Forced unplanned obsolescence
Forced unplanned obsolescence
Muse #141 - the up's and down's of my technology life.
I was super excited about several of the features that Apple announced in WWDC21 just a few days ago. It did not take long for the bubble to burst. Not all features will be available to older product lines. And now the joy is gone a little bit.
Apple’s strategy seems to be focusing on their ARM chips with a built-in Neural engine and security chip as a minimum to support some of these features and that rules out my 2018 Mac Mini, 2015 Macbook Pro, and my iPad Pro 12.9 2nd gen. Only my iPhone XR and Apple watch SE will stay up to date.
But that is a bummer since today’s products have a really long life and able to easily last six, seven, perhaps eight years or more quite easily. And the performance of these products to do the work that I need to do is more than adequate for most tasks.
But Apple seems to be pushing this forced obsolescence on their users keeping their revenue and profitability cycle bells ringing and the coffers growing. Apple seems to be going after the higher-paying first-movers - perhaps the best idea is to stock up on Apple stock. Sign of times to come. The financial future of Apple seems to be safe with the fanboys on tap.
Good for them, sucks for a conservative buyer like me. The choice is between cough-it-up or suck-it-up. I am inclined to do the latter though. It’s a shame to throw away equipment that long years of service life left in them.
References:
Older Apple devices won’t get these iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey features - https://www.macworld.com/article/348528/ios-15-ipados-15-macos-monterey-features-devices-facetime-spatial-audio-siri-dictation-universal-control.html
Apple’s OS updates will support nearly all of the same devices this year - https://www.macworld.com/article/348268/apple-isnt-dropping-support-for-barely-any-old-hardware-this-year.html
Apple unleashes M1 - https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2020/11/apple-unleashes-m1/