Apple Executive Greg Joswiak Dismisses Planned Obsolescence as 'Craziest Thinking in the World'

[JohnnyW2K1]

Fact: Apple add new features to older devices, which are (arguably) not optimised for those older devices, which result in slower user experience for those devices.

So, in order words, older phones get slower as a result of software updates. (It doesn't matter if it's intentional or not.)

The idea that this is bad for sales is what's "crazy". Last time I checked Apple were doing pretty well, Greg.

 

[MauiPa]

What a JOKE! Lmao

After almost everyone’s MacBook is now shot cause of mojave coming in the fall 2011 and below

Yes, you are. Maybe you could define "shot"? the computers still work and run the software they do today. that does not sound "shot" to me. I'm wondering what new hardware support Intel put in the chips over the 8 years ago that Apple is supporting with Mojave and the old computers don't have?

"After almost everyone’s MacBook". No- I'm pretty sure with sales data, most people's will run just fine on Mojave. and the older ones will run just fine on High Sierra. Nothing to see here. Move along!

 

[Michael Goff]

Fact: Apple add new features to older devices, which are (arguably) not optimised for those older devices, which result in slower user experience for those devices.

So, in order words, older phones get slower as a result of software updates. (It doesn't matter if it's intentional or not.)

The idea that this is bad for sales is what's "crazy". Last time I checked Apple were doing pretty well, Greg.

To determine if it’s planned or not, intent does matter. Also, sales would be terrible if they intentionally slowed down phones.

 

[Rogifan]

I am less concerned with planned obsolescence as it pertains to their software than I am as it pertains to hardware; User serviceable batteries, RAM, Hard drives, etc. All gone from their once flexible and expandable Macbook Pro line. Now, instead of simply upgrading my '13 MBP with a newer, bigger SSD and some more RAM, I get to throw it out and buy a new one.

Apple, tell me more about how you don't not engage in planned obsolescence!

There are cost benefits to everything. Name for me all the user replaceable parts in a Surface Pro or Surface Laptop. Heck they get worse ratings from iFixit than Apple products do. Is Microsoft engaging in Planned Obsolecense too?

 

[Michael Goff]

There are cost benefits to everything. Name for me all the user replaceable parts in a Surface Pro or Surface Laptop. Heck they get worse ratings from iFixit than Apple products do. Is Microsoft engaging in Planned Obsolecense too?

They’ll probably either say yes to make their point or say that’s irrelevant.

 

[Glockworkorange]

Joswiak shouldn't be so smug... either it's planned obsolesce, or Apple seriously f-d the dog with iOS 11. And I think we all know the answer to that one!

I think Gruber is more smug than Joswiak. He's a complete #!$$@%

 

[MauiPa]

Fact: Apple add new features to older devices, which are (arguably) not optimised for those older devices, which result in slower user experience for those devices.

So, in order words, older phones get slower as a result of software updates. (It doesn't matter if it's intentional or not.)

The idea that this is bad for sales is what's "crazy". Last time I checked Apple were doing pretty well, Greg.

"Fact"? I ran my 5s on every update that came out and was never disappointed with performance, and I'm in public beta, so I would sometimes update every 2 weeks. Never even changed my battery. Now thats a fact. I think slow downs in performance were from degraded batteries not being able to supply adequate voltages. I know the 5s had some features turned off, like force touch, because it wasn't available on hardware. Also, the 5s was the first mobile phone to support 64 bit. So the reason for not supporting older phones is the lack of 64 bit chips.

 

[tn-xyz]

if it was crazy thinking, why not let people downgrade?
iOS 9 killed the 4S and iPad Mini 1 and they know it.

 

[MauiPa]

Spot on!

Spot off. If you don't want a new device from Apple, MS, Dell, ASUS, don't get one. How many 8-11 year old devices are out there? It seems from the complaints a lot of Apples anyway. Thats a good thing, right?

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Oh y

If Apple had decided to maintain MacOS Mojave for 2011 Macs with the built-in Apple apps ported over from iOS unable to launch due to requiring Metal, 2011 Mac owners would be much more likely to expect support to end after Mojave. One more year of support can make a big difference.

To make matters worse, it's also confusing how Apple's strategies on iOS and MacOS are so radically different. I've already seen someone erroneously apply the iOS announcement to MacOS and claim my 2011 Mac would still be supported in Mojave.

yeah, here's a new OS for your 2011 Macs, but you don't get Darkmode and the desktop pictures because they require Metal, you don't get Stocks, news, voice memos and home because your processor is old, and you don't get any of the new graphics features. That would go over great. It is literally just High Sierra. Thats exactly what it is. So, instead of giving old Mac customers an OS that might have new problems and nothing new, they just said, "Lets not break what works. The same thing happened a few years ago with iOS 6 on the iPhone 3GS, you didn't get the Siri updates because the 3GS didn't have Siri, you didn't get the new maps, and you didn't get the new camera improvements because the 3GS camerawomen was not able to record high quality.
There is just no point to update. The only thing new would be the name.

 

[apolloa]

Oh and doesn’t planned = intentional? Just because new software might not always work well on older hardware doesn’t mean it was intentionally designed that way.

Yes it does, just like what Apple did with throttling iPhone performance and not telling anyone whilst selling its affected customers upgrades instead = planned obsolescence definition 101!

People can try and argue against this FACT as much as you like but a fact is a fact!

 

[MauiPa]

becuase all these machine are capable running new OS? Apple is basically abandon these machine and Apple will never updates High Sierra anymore?

so says the person that doesn't;t own any Apple devices. Must be an expert. Actually security and other updates do get made on older OS's. high Sierra will be supported for years. I guess as you don't own any apple devices you can be excused for not knowing how it works, but why comments?

 

[JohnnyW2K1]

I think slow downs in performance were from degraded batteries not being able to supply adequate voltages.

So you agree that older hardware ran slower on newer software that wasn’t optimised for that aging hardware?

 

[Michael Goff]

Yes it does, just like what Apple did with throttling iPhone performance and not telling anyone whilst selling its affected customers upgrades instead = planned obsolescence definition 101!

People can try and argue against this FACT as much as you like but a fact is a fact!

I don’t think you know what fact means.

 

[TheCoolGuy]

I am less concerned with planned obsolescence as it pertains to their software than I am as it pertains to hardware; User serviceable batteries, RAM, Hard drives, etc. All gone from their once flexible and expandable Macbook Pro line. Now, instead of simply upgrading my '13 MBP with a newer, bigger SSD and some more RAM, I get to throw it out and buy a new one.

Apple, tell me more about how you don't not engage in planned obsolescence!

This is so true. The only thing that is stopping updates to new macOS is the Graphics card that doesn’t support Metal.

 

[redheeler]

Oh y

yeah, here's a new OS for your 2011 Macs, but you don't get Darkmode and the desktop pictures because they require Metal, you don't get Stocks, news, voice memos and home because your processor is old, and you don't get any of the new graphics features. That would go over great. It is literally just High Sierra. Thats exactly what it is. So, instead of giving old Mac customers an OS that might have new problems and nothing new, they just said, "Lets not break what works. The same thing happened a few years ago with iOS 6 on the iPhone 3GS, you didn't get the Siri updates because the 3GS didn't have Siri, you didn't get the new maps, and you didn't get the new camera improvements because the 3GS camerawomen was not able to record high quality.
There is just no point to update. The only thing new would be the name.

iOS 6 can run quite a few newer apps that iOS 5 can't, this is primarily why Apple preventing iOS 6 from running on the iPad 1 was such a disappointment.

Also, why would the dark mode and desktop pictures require Metal? MacOS versions as far back as Yosemite have a dark mode version of the UI, but not many apps take advantage of it.

 

[Michael Goff]

This is so true. The only thing that is stopping updates to new macOS is the Graphics card that doesn’t support Metal.

So there’s a technical reason?

 

[sdwaltz]

Not the craziest thing in the world when my "runs-better-than-day-1-because-of-a-SSD" 2012 Mac Pro can't freaking run Mojave because "Apple said so".

 

[MauiPa]

This is one of the biggest lines of BULL I’ve heard from an Apple executive. “Some people use their phones under a much heavier workload”.....YA THINK? Peoples whole lives are on their phones now and have been for many years. The “craziest thinking in the world” is that it’s taken all these years for Apple to properly optimize for all the devices out there. They were perfectly content going on stage and proving to us they could’ve been doing this for the last 5 years but chose not to since according to Greg, older iPhones “test great out the lab” compared to how people are actually using them.

Wow, just wow.

Sounds kind of ignorant and hateful. I used my iPhone 5s (first 64 bit phone in the world) and used all the latest updates even in the public beta program. Never had problems (Oh Once there was a bad install, but with updates sometimes coming every 2 weeks, thats not bad), and never had any performance issues.

FYI: software companies often optimize their software and try to make it faster. sometimes it is new software available, sometimes better algorithms. A few years ago, for example Metal was considered slower than OpneGL by the experts and the thinking was that as the Metal API matured it wold get faster and more inline or exceed OpenGL which had been out for years. Now, Metal 2 is much much faster.

Also, if you check the benchmarks, IOS devices are almost always faster than their Android counterparts (not me, check Geekbench). For example, the 2017 iPhones using the A11 chip are about 25% faster than the flagship androids using the 845. Who knows what the A12 will bring. Part of this reason of course is the tightly bound software and hardware.

wow, just wow!

 

[Baymowe335]

iOS: We care about your older devices.

MacOS: Please throw away your MacBook (Late 2009), MacBook (Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (Early 2011), MacBook Pro (Late 2011), iMac (Late 2009), iMac (Mid 2010), iMac (Mid 2011), Mac mini (Mid 2010), or Mac mini (Mid 2011).

What a great company...

(Sorry for the repost, but this is definitely relevant here.)

Those devices are like 8-10 years old...what do you want?

 

[ChrisChaval]

iOS: We care about your older devices.

MacOS: Please throw away your MacBook (Late 2009), MacBook (Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (Early 2011), MacBook Pro (Late 2011), iMac (Late 2009), iMac (Mid 2010), iMac (Mid 2011), Mac mini (Mid 2010), or Mac mini (Mid 2011).

What a great company...

(Sorry for the repost, but this is definitely relevant here.)

You already know, to keep using computers 5 years old or older "is really sad. It really is".

This says it all

You know what, denying the obvious to me really is the 'Craziest Thinking in the World', especially when coming from a company that makes their living by generous margins from hardware sales

as regards ios, just because you provide users with the longest device lifetime available on the market today does not mean you cannot further improve on it

computer hardware improvements have almost stalled over the last 10 years. there is no reason in the world why my 8gb ram , 128gb ssd late 2009 mac mini should not be able to run the latest OS

it is a slightly different story with smartphones and tablets where real progress is still being made hardware wise

 

[MauiPa]

So there’s a technical reason?

Is that even a real question? Of course there is a technical reason. The graphics card is the first reason I've heard, there may be some on the Intel chips as well. I mean, look at iOS, they dropped support of 32 bit chips. i.e. pre 5s (the first 64 bit phone made).

 

[GoodWheaties]

iOS: We care about your older devices.

MacOS: Please throw away your MacBook (Late 2009), MacBook (Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (Early 2011), MacBook Pro (Late 2011), iMac (Late 2009), iMac (Mid 2010), iMac (Mid 2011), Mac mini (Mid 2010), or Mac mini (Mid 2011).

What a great company...

(Sorry for the repost, but this is definitely relevant here.)

Well the landscape is a little different in macOS land. They support the last three versions for instance. Also it can be pretty easy to modify the installer to put unsupported versions on older hardware. I have a 2008 MacBook unibody running High Sierra. Neither of those are options with iOS.
Edit: also I think the biggest reason for the cutoff at 2012 is Metal support. I’m guessing they will stay at 2012 for quite some time now.

 

[chrono1081]

Then perhaps you can explain to me how Apple used both Metal and OpenGL in High Sierra, since according to you it is literally impossible to do?

You're not understanding at all what I'm saying. A future release of OSX is getting rid of OpenGL and switching to Metal. This is obviously to enhance performance as OpenGL has a lot of legacy nonsense that it drags with it. When Apple strips OpenGL, they're doing it for good because it's unrealistic to keep two version of an OS, one with Metal controlling the graphics drawing, and one with OpenGL doing the graphics drawing.

Currently Apple isn't there yet, they're not fully Metal which is why both are coexisting at the moment. Coexisting has a lot of drawbacks. In the future, once everything is re-written from OpenGL to Metal, OpenGL goes away because it would be foolish to try and support two full OSs with different under the hood graphics drawing.

 

[sracer]

Gruber expressed that part of Apple's emphasis on those performance improvements on stage must be to counter the notion of planned obsolescence, or the idea that it deliberately slows down older iPhones with software updates to drive customers to upgrade to the latest and greatest models.

Joswiak quickly dismissed the idea as "about the craziest thinking in the world," and talked up iOS 12 as a "really good update."

Well, if Joswiak says Apple doesn't engage in planned obsolescence, then they must not.

I wouldn't expect him to say anything different. There are different ways to plan for obsolescence. Just because they don't engage in the heavy-handed methods, doesn't mean that they don't use more subtle approaches. Apple masks its methods under the covers of "design" and "style" choices.