Why Forced Software and Hardware Migrations Suck

Forced migrations never seem to go well. Remember when Microsoft decided they no longer wanted to support Windows 7 Professional, and  XP. They forced everyone to migrate to their new Microsoft 8 (now X) and it was not pretty. In fact, it took years for Microsoft to work the bugs out of Windows 10.

When Sprint decided they made a huge mistake buying the IDEN Network from Nextel, they shuttered it. Never mind the fact that many businesses and government agencies used their two-way radio services for emergencies. The replacement technology that Sprint replaced it with was so awful, I was advising my clients to hold on their IDEN as long as possible. Then, un-announced, Sprint began shutting down their IDEN network resulting in me losing a major University account. Today, Sprint is hanging on by a thread and will likely end up getting bought by T-Mobile.

I'm beginning to wonder if Apple management is stuck on stupid. First they introduce the iPhone 8 which is more or less identical to the iPhone 7, followed 30 days later by another new model, the iPhone X, which allegedly gets discontinued this year and replaced by a new line of iPhone X models. This was a bit unusual. Then Apple gets busted for covertly slowing down the processors of iPhone 6 and 7 series models by sneaking in a nasty software feature. Today, they just announced they are pulling support for 32bit applications. 

Nothing is worse than having a great device that is in fantastic working order but useless because the applications and operating system are obsolete. The manufacturers seem to intentionally make it so the newer operating systems require more processing speed and memory than your current device supports. I'm beginning to get pissed off about this and have a closet full of older computers that are in perfect working order like my 6 year old PowerBook below which was one of my all time favorite computers. It still works but Apple abandoned it long ago.

I realize that sometimes you have to move on and get new technology. On the other hand, if it ain't broken, why try to fix or replace it. Does anyone else out there feel like they are being strong armed into buying new software or hardware?