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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Privacy Guides
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I’m personally of mixed opinions about Garmin.
On the one hand, I think they make the best products. Both their hardware and software as far as fitness tracking features is just brilliant. Not having any subscription is also an absolute must-have for me.
On the other hand, they operate their no-subscription business model by being extremely stingy with software updates. You might get one year of feature updates to your watch or bike computer, and maybe some critical security updates after that. But that’s about it. Apple has a mostly-undeserved reputation for planned obsolescence, but Garmin absolutely lives by that model. Sure, my Forerunner 935 isn’t going to suddenly be able to do digital payments without an NFC chip in there, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t be able to guesstimate my heat adaptation or do the same Body Battery calculations that the device from one year later is capable of using the same wrist heart rate monitor.
I’m also not sure I’d trust them on privacy too much. I trust them not to deliberately send your data to anyone malicious, or even use the data indirectly for non-customer-centric reasons. Their business model is much more like Apple than Google or Facebook in that respect. And that’s certainly a very good thing from a privacy standpoint. But I don’t think they’re a company that takes security very seriously. The rumour is that they probably had to pay the ransom when they were hit by ransomware a year or two ago, because they lacked the technical ability to restore from backups (though we don’t know for sure if that’s what happened). And with lax security comes an enhanced risk of your data being obtained by malicious actors.
You may have a point about the obsolescence; my first VA4S got a stuck button about 10 months after purchase. That said, they did replace it with a new refurb for free when I reached out. Likewise, my wife's apple watch battery is getting worse and is only about 1.5 years old and her only option is to buy the latest model or pay $$$ plus enough fees that it's almost the same cost, (certainly not enough examples to generalize, but I've certainly formed my opinions from the experience).
The problem with Garmin is that they sell hardware, and pretty much only hardware. They'll deliberately hold back newer features in software in order to entice you to buy more hardware, because that's how they get their money.
I don't particularly begrudge them that, because as mentioned, it is their only real revenue stream. But it sure would be nice if they didn't.
How in the world do you figure Apple hasn't earned their reputation for planned obsolescence when they serialize every part in the device, don't allow for 3rd party repairs, constantly refuse to repair devices, constantly make them harder to repair, don't make absolutely any repair documentation available, sue the people who find said documentation and make it available, and send ICE to raid businesses who are able to actually get their hands on replacement parts?
Blinders are a powerful thing unfortunately.
Personally I wouldn't describe being against right to repair as the same thing as planned obsolescence. It's a bad behaviour, but a different category of bad.
Planned obsolescence is more things like failing to provide support (software updates—since hardware repairs or replacement type support are legally mandated in civilised countries, so that doesn't enter the equation) for the reasonable lifetime of the device—which in a smartphone is probably 3–5 years, or in the extreme case designing things to fail after a certain time.
The example a lot of people point to with Apple is the throttling that came out around 2017. But I don't agree that it's fair to characterise that as an example of planned obsolescence because in fact, it was something they did to extend the life of the device. Giving users the ability to make a fully informed choice for themselves would be much better, but taking action that they think will have a minimal impact on moment-to-moment UX while extending battery life could hardly be described as planned obsolescence.
And fwiw, I'm writing this from my Android phone. I'm not in the Apple ecosystem myself.
The fact is that is what apple says is the reason. Maybe they are trying to influence the user into buying new hardware by making the phone seem more sluggish.
I would. And I do.
I wonder if the guy making the 0xff grid phone knows anyone willing to make a fitbit equivalent