Author Topic: Video on planned obsolescence.  (Read 16992 times)

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Offline tooki

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #100 on: April 11, 2021, 06:07:09 pm »
For example: one could assume that generally, with products that have several "teirs" of quality based on price point, the higher the price - the better the "quality" and therefore, presumably the greater the chance of that lasting longer.  But with certain products that are considered high-end (for example, Apple macbooks), they are marketed towards those who have a higher disposable income and are more likely to "upgrade" or obtain the latest gadget, meaning the lifetime of their product - for that particular demographic - can be rather short.    One could easily argue this is planned obsolescence, and perhaps it is, but is it a conspiracy?
I think Apple is a spectacularly bad example of the point you’re trying to make. Statistically, Macs are replaced less frequently than PCs, and it’s not as though they’re even that much more expensive than competitor products of similar performance, size, weight, and fit and finish.

A much better example of “expensive but not durable because rich people can afford to replace it more often” is clothing, where there are expensive fabrics that are extremely fragile.

However, even that isn’t planned obsolescence, it’s what I’d call “tolerable fragility”, since it’s fragility tolerated in exchange for some other characteristic, like how a super thin fabric looks, pure exclusivity, etc.

Planned obsolescence means deliberately designing things to last less long than they inherently could. Designing fabrics that are delicate because there’s no way to make them durable (while maintaining other desired characteristics) doesn’t count. Making a laptop without user-replaceable batteries in exchange for extreme thinness doesn’t count.

In other words, design tradeoffs aren’t planned obsolescence.

The other thing people routinely misattribute to planned obsolescence is, well, plain old obsolescence. A computer getting bogged down with new software isn’t planned obsolescence, it’s plain old obsolescence.
 
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #101 on: April 11, 2021, 08:02:37 pm »
[...]
Planned obsolescence means deliberately designing things to last less long than they inherently could.

There is something called antitrust or competition laws, where lawmakers have found it necessary to outlaw collusion between "competitors" that silently agree to not compete too hard (for example, by agreeing not to make their products "too good for the price" or, in other words, "too cheap").  Almost like a capitalist version of a trade union!  There are simply some situations that the "free market" can't fix.


[...] Making a laptop without user-replaceable batteries in exchange for extreme thinness doesn’t count.  [...]

I think it should count as planned obsolescence if the manufacturer doesn't offer a thicker alternative - and I think it edges into collusion and anti-competitive behaviour when no manufacturers offer it for love or money, all of a sudden, all at the same time...


The other thing people routinely misattribute to planned obsolescence is, well, plain old obsolescence. A computer getting bogged down with new software isn’t planned obsolescence, it’s plain old obsolescence.

It isn't as cut and dried as that...   it can certainly be planned obsolescence.  The physical equivalent is making a phone with a charge plug that doesn't fit the previous version for no particular reason other than increasing the sales of chargers (which has been made illegal in the EU, I believe).  It is so easy to do the same kind of thing with software - make sure it doesn't run on the old model (and make sure the old stuff doesn't run on the new one) and you'll be good.

Finally,  an examples of some scenarios that definitely don't qualify as planned obsolescence:   you open up a really big graphics project in Photoshop on an older computer, and find it is barely able to cope with the image given its limited resources in terms of memory, CPU, bus, and disk speeds.   Here, I would say that either your PC is obsolete, or, your PC is too slow, but faster/better ones were and are available, but you didn't want to pay for the performance to do what you want to do - so get out and get another one, either way, and don't blame the manufacturer for the scope of your projects growing in size!
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #102 on: April 12, 2021, 02:17:23 am »
The other thing people routinely misattribute to planned obsolescence is, well, plain old obsolescence. A computer getting bogged down with new software isn’t planned obsolescence, it’s plain old obsolescence.

That one is a gray area. My first iPhone (yeah, I know, more Apple, but whatever, it's the phone I had) became unusably slow after various updates to the OS and apps. It didn't DO anything new as far as I could tell, not one of those updates gave me tangible improvements, they were just slower. It has been my experience that they push the OS updates about one version further on old devices than they should and it results in them being very sluggish at that point. Personally I want to buy a phone, set it up with everything I want and then essentially freeze the configuration and use it like that forever. There is so much software (and websites) that are not any more useful than similar stuff 10+ years ago, they're just more bloated and slow. Some of this is "hardware is so powerful now that who cares, we don't need to optimize!" but my cynical side suspects that companies keep adding features of dubious value fully knowing it will make devices slower so people will upgrade to the latest model. PCs became a mature commodity around 10 years ago and the need to upgrade regularly dropped sharply, people interpreted that as the death of the PC but it was really just that nobody needed a new one every year or two anymore. Smartphones and tablets were selling like hotcakes at the time but now those are mature commodities, there is not much the latest model can do that a flagship from 3-4 years ago can't and that period is gradually extending.
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #103 on: April 12, 2021, 03:08:31 am »
The other thing people routinely misattribute to planned obsolescence is, well, plain old obsolescence. A computer getting bogged down with new software isn’t planned obsolescence, it’s plain old obsolescence.

That one is a gray area. My first iPhone (yeah, I know, more Apple, but whatever, it's the phone I had) became unusably slow after various updates to the OS and apps. It didn't DO anything new as far as I could tell, not one of those updates gave me tangible improvements, they were just slower. It has been my experience that they push the OS updates about one version further on old devices than they should and it results in them being very sluggish at that point. Personally I want to buy a phone, set it up with everything I want and then essentially freeze the configuration and use it like that forever. There is so much software (and websites) that are not any more useful than similar stuff 10+ years ago, they're just more bloated and slow. Some of this is "hardware is so powerful now that who cares, we don't need to optimize!" but my cynical side suspects that companies keep adding features of dubious value fully knowing it will make devices slower so people will upgrade to the latest model. PCs became a mature commodity around 10 years ago and the need to upgrade regularly dropped sharply, people interpreted that as the death of the PC but it was really just that nobody needed a new one every year or two anymore. Smartphones and tablets were selling like hotcakes at the time but now those are mature commodities, there is not much the latest model can do that a flagship from 3-4 years ago can't and that period is gradually extending.

Yeah, I've never forgiven Apple for killing my iPhone 4s with their software update.  If it wasn't planned obsolescence, it was incompetence... for letting users upgrade to something that won't work on the hardware.  At least by accusing them of planned obsolescence, we are not insulting their intelligence!
 

Online NiHaoMike

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #104 on: April 12, 2021, 03:11:33 am »
I could make the same statement about electronically commutated motors which replaced shaded pole motors in refrigerator evaporators because of EPA requirements.  I have never had one of these shaded pole motors fail, but I have had to replace the electronically commutated motor in my new refrigerator 6 times now in 10 years, and they cost $30 each.
Just bodge in a computer type ball bearing fan? Maybe even try with a variable speed fan and see what speed yields the best overall efficiency.
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Offline james_s

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #105 on: April 12, 2021, 03:43:32 am »
I can see how it would be an issue for a freezer, but a refrigerator? The evaporator on my fridge doesn't stay below freezing for long enough to ice over. When the compressor turns off, it thaws, the water drains off through a sump, going to a small tray on top of the compressor, at the back, where it evaporates. If the fridge is icing up, then it will be because the thermostat is set too low.

There's only one evaporator in the conventional American style frost-free fridge. It's in the back of the freezer behind a cover panel and the fan is in the middle circulating the air. A portion of air is ducted down into the refrigerator compartment to cool that, the thermostat controls the temperature of the refrigerator compartment because that needs to be cold but not quite freezing and the freezer is always much colder due to the evaporator being located there, freezer temperature is less critical as long as it's always below freezing.

This is a picture of the cabin fridge from when I was working on it several years ago, this is the evaporator and fan in the freezer compartment with the cover panel removed. You can see the calrod defrost heater going around the perimeter on 3 sides and the termination thermostat at the top left. This fridge is from the early 70s but I don't think the modern ones are all that different.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #106 on: April 12, 2021, 03:59:46 am »
[...]
Planned obsolescence means deliberately designing things to last less long than they inherently could.

There is something called antitrust or competition laws, where lawmakers have found it necessary to outlaw collusion between "competitors" that silently agree to not compete too hard (for example, by agreeing not to make their products "too good for the price" or, in other words, "too cheap").  Almost like a capitalist version of a trade union!  There are simply some situations that the "free market" can't fix.


[...] Making a laptop without user-replaceable batteries in exchange for extreme thinness doesn’t count.  [...]

I think it should count as planned obsolescence if the manufacturer doesn't offer a thicker alternative - and I think it edges into collusion and anti-competitive behaviour when no manufacturers offer it for love or money, all of a sudden, all at the same time...


The other thing people routinely misattribute to planned obsolescence is, well, plain old obsolescence. A computer getting bogged down with new software isn’t planned obsolescence, it’s plain old obsolescence.

It isn't as cut and dried as that...   it can certainly be planned obsolescence.  The physical equivalent is making a phone with a charge plug that doesn't fit the previous version for no particular reason other than increasing the sales of chargers (which has been made illegal in the EU, I believe).  It is so easy to do the same kind of thing with software - make sure it doesn't run on the old model (and make sure the old stuff doesn't run on the new one) and you'll be good.

Finally,  an examples of some scenarios that definitely don't qualify as planned obsolescence:   you open up a really big graphics project in Photoshop on an older computer, and find it is barely able to cope with the image given its limited resources in terms of memory, CPU, bus, and disk speeds.   Here, I would say that either your PC is obsolete, or, your PC is too slow, but faster/better ones were and are available, but you didn't want to pay for the performance to do what you want to do - so get out and get another one, either way, and don't blame the manufacturer for the scope of your projects growing in size!

1. Collusion has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Planned obsolescence does not in any way require collusion between competitors.

2. I completely disagree. A company choosing to not make thick, cheap, and heavy laptops doesn’t mean it’s engaging in planned obsolescence!   :palm: (Especially not when the company offers battery replacement service, including labor, for the same price as the user-replaceable batteries in prior models.)

3. No, changing a charger plug is not planned obsolescence unless it was done specifically to reduce lifespan, which doesn’t make a damned bit of sense, since a new model using a different plug doesn’t stop your old phone from charging with its existing charger. Don’t conflate this with the EU rule’s reason: it’s to reduce e-waste. (But until last year, yeeeears after that rule went into effect, no manufacturer actually dared do what the law’s actual intent was, which is for manufacturers to stop including a new charger with every new phone.)

Basically, all you’ve done here is proven my point: that people expand the scope of “planned obsolescence” to mean “anything I don’t like” rather than what it actually means, which is to purposefully design a product to fail sooner than it inherently would have in order to promote sales of replacements. Because none of the things you describe in any way even distantly count.

Choosing what types of products you sell? Not planned obsolescence.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 04:48:39 am by tooki »
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #107 on: April 12, 2021, 04:12:14 am »
2. I completely disagree. A company choosing to not make thick, cheap, and heavy laptops doesn’t mean it’s engaging in planned obsolescence!   :palm:

There's a lot of middle ground. My Macbook is I think significantly thinner than it needs to be, it's so thin that it is not particularly comfortable to carry and it sacrifices a lot to be that thin. Laptops haven't been what I would consider "heavy" in probably 10 years, unless you look at the gigantic gaming laptops. Anything less than about 3/4" thick is just making a fashion statement IMO. My holy grail laptop would be something in a similar form factor as my X250 in a magnesium housing with a touchpad that has physical buttons below it. Even at 6 years old on the original battery I still get substantially longer run time out of this thing than I do with the Macbook, that thing  can't even make it through an 8 hour work day without plugging it in. The Lenovo keyboard is far superior too, again because it does not make drastic compromises in the quest of unnecessary extreme thinness.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #108 on: April 12, 2021, 04:31:02 am »
The other thing people routinely misattribute to planned obsolescence is, well, plain old obsolescence. A computer getting bogged down with new software isn’t planned obsolescence, it’s plain old obsolescence.

That one is a gray area. My first iPhone (yeah, I know, more Apple, but whatever, it's the phone I had) became unusably slow after various updates to the OS and apps. It didn't DO anything new as far as I could tell, not one of those updates gave me tangible improvements, they were just slower. It has been my experience that they push the OS updates about one version further on old devices than they should and it results in them being very sluggish at that point. Personally I want to buy a phone, set it up with everything I want and then essentially freeze the configuration and use it like that forever. There is so much software (and websites) that are not any more useful than similar stuff 10+ years ago, they're just more bloated and slow. Some of this is "hardware is so powerful now that who cares, we don't need to optimize!" but my cynical side suspects that companies keep adding features of dubious value fully knowing it will make devices slower so people will upgrade to the latest model. PCs became a mature commodity around 10 years ago and the need to upgrade regularly dropped sharply, people interpreted that as the death of the PC but it was really just that nobody needed a new one every year or two anymore. Smartphones and tablets were selling like hotcakes at the time but now those are mature commodities, there is not much the latest model can do that a flagship from 3-4 years ago can't and that period is gradually extending.
Ah, the “but the new version didn’t add anything!” trope... here’s the thing: we forget as little things get added.

Do I remember which version of Word added a specific feature? Of course not. And unless I happen to be authoring a document that needs that specific feature, I’m unlikely to even notice it’s missing if using a version one or two versions back. But put me on a version that’s many versions back and suddenly I notice there’s a lot missing. I’ll notice that it’s dumber about various behaviors.

I notice the same thing if I go to do something on my old iPhone 4S: there is tons of stuff missing.

Don’t get me wrong, I also hate how a lot of software, and definitely the web (so very much) has gotten slower without adding anything substantial. However, “of no tangible value” is a very loaded claim, because what it really means is “of no tangible value to me”. But just because something isn’t of value to you doesn’t mean it’s not really important to someone else. That’s why, for example, Word is such a beast: it has gazillions of features that most users don’t need, but which are critical to certain users. Years ago, when working on what would become Office 2007, Microsoft used the telemetry from Office 2003 to evaluate the usage patterns of millions of users. What they discovered is that while any given user uses just 20% of the features 80% of the time, the remaining 80% of rarely used features were practically all used regularly. So they couldn’t just say “Nah, nobody uses that anyway” and jettison a feature to streamline the interface.

A ton of the “bloat” in modern software is added abstraction and automation to make it easier to use. For example: Does it add “bloat” to, for example, have code for an email program to auto configure its server settings based on the email address? Yes. But it solves a very real problem, namely, that (speaking from years of experience in tech support) email client setup is one of the most difficult for non-expert users to perform.

I don’t know what version of iOS added automatic background indexing of photos, but goddamned do I love it. (I can type “dog” in the search field and it’ll show me my photos of dogs, without me ever having tagged them.)

I don’t remember which version added the ability for keyboards to allow two autocorrect languages simultaneously (without switching) but that fixed something that had been a thorn in my side the entire time prior.

What about all the code added to support thorough accessibility for the disabled? In iOS, which has very extensive accessibility features (including an entire alternate interaction model for the blind), that cannot be trivial. Does it benefit me directly? No. But it deserves to be there.


I’m writing this on an iPad Air 2, a model introduced in late 2014. It’s running the latest version of iOS, and it only rarely shows its age. (And when it does, it’s mostly in third party apps whose RAM requirements have gotten to the point that this iPad’s memory becomes the constraint.) Yes, there have been some versions of iOS that really did bring their respective minimum hardware to its knees. But they really put a ton of effort into that for many years now, hence this iPad (which is the minimum hardware for the current iPad OS) running very well with it.


There’s a lot I hate about current software and web design, like the giant amounts of whitespace with gigantic text, obliterating the entire point of the big screens we have. (Why have a 27” computer display? Why have a 6.5” phablet screen?) And it annoys the living hell out of me that websites take longer to load now than they did 20 years ago, and that 90% of page load time is ads and tracking, if you don’t use an ad blocker to stop that BS.

But it doesn’t mean all progress, and the costs that comes with it, is pointless.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #109 on: April 12, 2021, 04:45:49 am »
2. I completely disagree. A company choosing to not make thick, cheap, and heavy laptops doesn’t mean it’s engaging in planned obsolescence!   :palm:

There's a lot of middle ground. My Macbook is I think significantly thinner than it needs to be, it's so thin that it is not particularly comfortable to carry and it sacrifices a lot to be that thin. Laptops haven't been what I would consider "heavy" in probably 10 years, unless you look at the gigantic gaming laptops. Anything less than about 3/4" thick is just making a fashion statement IMO. My holy grail laptop would be something in a similar form factor as my X250 in a magnesium housing with a touchpad that has physical buttons below it. Even at 6 years old on the original battery I still get substantially longer run time out of this thing than I do with the Macbook, that thing  can't even make it through an 8 hour work day without plugging it in. The Lenovo keyboard is far superior too, again because it does not make drastic compromises in the quest of unnecessary extreme thinness.
As someone whose back is highly sensitive to weight, to me, the weight of the 13” MacBooks, for example, dropping from ~5lbs to just 3lbs has been a noticeable quality of life improvement. (The thinness also means not having to use a gigantic, heavier backpack to fit it in with other stuff for class or when traveling.)

Again, your argument boils down to “I don’t need it, therefore it’s not actually important”, literally brushing it off as vanity. That common argument that people just buy Apple as a “fashion statement” is IMHO rather callously dismissive of people like me who definitely, categorically do not buy things as fashion statements. I buy them because it’s the better tool for me. And it’s a tool. And since it’s a tool I use a lot, I need it to be the best tool for me.


Now, as someone whose spine issues also cause hand problems which make typing painful, I’m sensitive to keyboards, and in this regard, I’ve been annoyed with Apple for quite some time. I would indeed rather have the machine 2mm thicker in order to accommodate a better keyboard. At least they’re phasing out that butterfly keyboard.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #110 on: April 12, 2021, 04:53:49 am »
Ah, the “but the new version didn’t add anything!” trope... here’s the thing: we forget as little things get added.

Do I remember which version of Word added a specific feature? Of course not. And unless I happen to be authoring a document that needs that specific feature, I’m unlikely to even notice it’s missing if using a version one or two versions back. But put me on a version that’s many versions back and suddenly I notice there’s a lot missing. I’ll notice that it’s dumber about various behaviors.

I notice the same thing if I go to do something on my old iPhone 4S: there is tons of stuff missing.

But I DO go back to older devices and software pretty frequently and I rarely notice anything missing, except apps I don't have because I didn't install it back when the current version was supported on that OS. Word? I have Word 2003 on my personal laptop and Office 365 on my work laptop and I've never noticed anything missing, except for the ribbon which is something that I would LOVE to get rid of on the newer versions, after years of using it at work I STILL hate the ribbon. Sometimes stuff does get fixed, like when I finally updated to iOS14 it fixed the reminders FINALLY which had been hopelessly broken for several versions but the thing is, reminders worked flawlessly way back in iOS6. Unfortunately it also killed my battery life, I used to easily get through an entire day on iOS10, now it's rare that I don't have to plug it in sometime in the afternoon. And then in the opposite direction, I find things missing on the newer devices because there are so many apps that get abandoned and never updated to run on the later OS and in several cases I've never found a decent replacement.

End result is kind of a wash, sometimes I can run an app that I couldn't run before, though that same app would have probably been just fine if written for the older platform. What usually overshadows that is the apps that used to work just fine which now no longer work. The perception is that iOS upgrades take away functionality, make my device slower and reduce the battery life, while adding very little and most of what it does add is just the ability to run apps that arbitrarily require a newer OS version. It would bother me a lot less if it was possible to roll back, I've been burned multiple times by updates that broke functionality with no way to roll back. That has trained me to go out of my way to avoid updating anything.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #111 on: April 12, 2021, 05:10:45 am »
Again, your argument boils down to “I don’t need it, therefore it’s not actually important”, literally brushing it off as vanity. That common argument that people just buy Apple as a “fashion statement” is IMHO rather callously dismissive of people like me who definitely, categorically do not buy things as fashion statements. I buy them because it’s the better tool for me. And it’s a tool. And since it’s a tool I use a lot, I need it to be the best tool for me.


Now, as someone whose spine issues also cause hand problems which make typing painful, I’m sensitive to keyboards, and in this regard, I’ve been annoyed with Apple for quite some time. I would indeed rather have the machine 2mm thicker in order to accommodate a better keyboard. At least they’re phasing out that butterfly keyboard.

Again I'll say there is a lot of middle ground between a 10 lb 1.5" thick battleship and a 3/8" (or whatever) thick MBP. Apple has their "Air" models which are sleek and thin, that cater to the crowd that want extreme thinness and portability ad the expense of battery life, cooling, upgradeability, ports, keyboard quality and other sacrifices. The MBP is thinner than it needs to be and sacrifices far too much to achieve that, and I say that as a daily user of one for several years now. If thin was the most important metric I would get one of the Air models, but to call a machine "Pro" while giving it a terrible keyboard, pathetic battery life, ridiculously limited complement of ports, zero upgradeability, cooling that causes it to throttle regularly is kind of ridiculous. I'm not saying they shouldn't make thin lightweight machines but come on, offer at least one model worthy of being called "Pro". Something with enough battery life to get through a full work day or an overseas flight, something with a really good keyboard is suitable for typing big documents or writing code, that isn't too loud to type on while in a remote meeting. Something with sufficient cooling to compile or render something without throttling back.

Obviously not everybody buys Apple products as a fashion statement. I've had iPhones since the 4, before that I had an iPod Nano (1st gen), I bought these devices because after evaluating my choices I decided they offered the best functionality for my needs. I'm not going to pretend though that Apple does not primarily market fashion accessories, and they market those toward wealthy people with money to blow on status symbols. That doesn't mean the products aren't good although most are IMO tuned heavily in that in that direction, and that doesn't mean everyone buys them for those reasons, but that is their target market, there is really no disputing that. Now it seems like everyone else has jumped on that bandwagon, trying to copy Apple and chase after that same high profit market.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #112 on: April 12, 2021, 05:30:46 am »
Ah, the “but the new version didn’t add anything!” trope... here’s the thing: we forget as little things get added.

Do I remember which version of Word added a specific feature? Of course not. And unless I happen to be authoring a document that needs that specific feature, I’m unlikely to even notice it’s missing if using a version one or two versions back. But put me on a version that’s many versions back and suddenly I notice there’s a lot missing. I’ll notice that it’s dumber about various behaviors.

I notice the same thing if I go to do something on my old iPhone 4S: there is tons of stuff missing.

But I DO go back to older devices and software pretty frequently and I rarely notice anything missing, except apps I don't have because I didn't install it back when the current version was supported on that OS. Word? I have Word 2003 on my personal laptop and Office 365 on my work laptop and I've never noticed anything missing, except for the ribbon which is something that I would LOVE to get rid of on the newer versions, after years of using it at work I STILL hate the ribbon. Sometimes stuff does get fixed, like when I finally updated to iOS14 it fixed the reminders FINALLY which had been hopelessly broken for several versions but the thing is, reminders worked flawlessly way back in iOS6. Unfortunately it also killed my battery life, I used to easily get through an entire day on iOS10, now it's rare that I don't have to plug it in sometime in the afternoon. And then in the opposite direction, I find things missing on the newer devices because there are so many apps that get abandoned and never updated to run on the later OS and in several cases I've never found a decent replacement.

End result is kind of a wash, sometimes I can run an app that I couldn't run before, though that same app would have probably been just fine if written for the older platform. What usually overshadows that is the apps that used to work just fine which now no longer work. The perception is that iOS upgrades take away functionality, make my device slower and reduce the battery life, while adding very little and most of what it does add is just the ability to run apps that arbitrarily require a newer OS version. It would bother me a lot less if it was possible to roll back, I've been burned multiple times by updates that broke functionality with no way to roll back. That has trained me to go out of my way to avoid updating anything.
Well, just because you don’t notice things missing in Word 2003 doesn’t mean I don’t! ;)

Yeah, I’ve been occasionally frustrated by abandoned apps. (In fact, I’m still trying to figure out my migration strategy from Aperture, even though it was officially discontinued in 2015, but was moribund from 2012, when it stopped getting anything but bug fixes.)

As for battery life: in my experience (as an iPhone user since 2007), iOS updates are mostly a red herring regarding battery life: yes, an iOS update that uses more CPU will use more power, but the bigger issue is that that minor increase in load comes at precisely the time the battery is starting to show its age. Especially in the non-plus-size iPhones, where the battery is being pushed to its absolute limits on a daily basis, it’s right around the year mark that the battery has hit its cycle count. And it’s right at the 1 year mark that the new iOS comes out. And to boot, it’s at the end of the year, where it’s cold in many places, which can severely reduce battery performance. (On my 6S with a worn out battery, the battery would plummet from 30% to zero shut down within 5 minutes of taking it out of my pocket and using it outdoors at around 0C ambient.) So add the slight increase in load and the cold, and suddenly the battery performs a lot worse. (I ever so much wish Apple would release an extended-battery compact iPhone version. I don’t need the extreme thinness, and indeed find a naked modern iPhone a bit too thin to grasp comfortably, so a phone with the footprint, thickness, and rounded profile of the original iPhone, with all that space going to triple the battery capacity, would be my choice.)

Now that they’ve added that feature in iOS that mostly keeps the battery charged at 80% until right before you begin your day, I’m curious to see how battery health is at the 1 year mark, which will be the end of June for my SE. iOS reports it as having 90% battery health, which is similar to my 6 and 6S at a year old, but we shall see how it actually behaves.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #113 on: April 12, 2021, 05:35:35 am »
Again, your argument boils down to “I don’t need it, therefore it’s not actually important”, literally brushing it off as vanity. That common argument that people just buy Apple as a “fashion statement” is IMHO rather callously dismissive of people like me who definitely, categorically do not buy things as fashion statements. I buy them because it’s the better tool for me. And it’s a tool. And since it’s a tool I use a lot, I need it to be the best tool for me.


Now, as someone whose spine issues also cause hand problems which make typing painful, I’m sensitive to keyboards, and in this regard, I’ve been annoyed with Apple for quite some time. I would indeed rather have the machine 2mm thicker in order to accommodate a better keyboard. At least they’re phasing out that butterfly keyboard.

Again I'll say there is a lot of middle ground between a 10 lb 1.5" thick battleship and a 3/8" (or whatever) thick MBP. Apple has their "Air" models which are sleek and thin, that cater to the crowd that want extreme thinness and portability ad the expense of battery life, cooling, upgradeability, ports, keyboard quality and other sacrifices. The MBP is thinner than it needs to be and sacrifices far too much to achieve that, and I say that as a daily user of one for several years now. If thin was the most important metric I would get one of the Air models, but to call a machine "Pro" while giving it a terrible keyboard, pathetic battery life, ridiculously limited complement of ports, zero upgradeability, cooling that causes it to throttle regularly is kind of ridiculous. I'm not saying they shouldn't make thin lightweight machines but come on, offer at least one model worthy of being called "Pro". Something with enough battery life to get through a full work day or an overseas flight, something with a really good keyboard is suitable for typing big documents or writing code, that isn't too loud to type on while in a remote meeting. Something with sufficient cooling to compile or render something without throttling back.
Well, by all accounts, the M1 MacBook Pro delivers the performance, battery life and coolness. (Not cooling but coolness, in that it has one fan which apparently can’t even be heard, without throttling, under maximum load.) I guess since the CPU isn’t burning off tons of energy as heat...

The M1 MacBook Air has no fan at all, and apparently will throttle eventually, but does not get hot.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #114 on: April 12, 2021, 08:12:46 am »
But I DO go back to older devices and software pretty frequently and I rarely notice anything missing, except apps I don't have because I didn't install it back when the current version was supported on that OS. Word? I have Word 2003 on my personal laptop and Office 365 on my work laptop and I've never noticed anything missing, except for the ribbon which is something that I would LOVE to get rid of on the newer versions, after years of using it at work I STILL hate the ribbon.

Heck, I could probably go back to MS Office 97 and wouldn't miss any features. I also hate ribbon. It always takes more clicks to perform the same operation. I wish MS would stop butchering the user interface of their applications. They seem to do it to make it appear like they're adding new things to more recent versions, when in reality very little has changed. I find AbiWord and LibraOffice much easier to use. I've even done work at home, in my own time, because my work's PC only has M$ Turd on it, which is too much hassle to use for anything, but simple documents. This was before working from home came in, of course.
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #115 on: April 12, 2021, 04:08:58 pm »
[...]
1. Collusion has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Planned obsolescence does not in any way require collusion between competitors.

Planned obsolescence doesn't require collusion, but it helps! - for example, the light bulb cartel agreeing to limit light bulb life to exactly the same 1,000 hours from all the manufacturers.  This carved the market up nicely between them - and had consumers overspending on replacements for 50 years while development was frozen.

Have you considered why SD card slots, replaceable batteries, and headphone jacks have disappeared from the high end models from all the manufacturers at the same time?  Seems a big "coincidence" to me...  - could it be that they want you to subscribe to cloud services rather than adding local storage?  Do they prefer you to buy a new device when the battery wears out (convenient monthly payments from the carrier can continue)?  Do they want you to use unnecessarily expensive bluetooth headhones (that have a life of what...?) instead of cheap dynamic headsets? 

Would all the industry players benefit if they could get consumers go accept this state of affairs?

Is it possible to be too naive about the business methods of large corporates?  ::)

2. I completely disagree. A company choosing to not make thick, cheap, and heavy laptops doesn’t mean it’s engaging in planned obsolescence!   :palm: (Especially not when the company offers battery replacement service, including labor, for the same price as the user-replaceable batteries in prior models.)

Is it beyond the wit of man to make a super thin laptop with a more easily replaceable battery?  -  I think we could come up with something within a couple of days if we started a design challenge thread here on the EEVblog...

You are ascribing the lack of replaceability to "It is a design trade-off"...  but I, and many others, think this "tradeoff" is a little too convenient for the sales department - and that you would have to be naive to think they haven't noticed!


3. No, changing a charger plug is not planned obsolescence unless it was done specifically to reduce lifespan

Obviously changing the plug makes all the previous chargers obsolete - the ones you have in your three cars, seven rooms in your house, at your office, at several rooms in your summer house, etc. etc. etc. - basically, you might have to replace a dozen chargers depending on the change made.  Docking stations etc. - same thing.

Dell is very good at sticking with the same design year after year - that's because they have corporate IT department customers, and they call out this kind of BS and refuse to buy it -  to a professional, it becomes a selling point for Dell that they don't play these games.


Basically, all you’ve done here is proven my point: that people expand the scope of “planned obsolescence” to mean “anything I don’t like” rather than what it actually means, which is to purposefully design a product to fail sooner than it inherently would have in order to promote sales of replacements. Because none of the things you describe in any way even distantly count.

Let's get specific then:

1) Laptops, tablets and phones with non-replaceable batteries:   Purposefully designed to fail after 2-3 years, therefore it is planned obsolescence.

2) Bluetooth headphones with non-replaceable batteries:   Purposefully designed to fail after 2-3 years, therefore it is planned obsolescence.

3) Phones without headphone jacks:  Purposefully designed to force (2) above by preventing use of wired headsets, so this trick enables the use of planned obsolescence

4) Phones and tablets with non-expandable storage:   Purposefully designed to fail if the storage is so small that normal users will run out and are forced to subscribe to cloud services to make the device work again.  If the internal storage is adequate for normal use cases, it is a design decision rather than designed to fail.

 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #116 on: April 12, 2021, 04:17:09 pm »

I am actually a fan of Microsoft Office...  I recall deploying Excel v1.0 back in the day (I was the young and radical IT manager trying new fangled stuff, exactly the kind of people I hate today, LOL) -  it was just so much better than the DOS based stuff that went before.

I personally trained the users, too.  I remember holding one accounting lady's hand over a mouse, guiding it across the mat and seeing her make the connection between what her hand was doing and the mouse cursor on the screen...  She eventually became one of the most proficient users.  Today, I'd probably be up on a human resources violation for touching her hand...  :D
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #117 on: April 12, 2021, 04:24:00 pm »
[...]
Now that they’ve added that feature in iOS that mostly keeps the battery charged at 80% until right before you begin your day [...]

That is a cool feature.  I wish my laptops all had that, and that the %charge was user selectable -  ideally 40% when not planning to use the battery...
 

Offline JohnnyMalaria

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #118 on: April 12, 2021, 04:55:26 pm »
[...]
Now that they’ve added that feature in iOS that mostly keeps the battery charged at 80% until right before you begin your day [...]

That is a cool feature.  I wish my laptops all had that, and that the %charge was user selectable -  ideally 40% when not planning to use the battery...

What brand laptop? Both my Win10 Lenovo laptops have configurable limits on charging.
 

Offline Buriedcode

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #119 on: April 12, 2021, 05:15:44 pm »
...
In other words, design tradeoffs aren’t planned obsolescence.
..

And that was entirely my point.
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #120 on: April 12, 2021, 05:52:34 pm »
[...]
Now that they’ve added that feature in iOS that mostly keeps the battery charged at 80% until right before you begin your day [...]

That is a cool feature.  I wish my laptops all had that, and that the %charge was user selectable -  ideally 40% when not planning to use the battery...

What brand laptop? Both my Win10 Lenovo laptops have configurable limits on charging.

I have some 10 year old Dells, on steroids with quad cores, 16GB RAM, 2TB SSD, etc.,  that flatly refuse to die or become obsolete!  :D

But they don't have the battery charging limit feature, so they tend to eat a battery every few years even if the battery is not used much. 
 

Offline JohnnyMalaria

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #121 on: April 12, 2021, 06:07:34 pm »
[...]
Now that they’ve added that feature in iOS that mostly keeps the battery charged at 80% until right before you begin your day [...]

That is a cool feature.  I wish my laptops all had that, and that the %charge was user selectable -  ideally 40% when not planning to use the battery...


What brand laptop? Both my Win10 Lenovo laptops have configurable limits on charging.

I have some 10 year old Dells, on steroids with quad cores, 16GB RAM, 2TB SSD, etc.,  that flatly refuse to die or become obsolete!  :D

But they don't have the battery charging limit feature, so they tend to eat a battery every few years even if the battery is not used much.

At least if they are that old you can readily change the battery (maybe?)
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #122 on: April 12, 2021, 06:41:50 pm »

I am actually a fan of Microsoft Office...  I recall deploying Excel v1.0 back in the day (I was the young and radical IT manager trying new fangled stuff, exactly the kind of people I hate today, LOL) -  it was just so much better than the DOS based stuff that went before.
I used to like MS Office, before they started messing with the user interface. All versions since 2003 seemed to have gone worse, rather than better. I haven't used 365 yet, but. 2016 is installed om my work's PC and I hate it. I wish I was allowed to install something better. They can't pay me to use it. If I need to do something using a word processor. I go home and do it. I would turn down a job, if it involved using MS Office too much, regardless of the pay. I've used all sorts of spreadsheets and word processors before and they've all been easier to use than the recent MS Office versions, so it's not me struggling to learn new things. It's just really bad.

Quote
I personally trained the users, too.  I remember holding one accounting lady's hand over a mouse, guiding it across the mat and seeing her make the connection between what her hand was doing and the mouse cursor on the screen...  She eventually became one of the most proficient users.  Today, I'd probably be up on a human resources violation for touching her hand...  :D
I'm glad you had success. I couldn't train my mum to use a computer. She found double clicking hard work and it wasn't obvious to her to pick the mouse up and move it back to the middle of the mouse mat, when it went over the edge.
 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #123 on: April 12, 2021, 07:08:49 pm »
[...]
Now that they’ve added that feature in iOS that mostly keeps the battery charged at 80% until right before you begin your day [...]

That is a cool feature.  I wish my laptops all had that, and that the %charge was user selectable -  ideally 40% when not planning to use the battery...


What brand laptop? Both my Win10 Lenovo laptops have configurable limits on charging.

I have some 10 year old Dells, on steroids with quad cores, 16GB RAM, 2TB SSD, etc.,  that flatly refuse to die or become obsolete!  :D

But they don't have the battery charging limit feature, so they tend to eat a battery every few years even if the battery is not used much.

At least if they are that old you can readily change the battery (maybe?)

Yes, they are user replaceable.  It is the only real wear item on a laptop, so changing them (something like 5 times now, LOL) means a very long service life.  It also shows how buying the fastest / best configuration can actually pay off in the long run, even if it seems eye bleeding at the time.

We are back to the discussion of whether it is better to buy cheap stuff and replace it often, vs. more expensive stuff that lasts longer.

 

Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Video on planned obsolescence.
« Reply #124 on: April 12, 2021, 07:19:06 pm »

I am actually a fan of Microsoft Office...  I recall deploying Excel v1.0 back in the day (I was the young and radical IT manager trying new fangled stuff, exactly the kind of people I hate today, LOL) -  it was just so much better than the DOS based stuff that went before.
I used to like MS Office, before they started messing with the user interface. All versions since 2003 seemed to have gone worse, rather than better. I haven't used 365 yet, but. 2016 is installed om my work's PC and I hate it. I wish I was allowed to install something better. They can't pay me to use it. If I need to do something using a word processor. I go home and do it. I would turn down a job, if it involved using MS Office too much, regardless of the pay. I've used all sorts of spreadsheets and word processors before and they've all been easier to use than the recent MS Office versions, so it's not me struggling to learn new things. It's just really bad.

Quote
I personally trained the users, too.  I remember holding one accounting lady's hand over a mouse, guiding it across the mat and seeing her make the connection between what her hand was doing and the mouse cursor on the screen...  She eventually became one of the most proficient users.  Today, I'd probably be up on a human resources violation for touching her hand...  :D
I'm glad you had success. I couldn't train my mum to use a computer. She found double clicking hard work and it wasn't obvious to her to pick the mouse up and move it back to the middle of the mouse mat, when it went over the edge.


Recently, some genius at Microsoft has had the idea of messing with the "Save" dialogs in Office, so you end up clicking a million times on a poorly discoverable user interface just to save a file in a location you want.  I hate it when they try to solve a problem that doesn't need solving.   The "Save" and "Open" dialogs are standardized across Windows for a reason...  a reason that the current team of n00bs appear incapable of grasping:  it means you don't have to learn how to Save a new way in every single application...  we are back to the bad old DOS days with these clowns.

If the "Save" dialog needs improving, do it for the entire OS, FFS.
 


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