Mobile phones engineered 'not to last'

[Quexos]

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

I can't see a company that wants to stay in business planning for their products to fail. It is illogical especially in the highly competitive world economy of today.

On the contrary, by selling stuff that degrades faster they will sell more, it should be illegal, it's morally wrong but they all do it nonetheless and it's very logical since their first priority is to uphold the shareholders' benefits. As for the competition, they do the same so we the people are screwed period !

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

Building cheaply made items is different. More of a rush to the bottom. I can see where some products and manufacturers looking for a quick profit might go there. I cannot see that being a long term strategy for success.

As long as corporation are in power nobody will be able to oppose these evil philosophies and thus it is a long term strategy success. Only a true democratic system where a government puts the interests of the citizen above the corporations' could make these strategies a failure but... oh wait you guys actually believe we live in a democracy ?

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

My contrarian example is cars. The cars of today last much longer and go farther than the cars I was buying 30 - 40 years ago. I expect to get at least 200,000 miles out of a new car today. That would have been a preposterous expectation 30 years ago.

Sure they last longer but they are also much MUCH more expensive than cars used to be. I guess this is the other way to stop bult-in obsolescence, to pay much more and thus the final goal for corporations is also reached, pleasing the almighty shareholder and their benefits...
Either way we are screwed !

[JSWolf]

Most smartphones are designed for planned obsolescence as they do not have easily replaceable batteries. So eventually, the battery will be worthless and the phone will need replacing.

Look at all the Readers where we cannot get a battery and thus eventually will need to be replaced. We live in a throw away society and not everyone wants to replace the gadgets we have.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Most smartphones are designed for planned obsolescence as they do not have easily replaceable batteries. So eventually, the battery will be worthless and the phone will need replacing.

Look at all the Readers where we cannot get a battery and thus eventually will need to be replaced. We live in a throw away society and not everyone wants to replace the gadgets we have.

And that's a hold over from the 19th century as well. Back then for example railroad ties had to be replaced every 20 yrs or so (because there was no way to keep the wood from rotting) and it wasn't til later that creosote was discovered. Of course people weren't really concerned because there were millions of square miles of virgin timber out there. The world population was also smaller of course so people didn't worry about running out of resources (barring the occasional bad year for crops) since it should last forever. And the industrial revolution made mass produced products available with something new coming along fairly often and we kept that mind set up all the way through the 20th century and into the 21st.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

I agree with the second sentence, but not with the first.
"Planned obsolescence" in the conspiracy world means someone in the company sitting behind a desk, twirling his mustache thinking of new ways to create a device that will break one day after the warranty runs out.

I've taken courses in systems engineering, which includes requirements development. Believe me planned obsolenscence is real. Just google it. From one source:

DEFINITION OF 'PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE'
A manufacturing decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. The main goal of this type of production is to ensure that consumers will have to buy the product multiple times, rather than only once. This naturally stimulates demand for an industry's products because consumers have to keep coming back again and again.

Products ranging from inexpensive light bulbs to high-priced goods such as cars and buildings are subject to planned obsolescence by manufacturers and producers.

Also known as "built-in obsolescence".

[Barty]

I once had a conversation with a man of the WWII generation. I asked him what was the biggest difference between now (circa 1990) and when he grew up. I thought he was going to expound on morals and manners. Instead he said the biggest difference was all the trash, the stuff you throw away now. In the old days, you threw nothing away.

Is planned obsolescence built in? Not necessarily. I think most decisions are based on lowest cost and user demand. If having a replaceable battery were as big a selling point as big high res screen or sleek thin light weight body, we would have replaceable battery. There is no need to plan for something when the path of least resistance leads to the same destination anyway.

Btw even the one plus one phone does not have a removable battery. They explain why here

https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/t...-reliable.327/

[tompe]

Also for phones it is a good thing that you need to replace them since that accelerate the development of useful apps and services. If everything needed to work for 10 year old phones it would hinder the development.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Most smartphones are designed for planned obsolescence as they do not have easily replaceable batteries. So eventually, the battery will be worthless and the phone will need replacing.

Look at all the Readers where we cannot get a battery and thus eventually will need to be replaced. We live in a throw away society and not everyone wants to replace the gadgets we have.

That is why I have an S4. The battery is easily replaceable and I even have a spare with a charger. If my battery dies on the road I can pop it out and put in the spare battery. The depleted battery goes into the charger to wait until I have access to an outlet.
Apache

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Barty

Btw even the one plus one phone does not have a removable battery. They explain why here

https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/t...-reliable.327/

Because they didn't want to make the phone thicker. Personally, I find mobile devices to be too thin. I deliberately put mine in thick cases to bulk them up.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by tompe

Also for phones it is a good thing that you need to replace them since that accelerate the development of useful apps and services. If everything needed to work for 10 year old phones it would hinder the development.

To a point. You could also build them to last a year or two longer by not skimping on the CPU and RAM. That would allow them to get another one or two OS upgrades before they're left behind.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

To a point. You could also build them to last a year or two longer by not skimping on the CPU and RAM. That would allow them to get another one or two OS upgrades before they're left behind.

But if that doubles the price it is more rational to sell two phones to a lower price then the one were you did not skimp on the RAM and CPU.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by tompe

But if that doubles the price it is more rational to sell two phones to a lower price then the one were you did not skimp on the RAM and CPU.

Double??? I doubt it. Regardless, this is why we have a disposable society. We don't build devices that'll survive more than a few OS upgrades.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

To a point. You could also build them to last a year or two longer by not skimping on the CPU and RAM. That would allow them to get another one or two OS upgrades before they're left behind.

I was surprised that the new iPhones did not have more system ram. That would have kept them going for a lot longer. 2GB of ram would not have upped costs noticeably. Also, making the base model 32GB storage would have helped a lot as well. But then this is the new Apple where they do the minimum so it gets obsoleted pretty quick so you have to upgrade.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I was surprised that the new iPhones did not have more system ram. That would have kept them going for a lot longer. 2GB of ram would not have upped costs noticeably. Also, making the base model 32GB would have helped a lot as well. But then this is the new Apple where they do the minimum so it gets obsoleted pretty quick so you have to upgrade.

Wait, the new iPhones only have 1Giga of RAM ?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Wait, the new iPhones only have 1Giga of RAM ?

The iPhone 6 only has 1gig of ram just like the iPhone 5 series. The new iPad Air 2 has 2gigs of ram. So yes, Apple has built in obsolescence into the iPhone 6. Even the more expensive Plus is just as limited.

It's time Apple got off their collective asses and built hardware that was made for the way things work instead of the way things used to work. Put in 4gig of ram and 32gig of storage with a micro SD card slot (which can also be used to install apps) and a user replaceable battery and make it the same screen size as the iPhone 6 plus and make it a little thicker (not thinner) and I'm sold.

[Penforhire]

Tubemonkey, I was referring to the original post (expand the OP's quote about software). I don't dispute that there may be a conflict of interest but the practical aspect of older devices not working especially well with newer OS revisions is not going to change.