According to Wikipedia, Apple sold the iPhone 6 until September 12, 2018¹, and it did not get iOS 13, which was released September 19, 2019² — barely one year of OS support.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_6

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_13

It may not support iOS 13, but Apple has been providing updates to iOS 12 (12.4.8 was released less than 3 weeks ago).

>barely one year of OS support.

Measuring support spans this way is... odd. It's like saying "ubuntu only comes with 1 year of support" because you installed 16.04 today. If we're going by this metric a lot of electronics have 0 years of support. Regardless, apple is still has the longest support, at least when it comes to phones/tablets.

You're blurring the line between software and hardware support, which is a very important distinction.

Ubuntu 16.04 may only have one year of support left, but my current desktop hardware supports both 16.04 and 20.04. It's much more reasonable to sunset old software to reduce maintenance burden while providing an upgrade path than to lock people out of any upgrade path for their hardware.

There is also the distinction that Apple sells closed hardware and prevents you from installing a custom OS with longer software support. And that Apple products cost $$ while Ubuntu is free, which leads to different reasonable expectations. But I don't think either of those are needed to make my point.

> You're blurring the line between software and hardware support, which is a very important distinction.

Isn't hardware support just called "warranty"? That remains the same regardless of when you bought it.

>And that Apple products cost $$ while Ubuntu is free, which leads to different reasonable expectations.

My point wasn't whether canonical/apple's support lifecycle policies were reasonable, just that that defining support periods as the last day it was sold, rather the first day it was sold was unusual/misleading. If you want something to be supported a long time after you get it, you don't grab the oldest version, simple as that. Consumer products don't have a support subscription like enterprise products do, so limiting support to old products is really the only economically viable choice that companies have.

FWIW, the 6 was released September 2014. The 6 alongside the 5s (released a year prior in September 2013) are still receiving patches for iOS 12, the most recent being July 15th.

For that reason I think it's more than fine to continue selling it discounted until 2018, it's not like they were marketing it as flagship.

Additionally the 6s from Sept 2015 is receiving iOS 14.

Yeah, it feels like "damned if you do, damned if you don't". Folks would complain "why can't I buy a simple phone like the 6!" if Apple only sold the latest and greatest, but then when you sell something older, folks want to complain if it's not able to run the latest OS.

Not that Apple's being altruistic here, obviously they want to segment the market and get money from wherever they can. But, can't expect them to sell low price point devices that are as future-proofed (future-resisted?) as top end hardware.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm using my phone a lot less now that I just stay home all the time.

Not really. In the case of eg. fridges, only parts of it (the compressor, usually) is warrantied for that long.

Isn't it the opposite? I thought the compressor was the thing that was not warranted because they break so frequently.

So I actually went on bestbuy and looked at what the waranty policy for a few of the refridegrator brands were, and they were nowhere close to "decades" like the grandparent comment claims.

samsung: 1 year https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-22-6-cu-ft-french-door-...

whirlpool: 1 year https://www.bestbuy.com/site/whirlpool-25-2-cu-ft-french-doo...

lg: 1 Year General, 5 Years Sealed System, 5 Years Compressor, 6-10 Years Linear Compressor. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lg-23-5-cu-ft-french-door-count...

bosch: 1 year https://www.bestbuy.com/site/bosch-800-series-20-5-cu-ft-4-d...

kitchenaid: 1 year labor, 10 year parts https://www.bestbuy.com/site/kitchenaid-25-8-cu-ft-5-door-fr...

>I thought the compressor was the thing that was not warranted because they break so frequently.

given the sample above, it seems like at least with LG, that they have a lot of confidence in their compressors and "sealed system" (probably the refrigerant system).

Warranty is not the same thing as how long it lasts in practice. I would never buy a fridge from a manufacturer again if it stopped working after a year and a half.

I think the mental hurdle here is that while the warranty might be short, the fridge doesn't just stop working after the warranty period is over. And if it does, well there's a 100+ year old industry of fridge repair. But, given the track record in software of not just ceasing to support the products but actively killing them, the move into hardware might give one pause as the devices may well be bricked. At least that's my interpretation of my own POV re: almost anything Google wrt service. Then there's the data privacy element...

2 at the most... and that is pushing it

Home Furnace is probably the longest lasting Home Appliance and it has an expected life of 15-20 years. Common Kitchen Appliances (and most other appliances) are about 10 years...

Maybe I'm the exception but all my home appliances (washing machine, dishwasher, fridge, freezer) are around 25-30 years old with the exception of my oven and stove. Everything is working as expected and I suspect they will last even longer.