Planned Obsolescence

[kyrax12]

So I was having a discussion with one of my friend today and he said that phones eventually becomes obsolete after two years. Meaning that the phone will be render near unusable due to being slow or laggy on purpose by the phone's company.

I was curious about this and decided to do some brief research on this matter.

Apparently this is by software updates. Companies are pushing out updates that makes older phones more laggy.

Is this true?

 

[Dulanic]

Somewhat, but the bigger reason is they stop updating them long term. I think as phones begin to level off more and more /w hardware increases this will be the main issue.

 

[vi edit]

A lot of it is due to TRIM/Garbage collection issues on older devices. As you used your phone and deleted off apps and data the OS would mark those blocks. The more blocks that get marked, the more you phone had to think about what was and wasn't there and greatly slowed down the performance of the device.

A simple wipe of the device can return a lot of performance. But to address your question, there certainly is a built in cycle for many devices due to RAM limits, CPU speed and GPU processing. As newer versions of mobile OS's come out, they demand more resources as do the apps that you download.

There certainly is an incentive to cripple devices to force upgrades and future purchases, but that's a dangerous area. Who's to say that users will chose your device the next time around if their last one was slow?

 

[kpkp]

But to address your question, there certainly is a built in cycle for many devices due to RAM limits, CPU speed and GPU processing. As newer versions of mobile OS's come out, they demand more resources as do the apps that you download.

I am not sure you can call that planned obsolescence, that's simply targeting a specific market segment and trying to hit a price point while still getting some margin.
Maybe your argument would stand for a device like the iPhone 6, where the cost of an additional gig of RAM wouldn't be to impactful on the margins, but there might be other reasons for using just a gig.

 

[ChronoReverse]

It's pretty hit or miss I'd say. My Galaxy S4 is 2 years old now but mine is still quick. But there are plenty of phones from just before this that are slow and the non-flagships are definitely slow.

 

[lopri]

Planned obsolescence occurs in many markets, not just for smartphones. Software does play a huge role, of course (see: Windows Vista), but you will never hear corporations acknowledge it nor will you come by any material proof. I personally think it is a disgusting practice and try to avoid products that I suspect of planned obsolescence.

 

[Yuriman]

I find a 2011 Galaxy S2 to still be usable, but the software is pretty out of date.

My 2013 Moto X feels fast still, and is still receiving updates.

 

[Zodiark1593]

It's pretty hit or miss I'd say. My Galaxy S4 is 2 years old now but mine is still quick. But there are plenty of phones from just before this that are slow and the non-flagships are definitely slow.

The reason we buy flagships is because they (should be) fast enough to maintain usefulness linger. The cortex A7 popular in lower and and mid end phones are slower than the Cortex A9s used in many past flagship phones. On my old G2X, the processor certainly wasn't the limiting factor in most basic usage scenarios.

 

[Oyeve]

I find apple does this a lot. Even with their pcs.

 

[Zodiark1593]

I find apple does this a lot. Even with their pcs.

Not sure what the deal is with iOS slowing down on A5 hardware. What is the UI doing different that is causing it to choke the A5's gpu? Certainly, moving around a bunch of icons doesn't require that kind of gpu power, no less condering the fact it was doing fine before. Not allowing firmware downgrades definitely suggests Apple pushing people to move on.

Edit: Arguably, Apple may simply prevent downgrading to reduce fragmentation and get developers on board the newest iOS/hardware sooner.

 

[LPCTech]

My Galaxy S3 is fast and in perfect condition. Running 4.3 Everything works great. I might not need a new phone till S7 or whatever comes next.

 

[boomhower]

Not sure what the deal is with iOS slowing down on A5 hardware. What is the UI doing different that is causing it to choke the A5's gpu? Certainly, moving around a bunch of icons doesn't require that kind of gpu power, no less condering the fact it was doing fine before. Not allowing firmware downgrades definitely suggests Apple pushing people to move on.

Edit: Arguably, Apple may simply prevent downgrading to reduce fragmentation and get developers on board the newest iOS/hardware sooner.

I think it's ram in their case, they are notoriously stingy with ram in their designs. Not just phones but notebooks and tablets too.

 

[luv2liv]

the galaxy s2 and s3 are still running fine in our family.
off course, none of them play games. surfing, emails, pix, vids, and music are what the phones being used for.

im the only 1 with the latest phone, htc one m7, cause it's company paid n will auto upgrade in oct. if it's not paid by company, i prolly still be on my moto razor. last night, i slid the sim back into the razor and it was working fine too. amazing!

 

[mmntech]

I find apple does this a lot. Even with their pcs.

Apple actually got sued over it. Back when iOS 4 came out, it nearly bricked the iPhone 3G even though they said it was compatible. It's pretty clear they were doing it to encourage users to upgrade. Of course that can be a double edged sword. A lot of cell markets were still doing three year contracts at the time. Plus Android was just starting to gain traction. So they probably lost a few customers who would have been repeat buyers otherwise. I know I seriously considered the Galaxy S2 after that fiasco.

They've gotten a bit better since then. Largely because they still sell devices that use the ageing A5. So the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 have survived nearly four years on.

It's going to be interesting though in the next couple of years. Mobile devices are rapidly reaching that "good enough" plateau. Despite growing CPU power, performance demand from everyday software levels off. Same thing happened to PCs a few years back when the Core 2 Duo came out. We may see people keeping their phones and tablets longer. Upgrade cycle will move from every 2-3 years up to 4-5. Which means they'll need OS and security support for longer.

 

[shabby]

So I was having a discussion with one of my friend today and he said that phones eventually becomes obsolete after two years. Meaning that the phone will be render near unusable due to being slow or laggy on purpose by the phone's company.

PC's also become slow and laggy after a few years. Solutions... format, just like the phone.

 

[IHAVEAQUESTION]

I think it's ram in their case, they are notoriously stingy with ram in their designs. Not just phones but notebooks and tablets too.

A lot of people ignore the software optimization. Apple could fully optimize iOS8 for iPhone 6, 50% optimized for iPhone 5/5s and virtually no optimization for 4s. It makes a big difference. Ram is just an obvious target.