Mild rant about electronics
I found myself in a rather silly situation, where I had to replace my perfectly capable smartphone. Even though its battery wasn't good after eight years - once I'd finished a carsharing trip two minutes before it died - the device was more than sufficient for all my use cases. I could take pictures, chat in instant messengers, browse websites, read emails, use an online bank, and so on. From that perspective, it totally satisfied my needs.
The issue that was bothering me more and more with time was that Samsung had stopped updating it. It'd been three years without general system updates and four years since the final android security patch. I read many opinions on that matter. It seems the so-called security experts agree that connecting an outdated gadget to the internet is a bad idea. Meanwhile, regular users on forums tend to believe that the risk is insignificant, but it sounds more like self-soothing and less like factual information.
Without having deep knowledge on the subject, I had to trust those who do, so I pulled the trigger and got a new smartphone. Even if the probability of an attack might have been low, these little devices have full access to our digital lives which are nowadays intertwined with our lives physical. In other words, the potential impact could be really high.
And you know what? I don't think that a lot has changed over eight years. Of course, a fresh clean device with more processing power is a tad smoother and a little faster, but not by "spend hundreds of euros on a new model" much. I genuinely wonder why some people replace them every year or two! I know that today both Samsung and Google commit to about seven years of updates, and that is a tremendous improvement over what I had.
Nevertheless, it's clear that those devices have plateaued, and hardly justify the upgrade. I believe I could easily have used my Galaxy S8 for at least 3 more years. It's ridiculous that we have to throw away working electronics just because the manufacturers stop delivering security patches. The same is now happening with Microsoft abandoning Windows 10.
Anyway, I hope my new gadget will serve me well. Given that all major manufacturers are trying to push a solution without a problem, also known as AI, it doesn't look like anything of value should appear on the market in the foreseeable future. My wallet appreciates that!
PS: Now this blog has a shorter domain: plastictre.es - thanks, tomf, for the idea!