The problem of so-called "planned obsolescence", defined as a strategy that aims to limit the life cycle of a product to a predetermined period so as to force the consumer to purchase a new device when necessary, is sadly known to many customers who, over the course of years and even in Italy, they complained so much that they led to class action against giants like Apple . Since the birth of smartphones, especially models with the Android operating tamilrockers.lv proxy system, the most "geeks" have, however, thought of doing everything possible to save older devices, extending their life beyond that designed by the company thanks to custom ROMs, such as the famous CyanogenMod.
The golden days of modding, however, they are already over and companies have acted to discourage this practice: OnePlus is perhaps the most striking example, given that the first model released in 2014 came with CyanogenMod 13 already installed and proclaimed itself as the smartphone designed specifically for modders. , inexperienced or marketingmediaweb not, but subsequently the brand followed the market standards and slowly abandoned this model.
To safeguard these strong principles of longevity and
support for devices declared "obsolete" are two realities in
particular: Fairphone, a brand linked to the ethical smartphone with self-
replaceable components , and LineageOS, a team born from the ashes of
CyanogenMod .
LineageOS, to guarantee a future for the oldest
LineageOS this early April has officially reached version 18.1 , equipped with the latest iteration of the operating system of the green robot, or Android 11, and divinebeautytips ready to support many devices including the now historic Samsung Galaxy S4 and OnePlus One. Knowing that the latter seven years after its launch on the market can upgrade from Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) to Android 11, considering the limitations of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chip and the components supplied, is certainly a bolt from the blue for fans of technology, yet it is reality.
The work of the LineageOS team is noteworthy not only for the nature of the entire project, but also for the effort that comes from their work: although Android is an open source operating system, ergo its source code is available to everyone for modifications nanobiztech and redistribution by one or more individuals, to make the OS work as in the latest generation smartphones, the device manufacturer, the Google Mobile Services provided by the Mountain View giant (so Play Store, Gmail and the rest are required) of the official Google app package) and the drivers for the supplied System-on-a-Chip (SoC) .
Consequently, taking OnePlus One as an example, it is techcrunchblog necessary first of all the support from Qualcomm for the SoC Snapdragon 801, which however remains officially stationary at Android 6. Here the LineageOS experts come into play who, through reverse engineering, builds newer chips for currently available chips try to get a new build that meets the needs of older devices . The final result is a driver package not provided by manufacturers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek but a build that is not completely stable and imperfect, which however can save a smartphone that has been declared obsolete.
Fairphone, a project for longevity and safety
At the same time, Fairphone follows the same idea globalmarketingbusiness from the point of view of the entire smartphone: relying on the work of the LineageOS community, the Dutch company works diligently to guarantee users the greatest possible longevity, stability, safety and ethics of the product offered to the consumer. It is at the end of March the announcement that Fairphone 2, smartphone launched in December 2015 and whose production ceased in 2018, has finally obtained the update to Android 9 thanks to LineageOS, but this would not be possible at all in the case of major brands such as Samsung, Xiaomi or OnePlus.
To give an example with the latter, in November 2020 Pete
Lau's company confirmed that OnePlus Nord N10 5G and N100 will only receive a
"major update"Android to Android 11, while minor security patches
will arrive for the next two years. A decidedly different model from the one
promoted by Fairphone, dictated by the needs of the mainstream market and,
above all, by the requests of chipset manufacturers since, as explained above,
Qualcomm and MediaTek guarantee support for their SoCs only for a limited
number of years depending on of the model concerned, preferring
top-of-the-range devices that guarantee them greater income.
Fairphone, however, explained, with a new video about the
update to Android 9 , a further aspect of the complexity of the operating
system updates : with each new version the automatic tests to be conducted
increase (currently about 480,000, as explained by Fairphone) to obtain Google
certification, which must necessarily cover both the hardware and software side
and therefore requires the total support of all the companies involved in the
creation of the device. The keystone of this "pass", therefore,
remains in the hands of the chip makers.
And here comes another rather dangerous problem: each update
includes security patches that protect the devicefrom potential attacks by the
malicious of the case, who aim to compromise the smartphone to obtain as much
data as possible on the victim and profit from it.
For more obsolete devices equipped with LineageOS or other
custom ROMs, the lack of fixes due to the numerous flaws that only chip
manufacturers can fix is another factor that pushes users to abandon old
devices in order to protect their data.
Between ethics and business models, where is the right choice?
It is for all the aforementioned reasons that the reality of
modding Android smartphones has slowly moved from covering almost every mobile
device on the market to covering only a small group of phones: the focus must
be shifted from smartphone manufacturers, considered by the average user. main
culprits of the "death" of their products, to the real protagonists
of the complex process of updates of the operating system, that is the
processor manufacturers, who, unlike Android itself, do not follow an open
source policy regarding the oldest chip drivers .
A more ethical smartphone market, such as the one promoted
by Fairphone, therefore seems particularly distant and with it also the decline
in annual electronic waste: data from the Global E-Waste Monitor 2020 revealed
that 53.6 million tons of e -waste , of which only 9.3 million have been
recycled, for an estimated growth of 74.7 million by 2030. With the sale and
consumption of more and more devices - especially smartphones, given their low
longevity - the amount of those thrown at the expense of the environment and
also of the entire market, given that we are talking about many precious metals
and recoverable materials such as iron, copper and gold, useful for producing
new components, which are increasingly scarce andrequire price increases for
devices .
The long-term problems appear to be multiple and all damage
the consumer's experience of use, should the situation remain the current one.
The business model of companies, however, is not yet focused on ethics and the
protection of the customer and the environment through ethical principles that
can support them and guarantee profits to companies at the same time.
Possible solutions for a fundamental market
Thinking of some solution is legitimate, although at present
they are hardly feasible: a very trivial example could be the standardization
of a Fairphone-style market , i.e. smartphones with interchangeable components
and whose recycling and replacement are carried out directly by the company. In
this case, however, the annual revenues for each big name in the tech world
would be considerably lower and the principle that every year several
top-of-the-range models are released to diversify the offer could be less.
By keeping the current smartphones instead, without
therefore following the modular road conceived by Fairphone, companies could
decrease the number of annual releases while guaranteeing greater longevity to
the products launched : if the advantage, of course, is mainly found by the
consumer due to less expenses. frequent to own a covered, stable and latest
generation smartphone, the disadvantage would be seen by the brands producing
components and devices due to lower sales. Otherwise, another possibility could
be a different warranty and customer support system, designed to cover the
device for a longer period of time or perhaps with different replacement /
return plans and costs.
Not being experts on the subject, however, it is difficult
to offer a complete solution given the complex nature of the problem: the
market for electronic devices, with particular attention to the smartphone
sector, is increasingly fundamental considering that they are now necessary
tools in everyday life. Thinking of substantial changes in the current model
proposed by each company involved in the production chain is difficult, since
it would be necessary to find agreements between all the pieces of the puzzle,
yet it is something extremely necessary.