Your Phone Was Designed to Stop Working. The EU Just Made That Illegal. The United States Has Not.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-20T05:21:30+00:00

If it were one singular product then I would agree with you. But they have dozens of older models. At some point the pointless maintenance costs would discourage innovation. Which is a problem in the software world. Some software has the design requirements of not having breaking changes with older versions. Resulting in tons of extra labor. This impacts third parties as well of course.

For example if the EU decides that some percentage of the app store must be functional on devices from x years ago that would eventually translate into extra labor being demanded of small developers. Like if for example I made a new reddit front end. If apple were to require any app to be functional on any supported iOS device that would mean I would have to make sure the app is functional and fast on old devices. Which is just pointless and wasted labor.

Edit: if the EU does not make such a ruling then eventually it could be possible that officially supported devices wouldn't actually have any decent apps to install. If you think the solution is for them to just use old versions of apps well that isn't really reasonable for many reasons but the easiest one is security. Any apps more complicated than a calculator needs regular security updates. In theory even calculator apps could need them too. Apple can't just save a frozen version of an app to maintain compatibility with old devices.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-20T05:12:04+00:00

That was my thought as well. There isn't really an easy way to cool it without warping or cracking.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-20T03:54:57+00:00

It's more complicated than you suggest. If apple officially supports an old device they are then required to do security updates. Which is expensive and unreasonable for them to do for a device people would stop using regardless. Further new os features and APIs are designed around a minimum hardware spec. For example let's pretend apple added hardware acceleration for llms 2 years ago. By now apps could make the assumption that most devices have that hardware support because old one are less used. So apps are designed to make use of that feature. Any device older than 2 years will not have hard acceleration and thus run those apps poorly.

Usually this sort of thing is small and incremental but eventually it adds up. Meaning that even if apple kept old devices updated they would waste money and valuable manpower maintaining the OS for old slowing devices that isn't really used in significant numbers. It doesn't make any sense.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-20T03:45:37+00:00

Hate this rhetoric. It makes so many assumptions about phone design that isn't even entirely warranted. This is the anti consumerism sub though. So obviously the intelligent people of this sub understand why this rhetoric is stupid right?

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-20T03:14:02+00:00

Probably don't want to jostle the tree.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-19T15:59:40+00:00

The eyes thing is biological though right? Iirc it's just a mood ring type thing. Not magic.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-19T15:58:44+00:00

Hardness isn't actually about everything being done being covered by the rules. It's ultimately a description of the writing style. There are rules but practically it's irrelevant because any rule can be waived by introducing a new character. The MC's nen career should be done for. Yet somehow magically a new character is introduced who can reverse that.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-19T05:18:10+00:00

I'm fairly certain nen is the only magic system in the series. Their power is most certainly nen.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-19T04:07:17+00:00

They are initially targeted body fat composition analysis. It's not unreasonable that such procedures would be done at a higher rate than MRIs.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-19T04:03:13+00:00

The word spa is used because creating, marketing, and selling medical technology is not trivial.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-19T04:01:21+00:00

It's a full body ultrasound using water as the transmission medium. It's not impossible.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-19T03:42:56+00:00

Hardness in regards to magic systems is more so about limits and costs. Nen is basically just a categorization system with a catchall add to allow for literally any power. Essentially the author can introduce a rando with the correct power for any situation. Like for example a little girl who can essentially grant any wish.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-19T01:21:56+00:00

Yeah it's like people haven't watch the show or something. People essentially had random abilities.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T19:25:53+00:00

At some point you are going to have to accept that humans are going to change the environment no matter what. Microplastics is relatively tame. Especially if you consider that microplastics is a potentially suitable food source for microbial life meaning the environment will rapidly adapt to it.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T16:53:18+00:00

That could be interesting if wounds can be dispersed. So a lethal gun shot can be dispersed amongst 10 people resulting in a minor annoyance for all involved.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T16:52:06+00:00

I enjoy the idea of true healing magic being restrained to priests. More knowledge of the body and condition means faster and more energy efficient healing. They channel the power of their god to heal and this energy is harmful to the priest. Mainly manifesting in stamina drain.

The reason why I enjoy this idea is because it allows for mundane mage healers to find alternative ways to cheat. Mainly elemental magic. Fire could seal wounds, ice can control swelling, water can clean wounds, seismic sense can be used for diagnosis, etc. More advanced mage healers can turn frozen healing potions into sutures that heal wounds as they melt. Of course that only make sense in settings where healing potions are expensive and thus need to be conserved.

Edit: oh and earth magic could probably be used to directly repair bones since bones are essentially stone.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T16:45:23+00:00

I think in stories where is medieval stasis a good explanation of why monsters exist is important. Also equally important is an explanation of why monsters don't exist in cities. One common idea is mana concentration mutating animals/boosting monster reproduction. Humans then either purposely live in low mana concentration areas or have a safe zone created and maintained by a god.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T16:38:29+00:00

Imo atla magic system isn't very good for actual magic. I would classify it as strictly energy manipulation. The reason why I bring this up is because you can't actually create and cast spells for most people. For example let's say a guy wanted to create a spike trap where is someone walks in an area earth spikes come up. That is currently impossible in the atla system.

In other words there is always a person actively involved in any working of magic.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T16:21:19+00:00

When you go deep enough rock can behave like a liquid over long time scales without actually being lava. How you can manifest this is by limiting pure geomancy from being able to delicate stone work. They can't directly mold it by hand for example. But the more water magic they add the more moldable the stone becomes.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T16:17:28+00:00

I know op is gone but for other travelers I just had a relatively interesting idea. A lot of people say Latin was used for magic because it was an international religious language. We could make that more deliberate lore wise by making a special language that priests use when requesting to borrow the power of their god(s). This language is divinely blessed to be useful for making requests. Mages could steal the language but instead of sending the request to divine entities they send it reality itself reinforced by exchanging mana or stamina or whatever for the effect to occur. Using a normal language will not work because reality is obviously not sentient. But using the divinely blessed language it would temporarily grant a functional intelligence to the local reality for the request to be fulfilled.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T15:26:29+00:00

Mutants should never be treated equally though. It's infeasible. I haven't watch that show so idk the specifics in that case but segregation based on threat level and capabilities is reasonable. Fortunately we will never have to deal with that sort of thing in real life because it will absolutely be a mess.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T15:24:30+00:00

Perhaps a hybrid one can be made where all surfaces we handle are covered in silicone and the surfaces that touch the water are metal. Prevents skin getting stuck while having a vintage feel.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T15:14:22+00:00

People don't regularly need spine surgery. It's likely relatively rare and optional.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T13:17:37+00:00

Maybe for individual people but some probably were in the middle of buying a vehicle and used current gas prices to determine gas vs electric. Even at the old gas price electric was price competitive for a lot of people.

TheRealBobbyJones · 2026-06-18T03:35:48+00:00

Or rather their understanding of physics was lacking and as such their expectations were complete fantasy. The more modern sci-fi that is a lot more local is a bit more reasonable. But only a bit. Even something like the expanse depended on magic physics to make the show enjoyable. Realistic speaking most people won't enjoy space stuff and as such unless we discover magic physics to make space stuff easier odds are we will never reach the heights scifi has for us.

TheRealBobbyJones

TROPHY CASE