"stayed out of it" needs to be considered relatively though, doesn't it? I don't see Apple spending billions in capex on hyperscaler DCs, and apart from the weird product direction that is Image Playground most of their on-device AI is for genuinely helpful uses like smart removal from images and grammar improvements.
they never had my business; their style over all else along with the combination of planned obsolescence and conspicuous consumption are obscene misuse of the human heuristics.
In September they're bringing the latest major iOS version to the iPhone 11 which released 7 years ago. And from what I've seen on the iPhone 11 subreddit, it improves performance.
What other device manufacturer does that? The Google Pixel 4 released the same year dropped major OS updates after 3 years. Same for the Galaxy S10.
They're the company that builds laptops people still use 5-10 years later. If anything they've set the standard for long lifespans when it comes to tech devices.
N=2. My Inspiron 9300 Dell laptop from 2005 still works fine, although 32bit Windows 7 with 2GB of ram without an SSD makes it painfully slow by today's standards. In addition, I got a Lenovo Z710 from 2014 (replace my 9300) that still performs great, recently put Linux Mint on it and it feels like a new laptop.
I say that to say this isn't exclusive to Apple and I think your sentiment is mostly good marketing by them. No Apple hate here, enjoying my company-supplied MBP too.
Well you can still run Windows 11 rev 25H2 on a Intel/AMD 2016 hardware through easily forced upgrade or install (nocpu/notpm), did it this afternoon on an entry level Lenovo laptop i5-6200u based, while you can only upgrade up to MacOS Monterey (12.x) on a late 2016 macbook pro. So rather ~5 years than 10.
But thoses past "performances" might not reflect futures ones, yep.
Writing this on a 2010 pc bought cheap in 2012. Upgraded ram, ssd added, windows 7 to windows 10 with extended updates. Yes it's time to replace but they do last.
They also glued the short ribbon cable for the screen to the front of the iPod classic so that when the spinning HDD failed if you tried to open it and weren't very careful/aware of this it would rip off the motherboard.
There was a class action because they deliberately slowed down iPhones claiming it was for battery health (anecdotally, when I had iPhones I noticed they were always a a pain to use for a month before and after the new releases, but it could be in my head).
They solder in RAM so it's difficult or impossible to upgrade.
I have an M1 MBP and the battery life is half of what it used to be. However I also have Applecare so of course the battery health is stuck at 84% (fairly sure, but not totally sure, that it was at 82% a few months ago) because they won't replace the battery unless it's under 80%. A lot of people report the battery health getting stuck just above 80% if they have Applecare.
Their hardware is great, I agree with you, but let's not pretend they don't play that game.
Not to turn this into a Web fight or anything, but come on... Even my t420S from 2011 could be upgraded with ssd and more ram and is still used :). My daily driver is t480, 8 years old, my wive's x1 carbon 7 years old, with no intention of retiring either anytime soon.
The notion of Apple, of all companies, "setting standard for long span devices", is laughable to me as I look at my ipads no longer running old software I paid for and getting slower with every forced update.
Apple makes sexy devices that match many people's requirements. Good on them! But this continued notion they invented everything is grating.
This is a criticism I've never understood. I think I know what you're referring to, but it really says more about Apple customers than Apple the corporation.
In my opinion, for all its faults, Apple makes quality hardware that can last many years when treated well. Unlike Microsoft, they don't completely shift paradigms with every OS release or new doo-dad. My 7 year old Macbook is still perfectly usable, receives updates, and can run modern software. Although I don't own an iPhone, I haven't seen anything to suggest that they are built to be immediately obsolete. Just because many Apple users are addicted to having the latest thing doesn't mean that a several years old iPhone isn't still perfectly viable in 2026.