Mumbai: Apple’s series of iPhones—right from the first-gen iPhone to the latest 6S—have always been a force to reckon with, especially due to their striking features, good hardware optimisation, security, and sturdiness.
However, nothing lasts forever; neither do these magnificently crafted devices, according to Apple.
In a recent revelation, the Cupertino-based giant pointed out that its range of smartphones and watches have a life expectancy of three years, while the Apple TV takes four years to perish.
It a recent environmental policy update, the company revealed the details regarding the time-span of each Apple device.
According to a report on Forbes, an iPhone’s usual productive life-cycle is approximately three years; the same goes for Apple Watch. As for the OS X and Apple TV, the regular life span is roughly 12 months more than the iPhones.
According to the company, daily usage patterns are dependent on a few factors but the key determining factor is a mixture of “actual and modelled”customer-use data.
The company said: “Years of use, which are based on first owners, are assumed to be four years for OS X and tvOS devices and three years for iOS and watchOS devices,"
The product life cycle plays a key role in the company’s strategy of rolling out new software updates to older devices; the new updates are somewhat based on hardware capabilities and the old handsets might find it difficult to support new features.
For instance, the iPhone 5S, which is roughly three years old, won’t be able to support the iOS updates after three years as compared to the updated iPhone SE. The gap between the iPhone 5S’release and the SE is also roughly three years.
And even if Apple provides the software updates to 5S users after three years, it will be a painstaking task for the device to support it.
