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Apple has gotten pretty good at protecting the idevice class from Linux. There are millions of these old devices sitting on shelves unused, still in working con

Apple has gotten pretty good at protecting the idevice class from Linux. There are millions of these old devices sitting on shelves unused, still in working condition, and useless. It should not take so much effort to make our devices useful after Apple has moved on from them. There are tons of uses for a capable device after the manufacturer has abandoned the customer. We need Right to Repair now.

boplicity 4y ago
You may technically own Apple hardware, but its not yours in actuality. You have a "license" to use the software on it, bif of you can't change the software, you don't have control over it. It's not yours. This is how Apple steals from us: They let you buy beautiful, high tech hardware that requires their software. Eventually, they stop supporting that software, so the hardware (mostly) stops working. This is theft. Sure, it may be legal, but morally, it is wrong. So many old iPhones and iPads are languishing, when they could be used as Raspberry Pis (or old laptops) are often used: home servers, learning tools, linux devices etc.
- oneplane 4y ago
  It depends on how you see those devices. On one hand it's a block of hardware (like an appliance) on the other hand it's a CPU and RAM and storage etc. This is a weird gradient where the same could be said for routers (and we kind-of do that), but also for Smart TV's (which are left out in the cold, generally), and other devices with smarts in them (or: a CPU, memory and storage). The general problem lies with the utility for mass-market products, even if you re-purpose it, how widely spread can you do that? How feasible are most ideas on what to do with products that are end-of-life? A lot of existing things are just dumped and forgotten about like thin clients, settopboxes (same hardware as Raspberry Pis) and entertainment systems in cars. We like to point at manufacturers and products from well known brands but in reality it applies on a much larger scale, yet the infeasibility scales with it all the same. Some of it might be due to legitimate PKI-based lockouts, while other reasons might simply be the lack of broad interest and governmental policy. In an ideal world the specifications on how the devices work and end-of-life disablement of lockouts would be a reasonable bar to set; it'd be hard to argue that it's bad for commerce, and implementation-wise even PKI-based systems have easy ways to facilitate this. The cost would be enablement from the manufacturer's side and for some brands the connection between their brand name and a device they cannot control the presentation of. I don't know how to solve that but it's definitely a much larger problem than people in tech might think of.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ISO-morphism 4y ago
    > ... for some brands the connection between their brand name and a device they cannot control the presentation of... larger problem. They should not have this control. Lamborghini doesn't get to stop crypto kids from using non-Lamborghini paint to put anime girls on their cars. Apple shouldn't get to stop users from using non-Apple software to draw pixels on their screens. The "their" refers to the owner of the product, not the owner of the brand.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      The equivalent here is if those crypto kids tried to flash the Lamborghini’s transmission or engine ECU firmware with pictures of anime girls. That would definitely merit much closer scrutiny since if the vehicle ever crashes, who is at fault? Who is liable if the tranmission suddenly seized up and the vehicle plows into a group of children at a crossing? And if the ECU is destroyed during the crash wouldn’t determining faulty firmware be impossible so Lamborghini would get blamed regardless? So then the only sensible course of action is to lock it down such that no one can ever change sensitive firmware without Lamborghini approval. This isn’t limited to cars, a Linux iPad could suffer a catastrophic battery explosion on a flight which causes significant consequences, who is liable?
    - oneplane 4y ago
      You can put stickers and background pictures all over your brand devices too, that's not really a problem. We're talking about circumventing secure enclaves, which I'm pretty sure Lamborghini will sue you (and win) for, same as Sony and Nintendo for example.
- stevenjgarner 4y ago
  This may be true with iOS devices but it is less true with macOS devices. I regularly repurpose my macOS devices with a nix installation, and I have not yet seen any discouraging move from Apple against this. Indeed none other than Linus Torvalds (the man behind Linux) has been known to use a MacBook Air for nix just because of its superior hardware - https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/srq2g/linus_torvalds_the_man_behind_linux_uses_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/srq2g/linus_torvalds...
  - clairity 4y ago
    you've hit on why apple is spending all its time developing the ipad into a laptop replacement (despite relatively flat sales) rather than really improving macs/macOS. they keep saying they're not trying to do this, but it's been plain as day for a few years now (with the ipad pro). there's no precedent for ipads to "upgrade" to another OS/firmware, unlike macs, so customers can't claim anything was taken away from them. plus, macs are considered essential for developing for iphones/ipads, so apple doesn't want to disenfranchise ecosystem developers too much by locking down macs, especially when laptops are a dwindling segment anyway.
  - cyberlurker 4y ago
    Because the old Macs used standard PC hardware, but apple has since moved to M1. That is the (albeit unintentional) move against this. I love M1 performance though.
- randomopining 4y ago
  Really they should release low level stuff for OS community to make linux for it, once the devices are past EOL. That would leave them an easy moral out, so I wonder why they don't do it. Maybe proprietary low level stuff that they don't want to share.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Ultimately I don't really care. I buy idevices not to "own" or tinker with them, but to get a job done or make my life easier. I own an iPad Pro purely as a drawing/pen input device, it does this extremely well. I don't care that I can't install a custom OS on it because I don't plan to. And history of owning idevices shows me that Apple supports these devices for around 7 years and they continue to work after support. This is good enough for me to be worth it. I see no theft here. I am sympathetic to the environmental ewaste aspect of older devices, but on a purely value based judgement, the Apple devices are vastly superior to anything else on the market. An open source linux tablet would do the job I want done worse.

boplicity 4y ago

You may technically own Apple hardware, but its not yours in actuality. You have a "license" to use the software on it, bif of you can't change the software, you don't have control over it. It's not yours. This is how Apple steals from us: They let you buy beautiful, high tech hardware that requires their software. Eventually, they stop supporting that software, so the hardware (mostly) stops working. This is theft. Sure, it may be legal, but morally, it is wrong. So many old iPhones and iPads are languishing, when they could be used as Raspberry Pis (or old laptops) are often used: home servers, learning tools, linux devices etc.

oneplane 4y ago
It depends on how you see those devices. On one hand it's a block of hardware (like an appliance) on the other hand it's a CPU and RAM and storage etc. This is a weird gradient where the same could be said for routers (and we kind-of do that), but also for Smart TV's (which are left out in the cold, generally), and other devices with smarts in them (or: a CPU, memory and storage). The general problem lies with the utility for mass-market products, even if you re-purpose it, how widely spread can you do that? How feasible are most ideas on what to do with products that are end-of-life? A lot of existing things are just dumped and forgotten about like thin clients, settopboxes (same hardware as Raspberry Pis) and entertainment systems in cars. We like to point at manufacturers and products from well known brands but in reality it applies on a much larger scale, yet the infeasibility scales with it all the same. Some of it might be due to legitimate PKI-based lockouts, while other reasons might simply be the lack of broad interest and governmental policy. In an ideal world the specifications on how the devices work and end-of-life disablement of lockouts would be a reasonable bar to set; it'd be hard to argue that it's bad for commerce, and implementation-wise even PKI-based systems have easy ways to facilitate this. The cost would be enablement from the manufacturer's side and for some brands the connection between their brand name and a device they cannot control the presentation of. I don't know how to solve that but it's definitely a much larger problem than people in tech might think of.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ISO-morphism 4y ago
  > ... for some brands the connection between their brand name and a device they cannot control the presentation of... larger problem. They should not have this control. Lamborghini doesn't get to stop crypto kids from using non-Lamborghini paint to put anime girls on their cars. Apple shouldn't get to stop users from using non-Apple software to draw pixels on their screens. The "their" refers to the owner of the product, not the owner of the brand.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    The equivalent here is if those crypto kids tried to flash the Lamborghini’s transmission or engine ECU firmware with pictures of anime girls. That would definitely merit much closer scrutiny since if the vehicle ever crashes, who is at fault? Who is liable if the tranmission suddenly seized up and the vehicle plows into a group of children at a crossing? And if the ECU is destroyed during the crash wouldn’t determining faulty firmware be impossible so Lamborghini would get blamed regardless? So then the only sensible course of action is to lock it down such that no one can ever change sensitive firmware without Lamborghini approval. This isn’t limited to cars, a Linux iPad could suffer a catastrophic battery explosion on a flight which causes significant consequences, who is liable?
  - oneplane 4y ago
    You can put stickers and background pictures all over your brand devices too, that's not really a problem. We're talking about circumventing secure enclaves, which I'm pretty sure Lamborghini will sue you (and win) for, same as Sony and Nintendo for example.
stevenjgarner 4y ago
This may be true with iOS devices but it is less true with macOS devices. I regularly repurpose my macOS devices with a nix installation, and I have not yet seen any discouraging move from Apple against this. Indeed none other than Linus Torvalds (the man behind Linux) has been known to use a MacBook Air for nix just because of its superior hardware - https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/srq2g/linus_torvalds_the_man_behind_linux_uses_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/srq2g/linus_torvalds...
- clairity 4y ago
  you've hit on why apple is spending all its time developing the ipad into a laptop replacement (despite relatively flat sales) rather than really improving macs/macOS. they keep saying they're not trying to do this, but it's been plain as day for a few years now (with the ipad pro). there's no precedent for ipads to "upgrade" to another OS/firmware, unlike macs, so customers can't claim anything was taken away from them. plus, macs are considered essential for developing for iphones/ipads, so apple doesn't want to disenfranchise ecosystem developers too much by locking down macs, especially when laptops are a dwindling segment anyway.
- cyberlurker 4y ago
  Because the old Macs used standard PC hardware, but apple has since moved to M1. That is the (albeit unintentional) move against this. I love M1 performance though.
randomopining 4y ago
Really they should release low level stuff for OS community to make linux for it, once the devices are past EOL. That would leave them an easy moral out, so I wonder why they don't do it. Maybe proprietary low level stuff that they don't want to share.
Gigachad 4y ago
Ultimately I don't really care. I buy idevices not to "own" or tinker with them, but to get a job done or make my life easier. I own an iPad Pro purely as a drawing/pen input device, it does this extremely well. I don't care that I can't install a custom OS on it because I don't plan to. And history of owning idevices shows me that Apple supports these devices for around 7 years and they continue to work after support. This is good enough for me to be worth it. I see no theft here. I am sympathetic to the environmental ewaste aspect of older devices, but on a purely value based judgement, the Apple devices are vastly superior to anything else on the market. An open source linux tablet would do the job I want done worse.