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Choosing to Skip the Upgrade and Care for the Gadget You've Got (nytimes.com)
The New York Times has run a piece on its "Tech Fix" section, in which it argues, citing a user's experience, why skipping an upgrade might not be a bad idea, and how you could hold on to your existing device for a little longer. The story revolves around Vincent Lai, who dug up a Palm Treo, a smartphone that was disconnected last decade, and found that with little tweaks, the phone still had some life in it. From the article: Mr. Lai's behavior might be extreme, but his experience with the Palm Treo illustrates there is another way: If you simply put some maintenance into electronics as you would a car, you can stay happy with your gadgets for years. It is part of a movement of anti-consumerism, or the notion of cherishing what you have rather than incessantly buying new stuff. Signs of this philosophy are spreading: Industry data suggests that consumers are waiting longer to upgrade to new phones than they have in the past. [...] When smartphones and tablets were fairly sluggish and limited in abilities compared with computers, there was a compelling reason to buy a new mobile device every few years. But now the mobile gadgets have become so fast and capable that you can easily keep them much longer. "A five-year-old computer is still completely fine now," Mr. Wiens said. "We're starting to hit that same plateau with phones now."The article also shares some tips such as clearing up storage and getting your device's battery replaced -- which costs roughly $20 to $40 -- that can help you get the max out of your phone and tablet. There's one more aspect, which the aforementioned article doesn't talk about. If you have an old iDevice -- iPhone or iPad -- upgrading to the latest available version of the operating system could substantially slow it up. Not upgrading, however, exposes your device to a range of security attacks. It's a tough choice.
What about software fixes for security bugs?
The reason the 5 year old computer is "just fine" is because the party is over: microprocessors are not getting faster at the rate they once were. The 5 year old computer is within an order of magnitude of power as todays computers. People expect computers to get faster and faster, but they aren't at the rate we have been used to. We are hitting physical limits of digital chip technology. This means that things like AI and "the singularity" that slashdotters dream of will likely never happen, unless we come up with a totally new way of computing. And don't say "quantum computing" either. Quantum computers are currently snakeoil, and even when they come into existence they will be only useful for a narrow set of problems.
I used my first-gen iPod Touch for eight years before the battery stopped holding a charge. Probably five years after the last update. I got an iPhone 5C to replace it since it was $100 cheaper than the current iPod Touch and my cellphone was out of contract.
Please stop using the DEC logo for random digital stuff. It's in the pile like the AMD and Intel logo because back when slashdot did such things, DEC was still a going concern and one of the coolest tech companies.
Whiplash? Are you reading?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is a great idea with a car. But what's even the use with a cell phone? If you hold on to it for a normal length of time, a cool new cell phone will amortize to maybe a dollar a day. It's multi-purpose, acting as a phone + camera + MP3 player + computer + blah blah blah. I dunnow, why cheap out on something you use all the time that really isn't that expensive?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
The problem isn't often the hardware, but the software. Maintaining old gadgets should be OK if you're willing to stay away from walled-gardens or jail-break your device. This post is probably a testament that we should, in fact be doing one of those, or opt for open systems. In other words, you must also choose a device that CAN be maintained easily.
I have a first-generation iPad and it technically works fine. The battery still lasts long enough for it to be useful, and the device is in near-new shape. However, because it's no longer supported, it's becoming more and more useless for the following reasons:
1) New apps can no longer be installed because even the most trivial programs are written with libraries only supported by a recent OS version, which the device does not support.
2) Most currently installed apps can no longer be upgraded for the same reason as above. Those that can be upgraded often have bugs, leaving the user with a broken app, as there's no easy way to revert.
3) Existing apps that worked great yesterday start to require more memory, and begin to crash more and more often. If the app uses an external service, this can start happening even if the app was never upgraded.
PCs are a little easier. My last PC was a decade old before I stopped using it as my main machine. My current one is six years old and going strong.
Why not? The choice is between a phone that's so secure its unusable or
one that is insecure but is still fast enough to use.
You really rather own a brick than a phone that might be insecure?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Instead of choosing between an old iPhone OS and a slow iPhone, you could always just upgrade to a Palm Treo.
>> upgrading to the latest available version of the operating system could substantially slow it up. Not upgrading, however, exposes your device to a range of security attacks. It's a tough choice.
Hey, if you want to avoid the dilemma, just become an Android user, where the tradeoff has already been decided for you: you'll almost NEVER be able to upgrade!
I am still quite happily running a quad core processor from several years ago. While I am able to upgrade some parts of it, if I need to do more than one... it would cost just as much to build a new system. It's sometimes just harder to find parts for older machines. I usually get to the point where when I do build a new system, I have to re-educate myself on all the new formats/standards for hardware.
But to the topic of phones, I have upgraded my phone now for the third time in the same timespan. My first foray into smartphones was a few years ago with the HTC One, on T-Mobile. It was a great phone. When it became lethargic, I rooted it and it got new life. Then about a year and a half ago, they were updating their network and dropping 3G. My phone didn't support 4GLTE, and by law they had to provide me (and my wife) with a new phone for free. We got low-end phones that were barely above our 3 year old phones. Those became problematic as they filled up VERY quickly (2GB storage). I just bought a new BLU phone, which should have the specs to keep me going for a while... but there is no real way to "upgrade" things. Replace a battery... maybe get a bigger memory card. But a lot of things come down to your provider or if you are even able to do things like upgrade the OS. My parents have older iphones, and all my dad wants is a weather app. I couldn't find an older app in the app store, everything required a newer version of the OS. I don't belong to the Apple-verse, so I couldn't help him.
Planned obsolescence is what keeps me out of "the cloud" [or whatever you want to call it] as much as possible, but it's getting harder and harder.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
...and it works just fine for what it does. It can STILL play high quality youtube videos like it always could, and essentially it's just my alarm clock and phone I use every day. I drool at the new Samsung Edge S7 etc...but the game is over when I see prices like 1000$ for a freaking phone, all of a sudden my old phone becomes super attractive (it's an old HTC Legend solid-alu chassis / Oled screen) and what I like about it is that I can still get 3 DAYS battery time out of it.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Upgrading a phone every year is a fashion decision, not a technical one. Choosing to do so after two years is often more technically driven-- meaningful technical improvements (802.11ac, LTE, screen, etc.). Taking good care of a phone and having it last three years is a personal/economic decision. Keeping it much longer may have diminishing returns.
A tablet I would like to keep for 3-4 years; with heavy use, mine have been closer to 2 years, although I am currently at 2.5 years. For the tablet, it really depends on your use case.
A computer though, I have no idea how most people could last 5 years. My mom's computer did make it almost 13 years, but it was clearly at the bitter end of its life a year or two earlier. I am at 5 years and starting to die when I need to run a VM with Windows, but for most of the people in our office after 4 years it is just constant problems.
I had my previous Motorola Droid Razr for years and toward the end of its life put Cynaogen on it. It was an entirely new phone at that point and the only reason I upgraded to the Samsung S5 was because I had a free upgrade.
The S5 is starting to slow down and become unresponsive because of the amount of crapware that Verizon loads onto the phone. I am going to take the plunge and try to root it, though from what I am reading now that it is running Lollipop, it might be a bit tricky. Have any of you downgraded to Kitkat from the most recent version of Lollipop and successfully rooted a Verizon S5?
Given the hardware specs of the current phone, along with wifi and LTE, I could see myself using this phone for years and years to come if I can get replacement batteries for it.
If I ever do have to buy a new phone, I will not buy it from a carrier. There are too many strings attached. Wireless carriers should be like ISPs. We only need them to give us connectivity.
Indeed. There is much to be said for running on old, cheap iron (or phones), if it gets the job done.
War Story: I was working in the Pentagon. We were in the process of clearing out our space, prior to the entire corridor being gutted as part of the Pentagon Renovation (this was 1997-98 or so). We've systematically stripped everything out, even ancient Thicknet with transceivers and vampire taps. . . .when we find a wire running into the wall, the other end connected and active to the switch in the space.
Carefully, the drywall was demolished, and in the small 4x4 space it revealed, was a positively ancient Zenith box, running SCO. As I was the only guy there who knew ANYTHING about Unix or Linux, I checked uptime. It had been quietly running for nearly 8 years. Slow, but got the job done.
Eventually, we found that the system it had been connecting to had been retired in 1995. But it still chugged along. . .
Android user here and I just want to say that I am totally fine with the OS being "insecure". For me it's not an inconvenience to wait to be on a PC to do my banking and I can easily avoid third party russian and chinese app stores.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.