There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of “planned obsolescence”.
“These updates depend on many device-specific non-Google hardware and software providers that work with Google to provide the highest level of security and stability support,” said Peter Du, communications manager for ChromeOS. “For this reason, older Chrome devices cannot receive updates indefinitely to enable new OS and browser features.”
Bull. Shit.
I have an 8 year old iPad that can still use Amazon video and can still run Netflix, and google drops support for these computers as early as 3 years. I’m not an Apple fanboy but that is absolutely ridiculous.
Apple does the same thing if you don’t already have those installed
My 2nd gen Apple TV is garbage. Nearly all the apps fail to load now. 🤷♂️… I suppose I can try jailbreaking it but it sure feels like someone is trying to force me to upgrade my hardware.
That’s a product that hasn’t had an Apple update since 2014. What realistically do you expect hardware manufacturers to do with actually old hardware? Lose money supporting it forever? This is kind of the opposite case from the chromebooks.
I will give credit to Apple on that one because android phone manufacturers are now supporting their phone for longer because of how long Apple is supporting them.
I think the more probable reason is that EU regulators were unhappy with this for a long time and have now put 3 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates into law. Low cost Android manufacturers don’t care what Apple does.
But for their laptops the support has dropped to the lowest in years. Some intel MacBooks no longer get the latest version after 6 years.
Confused noise from people who grew up using Windows 95.
I remember back in the day when I had apple devices where they would push updates for devices long past their capability to actually run the updated software. Rather than refuse the update or get a pruned patch with security fixes only, it would force updates and bloat your phone and grind it into unresponsive unusability after a few years.
I hear that’s not so much the case anymore, so that’s nice. But I remember. The main reason I upgraded my phone was because of that, the hardware was great, but I could hardly use the software anymore even after clean installs.
My point being, I guess, extended support is great if managed properly but it can also become a bludgeon with which to drive you toward the new generations of devices.
long past their capability to actually run the updated software
Well, Apple intentionally slowed those devices down to make the users update, instead of using an insecure device, that would’ve provided a good experience otherwise.
And these days Apple is retiring devices arbitrarily for profits too. For example this year they are retiring the Iphone 8, which has better hardware, than the ipad 2018 that is still being supported…
That slowness was, at least officially, for the battery health. Do you have the support to prove otherwise?
These conversations bring the weirdest people out of the woodwork. I remember talking with a guy who explained to me how crap Apple laptops were because you (according to him) can’t customise them. Turns out he’d never owned or even used an Apple laptop. I was like, why do you care?! Especially about something you have no experience with!
And then if I recall correctly (though I can’t be bothered to look) didn’t they get sued for slowing phones?
So people were mad that their phones battery wasn’t holding a charge anymore, “im being forced to upgrade”, so Apple throttled older phones to keep the battery running, aka allowing people to keep their phones longer, and then they got sued for slowing down phones lol.
I am an apple fan boy, I wont hide that. But it does seem like they tried to do a “good” and make peoples phones last longer, and then got sued.
Also the whole forced upgrade just isn’t apples game IMO. Do they want you buying the new one every year, of course. But the more important thing is that you keep using AN iPhone at all. Stay in the ecosystem, stay in the app store, stay paying for icloud, etc.
Going to a new phone gives the user a window to move away from IOS. (Though most won’t haha)
I have a Mac Mini that has to be dumped because Apple is no longer providing OS updates to it. Just because you can continue to use it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do so. iOS and OSX are being increasingly targeted especially as the inertia against upgrading systems that work just fine is highest among the technologically illiterate.
Huh? I have an ipad mini and since two-three years ago it’s as useful as a brick, Apple doesn’t allow me to install any app because they require a newer os version (that’s not available for the model)
By contrast my much older nexus 7 can still use most apps that I want
It can’t run everything obviously but the fact that my nearly 10 year old iPad can handle video streaming still and these schools have bricked laptops after 3 years is ridiculous.
Those Chromebooks aren’t bricked. They simply don’t get chrome updates anymore, even if it’s just Linux+Chrome and updates could continue forever without any real effort from Google
For security issues they can’t give to students unsupported hardware. The discontinued iPad would go in the same e-waste bin, because it’s not like android where browsers will continue to get updates for years and years
For a school they functionally are. They can’t use them if they can’t get security updates.
and instead the ipad that doesn’t get security updates since 2018 in your example doesn’t count?
Well for starters it wasn’t purchased by or for schools so no. But even if it was, it gets far more than 3 years of support. I think 5 is somewhat reasonable if we’re just going to accept this sort of behavior.
Either way the comparison is not really apt. Mobile devices are far worse about this than PC’s. You should instead compare a macbook (or a cheap windows machine), which gets security updates for 7-10 years. Google knows their devices are very popular for school computers, so to treat them like mobile devices and enforce the terrible standards that comes with is pernicious.
Weeell “bullshit” is easy to claim but not necessarily untrue. So with android phones this is definitely a problem. Industry wide firmware support for these ARM SOC-s are often ranging from not long enough, to fucking atrocious. You get basically two years of new drivers, and a security update maybe. The way LinageOS manages to support phones like the note 3, from like android 4, to 11, is basically creating manifests, that use drivers from newer, still supported, but “similar-ish” components. And the note 3 was a flagship device, easily the fastest phone of it’s generation. These Chromebooks, especially the ones schools can and do afford, are built to the penny. There is ultimately no point in pushing a software update to a device for a significant cost, that makes it so slow that no reasonable person would ever consider using it.
What is the solution to this? Hard to say. Not buying hardware so incredibly obsolete that it has to run an alternate OS, is a start. Maybe just use PC-s and deploy linux.
I have preordered a framework laptop which will run Linux until it fucking blows up or falls apart.
Enough with being screwed over by well known brands whose interest is just selling you more and more stuff.
Good, maybe that will get them to stop using Chrome OS in schools, it has been a disaster for computer literacy in general.
Comments upon comments ignorant of the realities of the privacy laws governing this domain and the implications on firmware, driver and OS security support. “Just install Linux on it” is a completely unworkable solution. As some have pointed out, the places where this is done have a much thicker IT departments staffed with higher grade professionals to make it work. The thing to be mad here about is the shit support from vendors across the stack. If I had to guess, the worst offenders are probably the SoC vendors who typically ship firmware and driver updates as is the tradition.
Companies making mass market devices should be required by law to support them indefinitely, or until they publish the technical specs sufficient for community support and repair.
The upgrade cycle they’re allowed to get away with today is not only a ridiculous drain on people’s money, but also a shameful source of pollution and waste.
until they publish the technical specs sufficient for community support and repair.
I want to see phones with no further official OS support have their boot loaders opened up so a lightweight OS can be installed on them instead. I’ve had iPhones in the past that have been absolutely rock solid after a battery replacement that lost iOS support, and with that a whole bunch of resale value. So I now tend to sell mine a year or so before they’re likely to be dropped.
But I genuinely think that I’d hold on to an iPhone that could have an alternative OS installed. This is, of course, why none of the major manufacturers allow this. Gotta put the profits ahead of the ethics.
Actually in the Android community Sony helps you unlock your bootloader and offers official AOSP sources for their devices that you can compile and install yourself.
I have no idea why people are enamored with Samsung.
Ad campaigns, most likely. I always seem to see ads for Samsung phones, but not as often for Sony brand ones. I do agree Sony does a much better job about opening up the bootloader, versus Samsung punishing you for trying to open your own paid for device up.
Planned Obsolesce should be a crime
I would have agreed with that statement until I saw the most recent Technology Connections video about why the incandescent light bulb has planned obsolescence built in. Sometimes it’s not malicious but to actually provide a compromise leading to an overall better product.
I don’t think software death dates count, tho.
That wasn’t planned obsolescence though, it was an industry-created standard for the tradeoff between efficiency, brightness, and lifespan. Planned obsolescence is specifically when a product is made to break sooner than it needs to.
Software Death Dates strike me as more “Malware” than “Compromise”
TLDR: I’m still very suspicious of how that is quantified - “leading to an overall better product”.
Who quantifies that and how, on a case by case basis, especially in the form of Chromebooks or phones for revenant, popular examples?
Let’s say it was a laptop: I can see issues with lithium batteries perhaps reaching a cycle count that lead them to be dangerous. Wouldn’t that mean though you should produce a good that has replaceable batteries? Is the battery designed in such a manner on purpose?
Businesses with shareholders that live quarter to quarterly profit are the issue. There is no authoritarian legislator that reallocates resources like China did the last few years, for example, whether you like it or not.
The US relies on legislation to be passed to mandate the changes or prohibit a device from being built a certain way. That legislation can be lobbied for loopholes, have various people in power also own percentages of the companies, etc. Whether you agree with it or not, there are many checks and balances and simultaneously a lack thereof.
but to actually provide a compromise leading to an overall better product.
Could you elaborate a bit more on that?
For incandescent lightbulbs, his point was that bulbs can burn fast and bright or low and slow, and standardizing on a lifespan of 1000 hours was a sweet spot between performance and longevity. For example, it makes 60W bulbs from different manufacturers more interchangeable and less prone to tricky marketing gimmicks like a “long life” 60W bulb that’s dimmer.
Thank you for explaining this concept. I still don’t see how it can be considered planned obsolescence, though. It looks more like a matter of optimizing the output and doing a tradeoff for more performance.
I see planned obsolescence as artificially limiting the longevity or repairability of a product, without any benefit at all, but with the intention of making it less durable. A good example could be locked smartphones without updates.
But perhaps, the definition of planned obsolescence is broader than i think.
That’s what they should be doing, but it isn’t what they’re going to do, unfortunately.
Kimathi Bradford, a 16-year-old Oakland tech repair intern, has looked into whether there was a way to replace the outdated Chromebook software with a non-Google brand, but it ended up being a lot of work, Kimathi said, and the open-source replacement wasn’t up to par. “It’s like the Fritos of software,” he said. “No one really wants to use it.”
Now, I’m not sure if what they tried was Linux, but I wouldn’t be too surprised. The younger generations grew up with smartphones; I feel as though operating systems will become more streamlined and opaque as time goes on. I suspect we’ll have to contend with the phonification of mainstream computing in the coming years.
“being a lot of work” = I couldn’t follow a guide.
Honestly, Chromebooks are among some of the easiest systems to boot a Linux distro on. Far easier than, say, Bootcamp.
- Exceptions apply to enterprise or education enrolled systems as they lock those devices down. Corporations and schools, however, do have the option to release the hardware and allow modifications to the system.
Right, but then multiply that guide x1000 systems, losing google enterprise, switching over to a unix directory system, setting up infrastructure, network shares, printers, and everything and it’s not just a guide - it’s a team of people working for weeks to get it set up. Of course to us it’s easy, it’d just be a computer or two. To an entire company/school it may be over a million dollars to swap over
Agree. I’ve got a chromebook running Linux, for that I had to open it up and remove a screw. It takes around 15 minutes if you’ve done it before, so for bulk migration to Linux it’s not feasible.
You had to remove a screw to install Linux? Is that like a physical tampering prevention measure? Makes me think of how I had to swap a jumper to install a GPU in an old HP tower that had integrated video.
Yes!! Chromebooks have so much potential.
I have a cheapo 2016 acer Chromebook still going strong with Gallium OS. (An ubuntu based distro geared at low spec chromebooks.)
My Acer C710 still going strong, repurposed as a 3D Printer host. Also with Gallium OS. I just can’t seem to kill it.
I, on the other hand, have a Lenovo Duet 2 which sort of sucked the day I bought it and has hardly gotten any better. I wanted a new Android tablet for taking notes and reading comics and there was just nothing else decent available a year ago. Specifically got an ARM one so it would reliably run Android apps. Which it doesn’t – it’s so unstable. Have to reboot it regularly when stuff stops working. The promise of Android apps on ChromeOS was more of a hope than a pledge.
Good thing it was cheap because this thing has practically no future for me. I regret everything about it.
Like with anything else, you get what you pay for. Buy a Samsung tablet next time.
I manage my schools IT - and when we started out a few years ago my board were pushing aggressively for Chromebooks. The service provider were talking about how they could roll out hundreds of Chromebooks at the touch of a button. When I asked about the lifespan of a Chromebook I got vague answers. I knew we would get a couple of years max out of each one so I instead pushed for much more expensive MacBooks. 5 years on and we are still using our original MacBook we got back then, with photoshop and other software.
Ironically the only way to use some old Macbooks these days is to put Chrome OS Flex on them. Apple is far more aggressive about killing off old hardware when it feels like it. You can still use them as-is of course but over time the browser and other web based apps degrade and refuse to work because of issues with TLS, CA certs (expired), discontinued backend APIs and unsupported web content APIs.
x86 Macs are not the greatest example of longevity at this point.
I’m curious how something like Framework laptops would pan out for this use case. New they are currently priced similarly to a macbook, but in theory they are indefinitely serviceable.
This is true! And you also don’t have to worry about the proprietary-ness of MacOS, and there are also (certain ways)[https://github.com/Gictorbit/photoshopCClinux] to get photoshop on Linux too.
Framework laptops are the exact opposite of what you’d want in a school environment. This is how you blow your schools IT budget out the window. Cheap, disposable, consistent configuration and manufacturer supported are the key concerns.
These are kids with various standards of computer literacy throwing them in their bags which they also kick around and treat pretty harshly all day long. A $4k Framework-style laptop is just silly.
My comment is in the context of someone who said they’re 5 years into their plan of buying MacBooks instead of cheap Chromebooks and they’re still happy with their decision. If they had said reality panned out as you suggest, then yeah, my comment would make less sense.
But then again, in theory, the more damage the laptops are going to suffer, the more you’ll save over time if they’re easily repairable
Also, you’re right that $4k for a framework is ludicrous. I was thinking more like $1500. But idk what MacBooks OP purchased.
Yeah, I don’t understand who’s buying these at all at that price to be honest. I’m not sure if its the profit margin they want or production-related issues due to the low number runs they’re probably doing.
Not necessarily! The Chromebook version starts at 1k, with a no-OS one 50 below that, both pre-assembled. Additionally, the higher build quality with the ease of part replacements would significantly reduce the load when it comes to repairs. The downsides of course are the high up-front cost, but this could be reduced by releasing in groups (by grade level, for example.) Also, an advantage with unrestricted devices like this is that it’s very easy to flash/install whatever you want, including whatever user permissions and applications are needed to ensure smooth operation (e.g. specific DNS/VPN configuration for content blocking or access to school materials.)
Either that, or I’m speaking out my ass. Still though, there’s a lower carbon footprint involved when you don’t need to huck the whole device in the trash once something breaks. That should at least be some kind of incentive…
You can buy 2-3 cheap Chromebooks for that which will theoretically last 10-15 years though for your $1k. Basically no schools are going to turn that up vs a $1k Framework most of which will not last half that long with kids using them.
Sucks for the environment though as you say, I wish it were different.
Awful!!! I remember using those junktops when I was in high school…
Made me realize I still have one lying around and I tried to put Linux on it, but they seem to only let you sandbox Linux in it…? Not able to enter BIOS supposedly due to the firmware is obnoxious. Is there any way to put coreboot on over the firmware or something?
At a guess - they’re likely selling those laptops at a loss and making the money back on (hopefully) service contracts or (probably) selling your data. As soon as you install a custom OS they won’t support you (so you won’t buy support) and they won’t be able to sell your data.
Sorry for the late response, I’ve been wading through my inbox to get back to most :)
That’s gotta be why they make it so damn hard to uninstall ChromeOS… I like that Linux is being popularized more, but I hear whispers from the F(L)OSS community in my head that Canonical and Microsoft are one in the same. Its a bit confusing some of the rhetoric surrounding certain companies and software other than the blatantly obvious like Microsoft or Google, but I’ll never quite understand programmer “martian”…
Have you worked on chrome books before and swapped the OS?
Most Chromebook’s firmware is Coreboot, but it’s running a Depthcharge payload instead of UEFI (or BIOS or whatever). Mr. Chromebox maintains UEFI Coreboot payloads and install tools for a wide variety of (x86) Chromebooks, which can be used to flash a normal UEFI payload and boot normal OSes. It’s strictly possible to boot normal Linux systems on a the Depthcharge payload modern Chromebooks use, but uh… here’s the gentoo wiki on it, it’s a substantial pain in the ass.
Apologies for the long wait for a response. Been trying to get back to people.
I checked out the Chromebook I have and made a post on the Gentoo form, but don’t believe I’m able to do it for my particular model because of how I’m sandboxed in a subsystem of something. Could I DM you and we could chat more about sending Chrome OS to the shadow realm?
Sure, drop me a note with the details and I’ll see if I can give you a hand. I’m not super expert in all the specifics of the Chromebook ecosystem, but I have good general computer/Unix skills and have hacked a couple so I know where to look for resources.
Awesome! I’ll send you a DM a bit later with some details about the Chromebook when I dig through the mountain of stuff in front of me. Appreciate the help :)
Yep I did that to my school Chromebook, they never asked for it back when I graduated and being a broke college student I decided to UEFI flash it and use it as a cheap Linux Computer, still using it now. It’s not the fastest laptop but it’s certainly good enough. It’s really dumb that they enforce software expiration dates on these PCs when they’re probably fully capable of running the next version perfectly fine.
Not Chromebook related, but I have an Asus G72GX laptop from around 2010 I bought refurbished, it was meant to be used for gaming, but it’s performance wasn’t very good. Got married, life happened and finally dug it out of storage this year. Replaced battery, installed windows 10 (had 7) and started using it for work as a developer. It handles it remarkably well considering it’s age.
I had to force windows 10 to install by jumping through all kinds of hoops, but I haven’t noticed a difference in it’s performance.
However, if I reboot, I often get stuck in a boot loop with a different error each time it reboots, but I somehow magically get it to the login screen by doing some kind of computer version of the Konami code, except I don’t know what the code is.
That being said, I am curious if It would be more beneficial to install Linux. I have no experience with it. All I use it for is VSCode mainly.
I never tried using WIndows on my Chromebook before, heard that it really performs badly on Chromebook hardware. You might have better luck with Linux if the error is happening in Windows so it might be worth giving it a shot.
The service life of the devices was known up-front. You can check for yourself the service life dates of every Chrome OS machine here:
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en
The correct deployment strategy would be to make a big purchase at the front end of a device’s lifecycle and then only replacements from then on out so that you get the most out of every machine. Future capital purchases would be with a new device and termination date.
I think this point is really important, and allow me to go one step further: I work in the public sector of education and purchasing technology is such a complex issue that IT governance has to be involved with decisions like this. That’s to say that, without a governing body to review purchases (outside of whoever handles the actual procurement, i.e. funds leaving the bank account), mistakes like this will happen.
We can be upset with planned obsolescence, but there’s distinctly a human error here where there wasn’t enough research and planning.
After reading all the comments, I’m just gonna say that if you don’t allow kids to tinker and do their thing, they will learn a lot slower and your “investment” will be left mostly unused. (age range proper hardware/OS of course.) The school policy is not doing the kids a favor, it’s a waste of time and tax money that you cultivate a generation of people get used to chrome book and google apps. That’s the ultimate purpose for school license being cheaper.
We’ve got young adults entering the workforce that cannot comprehend what a filesystem and directory structure is due to 10+ years of these sandboxed, guard-railed tech products.
I now understand that existential crisis that people become too dumb or not capable of operating technologies developed by previous generation.(like the Walle movie.)
This sounds like there’s a market for a Linux distro that behaves like ChromeOS and can be centrally managed.
The problem comes down to education institutions. I remember when we got Chromebooks in my highschool (8 years ago) admins forgot to turn of developer mode and half the school unenrolled the Chromebook managing to bypass all restrictions. This went on for half a year until one day our school needed to run a state exam (more for measure of schools performance not as a college entrance exam or anything).
The computerized testing program required deploying a specific chrome app accessible when chrome book is logged out (can’t just download from chrome web store). When they tried to push the client since half of Chromebooks were unenrolled it failed. This required the school it to recall pretty much all chrome books to manually re enroll all of them and disable developer mode (prevents unenrolling and prevents sideloading Linux).
Problem is if older Chromebooks are used for Linux in an educational environment there would be nothing stopping a student from whipping up a bootable USB and dumping another distro (bypassing restrictions). I’m also not sure if there is a enrollment mode equivalent Linux (there may be but not sure).
At least that’s my two cents (not a school it admin just a memory from the past 😉).
I never really understood the need for that strickt controll of the hardware… Who cares if Linux is sideloaded or if students unenroll. Imho I think if you need that strickt controll you are bound to get so many unnesseary issues down the line. Instead let student 6se what ever the fuck they want and for security just make sure they WiFi/ethernet is secure and locked down and any services the students need are behind a secure 2fa login. Treat any device as untrusted is more healthy for your security in the long run imo. If students need special software that they can’t run on their own machines you can lend them a machine for that specific task for a specific time. Problem solved.
I never really understood the need for that strickt controll of the hardware
Federal laws and rules for educational technology:
CIPPA - https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act
COPPA - https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-coppa
and to an extent
FERPA - https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html
Anyone got a non-paywalled version of the article?
Sorry! I didn’t realize it was paywalled because I could see the whole thing. Hopefully this should work:
If you are on ios device, using safari, tap the link and, you have to quick, tap the AA at the far left corner of the safari search (URL bar) while page is starting to load.
