Determining the Average Apple Device Lifespan
asymco.com
asymco.com
2) The average lifespan of an Apple device is 4.25 years
That should put to rest the "Apple's planned obsolescence" narrative, but I doubt it will. I think it has always been the case that Apple cares about building really good hardware that lasts. That's not to say that they don't make mistakes (they do), but they care most about making something good, regardless of the "business case."
On the most recent earnings call, several investors had questions about how Apple's new battery replacement program would affect business. For example, would the cost bring down profits, would the replacement prevent upgrades, etc. Tim's response was:
>On the battery, Toni, we did not consider it in any way, shape, or form what it would do to upgrade rates. We did it because we thought it was the right thing to do for our customers. And sitting here today, I don’t know what effect it will have. And again, it was not in our thought process of deciding to do what we’ve done. [1]
[0] - http://www.asymco.com/2018/02/27/the-number/ (this does not include iPods, I don't think) [1] - https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/02/this-is-tim-transcript-of...
I hope it doesn't. I have experienced it first hand with my 4S which became horribly laggy and unusable after all of the iOS updates, and I had no way of downgrading iOS and returning it to the factory state.
Also regarding the battery issue, call me a cynic but there is no way that this wasn't PR driven. Apple took a PR hit because they sneakily slowed down the phone instead of informing the user that their battery is dying and that they should get it fixed. Obviously because it would highlight the flaws in their design (which other smartphones might or might not have too).
I'm not an Apple shareholder so I don't care about their profits at all, and hopefully neither should anyone else.
What I am saying is: Apple seems to be holding to their guiding principles (sometimes with missteps), as opposed to giving in to shareholder pressure to increase short term profits at expense of a long term relationship with their customers. And, supporting 1.3 billion devices is an enormous engineering feat.
Sure, but doing it under PR pressure kinda dilutes it. I still welcome it. I've had battery issues with my 6S too, where it simply shut down in winter. Apple didn't reach out to me at all (even though they had my info since I purchased it directly from them). I chanced upon an article about a battery recall and that's when I realized that my battery had a defect. Apple doesn't have a lot of trust surplus with me. YMMV.
>And, supporting 1.3 billion devices is an enormous engineering feat.
It is an engineering feat, maybe a mini, or a middle feat. I'm not quite sure whats enormous about it. They control the hardware and software. They have only a small number of models, which are identical. Samsung has hundreds of models. (Not that I think Samsung is doing a stellar job)
Well, all I know is Apple replaced the battery, and I stopped having random shutdowns.
https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/
> It is the same as all batteries - they degrade. Apple can’t change that.
But I have not had a battery completely stop working in the winter, ever. My car battery continues to work just fine. My camera works just fine, so does my laptop, so does my smartwatch, so does my TV remote, so does my powerdrill, so does my radio, so does my torch, so does the wall clock. But who knows, maybe I've just been lucky all these years. And BTW I'm not talking about some crazy Siberia winter. I'm talking about 30-40F here!
>But it seems the intent was to allow people to continue using their devices without upgrading and without having to pay for a battery replacement.
Apple decided to hide information that let a user decide if it was worth it to upgrade the battery. The user had no idea that their battery had degraded.
>But people who [..] and who expect that Apple should pay to support replacing batteries for the lifetime of the device, with no out-of-pocket expense for the consumer is a ridiculous double standard that no other manufacturer has ever been held to in the history of consumer electronics.
Yeah, who are those people?
Weird, my history with car batteries suggests that they do, in fact, completely shut down in cold winters. They do it with such regularity that many people carry specialized equipment in their cars to deal with this eventuality, and roadside-assistance crews regularly deal with it as well.
I happen to have had my camera battery drain completely within minutes of full charge when used outdoors in mid-winter, but I don't often take my DSLR outside in mid-winter any more since my phone fills that need.
I don't usually take my tv remote, power drill, or wall clock outside in mid-winter, but your mileage may vary.
Apple doesn't have access to a different set of physical laws than other companies. Physics is physics, and those batteries don't deal well with cold, period.
>Apple doesn't have access to a different set of physical laws than other companies. Physics is physics, and those batteries don't deal well with cold, period.
Well, that certainly is your opinion. But it doesn't change the fact that the battery was defective.
They may have been referring to this issue:
https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/
I’m not defending the somewhat emotional / hyperbolic tone of the comment to which you replied. Just considering that they may not have adequately explained that they were referring to two separate cases (though it isn’t clear from the comment that the difference is recognized).
For my own anecdotal response, my Apple products last many years. They are consistently in good working order by the time I choose to upgrade. I also think that those who still believe that Apple has some nefarious scheme to build-in obsolescence are being manipulated by FUD, and that is based on firsthand knowledge.
- that time they stole billions in wages by price fixing
- that time they sold out all their chinese customers to the government
- that time they sold out all their US customers to the government (PRISM et c)
what guiding principles specifically do you refer to?
It's a con.
It was only a few years ago. It was so common that you could see a lot of friends using the "AssistiveTouch" to get around it.
It's crazy you already forgot that.
It makes me so mad.
Companies can literally get away with anything as long as they have good PR. For god sake it was on every single tech site at the time, and you already forgot that ?
This is excruciating to read.
I feel so hopeless.
On-topic: I do remember the story you're talking about; it happened to a tiny percentage of the people the story I mentioned did, but one of those people was my daughter, about six years ago. (Time flies!)
My daughter also had a cracked screen and generally did not treat her phone with the care an expensive piece of electronics merits, so I didn't think much of it, and she use the on-screen home button for a year or two. She liked it so much that even after she later upgraded, she kept using the on-screen home button!
I remember people blaming a software update, but mu daughter hadn't updated. I wondered at the time whether that was a coincidence, or multiple issues that people were conflating.
It's also worth noting that while you call it a "scandal" and say the community found out it was a software bug, iFixIt seemed to have a good handle on the exact flex cable that caused the problem: https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/56206/Home+button+someti...
This is a big issue. It's one thing for a device to get slower over time as programs become more and more demanding. It's another to have a device that's running great and then suddenly slows to a crawl the moment after an irreversible OS update (what happened to my MacBook after Snow Leopard).
Apple uses dark patterns to get you to update and then blocks the downgrade path. __That__ is the part that's infuriating.
If a consumer buys something, there should always be a way to return it to the state it was at the time of purchase.
When Apple decides that the support for your iOS device ends, you have no choice but to upgrade, or risk running outdated vulnerable software.
The laptops, desktops are a different story since you can breathe new life to them by installing a free operating system.
The only realistic options for a smartphone are android and iOS. Between the two (and I have used both), I much prefer iOS.
Not for features or smoothness, mind you. I actually felt like my Android experience was better.
With google, however, I always felt like they were trying to sell me something and harvest my data through android. Not the case with Apple.
If it became unusable, presumably you deactivated it, which means it was tallied into this article's estimation of lifespan.
Important to consider that what HNers call unusable is perfectly acceptable to a great number of people. I've never used a phone with a cracked screen, but I've seen a fair number of people who don't consider this a reason to deactivate the device.
After less than 20 months my iPhone SE was at 45% of the original CPU speed it was marketed as. This was by design. A conscious decision by multiple people in the know, who instead of selling me a device that could last four years sold me a device that lasted one and a half and kept quiet about it until called out on it.
I never believed the planned obsolescence narrative, until I experienced it the past months.
I know that’s what happened to me with my 6s at least.
People seem to be tacitly dismissing the problem the CPU throttling ostensibly fixes -- iPhones with worn batteries just shutting down instantly without warning when an application asks for more power than the battery's now capable of delivering -- but I've experienced it. It's a real problem. And while it's a subjective call as to whether that's more infuriating than CPU throttling is, I can tell you, it's really infuriating. And it's not some kind of crazy only-Apple thing; it's a problem with battery technology. It happens with Android phones, too, and their "solution" is what Apple's was until they rolled out the throttling: nothing. Eventually you figure out you have a battery problem because your phone keeps spontaneously shutting down! Yay.
If we're going to criticize Apple for this, maybe it should be for making this change without notifying users. The iPhone can presumably determine when its battery is sufficiently worn that it's facing the choice between CPU throttling and spontaneous shutdowns, and it should let the user know when it crosses that line.
But the notion that Apple is deliberately crippling phones to get you to buy new ones faster has always been...odd. They do want you to buy new phones, to be sure, but they want you to buy new phones from them. If you stop trusting them, you're less likely to going to do that, unless you're very heavily "into" the Apple ecosystem -- which most consumers arguably aren't. (At least half my friends with iPhones rarely install applications other than Spotify, Telegram, and the occasional game -- and I live in Silicon Valley. These folks aren't Mac users, either, and so I suspect they don't feel very much lock-in pressure at all.)
The only problem with the two computers was a lack of SSD but a kit from OWC fixed that for both of them.
Krypton includes support for SSH, gpg signed git commits, and soon generic gpg signing[1], all backed by TouchID or your passphrase[2]. Make sure to setup Krypton with the "Nist P256 (Secure Enclave)" curve. Private keys generated in the Secure Enclave are only possible to extract using a zero-day in the Secure Enclave coprocessor.
[0] https://krypt.co [1] https://github.com/kryptco/krypton-ios/pull/95
[2] Protip: iOS passphrases consisting of only digits will use a keypad on the unlock screen.
When it passes, I planning on replacing it with another old macbook. Are following models as reliable? What about macbook air ?
I'm worried because the white macbook was easy to repair and upgrade, the others seem much harder to take apart.
Awesome hardware though. Built like a tank.
I wish it was more like Nuget, where you can select the version you want and have to explicitly upgrade, with an easy downgrade option.
I know people that've reluctantly retired their otherwise fully functional iPad 2-era devices for the same reason.
You have to have downloaded the app previously on the same account. The workaround is to download the app with iTunes and then it will let you download the same app on your iOS device as long as there was once a compatible version.
My point being, I'm about to hit the three year mark on an Android phone.
So lets be clear, apple has no problem stopping you from running the latest iOS.
But they do let you install iOS9, which makes a 4S totally shite slow.
They don't have a problem stopping you from running a recent version. They just have a problem stopping you from running the version that will make your phone shit, and then preventing you from going back to the previous version.
they deliberately "brick" phones. they don't have to let you run iOS9, just because its the latest version. The iPhone 3 couldn't run iOS9. And they don't mind making it so that the 4S can't run iOS10. So why not say iOS8 is the cut-off for 4S? Well, because the 4S could run iOS8 and still be useable, and then you wouldn't need to buy a new fucking phone.
So the very last version they let^H^H^H force you to install is the one that'll make it shit.
Sure, you can flash it yourself to the latest version, but there's no guarantee that it'll work. In my book, not having support from the OEM on the latest possible version of Android that can be loaded on your device does not count as having access.
Lenovo doesn't provide OEM support for ubuntu on my thinkpad, but that doens't mean to I don't have access to it.
Not exactly the most consumer-friendly way to get software updates. That's not comparable to how Apple does it
The truth is that they make calculated decisions whether ignoring the issue, or responding to the issue will be more beneficial to them financially and public opinion wise. This time they decided that the fallout from evidence of possible planned obsolescence—intentional or not—combined with the fact that a lost lawsuit was likely, and the fact that smartphone sales have fallen for the first time ever, would be financially more painful than compensating their customers.
That argument has never made much sense to me.
If Apple wanted to force people to buy a new device, wouldn't it be much easier to simply stop providing OS and security patches after two years the way most of the Android device makers have traditionally done?
How does providing four years of software support (on average) force users to buy a new device more quickly than providing two years of software support (on average)?
And to be clear, I don't subscribe to the theory that Apple is intentionally slowing iOS down on older devices. But subjectively, the iPhone 4S struggles with iOS 9 the same way that the iPhone 5s struggles with iOS 11. Even if you work in IT, it's hard to fathom that iOS 11 looks and works the same as iOS 9, but requires a ~4x more powerful CPU to barely chug along[1]. Planned Obsolescence almost wins Occam's Razor here; I'm not surprised that so many people misinterpret the battery throttling thing.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/ios-11-on-the-iphone...
I suspect it might be because I only had 1GB of free storage, and iOS 11 was uploading and downloading cloud photos like crazy? Often I would take a picture, and by the time I wanted to send it via message ten seconds later, the phone had deleted the original it from my phone, and had to re-download it.
I would gladly assume that I'm an outlier, but a friend with a 5s asked me for new phone recommendations right after updating to iOS 11, so there's at least two points of anecdata.
That used to be true. Nowadays they seem to care more about building hardware that looks cool, is as thin as physically possible, and is full of wizzy features that people may or may not care about (like face-unlock, or whatever they call it).
There are good reasons for pursuing thinness. One, it naturally puts you (through accumulated R&D, supply chain and design know-how) on the leading edge of miniaturisation, a resiliant multi-decades long trend in technology. Pushing for a smaller laptop made possible the iPhone; pushing for a smaller iPhone made possible the Apple Watch, et cetera. (Thinner, lighter devices also have a demonstrated ability to increase usage, by being lighter to hold up.) It’s a design philosophy built into a longer-term strategy.
True story: the other day I was on a trip when my wife's Macbook Air started to rock back and forth on the surface it was sitting on. The battery had failed. It was still working, i.e. providing power, but it had started to bulge. (This turns out to be a known problem.) There was so much pressure that the keyboard and bottom case were visibly deformed. But it was impossible for me to open the case and get the battery out because I didn't have the right pentalobe screwdriver with me. Fortunately, we were able to find a Mac repair shop that was able to get the battery out before it caught fire or exploded. (But we were very lucky. We do a lot of traveling to places that lack this kind of infrastructure.)
What they were not able to do was recycle the battery because they didn't have a replacement, so they could not open an official repair ticket. So we had to take the bad battery, still fully charged despite being blown up like a balloon, with us on an airplane so we could take it home and dispose of it properly.
It's perfectly fine if Apple wants to offer products like this for people who want to trade off volume for field-repairability. What irks me is that Apple no longer offers any choice in this. My choices today are non-repariable, or Windows (or Linux, but that is not a viable option for my non-geek wife). Those are pretty sucky choices.
That was incredibly dangerous and put everyone on the airplane at risk. You didn't have to take it.
I don't think you understand just how dangerous these things are in an airplane.
It seems vastly more likely that you simply don't understand that you risked everyones lives.
There are no FAA approved ways to transport damaged Lithium batteries that I'm aware of - but since your a pilot perhaps you could enlighten?
Reference?
> There are no FAA approved ways to transport damaged Lithium batteries that I'm aware of
Then you haven't done your homework. The official rules are here:
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&SID=bba5ad065...
And the version distilled for public consumption is here:
https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/hazmat_safety/more_inf...
There is no distinction made between damaged and undamaged batteries unless the battery has been recalled.
1. It restricts the size of the battery
Lithium polymer batteries can be molded and shaped to fill up all available space inside the case. A replaceable battery can't be shaped to nearly that degree. Making a battery user-replaceable means it must be smaller.
2. It doubles-up the case
There is no way you can legally sell a product with an unprotected Lithium battery, especially not one that is laptop-sized. It would be a massive safety hazard. You need an internal case for the computer and an entirely separate case for the battery. That takes up space and adds weight. It also further restricts your ability to shape the battery to fill the available space (meaning the battery must be smaller or the case must be larger).
--
There is no magic in battery technology. We aren't going to wake up one day and have computers as light as a piece of paper that last all day. It requires constant iteration and improvement. If everyone listened to naysayers it would greatly slow down the pace of innovation. I am absolutely certain there are still people out there angry about the removal of RS-232 serial ports or VGA ports on laptops. Probably a few still upset about removing floppy drives too.
When the iPhone came out, this was the 13" MB you'd get: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/specs/macbook-cor...
Compared to a whole slew of Ultrabooks, and other 13" laptops which were smaller. I'm not sure how you get that Apple's drive for smaller laptops made the iPhone possible (given that it's form factor, LG Pradas, etc., were also quite widely available at the same time) - I don't see the size innovation here that you seem to be.
You may not care, but I assure you, the millions of people who use it multiple times every day do. I suggest you try it out yourself and compare it to Touch ID.
Sadly my Macintosh Portable isn't running but that's only because the batteries are dead and I haven't refurbished them yet.
No other hardware I've ever purchased has run for that long. My Palm Pilot is dead. My Treo is dead.
No one who says Apple builds in planned obsolescence has probably never used any Apple hardware.
Me: No problem. I'm sure it's no more than maybe $200, parts and labor.
Apple Store: So because we have to replace x, y and z to do this, you're looking at $820.
Two thirds of the original purchase price of the laptop to repair the ability to _charge its battery_.
Conversely, every Apple product I've owned since the late '90s has been buggy in one way or another, had hardware issues, and generally has not stood the test of time. As mandatory updates and cloud-based software have become the norm, things have gotten even worse. To be fair, machines are far more complex now. A lot of the rock-solid reliability of early Apple products came from their relative simplicity. But I would not say they've built robust products ever since. They certainly believe in planned obsolescence. The perennial changing of port standards, abandoning of backwards compatibility, and lack of support for older machines is an Apple hallmark. I'm not saying they're worse than their competitors, but they definitely adhere to planned obsolescence.
* 2012 rMacBook Pro 15": a major GPU defect found just as the 1-yr manufacturer's warranty ran out. Had to pay $300+ for repair although it was clearly a manufacturer's fault. After a threat of class-action lawsuit -- there were similar class-action lawsuits in motion for older MacBooks models made in 2007, 2009, 201x as well -- Apple started a repair/recall program in 2014 and they refunded my repair cost.
* 2 x iBooks in my college days: none of them lasted longer than 1 year; all failed due to some hardware problems.
* iPhone 3GS: didn't know how laggy it was until I upgraded to the 4Gs. Oneplus 5T is my current phone, with Samsung Note 3 as backup -- which was used for 4 years.
* 1999 Dell Inspiron: in service for 6 years and still usable. dropped it several times on concrete floor. Virtually indestructible, but I wanted to get a new hardware (see my 2 x iBooks). Required no repair or replacement despite heavy use; in my Manhattan mini-storage now.
* 2008 Dell Inspiron: cost $350 (with some special offer from Discover Card) and used it until I got my 2012 rMacBook. Virtually indestructible; required no repair or replacement; still running and my backup laptop.
Based on my experience, Dell XPS 15" is going to be my next workhorse.
As far as smartphones are concerned, many years ago before his death, Steve Jobs claimed to have "cracked" the integrated TV business, but Apple decided not jump into it -- because their product lifespan is too long, especially compared to iPhone's 2-yr short lifespan. The iPhone's 2 year short lifespan in turn was in large part determined by 2 year contract subsidies in the US. Likewise, you see in Horace's second graph that the iPhone lifespan increased as US carriers phased out 2 year-contract subsidized model in favor of monthly payments with no subsidy. I'm very disinclined to believe that Apple's QC improved so much in the past 4 years that the iPhone's lifespan nearly tripled and, contrary to a few fanboi's anecdotal stories about Apple's stellar hardware QC, I'm willing to bet a few pennies that the overall lifespan trend holds the same for other phone manufacturers as well.
In short, I think it's mostly it's mobile carriers' subsidy (or lack thereof) that changed consumers' buying habit and iPhone lifespan, not Apple's super durable hardware or quality control.
I own 1 early-model and 2 first-of-its-line Apple products from the 2000's, and they've all had quality issues and are no longer usable. In every case, the flawed feature was improved or simply removed in subsequent models. It's a shame, because I liked them all more than what I replaced them with, apart from the reliability trouble.
On average, I don't think Apple is any worse than any other manufacturer, but they do tend to be more enthusiastic about trying new materials and designs and manufacturing techniques. Perhaps there are people who run out and buy a completely new model on day 1, and discover it's not as robust as the 5-year-old one they were using before (i.e., sample bias).
I was anxiously awaiting the second iteration of the black cylinder Mac Pro, simply because I'm paranoid about buying a first-generation product. Now I'm going to have to wait even longer, because once again there's going to be a completely new design.
Also had a Quadra 950 at one point loaded with 1990s game dev stuff in storage. Pulled it out, it wouldn't turn on and the plastic had turned into the color of cigarette smoke, so got rid of it. Sometimes even good shit breaks.
Macbook G4 - still works fine, boots up fast, resume/sleep very fast
Macbook Pro 2010 - battery holds about 30 minute charge
iPhone 4/4S - batteries are fine, never replaced
iPhone 5S - on my 4th battery
Considering how many fans that machine has, I’d say that’s quite good. Fan failures in the Dell machines I’ve dealt with over the years are practically guaranteed within three to four years.
We also know the iPad tends to have a much longer lifecycle than the phone. If it wasn’t for the lack of updates and new software many people would still be using the iPad 2 from 2012 (?).
And to think that virtually all the other OEMs barely even support their phones beyond a year and a half. Even Google is only supporting its own phones for 3 years, which is still less than the average lifespan of these phones (iPhones may be higher quality, but I doubt the avg lifespan for other flagship devices is much smaller).
I've argued before that there should probably be a law that says an electronic device has to be supported until at least 80% of the units stop being in use.
So,for instance, if 10 million people purchased a Pixel 2, Google should deliver software updates until fewer than 2 million Pixel 2 units are under active use. According to this report, that may very well be 5 or 6 years. Remember phones tend to continue to be used even after the original buyer stops using it, whether it's because they sold it or handed it to someone else.
Maybe not a law, since it seems like a bit of an overreach to force a company to continue working on a product they don't want to, but some sort of incentive program would be interesting.
Company, "Too bad. We don't care. Buy another one."
An investment in ensuring a device is able to live out a normal life. Laws come into place because companies show, repeatedly, that given the option they'll have absolutely no reluctance to be apathetic to that.
I think the numbers include all Apple devices: iPhones, iPads, Airports, Macintoshes &c.
Certainly, I don't know anyone with a more-than-three-year-old iPhone.
Given the volumes they ship of each, I would expect that the vast majority of the devices in that graph are iOS devices. Macs might bring that number up a bit but the iPhone is going to dominate the average.
Note this is very different from: how long does it take for all the devices on the market at the time to become inactive? If these would be equivalent if (1) iPhones were homogeneous and (2) devices had a constant lifetime, but the truth is there are many models available and different devices become inactive at different rates.
Concerning point (1): As an extreme example, imagine Apple releasing a rock solid phone (iPhone RS) with a ten year lifespan followed by a crappy phone (iPhone CR) that dies in a year. Within a year of the CR's release, they'll all be inactive, meanwhile all the RS's will be plugging along (assuming they all last exactly their lifespan). Meanwhile the average lifespan will be identical to what it would be if they were released in the reverse order.
Concerning point (2): These numbers can be skewed by devices with different lifetime distributions. If we assume, realistically in my opinion, that device decay is a Poisson process, different devices with different decay rates mixed together in this analysis would render this analysis way too simplistic.
For consumers who buy the very newest of devices, this isn't a particularly helpful metric because of (1). For consumers who buy older devices, it's not very helpful because you don't know the distributions pointed out in (2).
For financial analysts, however, this is a very interesting analysis because it can be used to make predictions. For instance, if you assume the lifecycle is increasing, then you see a strong incentive for Apple to get their hands on older-but-still-functional devices so they can resell the same phone again and again. My takeaway is I'll keep an eye out for how aggressively they market the iPhone Upgrade Program.
What you are saying is similar to telling a consumer that they should not trust Toyota vehicles to last longer than any other brand. When, in fact, there is a general trend that Toyotas do last longer. Sure, you aren't guaranteed that one specific Toyota Corolla will last longer than another specific Ford Focus, but there is a general trend you can rely on.
Is Apple consciously promoting this as a differentiator, or is it a side effect of their hardware/software ecosystem? How will this affect their sales numbers long term, either positively (by promoting their platform overall) or negatively (by reducing in-ecosystem churn)?
Put another way, they capture the same share of your computing budget and of the App Store market but build fewer laptops and phones.
Also, Apple is highly diffentiated at the high end (walk in repairs and support, long software compatibility timespans). Driving up expected lifespans makes their offering cheaper than the low end in the long term, allowing them to capture increasing percentages of the total market.
They just need to execute better on the software and industrial design side than they did in 2017. Laptops without usable keyboards, the new busted gesture based iPhone UI, and iOS 11.0 are all bad enough to force long term users to other ecosystems.
I expect there to be a lot of noise from Wall Street now that the iPhone growth rocket ship has stagnated. But as others have pointed out, in a world of smartphone saturation Apple is well-poised to continue being quite successful[1], and viewing the world purely through a "number of units sold" lens is foolish.
[0] - https://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2018/2/21/the-goldilocks-e... [1] - https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/02/24/the-smartphone-en...
Still, somewhere it pops up in web analytics as an outlier :)
Currently operating in my household: - A 2003 iMac G4 (iLamp) acting as a audio media server - A 2004 17" PowerBook G4 that I use for long-form writing because the keyboard is just. so. comfortable. - A 2008 iPhone 3G (not 3GS) with a remote dock that plays music in the library. - A 2011 MacBook Air that I carry around in my bag and use almost every day. (Though the battery life is down to two hours.) - A 2012 iPhone 4 I just replaced the battery in. It pumps out music to the neighborhood AM radio station in my closet. - And finally, a launch day 2007 iPhone, which I don't use regularly, but keep in my desk drawer and turn on every once in a while for kicks, and to make sure it still works. Man, that screen is very hard to look at now after becoming accustomed to retina displays.
On the other side of the coin, I can't seem to make an Airport last more than 18 months. Fortunately, there's a neverending supply of them for $5-$10 at Goodwill.
Naturally a more secure approach is to use a computer that already has a current TenFourFox or other browser on it, but this at least gives people with no other options a way out. Barely two days after offering it there were 50+ downloads/day already through the Downloader, so there must be some subpopulation of Power Macs not already updated where their owners are starting to notice this.
The hardware is excellent, the software deprecation path is out of sync with the quality of the hardware.