10 years since introduction to market" which is a much easier requirement: 2009 was the year of AMD Phenom II (EOL 2012) and Intel Nehalem (EOL around 2012), and Qualcomm MSM7227 (couldn't find EOL date, but its direct successor came out 2011).
How much stock should they keep around for the 10 extra years after 3 years on the market? (and what happens if they underprovision, will they be sued, or overprovision, throw it all in the bin? they can't sell it, or the 10 year clock starts again)
> to have a user accessible method for replacing the battery. This used to be standard with all consumer electronics until very recently.
... and then vendors sold thinner and thinner devices, and customers preferred them over the others. The only way to get the same mileage out of a thinner device is to put batteries in every nook you can find, which doesn't work so well if the battery is supposed to be a single replaceable part. Also, there are two layers of plastic (chassis, battery container) that take away space that could be better used to store energy.
Can I import a device? What vetting / certification process will be applied? Who does that? What happens when devices are manufactured by subsidiaries which get folded after 3 years? What if "updates" are provided that don't actually fix any vulnerabilities? What counts as a vulnerability for the purpose of the law?
>How much stock should they keep around for the 10 extra years after 3 years on the market? (and what happens if they underprovision, will they be sued, or overprovision, throw it all in the bin? they can't sell it, or the 10 year clock starts again)
There is no reason they need to replace parts with the exact same chip they came with. If newer CPUs/chips are available they could put a new model in. There will likely need to be more standardization so individual parts can be replaced/upgraded but this is not impossible and is very common for parts like GPUs and pci cards.
There are also mountains of these parts floating around after sale. The OEM could encourage the return of unwanted electronics and then gut them for parts to use in repairs after they have been tested. Any leftovers after 10 years can be sent to recycling.
>vendors sold thinner and thinner devices, and customers preferred them over the others.
Customers preferences need to take a back seat over environmental needs. A customer can live with a 1mm thicker phone. They can't live without air and survivable weather.
None of this is trivial and it will be a massive shakeup to the status quo but there is no other alternative. In the end we will all be better off.
The tighter integration of components (instead of routing everything through pluggable buses) reduced power consumption.
Every time a data line passes through a connection (solder joint, connector) you have to crank up power a bit to make sure that the signal makes it. Every time you have to decrease clock a bit, which means more parallel connections (with higher physical requirements == more waste at some point) for the same throughput.
At some point there's a trade-off to be made between inherent eco-friendliness (because it runs on much lower power) and replacability.
> There are also mountains of these parts floating around after sale. The OEM could encourage the return of unwanted electronics and then gut them for parts to use in repairs after they have been tested. Any leftovers after 10 years can be sent to recycling.
Return programmes already exist (although they generally end up in recycling, not as reused parts), and some countries mandate them (e.g. WEEE in the EU, plus RoHS to eliminate troublesome compounds).
Reuse can be troublesome since quality control is so much harder than for parts in factory fresh condition: All the paranoia here (and elsewhere) about three letter agencies tampering with devices during shipment? Multiply that by some large number because supply chain attacks just became trivial.
I'm all for designing products in an eco-friendly way, but a 2019 laptop is so much better in that regard than a 2009 model, that the decision doesn't seem simple to me at which point the 2009 model shouldn't be refurbished any longer.
> Customers preferences need to take a back seat over environmental needs. A customer can live with a 1mm thicker phone.
I agree and a thicker phone has more room for longevity (eg. sufficient shock absorbance built into the frame simply by virtue of being larger than the components inside) than a thin one that I long for a robust device. The majority of customers seems to prefer other aspects though.
You should make laws as close to the desired effect as possible. The market will sort out the most efficient way to accomplish that. Manufacturers will start placing availability terms into their contracts or stockpile as necessary.
Not every consumer wants or cares about this, but every consumer would be forced to pay for it. How would this even be enforced? Who will be the judge of what updates were important and what were not? What if they provide only cheap replacement parts which regularly fail? What if the company goes out of business a few years later? So many problems...
In my opinion it's one thing to create protections that prevent the stoppage of unauthorized repair, or the development of 3rd party replacement parts. However, it's another thing entirely to force companies to provide these services themselves for an arbitrary length of time.
For the same reason we have laws on fire safety, food safety, carcinogens and asbestos. Average consumer may not know or care about their existence. But if we get rid if them all, organised society will collapse.
However I still have difficulty in the grey area between "security" and "other" update...
Addressing known and reported vulnerabilities would be a start - many routers and phones have known vulnerabilities and can be pwned in minutes.
Then I would include degradation of service - example, I have samsung bluray box that came with YouTube functionality. Withing 1 year that didnt work any more because of changes to youtube. Withing a period of time they should be judged to maintain such software degradations.
>Not every consumer wants or cares about this
What consumers want or care about is less important than the ability to live on the planet in 100 years.
Newer products are often more efficient. It's not clear to me that supporting older products is always better for the environment. For example, newer tractors may be orders of magnitude more efficient in fuel consumption and pollution control. I don't know this for a fact but I think there is sufficient precedent to make this assumption for at least some products. Many consumers will favor short-term gains (not having to pay the cost of a new tractor) over long-term solutions (upgrading and recycling equipment).
Leaving aside products that fit into the above category, lets look at an example of a product commonly discarded before it's usable life. Laptops, for example.
Here again it's not clear to me that legislating requirements for spare parts and security updates would make much difference. After 5 years or so all the laptops of average users that I've encountered are in terrible shape. Tons of spyware, extremely slow, and almost unusable. In this case I would usually just erase and reinstall. Now add a broken part to the list. Especially on cheap laptops, components are increasingly integrated so a single broken part could mean replacing essentially 50% of the machine. Laptops are so cheap. What do you think the consumer will chose: pay for the repair and cleanup of an essentially useless machine, or just buy a new one? So often it's the later.
The closed ecosystems that have sprung up thanks to the App Store have actually improved this, but still, in my experience, people tend to just buy something newer (and better) rather than deal with (and wait for) a repair.
I'm not claiming there would be no impact in legislating around this, but I believe it would be small, riddled with holes and problems, and that there are better approaches (to solving environment problems).
Just a wacky example but consider the following.
Manufactures typically design for a particular lifespan (such that no more than a certain % of devices would fail within a specified number of years). The idea is to reduce the amount of devices being trashed, so perhaps we could create tax incentives to encourage (a) longer life spans and (b) better recyclabiltiy.
I think the idea is great, filling your proposal with Xs ans Ys isn't. This is not code, it's a suggestion :)
I don't think that is feasible and could ruin manufacturers. But in the case they end the support, they should provide access for users to install other sofware solutions and remove protective barriers.
The original Pixel is just over 3 years old and is now EOL for official releases.
iOS 13 (current version) has minimum hadware of the iPhone 6S, released September 2015. That may only be a year but it will continue to receive iOS 13 updates for probably another year or so at least (rumour has it iOS 14 will be released late 2020 and no one yet knows the minimum hardware spec for that).
Android has always been terrible for OS updates. Google's hardware was at least significantly better than, say, Samsung (for older phones getting the latest Android) but still... not great.
They are incentized not to, new phones means profit for carriers and new hardware means profit for chip makers.
Maintaining old products costs money, not maintaining products saves money, planned obsolescence prints money
Batteries degrade and on a device that is used 95%+ on battery power this is noticeable after 2-3 years such that there's no real point in making the hardware last longer than that.
You can argue the battery should be replaceable but that adds to the size and cost (to have the packaging and interconnects) and who is going to keep making them? I really wish there were standards for lithium batteries like we have for AA and AAA batteries. I'm not sure it's that simple though since there are bunch of parameters like peak power delivery, power storage and so son. But I'm no battery expert.
Anyway, newness of the form factor is also an issue. Back in the 90s, PCs used to be similarly short-lived. Microsoft's whole business model was built around people re-buying Windows licenses even 2-4 years.
I think this will improve as the market matures but we're still in the pioneering days in some ways.
This is one of those things which is technically true but practically a red herring. The amount of weight it adds is on the order of grams and the cost is pennies. They stopped making replaceable batteries because they want you to throw away the device and buy a new one.
> and who is going to keep making them?
This is the least of the trouble if the model is at all popular, because the margins on custom batteries can be quite large (e.g. charge $15 for a battery with a $3 manufacturing cost), so as long as the specifications are documented you can expect somebody to be willing to make a buck.
But what would really help is to standardize the batteries. The shape of phones hasn't really changed since the start of the iPhone era and there are only meaningfully a half dozen different sizes.
So this gets tricky and this is another reason why we can't have nice things. People produce things that look like an official thing, behave largely like an official thing but aren't to spec, sometimes with disastrous consequences like the man electrocuted by a shoddy charger [1].
As we've seen from the Samsung Note debacle a bad battery can destroy the device and even cause fires, which could easily result in death.
Imagine buying a phone battery on Amazon for your phone. The listing looks legit. The battery looks legit. Maybe that seller is even legit. But how do you really tell if it's not to spec? Maybe you order something that is to spec and because of inventory comingling you get something that isn't. What then?
You can say that it's not the phone manufacturer's fault and you may be right but it is likely going to result in a lawsuit the manufacturer would have to defend. Was the phone up to spec? Was there a compliance issue? The battery manufacturer and phone manufacturers will each point fingers at the other.
Replaceable parts are huge sources of potential problems so as much as it annoys me (and it does) that I can't upgrade the RAM in may Macbook I sort of get why and how we got here.
[1] https://www.ibtimes.com/man-electrocuted-death-while-using-c...
And how to ensure battery quality is a completely independent problem from whether you can buy a battery from someone other than who made your phone. There have been fires with original batteries and there have been third party batteries without any problems.
It's like 1975 AT&T arguing that you should have to buy an AT&T phone because it connects to the phone network. Of course they want you to buy theirs, the issue is that they shouldn't be able to require you to -- or there wouldn't be any iPhones to begin with.
Standardized detachable batteries would have been pretty nice of course.
But even if you buy a new battery from the manufacturer, it may already be 5 years old and degraded as well, since they would only be produced for a limited time frame. Today you just need to find one that is small enough to fit into your device and has the correct specifications.
So there are advantages and disadvantages for integrated batteries.
One of the devices that started this thread would be a tablet Trello-board/calendar on our refrigerator if not for the fact that the device hasn't had a security update in many years.
Go back 5-10 years ago the the Macbook Air (not the original form ~2008 but the second one from 2010-2011) was an awesome piece of hardware. I mean it still had soldered RAM (I think?) and lacked upgradeability but it was cheap and good.
Apple's current leadership didn't like this so we end up with useless features like the Touch Bar, which exist for one reason and one reason only: to drive up the ASP (average selling price) of Macbooks.
The same thing has happened to iPhones. The last iPhone I bought was the 6S 4 years ago and I think it was $649? Expensive but not ridiculously so. Like paying that every 3 years wasn't terrible.
But now? The 11 Pro is >$1000. WTF?
And these things keep getting worse as they add features no one wants or needs to drive up the ASP (eg Force Touch).
Oh and current iPhones use FaceID which is terrible. The false negative rate is really high and having no home button actually sucks. For example, you used to get to the home screen by pressing it. Now you need to swipe up. But which direction you have to swipe up from depends on the orientation of the app you're using. That may not be obvious. It sucks.
But I don't want to pay $1000+ for a phone with a battery that noticeably degrades in 2-3 years. To hell with that.
I'd be tempted to buy the iPhone 8 (the last one with Touch ID) but for a now 2 year old model the price is unjustifiably high as they want to drive you to buy the 11 or at least the XR.
Ridiculous argument. Apple still makes a current-generation phone roughly on par with the price that you found acceptable. Just because they also added a more expensive mode does not in any way discount that fact.
Edit: this article has a nice chart https://www.gsmarena.com/price_history_of_apples_iphones-new...
There's a couple of blips with the 5c and the SE but for the most part even the "budget models" are more expensive than the flagships of old, and the flagships are significantly more expensive.
I'm curious how long they can continue this and still sell phones. I wonder if prices being spread out along 24 month contracts with carriers is what's protecting their sales despite the price rises.
Again, just because Apple added a more expensive model doesn’t mean the iPhone 11 is any worse nor is it “budget” or “a generation or two behind”. It’s actually called iPhone 11 not iPhone 11c or iPhone 11SE or iPhone 11R, the iPhone 11 is the model Apple expects people to buy which is why it’s called iPhone 11 as a follow up to the iPhone XS which was a follow up to the iPhone X.
Is this raising prices significantly?
I still have an iPhone 6, bought new nearly the day it was released. It plays music, it does podcasts. I can text, answer calls.
It's no longer supported by Apple.
I was planning on upgrading to the iPhone 11 Pro this year, but my current phone still does what it needs to do and does it well enough. It's a little slow though.
For what it's worth, Google (or at least parts of Google) agrees that the closed-source drivers are a problem for extended security lifecycle, and they're working with the Linux community to a) extend the kernel LTS cycle to 6 years b) make something that looks awfully like a stable API/ABI for drivers so that Android can upgrade you to a later point release of that LTS without requiring additional work from the hardware manufacturer. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/google-outlines-plan...
Project Treble is Google's plan to keep the drivers working - I don't know how well that's going seeing that OEMs were given the option to not support it at the time it was launched.
For a good example of this, see the conclusion of this recent Project Zero writeup of an Android bug (related to old kernel versions in Android, in fact): https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/11/bad-binder-an... First, Google Project Zero determined on their own that they would approach Google Android with a 7-day disclosure timeline because of active exploitation - usually a disclosure timeline is a way to force the hand of a software vendor you don't control. Second, their suggestion for fixing it is for Android to change how they approach kernel updates.
For another good example, see the time that Google Ads penalized Google Chrome for buying paid links. https://searchengineland.com/google-chromes-paid-link-penalt...
I thought you were going to say that they're working to open source the drivers.
https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/26/everything-is-amazing-but-n...
Everything is amazing but nothing is ours.
Consider Linux on the desktop. For about a decade after it became popular (late 90s) ie till late 2000s, the user experience was crappy, and the app ecosystem was sparse. But they developed so well over the next ten years that in many ways Linux today is more user-friendly than Windows/OS-X.
Enough people want it, and it will happen. And as it happens, more and more people will want it... especially since popular mobile platforms provide less freedom than the desktop ones.
2020 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
Since you refer to Chrome OS... when I say Linux I’m referring to GNU/Linux — an environment that promotes user freedom.
While it would be nice to have more people use Linux, I’m grateful for and satisfied with having something that makes my life easier (with enough critical mass participating). “Year of the Linux desktop” is simply a feel-good “nice to have” bonus, as far as I’m concerned — no market share OCD. It’s already good enough (actually fantastic!) for the people that currently care.
Who cares? 95% of the market does not find adblock user-friendly, even though they all hate commercials and complain about them, and would clearly benefit from installing it. Most people just don't care about their own experience too much, or just ignorant. The point is that Linux desktop has had a breakthrough critical mass of usage and that has lead to availability of high quality options, so in terms of usability Linux is one of best desktop/laptop options of today already. It is not about getting everyone onboard, it's about critical mass.
When was the last time you checked on this? As far as I can see, LineageOS support is pretty much restricted to phones that have had it for years. There is no hope if you have a recent phone. There's also no hope if you have an old phone, unless it's already supported.
For example, the most recent Pixel with support is... the Pixel. The original.
I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially.
They do. That's what official support is. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
But they're a dead project.
Looks quite alive to me.
OnePlus 6, 6T, 7 Pro - these are not "old" devices. Granted, you might argue that OnePlus doesn't count, lol.
Supposedly there's so many Android phones but all are removing things. You can get phones with these, but then their support doesn't last long and generally no one cares about maintaining a replacement OS like Lineage OS.
My ideal phone would have:
- size that does fit in a hand
- phone jack
- sdcard
- hardware keyboard
- ir blaster
- stereo speakers that actually face the user
- work with frequencies of my cell provider
- easy to root
- good battery life
- easy to open and fix
- recent hardware (I rarely play games but want it to be responsive)
But since then I started giving up on some features though those 3 are still important to me.
It's impossible to find one that has all of those things now, the only phones that I owned and really like and were very close to ideal were Motorola Droid 1, and HTC One M8 and it feels like it only goes downhill.
Hardware keyboard isn't something I need personally, but it would certainly be useful; At least add a T9 keyboard, it shouldn't be hard to adapt autocorrect for that.
Good battery life isn't enough: I'd rather have a battery that's twice the size (6-7Ah). This makes it 5mm thicker and 5mm thicker? That's fine with me.
Not everyone cares about the camera on their phone. Dedicated cameras are still a thing, and cheap ones still work better than your expensive smartphone. Being able to read QR and bar codes is enough for me.
And to get it off my chest: give me back my buttons. I want hardware buttons on the side. Give me a home button (I don't care how big the bezel is) and instead of having an assistant button, add a pair of customizable buttons to the side of the screen (scroll for browsers and ebooks, skip/seek media, browser history, launch an app, etc). The best thing about desktop/laptop is being able to set hotkeys
And as someone who likes using tablets, please make your tablets support cases/covers that don't require a clamshell. The Nvidia shield tablet (at least) has magnetic notches in the side, which match up to magnetic tabs on the side of the cover, allowing it to be attached/removed easily. Clamshells are annoying.
Idk about rooting tho. That's a maybe. If I could throw down 500$+ I'd be able to find out.
My LG v20 was purchased the week it came out cause I'm an audiophile. This thing is literally bullet proof and 100$ now. Best phone I've ever owned. Still using it. Rooted n debloated stock ROMs are all I'm interested in all the custom ones never get updates correctly.
I have a pre-order, but right now I'd give it a few months while they sort out production, they seem to be hitting a lot of issues with quality of components which means orders are delayed.
Come to think of it, I should just switch banks!
1: https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/official-magisk...
I really don't understand this mentality (doing it with a bank app, I also had it with OTP app), because I have full control over my phone that somehow makes it compromised?
What's next? I no longer will have access to my bank account because I'm less trustworthy?
Oh wait, they do...
Honestly, I don't understand the mentality either. Admittedly the phone is more portable than a laptop, but the chances of stealing a laptop and gaining access to any cached banking credentials on it is identical to a phone, surely?
This month, Google shipped the last update for my Pixel phone. The hardware is functional and in great shape, but I don't think there are any truly viable ways for me to keep it secure. I have a tablet that long-ago met the same fate. This is in the same world where I can 'apt-get update' my seven-year old desktop and work with aplomb. It is my understanding that the primary blocker to serious open-source kernel development on phones is closed-source drivers for the phone hardware.