Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by emm 4422 days ago
I second that! It's an unnecessary date of expiry for hardware. You see that in every fitness armband and more and more apps. In two years ahead it could end up as a useless piece of electronics.

In the past we used cloud features for offline tracking in AR applications because an iPhone 3GS wasn't capable of real time pose reconstruction. But today it seems more like a lock-in and a way to collect data. A quad-core cpu on a phone should do most tasks offline.
1 comments
radiorental 4422 days ago
"In two years ahead it could end up as a useless piece of electronics."

I would argue your point is moot. How old is the average, working smartphone? When did you replace your desktop, your flat screen?

link
rubinelli 4422 days ago
Not every piece of hardware has to be replaced every 12-24 months. How often do you upgrade your digital thermometer? Your blood pressure monitor?
link
radiorental 4422 days ago
No, I'm not saying it does. Single fixed function devices seem to have a longer Mean Time Between Replacement.

I would argue that you're comparing apples to oranges here. Say Fitbit (of which I'm a user) came out with a new improved version that's more accurate, lasts longer between charges and tracks more aspects of my health. Would I replace it - yes.

When the device is part of a service, when you look holistically at the product as a service then I believe concepts such as 'date of expiry for hardware', 'it could end up as a useless piece of electronics.' are moot.

When you upgrade to the lasted version of an installed software application, and the previous .exe can't read the new file format is it 'a useless piece of software?'. Technically yes, so what is different here?

link