Microsoft cuts ties with the Surface Duo after just 2 Android version updates
Microsoft cuts ties with the Surface Duo after just 2 Android version updates
On its third birthday, the original Surface Duo is no longer supported by Microsoft.
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/445850
Microsoft is done supporting the original Surface Duo, three years after it first launched on September 10. The company has stated from the very start that the Surface Duo would receive just three years of OS updates, meaning today is the last day that Microsoft has to stay true to its word.
Going forward, Microsoft will no longer ship new OS updates or security patches for the original Surface Duo, meaning Android 12L is the last version of the OS it will ever officially receive. Surface Duo only ever got two major OS updates, one shy of the average three that most high-end flagship Android devices get these days.
Like I said before, I will never stop making fun of the Juicero of Android phones.
Why the hell would anyone buy these devices when the support is so short? And I'm not even specifically talking about this foldable, rather all these devices from Google and MS? You're basically paying good money for e-waste.
Their slogan should be "here, you throw it away for us".
I really hate Apple for other things, but they rarely pull this kind of crap when it comes to support.
I still have my Sega Genesis that I bought on launch day and up until a year ago,it still worked. Thatsa 30+ year old device. Somewhere in my parents basement is an ancient fake Walkman. It might not work as it,but but if you changed some o-rings, chances are it would work. That's gotta be well over 35 years old. I still have G1 Transformers when they were first released. These are all items that (for the most part), still work. And yet today, people can't even get more than 3 years on most devices. Not because the device is broken. Rather because the device is made to have a very short lifespan on purpose. This shit makes me so damn mad.
I know Europe has flirted with the idea of life cycle product management (can't quite remember the full name). Basically manufacturers are required to take back their products at the end of their life and dispose of them properly. These kinds of programs encourage manufacturers to make their products easier to tear down, and thus also easier to repair, but also to minimize the amount of non recyclable materials. When you put the responsibility on manufacturers to take care of these things, it is in their best interests to keep their products from turning into useless e-waste. It definitely wouldn't solve all the problems of products having super short lives, but it could help because if something is easier to tear down, then it might be easier to maintain ans possibly upgrade.
I understand the sentiment, but the comparison with Apple and the Sega Genesis is flawed.
Microsoft has been very good at supporting backwards compatibility with other products, and Apple has EOL'd products too soon as well.
Open a 30-yr-old laptop with Microsoft Windows 3.0 and, oh surprise, it also works... just like your Sega Genesis! Plus nobody said that the Surface Duo was going to stop working. Store it away for 30 years amd turn it back on. I'm sure it will work just fine. Just don't attempt to connect it to the Internet 18.0.
New Google Pixel devices have 5 years of Android version and security updates. And as someone else said, if updates end the hardware will usually continue to work if you take good care of it.
I have old Acer, Asus, HP and Toshiba laptops that still work despite being out of warranty and some are over a decade old, and I'm about to get my hands on a Thinkpad T480 that I'm hoping to upgrade to keep it for another few years.
The issue is mainly the apps. For the old laptops I mentioned for example, they have only two cores, and modern stuff like background removal in video-conferencing or playing some Netflix movie will bring their CPUs to their knees. Apps became extremely demanding without us noticing.
Same thing on phones. Frameworks based on web technologies, requiring something like Chromium WebView, are appealing to app developers because they're extremely convenient as they help them create shiny UIs with cool effects with a few lines of code while benefiting from portability (ie the app will usually be cross-platform and work on an iPhone too). The only issue is that is usually much more demanding than a native Android app. So this trend gives us the impression that phones become slower, that manufacturers are playing some tricks on us and that we need to upgrade, whereas it's much more complicated than that.
Dual cores can be fine if they have the necessary support for the features that the software asks for, like h.264 decoding for video calls. I worked in a charity that gave out repurporsed laptops for vulnerable communities and an 8th Gen Intel works really well for office work. Heck Zoom requests an 8th gen for said background removal.
The reality is, that most people don't care.
I know several people (and not only older ones) who actively avoid updating, because it annoys them apparently.
Others don't care, know about or value updates at all. Some will happily use outdated android versions 5 years after support was dropped, others buy new phones every 2 years anyway.
I'm not saying that's good, but from a fuck-everything-but-money capitalist standpoint, not supporting older devices does make sense.
Outdated devices can't run some newer apps. If yiu can't get security updates, then some banking or online trading apps might not run. Many businesses use 2FA. I might be wrong, but if a device isn't being updated for security then the device can't use used for 2FA. Similar deal with using it for payment at a store or using it as your key on your newer model car.
It all starts to steamroll.
That's before the companies realised that this is not where the money is unfortunately. Reminds me of the infinite light bulb story
Life cycle is shorter and shorter specially if the product is not a success. This one was expensive and buggy. Probably launched too early.
Microsoft is using Android, not its own proprietary OS? Preposterous /s!
Microsoft tried a mobile version of Windows. And, it was actually not terrible. However, it suffered from a major problem.
It does have an impact. Apple has all the interest in keeping devices working for as long as possible because they make money from the app store. Microsoft makes money from selling the device and its surfaces but it's google that benefits from the play store.