I've never even heard of a broken iPod, who are these people that have several lying around?

Way back when they had spinning disks, they were pretty failure prone. Although they were easy to replace, I vaguely remember replacing one myself.

None? I had an iPod Touch that lived in my glovebox for 9 years and it never died. My Rio Karma on the other hand basically disintegrated. Thanks for asking!

> This is a complete myth.

No, it isn't. Snow Leopard was awesome. Mavericks was also pretty solid. In fact, I'm still running that on my machines today.

Yes, it is. Snow Leopard and Mavericks are not devices. The quote I am responding to is:

> Apple used to be the company that made devices that were secure and "just worked".

Unless your first generation iPod still works wonders.

Mechanical hard drives that lived in pockets and backpacks inevitably died. People seem to have been happy with the lifespan they got, though.

Ok, old (first gen) Mac Pro, preferably running Snow Leopard.

BTW, I've one still running. Also a G3 from 1999 still up.

> A computer is a device.

Correct. A computer is a device. Snow Leopard and Mavericks--your two examples-- are, however, not computers.

Oh, good grief, do you really need to get that pedantic? Apple made computers (devices) that ran those operating systems, and that combination mostly Just Worked (at least it did for me).

Pedantism is trotting out the fact that yeah, you can find plenty of people still running Windows-whatever on their Gateways, or lovingly cared-for TRS that still "just works". The point is that by and large, Apple devices are built in with planned obsolescence in mind (see the lawsuit they settled a few months ago about literally this).

> Apple devices are built in with planned obsolescence in mind.

They are now. They didn't used to be. My 2012 MBP is still humming right along. Earlier models were repairable and expandable and even had easily replaceable batteries.