What I Learned from Watching My iPad’s Slow Death – NYT Magazine

John Herrman (NYT Mag):

I wouldn’t say my old electronics always aged gracefully, but their obsolescence wasn’t a death sentence. My old digital camera doesn’t do what some new cameras do — but it’s still a camera. My iPad, by contrast, feels as though it has been abandoned from on high, cut loose from the cloud on which it depends.

…

Above all, my old iPad has revealed itself as a cursed object of a modern sort. It wears out without wearing. It breaks down without breaking. And it will be left for dead before it dies.

Reading this made me sad.

I have an Apple IIc that was first used in 1984 and I can fire it up today and it still does what it did then. I may not have a use for what it can do, but that’s beside the point. 1984 was a long time ago and I’d like to not give up on the idea that things should remain functional for more than just a few years.