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Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin (www.mercurynews.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of "planned obsolescence".

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[–] 82 points 3 years ago* (49 children)

I have an 8 year old iPad that can still use Amazon video and can still run Netflix, and google drops support for these computers as early as 3 years. I’m not an Apple fanboy but that is absolutely ridiculous.

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  • [–] 42 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Apple does the same thing if you don't already have those installed

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  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    My 2nd gen Apple TV is garbage. Nearly all the apps fail to load now. 🤷‍♂️… I suppose I can try jailbreaking it but it sure feels like someone is trying to force me to upgrade my hardware.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago

    That’s a product that hasn’t had an Apple update since 2014. What realistically do you expect hardware manufacturers to do with actually old hardware? Lose money supporting it forever? This is kind of the opposite case from the chromebooks.

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  • [–] 22 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    I will give credit to Apple on that one because android phone manufacturers are now supporting their phone for longer because of how long Apple is supporting them.

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  • [–] 20 points 3 years ago

    I think the more probable reason is that EU regulators were unhappy with this for a long time and have now put 3 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates into law. Low cost Android manufacturers don't care what Apple does.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (7 children)

    I remember back in the day when I had apple devices where they would push updates for devices long past their capability to actually run the updated software. Rather than refuse the update or get a pruned patch with security fixes only, it would force updates and bloat your phone and grind it into unresponsive unusability after a few years.

    I hear that's not so much the case anymore, so that's nice. But I remember. The main reason I upgraded my phone was because of that, the hardware was great, but I could hardly use the software anymore even after clean installs.

    My point being, I guess, extended support is great if managed properly but it can also become a bludgeon with which to drive you toward the new generations of devices.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago* (6 children)

    long past their capability to actually run the updated software

    Well, Apple intentionally slowed those devices down to make the users update, instead of using an insecure device, that would've provided a good experience otherwise.

    And these days Apple is retiring devices arbitrarily for profits too. For example this year they are retiring the Iphone 8, which has better hardware, than the ipad 2018 that is still being supported...

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    That slowness was, at least officially, for the battery health. Do you have the support to prove otherwise?

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    These conversations bring the weirdest people out of the woodwork. I remember talking with a guy who explained to me how crap Apple laptops were because you (according to him) can’t customise them. Turns out he’d never owned or even used an Apple laptop. I was like, why do you care?! Especially about something you have no experience with!

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    The problem is that those people often can't read. Everyone has a biased opinion or two they forgot to back up with support, but those people can't be argued with. I want to know how to talk with them.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    And then if I recall correctly (though I can’t be bothered to look) didn’t they get sued for slowing phones?

    So people were mad that their phones battery wasn’t holding a charge anymore, “im being forced to upgrade”, so Apple throttled older phones to keep the battery running, aka allowing people to keep their phones longer, and then they got sued for slowing down phones lol.

    I am an apple fan boy, I wont hide that. But it does seem like they tried to do a “good” and make peoples phones last longer, and then got sued.

    Also the whole forced upgrade just isn’t apples game IMO. Do they want you buying the new one every year, of course. But the more important thing is that you keep using AN iPhone at all. Stay in the ecosystem, stay in the app store, stay paying for icloud, etc.

    Going to a new phone gives the user a window to move away from IOS. (Though most won’t haha)

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Actually yes. I bought a brand new -discounted old stock- Iphone 4s for my mum near the end of the ios 8 cycle. The day before we installed ios 9 on it, it had okay performance and good battery life. Following the update to ios9 the performance went to complete shit. (the battery remained usable for 2 more years after, but it was not a good experience for her)

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  • [–] 18 points 3 years ago (18 children)

    Huh? I have an ipad mini and since two-three years ago it's as useful as a brick, Apple doesn't allow me to install any app because they require a newer os version (that's not available for the model)

    By contrast my much older nexus 7 can still use most apps that I want

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago* (17 children)

    It can’t run everything obviously but the fact that my nearly 10 year old iPad can handle video streaming still and these schools have bricked laptops after 3 years is ridiculous.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (16 children)

    Those Chromebooks aren't bricked. They simply don't get chrome updates anymore, even if it's just Linux+Chrome and updates could continue forever without any real effort from Google

    For security issues they can't give to students unsupported hardware. The discontinued iPad would go in the same e-waste bin, because it's not like android where browsers will continue to get updates for years and years

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (15 children)

    For a school they functionally are. They can’t use them if they can’t get security updates.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (14 children)

    and instead the ipad that doesn't get security updates since 2018 in your example doesn't count?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (13 children)

    Well for starters it wasn't purchased by or for schools so no. But even if it was, it gets far more than 3 years of support. I think 5 is somewhat reasonable if we're just going to accept this sort of behavior.

    Either way the comparison is not really apt. Mobile devices are far worse about this than PC's. You should instead compare a macbook (or a cheap windows machine), which gets security updates for 7-10 years. Google knows their devices are very popular for school computers, so to treat them like mobile devices and enforce the terrible standards that comes with is pernicious.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (12 children)

    you again chose a macbook for an example, some macs released in 2017 got less than 5 years of OS updates and became ewaste very quickly

    choose a different company than apple for your "long time support" examples....

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (11 children)

    It was one example, and if you'll notice I said "or just any affordable windows machine," I don't know why you're ignoring that.

    As for the 2017 releases getting less than 5 years support, I have never heard of this nor am I finding any examples. Here is the Monterey (apple's current OS version) compatibility list, which consists of computers as far back as 2013. So I'd be curious to see what you're referencing. Catalina, the previous OS which dates back even further with compatibility, had security updates until about 8mo ago as well.

    3 years is unacceptable on Google's part and Apple hasn't come anywhere close to that.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (7 children)

    Are you cherry picking? Check Sonoma compatibility list, only for iMac 2019 or later

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (6 children)

    How is it cherrypicking? The OS isn't even out yet. I'm literally going off the current OS.

    Where is this computer that got dropped after less than 5 years?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (5 children)

    Ok sorry it will be out in October. Owners will get extra 3 months of support. This completely changes everything

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (4 children)

    Huh

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (3 children)

    Maybe you didn't notice due to the Stockholm syndrome, but when Apple discontinues support, you can't get the latest apps. Yay can get security updates for another 12 months! But can't install the latest apps as they're required to target the latest os version to be published in the app store. Victory

    I don't understand you. Google is shitty because Chromebooks get 6 years of updates (not their fault if the school is buying old new stock that sat in a warehouse for 4 years), but apple is an hero because their products in average get 6 years of os updates + a full extra year of security updates? That extra year changes everything?

    While Google is shitty because x86 Linux+chrome could be automatically updated indefinitely for decades with no effort at all, at least on their devices you could install an alternative os, giving a second life on old devices. iPads and iPhones can't run an alternative os. And the alternative os selection on the m1 macs is limited too

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

    Hih

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    in my language: "che palle, ma se te l'ho detto prima..."

    someone could have bought an imac A1419 on march 18, 2019 and that lost major OS updates on october 24, 2022. That's just 3 years of major OS updates for the buyer. It will get less than 5 years of total support for the buyer.

    you again cherrypicked your example, with a third party app that's not in the app store. Go to watch the requirements of a 1st party app like final cut pro x and see if it can work in your 2010 mac mini.....

    Before you say "but that got released in 2017!!!!!11!!11!!" - go to watch your post history and see that you did the same for the school chromebook example. It came out from the factory with 7 years of updates, but it was bought after it sat 4 years in a warehouse

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    Are you cherry picking? Check Sonoma compatibility list, only for iMac 2019 or later

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (9 children)

    You're also not a giant customer who needs security and it services like a school district. 3 years might be early, idk, but in plenty of enterprise or institutes replace their hardware every so often.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 years ago* (7 children)

    My 2012 laptop runs windows 10 perfectly fine and has the latest security updates. We're way past the point of using hardware limitations as an excuse for companies to drop support early.

    I don't see why a school should have to replace their basic computers with an equally basic computer after 3 years unless it's broken beyond repair. I don't think the OS itself is doing much more than what an enterprise copy of windows does for security.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    The only reason Windows 11 can't run on super old hardware is because of the misleading decision to require secure boot (a feature of the motherboard that stops unsigned OSes from booting). The metaphor I use is that it is like a car radio manufacturer refusing to let a car radio work in cars that don't have car alarms then calling the radio secure because of it.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, Windows 11 is a bad example of supporting old hardware because Microsoft stupidly and maliciously requires secure boot and TPM2 just to lock out otherwise fine hardware from using Windows 11. You can run Win11 without secure boot or TPM2 with mods, the hardware is perfectly capable.

    Or just put Linux on it. Linux runs on damn near everything because it's designed to run on damn near everything. There's no profit motive to only support Linux on the newest and shiniest devices like there is for Apple, Google, Samsung, and even Microsoft (who sells most copies of Windows preinstalled on new PCs).

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    How do I go about running Win 11 without secure boot? I have a BIOS motherboard from 2009. Windows 10 is EOL relatively soon. I plan on getting a new computer and using some genre of Linux but I'm curious what to do about the current one.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Funny you should say this. I have a 2012 Retina Macbook Pro, and yes it is running Windows or Linux with all the latest updates. However, Apple stopped supporting it in 2020. It's too old for MacOS updates.

    I've even seen a guide that will allow me to hack past the normal BIOS restrictions/allow me to put Windows 11 on it.

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  • [+] 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 22 points 3 years ago

    has to be dumped

    OpenCore Legacy Patcher, Linux, ChromeOS Flex, and maybe even Windows 10 could all be options for that Mac. As-is ot would still be perfectly safe to use offline too.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago*

    What year is the mini from? I run a Plex server off a 2010 Mac mini.

    Apple devices are serviceable for far longer after the OS stops updating than windows/android devices in my experience. But regardless, Apple doesn’t discontinue support as early as 3 or 4 years. Even you have to admit that is ridiculous of google.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I have a 15 year old laptop that can still browse the web and play YouTube videos just fine because PC is a standardized platform with an open standard bootloader and a BIOS/UEFI system designed to abstract the hardware so the OS doesn't have to be tailor-made to the hardware. Mobile devices are absolute shit in this regard. Why does the OS have to be specifically built to target one particular device?

    It shouldn't. End of question. This applies to Android, ChromeOS, and Apple devices equally.

    I'm glad mobile Linux is starting to take off and there seem to be some standards emerging around ARM booting, even if it is still an absolute shit show compared to the standardization of UEFI/BIOS on x86/x86-64. I know some ARM systems can UEFI boot but it's few and far between still so most devices still need a tailored kernel at least. That said, ARM Linux doesn't need the entire freaking stack tailored to a device like Android and iOS do.

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