If your business model is based on artificial obsolesence and 100% of the cost of e-waste and disposal is externalized, then anything that truly encourages effective continued use of older models is directly opposed to the business model.
And while it's something to have marketable trust-building by taking some responsibility for the waste and longer life-span, that also invites people to start thinking about how bad the fundamental business model is. If you get people to actually care about this stuff, that's building demand for a different business model, something closer to Fairphone.
At this point, the only really scalable way to solve repairability and e-waste is probably to mandate it legally. Force the costs to be internalized. Require a deposit on all electronics, like some states do with bottles. Adjust the numbers at each end to actually discourage waste and to actually cover real-world recycling costs.
And figure out how to require companies to unlock unsupported devices.
It doesn't work to have one company do these things while others don't. That puts the one company at a competitive disadvantage.
> If your business model is based on artificial obsolesence and 100% of the cost of e-waste and disposal is externalized, then anything that truly encourages effective continued use of older models is directly opposed to the business model.
You’d think more companies would skip that model: bmw and Apple benefit from the high sale value of their devices, in part due to continued support. It doesn’t hurt that California and Germany have pushed part of the lifecycle cost onto the manufacturers, with some success.
Samsung gives the impression that they'd love their business model to look like Apple or BMW and be a "lifestyle brand" (if not quite a "luxury brand"). My immediate thoughts from the article was wondering how much Samsung regrets being tied to Android at this point. The timing of the project suggests to me that maybe there may have been some hope at Samsung that they could use "upcycling" as a trojan platform for migrating older hardware to a larger Tizen install base as devices aged out of Android support just before realizing that being chained to Android's continual software obsolescence also chained them to wild shifting winds of Android's hardware strategy (and getting Tizen drivers from some of the "mandatory" Android partners).
Android as a platform in general, with its wild fragmentation and ever moving software goal posts, seems almost cruelly designed almost entirely for the artificial obsolesence path and that path alone.
It's true that Google has made quite a bit of awful and customer-hostile decisions about the path of Android. But what is Samsung's alternative to Android? There is none. All alternative operating systems (PalmOS, Symbian, Blackberry, etc) have failed. A new, proprietary OS from Samsung would almost certainly fail. They can't chain their cart to Apple. Android is the only possibility.
I don't understand how BMW hold on to their reputation for making cars that run reliably for years. In recent years, their cars are largely shiny toys for the lease market, with an excess of gadgets and value engineering.
My Poco cost me €349. In two and a half years I'll replace it for something new.
Long term support isn't even a concern, for that price who gives a shit?
Not giving a shit _is_ the problem: Poco doesn't have to pay for all those 349 euro phones going to the recycler after just 2,5 years (while probably the components could last years longer).
Idk about that. I'm pretty sure that people who constantly want a new BMW just lease. BMW has this real awful spot with their 5yr warranty so a lot of people buy a pre-owned BMW off a lease and then drive it for 3 years and then get absolutely wrecked by the maintenance costs.
Apple's business model is reliant on people buying a WHOLE NEW PHONE for ~1000$ every 2-3 years. And you get to sell your old phone for what? like 200$ trade in?
Apple also constantly locks you out every 5-6 years of iOS updates and then you can't run, say, spotify on your old ipod touch because you can't update the OS.
I actually find it hard to believe your propping Apple up here with their huge fight against right to repair.
It's five years. Not 5+ (according to their website).
I don't have to provide a counter example because that wasn't even remotely the argument I was making (that no companies really do this because their objective is to SELL NEW DEVICES).
I don't think that's really the issue here. The upcycling program was based around repurposing old phones. Not keeping them in use as phones. In fact, this likely helps them sell more phones because fewer end up in the secondary market and the Samsung ecosystem becomes more valuable because the old phones can make up whatever IoT network they had dreamed up.
I did clarify my suspicion that any sort of concern for the "what happens later" question is fundamentally in opposition to the entire mindset, the premise of a business based on people constantly upgrading to the latest devices.
There's some fundamental cognitive dissonance in being part of a business that thrives specifically (not incidentally) on externalizing the costs of the constant turnover of devices and somehow also keeping in mind concern for this. As soon as you take on the tiniest slice of care about the issue, the cognitive dissonance comes on board. If e-waste or longer life-cycle of products is a PROBLEM, then how can we justify X Y Z A B C… the entire business model being questioned is the logical conclusion.
Far easier to belittle and minimize the whole issue, pretend it's nothing, make minor half-assed programs like the one they are actually doing. The business model does not permit of actual responsibility around these things.
As someone who works in export/import business, here in India people make a lot of money importing Ewaste from foreign countries. Some villages in Delhi are filled with mountains of garbage brought from foreign countries, it's literally poisoning our under ground water, creating cancer but authorities don't do much about it. Stupidest things is, there are millionaires in India who live in the same place where this work takes place or atleast spend 5 hours a day at their factory and drinking same ground water maybe processed with RO but I am not sure how good is RO at removing heavy metal and other toxic contamination.
The solution is for elected government to impose rules for this kind of thing. This kind of “tragedy of the commons” is one of the downsides of a market system. There are all kinds of other guard rails we put in place to limit the downsides of unfettered capitalism.
With air pollution, the market has never solved that problem. Regulation addressed it. If there had been a market solution invented, why is air pollution still rampant in unregulated regions?
The market won’t solve any other niches of the waste problems either (recycling, other pollution, carbon emissions, etc.) until it’s too late. The equilibrium point where the incentives to address waste are as strong as the incentives to produce waste exists at a point which would be untenable for human living. Proof? We have millions of people all over the world who basically live in garbage dumps, and there’s not some magical incentive for them to clean things up. They live off it. If there’s not an incentive that’s developed for them, then the point at which the incentive equilibrium exists is beyond even that.
Yes, everything you say, indeed. Market failure is a real phenomenon. We need effective regulation here. To get there, we need consciousness-raising first. Politicians act mostly only when there's already massive public demand for it.
Folks give endless crap around apple's lack of repairability. Bottom line however is that Apple's phones get a ton of use and re-use for a number of reasons.
1) Really hard now to do the fake replacement battery scams, Apple alerts buyer if a new battery was put in outside of apples approved ecosystem.
2) Fantastic duration on updates. Despite the claims of the more repairable androids, far too many NEVER update, AND ship with crap / older versions from the start. Apple by contrast has iOS 14 running on: iPhone 12
iPhone 12 mini
iPhone 12 Pro
iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 11
iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPhone XS
iPhone XS Max
iPhone XR
iPhone X
iPhone 8
iPhone 8 Plus
iPhone 7
iPhone 7 Plus
iPhone 6s
iPhone 6s Plus
iPhone SE (1st generation)
iPhone SE (2nd generation)
iPod touch (7th generation)
iOS 13 and even iOS 12 are STILL getting updates that cover iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini 3 and original iPad Air.
They are only getting security updates that plug holes that allow an iDevice to be Jailbroken. They sadly don't get updates for the default apps like Safari or Photos.
Phone is pretty durable, everything is glued down and surprisingly waterproof.
You don't need to glue things to make it durable or waterproof. It just makes repairs more difficult and that's the real endgame.
Resulting in fantastic resale and down market value
This is only partly true, especially for Intel only mac systems because you can install and run other operating systems in it. iDevices for which OS updates have been stopped also greatly devalue and don't have the same resale value.
> They are only getting security updates that plug holes that allow an iDevice to be Jailbroken. They sadly don't get updates for the default apps like Safari or Photos.
Yes, they do issue security updates for Webkit / Safari as even that can be exploited to Jailbreak a device. I was however talking about feature updates for the default apps. Currently bundled apps appear to be tied to ios updates.
The idea that Android phones are getting these feature updates and iOS security updates is an absolute joke. Seriously. HTC Wildfire E3 just came out, running android 10. Released 2019. And chances of it getting updated to Android 11 (released 2020) or Android 12 and 13 (coming out in 2021 and 2022) are pretty much zilch. HTC U Play was on Android 6 maybe forever? Did they EVER release an update? It might STILL be stuck on Android 6. Do folks not understand the benefits of updating phones?
Disregarding the fact that even Google offers long-term updates for certain Android mobile phones, and even a small company like Jolla provided Sailfish OS updates for 7 years to its first phone, it's kind of disingenuous to highlight only those features of Android OS that make Apple's iDevices look good.
I can also the throw the same argument back at you by pointing out that even if I can't update the Android OS on some devices, I can still update the default browser (Chrome) or even install a different browser, like Firefox, that is totally independent of the OS (unlike in ios where every browser is forced to use Safari / Webkit as the rendering engine, and thus will be stuck with an older version whenever Apple decides to not update it). The argument can even be stretched further - I can also buy an Android phone with an unlocked bootloader (like Sony Open Devices phones) and install other Android and other mobile OSes on it too, if I so desire.
When compared with that perspective, don't some Android phones seem better than Apple's iDevices? Anyway, that isn't the point - the criticism here is that Apple users like me are demanding more from Apple are not satisfied with their current practices.
> Samsung, like every manufacturer, should set their old phones free. Open up their bootloaders. Let people use their [...]
They aren't Samsung's phones. They're yours and mine and whoever traded money to own a device and now OWNS THAT DEVICE. We shouldn't be okay with this new world where we're begging companies to LET us use our OWN devices for whatever the hell we want.
I'm a native speaker, I'm not responding to the grammar. I'm responding to the very notion that Samsung "allow" users to do what they want with their own devices. Quotes like all of these...
> by allowing users to unlock the bootloaders of devices Samsung decided to no longer support
> Samsung was going to let users replace the shipping Android OS with whatever they wanted
> Samsung [...] should set their old phones free
> Let people use their cameras, sensors, antennas, and screens for all kinds of purposes, using whatever software people can dream up
...start out with the premise that Samsung should have any say at all what people do the things that they own.
That's what the article is about. iFixit wanted to participate in a partnership with Samsung where Samsung would deign to permit users to repurpose their own devices that are no longer profitable to Samsung, and then Samsung changed their minds and you're still not actually allowed to do that and iFixit is annoyed that Samsung tricked iFixit into doing a bunch of marketing for Samsung on the back of a project that doesn't really exist.
That's the world that we're in right now, you really do have to beg Samsung to allow you to repurpose your own hardware. But it's not okay, that's not the world we should live in.
Hah, after the first sentence I was thinking you were going to say they're the carriers' phones. Which is kind of true in the sense that many carriers, especially in the US, enforce a lot of things in phones including locked bootloaders, disabling the second SIM or eSIM, removing FM radio support etc.
Verizon is notorious to be the worst in this regard. OnePlus disabled the eSIM in their latest phone which let to outrage and returns among some of the enthusiast community.
The situation is complicated. I want all our software to be free and hardware easily modifiable, but I'm also aware of why radios are regulated the way they are. This is sort of a separate issue from the locked bootloaders on the phone itself, but the radio/modem on phones is very controlled and locked down, and ... probably for the better?
Bad actors can already get their hands on the technology to spoof/intercept cellular traffic so that cat is kind of out of the bag, but if the modems were totally open and could effectively be turned into SDRs, I worry a bit about the ramifications.
I've talked to script kiddie teens who get their giggles out of downloading some dodgy windows or android app to mass deauth wifi clients from APs. If it truly becomes easy to gain full access of your average phone's modem, I wonder what sorts of similar apps would appear. Maybe it'd be no worse than wifi, but given the much greater scope and potential damage from a DoS'd/jammed cell tower, it's a heavy topic IMO...
I am the first to avoid buying any device with a locked bootloader, but.... how exactly is an unlocked bootloader after 4 years of use going to help to reduce e-waste?
It's not magically going to convert the phone into a Raspberry Pi anymore than Debian is going to suddenly port itself to a 4-year-old platform.
And even that would reduce e-waste only by a rounding error.
Now, guaranteeing Android updates 4 YEARS, or more, that would be something...
how exactly is an unlocked bootloader after 4 years of use going to help to reduce e-waste?
It allows you install a different operating systems. When newer versions of Windows ran slower on old systems, many people switched to Linux to use the same hardware for some more years. And we do have different mobile OS too today. The free LineageOS also has breathed new life to many an old device. Jolla, a Finnish company, even sells licenses for their Sailfish OS ( and https://jolla.com/sailfishx/ ) for Sony Open Devices ( https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/ ). They supported their first phone with 7 years of free OS updates. ( https://blog.jolla.com/jolla7/ ).
And absolutely none of these platforms will start working on 4-year old Samsung hardware because of an unlocked bootloader. In fact, the bootloaders can be unlocked right now on most Exynos devices, so why can't I run Jolla on a Samsung device?
And absolutely none of these platforms will start working on 4-year old Samsung hardware because of an unlocked bootloader.
It is a chicken and egg problem - if there is no market to port an OS to a device, work to port it will be limited. LineageOS is doing a pretty decent job in supporting a lot of devices. All that said, the lack of any OS is no excuse to lock bootloaders.
Yeah, I would rather trust some random dude from xda than the phone vendor to keep their promise of keeping it up to date. In fact you can easily get a 4 year old device and put Android 11 on it, you just have to avoid the vendors who intentionally make it hard.
Samsung already does 4 years updates I think. It's very good, probably better than most other phone manufacturers. But it's a joke compared to how long you can keep using a good laptop.
This seems like one of those ideas that got floated, but then they realized it could cut into sales. If an open source ecosystem came along that ran on no longer supported hardware, there could be a reason for people to not upgrade that device.
I find it amusing that Samsung couldn't even bring themselves to commit to the lazy alternative to providing OS updates for a reasonable amount of time. Simply unlocking the bootloader and letting the community maintain your product after the paltry 18 month support window seems like the absolute bare minimum.
I'm sure Apple made this same calculation, and still decided that directly supporting devices for 5+ years was worth the investment. It might lead to users upgrading less frequently, but it builds brand loyalty. A user that doesn't feel screwed over is more likely to be a repeat customer.
It doesn't hurt that Apple has some financial incentives for keeping older devices working, as it means those devices are still able to purchase apps from the App Store, sign up for new Apple subscription services, and use new Apple accessories. Since Samsung is only a hardware manufacturer, they don't see the benefits of up-to-date devices to the same degree that Apple does.
That isn't to say that keeping old devices running is pure selfish self-interest on Apple's part, though. This isn't a zero-sum game; everyone wins when hardware gets a long support life cycle.
Samsung is outright evil regarding software updates and 100% using them for obsolescence. One example is when they announced Linux for DeX. They were beta testing it on their Galaxy Note 8s / 9s, but they made it abundantly clear that once the public beta testing was over, they would discontinue and kill the program in Galaxy Note 8/9 and then release it only alongside the new Galaxy Note 10.
Eventually they killed the program altogether, likely due to poor demand. But to use the owners of the previous devices as betatesters, only to tell them they will have to uselessly buy the new device if they actually want to run the final version is just evil.
How many users own an iPhone from launch for 5 years? Based on the robust resale market, it seems that users who want to always have the latest model fund that habit by reselling their used device into the secondhand market. If anything, this long support enables higher turnover for the latest models.
Whether you keep your phone for 5 years, or sell it after 2-3 years to someone who will use it for another 2-3, the end result is the same: less e-waste.
A lot of other smartphones aren't even worth selling after 2-3 years of use.
I see an incredible number of iPhone 6's and 7's here in Asia. There is a huge thriving repair economy that keeps them going on the cheap. So much so, that I still use my iPhone 6 as my secondary daily driver and it works great. I've had almost every thing replaced in it (battery, screen, camera, etc), all for like $100 in total.
Apple's calculation probably has more to do with its reputation. It understands that older phones are still in service and that doing the minimum to keep these at least functional is great for their brand. Hey, an iPhone is an iPhone...
It's pretty damn disappointing that ten years later, and my old Samsung Galaxy S2 is still the only Samsung device I have that can be easily rooted/re-flashed.
Side note, I upcycled an old Android phone by making it a webcam. I'm using an app called Iriun, but there's a bunch of other competitors. Just mounted to the back of my monitor with velcro and it gets very good picture quality.
Interesting considering that until 2015 (Galaxy S6), Samsung phones had removable batteries, and even now, the Galaxy XCover Pro has one.
Also, most Samsung phones, at least the flagships are easy to bootloader unlock / root and have an active community.
It looks like Samsung position has always been "do whatever you want with your phone, just don't expect us to help you with that", which is actually much better than many manufacturers who actively try to stop you.
Note: I don't count carrier-subsidized phones. These are not really your phone anyway, they are leased by your carrier.
> Also, most Samsung phones, at least the flagships are easy to bootloader unlock / root and have an active community.
The North American versions of the Galaxy S series phones (which use Snapdragon processors) have bootloaders that cannot be unlocked. Only the non-NA ones (which use Exynos processors) have unlockable bootloaders.
If your business model is based on artificial obsolesence and 100% of the cost of e-waste and disposal is externalized, then anything that truly encourages effective continued use of older models is directly opposed to the business model.
And while it's something to have marketable trust-building by taking some responsibility for the waste and longer life-span, that also invites people to start thinking about how bad the fundamental business model is. If you get people to actually care about this stuff, that's building demand for a different business model, something closer to Fairphone.
At this point, the only really scalable way to solve repairability and e-waste is probably to mandate it legally. Force the costs to be internalized. Require a deposit on all electronics, like some states do with bottles. Adjust the numbers at each end to actually discourage waste and to actually cover real-world recycling costs.
And figure out how to require companies to unlock unsupported devices.
It doesn't work to have one company do these things while others don't. That puts the one company at a competitive disadvantage.