Better and Better - The Plight of Mobile Device Upgrades
So many people feel pressured to buy a new smartphone every year or two, but is it really necessary? Why can’t we get a mobile device and stick with it?
A common rule of thumb known as Moore’s law will tell you that computer processors double in speed and performance capabilities roughly every 2 years. This pace has held true for decades, and has only begun to slow down in the past 5 years or so. Over roughly the past half of a decade, the progress hasn’t necessarily come to a screeching halt, but it has slowed dramatically.
What does this mean for the technology industry? Well, a lot of things, but one thing in particular is that new versions of CPU chips are going to be smaller and smaller improvements over previous versions. Year over year, the latest and greatest won’t be so much greater than last year’s model. On some fronts, this is a good thing. Hopefully, it’ll force the hands of chip manufacturers into reducing prices.
How specifically does this affect the mobile technology market? Smartphones haven’t been a thing for very long, and only really became popular consumer goods around the time that the first iPhone was released in 2007 and Android was released in 2008. In roughly a decade since they became popular, smartphones have gone from janky pieces of equipment that weren’t really great at anything, to fine-tuned hardware that can keep up with full fledged computers. Each year’s new device has improved on the old model by leaps and bounds.
With processors reaching a plateau in performance, this trend is bound to reduce the performance gap between flagship devices released each year. The processor gets a higher number after the model name, you might get another gig or two of RAM, the the practical performance isn’t as noticeably better as it used to be. Sure, technophiles like myself appreciate the spec bumps, but is your average user going to? I sincerely doubt it.
People feel pressured to upgrade, though. All the cool kids have the newest version, why don’t you? Doesn’t matter if you’ll take advantage of any improvements or spec bumps, you *need* the latest model.
It’s all about marketing and planned obsolescence. Phone companies can sell these little computers like your life depends on it. And even if the marketing doesn’t sway you, things like OS upgrades mean you can’t stay on the old model too long. After a while, you’ll stop getting security fixes and updates that keep you compatible with apps and such. Even if the hardware still works fine, you’re depending on the OEM to keep releasing software updates for your specific model. How long is that going to last?
A common rule of thumb known as Moore’s law will tell you that computer processors double in speed and performance capabilities roughly every 2 years. This pace has held true for decades, and has only begun to slow down in the past 5 years or so. Over roughly the past half of a decade, the progress hasn’t necessarily come to a screeching halt, but it has slowed dramatically.
What does this mean for the technology industry? Well, a lot of things, but one thing in particular is that new versions of CPU chips are going to be smaller and smaller improvements over previous versions. Year over year, the latest and greatest won’t be so much greater than last year’s model. On some fronts, this is a good thing. Hopefully, it’ll force the hands of chip manufacturers into reducing prices.
How specifically does this affect the mobile technology market? Smartphones haven’t been a thing for very long, and only really became popular consumer goods around the time that the first iPhone was released in 2007 and Android was released in 2008. In roughly a decade since they became popular, smartphones have gone from janky pieces of equipment that weren’t really great at anything, to fine-tuned hardware that can keep up with full fledged computers. Each year’s new device has improved on the old model by leaps and bounds.
With processors reaching a plateau in performance, this trend is bound to reduce the performance gap between flagship devices released each year. The processor gets a higher number after the model name, you might get another gig or two of RAM, the the practical performance isn’t as noticeably better as it used to be. Sure, technophiles like myself appreciate the spec bumps, but is your average user going to? I sincerely doubt it.
People feel pressured to upgrade, though. All the cool kids have the newest version, why don’t you? Doesn’t matter if you’ll take advantage of any improvements or spec bumps, you *need* the latest model.
It’s all about marketing and planned obsolescence. Phone companies can sell these little computers like your life depends on it. And even if the marketing doesn’t sway you, things like OS upgrades mean you can’t stay on the old model too long. After a while, you’ll stop getting security fixes and updates that keep you compatible with apps and such. Even if the hardware still works fine, you’re depending on the OEM to keep releasing software updates for your specific model. How long is that going to last?
I don’t mean to sound old, but it just bothers me how phone manufacturers are constantly pushing upgrades, and not maintaining the old devices. Yes, I realize that they get more money from people buying new phones, but it’s really not necessary. If they would lay off the planned obsolescence, upkeep devices for longer, most people would really have no reason to upgrade. Other than the nearly arbitrary number after the name of the phone, it’s going to do what you need it to do just as well as last year’s model.
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