[HN Gopher] 10 Year Smartphone
___________________________________________________________________
10 Year Smartphone
Author : cunidev
Score : 57 points
Date : 2021-09-24 16:38 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (10yearphone.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (10yearphone.com)
| papaf wrote:
| A Fairphone is repairable and, using Lineage, has long term
| software support.
|
| I have a Fairphone 2 as my main phone (released in 2015) and I am
| running Lineage based on Android 10.
| siva7 wrote:
| The whole concept doesn't seem thought out at all. First of all,
| if you want a phone that comes close to this concept, Apple has a
| pretty good track record. Second, the reason why it doesn't make
| sense is because hardware technology changes/improves in a decade
| by a good margin and renders your phone incompatible besides
| basic functionality.
| sremani wrote:
| The version to version changes in the initial years of iPhone
| were generational leaps but lately since iPhone8 onwards
| everything feels incremental. I do not think Smart phones 10
| years from now are not that remarkably different from today at
| the foundational level. There we many marginal improvements and
| perhaps one or two distinctive features.
| siva7 wrote:
| I have the hope that they will get thinner. That's something
| you can't achieve if you mandate all-replacable-part phones
| by law.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| > Each time one of these phones is made, it creates between 40
| and 80kgs of CO2 (the same as a 3 hour drive).
|
| Is that compelling to anyone? If you asked me to trade my new
| phone for a 9 year old phone, and in exchange I am allowed to
| drive for 3 hours, I would keep my current phone. I'd probably
| give up driving for a week for a phone that's just a year newer.
| mikestew wrote:
| My first thought was, "3 hours of driving; really? That's it?
| Then why am I on the fence about buying $LATEST?" I really did
| think it would have been a higher number.
|
| That, and I drive a Nissan Leaf.
| foofoo4u wrote:
| Hardware for smartphones have gotten so good that they can handle
| all of my core use-cases with ease: texting, web browsing,
| calling, maps, GPS, photography, etc. I don't need the most
| demanding specs to handle the latest video games and such. The
| hardware improvements happening every year mean nothing to me.
| Wow, 20% faster than the previous generation? That's great! But
| it doesn't impact me because, again, I already have a great
| performant experience with current specs. Given this, I see no
| reason why a cell phone shouldn't last ten years as is. Just make
| battery replacements possible and it should be good to go.
| Software updates that make the phone sluggish at this point is an
| excuse for programming laziness as an incentive to continue the
| churn of giving up your money to the same companies.
| fouric wrote:
| I suspect that, after the battery, screens are the next thing
| to get broken. With a non-repairable phone, all it takes is 1
| out of n components for the entire thing to be rendered non-
| functional.
| sajithdilshan wrote:
| Smartphone for 10 years seems like a bit of a stretch. The
| technology is evolving exponentially. iPhone is only 13 years old
| (the phone which popularised smartphones around the world) and
| I'm pretty sure in 10 years we would be using something totally
| different than a smartphone as its replacement. I really don't
| understand why would want to use the same phone for 10 years.
|
| Further, this would be a nightmare to developers when it comes to
| supporting the software for the phone. They would definitely
| reach a point where introducing new features are arduous due to
| tight requirement of backward compatibility.
| dopamean wrote:
| It doesn't really feel to me like smartphone technology is
| evolving exponentially anymore. The difference between the
| phone I have now and the phone I had 3 years ago is very, very
| small compared to the phone I had 3 years ago and the one I had
| 6 years ago.
| eli wrote:
| That's what it felt like before the iPhone too. Lots of new
| models every year with mostly aesthetic and minor feature
| changes.
| hpoe wrote:
| Although a pain requiring backwards compatibility is an
| incredibly strong force in helping remains competitive in the
| market that is one of the reasons Windows continues to stick
| around despite it's many other copious flaws.
| pizza234 wrote:
| I bought my previous smartphone 5 years ago. I would still use
| it, if it wasn't for very serious Android security issues which
| are not fixed due to support expiry (3 miserly years).
|
| I don't perceive any difference with my new one, which is a
| newer generation. But maybe it's because I don't spend my life
| glued to a mobile phone.
|
| I'm pretty sure though, that I would have been very happy to
| use it for other 5 years. Heck, I'd be happy even to use my
| very old Galaxy S3 (but not the S2 ;)), which unfortunately
| broke.
| windowsrookie wrote:
| The iPhone is probably your best bet for a 10 year smartphone.
| The 6S is 6 years old, runs the newest IOS and is still being
| updated, Apple will replace the battery for $50 ($70 in the
| newer iPhones).
|
| Apple's SOC's are years ahead of the competition and they
| support the devices longer than any other company. And Apple
| will exist in 10 years when this company likely won't. I say
| that as an Android user since the HTC Evo.
| sonofaragorn wrote:
| I think whoever is behind this website has to make it clearer
| that this is sarcasm. Most people here missed it (including
| myself).
| jcun4128 wrote:
| I see they added another camera, should be 13 on there, one per
| year
| [deleted]
| simonh wrote:
| The main problem with this is it would basically hand the market
| over to Apple. They're the only company with the vertical
| integration to be capable of supporting all their hardware and
| software properly for this sort of time span. Hence their ability
| to already support their devices solidly for twice as long as the
| longest supported Android devices.
|
| All the Android manufacturers, with the exception of Samsung,
| rely on their parties for hardware components and therefore
| device driver binaries that would need supporting and patching.
| And all of them including Samsung rely on Google for OS patches
| (well, except Google). Third party firmware is why Google
| struggles to support their devices for more than 3 or 4 years.
|
| A lot of manufacturers wouldn't even exist after 10 years.
| Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, all gone in the last 10 years. HTC were
| big back in 2011 but gave up on phones a few years ago. I'm sure
| there are more I'm forgetting.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > The main problem with this is it would basically hand the
| market over to Apple.
|
| Phone makers can just decide to build better SoC (or to
| purchase better ones) that are easier to keep working when you
| update the Kernel.
|
| Or they are free to run Android on top of an easier Kernel to
| work with.
|
| What we're seeing is Apple innovating and writing good software
| for almost 30 years since the NeXT purchase. Investing in good
| tech is just like compound interests, it pays over time.
| webmobdev wrote:
| The fix is regulation mandating:
|
| 1. All phones should allow the bootloader to be unlocked,
| without compromising security, so that the user can install any
| OS on it.
|
| 2. All hardware parts should provide details of an API so that
| anyone can make device drivers for them for any OS.
| zsmi wrote:
| I agree with you in principle but I think writing this
| regulation, in a way that actually solves the problem and is
| not trivial to work-around, is much harder than you think.
|
| Here's an example: The other day I was using a lidar sensor
| has a very well documented API, into its c-library. I do have
| the source for that c-library, and can build it, but it's
| calling into the part which doing many undocumented things
| because the part itself has a micro inside it and it has been
| updated since the documentation was written. And that
| c-library comes with a binary file that is filled with micro
| firmware and magic numbers that were determined by the
| factory during calibration. I have no idea how those
| measurements represent or how they were made, not that I can
| reproduce them anyway.
|
| Is this sensor compliant? And, it probably was compliant
| once, but now is it still? Because the sensor itself changed,
| even though the C API remained constant.
|
| Also, many parts, like this sensor, are made internationally:
| hardware is from one country, firmware is from another,
| company headquarters are a third.
| esturk wrote:
| Does anyone know why smartphones couldn't disrupt the dashcam
| market?
|
| With the wide angle cameras, half a TB of storage, phones should
| be able to do everything a dashcam can do.
| nix23 wrote:
| >Sorry guys. Because of intense lobbying from Big Tech - and a
| lack of ambition from politicians - products like the 10 Year
| Smartphone remain a dream.
|
| It smells like bullshit, NO one is lobbying against it...but also
| not for it.
| cloogshicer wrote:
| A quick web search for "apple lobbying against right to repair"
| will give you many results. Apple is not the only one. Here is
| one article, as an example:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-20/microsoft...
| djrogers wrote:
| That's a company lobbying against being _forced_ to build a
| phone like this, not lobbying to stop anyone else form doing
| it...
| eli wrote:
| Plenty of companies are actively working behind the scenes
| to stop anyone at all from repairing products. That's what
| right to repair is all about (it's not an obligation to
| repair). Here's a better example
| https://www.wcvb.com/article/5-investigates-ads-over-
| massach...
|
| I think Apple is smart enough not to be so public in their
| support of an unpopular policy
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I don't understand how lobbying from Big Tech makes a product
| like a 10 Year Smartphone unattainable/just a dream. In what
| way is this the case? I can't help but think economics and
| consumer preference is what made the current state what it is.
| In other words, I don't see how said lobbying would stop some
| company from trying to make a 10 year smartphone.
| moate wrote:
| So this whole thing is just a push for Right to Repair laws?
|
| I get that most hardware companies want to go full John
| Deere/Apple on this, but that's an issue with the
| hardware/software integration. An iPhone is made of the same
| general components as any other phone, but the special sauce
| is the easy of use from the software for many consumers.
|
| I don't think most people actually want a 10 year phone, the
| same way most people don't want to drive a functional but
| utilitarian car. They want a name brand that reflects their
| values, and most people don't value being able to cheaply and
| efficiently fix things. If they did, we wouldn't have had the
| same erosion of R2R.
|
| That said, this page pissed me off massively because I do
| like this stuff (We grow herbs/veggies, repair/mend our
| clothes, usually cook our own meals) and this was a set up
| for a fucking lobbying campaign on a continent I don't reside
| on. When I see groups like this supporting causes I also
| support I usually warn people AWAY from them and towards
| other, less "clever" people attempting to address the issue
| without these tactics.
| mackmgg wrote:
| The iPhone 5s still receives security updates and is now 8 years
| old. And it's not on Apple's "vintage and obsolete" list, which
| means they still have repairs available. So it's not quite a "10
| Year Smartphone" yet, but it's already a "8 Year Smartphone"
|
| But I think the call for the Right for Repair is needed.
| Mandating companies provide (at least security) updates and keep
| parts availability for 10 years seems like a good thing. I doubt
| Apple will keep supporting the 5s forever, and even so that's
| currently the oldest smartphone with current security updates.
| The next closest (outside of iPhones) is Samsung at 4 years and
| Google at 3 years.
|
| Even if the phones will get slower and don't get fancy new
| features, I know plenty of people that are still happily using 5+
| year old phones. And manufacturers should definitely be required
| to provide security updates long past that point.
| Kajayacht wrote:
| The 5s really was a great phone. I used it up until last year
| and only upgraded as my wife needed a new phone and there was a
| BOGO deal.
| fouric wrote:
| Apple does have a very good reputation for building reliable
| products (with a few notable ~~keyboards~~ exceptions) and
| providing security updates - but I think that there's an
| argument to be made that that should be an expectation of
| phones in general, and not limited to Apple.
|
| If one wants a slightly lighter-touch regulation strategy,
| instead of directly mandating that "a phone must have security
| updates for n years", legislation could require that (a) CO2
| emission cost used to manufacture (b) MTBF (c) warranty period
| and (d) guaranteed security+OS update lifetime be included on
| the packaging (like nutrition labels). Then, when shopping,
| consumers can see that the $700 phone has a 5 year MTBF (and is
| repairable) while the $400 phone has a 2 year MTBF - similar to
| the unit prices that are already included on grocery store
| price tags.
| TrueGeek wrote:
| My mother just recently updated from the 5s, simply because she
| dropped it. She used it daily for phone calls, texts, and
| looking at photos of grandkids. She switched to the iPhone 6.
| [deleted]
| simonh wrote:
| Back in 2017 I found my old iPhone 3GS in a drawer. It booted
| up fine and held a charge for a couple of hours. Amazingly it
| even connected to the App Store and could still download apps
| I'd bought 8 years previously.
|
| I gave it to my daughter who just started secondary school here
| in the UK. She had to have it switched off at school, and
| switched it on when she left so a few hours of charge was fine
| until she got home. I got her a new phone that Christmas, but
| for a few months she got good use out of it.
| alex_young wrote:
| The best phone of 2011 was probably the iPhone 4S. I didn't have
| this model, but I did use its predecessor the iPhone 4.
|
| I remember hanging onto that phone for about 3 years I think, and
| replacing a battery somewhere along the way, so I thought I'd
| remind myself how that process went since it wasn't stuck in my
| memory anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI30NPW5Kls
|
| Turns out that one could actually open the case with a Phillips
| screwdriver. 3 screws to pull total. A little bit of glue behind
| the battery.
|
| Obviously things have changed quite a bit, but I could see
| hanging onto that phone and replacing components as they died.
| Would I actually want to be using that phone now? Probably not.
| Should we insist on things being that easy to fix? Almost
| certainly.
| simonh wrote:
| Ive changed the batteries on about half a dozen iPhones for
| myself, family and friends. I think the most recent was a 6s.
| The third party kits are cheap and it only takes 5 or 10
| minutes to check a video or two and 5 minutes to do the job.
|
| I don't understand the fuss about glue, for the phones I worked
| on it was just a small blob of tacky gel that came un-stuck and
| then re-stuck again pretty easily.
| sunsunsunsun wrote:
| In the video he says he has owned 125 smartphones in the last 7
| years. Apparently hes going through 17 smartphones a year. Seems
| ridiculous. I don't even think I have surpassed 10 smartphones in
| my lifetime.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Same. I'm on my sixth smartphone (if we're only counting post-
| iPhone). The author could be a tech reviewer who carries three
| phones around at a time to review them. Not sure if that counts
| as ownership, however I'm not the person to define that.
| fouric wrote:
| The front page is mostly made-up, either for humor, or to
| support the point: https://10yearphone.com/sign-the-letter/
| sunsunsunsun wrote:
| Oh god, I've seen way to many ridiculous crowfunding pages
| that I just assumed this was real...
| nynx wrote:
| A smartphone as reparable and upgradable as a framework laptop
| would be pretty neat. I'm not sure how possible that'd be though.
| Shared404 wrote:
| The PinePhone seema like the closest we've got at the moment,
| I'm hopeful for it!
|
| Software seems to be progressing quickly enough, and it seems
| like it may be a reasonable choice soonish for those who can
| live without iOS/Android.
| bmicraft wrote:
| As repairable? Easy, get a fairphone
| (https://shop.fairphone.com/en/).
|
| Upgradable? Not so much, but that would be much harder for
| smartphones when basic things like in-screen fingerprint or
| front camera get adopted.
| djrogers wrote:
| The fake 5 and 1 star reviews on this page are _very_ off-
| putting, and do not bode well for anyone asking me to trust them
| for the next decade.
|
| And that's completely setting aside how unworkable this would be
| in reality (think about things like hardware support for
| encryption standards and codecs in use in 2032).
|
| Even if the OS gets security patches for 10 years, does anyone
| think app developers are going to continue improving and
| supporting their apps on this thing?
| hughcrt wrote:
| I think you missed this page: https://10yearphone.com/sign-the-
| letter/
| mikestew wrote:
| The whole page is bullshit to argue for Right to Repair, et.
| al. Not that Right to Repair isn't important, but being
| weaselly on your web page is unlikely to gain supporters. Go
| ahead and click that "Get the Phone" button. Haha! We really
| want you to sign a letter that no one will read!
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Phones from 10 years ago don't work any more because wireless
| companies are dropping 3G. AT&T literally sent me a free phone
| that just arrived out of the blue. Will this 10 year phone will
| also include replacing the transmitter, modem, and antenna
| layout?
|
| If the goal is to make parts replaceable to reduce waste, what is
| the difference between keeping a phone for five years and
| throwing it away to buy a new one, then keeping that for five
| years, vs replacing all the parts in "one" phone over a ten year
| period? Two complete sets of parts are used.
|
| My son has a six year old phone. When he lost it, he wanted the
| same model, which we bought used. It still has the latest
| software, because it's not android.
|
| What is the difference between ten people owning ten 10 year
| phones, and ten people each handing down a phone that one person
| bought new?
| throw3849 wrote:
| 5G will still be here in 10 maybe even 20 years.
| moate wrote:
| Depends on your needs. If you're selling a phone as a set of
| individual component parts, I'm never going to buy the
| latest/greatest camera because I don't use my phone for that.
| That means that over the 5 years I own this hypothetical phone
| you don't need to make all those extra cameras. Also casing and
| other elements that would stay from version to version.
|
| Do I think this solves e-waste? No, but it would be nice to
| have some of these options.
| fouric wrote:
| > Phones from 10 years ago don't work any more because wireless
| companies are dropping 3G.
|
| This is because of a phase mismatch - a phone bought 10 years
| ago would have been in the middle of the 3G lifetime. 3G
| started getting adopted in 2002-ish and had ~200M users in 2007
| according to WP[1]. That's between a 13 and 20 year window for
| usage - which overlapped with 4G during the tail decade (or
| so), so, in fact, there's a good chance that a 10-year-old
| phone _would_ work today because it could have been released
| with a 4G radio (and, if it was built to be a 10-year phone, it
| absolutely would have had one).
|
| > If the goal is to make parts replaceable to reduce waste,
| what is the difference between keeping a phone for five years
| and throwing it away to buy a new one, then keeping that for
| five years, vs replacing all the parts in "one" phone over a
| ten year period? Two complete sets of parts are used.
|
| Different parts have different Mean Times Between Failure
| (MTBF), so you don't end up replacing all parts at equal rates.
| CPUs tend to last far longer than batteries and screens -
| having a repairable phone means that you can replace the
| battery several times over a 10-year lifespan, whereas you're
| almost never going to replace the CPU.
|
| That is, buying two five-year phones results in you paying for
| two CPUs, two batteries, two baseband modems, and two of
| _everything_ , regardless of which component in the first
| actually failed. Buying one ten-year repairable phone results
| in you paying for one CPU, one baseband modem, one display
| driver, ..., ...and two batteries. Far less e-waste. Every time
| a non-repairable phone breaks, you have to throw the whole
| thing out. Most times a repairable phone breaks, you can fix
| what's broken.
|
| Additionally, he MTBF of a composite, non-repairable device is
| lower than the MTBF of its least reliable component - meaning
| that (theoretically - I'm ignoring the durability costs of
| building dis-integrated devices) it's more expensive to build a
| single, non-repairable device that lasts five years than to
| build a device composed of components that will individually
| last five years each.
|
| > What is the difference between ten people owning ten 10 year
| phones, and ten people each handing down a phone that one
| person bought new?
|
| As it stands, most phones sold nowadays _won 't_ last 10 years,
| so the latter scenario doesn't really happen. Some
| manufacturers (Apple) make relatively reliable devices, but
| those come with severe freedom and privacy restrictions (the
| argument is that reparability should be a right, not a feature
| of a particular company), _and_ their devices are infamously
| non-repairable.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G#Adoption
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| >Buying one ten-year repairable phone results in you paying
| for one CPU, one baseband modem, one display driver, ...,
| ...and two batteries.
|
| Which is it? I need to be able to replace everything or just
| the battery?
|
| Is there a problem with replacing batteries in current
| phones? The free phone I got from AT&T came with the battery
| separate, so that one is fine. I have had third parties
| replace batteries in iPhones.
|
| >but those come with severe freedom and privacy restrictions
|
| Ironically, I find the opposite is true, because my freedoms
| and privacy are not violated by Apple, but by the shitware
| you find on Android phones. And if you mean the "freedom" to
| choose between paying Apple or Epic, well I prefer the
| freedom to choose a phone that just works. If you value the
| "freedom" of paying Epic, then you have the freedom to buy an
| Android phone. But you don't really want Freedom, you want
| what you want to apply to everyone else. I choose Apple. You
| don't have to. Demanding that my preference be eliminated is
| the antithesis of Freedom.
|
| >their devices are infamously non-repairable
|
| non-repairable by others. I've had iPhones repaired by Apple
| several times. Like the Epic issue, you could buy an Android
| phone which would meet all your requirements, but you _want_
| an Apple phone, and then complain that it doesn 't have the
| "freedoms" of an Android phone. You seem unable to see that
| the very reasons why you want the Apple phone are a direct
| result of the policies you complain about. Put the other way,
| the reasons you don't want an Android are because they have
| "Freedom" that allows malware to proliferate, or are
| "repairable" but manufacturing tolerances caused by having to
| fit multiple parts from multiple vendors means things break
| or disconnect or you get a bad batch, and the assembler can't
| support upgrades to the new OS because it's just too
| expensive to support all the different combinations of driver
| binaries, so old, unpatched Android for you forever.
|
| Make your 10 year phone. The company wont be around in 10
| years and you'll have a rooted virus fest or a brick. The
| planet wont be around in 10 years, but fuck me, you'll have
| done your part right? Look at me and my ten friends! There's
| gigatons of CO2 to support the internet and mobile phone
| network, but I replaced my mobile phone battery instead of
| buying a new phone!
| mikece wrote:
| I wonder about the software to run such a phone: wouldn't it need
| to be somewhat minimal and not offer feature upgrades -- only
| security fixes -- over the life of the phone? Otherwise I would
| think this phone would suffer the same fate as any five year old
| Android or iPhone: the bloat of new features overwhelms the old
| phone's hardware and you're left with a disappointing or
| frustrating experience. That said, I love the goals of this
| project and hope it succeeds. And if it can run Graphene OS I'll
| pre-order one now!
| moate wrote:
| Presumably you'd be able to swap out some hardware to be able
| to increase ram/processor performance. If I were designing this
| as a real product I'd still make some choices similar to the
| megacorps (yearly product releases being one) but change what
| the product is (the new line of cameras, said ram/processors,
| etc) that would slot into the existing machine. Rather than
| selling you a 1000+ dollar phone every couple of years I'd sell
| you the option to customize a phone to meet your needs.
| mikestew wrote:
| _but change what the product is (the new line of cameras,
| said ram /processors, etc)_
|
| I'm trying to imagine how much bigger this "phone" is going
| to be now that it has, say, a socketed CPU and slots for RAM.
| Will cargo pants still cut it, or do I need to go to a
| messenger bag for carrying my new "phone"?
| djrogers wrote:
| > Presumably you'd be able to swap out some hardware
|
| Based on what's actually being promised on that page, this
| sounds like wish-casting. There's no mention at all of
| swapping out CPU/RAM for upgrades.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2021-09-24 23:03 UTC)