My previous iPhone 8 lasted from 2016 to 2023. The only reason I stopped using it was because I accidentally broke the screen and the touch panel under it. It still received new iOS versions and updates.
What exactly is throwaway about that when compared to the hundreds of variants Samsung and others produce with a 2 year lifespan and then no updates after?
“Throwaway” may be hyperbole, but the average lifespan in terms of iOS versions for an iPhone is about 5-6 years. (On the low side, someone who bought an iPhone SE in September 2018 only got four years.) The issue is that the hardware often works fine for 10 years or more. Nowadays it’s usually software that makes devices obsolete, without any real necessity.
I believe older iPhones still get security updates for a very long time. Much longer than 5 years, making them one of the longest-term supported devices on the market currently.
> The issue is that the hardware often works fine for 10 years or more.
I don't know about that. It technically still works, but you will feel it being slow because developers keep updating their apps to take advantage of new technologies and features. Even browsing the web keeps getting worse because web developers seem to cruft up their websites as much as the hardware can bear.
I really think around 5 years is the limit to be able to use your phone as an general purpose, internet connected device. If you want to repurpose it into an iPod Touch or Smarthome remote controller or something after that that's still doable even if you're using a deprecated version of iOS.
The story with iPads is a little different. If all it is for most people is a streaming service and article-reading machine those can last 10 years or more and the OS probably should have a longer life and a higher priority on making the batteries easily serviceable. I'd actually love a stripped-down, barebones version of iPad OS that makes it dumber but more secure. Sort of like booting in safe mode, for when people want to repurpose old devices.
This is part of the criticism, though: There is no inherent need for the software to become slower (and less efficient). Throwing the hands up on that front just means we’ll eternally keep churning, in the name of “progress”.
Even aside from the good point Gigachad also made, it's not really under Apple's control to make web and app developers be more efficient. People just develop and scope for the power envelope the hardware can provide. It would be great if they optimized for cutting bloat, but they just don't and there's nobody with the ability to dictate that they do.
App review processes are already opaque and inconsistent enough with fairly straightforward rules around what is and isn't around. I don't think devs are going to like it if Apple starts getting opinionated about how you're doing indexing on your SQL.
I think you are forgetting what phone apps 10 years ago looked like and the features they had. It’s not useless bloat that’s slowing them down, it’s the addition of actual features people like and take advantage of.
That is why I left the google Pixel for iPhone. I liked my Pixel, but at the time, they only did 3 years of support and security updates, I understand they recently upped it to 4 or 5 years? Sure, my iPhone costs more, but if I use a phone for its total life span (when it stops getting security updates), the iPhone comes out cheaper if you divide the cost of the phone by the number of years it gets supported.
I'm using an iPhone 6S, I changed the battery after around three years. The only issue is it gets pretty hot sometimes, still not sure what it is but it's manageable.
The slowing down was necessary to not overload the batteries (very obviously necessary since phones were resetting otherwise), and apple offered replacement batteries almost at cost. What more do you want??
It was a perfect engineering solution, poorly communicated to users.
I'll take a slightly slower phone (in reality not noticeable on most tasks) over unplanned restarts. My partner only just stopped using the iPhone 6 I bought in 2014, original battery all the way, and she had the throttling turned on for years without knowing or caring.
Apple did not communicate to users they were slowing down the phone to prevent issues. They did it silently so users would upgrade rather than replace the battery.
> apple offered replacement batteries almost at cost.
Only after they were caught slowing down phones without informing users.
> They did it silently so users would upgrade rather than replace the battery.
That's a deliberately uncharitable interpretation. It could just as easily be explained by them wanting the customers to not have a crashing phone tarnishing their opinion of the brand. If it were about money, they should have popped up a message saying "The phone is going to be slower because the battery is dead, contact your Apple Store to buy a new battery."
It was not and still is not commonplace for any company to discuss the deep engineering details of a product's battery management logic with customers. The majority of products just stop working, some have an indicator of "bad battery".
Apple has a long record of making decisions for users without presenting options about them. Having these problems solved for us rather than being bothered with them is part of what we've paid for all these years. But their audience is broader now, they're much more successful, and when this practice rubs people the wrong way we all hear about it in the press as if it's some Antennagate-level flaw or scandal with which they were "caught." So they put in an option to make the phone worse but the user happier and move on. I would say "but the reputation damage is done" if it wasn't a foregone conclusion to so many that Apple must be up to no good.
It’s not a useless straw man argument. iPhones typically have a longer life cycle than android phones. That is a fact. User replaceable batteries lower the quality and aesthetics of the phone. So there’s no benefit to having a better replaceable easily. Just take it to an Apple Store.
I did not make a comparison to Samsung, the op did. I am not arguing which phone is better, that's you and OP.
I was discussing apple's flaws and OP/you decided to talk about another company that was worse in an attempt to convince everyone that it's ok for apple to act a certain way.
Re Samsung, they sold 258.3M phones last year; approximately 60 SKUs--with < 3% having user replaceable parts. They are equally responsible. Do you hold them to the same standard?
> have been caught multiple times slowing phones down
Both Apple and Google found themselves in a situation where phones would suddenly go dead when the device was under high load despite the battery reporting that it had a charge, although with the Nexus 6P it was happening to devices that were only a year old.
> your phone will randomly shut down and completely die, even though your battery indicator might have said you had plenty of juice left. It's not a simple system crash, because your phone will stay dead until you connect it to a charger. We've seen reports of the battery dying from a charge as high as 67% to as low as 15% on both Android Marshmallow and Android Nougat.
> I never mentioned Samsung, so that's just a useless strawman argument you're making.
I was with you to some extent in your original post... sort of.. But this last response made me go from with you to thinking you have some sort of agenda, with a real bias and aren't actually interested in a real conversation, you just seem to want an argument that you feel you can win.
I understand why it wasn't feasible before with the rate of progress but now it should be possible. I want to see a LTS type of phone. Something like 10 years. Any other appliance, car, power tool etc. have much much longer useful lives.
I had the battery in my iPhone 6S replaced 4 times. Apple replaced it and it was no hassle. The first three replacements were free due to AppleCare and for the last one I think I paid $40 or $50. Just happened during a mall visit.
IT IS a hassle for many people. So, they just buy a new phone. This is why apple pushes you towards using them for something that could easily be made replaceable by the owner. The majority of people will not take their iPhone in and get the battery replaced and you know it.
Because you have to ship it somewhere or drive to somewhere and pay for it to be replaced.
Does that sound like a "green" way to do things to you? The point is they make it difficult for you to replace parts, hoping you just get a new phone instead.
The sooner you realize Apple doesn't actually give a shit about saving the planet and they only put on this facade to sell you more product.... the better off you'll be.
I own Apple products but I'm not buying their bs about wanting to make the world a better place. Stop holding these companies up as some religious replacement.
> Because you have to ship it somewhere or drive to somewhere and pay for it to be replaced.
The battery needs shipping to you or you need to drive* somewhere to pay for it. What is the difference?
> Does that sound like a "green" way to do things to you?
It certainly doesn't sound any worse.
>The sooner you realize Apple doesn't act...
Blah, blah, blah... Cynicism is easy to the point of being lazy. You and those like you want to repair stuff on your own, and that is fine. Don't pretend that you want to do it because it's any greener. It's as much green washing as Apple is being accused of - same at the USB-C port enforcement. I don't believe for one minute that you give any more or less of a shit about the environment that Apple or its employees do.
> I own Apple products but I'm not buying their bs about wanting to make the world a better place. Stop holding these companies up as some religious replacement.
You made a point, it was challenged and countered, and you're doubling down on it. The sooner you're honest about your motivations, the sooner we can have a sensible discussion.
* Not everywhere is a car-centric as the US--some of us can walk or use public transport, which is greener still.
I still have an iPhone 5s that is intact as well as a 2013 MacBook Pro. They both are pretty outdated devices but fully operational. Apple is definitely not the company to be blamed for making "throw away" devices.
Name a brand thats better in providing software updates and security patches for their fleet of phones.
Repairability is a fair complaint - but the initial lifespan of $android is max 2 years. I consider it broken once it does not receive security updates. So $android phone is “broken” after 2 years.
> but the initial lifespan of $android is max 2 years. I consider it broken once it does not receive security updates.
If that's your definition of a lifespan, "max 2 years" is absolutely not true. Android has two types of support: new major releases and security patches.
An average Android usually supports new major Android releases for 2 years, but security patches usually go longer. Not as long as an iPhone, but more like 3-5 years.
iPhone 6s (released September 2015) - ~ 8 years and going
Nexus 5X & Nexus 6P (released September 2015) - last update January 2019 [1] ~ 2.25 years
Pixel & Pixel XL (released October 2016) - 2019 (can't find a good reference) ~ 3 years
Pixel 2 (released October 2017) - December 2020 [2] ~ 3.3 years
> Not as long as an iPhone, but more like 3-5 years.
Pixels starting from 6 -> 5 years.
Recent Samsungs -> 4 years.
Fairphone 2 (Dec 2015) -> lost support last month.
Things have improved since Nexus 5X, and even that one had a year longer support than your "max 2 years". I'm not saying it's better than an iPhone, I'm saying make a fair comparison.
Exactly this. I spent more on Android phones over time than I ever spent on iPhones. Between the better resale value and longer support, it just turns out to be cheaper to spend a few extra bucks at time of purchase.
This isn't a comparison. I'm making the point that they're bullshitting you about being some big proponent of "saving the planet". They do nothing that doesn't increase the money in their pockets.
I have an iPhone. I'm just sick of their hypocrisy. This is nothing but marketing to get you to buy more product from them. "oh apple is so good to the planet, so security oriented, they really value your privacy"
I’m not sure how to tell you, but if I’m looking for a phone from a company that destroys the planet a bit less than the others, that cares about security a bit more than the others and that values my privacy a bit more, Apple offering such a phone is not some dark marketing ploy, but literally the supply to my demand. It’s the free market actually working.
It's not 'throw away', it's just (over a couple generations, admittedly) they are objectively better. People want them. The fact that they are being recycled mitigates the horrors of technology improving.
