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Microsoft cuts ties with the Surface Duo after just 2 Android version updates
(www.windowscentral.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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I understand the sentiment, but the comparison with Apple and the Sega Genesis is flawed.
Microsoft has been very good at supporting backwards compatibility with other products, and Apple has EOL'd products too soon as well.
Open a 30-yr-old laptop with Microsoft Windows 3.0 and, oh surprise, it also works... just like your Sega Genesis! Plus nobody said that the Surface Duo was going to stop working. Store it away for 30 years amd turn it back on. I'm sure it will work just fine. Just don't attempt to connect it to the Internet 18.0.
What examples were you thinking of?
iPhones, for example. https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/08/apple-user-backlash-dropping-iphone-7-ios-16/
Granted, the lifespan is longer than the surface duo, but still. Apple does the same.
Oddly enough, I have an iPhone 7 I still use occasionally. It got a security update yesterday - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213913
6 years + 2-3 more years of security updates is a pretty good support cycle for a phone.
Complaining that the company that provides some of (if not the best) support for their phones is pretty silly. Especially considering that Google, androids gold standard is ~~a year~~ three years less than that.
Is it silly, though? Phones are essentially supercomputers at this point. It's hardly excusable that companies can't provide longer support.
They've always been computers. They just need to do different tasks than a computer would.
The phones OS is basically a firmware with how tightly integrated it is with the hardware. VS the EFI on your PC just hands everything off to windows and then it's up to drivers which may or may not be there after a major version update.
You don't have to explain to me how an electronic or digital phone works, but I appreciate the comment regardless.
And to be very technical: No, phones have not always been computers. I can't do Turing-complete work with a rotary phone from the 70s.
I can't say if it's what the person you're responding to had in mind but I noticed Macs have shorter supported lifespans than a comparable Windows machine. Of course there's factors like Windows being more hardware agnostic but it effectively means that today, no Mac older than 2013-2014ish/that aren't supported by macOS Big Sur isn't getting security updates. They do have options in terms of Windows (potentially), Linux, patched versions of newer macOS releases but for a user that's non-technical I think that's too soon. I was able to end my college career in 2019 by pressing my 2008 ThinkPad and Windows 10 into service. (albeit hi-res video and 3D games were naturally out of the question, it was up-to-date and got the job done - EDIT: but now that I think about it I did need patched Intel integrated graphics drivers...)
Of course, Microsoft's ditching of so many machines with the jump to Windows 11 and putting a 2025 expiration date on many machines (without bypassing or Linux) is abhorrent too and potentially renders part of my complaint moot but I still hope the ARM Macs have longer supported lifespans but too soon to say if anything will change.
Yeah, you caught it already, but I was gonna say, however good Microsoft has been about this before is irrelevant, because going forward their intentions are very clear with how little they care for backwards compatibility. The fact we have, what, 2 more years of Windows 10 support when most people still use it and can't update to 11 tells you all you need to know.
Windows 11 can still run programs made for old versions of Windows. I think it can still run Win32 programs as well.
Office products can open documents in old formats.
So yeah, they care about backwards compatibility. On the hardware front, I agree with you.
That would make sense apart from the ‘open a 30 year old laptop’ comment. There are plenty of 30 year old Macs about that will run on their original OS
I didn't say 30-year-old macs wouldn't run. As the matter of fact, that would be another example of the counter-claim that a 30-yr-old Sega Genesis can still run "while a surface duo couldn't do the same."