this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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Planned Obsolescence is a problem across all consumer electronics that depend on the software being updated. It’s not limited to Big Tech.
The only way I see to solve it is to force vendors to release hardware specs and unlock bootloaders so you can install your own software on it.
An even better solution would be to force vendors to release their software when the hardware is end of life via their planned obsolescence.
It’s great to see small advances in right to repair for hardware, such as replacing the battery or access to new parts, but those don’t help when you are stuck on an outdated OS version.
Nah. Legislation to make it planned obsolescence illegal would be much more effective.
Would that actually solve it? Just because a phone has an unlocked bootloader doesn't mean random ass people are going to want to support it. And even if some random dude on XDA makes updates for it that doesn't mean most people are even going to want to use it. Like yeah it's cool than a Galaxy S4 can run the latest version of Android, but that shit is buggy as hell and IDK anyone who would unironically want to use that.
This would apply to all consumer electronics besides smartphones, such as smart TVs, gaming consoles, etc.
Android has problems with how each device uses a forked kernel with vendor binary blobs only working for that specific forked kernel. PostmarketOS is trying to avoid these issues by upstreaming the drivers so they can be maintained normally when the kernel changes.
Yes having a trusted entity maintain the software is a big problem.
But giving the option to install your own software would be a big step in keeping the devices in use.
Realistically no. The support needed to manage the devices we all use is just insane, and I think a lot of people take for granted how the x86 platform has evolved over the last few decades. The ARM landscape does not have the standards set that x86 does and that will always hold it back. Qualcomm learned long ago that it's within their best interest to be constantly changing the SoCs and never really documenting/supporting them very well because it forces all of the downstream vendors to do constant refreshes. Toss in the development hellscape my fellow programmers created ourselves and we get the vicious cycle we're in today where Google saying they'll support a device for longer than a few years was the headline sales pitch
-typed on a Pixel 8 which was purchased due to that sales pitch
Eh the issue with the support is their better engineers have little interest in working on an older project with no chances for promotion. The standards are just not going to be kept particularly high and will probably be outsourced. So while you may have long term official support, the actual implementations may be lacking. This is true for basically all companies though and also applies to open source projects as well.