Find Out When Your Phone and Other Devices Are Reaching the End of Their Lifespan
Even the best and most powerful gadgets have a limited lifespan, and this is important to consider when using them: it is much better to try to transfer data from an old laptop before it completely fails, and not after, for example. .
There are actually two end-of-life dates for your technology: the date when it finally gives up and stops working completely (which can be difficult to determine), and the date when manufacturers officially stop supporting it with software updates and repairs. .
It’s the second, earlier date that I’m going to focus on. This is made easier thanks to resources like the excellent website endoflife.date , and I’ll tell you everything you need to know about gadget obsolescence.
What does “end of life” mean for a device?
It is difficult to give specific definitions of device end-of-life dates because different manufacturers use different terms that mean different things. However, generally speaking, this is the moment when you will no longer receive software updates for your gadget. Moreover, technical support and repair opportunities are also usually closed.
This is not the same as saying that your equipment will stop working—at least not right away. It’s entirely possible to use your devices past the end-of-life date I talk about here, but you should know that the clock is ticking very quickly and ideally you want to invest in an upgrade as soon as possible. .
Lack of software updates means you’re missing out on three things: you don’t get any new features for your device; you don’t get any bug fixes; and you don’t get any security updates (although some manufacturers handle software updates and security updates separately and support the latter longer).
This means your device will become glitchy and insecure pretty quickly, slowing down the user’s experience, which is probably already quite sluggish. If you look at any security vulnerabilities in the news, they will often be patched quickly to protect users: if you’re using an unsupported device, you won’t get those patches.
To make matters worse, if you have apps running on your device – like browsers and streaming apps on phones – you’ll find that updates for those apps will also stop because you’re using very old hardware. This adds to the problem of bugs and security vulnerabilities, making the update even more urgent.
How to find out the end of life dates of your devices
As I mentioned above, the endoflife.date website is one of the best resources for finding out when updates will stop for any of your devices. At the time of writing, the site lists 340 products – not just devices such as phones, tablets and smartwatches, but also operating systems and apps.
Using the site is very simple: you can click any link on the main page ( iPhone or Android for example), search for a device using the search box at the top, or scroll down the full list. items in the list on the left. This should take you to the correct page – in some cases these are pages for individual products, in others they are a list of product series.
The information displayed varies by device and app, but for Samsung phones, for example, you’ll see the following for each phone: release date, how much time is left until “active support” ends, and how much time is left for security updates. . Sometimes Samsung continues to release important security updates to devices after major software updates are completed.
As comprehensive as the endoflife.date website is, it doesn’t cover everything. Manufacturer support websites are probably the next best resource for finding out about these connection points for your gadgets, but here too it’s good to stay up to date with the latest tech news ( preferably on Lifehacker ).
Apple is one of the best companies in the industry when it comes to informing users when a product is ending support. Itmaintains a comprehensive list of past products that are obsolete (stopped selling five to seven years ago) and obsolete (stopped selling more than seven years ago), and explains what those terms mean in terms of software updates and repairs. .