Calling all mobile phone users - how long do you reckon your cell should keep working?
It's a serious environmental question in an age of disposal goods where tech is constantly being updated with jazzier models and some things are actually made so they cannot be fixed or updated.
Cantabrian Nic Smith has an iPhone 6 that does everything he needs; calls, email and apps, especially banking.
But things started to get a bit wobbly about six months ago, when his phone started sending him alerts that said its operating system no longer supported some of the applications.
Unable to update his phone, functions are now dying off.
But Smith is not impressed. He wants to know why he is forced to chuck out something that is technically not broken?
"It's very annoying. It's one of those things I use every day. I check my balance, move money around - and the same with the Smiles app, I used to use it to get better discounts on my petrol, and now I don't qualify for them because it just doesn't work any more.
"I'm from a generation - I'm 60 - everything used to last back in the 80s. I've got a washing machine that's 20 years old. I'm annoyed. These days you buy a T-shirt and you're lucky to get a year out of it, and you buy and then an iPhone and you're getting four or five years."
Smith said while batteries might need replacing, the cell phones themselves should be expected to last about 10 years.
"I just think that these companies have got this latest system going and they give up the people that have got old phones that need these phones. I think it's shocking - becoming a society of throw-aways.
"I've got doonas and doona covers I've had for 20 years and are lasting longer than an iPhone and I use them on a regular basis. It's just not good enough."
Auckland-based Gorilla Technology chief executive Paul Spain told Checkpoint different cell phone brands offered different levels of ongoing support, which usually varied from 1 year to 5 years.
"We've got the challenge - they're incentivised for your devices to not have a really long lifespan because you'll eventually replace - that's part of the challenge," Spain said.
"There's also a cost to making those updates available on older phones, and there is a limit on the newer features in terms of how compatible those will be on older phones."
Photo: 123rf
Whether apps would continue to operate with the old phones' systems was also very variable between the different apps.
"There's a blessing and a curse to the updates that our phones get - along the way we get the benefits of new features on a pretty regular basis, but the lights eventually turn out, and maybe a lot quicker than some of us would like.
"It really depends on the brand of phone that you buy and the operating system that it runs. Apple has traditionally been one of the best in terms of updates. So if you buy the latest iPhone, then in most cases if you buy it when it comes out you're going to have really good support and updates for around five years."
Second-hand phones or new-but-dated models would age out quicker.
And: "If you're buying Android, some of the Android phones are very limited in terms of their updates. You may only get a couple of years," Spain said.
New Zealanders might expect household appliances like a washing machine and drier to last for 15 to 20 years, and many cell phones are now in the same sort of price bracket - so should we expect the same lifespan?
Spain said another worthwhile contrast was the support for computer technology built into modern cars.
"Some people spend $100,000 or $200,000 on a car and find that now incorporates a lot of technology, but that there may be virtually no updates available in the vehicles.
"And really we've just began to see the beginning of an Apple-like update to the technology in our cars, over the last two years. Very few car makers are really doing much on that front - Tesla is the stand-out who are making an effort there, but that's not the car that the majority of people are driving."
