It boggles my mind how these Apple iphones get more expensive each year

Originally Posted by business_kid My first rooted phone was the version of the G1 we got over here. That got Cyanogenmod. I don't know where I mentioned the 90s, but I don't think I said Android was out in the 90s. Agree with you 100% on Open Source, and Cyanogenmod. The wonder is that any of these guys survive. Open Source is a totally impractical business model - make a product, pay for a website to give it away on. Kernel-3.18.1 was around the end of 2014. As for phone upgrades, It varies with the phone. My Note 2 came with Android-4.4.2, upgraded to 4.4.2, and they failed to upgrade it to 5.0, which came with some useful bluetooth features. My S7 Edge came with Android-6.x, upgraded to 7.x, then 8.x, and will probably go on with less urgency until they hit a roadblock, at which stage they stop. It's a 'more expensive' type of phone as opposed to their 'yellowpack' S7. Android developers seem very fond of the 3.x kernel series for some reason. I presume they backport patches. Maybe if we started Arm devel we'd figure it out.

"I think the other guy doing Mods back in the 'nineties was called Jesus Freak, but he didn't last either." Go back and read your previous post.
Cyanogen existed because people wanted control over their devices, no other reason. Devices become obsolete, people move on. I don't expect devices to be given perpetual updates, just for a reasonable amount of time. It's Google's fault for not designing a system that doesn't force manufacturers to produce a new ROM every time they need to do an update...though that is supposedly changing. Now that phones have more memory, I would hope that more generic ROMs could be used, making it easier to have just one that covers a current model line. Better yet, Google should have kept control over the core software the way Apple does, it would have stopped the fragmentation.

Didn't microsoft buy Cyanogen? I thought I read that, which means they will kill it off if not dead already. Embrace, extend, extinguish. Good point on Google and control over the core, had not thought about that.

"I think the other guy doing Mods back in the 'nineties was called Jesus Freak, but he didn't last either." Go back and read your previous post.

What was I thinking?

Originally Posted by Reziac I've accumulated a few random very old cellphones in my Curiosities Box, and every one of 'em works

this.
some people seem to believe that hardware dies after a decade or so, and that there's actually a sane reason to keep on churning out more; but this has never been my experience.
outdated, too slow for the bloated software, yes. but flat-out breaking down? rotting platines??? BS! maybe after 50 years, but not after 10, not by a long shot.
I still have a Nokia 901 here which i am NOT going to throw away (as I did with my other phones).
It serves as an alarm clock and has longer battery life than my newest gadget.

Originally Posted by dc.901 One thing comes to mind about continued use of these "old" smart phones is OS updates (critical security updates). Some vendors including Google (for it's pixel line), will not provide updates after some time. Yes, a way around is to root/jailbreak and download/apply updates manually. But, I feel like most users are not going to do that.

fair enough.
But this is how I will do it from now on:
- first look up the supported devices of, say, lineageos
- then go looking for a suitable model on ebay etc.

Er, stuff actually _does_ die. Not all stuff, not the majority of stuff, but stuff sure does die. Most stuff lives on but stuff dies. Now low voltages minimize this, but it still happens.

An interesting experiment was started in the early 1960s here. Many transistors were set switching current, and left on. It was 1977 when I heard about it, and they had survived in the main, but there was ~10% failures which had failed 'for no reason.'

Moore's Law has been the 'sane reason to turn out more.' As manufacturing reaches the physical limits of what's possible, and security becomes even more important, designers will have to do their best with the speed that's available, and marketing will turn to make equivalent things sound different. There's not 20 years left of advancement. I see 5nm wafer fab as a real barrier. Below that you're into quantum computing - whether you like it or not. Even getting 5nm molecules is an achievement. My water filters are 5 microns(5000nm), and filter chloride, lead, rust, and bugs. Only flouride gets through, at 3(3000nm) microns and is caught in a second filter.

Now things are so good now, that complexity in electronics is certainly adequate, or more. I don't want increased complexity. It's easy to see a contraction coming in Electronic hardware. But

Originally Posted by Control Magazine there's only 2 types of forecast - lucky, or wrong

Eventually Apple will have to change their strategy as more and more services and even hardware related components get abstracted to the cloud.. Eventually devices will be nothing but a OLED screen with a 5GZ connection. They wont be able to charge a $1000 for that so their probably trying to get the most bang for their buck while they still can. At least until cloud companies like Amazon and Google dominate the consumer market with monthly subscriptions to their powerful data centers.

Applers are a cult.

Originally Posted by young_jedi Eventually devices will be nothing but a OLED screen with a 5GZ connection. They wont be able to charge a $1000 for that

why not?
anyhoo, they will always find a way to "make it better" than the rest, thus "justifying" the price.

iPhone is the only phone I'd consider over 1k mark, but what I get from this thread is people aren't into high end phones.

I guess the answer is that I'm the who that would spend the money for the new iPhone, heck I'm pondering it now my rooted, ROM'd OG Pixel is getting kinda old.

Originally Posted by DDukesXXX I never owned an iphone because they are a bit expensive even for the lower end models. Anyway, apple announced their XS series. The retail prices for the iphone XS Max with 64/256/512gb storage are $1099, $1249 and $1449 respectively. Jeez, you can buy a new laptop or desktop with a new printer at those prices. Has the sales of apple computers and tablets have stagnated to the point where apple needs to justify the high price of these phones?

Getting rich from old hardware has always been Apple's policy which is one of the reasons I'll never buy anything by them. A few years ago I saw a computer with the Apple's logo in a local store whose price was nearly $2000. Even with the USD price from that period of time in my country (back then $1 in my local currency was 1.10 BGN), that's still too high price. And I almost kicked the bell when I saw the hardware list on the store's label: Intel E3300, GeForce 9000+, 1 GB DDR2 RAM. I was like "Are they kiddin'? For that price I could have an ultrafast computer that will make NASA envy me!".

Originally Posted by rado84 Getting rich from old hardware has always been Apple's policy which is one of the reasons I'll never buy anything by them. A few years ago I saw a computer with the Apple's logo in a local store whose price was nearly $2000. Even with the USD price from that period of time in my country (back then $1 in my local currency was 1.10 BGN), that's still too high price. And I almost kicked the bell when I saw the hardware list on the store's label: Intel E3300, GeForce 9000+, 1 GB DDR2 RAM. I was like "Are they kiddin'? For that price I could have an ultrafast computer that will make NASA envy me!".

You have never seen a Mac with those spec's

Expensive is debatable, you'll never buy one is likely true

I'm sure the Mac community is truly distraught.

I blame "the consumer" -- if you bought a crappy Android or an iPhone you're part of the problem.
I know you don't care but it is your fault.
"Non-smart phones" and other devices are out there but you bought these iPhone copies and you'll lve with the consequences.
Yes, I am bitter, I'm typing this on a great Blackberry device which, thanks to you, I will have to exchange for either a slab of grubby glass or a very expensive pocket computer.

Originally Posted by 273 I blame "the consumer" -- if you bought a crappy Android or an iPhone you're part of the problem. I know you don't care but it is your fault. "Non-smart phones" and other devices are out there but you bought these iPhone copies and you'll lve with the consequences. Yes, I am bitter, I'm typing this on a great Blackberry device which, thanks to you, I will have to exchange for either a slab of grubby glass or a very expensive pocket computer.

I done that, because I couldn't afford a decent Android phone at the time. What a pile of crap it was too, ended up slamming the heap of crap on the ground, needless to say, it didn't work anymore. But I'm glad I did, cuz now I've got a far better one, even the battery life is way better.

But I wouldn't bother buying a phone every year tho, what a waste of money. It's just a con anyway, you're only going to get a slightly better processor, this, that and whatever else. I don't understand people that want to line up in the freezing cold, just so they can say "I've got the latest iPhone or Samsung or whatever else". They are complete morons IMHO. It's just about $$$ anyway, it's just a money making exercise for people that are dumb enough to fall for it - they're idiots. I remember watching something on the TV seeing some idiot waving a Samsung phone around saying something to affect of "the latest Samsung [whatever model it was here]" showing off, walking past all of those poor suckers lining up outside the Apple store (from memory) for hours on end, and thinking, you're an idiot, you've got nothing better to do than masturbate with your new Sumsung, just to stick it up the competition? Like hell I'm gonna freeze my ass off just to be able to have a slightly better phone, what a joke.

Originally Posted by ondoho this. some people seem to believe that hardware dies after a decade or so, and that there's actually a sane reason to keep on churning out more; but this has never been my experience.

I have a great deal of very old hardware in my Computer Closet, and only rarely do I pull out some antique component and find it's gone dead. But by this point it's also weeded down to the most-durable and the survivors. The shortlived crap is already long gone.

There's a certain amount of attrition in any hardware, but it's nowhere near the level of commercial churn. For a hardware company to be profitable, there needs to be complete turnover in their marketplace roughly every 3 years. So that's the target timeframe for getting everyone to 'upgrade'. It's also why commercial hardware support is usually 3 years, despite that the piece itself may live a lot longer.

Apple has cash reserves of $240 billion. Yet the prices still rise.