I don't understand that. 98% of devices over 15 years old have either died of old age or are completely obsolete. Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people. Apple devices in particular last a very long time anyway, as you should expect from a premium brand.

They did the same for the iPad Pro. My kid is using the hand-me-down of my mother (so from grandmother to granddaughter). I put a case on it to protect against bumps, protect screen (has a couple of burn-in marks but it is still very usable) and put tape on top of the camera (the mics likely still work). I also put it on my IoT VLAN. She uses it for YouTube Kids and Disney+, mainly, but schooldays it is limited to 15 min a day and weekend days (fri and sat) to 1 hr. After that, she needs to ask for more time. Usually we don't give that, although in vacations we are lenient. The device still works very well, although the battery (still same as in 2017 or so when it was bought new) is a lil' bit hammered. Now here's the thing: is this device not overkill for the tasks I mentioned? I think so, yes. A kid her age (almost 8) would be happy with whatever, it could be 480p and they're cool with it, as long as the software is still secure (and don't give me the BS of 'don't give them a tablet'; it is locked down and my first shared PC was in like 1989 when I was about her age). And sadly, Apple doesn't want to provide software updates for this device anymore. Microsoft not either, btw, as they deprecated Windows 10 and Windows 11 requires TPMv2 (though Windows is more about PCs and laptops, I'm not sure if there's any effect on Surface hardware). I believe companies can do better, but if they don't want to, they should unlock the bootloader and give the user free reign on the device. You quit support, you unlock the hardware, or else you're violating the local law. That'd be my preference.

It's the larger point. A device with a 64-bit SoC, higher-than-HD display, battery, gigabytes of RAM and storage being consigned to landfill is bonkers.

Because your made up stat is false because you lump a real problem (died of old age) with a fake one (completely obsolete)

> Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people. Apple devices in particular last a very long time anyway, as you should expect from a premium brand.

Used by a tiny percentage only because Apple has made it as difficult as possible to not upgrade, which is especially egregious precisely because their devices are long-lasting.

(This comment brought to you via a perfectly functioning iPhone 8 running the latest possible iOS that supports it.)

I am typing this from my 2009 Win7 PC I use for older Windows games...

Huh?

> I don't understand that. 98% of devices over 15 years old have either died of old age or are completely obsolete. Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people. Apple devices in particular last a very long time anyway, as you should expect from a premium brand.

This comment gave me whiplash