[padobson]

I switched from Windows to Mac in 2004 when I started college. A year after I graduated, I switched to Linux, and I haven't looked back - and this article illustrates the reason as well as anything.

The lifecycle for Apple devices are far shorter than their PC and Android counterparts. When I abandoned my PPC Mac in 2009 and suffered through iTunes withdrawal (read: wrote off the ~$500 in music and movies I had bought), I switched to Amazon for media where, funnily enough, everything worked fine right in the browser on that same Mac. Still does to this day. I'm typing this on a Dell Laptop I got a year after that Mac, running Ubuntu, and the media I bought on Amazon works fine on this too.

It makes a ton of sense for Apple as a business to sell their products at a premium and more sense still to release premium products for people to buy every year. But it makes no sense as a consumer to keep buying them cycle after cycle. I may get another two years out of this laptop, but my Mac has long since become useless to me.

[nicholassmith]

Not necessarily, I bought a Macbook just over 5 years ago off eBay that was about a year old, I gave it to my girlfriend. Still going strong, issues with the battery (not Apples fault, battery wasn't looked after) and maybe it needs some new RAM. My iPhone 1 went to my Mum, then my cousin, then my nephew. There was at least 3-4 years of life out of that.

I'll probably trade up my iPhone 4 to a 5 purely for the better camera to save lugging a DSLR as well, but then it'll go to my girlfriend and it'll get used for another year or two.

This is compared to having to constantly try and sort my girlfriends Android phone (she gave in just within a year of ownership and sold it), and the question I get every 14-18 months of "What laptop should I get? This one is so slow now".

Lifecycles are determined by the user, not by a company really, people who buy on cycles aren't being forced to buy it, they want to buy it.

[dserodio]

Android device's lifecycle is worse then iPhones: I replaced my (almost 2 years old) HTC Desire because it was stuck running Android 2.3.4 - thanks to Cyanogenmod, otherwise it would have an even older OS - which means security vulnerabilities like the recently found USSD "remote wipe by visiting a website" are exploitable.

[akadien]

I concur. My five year old iMac is just beginning to feel aged, whereas my two year old iPad and Mac Book are nearly ready for donation to the city. Thanks for sharing your positive experience with Amazon; that is helpful to me.