SO. MUCH. THIS.
Does anyone have a full article?
It’s not about more reusable hardware it’s about software being constrained to support existing hardware rather than ditch it to save a fee bucks on development.
Samsung S21 Ultra that I got in September of 2021
I’ll probably go another year before upgrading, depending on how much it makes sense financially.
its not some conspiracy. the more complex, durable and water proof a phone is, the harder its going to be to repair or replace a component or battery. the nice thing is that now that the technology is mature and basically good enough to do anything fairly well, people won’t need to upgrade for tech or feature reasons anymore. Now it will just be a trade-off between durability and water/dirt resistance, and repairability.
Also, people have no clue how to care for batteries. phones get left in hot cars at 100% charge, left in the sun at the beach at 100%. There is no BMS or hardware battery protection mechanism that can protect against that. Those batteries are fucked and will need to be replaced. And replacement means breaking the water seal around the phone, so it’s annoying and expensive. it’s just the way it is. you are responsible for your battery, and the better you treat it, the longer it will last.
We have had watertight user serviceable with external batteries handheld amateur radios for decades. Your arguments are baloney. Phones are only this way because manufacturers want them to be this way.
That waterproof/durability argument doesn’t really hold up. We had waterproof, durable Android phones with user replaceable batteries a decade ago. They were made primarily of plastic, and had a nice thick gasket around the battery cover.
That’s part of the problem with all these phones made of “premium” materials like glass and titanium. They serve no functional purpose, they only make the phone more expensive and less repairable. And of course, both of those things are great for manufacturers that want to sell you a new phone when you drop it ONE time and the glass front and back crack.
Back when I had a plastic phone I didn’t even use a case, I beat the hell out of it and it never broke, and I replaced the battery myself in thirty seconds.
I laugh at the stupid titanium thing on the iPhone. It’s such a stupid marketing ploy by Apple. Like, it’s impressive of course, from a manufacturing and engineering point of view, working with titanium is always difficult and challenging. But Jerry Rig Everything disassembled the thing and the titanium is a 1mm veneer around the border of the phone. It has absolutely no structural or protective function at all. The frame is cheap and reliable old aluminum. And the titanium is covered in a disgusting plastic coat that peels and scratches just as easily as any paint over aluminum or plastic. It’s such an obvious scam made to justify overcharging for a boring, dull and standard phone.
I keep seeing the complaints, but do enough people actually upgrade yearly? Because anecdotally (including online communities in this) I have seen most people claim that they only upgrade every 3-5 years and I think that’s sensible as an upgrade cycle and will only get longer now if my own feelings match the general populace.
I personally have found myself needing an upgrade every 3 years on average and think I’ll find a way to go longer with phones which don’t lose security updates around the exact time the battery starts swelling on my old phone (my previous reason for upgrading and seems to be happening again)
In the US at least, I think most people get their phones through their carrier and are stuck on a contract paying it off for ~3 years. I think rich people and enthusiasts/fanboys are the only ones who upgrade every year or buy it unlocked at full price from the manufacturer.
I am not in the US and not locked into a contract and neither is anyone I know IRL but nonetheless we do upgrade at the same cadence. As for the people who upgrade their phones yearly, unless they’re keeping the old phones in a locked box I think it is not that bad if those old phones see use as an upgrade for someone else (either given or sold as a second hand device) or even if those phones run duty as a makeshift device.
I personally think it only becomes a problem if it’s literally e-waste or if the majority of people were upgrading yearly (which is again because it’ll lead to the first problem but felt like putting it separately too). If it’s playing some role in the world it’s okay¹ in my book.
^(1: I wonder if people who use their old phones as a secondary device (eg: a music player for running)^) ^(are creating e-waste or not. As in if it would’ve been better if they used only one device for both purposes and either gave/sold the old phone or didn’t buy a new phone in the first place. After all one could make the case that battery degradation would make them need an earlier upgrade)
Most people in the world buys full price from manufacturer. And they are not rich or enthusiasts at all. It’s just in the US the consumerist mindset of paying $1500 over 3 years for a $800 phone is enforced by the carriers. And the ones who go out of that mindset to fanboy, buy $1500 overpriced phones. Most people aren’t buying flagship phones. Mid and low performance phones are perfectly serviceable for the vast majority of people.
