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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

There is a huge cadence mismatch between software cycles and capital good replacement cycles.

How well would you say that Tesla is coping with this as a company? For that matter, what about Apple?

I can't even imagine the number of security patches that have gone into the Linux kernel in the last 11 years.

Let's take a step back and think about this statement. Isn't this insane? We know enough to be able to build something much better than this. The reason that we don't, is that we've just kept on pragmatically building on what we had before. We're like a corporation that keeps pouring money into its "stovepipe" system because we keep on making short-term decisions. (Somehow "stovepipe" has come to mean "vertically isolated," but I seem to remember that it also used to refer to the tendency of iron stovepipes to corrode and need constant patching.)

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How well would you say that Tesla is coping with this as a company? For that matter, what about Apple?

Apple just kind of assumes that you have the latest shiny, because why wouldn't you? This induces a phenomenon I call the Apple Turnover: when a software update aimed at new Apple things comes out and makes your old Apple thing not run so good anymore. Sluggish iPhones are the hallmark example today, but I was bitten badly by this in the mid-2000s when Panther would no longer compile C++ files. You see, one of Apple's OS updates for Panther came with Tiger's libstdc++, which used the new Itanium ABI. This was so Xcode for Tiger could compile programs to run on Panther, but without heroic efforts to set up compiler flags in every package you built to link against the old static libstdc++, compiling on Panther would link against the new libstdc++ by default and fail horribly, rendering C++ code uncompilable. (Deleting or renaming the new libstdc++ was not an option; it was a heavily depended on system component and I think even the header files were changed for the new library.) And a lot of stuff depended on C++, including C-API stuff like SDL. And Apple did fuck all to fix it.

So if you buy a shiny Apple toy, your choices are to commit to upgrading early in the new product cycle or risk an Apple Turnover rendering your purchase, if not useless, then with degraded functionality even relative to the same device when you bought it.

And the pisser is during the 80s and 90s, Apple gear was legendary for running well, and being supported, many years if not more than a decade after its purchase date.

I think this is a strategy by Apple, and will eventually backfire. But then again what do I know about consumer preferences, I am typing this on a Toshiba Satellite PS25-607--that is literally held together with tape, and opened so many times I can visualize the screw holes?

Eh, I think Apple is doing ok with Macs and iPhones at least.

I'd guess the typical hardware replacement cycle for a computer is 3-5 years. My 2009 MacBook Pro is on Mountain Lion. It runs just fine, and the OS continues to receive security updates. Both 10.9 and 10.10 also officially support my machine, I just haven't bothered to upgrade. Rumor is that support for older machines is one of the areas of focus for 10.11. We'll see in a week or two.

The typical hardware replacement cycle for a smart phone is probably 2-3 years because of contract upgrades. My iPhone 5 is running 8.2 and runs just fine. 8.3 supports it as well, but I need to clear some photos off to make space to run the installer.

Looking at the entire Apple installed bases for computers and phones, Apple users seem to do a very good job of keeping up with supported OS versions.

I don't know as much about the iPad. At work I have an iPad 2 that is running iOS 8 and seems to work fine.

For devices that _can_ have the OS upgraded - stats seem to show a remarkably high level of upgrading by users, at least for major version numbers:

http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/

If you scroll down to "Device Breakdown (sorted by Usage)", you see a bunch of devices with 90+% stuck on the "last supported OS version" - 97% of iPad1G on iOS5, 97% of iPhone 3GS and iPod Tough 4G on iOS6, 91% of iPhone 4 on iOS7. Even including thise devices, they're showing 75% on devices on iOS8 and 20% on iOS7.

I'm in the "left behind" category - with both my iPad1 and Mac Mini single core being "stick" at iOS5 and OS X 10.6 respectively. Im somewhat disappointed at the lack of patches for the known security holes in iOS5 - especially since those numbers still show over 3% of the iPads in use are not upgradable past iOS5...

When updates are free, what are the realistic alternatives? Android devices, for example, just reach end of life much more quickly. Given the option to update at the expense of performance or no option at all, it at least seems the better of the two choices.

Maybe we need to start being more realistic about what things "cost" in performance and start evaluating the cost/benefit ratio. It's OK to say no to a feature if it is going to degrade the user experience. Just because we have a phone with a quad core 2 Ghz processor does not mean we need to design the OS to require it.

I didn't say the Android situation was good, although with CM I am generally able to squeeze a few months to years of additional life out of an Android device.

I honestly think most companies don't care about longevity anymore? I look at all the appliances in my home, and just plan on throwing them out when they break down. I remember years ago, a car manufacturer did a study on what consumers care about when buying a vechicle. It wasn't engine size, or the stuff they were advertising; it was cup holders. I don't think we have evolved that much? (vechicles were forced to last longer because it was such a huge expenditure, and even the most thoughtless buyer was forced to look for longevity.) I literally think durable good manufacturers(with the exception of most automobile companies) design products to fail within three years? I can hear the CEO now, "Get the name in their head, and we have them for life--my life as a CEO?". Worst case senerio, the product becomes a joke like Fiat did in the 70's; the CEO is long gone, but on his rein, the books looked good?

The appliances in my house were bought because of all the bells and whistles. I didn't buy them, but am forced to work on them when a sensor fails. They have gotten so complicated, parts so expensive, service manuals hard to get; I just throw them away when they fail. I don't like it.

I think, if consumers start demanding it, we will go back to buying a based on longevity, and not on the newest feature? Every time my dryer's alarm goes off, I am reminded it's a durable good. It's almost reminding me to save up?

100% agree. What I'm really getting at it is that you need to have an upgrade strategy. Obviously these planes didn't. The military actually has a very good strategy these days simply because they were burned badly by this problem in the 80s and 90s already. I imagine the commercial airlines are currently learning this lesson.

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