Planned obsolescence

Definition: Planned obsolescence: in industrial design is a policy of deliberately planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete or nonfunctional after a certain period of time.


Most consumers don't know it, but Apple doesn't care about consumers, only profit margins.


Apple has perfected planned obsolescence.   Not only do they do it on purpose, they do it deliberately in-front of everybody and nobody has a clue.    This post will clarify how Apple only wants your dollars.


iOS updates - with each iOS update, apple leaves major features out of old hardware.    I mentioned earlier in the bog that the 3GS is not getting a tabbed browser.  Why?  Its not like it takes extra processing power.   Here are some more examples


The iPhone 3g didn't get these updates with iOS 4.   
   - multi-tasking       (the three year old HTC G1 had multitasking, why can't the iPhone?)
   - custom backgrounds.  Really? must be a big memory hog!
   - Screen lock 
   - Bluetooth keyboard support (no biggie)
   -There are also numerous reports of the phone being slowed WAY down to borderline unusable.


The iPhone 3gs will not get with iOS5 - rumored
  - a tabbed browser
  -advanced picture editing
  -"reader" feature
  - iMessage


It is being reported that the iPhone 4 will not get Apples new "assistant" voice assistant program.   They are saying its because of processor and memory usage, but Android has had this service for two years!   Two years ago phones had 600 Mghz processors and 256 meg ram.   Apple just wants to sell more phones, and they are very good at it.


A quick google results in numerous posts from owners that upgraded their iOS, and report more bugs, worse battery life, overheating, ect.


Perhaps one of the biggest exampled of planned obsolescence is the lack of removable batteries.    Apple states that after 400 complete charge cycles, the battery will lose 20% of its capacity.    I was going through about 1.5 charges per day, so after about 10 months, I would have a noticeable decrease in battery life.   After 15 months i bet the phone would be almost unusable.


Apple wants you to buy a new device before the average consumer would consider the phone not useful anymore.


Luckily my Android phones have replaceable batteries.   The Nexus one, which is now almost two years old, has every feature the hardware allows as the Nexus.