if the car was running iOS then it would inexplicably only be able to drive 30mph after 2-3 years despite being able to drive 120mph when brand new, and you can’t downgrade back to the faster mode or you’ll be incompatible with all the upgraded gas stations. 
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My understanding is that as of Win 8 / Win 8.1 Microsoft actually does force them (at least without a registry change). You have 72 hours of polite requests before it forces the issue. Not all updates, just critical ones–ie, those affecting security. I have no problem with it whatsoever myself, but there you go.
I forget all the issues I had with Vista–I actually still have it on one computer at work, but network copies in particular were often inexplicably slower at times and constantly hampered by arcane security settings. USB copying seemed to have some issues too. And drivers were slow to come out for many devices–or they just used the non-optimized XP versions, which added to the general kluge-feeling. It was not, in day to day operation, the complete and utter cluster people would have you believe, but Win 7 was an obvious and immediate improvement across the board in my experience both at home and work. I think Vista suffered from the popularity of its predecessor OS, along with the concurrent wider popularity of its competitor ("Hi, I’m a Mac!). And, Windows PCs were really getting hit with a plague of malware about then–and the plague of crap anti-virus software people shoveled into their systems became another layer of slowness–it was all a perfect storm that worked to highlight and even exaggerate the OS’s issues until Vista had an image problem it just couldn’t shake.
What you describe as an iOS problem sounds more like a common problem of basically all mobile platforms. My Nexus 7 ran like a top when new, but a couple of Android updates later, and there’s a noticeable delay even in unlocking it.
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I saw that with Android too. Pretty much everyone I’ve owned has just gotten slower and slower with each update. Not (so far) with my current Windows phone, though I’ve only had it a little more than a year–but updates so far have only made its already fast GUI faster, especially the 8.0 to 8.1 one.
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The real question is WHY does this happen? the hardware doesn’t get slower with age.
sure the new OS versions do require more resources because they are more bloated and have more advanced features, but not by that much, and those could be scaled back or disabled for older devices which cannot utilize most of them anyway.
The reality is more likely a carefully planned digital obsolescence. Would you really buy a new phone 2-3 years later if your old phone ran as fast as the day you bought it? When an industry cannot add direct value based incentives through new innovative features, then there has to be an alternative motivator for upgrading, even if that motivator is artificially constructed. I’m not saying they officially hobble older devices, although they may and i wouldn’t put it past them, it sure seems like they do. i do think that they intentionally don’t optimize for them which has the same net effect and that they embrace encourage this effect as it has a financial advantage to help them sell new hardware.
I hate to jump to a conclusion like that, but it isn’t even just speed.
the other day i was comparing the quality of the photos my iPad 2 took when i first bought it compared to now. the quality has dropped by at least 50%, and the camera hardware hasn’t changed one iota. Both major iOS updates notably decreased the camera quality (7 & 8), incrementally, immediately after the update, you could actually tell when i updated by examining my photo history solely based on image quality. many other users on the forums have noticed the exact same thing. it also has a significant lag on unlocking now. 
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Do you have a citation for that? It certainly hasn’t been my experience as a desktop user and I haven’t read it anywhere else. Although a) I usually install updates as soon as they become available and b) it is true for users of Windows 8.1 that, in order to keep on getting updates, you do have to install a cumulative update.
The driver issue is what I heard was the main thing with Vista, too. And you’re so right about how anti-virus programs slow down your computer. Unfortunately, if you’re running Windows, a good software firewall and a good anti-virus program are essential, IMHO.
Ack. You’re right, I was getting the 72 forced restart after update muddled up with it in my mind. Now that I’ve checked, you’re absolutely right, they don’t force updates if you’ve not set to have them applied automatically. They do force a reboot (within 72 hours) for some updates you do choose to install, though. Big difference.
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I don’t think it’s MOSTLY planned obsolescence, though I’m sure it’s a bit of that. Mostly it’s probably just lazy programmers, who want to keep their jobs and impress their bosses. Also, those bosses don’t want to waste their people’s time on keeping legacy hardware happy, they want to show off what the new OS can do on the new hardware. I think they mostly just don’t give a fuck about anyone not using a brand new phone. I think it’s just pure luck that the latest Mac OS X is so fast on old hardware. They seemed to have made it a bit sleeker and really cleaned up some things under the hood. That’s probably to help their new hardware perform even better until they can get the latest Intel chipsets on all of them.
As far as slow-down over time, that describes every pre-Win 7 computer. They just junked up eventually. I would tell people to just keep their stuff easy to migrate and pave the OS every 6 months to a year. Can’t say the same about other OS’s. Fire up any XP install that’s been in use over a year and you can just sit back and watch Windows thrash the hard drive for hours on end.
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There might be something to that. However, I can unabashedly say that I am delighted with the new Lightning connector for my phone. It doesn’t matter which way you plug it in and it beats the heck out of that previous fiddly thing.
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I agree with much of this, especially attributing it to lazy programming, which likely plays a role in a percentage of the issues, but it cannot account for all of them.
I would add that Apple is in a unique situation with iOS, there aren’t that many devices to test on and optimize for, and they throw a vast amount of resources at iOS, and could easily add full test cases and code exceptions to automate the optimization of the iOS code for older devices. They choose not to intentionally, which is a kind of plan, because it benefits them not to.
Ironically most of the lags and downgrades to my devices are not areas that would require resource intensive operations, or that should be affected by changes based on new hardware. I’ve wiped and done clean iOS installs and doesn’t help, so the problem isn’t with cruft either.
I agree that a reversible connector is excellent. The new USB connector standard is also reversible.
Too bad the Lightning connector is a fire hazard.
Yeah, that’s really what you want in a device that can kill people: the ability to download and use older, less secure/safe versions of the software, software made by random people, etc.
I generally get 7-8 years out of a machine, no problem. The 2006 iMac I just gifted to a friend served me well up until 1 1/2 years ago (with one ram upgrade), and still even played World of Warcraft just fine, and a few other games even. Had I been able to upgrade the GPU, it would still be sitting on my desk. This ain’t 1994 anymore. Getting 10+ years out of a machine is not absurd at all, given a few simple upgrades.
Yes, I was planning on building a PC. I can’t imagine what fancy new component I’m going to need on a PC over the next several years that a current mid-level motherboard is not going to support. It’s the meat and potatoes that get upgraded for me. RAM, disk (for latency and storage), GPU, and rarely, optical drives. All no-brainers, and all components that Apple should facilitate upgrades for (especially since they have been Intel for a decade now). If they really wanted to be environmentally responsible, they would allow people to keep their perfectly serviceable machines out of the landfills.
UI ≠ OS. And that old-style UI could be newer than the OS.
More dangerous, as the cartoon that was the subject of this article was satirizing, is a UI that is changed without telling the user. Witness iTunes for Windows ver 12 vs. the almost all the previous versions. No warning, no “what’s changed” welcome screen at startup, nothing.
Your 2006 iMac had a maximum RAM capacity of 2 gigs, or possibly 4 if it was late 2006 with discrete graphics. It can’t run the last few generations of OS X, and it also can’t run the latest versions of a lot of applications (such as Skype, which will nevertheless upgrade itself to a non-functional version). You may be happy with the performance of your machine, but most people won’t be, and Apple is in the business of selling massive quantities of a streamlined product line. They probably don’t care too much that they don’t cater to those at the extreme margins, especially when doing so will raise cost and complexity to their product lines. Most of their machines have everything on a single logic board, and even the Minis now have soldered RAM. Apple probably has a pretty good idea of just how many people actually upgrade their machines, and know that even if GPU upgrades were available for eight-year-old computers, most people would just scrap them and buy a new one if they felt it was too slow.
Your argument about the longevity of devices has more relevance for products made in the last few years, as increases in processor energy efficiency have largely trumped increases in raw computing power.
Cars in the UK tend to have very different UIs than cars in the USA. Citroens have famously quirky UIs. Some cars have complete hand controls. Early cars also had hand-operated throttles. There are column- and dash-mounted manual transmissions. Allowing people to completely customize their UIs doesn’t seem like a great idea. Hey, maybe we can downgrade our UI to the Audi 5000 version, with its incidence of unintended acceleration, and remove gearshift interlocks, too.
Yeah, but your LH Mini Cooper S can’t become a RH version overnight because of a software upgrade.
I thought we were talking about speculative fiction here, with electronic-based cars, push upgrades, and all sorts of things that don’t exist today (my LHD Mini doesn’t get pushed software updates, either). If car makers of the future can make both LHD and RHD units with identical hardware and only alter the software or firmware, they’re going to be more than happy to do so.
What makes you think that?
Please explain to me why they need to obviate user access to do this?
Disingenuous. As I would have upgraded the GPU about a year or two after I bought the machine 
. Again, obviously it isn’t too slow. Had it been, I wouldn’t be here discussing this with you. As it stands, the machine currently runs Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, LogicPro 8, Propellerhead Reason 3.5 (by choice), just fine. Up until I gave it away a year ago, I was using the machine to handle 16+ processed tracks of live audio simultaneously.
I’m not some penny-pinching extremist. There are a lot of Mac users who feel the same exact way. Why would I buy a machine that I can’t even repair the simplest failure or upgrade the simplest component myself? That aside, I believe the endless upgrade cycle is over for a lot of us. Unless you are a gamer with a lot of scratch, need a cutting edge machine for multimedia creation, or work in the the sciences, or some other obvious use-case I am missing, it’s likely that you can get a very long life from your machine, with a few minor upgrades.
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That’s actually a solved problem,
