Microsoft and Intel are doing the same thing with the "limited support for Skylake on Windows 7 and Windows 8", sort of. Forcing the "obsolescence" of software rather than hardware though, so less environmentally destructive.

*pets his 9-year old dumb phone* Good boy!

That's why when it comes to most anything besides my computers I don't really want hi-tech thingamajigs. It's also why I don't particularly care about the future trend of the 'Internet of Things'; shit's just gonna break even faster now. No, thanks.

Tried to But apparently failed in this. Using a phone as example was probably not the best one.
It is a type of device that tend to get outdated. All by it self faster than most.

But thing is some 10 years ago, before Apple showed up with the first smartphone. I was mostly involved with creating software for phones and satellite equipment. Until getting fed up with a ever going "lets milk the cow" industry. So it was the first thing that went into my mind.

After this I have only worked some with wind turbines and PVs, but mostly managed the IT systems for the NGO I work for.
In reality I am not working in the public relation/political part of things. More like the geek part :P

But still i think that a lot of items is unnecessary waited because of becoming outdated before they need to.
I feel we have to much of a make cheap and trow out early culture. Instead of a make quality items that last.
The last might save on resources taken from the ground.
My thought is that it might be a good idea with laws that prohibit planed obsolesce.

I did not even know the wording planed obsolesce, so I learned something here.
The modular designs that OneFiercePuppy showed is something I like.
the Fairphone nepundo showed look really cool, that cold be my next one. Hope it is also fairtrade.

regards

The term you're looking for is "Planned obsolescence".

The worse part is when nice things are wasted due to stupid business plans.
I invested money in those MiniDisc things.

They were great, however:
1. Sony was not smart enough to add one bit to the metadata of each track to specify the codec version used, thus future improvements faced terrible problems and poor solutions,
2. The high licensing prices, to allow them to fully dominate the format, and
3. The stupid incompatibility of different discs and fear of piracy doomed it as a potential replacement for floppy discs.

You brought this upon yourself the day you bought an Apple product. They do planned obsolesce and waste resources for a living.