I manage my schools IT - and when we started out a few years ago my board were pushing aggressively for Chromebooks. The service provider were talking about how they could roll out hundreds of Chromebooks at the touch of a button. When I asked about the lifespan of a Chromebook I got vague answers. I knew we would get a couple of years max out of each one so I instead pushed for much more expensive MacBooks. 5 years on and we are still using our original MacBook we got back then, with photoshop and other software.
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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x86 Macs are not the greatest example of longevity at this point.
Ironically the only way to use some old Macbooks these days is to put Chrome OS Flex on them. Apple is far more aggressive about killing off old hardware when it feels like it. You can still use them as-is of course but over time the browser and other web based apps degrade and refuse to work because of issues with TLS, CA certs (expired), discontinued backend APIs and unsupported web content APIs.
“These updates depend on many device-specific non-Google hardware and software providers that work with Google to provide the highest level of security and stability support,” said Peter Du, communications manager for ChromeOS. “For this reason, older Chrome devices cannot receive updates indefinitely to enable new OS and browser features.”
Bull. Shit.
I have an 8 year old iPad that can still use Amazon video and can still run Netflix, and google drops support for these computers as early as 3 years. I’m not an Apple fanboy but that is absolutely ridiculous.
Apple does the same thing if you don't already have those installed
My 2nd gen Apple TV is garbage. Nearly all the apps fail to load now. 🤷♂️… I suppose I can try jailbreaking it but it sure feels like someone is trying to force me to upgrade my hardware.
I will give credit to Apple on that one because android phone manufacturers are now supporting their phone for longer because of how long Apple is supporting them.
I remember back in the day when I had apple devices where they would push updates for devices long past their capability to actually run the updated software. Rather than refuse the update or get a pruned patch with security fixes only, it would force updates and bloat your phone and grind it into unresponsive unusability after a few years.
I hear that's not so much the case anymore, so that's nice. But I remember. The main reason I upgraded my phone was because of that, the hardware was great, but I could hardly use the software anymore even after clean installs.
My point being, I guess, extended support is great if managed properly but it can also become a bludgeon with which to drive you toward the new generations of devices.
long past their capability to actually run the updated software
Well, Apple intentionally slowed those devices down to make the users update, instead of using an insecure device, that would've provided a good experience otherwise.
And these days Apple is retiring devices arbitrarily for profits too. For example this year they are retiring the Iphone 8, which has better hardware, than the ipad 2018 that is still being supported...
That slowness was, at least officially, for the battery health. Do you have the support to prove otherwise?
And then if I recall correctly (though I can’t be bothered to look) didn’t they get sued for slowing phones?
So people were mad that their phones battery wasn’t holding a charge anymore, “im being forced to upgrade”, so Apple throttled older phones to keep the battery running, aka allowing people to keep their phones longer, and then they got sued for slowing down phones lol.
I am an apple fan boy, I wont hide that. But it does seem like they tried to do a “good” and make peoples phones last longer, and then got sued.
Also the whole forced upgrade just isn’t apples game IMO. Do they want you buying the new one every year, of course. But the more important thing is that you keep using AN iPhone at all. Stay in the ecosystem, stay in the app store, stay paying for icloud, etc.
Going to a new phone gives the user a window to move away from IOS. (Though most won’t haha)
This sounds like there's a market for a Linux distro that behaves like ChromeOS and can be centrally managed.
The problem comes down to education institutions. I remember when we got Chromebooks in my highschool (8 years ago) admins forgot to turn of developer mode and half the school unenrolled the Chromebook managing to bypass all restrictions. This went on for half a year until one day our school needed to run a state exam (more for measure of schools performance not as a college entrance exam or anything).
The computerized testing program required deploying a specific chrome app accessible when chrome book is logged out (can't just download from chrome web store). When they tried to push the client since half of Chromebooks were unenrolled it failed. This required the school it to recall pretty much all chrome books to manually re enroll all of them and disable developer mode (prevents unenrolling and prevents sideloading Linux).
Problem is if older Chromebooks are used for Linux in an educational environment there would be nothing stopping a student from whipping up a bootable USB and dumping another distro (bypassing restrictions). I'm also not sure if there is a enrollment mode equivalent Linux (there may be but not sure).
At least that's my two cents (not a school it admin just a memory from the past 😉).
I never really understood the need for that strickt controll of the hardware... Who cares if Linux is sideloaded or if students unenroll. Imho I think if you need that strickt controll you are bound to get so many unnesseary issues down the line. Instead let student 6se what ever the fuck they want and for security just make sure they WiFi/ethernet is secure and locked down and any services the students need are behind a secure 2fa login. Treat any device as untrusted is more healthy for your security in the long run imo. If students need special software that they can't run on their own machines you can lend them a machine for that specific task for a specific time. Problem solved.
I never really understood the need for that strickt controll of the hardware
Federal laws and rules for educational technology:
CIPPA - https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act
COPPA - https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-coppa
and to an extent
FERPA - https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html