Obsolete devices add to the rising levels of electronic waste, a major environmental concern, and a contributing factor to climate change. In recent years, device manufacturers have established environmental commitments and launched initiatives such as supporting the recycling of obsolete devices by making more ways available for consumers to safely dispose of their old devices. However, little support is available for individuals who want to continue using legacy or 'end-of-life' devices and few studies have explored the usefulness of these older devices, the barriers to their continued use and the associated user experiences. With a human-computer interaction lens, this paper reflects on device usefulness as a function of utility and usability, and on the barriers to continued device use and app installation. Additionally, the paper contributes insights from a sequel study that extends on prior work evaluating app functionality of a 'vintage' Apple device with new empirical data on app downloadability and functionality for the same device when newly classified as 'obsolete'. A total of 230 apps, comprising the top 10 free App Store apps for each of 23 categories, were assessed for downloadability and functionality on an Apple iPad Mini tablet. Although only 20 apps (8.7%) could be downloaded directly onto the newly obsolete device, 143 apps (62.2%) could be downloaded with the use of a different non-legacy device. Of these 163 downloadable apps, 131 apps (com-prising 57% of all 230 apps and 80.4% of the downloadable apps) successfully installed, opened, and functioned. This was a decrease of only 4.3% in functional apps (of the 230 total apps) compared to the performance of the device when previously classified as 'vintage'.

翻译：过时设备加剧了电子废弃物水平的持续上升，这一重大环境问题也是导致气候变化的重要因素。近年来，设备制造商确立了环保承诺并推出多项举措，例如通过提供更多途径让消费者安全处置旧设备，支持过时设备的回收。然而，对于希望继续使用旧款或"生命周期结束"设备的个人而言，可获得的支持极少，且鲜有研究探讨这些旧设备的实用性、持续使用的障碍及相关用户体验。本文从人机交互视角出发，将设备有用性视为功能性与可用性的函数，并反思了持续使用设备及安装应用的障碍。此外，本文通过一项后续研究提供了新见解：该研究基于先前对" vintage "苹果设备应用功能的评估工作，针对同一设备在被新归类为" obsolete "时的应用可下载性与功能性，补充了新的实证数据。对苹果iPad Mini平板电脑上23个类别各前10名免费App Store应用（共230个应用）的可下载性和功能性进行了评估。尽管仅有20个应用（8.7%）可直接下载至该新近过时设备，但通过使用非旧款设备可下载143个应用（62.2%）。在这163个可下载应用中，131个应用（占全部230个应用的57%，占可下载应用的80.4%）成功安装、打开并正常运行。与设备此前被归类为" vintage "时的表现相比，功能性应用（占全部230个应用）仅减少了4.3%。