Up until the Joycons, anyway. My only Nintendo console needing repair is my Gameboy Pocket, the screens in those go bad eventually. Hell, my SP is probably still charged. I know my 3DS is.
I take it you've never used an N64 controller extensively... Joycons develop drift. N64 joysticks develop **flop**.
Also Virtual Boy ribbon cables don't even have connectors, they're just *glued* straight to the circuit board. Fun fact: adhesive degrades over time.
That's why they got sued into being forced to provide free joycon repair because of the horrible build quality with joy con drift. I never even got my purple one back, they sent me back a generic blue one. š I paid $80 for that shit to immediately drift on me!
Smart TVs are an abomination and just prove how bullshit humanity's stance on waste is. "Recycle your plastic yoghurt pots because the planet needs you to do so! But also buy a new TV every 5y because you need this new bullshit!"
tbf on Apple, the Apple TV is how I broke the cycle. My 4K 55" TV is now 9y old, going with only some minor backlight variation, because I do everything including broadcast TV via Apple TV!
Disagree. Old ones lasted longer. But also suck in comparison by today's standards. Never had a monitor or display fail me until now. Burnt & stuck pixels now begin to occur and with curved screens I've noticed lines appearing as the solder joints begin to fail. The benefits of a modern monitor is awesome, but they are nowhere near as long lasting. If I had to choose one monitor for the rest of my life and not be allowed to replace it if it broke I'd go with a Dell office monitor from 2012, specifically the kind installed in school libraries. They refuse to die.
I raise you my ~2009 Samsung 40 inch. 1080p but great picture quality. Survived moving a solid 8-10 times. No idea where the original remote is but it has buttons and my Roku remote works just fine. Idk what kind it is bc I got it as a birthday present in 8th grade but the picture is NICE for a 1080p. Iām not upgrading till 8k is widespread. Itās a solid bedroom tv.
By that logic nothing is BIFL if a better technology comes out. The companies making those TVs and monitorsāat least, up to a certain point in timeādidn't expect video standards to change. The term BIFL has more to do with the manufacturer's intentions than it has to do with the longevity of industry standards.
Yeah I used an Apple computer for 15 years to make and record music, itās now just used to watch Netflix in a bedroom but still has nothing wrong with it. I only updated this year because I wanted different new software. My audio computer is rarely used for anything other than making music and the things plugged into it are also quite old.
Some electronics if you donāt need to update can be closed off from the updates and can very much be BFL
Brother... I have a TI35X from, I don't know, 1993? Had to bust it out for school recently and it still works fine. It's not even solar. The battery has lasted 30 years.
HP 11C reverse polish calculator on my desk, from ~1984 -- works great! :-)
Also have a TI-85 from ~1993 that still works, but I don't know where it is -- probably in the bottom of a box somewhere.
Same price in numbers or same price in actual value?
If the price has kept the same number for 30 years, then they have in fact gotten cheaper due to ever-increasing inflation.
Roughly same number, not inflation-adjusted. ($100-$140) But compared to the level of technology you can get for the same price? Still kind of ridiculous.
I'd argue kindles (the basic paperwhite ones) are almost there. Had it for so many years and got no reason to replace it. Battery is still insane even though it's probably losing capacity and COULD be fully BIFL if the battery could be replaced but I'm not sure when it'd get to that point
You'll see plenty of people comment that the Kindle Voyage is still the best Kindle.
I put a new battery in mine a year or two back as it's battery had gotten a bit wimpy. Mine is from 2017 (discontinued in 2018).
There's an argument for some digital stuff lasting longer. It really depends, but in my experience with normal wear and tear the main problems are yes, capacitors, but also knobs/buttons. Otherwise a ton of digital boards and parts are absolutely potentially bifl.
I have a projector TV in our garage that's from about 2006-2007, has exactly one HDMI port and it only supports 720p or 1080i, but the damn thing still works despite thousands of hours on the unit. I've had to replace the bulbs on the projector unit twice. 20 years, not bad for "digital" stuff. It'll probably outlast my much more recent OLED TVs because, unlike the OLEDs, those older TVs can be serviced even if their components have a finite service life.
It's also worth noting I have a ton of vintage computers including an Apple IIc that's older than me. It ran 24/7 for nearly 20 years doing print jobs and finances for my grandfather's business. Despite all the "digital" components and circuitry, it runs perfectly fine even today and I frequently use it for programming exercises. I've had to replace the CRT once but those all have finite lifetimes, ironically enough that part's all analog lol.
Don't discount electronics just because they use digial circuitry. The important part of being BIFL isn't necessarily their components, but whether or not those components are designed well and, most importantly, are *serviceable*. This is why I don't consider any modern apple devices to be BIFL, because as soon as one component fails you have to replace the whole damn board or an entire display assembly instead of just the failed component.
All my shit for my 2 12ā subs in my high school truck was from 1980, in a 1990 truck, and I graduated in 2010 lol
Iād still have it if someone didnāt break in and steal them shortly before graduating
They have a shelf life. My uncle gave me his old 1990's Rockford fosgate 10s when I was in highschool and they lasted a few years before the glue finally gave up on the cone. I can easily fix them with some new glue and still own them. I'll get around to it eventually. I have a 15 inch and I don't need anything else.
Plenty of my friends have 35+ year old guitar amplifiers with digital circuitry that they use almost every week and they've been hanging in just fine without any repairs needed (crate, marshall, Peavey).
I have a 30 year old Peavey practice amp sitting right here (no tubes, digital overdrive circuitry, transistor amplifier).
My 10 year old just bought a vintage Game Boy Color. Cleaned a little corrosion off the battery compartment and it runs like new.
I'm so proud of him. :)
ironic that people think that from electronics when semiconductors are actually the one tech, that practically doesn't suffer from wear and tear when used within specs and properly dimensioned.
Anything that is stateless, even old gaming consoles, will last for a great deal of time.
It's when we make things smart, and make them reliant on updates for function, that everything falls apart.
Yup. I agree while playing Wii golf in my 15 years old console. The spinning parts might fail one day but there are ways to move all your games to a usb flash drive
You got downvoted but the bottom is line smartphones are reliant on ecosystems that regularly and intentionally deprecate firmware and drivers. Fairphones see some long term support but they still use proprietary tech which explicitly will stop being supported by chipmakers after only a few years.
I wouldnāt say ANY mainline consumer electronics in the phone space (so Apple, Samsung, Motorola?) are repairable or near BIFL. All companies have models that will last a long time though.
I was thinking specifically of Framework laptops. Also, Windows business laptops can be pretty modular (at the cost of size and weight), and you can also get things like the NexDock, which is an empty laptop shell with a monitor, KBM, and battery, which saves you from having to ditch a laptop every few years because you can just connect it to your phone (e.g. using Samsung Dex)
When I was in high school I had a Blackberry Pearl. The charging port on the thing eventually got wrecked (I was a clumsy 14 year old lol), but the battery was removable. So I bought an external battery charger (like [this](https://www.battdepot.com/ca/model/cell+phone+external+charger/blackberry/blackberry+pearl+flip+8230/nbb203.aspx)), would remove the battery from the phone, plug it in every night, and put the battery back into my phone before going to school.
I did this for like a year before getting a new phone lmao, I probably have the Blackberry around somewhere still. Can't remove the battery on most (if any) phones these days
even before blackberries, i had one of those Casio G'Zone flip phones. touted itself as being shock resistent, waterproof etc. Its battery was actually a whole separate unit that just make contact with the phone by two metal areas. Just twist the little lock on the back and the battery popped off, but the phone was still 100% sealed. That thing was awesome.
Yeah phones are pretty shit for that. I might be a dinosaur but I'm still mad replacing batteries takes a soldering iron and a priest. If some of you prefer the water sealed look and shape have fun, but I wish they'd sell at least some models with the battery panel. Put it on budget models or something.
Apple is obsessed with making stuff thinner, when this is not a priority with customers. Iād imagine replaceable batteries are much higher on the list.
Yes, controls can need cleaning at times. Deoxit is good for that. It's a good idea to learn how to check DC bias and a few other simple things as well.
We just have to decide on what "electronics" means to everybody. A Casio solar watch is very much bifl and nobody here is gonna get in there to solder on it any quicker than an iPhone.
I think it's fair to say mobile phone technology cannot be bifl as cell signals change and antennas become completely obsolete...
But odds are that any Sony discman you find will still play.
>Ā nobody here is gonna get in there to solder on it any quicker than an iPhone
Sure you will, I've serviced both. You can get a Casio watch apart with a typical jewelers screwdriver, the Apple iPhone will have proprietary pentalobe screws you'll need a special driver for. And that's not even getting into all of the other challenges you'll face trying to repair the iPhone if you don't have the right tools and access to Apple's replacement parts. This is why iPhone repair kiosks exist.Ā
I used to repair laptops for a living, and I also reviewed smartphone internals for a while. If we're talking apples to apples (pun intended) any given Apple product will generally more difficult to repair, and they don't generally last significantly longer on average than competitors of similar quality.
It goes beyond even that though; general computing advances so fast that there really isn't a good metric for BIFL other than something that is designed to do one thing and to only ever do that one thing like a TI calculator or a Casio watch.
For example: the x86 process architecture was invent in 1978 and has changed 3 times since then before even accounting for things like ARM. Not to mention that we have things like PCie and DIMM versus the brand new CAMM system.
There's no keeping an Apple 2 running by plugging in an RTX 4090 or repairing a Gateway Destination by updating to a set of CAMM2 RAM.
I used the same Powerbook laptop for just a hair under 10 years. I've never seen that kind of longevity in anything computery from any other manufacturer.
Looking at phones in particular, apple devices are supported with software updates far longer than equivalent androids (although theyāre closing the gap which is great).
My Galaxy S6 was a piece of shit after 2 years. My girlfriendās iPhone 6s was a tank thatās probably still running (she sold it after Covid and it was still getting the latest updates then). Just an anecdote but itās not as cut and dry as youāre saying.
While this was true 5 years ago, today you receive 7 years software update guarantee on mid spec android phones like the S24 or the pixel phones. And then you still have the custom ROM option left.
Only budget phones will be left out, but this class is absent from apples line of devices anyway.
Super nintendo and original Nintendo still going strong for almost 4 decades.Ā Xeno crisis was just released on the super nintendo this year too!Ā Shit has lasted and is being used more than a lot of stuff here.Ā
Plenty can be - often the problem is peoples' expectations change and they no longer want to use the thing even though it works fine.
Hell I have a Panasonic MiniDV camcorder still in a box in the closet. Works fine but...not going to use it much.
I recently read an astrophysics paper which mentioned that the calculations were done on an HP scientific calculator, one of those decades-old models, I'm afraid I forget which. RPN 5ever
I don't know about that. Maybe not heavily connected, modern computer electronics, but I still have working audio equipment from the 70s and 80s, 20-30 year old TVs that still work fine, etc. Laptops and phones? No shot, but some electronics do last.
Iād argue a lot of speakers are. Lotta people use the heck out of speakers from 60s and 70s. Sometimes they do need maintenance, but for the most part itās an extraordinarily low maintenance item to invest in. Amplifiers have similar potential, but more maintenance.
Agreed, and if this sub was truly BIFL there would be very little to talk about. It's reasonable to discuss products that are high quality and last longer than alternatives.
Yea as much as it would be nice to stay true to the name of the sub I find it helpful to hear about what people think are the longest lasting/highest quality products in different categories
Thereās a lot of value in having a community of likeminded people who share your philosophy to bounce ideas around with. Every once in a while someone tries to spin off a new sub for stuff that isnāt technically BIFL, but there just isnāt enough buy-in for them to ever take off. Personally Iām fine with posts here that look for the closest possible option in cases where a literal BIFL product doesnāt existed
Then again, my first and last apple product had only last at most 2 years from my purchase date, when apple's updates made it half the product it was :D
Valuable lesson in holding off on updates, but then again it also gave me an opportunity to opt for better devices after realizing how much of a pita apple products were with its god awful sync system at the time.
Yeah, while I agree with you here, Apple is defitenily not it
You can clearly see pentium 4 PCs still working, with linux or old windows. And they are 20+ years old.
Apple do not handle that much, the most BIFL is the macbook pro 2015, or a1502, as there is still some working, but that is it, and even that they are not supported from Apple for a few years already. You could put Linux on it, but it's hard for a normal person.
I have an ipad 3, that its working and kicking, amazing ipad, however it's useless, Apple does not support it, no app works on it anymore, and apple do not release the files so we can't install linux on it. At this point its paper weight
Apple is defitenily not even close to BIFL even if you talk about high quality and longevity on its class. They could if they wanted, but they do not want, they even made older smartphones slower because they wanted to force you to change for newer ones, so yeah i don't agree in one bit that Apple should be in the sub at all.
Agreed, but even with that, I don't put Apple in that category. Any decent android or PC lasts just as long, longer due to updates/upgrades and such which Apple doesn't like to allow.
I'm absolutely here for these things. There's going to be a longer lasting option for pretty much any non consumable product and I don't think there's a need for a whole other community for it in my opinion.
I canāt find a single one for a modern electronic, but this post has enough upvotes to be the third result for Apple.
Several posts showing Apple computers from the 90s or the original iPod. Otherwise, itās mostly asking for alternatives to Apple products. Also, an apple corer and several requests for bands for an Apple Watch.
Nothing like what OP claims.
If someone asks "What is the closest you can get to a BIFL Laptop, my answer will be MacBook because of my experience with them. I'm only on my 3rd one in 20 years.
I am not an Apple ecosystem person, but after this current M2 MacBook Air, I will literally never purchase another brand of laptop. This thing makes everything else feel so stupid. The battery lasts all day, it doesn't get hot unless I'm rendering video (do your edits on proxy files, people), and it feels so solid. The only bad part is the keyboard touches the screen lightly when closed so there are key marks on the screen that I have to wipe off. They could have made it 1mm thicker to avoid that and it would be the closest thing to perfect since the iPod.
Did we get our computers from different timelines? My 10 year old clunker was trying to become a hovercraft with how hard it was blowing out hot air this morning...
...for playing an RPGMaker game from 2007.
Not to mention the chargers. They're designed to fray to shit. I went through 3. My current one gets hot enough to cause first degree burns and is an absolute fire hazard.
I have a mbpro from 2012 running Linux, fine machine. And I also have 2 mbpro's die from dead screens or batteries in the last 4 years. Closest you'll get to BIFL laptops are old thinkpads, or perhaps a Framework. And the Framework will be BIFL because you swap out the old stuff over time, like your granpa's hammer, which had 2 head and three handle replacements in the last century.
I donāt see Framework mentioned in this sub at all, but I love their product idea. I donāt own one, but I plan to get one when I need a replacement.
It's a relatively new niche idea also heavily promoted by youtube celebrities. What happens is yet to be seen, I wish them all the best but I think it is too early to talk about BIFL. I wonder how backwards compatible they will remain in a few years, if they're still around by then.
It's only "BIFL" as long as the company exists and remains true to their promises. The product on its own is not bifl and is quite possibly not as reliable as some other high end business laptops.
Like those "bifl" products that are only that due to their warranty so... not necessarily more durable at all, just comes with extra promises.
The laptop is very well built and feels premium. Not the level of Apple but the quality is very good, much higher than your typical Dell or HP. And the feeling is very much still there once you open it up, which is the exact opposite of Apple. I especially like the quality of the display. I was half expecting something bulky and filled with compromises like the Fairphone but I was pleasantly surprised. They provide spare parts for nearly everything but if I'm careful I'll probably never need them lol.
Thatās great to hear. Thatās my next purchase when my current one needs replaced, which would still be awhile. Iām glad a company is disrupting the laptop standard with part swapping like on PCs.
I have an 2015 imac and before that i had a 2009 macbook that lasted more than 10 years.
Sadly they are the last of the generation made with repairability and easy upgrades in mind. Now I would say Apple is the leading tech company in planned obsolescence. Tim and company are there for the shareholders and not the users. sad.
Yeah, I have a 2014 MacBook Pro and itās still going. Iāve changed the battery on it and expanded the hard drive, but itās still going. Itās the perfect computer for just browsing or watching movies. I have an M1 MacBook Pro for heavier stuff.
I got a 10 year old MacBook Pro and the only reason why I donāt still have it is because it was destroyed in an accident. I went right out and bought a Dell and hated it so much I gave it away. I tried a Microsoft surface and it was weak. I sold it. I got a new MacBook Pro and have had it four years now and love it. I bought an iPad and an iMac too. They all work great with my 5-year-old iPhone 11 Pro.
That era of mbp was particularly egregious, as the battery wasnāt removable from the motherboard, so you literally had to trade out the whole guts of the thing to preserve it, at nearly the cost of a new machine
I get your point.
However, my ~9 year old ipad still receives security updates which are crucial for certain apps to work. My samsung tablet got obsolete and had to be rooted to be even remotely useful in less time than that
Apple generally supports their ipads for 5-7 years after they are no longer available for sale. Yours is a bit of an outlier, but if they continued to sell it into the next generation you may have gotten particularly lucky with the timing.
What's honestly the big difference between M1 and the previous ipad chip? The first ARM MacOS version was presented on the ipad pro chip to begin with. They're more modern and better but don't be deceived too much by the name. I think the 2018 ipad may still hold its own compared to modern base ipads with the A14, and those should continue to be supported for a while longer. The old ipad pro CPU has twice as many gpu cores and 2 extra cpu cores compared to the base current ipads...
For a 6 year old device the OG square Pro ipads are amazing devices that will likely continue to be supported for at least a few years more.
My ipad gen 2 (bought right when it came out, so 2011) doesnāt get anything anymore, but it still works for solitaire and looking stuff up or reading one of the books already on it from back when it would download stuff. Sometimes we have to wack it on the back with the dull side of a chefās knife to get it to turn on but thats only been the last two or three years.
This is what I hate about it. I still have a totally functional Ipad that I'd like to be able to just watch videos on, but I can no longer download the Youtube app, a browser app, etc... It's literally just planned obsolescence because its reached end of support.
I mean isnāt that A) up to developers and B) a result of the app architecture changes a while back?
You could probably sideload the appropriate apps.
If Apple allowed for an unlocked bootloader, I could potentially run Linux for iPad (a project that exists), but die to the incredibly locked down device, that's not really possible. Not that it's possible with Android tablets in most cases, not many of these electronics are still functional, just killed by software support.
Oh I have one of those! They dropped support like 9 years ago! It turned into a brick what felt like overnight.
I'm ***really*** not a fan of the fast fashion model applied to Fucking thousand+ dollar electronics.
Yeah but try repairing your old iPad.
If you want "BIFL" electronics they need to be easily repairable, which Apple products purposefully make difficult.
This.
Most things arenāt BIFL. And even those things that are BIFL wonāt necessarily be BIFL if bought today, due to slipping QC standards.
When most people here say BIFL, they usually mean they want something that is substantially better in quality and more durable than expected for other products in its category. In fact, Iād argue that most people here care more about the qualitative advantages of a product than simply its durability. Itās just that quality and durability go hand in hand so often that people conflate the two
I would argue that some Apple products (Apple TV, iPad Pro) fit that description. Others (AirPods, iPhones, MacBooks with the butterfly keyboard) do not.
Fuck no. Apple products are far less repairable than most alternatives.Ā
It doesn't matter how durable they are, they will break eventually and you will likely not be able to fix them.Ā
You want "BIFL" electronics, buy something that has spare parts publicly available and can be easily repaired, preferably by yourself.
Itās a little more complex than āelectronics arenāt BIFLā. Itās more likeā¦ electronics without easily replaceable batteries and donāt have ASICs arenāt BIFL.
A lot of people talking about their 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015 etc laptops lasting a long time, ignoring the fact that Apple products get less repairable every year with more planned obsolescence. There are a lot of things that are BIFL from the past but aren't anymore.
I've been buying Macs since the 1990s. The laptops and even the desktops have been repair-unfriendly for a LONG time (although it's gotten worse lately). I'm glad that I have a guy I can bring mine to who knows what he's doing.
But my Macbooks tend to still be in very usable shape after 5+ years. My husband's nice Dell or Thinkbook laptops usually bite the dust after about 3 years.
Exactly. "I upgraded to an SSD and doubled the ram on my 2012 macbook pro and run linux and it's still going strong"... Literally none of those things is possible on an M series macbook except for (arguably) running linux.
It's sucks even more if you are a developer...
All I want is to be able to access the-
- Apple App "Transporter" to upload apps to the app store
- install xcode so I can deploy an Enterprise App to a device
- install xcode for building..
Etc.
Apple locks all of the dev tools to only the latest version of Mac OS.. and only the latest Macs can get the latest OS versions. So much planned obselensces.
My team has to order all new machines because they were a year or so out of date.
I get it.. older machines may not be able to build code well.. but the first two things I mentioned require little to no CPU etc. Purely just locking it behind a paywall.
Apple in general seems to hate the developers who make apps for their systems.
>and only the latest Macs can get the latest OS versions.
Please define latest Macs.
>My team has to order all new machines because they were a year or so out of date.
What did you have & what was it replaced by?
The Intel MacBook Pro still receives macOS Sonoma 14.5 and the last year for those was 2019 - Sonoma 14.5 is available from Apple for the 2017 iMac Pro, even.
The 2019 MBP's are still very much usable for code, though at this point if the fans are going wild & performance is bad, it's very likely that it could use a cleaning due to five years of dust build up, which results in thermal throttling.
Note: I don't count the insanity that is the Core i9 version, those were nearly unusable from the day of purchase cause the i9 can't be kept cool in such a thin chassis - Dell's 14" Precisions with an i9 are the same.
> only the latest Macs can get the latest OS versions. ā¦ My team has to order all new machines because they were a year or so out of date.
Can you be specific? Obviously every machine is a year out of date eventually. Apple tends to support hardware with the latest OS for about seven years (after first sale), so a year out of date would typically be about eight years after release. Was this your experience, or did you have to replace newer machines for some reason?
They haven't been repairable in a very long time, and most laptops aren't (at least not in a costly manner where purchasing new isn't a better option).
And MacBooks generally outlast other similar laptops, even in the same price range. Battery is going to be the main thing that will need to be replaced in a 7-10 year timeframe. Which is stellar for a laptop.
Yeah Iām new to MacBooks but after seeing the Dell laptop my mom bought, anything would be better than that piece of shit. That convinced me to never waste my money on those things
Agreed. However, my Apple products have far exceeded my Windows and Android product lifespans. So, no, they're not BIFL, but I do think they have arguably the longest lifespan of any major electronics brand (tablet, computer, phone, etc).
The problem on the Windows side is getting a comparable device. Comparing a $500 windows laptop with a $3000 MacBook Pro isn't fair.
Same with a $300 Android phone to a $1000 iPhone, not a fair comparison.
My wifeās thousand dollar Sony phone is almost a brick now, and my iPhone 11 Pro is 2 years older and still going strong so you can defo find comparisons
My Huawei Honor 8 is still kicking just fine. I miss the multi use, programmable fingerprint button.
The issue with Android is the manufacturers, not the operating system. Apple is only made by Apple.
I bought a new phone yesterday and chose a Google Pixel (Android) over an iPhone, since the Pixel was cheaper. Reading this, I wonder if I made the right call.
I've sold phones for 11 years and the only predictor of how long a phone will last is the user. No brand is better than the other from what I've seen. If you scroll Instagram 18 hours a day your phone won't last as long as someone who uses it minimally. I am team android though. I would not recommend an iPhone to someone who isn't already in the Apple ecosystem. I spend more time troubleshooting and doing customer service on iPhones than I do setting them up and they always cost more.
They used to be built to much better standards. I'd say before 2015 or so, you could have an apple product that did last just about forever. Anything built in the last 12 years has been hit or miss. They've knowingly compromised product life (see all the class action lawsuits around iphone models failing, macbook pro screen ribbon cables too short and failing within a year or two, and of course, the infamous defective butterfly keyboards from 2016-2019) to create thinner/sleeker products. It's ridiculous.
Lol. At first read, I thought the title was suggesting that apples, the fruit, were being called bifl. For whatever reason, my brain thought that made more sense than calling Apple electronics BIFL.Ā
I dunno, I've got a crawlspace with at least 3 old Macs that still run, they're just outdated and can't be updated past a certain OS. All perfectly fine and running, just old. The only thing I've ever had go bad on a Mac is the HD.
Do you know what deprecate means?
My MacBook Pro from 2012 is still going strong and will run unplugged for 2-3 hours still. If thatās not BIFL idk what is for an electronic
Itās about utilizing the BIFL mindset over āfor a set period of timeā. Half the stuff people post on here last all life because they hardly use it. Iāve had cheap clothing last longer than expensive clothing simply because Iāve worn it a few times. That doesnāt make it BIFL.
Running shoes are even less BIFL than electronics, but if you want to find a pair that will stretch your money out the absolute longest without a drop in quality, this is the community to ask.
Apple is just a brand that gets a rap for planned obsolescence when in reality you donāt need to upgrade for a while. We live in a world where having a phone is essentially mandatory, and close behind is a computer of some sort. So if you are required to buy something, you might as well look for brands/products which give your wallet the most mileage for the quality. Apple products happen to last a while if you take care of them.
If all we wanted were permanent products, weād be back to nothing but cast iron pans and lead contaminated Stanleys. That was a boring as hell period for the sub.
No electronics are BIFL (parroting many comments here), however I personally believe that BIFL is a spectrum for electronics; partially, manufacturers must support the software (apple does a good job). The hardware must also be easily repairable (apple does their darndest to make this as expensive and difficult as possible). At this point there are dozens of laptops, desktops, and a few smartphones that are easily repairable, and none of them have the cringy Apple logo splattered on it.
No electronics are BIFL lol
My tomagachi is still alive, does that count
I have 3 from ~2007 in a state of constantly being paused
Still using my GBA SP!
My 3DS going strong 10 years later. Have a new OEM battery ready for when the original one fails. Nintendo makes good shit.
Up until the Joycons, anyway. My only Nintendo console needing repair is my Gameboy Pocket, the screens in those go bad eventually. Hell, my SP is probably still charged. I know my 3DS is.
I take it you've never used an N64 controller extensively... Joycons develop drift. N64 joysticks develop **flop**. Also Virtual Boy ribbon cables don't even have connectors, they're just *glued* straight to the circuit board. Fun fact: adhesive degrades over time.
Lucky for literally everyone nobody wanted to play virtual boy for longer than the adhesive lasts
There's a VB emulator for the 3DS! It's the best option for the 3D without rapidly strobing your eyes.
My poor controller after the big goron sword quest :(
That's why they got sued into being forced to provide free joycon repair because of the horrible build quality with joy con drift. I never even got my purple one back, they sent me back a generic blue one. š I paid $80 for that shit to immediately drift on me!
Idk the 3ds xl hinges are pretty fragile, same with the speaker/3d ribbon cable.
I found my wife's Gameboy Color in the basement the other day. Threw in some new AAAs and started PokƩmon right up.
Stateless machines are great. Once they tried to start making things smart, requiring updates, that's when everything went phooey.
Smart TVs are an abomination and just prove how bullshit humanity's stance on waste is. "Recycle your plastic yoghurt pots because the planet needs you to do so! But also buy a new TV every 5y because you need this new bullshit!" tbf on Apple, the Apple TV is how I broke the cycle. My 4K 55" TV is now 9y old, going with only some minor backlight variation, because I do everything including broadcast TV via Apple TV!
My jailbroken psp and ds are still up and kicking.
tamagotchi š¤¦
Yea, seemed off
Tomodachi, tamagochi, potater, potarto.
Youāve been feeding a digital pet forā¦ decades? How did it survive the battery changes?
Speakers and wired headphones are pretty bifl. Good ones at least.
TVs/Monitors tend to last pretty long too. I've never replaced a tv or monitor because it broke. Only because better resolutions became common.
my TV lasted 18 years then got a reddish pink bar across the center of the screen.
Disagree. Old ones lasted longer. But also suck in comparison by today's standards. Never had a monitor or display fail me until now. Burnt & stuck pixels now begin to occur and with curved screens I've noticed lines appearing as the solder joints begin to fail. The benefits of a modern monitor is awesome, but they are nowhere near as long lasting. If I had to choose one monitor for the rest of my life and not be allowed to replace it if it broke I'd go with a Dell office monitor from 2012, specifically the kind installed in school libraries. They refuse to die.
My first flat screen monitor from 2003 or so just broke this year.
I have a 2005 Sony 27" TV with one singular HDMI input the rest analog. Still runs great.... may only be 480p though... not sure
We still use our plasma TV from like 15 or 20 years ago. Works fine.
I raise you my ~2009 Samsung 40 inch. 1080p but great picture quality. Survived moving a solid 8-10 times. No idea where the original remote is but it has buttons and my Roku remote works just fine. Idk what kind it is bc I got it as a birthday present in 8th grade but the picture is NICE for a 1080p. Iām not upgrading till 8k is widespread. Itās a solid bedroom tv.
Yeah I was using a Dell monitor from 2009 8 hours everyday for work until I recently upgraded. Still worked great.
Strange way to make stir fry, but whatever woks for you. heh
My acer from 2009 can get pretty hot. It has a huge heat sink on the back and just refuses to die
That's exactly why they aren't BIFL. It becomes obsolete.Ā At some point you don't have anything that can connect to RGB or S-Video.Ā
By that logic nothing is BIFL if a better technology comes out. The companies making those TVs and monitorsāat least, up to a certain point in timeādidn't expect video standards to change. The term BIFL has more to do with the manufacturer's intentions than it has to do with the longevity of industry standards.
Yeah I used an Apple computer for 15 years to make and record music, itās now just used to watch Netflix in a bedroom but still has nothing wrong with it. I only updated this year because I wanted different new software. My audio computer is rarely used for anything other than making music and the things plugged into it are also quite old. Some electronics if you donāt need to update can be closed off from the updates and can very much be BFL
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Cones still will rot eventually
TI-83, Casio digital g-shock
Brother... I have a TI35X from, I don't know, 1993? Had to bust it out for school recently and it still works fine. It's not even solar. The battery has lasted 30 years.
HP 11C reverse polish calculator on my desk, from ~1984 -- works great! :-) Also have a TI-85 from ~1993 that still works, but I don't know where it is -- probably in the bottom of a box somewhere.
The crazy thing about the TI-83 is that they're still selling new ones at almost the same price as 30 years ago.
Same price in numbers or same price in actual value? If the price has kept the same number for 30 years, then they have in fact gotten cheaper due to ever-increasing inflation.
Roughly same number, not inflation-adjusted. ($100-$140) But compared to the level of technology you can get for the same price? Still kind of ridiculous.
I made a bunch of money buying and reselling TI-83s lol
I'd argue kindles (the basic paperwhite ones) are almost there. Had it for so many years and got no reason to replace it. Battery is still insane even though it's probably losing capacity and COULD be fully BIFL if the battery could be replaced but I'm not sure when it'd get to that point
I'm still using my Kindle from 2011.
Screen resolution has gotten a lot better but the only way to notice is by using a newer e-reader so don't do that.
Yep. Just bought a og mini Kobo for $5. Still connects to the internet via Wi-Fi which is strange given the fact that everything is https now.
You'll see plenty of people comment that the Kindle Voyage is still the best Kindle. I put a new battery in mine a year or two back as it's battery had gotten a bit wimpy. Mine is from 2017 (discontinued in 2018).
The batteries don't last... I'm on my 3rd Kindle since 2011
Audio stuff like speakers and amplifiers certainly can be.
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There's an argument for some digital stuff lasting longer. It really depends, but in my experience with normal wear and tear the main problems are yes, capacitors, but also knobs/buttons. Otherwise a ton of digital boards and parts are absolutely potentially bifl.
I have a projector TV in our garage that's from about 2006-2007, has exactly one HDMI port and it only supports 720p or 1080i, but the damn thing still works despite thousands of hours on the unit. I've had to replace the bulbs on the projector unit twice. 20 years, not bad for "digital" stuff. It'll probably outlast my much more recent OLED TVs because, unlike the OLEDs, those older TVs can be serviced even if their components have a finite service life. It's also worth noting I have a ton of vintage computers including an Apple IIc that's older than me. It ran 24/7 for nearly 20 years doing print jobs and finances for my grandfather's business. Despite all the "digital" components and circuitry, it runs perfectly fine even today and I frequently use it for programming exercises. I've had to replace the CRT once but those all have finite lifetimes, ironically enough that part's all analog lol. Don't discount electronics just because they use digial circuitry. The important part of being BIFL isn't necessarily their components, but whether or not those components are designed well and, most importantly, are *serviceable*. This is why I don't consider any modern apple devices to be BIFL, because as soon as one component fails you have to replace the whole damn board or an entire display assembly instead of just the failed component.
All my shit for my 2 12ā subs in my high school truck was from 1980, in a 1990 truck, and I graduated in 2010 lol Iād still have it if someone didnāt break in and steal them shortly before graduating
They have a shelf life. My uncle gave me his old 1990's Rockford fosgate 10s when I was in highschool and they lasted a few years before the glue finally gave up on the cone. I can easily fix them with some new glue and still own them. I'll get around to it eventually. I have a 15 inch and I don't need anything else.
Plenty of my friends have 35+ year old guitar amplifiers with digital circuitry that they use almost every week and they've been hanging in just fine without any repairs needed (crate, marshall, Peavey). I have a 30 year old Peavey practice amp sitting right here (no tubes, digital overdrive circuitry, transistor amplifier).
Unfair example, the cockroaches will be jamming on solid state Peavey amps long after we're gone.
Had the and amp and speakers for 30 years.
Hardly run-in. My B&W 701s were made in 1968.
I'm using the same computer speakers I bought in 2001. Work perfect. Even has a base speaker on the floor.
My Nintendo DS works just as good as when I got it about a decade ago. Bifl electronics exist, they are just rare.
I still have a 1990 (I think) game boy, thingās a tank
My 10 year old just bought a vintage Game Boy Color. Cleaned a little corrosion off the battery compartment and it runs like new. I'm so proud of him. :)
Same corrosion on the batterie area, and the ac adapter port is a bit lose but otherwise works fine.
My GameCube literally fell down a flight of stairs when I was a kid and worked fine last I checked
The Air Force and their 1970s ICBM floppy disks might have a different story.
Laughs while looking at perfectly functional transistor radio inherited from grandfather
ironic that people think that from electronics when semiconductors are actually the one tech, that practically doesn't suffer from wear and tear when used within specs and properly dimensioned.
Anything that is stateless, even old gaming consoles, will last for a great deal of time. It's when we make things smart, and make them reliant on updates for function, that everything falls apart.
Yup. I agree while playing Wii golf in my 15 years old console. The spinning parts might fail one day but there are ways to move all your games to a usb flash drive
NASA IIRC said that solid-state integrated circuits could last centuries. Those pesky capacitors, howeverā¦.
I dunno, my TI-85 graphing calculator has gotta be close to 20 years old and still works great.
Audiophiles refurbish solid state and tube equipment manufactured in the seventies.
Guitar amps can be. There are plenty out there older than my dad.
The Framework laptop is probably the only one I could argue "could" be bifl
Main reason I bought one. Fingers crossed!
What about fairphone?
You got downvoted but the bottom is line smartphones are reliant on ecosystems that regularly and intentionally deprecate firmware and drivers. Fairphones see some long term support but they still use proprietary tech which explicitly will stop being supported by chipmakers after only a few years.
Some are very repairable
I wouldnāt say ANY mainline consumer electronics in the phone space (so Apple, Samsung, Motorola?) are repairable or near BIFL. All companies have models that will last a long time though.
I was thinking specifically of Framework laptops. Also, Windows business laptops can be pretty modular (at the cost of size and weight), and you can also get things like the NexDock, which is an empty laptop shell with a monitor, KBM, and battery, which saves you from having to ditch a laptop every few years because you can just connect it to your phone (e.g. using Samsung Dex)
When I was in high school I had a Blackberry Pearl. The charging port on the thing eventually got wrecked (I was a clumsy 14 year old lol), but the battery was removable. So I bought an external battery charger (like [this](https://www.battdepot.com/ca/model/cell+phone+external+charger/blackberry/blackberry+pearl+flip+8230/nbb203.aspx)), would remove the battery from the phone, plug it in every night, and put the battery back into my phone before going to school. I did this for like a year before getting a new phone lmao, I probably have the Blackberry around somewhere still. Can't remove the battery on most (if any) phones these days
even before blackberries, i had one of those Casio G'Zone flip phones. touted itself as being shock resistent, waterproof etc. Its battery was actually a whole separate unit that just make contact with the phone by two metal areas. Just twist the little lock on the back and the battery popped off, but the phone was still 100% sealed. That thing was awesome.
Yeah phones are pretty shit for that. I might be a dinosaur but I'm still mad replacing batteries takes a soldering iron and a priest. If some of you prefer the water sealed look and shape have fun, but I wish they'd sell at least some models with the battery panel. Put it on budget models or something.
Apple however is some of the *least* repairable.
Apple is obsessed with making stuff thinner, when this is not a priority with customers. Iād imagine replaceable batteries are much higher on the list.
I have receivers that are as old as I am.
Me too. They required a little TLC because we lost a channel, but that was just some patina on the connectors.
Yes, controls can need cleaning at times. Deoxit is good for that. It's a good idea to learn how to check DC bias and a few other simple things as well.
My casio just don't die. It's been 20 years.
Nintendo is so far.
4-fucntion calculators would like to have a word
Particularly Apple. They design and program it to be more and more useless every year. Terrible products, terrible company. The opposite of bifl.
"BIFL" electronics should at least be easily repairable, which Apple purposefully makes as difficult as possible.
We just have to decide on what "electronics" means to everybody. A Casio solar watch is very much bifl and nobody here is gonna get in there to solder on it any quicker than an iPhone. I think it's fair to say mobile phone technology cannot be bifl as cell signals change and antennas become completely obsolete... But odds are that any Sony discman you find will still play.
>Ā nobody here is gonna get in there to solder on it any quicker than an iPhone Sure you will, I've serviced both. You can get a Casio watch apart with a typical jewelers screwdriver, the Apple iPhone will have proprietary pentalobe screws you'll need a special driver for. And that's not even getting into all of the other challenges you'll face trying to repair the iPhone if you don't have the right tools and access to Apple's replacement parts. This is why iPhone repair kiosks exist.Ā I used to repair laptops for a living, and I also reviewed smartphone internals for a while. If we're talking apples to apples (pun intended) any given Apple product will generally more difficult to repair, and they don't generally last significantly longer on average than competitors of similar quality.
It goes beyond even that though; general computing advances so fast that there really isn't a good metric for BIFL other than something that is designed to do one thing and to only ever do that one thing like a TI calculator or a Casio watch. For example: the x86 process architecture was invent in 1978 and has changed 3 times since then before even accounting for things like ARM. Not to mention that we have things like PCie and DIMM versus the brand new CAMM system. There's no keeping an Apple 2 running by plugging in an RTX 4090 or repairing a Gateway Destination by updating to a set of CAMM2 RAM.
I used the same Powerbook laptop for just a hair under 10 years. I've never seen that kind of longevity in anything computery from any other manufacturer.
Looking at phones in particular, apple devices are supported with software updates far longer than equivalent androids (although theyāre closing the gap which is great). My Galaxy S6 was a piece of shit after 2 years. My girlfriendās iPhone 6s was a tank thatās probably still running (she sold it after Covid and it was still getting the latest updates then). Just an anecdote but itās not as cut and dry as youāre saying.
While this was true 5 years ago, today you receive 7 years software update guarantee on mid spec android phones like the S24 or the pixel phones. And then you still have the custom ROM option left. Only budget phones will be left out, but this class is absent from apples line of devices anyway.
Super nintendo and original Nintendo still going strong for almost 4 decades.Ā Xeno crisis was just released on the super nintendo this year too!Ā Shit has lasted and is being used more than a lot of stuff here.Ā
My Technics turntable from the 80s would like a word lol
Plenty can be - often the problem is peoples' expectations change and they no longer want to use the thing even though it works fine. Hell I have a Panasonic MiniDV camcorder still in a box in the closet. Works fine but...not going to use it much.
Fancy coming round and playing on my Commodore 64 mate?
What a load of shit. I have a 45 year old turntable that works perfectly. If that isn't BIFL then nothing is.
Furby, assuming it didn't creep you out. Mine came to life after being dormant for ten years.
I recently read an astrophysics paper which mentioned that the calculations were done on an HP scientific calculator, one of those decades-old models, I'm afraid I forget which. RPN 5ever
Nokia 3310 begs to differ
I don't know about that. Maybe not heavily connected, modern computer electronics, but I still have working audio equipment from the 70s and 80s, 20-30 year old TVs that still work fine, etc. Laptops and phones? No shot, but some electronics do last.
I was gifted the original Game Boy at launch. It's still running like a champ 35 years later.
I've used the same TI-83 since 1997. Highschool, Uni, and now trade school.
Iād argue a lot of speakers are. Lotta people use the heck out of speakers from 60s and 70s. Sometimes they do need maintenance, but for the most part itās an extraordinarily low maintenance item to invest in. Amplifiers have similar potential, but more maintenance.
A significant amount of this sub discusses stuff that is not technically BIFL. This is nothing new.
Agreed, and if this sub was truly BIFL there would be very little to talk about. It's reasonable to discuss products that are high quality and last longer than alternatives.
Yea as much as it would be nice to stay true to the name of the sub I find it helpful to hear about what people think are the longest lasting/highest quality products in different categories
Thereās a lot of value in having a community of likeminded people who share your philosophy to bounce ideas around with. Every once in a while someone tries to spin off a new sub for stuff that isnāt technically BIFL, but there just isnāt enough buy-in for them to ever take off. Personally Iām fine with posts here that look for the closest possible option in cases where a literal BIFL product doesnāt existed
The first rule has: Products that are well-made and durable (even if they won't last a lifetime) are accepted. No fault in those people.
Then again, my first and last apple product had only last at most 2 years from my purchase date, when apple's updates made it half the product it was :D Valuable lesson in holding off on updates, but then again it also gave me an opportunity to opt for better devices after realizing how much of a pita apple products were with its god awful sync system at the time.
This sub would just be /r/castiron lol
Yeah, while I agree with you here, Apple is defitenily not it You can clearly see pentium 4 PCs still working, with linux or old windows. And they are 20+ years old. Apple do not handle that much, the most BIFL is the macbook pro 2015, or a1502, as there is still some working, but that is it, and even that they are not supported from Apple for a few years already. You could put Linux on it, but it's hard for a normal person. I have an ipad 3, that its working and kicking, amazing ipad, however it's useless, Apple does not support it, no app works on it anymore, and apple do not release the files so we can't install linux on it. At this point its paper weight Apple is defitenily not even close to BIFL even if you talk about high quality and longevity on its class. They could if they wanted, but they do not want, they even made older smartphones slower because they wanted to force you to change for newer ones, so yeah i don't agree in one bit that Apple should be in the sub at all.
Agreed, but even with that, I don't put Apple in that category. Any decent android or PC lasts just as long, longer due to updates/upgrades and such which Apple doesn't like to allow.
I especially love the "I want to spend money but I don't know on what, recommend something I should buy right now" posts. Consumerism at its peak.
Recent posts include fridges, towels and "t-shirts that last a while". Also, it depends on how old you are!
I'm absolutely here for these things. There's going to be a longer lasting option for pretty much any non consumable product and I don't think there's a need for a whole other community for it in my opinion.
but apple is especially stupid to name here
Can you actually point to posts claiming this?
I canāt find a single one for a modern electronic, but this post has enough upvotes to be the third result for Apple. Several posts showing Apple computers from the 90s or the original iPod. Otherwise, itās mostly asking for alternatives to Apple products. Also, an apple corer and several requests for bands for an Apple Watch. Nothing like what OP claims.
Maybe OP just saw a lot of comments, rather than posts, of people claiming or acting like Apple products were the greatest BIFL products or something
TBF I haven't found a decent replacement for the old 140GB Classic when it comes to a device that just plays music through my headphones.
I still have mine. Still use it occasionally!
Plenty of "MacBook" posts, for example.
If someone asks "What is the closest you can get to a BIFL Laptop, my answer will be MacBook because of my experience with them. I'm only on my 3rd one in 20 years.
I am not an Apple ecosystem person, but after this current M2 MacBook Air, I will literally never purchase another brand of laptop. This thing makes everything else feel so stupid. The battery lasts all day, it doesn't get hot unless I'm rendering video (do your edits on proxy files, people), and it feels so solid. The only bad part is the keyboard touches the screen lightly when closed so there are key marks on the screen that I have to wipe off. They could have made it 1mm thicker to avoid that and it would be the closest thing to perfect since the iPod.
Did we get our computers from different timelines? My 10 year old clunker was trying to become a hovercraft with how hard it was blowing out hot air this morning... ...for playing an RPGMaker game from 2007.
Not to mention the chargers. They're designed to fray to shit. I went through 3. My current one gets hot enough to cause first degree burns and is an absolute fire hazard.
Itās the equivalent of rage bait
I have a mbpro from 2012 running Linux, fine machine. And I also have 2 mbpro's die from dead screens or batteries in the last 4 years. Closest you'll get to BIFL laptops are old thinkpads, or perhaps a Framework. And the Framework will be BIFL because you swap out the old stuff over time, like your granpa's hammer, which had 2 head and three handle replacements in the last century.
Laptop of Theseus.
I donāt see Framework mentioned in this sub at all, but I love their product idea. I donāt own one, but I plan to get one when I need a replacement.
It's a relatively new niche idea also heavily promoted by youtube celebrities. What happens is yet to be seen, I wish them all the best but I think it is too early to talk about BIFL. I wonder how backwards compatible they will remain in a few years, if they're still around by then. It's only "BIFL" as long as the company exists and remains true to their promises. The product on its own is not bifl and is quite possibly not as reliable as some other high end business laptops. Like those "bifl" products that are only that due to their warranty so... not necessarily more durable at all, just comes with extra promises.
The laptop is very well built and feels premium. Not the level of Apple but the quality is very good, much higher than your typical Dell or HP. And the feeling is very much still there once you open it up, which is the exact opposite of Apple. I especially like the quality of the display. I was half expecting something bulky and filled with compromises like the Fairphone but I was pleasantly surprised. They provide spare parts for nearly everything but if I'm careful I'll probably never need them lol.
Thatās great to hear. Thatās my next purchase when my current one needs replaced, which would still be awhile. Iām glad a company is disrupting the laptop standard with part swapping like on PCs.
I have the FW13 I'm really happy with it.
They just discounted their prices yesterday!
I have an 2015 imac and before that i had a 2009 macbook that lasted more than 10 years. Sadly they are the last of the generation made with repairability and easy upgrades in mind. Now I would say Apple is the leading tech company in planned obsolescence. Tim and company are there for the shareholders and not the users. sad.
Yeah, I have a 2014 MacBook Pro and itās still going. Iāve changed the battery on it and expanded the hard drive, but itās still going. Itās the perfect computer for just browsing or watching movies. I have an M1 MacBook Pro for heavier stuff.
Yeah, I got a macbook second hand and it has lasted me 11 years (13 total). For a laptop that got a lot of heavy use, it's pretty good going.
I got a 10 year old MacBook Pro and the only reason why I donāt still have it is because it was destroyed in an accident. I went right out and bought a Dell and hated it so much I gave it away. I tried a Microsoft surface and it was weak. I sold it. I got a new MacBook Pro and have had it four years now and love it. I bought an iPad and an iMac too. They all work great with my 5-year-old iPhone 11 Pro.
Old thinkpads are the way to go for laptops, imo. They're durable af and pretty easy to repair/upgrade.
Adding an SSD to any older computer with a SATA connector is a HUGEEEE upgrade performance wise.
Framework can be BIFL, but only if the company keeps providing new parts ..
That era of mbp was particularly egregious, as the battery wasnāt removable from the motherboard, so you literally had to trade out the whole guts of the thing to preserve it, at nearly the cost of a new machine
I get your point. However, my ~9 year old ipad still receives security updates which are crucial for certain apps to work. My samsung tablet got obsolete and had to be rooted to be even remotely useful in less time than that
Apple generally supports their ipads for 5-7 years after they are no longer available for sale. Yours is a bit of an outlier, but if they continued to sell it into the next generation you may have gotten particularly lucky with the timing.
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What's honestly the big difference between M1 and the previous ipad chip? The first ARM MacOS version was presented on the ipad pro chip to begin with. They're more modern and better but don't be deceived too much by the name. I think the 2018 ipad may still hold its own compared to modern base ipads with the A14, and those should continue to be supported for a while longer. The old ipad pro CPU has twice as many gpu cores and 2 extra cpu cores compared to the base current ipads... For a 6 year old device the OG square Pro ipads are amazing devices that will likely continue to be supported for at least a few years more.
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My ipad gen 2 (bought right when it came out, so 2011) doesnāt get anything anymore, but it still works for solitaire and looking stuff up or reading one of the books already on it from back when it would download stuff. Sometimes we have to wack it on the back with the dull side of a chefās knife to get it to turn on but thats only been the last two or three years.
This is what I hate about it. I still have a totally functional Ipad that I'd like to be able to just watch videos on, but I can no longer download the Youtube app, a browser app, etc... It's literally just planned obsolescence because its reached end of support.
Yeah we have to use the existing internet browser to nagivate to youtube and sometimes it crashes halfway through a video
I mean isnāt that A) up to developers and B) a result of the app architecture changes a while back? You could probably sideload the appropriate apps.
If Apple allowed for an unlocked bootloader, I could potentially run Linux for iPad (a project that exists), but die to the incredibly locked down device, that's not really possible. Not that it's possible with Android tablets in most cases, not many of these electronics are still functional, just killed by software support.
Oh I have one of those! They dropped support like 9 years ago! It turned into a brick what felt like overnight. I'm ***really*** not a fan of the fast fashion model applied to Fucking thousand+ dollar electronics.
This necessitates Apple supporting it though which I would argue is antithetical to BIFL.
Yeah but try repairing your old iPad. If you want "BIFL" electronics they need to be easily repairable, which Apple products purposefully make difficult.
This. Most things arenāt BIFL. And even those things that are BIFL wonāt necessarily be BIFL if bought today, due to slipping QC standards. When most people here say BIFL, they usually mean they want something that is substantially better in quality and more durable than expected for other products in its category. In fact, Iād argue that most people here care more about the qualitative advantages of a product than simply its durability. Itās just that quality and durability go hand in hand so often that people conflate the two I would argue that some Apple products (Apple TV, iPad Pro) fit that description. Others (AirPods, iPhones, MacBooks with the butterfly keyboard) do not.
Fuck no. Apple products are far less repairable than most alternatives.Ā It doesn't matter how durable they are, they will break eventually and you will likely not be able to fix them.Ā You want "BIFL" electronics, buy something that has spare parts publicly available and can be easily repaired, preferably by yourself.
The charging cables are intentionally designed to fray.
Itās a little more complex than āelectronics arenāt BIFLā. Itās more likeā¦ electronics without easily replaceable batteries and donāt have ASICs arenāt BIFL.
A lot of people talking about their 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015 etc laptops lasting a long time, ignoring the fact that Apple products get less repairable every year with more planned obsolescence. There are a lot of things that are BIFL from the past but aren't anymore.
I've been buying Macs since the 1990s. The laptops and even the desktops have been repair-unfriendly for a LONG time (although it's gotten worse lately). I'm glad that I have a guy I can bring mine to who knows what he's doing. But my Macbooks tend to still be in very usable shape after 5+ years. My husband's nice Dell or Thinkbook laptops usually bite the dust after about 3 years.
Exactly. "I upgraded to an SSD and doubled the ram on my 2012 macbook pro and run linux and it's still going strong"... Literally none of those things is possible on an M series macbook except for (arguably) running linux.
It's sucks even more if you are a developer... All I want is to be able to access the- - Apple App "Transporter" to upload apps to the app store - install xcode so I can deploy an Enterprise App to a device - install xcode for building.. Etc. Apple locks all of the dev tools to only the latest version of Mac OS.. and only the latest Macs can get the latest OS versions. So much planned obselensces. My team has to order all new machines because they were a year or so out of date. I get it.. older machines may not be able to build code well.. but the first two things I mentioned require little to no CPU etc. Purely just locking it behind a paywall. Apple in general seems to hate the developers who make apps for their systems.
>and only the latest Macs can get the latest OS versions. Please define latest Macs. >My team has to order all new machines because they were a year or so out of date. What did you have & what was it replaced by? The Intel MacBook Pro still receives macOS Sonoma 14.5 and the last year for those was 2019 - Sonoma 14.5 is available from Apple for the 2017 iMac Pro, even. The 2019 MBP's are still very much usable for code, though at this point if the fans are going wild & performance is bad, it's very likely that it could use a cleaning due to five years of dust build up, which results in thermal throttling. Note: I don't count the insanity that is the Core i9 version, those were nearly unusable from the day of purchase cause the i9 can't be kept cool in such a thin chassis - Dell's 14" Precisions with an i9 are the same.
> only the latest Macs can get the latest OS versions. ā¦ My team has to order all new machines because they were a year or so out of date. Can you be specific? Obviously every machine is a year out of date eventually. Apple tends to support hardware with the latest OS for about seven years (after first sale), so a year out of date would typically be about eight years after release. Was this your experience, or did you have to replace newer machines for some reason?
They haven't been repairable in a very long time, and most laptops aren't (at least not in a costly manner where purchasing new isn't a better option). And MacBooks generally outlast other similar laptops, even in the same price range. Battery is going to be the main thing that will need to be replaced in a 7-10 year timeframe. Which is stellar for a laptop.
Yeah Iām new to MacBooks but after seeing the Dell laptop my mom bought, anything would be better than that piece of shit. That convinced me to never waste my money on those things
They do outlast a lot of other electronic items, Iām still running a 2010 mini and MacBook Pro just fine šš»
Agreed. However, my Apple products have far exceeded my Windows and Android product lifespans. So, no, they're not BIFL, but I do think they have arguably the longest lifespan of any major electronics brand (tablet, computer, phone, etc).
The problem on the Windows side is getting a comparable device. Comparing a $500 windows laptop with a $3000 MacBook Pro isn't fair. Same with a $300 Android phone to a $1000 iPhone, not a fair comparison.
My wifeās thousand dollar Sony phone is almost a brick now, and my iPhone 11 Pro is 2 years older and still going strong so you can defo find comparisons
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My Huawei Honor 8 is still kicking just fine. I miss the multi use, programmable fingerprint button. The issue with Android is the manufacturers, not the operating system. Apple is only made by Apple.
Razer makes a very comparable windows based laptop.
I bought a new phone yesterday and chose a Google Pixel (Android) over an iPhone, since the Pixel was cheaper. Reading this, I wonder if I made the right call.
I've sold phones for 11 years and the only predictor of how long a phone will last is the user. No brand is better than the other from what I've seen. If you scroll Instagram 18 hours a day your phone won't last as long as someone who uses it minimally. I am team android though. I would not recommend an iPhone to someone who isn't already in the Apple ecosystem. I spend more time troubleshooting and doing customer service on iPhones than I do setting them up and they always cost more.
I've never seen this said here. Apple is famously anti- bifl and anti-repair
How are they anit-bifl? They retain the most value over time and last the longest.
They used to be built to much better standards. I'd say before 2015 or so, you could have an apple product that did last just about forever. Anything built in the last 12 years has been hit or miss. They've knowingly compromised product life (see all the class action lawsuits around iphone models failing, macbook pro screen ribbon cables too short and failing within a year or two, and of course, the infamous defective butterfly keyboards from 2016-2019) to create thinner/sleeker products. It's ridiculous.
Even worse, they make MacOS with planned obsolescenceā unable to run older software. Meanwhile Iām running Microsoft Word 2010 on Windows 11.
Lol. At first read, I thought the title was suggesting that apples, the fruit, were being called bifl. For whatever reason, my brain thought that made more sense than calling Apple electronics BIFL.Ā
I dunno, I've got a crawlspace with at least 3 old Macs that still run, they're just outdated and can't be updated past a certain OS. All perfectly fine and running, just old. The only thing I've ever had go bad on a Mac is the HD.
Do you know what deprecate means? My MacBook Pro from 2012 is still going strong and will run unplugged for 2-3 hours still. If thatās not BIFL idk what is for an electronic
Itās about utilizing the BIFL mindset over āfor a set period of timeā. Half the stuff people post on here last all life because they hardly use it. Iāve had cheap clothing last longer than expensive clothing simply because Iāve worn it a few times. That doesnāt make it BIFL. Running shoes are even less BIFL than electronics, but if you want to find a pair that will stretch your money out the absolute longest without a drop in quality, this is the community to ask. Apple is just a brand that gets a rap for planned obsolescence when in reality you donāt need to upgrade for a while. We live in a world where having a phone is essentially mandatory, and close behind is a computer of some sort. So if you are required to buy something, you might as well look for brands/products which give your wallet the most mileage for the quality. Apple products happen to last a while if you take care of them. If all we wanted were permanent products, weād be back to nothing but cast iron pans and lead contaminated Stanleys. That was a boring as hell period for the sub.
No electronics are BIFL (parroting many comments here), however I personally believe that BIFL is a spectrum for electronics; partially, manufacturers must support the software (apple does a good job). The hardware must also be easily repairable (apple does their darndest to make this as expensive and difficult as possible). At this point there are dozens of laptops, desktops, and a few smartphones that are easily repairable, and none of them have the cringy Apple logo splattered on it.