Alan Hayman reflects on the issue of "planned obsolescence"

THE courier delivered my shiny new smartphone right on time and opening it up seemed like unwrapping December’s Christmas presents all over again.

But only up to a point.

The facts were that I had been forced to spend over £700 on a new phone that I didn’t actually want or need.

It was more like getting a costly gift from Santa when one just like it had already come down the Christmas chimney.

Sitting snugly in my back pocket was a perfectly good smartphone which I bought a couple of years back – the Samsung Galaxy S8, since you ask.

It had travelled with me to Antarctica and taken some stunning pictures of the scenery and wildlife on that huge and empty seventh Continent.

Once back home, it has gone on doing the online banking, shopping and other chores seven days a week without complaining.

OK, its supply of stored energy runs out a bit too quickly these days, but then so does mine.

So why get another one?

Before your very ice - an iceberg is detached from the Antarctic icecap, as global warming speeds up the calving process. This picture was taken by Alan Hayman using his Samsung Galaxy S8

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, the old saying used to run.

The answer came after I spent an hour idly browsing the web for mobile phone news.

It alarmingly revealed that Samsung has now stopped sending security patches through for the S8.

That leaves the phone – and me – vulnerable to hacking, malware and ransomware attacks.

Even if you don’t visit dodgy websites and have prudently installed anti-virus software, the risks remain.

A final security patch for the S8 landed in April 2021, but that’s our lot, seemingly.

The scarily named but usually accurate AndroidPolice website says it has now been removed altogether from Samsung’s list of supported devices.

And the bad guys on the Dark Web who send nasty stuff to unprotected phones will have spotted this looming gap in our online defences.

So with a sad heart, it was clearly time to sell off this faithful, but elderly phone for however much cash it would fetch.

Cold as brass - a well-clad pilot ferries travellers from their ship to the Antarctic landmass

A three-figure sum would do nicely, I thought.

‘Dream on!’ was the sad outcome of that venture.

The best offer that came in, either online or over the counter was a princely £15.

And if that’s today’s market price, I will keep the S8 on the shelf so it can be charged up again temporarily in a crisis.

So is it time for a customer revolt against having to buy new smartphones because security patches for the old ones have been stopped?

The auto industry used to try the same trick, building cars designed to rust so we’d have to buy a new model.

“Planned obsolescence”, the Americans called it.

Freeze a jolly good fellow - alongside radar and sonar, the Norwegian expedition ship Amundsen keeps a human lookout searching constantly for icebergs

When Japanese cars with longer life-spans entered the American market in the 1970s, Detroit had to see them off by building more durable products.

Perhaps this idea will work with smartphones.

Let the word go out to Seoul from Essex - unless we get more years of security patches than the current miserly handful, we shall take our business elsewhere.

US product designer Brooks Stevens once said that planned obsolescence comes from “the desire to own something a little newer, a little better and a little sooner than is necessary”.

Curing ourselves of these three addictions is how we start fighting back against the current mania for pointlessly updated smartphones.

And much else as well.

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