I doubt the EU has the courage to impose these laws to ANY Chinese tech company like Huawei or Xiaomi..... they'd be bankrupted if they were legally forced to "support" (tech support, material support, parts and labor repairs) their old devices from 4 years past.
The law would no doubt only apply to new products, not existing ones.
iphone 6s still working like a charm being an old phone. Less capable? for selfies? sure, for sending messages, communicating..? no, twitter, snapchat, whatsapp, instagram blablabla works still the same.
I'm with you. I keep mine until some new compelling feature, such as 3G->LE->5G since the basic functionality I depend on doesn't change much otherwise. The only other reason was the occasional offers by my cellular carrier to swap my old phone for a new one for only the sales tax.
If the new os is too much, then it is too much - it doesnt mean that they cannot make security fixes for old os.
Yea, people are assuming that companies wil magically design phones to run teh latest OS when at best they'll get some patches.
It was exchange rate and pricing numbers ( As it always has been even before iPhone era ) i.e Apple always round it "up" to their preferred pricing number. The factor / calculation changed sometime during mid 10s when there was a massive change of exchange rate in short period of time. Either Strong US or Weak Euros. The subsequent year Apple has since changed that calculation to better reflect on those risk. Which was documented somewhat in one of their Annual report or investor meeting.
We'll just have to disagree on this.
The legal requirement aren't actually that much different mostly because in the US you have class action which is in someway substantially costly than any requirement in EU or other market like Japan or China.
In that case, much of rest of the world, based on Apple's pricing, is paying for US lawsuits as well as local regulations given the higher prices on average. The American consumer thanks you for paying for their lawsuits.
Yes, if anything, this is good for Apple. And possibly Samsung and some other big companies. Manufacturers focusing on many cheap models will have a harder time (or try to ignore rules).
They'll simply do the minimum to comply with them.
This whole story makes me think of when the US "forced" European car makers to add expensive catalytic converters to the cars, reducing horse power from (example) 325 to 311, a complete disaster, nobody could drive Mercedes or BMW anymore. Right? No, it was a good decision, a few years later all new cars in the EU as well had catalytic converters.
At least you could easily desmog a car, at least in the early days. The old BMW air pump/reactor setup could be pulled in a few hours and the manifold hole plugged with a bolt.
I'll almost be impressed if Apple is confident enough to pull out of an annual $68bn market, to avoid having to provide a few security patches and refurbished parts for old devices. I doubt investors would be equally so impressed as me.
Not going to happen. Apple will simply find ways to comply at the lowest possible costs and pass on costs to teh consumers in those countries.
Honestly, I see then biggest treat to Apple in this that Android phones then will come with mandatory updates for 7 years compared to the current 1-3 year upgrades on most products.
One major Selling point for NOT going Android has been the uncertainty about the lifespand of the up-to-date software on the phones. With that uncertainty gone, cheaper mid-range Android phones with great(okay)ish specs, oled screen and modern designs might become a competitive force. Apple will have to update the design of the iPhone SE from outdated.
The law will not force manufacturers to make the latest OS work on older phones, nor it will it necessarily mean repairs will be cost effective or significantly reduce waste. A manufacturer could simply make the entire internal workings one replacement part; and yo can bet the part costs to build a complete phone from parts will be more than the cost of a new one.
The EU will get all caught up in the definition of "reasonable" and take years to resolve it; if past history is any proof.
We have evidence in the past, not in the future. But you can use logic. If you’re forced to maintain 7 years of support, many v0 products won’t exist, and therefore their successors won’t, either. You won’t be able to make big improvements in devices that share the same OS because you must maintain the previous versions. Also the other way around: you won’t be able to make big changes in the OS.
I doubt they will have to maintain backwards compatibility, merely update the old version with security patches, minor feature updates, etc.
Of course devices will be more expensive. Does all that not affect the consumer?
Of course, and people will complain about higher prices.
And that’s just some thoughts — the real danger is all the unintended downsides that can happen and you can’t think of now, because complex systems are like that.
Politicans care about today and getting reelected, not what happens as a result, and will always blame someone else anyway.
I think instead EU should regulate to a 5 year warranty. That would do the desired effect as parts would need to still be available for that period in order to fulfill it.
They could, but consumers would see price spikes as a result.
If a manufacturer builds a product that they know is going to last 10,20 even 30 years, they should support that product. It is totally unacceptable in my opinion to build a product that will last for years and years for it to become useless after only a couple of years because the manufacturer refuses to update the software/firmware to allow the product to still be useable.
If they were forced to do that they'd simply design products that only last 5 years. Problem solved.
