When is a ‘tech accessory’ actually obsolete?

[Jamo12]

Having looked throughout computer history, there is an interesting phenomenon that has been happening recently that has not happened before. It has to do with tech accessories. For the purposes of this thread, I consider a tech accessory a smaller computer that supplements a different one (think iPod, Fit-Bits, Apple Watch, etc.). All of these devices have some level of dependency on another more high-level device, but they also do their own thing.

Apple Watch needs iPhone
iPod needs a computer (notwithstanding iPod touch)
Fit-Bit needs some other device to use it (at least the screen-less ones do)

Many people have old iPods that work fine. My brother uses his iPod classic as his car’s music center. Some friends of mine use their OG, Series 0 Apple Watches with their new phones. My mother-in-law has a fit-bit coming up on 9 years old. All of these devices still work with modern ones.

iPods, especially, are interesting. Despite being 20 years old, Apple still supports every single one.

My question comes in here. At what point should a company no longer support these kinds of devices? Should they indefinitely as long as a tech accessory works?

Here is an example of something I haven’t quite developed an opinion on. Let’s say that the next MacOS update has a bug that causes the original iPod to only be able to sync songs starting with the letter “R”. Should Apple be expected to fix this bug when it affects a device that they no longer officially support?

 

[fatTribble]

I guess for me it comes down to the cost of maintenance versus the benefit to the customers. For the Watch, the code would likely have to limit or reduce functionality for older devices. That causes extra baggage in the code that makes future enhancements and maintenance more difficult. For products like the original iPods they are probably not doing any active software development on those apart from maybe some security of compatibility updates. So that’s probably not a big resource drain.

So i guess when supporting future release’s becomes sufficiently difficult because of the support for older models, it’s time to drop support.

Just my thoughts. And I have no visibility into how Apple supports software.

 

[compwiz1202]

Having looked throughout computer history, there is an interesting phenomenon that has been happening recently that has not happened before. It has to do with tech accessories. For the purposes of this thread, I consider a tech accessory a smaller computer that supplements a different one (think iPod, Fit-Bits, Apple Watch, etc.). All of these devices have some level of dependency on another more high-level device, but they also do their own thing.

Apple Watch needs iPhone
iPod needs a computer (notwithstanding iPod touch)
Fit-Bit needs some other device to use it (at least the screen-less ones do)

Many people have old iPods that work fine. My brother uses his iPod classic as his car’s music center. Some friends of mine use their OG, Series 0 Apple Watches with their new phones. My mother-in-law has a fit-bit coming up on 9 years old. All of these devices still work with modern ones.

iPods, especially, are interesting. Despite being 20 years old, Apple still supports every single one.

My question comes in here. At what point should a company no longer support these kinds of devices? Should they indefinitely as long as a tech accessory works?

Here is an example of something I haven’t quite developed an opinion on. Let’s say that the next MacOS update has a bug that causes the original iPod to only be able to sync songs starting with the letter “R”. Should Apple be expected to fix this bug when it affects a device that they no longer officially support?

If possible just rename everything to start with an R

 

[DeltaMac]

You asked about that "R only" situation with the software on an original iPod. Appe officially classes that iPod as obsolete, which for most purposes, means not supported in any way. If a new macOS update makes the old iPod behave badly, Apple is not going to fix the software to get that to work. The only possibility is a further update to the macOS with some fix that acccidentally also results in the original iPod working properly. There's no expectation that Apple would pursue a fix for any obsolete hardware.
"Obsolete" means no longer supported. That doesn't mean that hardware suddenly stops working, it just means that Apple will not pursue fixing issues that appear on hardware that is listed as obsolete.
I have an eMac, nearing 20 years old, probably obsolete for more than 10 years. But, it has an upgraded DVD burner, and I use it frequently to burn copies of a variety of CDs and DVDs - I have a use for it, which it continues to do very well. For me, that eMac is not obsolete.

IMHO, a tech accessory would be obsolete for me, when that accessory cannot do what I want it to do.

 

[eyoungren]

You asked about that "R only" situation with the software on an original iPod. Appe officially classes that iPod as obsolete, which for most purposes, means not supported in any way. If a new macOS update makes the old iPod behave badly, Apple is not going to fix the software to get that to work. The only possibility is a further update to the macOS with some fix that acccidentally also results in the original iPod working properly. There's no expectation that Apple would pursue a fix for any obsolete hardware.
"Obsolete" means no longer supported. That doesn't mean that hardware suddenly stops working, it just means that Apple will not pursue fixing issues that appear on hardware that is listed as obsolete.
I have an eMac, nearing 20 years old, probably obsolete for more than 10 years. But, it has an upgraded DVD burner, and I use it frequently to burn copies of a variety of CDs and DVDs - I have a use for it, which it continues to do very well. For me, that eMac is not obsolete.

IMHO, a tech accessory would be obsolete for me, when that accessory cannot do what I want it to do.

I second this.

A similar analogy might be iTunes to Mac/PC. Periodically Apple will do something that 'breaks' old versions of iTunes (10.6.1 and below). Then suddenly, some new update 'fixes' it.

There was a short period of time a few years ago where some Apple update caused old versions of iTunes to be unable to connect to internet radio stations. You could add PLS files direct, but the ability to select a station from the list was entirely broken. Later on there was some sort of update and all of a sudden old versions of iTunes could browse the list of stations again.

It's probably going to be like that. If the 'accessory' keeps working all fine and good. If it doesn't, Apple has no incentive to fix it - if they are even aware there was a problem to begin with.