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Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
(www.mercurynews.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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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.
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.
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?
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)
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!
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 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.
you again chose a macbook for an example, some macs released in 2017 got less than 5 years of OS updates and became ewaste very quickly
choose a different company than apple for your "long time support" examples....
It was one example, and if you'll notice I said "or just any affordable windows machine," I don't know why you're ignoring that.
As for the 2017 releases getting less than 5 years support, I have never heard of this nor am I finding any examples. Here is the Monterey (apple's current OS version) compatibility list, which consists of computers as far back as 2013. So I'd be curious to see what you're referencing. Catalina, the previous OS which dates back even further with compatibility, had security updates until about 8mo ago as well.
3 years is unacceptable on Google's part and Apple hasn't come anywhere close to that.
Are you cherry picking? Check Sonoma compatibility list, only for iMac 2019 or later
You need a source because this directly contradicts you.
That is not under 5 years.
Edit: Additionally, Monterey will get security updates until mid-2024. That's 7 years for your 2017 models, which is the most recent, and only impacts the 2017 MBAir.
Are you cherry picking? Check Sonoma compatibility list, only for iMac 2019 or later
How is it cherrypicking? The OS isn't even out yet. I'm literally going off the current OS.
Where is this computer that got dropped after less than 5 years?
Ok sorry it will be out in October. Owners will get extra 3 months of support. This completely changes everything
Once again, Monterey will receive security updates until mid-2024. The most recent model is 2017.
There are no computers that have lost security updates in less than 5 years.
Maybe you didn't notice due to the Stockholm syndrome, but when Apple discontinues support, you can't get the latest apps. Yay can get security updates for another 12 months! But can't install the latest apps as they're required to target the latest os version to be published in the app store. Victory
I don't understand you. Google is shitty because Chromebooks get 6 years of updates (not their fault if the school is buying old new stock that sat in a warehouse for 4 years), but apple is an hero because their products in average get 6 years of os updates + a full extra year of security updates? That extra year changes everything?
While Google is shitty because x86 Linux+chrome could be automatically updated indefinitely for decades with no effort at all, at least on their devices you could install an alternative os, giving a second life on old devices. iPads and iPhones can't run an alternative os. And the alternative os selection on the m1 macs is limited too
What was the last MacOS machine you used? Because this is patently untrue. I am running a Plex server off a 2010 Mac mini as we speak.
Once again, show me a single computer of theirs that had support dropped in less than five years. I have asked you several times, and you have yet to present it.
in my language: "che palle, ma se te l'ho detto prima..."
someone could have bought an imac A1419 on march 18, 2019 and that lost major OS updates on october 24, 2022. That's just 3 years of major OS updates for the buyer. It will get less than 5 years of total support for the buyer.
you again cherrypicked your example, with a third party app that's not in the app store. Go to watch the requirements of a 1st party app like final cut pro x and see if it can work in your 2010 mac mini.....
Before you say "but that got released in 2017!!!!!11!!11!!" - go to watch your post history and see that you did the same for the school chromebook example. It came out from the factory with 7 years of updates, but it was bought after it sat 4 years in a warehouse
Huh
You're also not a giant customer who needs security and it services like a school district. 3 years might be early, idk, but in plenty of enterprise or institutes replace their hardware every so often.
My 2012 laptop runs windows 10 perfectly fine and has the latest security updates. We're way past the point of using hardware limitations as an excuse for companies to drop support early.
I don't see why a school should have to replace their basic computers with an equally basic computer after 3 years unless it's broken beyond repair. I don't think the OS itself is doing much more than what an enterprise copy of windows does for security.
The only reason Windows 11 can't run on super old hardware is because of the misleading decision to require secure boot (a feature of the motherboard that stops unsigned OSes from booting). The metaphor I use is that it is like a car radio manufacturer refusing to let a car radio work in cars that don't have car alarms then calling the radio secure because of it.
The secure boot requirement can actually be circumvented pretty easily
Give me the deets please 👍
Toms Hardware has a guide
Fuck these Corporations, the only reason for this is to get the public school systems to constantly buy new chromebooks.
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.
Aren't most Chromebooks out there Intel CPUs and essentially PC hardware? I know there are a few arm ones but it's not most of them.
The solution is to let people use the device in any way they want and can. Software should not dictate hardware obsolescence.
If I'm reading this correctly (and you need to read between the lines a bit), it's not that they literally don't work, it's that they aren't capable of getting security updates. For playing Minecraft, who cares, but schools are legally obligated to keep private student information (like all their schoolwork) secure.
It's not like there's a LineageOS for Chromebooks and standardized firmware and drivers that can be easily deployed and updated. They mentioned in the article that open source alternatives were trialed, but that they lacked needed features and were very costly (in time, presumably) to get working.
This is just a shit sandwich all around.
From another perspective, several schools I've worked at have had so much vandalism and theft of Chromebooks that they won't even consider replacing them with more costly future-proof tech. It doesn't matter if they get 8 years of software support if students break most of them in years 1-3.
You can run Linux on them, it's the cost of getting a bunch of shitty ass chromebooks done that's not worth it for schools.
But they kinda sorta do. It is not like Chromebooks are locked down like an iPhone. I had an old Samsung Chromebook, you could just turn off trusted boot with a flick of a switch (okay it did reset your device), and just run what you wanted. It's just with arm based stuff running what you want is not trivial. You run what you can which is often nothing.
FYI Most Chromebooks are Intel CPU computers, there are a few arm based ones but majority are Intel x86_64.