iPhones and MacBooks: Apple tells us what you should already know about life expectancy of your devices

It’s a widely popular notion that electronics don’t typically last forever, and there are very good reasons why.

Anything made of metal and plastic, that is subject to changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure, as well as physical stresses, like drops, bumps and vibrations, tends to decay overtime. Internal circuitry, like silicon chips, and other tiny mechanisms will eventually give in and burn out, depending on usage and environmental factors.

The typical life expectancy of most devices, only a decade ago, was two years or less for smartphones and tablets, and three years for laptops and desktop PCs.

Most recently, Apple has published what seems to be a fair determination of how long we can expect Apple devices to last, based on typical usage. The updated support page, contains information on what Apple describes as a product’s “Life Cycle Assessment” (LCA). performing an LCA on every product Apple makes, helps the company minimize environmental impact due to the discard of materials during productions. Every device made by Apple is built using only a designated amount of materials, as defined by guidelines that take into consideration many factors, including the total size and weight of each product, including accessories and packaging materials.

According to Apple, products running OS X and tvOS, like MacBooks, iMacs and Apple TV, are expected to last an average of four years, while devices running iOS, like the iPhone, and the iPad Pro, have an expected life cycle of three years.

Your device is not a time bomb

It’s easy to give credit to the frequent and age-old rumors of devices being “built to fail”, with tales of internal clocks designed to put laptops and smartphones out of commission just as the standard warranty runs out. Fortunately, there is no such thing as a built-in “death clock”, aside from the natural wear and tear of materials, due to regular use.