Obsolescence of mobile devices by online updates

[scotland]

I've noticed with mobile devices, that afte a few years, the apps - not just games but modules of the expanded operating system like music apps - no longer work. These apps are constantly being updated, and eventually the hardware or base OS of your hardware is incompatible. The system slowly degrades in functionality, until its left with being a very limited device, unhooked from the internet, and prone to freezing.

Mobile devices seem to be considered disposable - use for 2-3 years and discard responsibly. Its going to be interesting for collectors or historians one day to put this segment of gaming culture together.

[LuckyMan]

I've been using the same LG flip phone for the last 13 years! This thing was cutting edge at the time. People are very surprised to hear that the phone used to have internet access as well as Verizon Superpages which included directions, weather, movies and yellow pages. All of those stopped working years ago. Surprisingly all of the classic games I downloaded still work perfectly. I have Asteroids, BurgerTime, Centipede, Combat, Defender, Dig Dug, Frogger, Galaga, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position II, Rally-X, Space Invaders and Xevious.

Last year something happened to the pictures I had saved in the phone. For some reason, they can no longer be viewed, but I had saved them previously. And this year my battery started giving me trouble so I think it's finally time for an upgrade. I will most likely end up with one of the smartphones (The horror!). Oh well... I definitely can't say it hasn't been dependable.

[VideoGameCritic]

This is the problem with planned obsolescence. The manufacturers love it because it gently forces people to buy new hardware and re-buy software. I'm glad (and surprised) to hear your games still work. The thing is, there's no guarantee that they won't break after the next "upgrade". The mobile device platform is a moving target.

[Hardcore Sadism]

You don't really own your smartphone, if you did, you'd be able to fix all the common problems that aging electronics have.

But no, you have to lease in order to even afford the latest cellular-excess some cocky coattail-rider tells you is a "discount value", even though the cost of the iPhone X at its complete-package value is $1,250.99. Starting price being $1,010 at launch. It's even more stupid because you don't get a fingerprint scanner on the most expensive unit all because of aesthetics, this is a feature even sub-$150 phones have.

I use a cheap Samsung J3 from last year, and stripping its UI to basic elements (search, list-drawer) ensures that I don't strangulate its memory more than the price tag intended to do so. Not talking about memory card expansion, but sustainable RAM as this only has 1.5GB of it. If you add up long term usage with even a small amount of apps, one of these apps go rogue and you have to reset the app or your device to get the best battery out of it. I can't hack a TracFone Android because it's set up to brick it if you do so. Even if a budget smartphone with a more open software and stock ROM gets you further, you still don't have that level of control you should even if you bought it outright and no strings attached. Updating the OS is more rudimentary in process, as it will always consume more memory or leave the old cruft to build up.