4 ms·

While in fairness I haven't read the actual case and maybe I am mising some real facts; From the Apple Side, this is stupid. Call me an anti conspiracy theorist

While in fairness I haven't read the actual case and maybe I am mising some real facts; From the Apple Side, this is stupid. Call me an anti conspiracy theorist but I doubt one bit Apple intends this behaviour in any way. The original law this is under to intentionally "shorten the life" in order to promote sales is going to have been written for a totally different case. i.e. intentionally having devices be disposable. Right? If anything, Apple is the opposite. They consistently provide both security and feature updates for devices several years longer than the majority of competitors. You can see this from http://iossupportmatrix.com/ http://iossupportmatrix.com/ (there are other source) - the majority of the cases you have 5 years of iOS support - 4 years after the initial release. Most competitor devices barely update things after 2 years even for security let alone features. The cynic in us might assume that's why the spent time intentionally making iOS 12 faster on older devices - I'd like to think they decided to do that anyway. But either way while that is a great, this ruling seems crazy to me.

lathiat 8y ago
The outcome of this is likely much worse for Android devices than Apple. I would suggest that Apple have the engineering resources to make newer iOS releases "as fast" on older devices if they want to. And maybe you could argue that's a great outcome. But you can be pretty sure most Android OEMs just won't bother to provide any updates at the risk of this. This is of course muddied by the battery-related performance changes, to stop unexpected shutdowns, which were sadly not Apple's finest moment. The fix is good, but not reporting that to the end user originally was probably a mis-step on Apple's part in my view. And ideally that change might have been added before the next major version iOS update which made it more of a conspiracy than it needed to be - though you can understand how that comes about. Ugh.
- AgentOrange1234 8y ago
  > But you can be pretty sure most Android OEMs just won't bother to provide any updates at the risk of this. So everything stays the same as before? :)
  - dwaite 8y ago
    Except now the OEMs aren't the bad guys
the_clarence 8y ago
I call bullshit. If you had an iphone 6 / 6S during these upgrades you would have understood the uproar. It was a joke from Apple let me tell you that. It transformed what was the perfect phone to me, to "ugg, I think I need to buy a new phone". Without our complaints they would have never done what they did with the last update (which is great)
- lathiat 8y ago
  Which has everything to do with the unexpected shutdown and battery issues: https://www.apple.com/au/iphone-battery-and-performance/ https://www.apple.com/au/iphone-battery-and-performance/ And nothing to do with "planned obselesence" Was that a mis-step and/or defect in those devices? Perhaps. But it's clearly not planned obselesence. Honestly I'm fine if you want to chase them for the battery issue specifically but I think selling it as a general attempt at planned obselesence is complete crap.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    They should've given these customers proper batteries; instead they tried to save costs and avoid a scandal/uproar. It backfired.
  - thedaemon 8y ago
    If you think that manufacturers do not create planned obsolescence for all of their products you are living in a dream world. Car manufactures have become some of the worst about this. Every company now just wants RMR, if they don't have a way to get RMR, it's planned obsolescence.
  - the_clarence 8y ago
    That's your opinion. For me it was malicious. Do you have proof?
- josefresco 8y ago
  I have an iPhone 6 and it's now slow as shit. What did they do with the last update? My battery is in great shape, but the phone is just ... slow. I correlate the slowness with iOS 11.
Illniyar 8y ago
Not updating the os does not make a phone work less well, it simply prevents you from using new features, which is fine. What apple did worsened the product. The reasons behind it or other efforts the company make to improve older models is irrelevent to the case since the law deals with incidents, otherwise any nefarious action can be excused with good intentions.
- solomatov 8y ago
  >Not updating the os does not make a phone work less well, it simply prevents you from using new features, which is fine. What apple did worsened the product. These updates often contain security fixes. You risk by not updating on time.
  - Illniyar 8y ago
    They are fixes to bugs that already existed. Not having them doesn't make the phone less secure, having them makes the phone more secure
  - sangnoir 8y ago
    > These updates often contain security fixes. You risk by not updating on time. Maybe they ought to unbundle security fixes from feature-upgrades. It's not a technical hurdle, it's a cultural one.
    - wafflesraccoon 8y ago
      Most of the time code does not fit into neat little boxes like that, in my professional experience thing are far more gray that just bugfixes and feature tickets.
      - sangnoir 8y ago
        In my professional experience, the correct solution is to give someone (or people) the authority to make the call between "security fix" and feature. Choosing to lump everything in the "feature" bucket is, as I said, cultural. On the technical side, release branches have been existed since forever - Microsoft has been doing this for decades instead of forcing upgrades to the latest windows/office version.

lathiat 8y ago

The outcome of this is likely much worse for Android devices than Apple. I would suggest that Apple have the engineering resources to make newer iOS releases "as fast" on older devices if they want to. And maybe you could argue that's a great outcome. But you can be pretty sure most Android OEMs just won't bother to provide any updates at the risk of this. This is of course muddied by the battery-related performance changes, to stop unexpected shutdowns, which were sadly not Apple's finest moment. The fix is good, but not reporting that to the end user originally was probably a mis-step on Apple's part in my view. And ideally that change might have been added before the next major version iOS update which made it more of a conspiracy than it needed to be - though you can understand how that comes about. Ugh.

AgentOrange1234 8y ago
> But you can be pretty sure most Android OEMs just won't bother to provide any updates at the risk of this. So everything stays the same as before? :)
- dwaite 8y ago
  Except now the OEMs aren't the bad guys

the_clarence 8y ago

I call bullshit. If you had an iphone 6 / 6S during these upgrades you would have understood the uproar. It was a joke from Apple let me tell you that. It transformed what was the perfect phone to me, to "ugg, I think I need to buy a new phone". Without our complaints they would have never done what they did with the last update (which is great)

lathiat 8y ago
Which has everything to do with the unexpected shutdown and battery issues: https://www.apple.com/au/iphone-battery-and-performance/ https://www.apple.com/au/iphone-battery-and-performance/ And nothing to do with "planned obselesence" Was that a mis-step and/or defect in those devices? Perhaps. But it's clearly not planned obselesence. Honestly I'm fine if you want to chase them for the battery issue specifically but I think selling it as a general attempt at planned obselesence is complete crap.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  They should've given these customers proper batteries; instead they tried to save costs and avoid a scandal/uproar. It backfired.
- thedaemon 8y ago
  If you think that manufacturers do not create planned obsolescence for all of their products you are living in a dream world. Car manufactures have become some of the worst about this. Every company now just wants RMR, if they don't have a way to get RMR, it's planned obsolescence.
- the_clarence 8y ago
  That's your opinion. For me it was malicious. Do you have proof?
josefresco 8y ago
I have an iPhone 6 and it's now slow as shit. What did they do with the last update? My battery is in great shape, but the phone is just ... slow. I correlate the slowness with iOS 11.

Illniyar 8y ago

Not updating the os does not make a phone work less well, it simply prevents you from using new features, which is fine. What apple did worsened the product. The reasons behind it or other efforts the company make to improve older models is irrelevent to the case since the law deals with incidents, otherwise any nefarious action can be excused with good intentions.

solomatov 8y ago
>Not updating the os does not make a phone work less well, it simply prevents you from using new features, which is fine. What apple did worsened the product. These updates often contain security fixes. You risk by not updating on time.
- Illniyar 8y ago
  They are fixes to bugs that already existed. Not having them doesn't make the phone less secure, having them makes the phone more secure
- sangnoir 8y ago
  > These updates often contain security fixes. You risk by not updating on time. Maybe they ought to unbundle security fixes from feature-upgrades. It's not a technical hurdle, it's a cultural one.
  - wafflesraccoon 8y ago
    Most of the time code does not fit into neat little boxes like that, in my professional experience thing are far more gray that just bugfixes and feature tickets.
    - sangnoir 8y ago
      In my professional experience, the correct solution is to give someone (or people) the authority to make the call between "security fix" and feature. Choosing to lump everything in the "feature" bucket is, as I said, cultural. On the technical side, release branches have been existed since forever - Microsoft has been doing this for decades instead of forcing upgrades to the latest windows/office version.