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How could we benefit from having Linux on old iDevices? Would I be able to repurpose a device to do something useful I can’t do with iOS?

by vocram 4y ago

pabs3 4y ago
Its good for devices that stopped receiving iOS security updates, or for doing weird things that you can't do with iOS, like using your iPhone as a USB keyboard for your desktop using Linux's USB gadget support.
usrn 4y ago
Yeah, it would actually be a useful computer.
- umtksa 4y ago
  I'm using one of my old android phone to run node-red and display a dashboard on it. I want to use my old iphone 4 like this
simion314 4y ago
>How could we benefit from having Linux on old iDevices? On old devices that do not get updates your internet will stop working because of old browser, missing SSL certificates or old libraries. With Linux you might get an updated browser and you could use the device to browse things and you can do whatever your mind can imagine like maybe write a simple bash/python script to automate something.
- brk 4y ago
  Technically yes, but when? I just retired an iPhone5 that we were using as a "house controller", streaming Pandora, home automation app, etc. I retired it not because the software stopped working but because the battery won't last more than 30 minutes off the charger, and I had an iPhone8 sitting around doing nothing. IMO an iPhone with linux is going to be less of "do whatever your mind can imagine" and more of "spend countless time trying to hack random stuff into this unsupported platform". Overall, I think it is cool achievement, but (to me), it feels more along the lines of solution looking for a problem than an actual truly useful thing.
  - JustinGarrison 4y ago
    Not everything has to be useful. Many years of “useless” hacking has given me a lot of experience and a great career.
  - simion314 4y ago
    So this is not for you or people like you, could be a solution for poor people, all my computing devices were old second hand stuff ntill I had a good job to afford some new average PC. Android devices also suffer from this issue, some where some stuff gets outdated and many webpages or apps will not longer work for you because of security reasons forcing you to get a new device. >IMO an iPhone with linux is going to be less of "do whatever your mind can imagine" and more of "spend countless time trying to hack random stuff into this unsupported platform". That does not generalize, sure you can't imagine what you could use a device like that and the freedom but others can. On my Linux desktop I have a one line script that will speak the time to me every 15 minutes (I need it) or I have a script that when I press a button it will OCR the screen and read it to me. Sure 99% of people will buy an app that might do a similar thing or just give up BUT people like me just think "would be cool if this would work and we do it". And don't try to accuse me that it took me 12 hours to make a button to OCR my screen or other bullshit accusations, you can spend 5 minutes googling what package does a screen grab, what package does OCR from image, then you combine the 2 packages and done , 5 minutes and I had hours saved and sometimes made impossible stuff possible .
  - MarioMan 4y ago
    Plenty of end of life uses work just fine living off of a charger. For instance, setting up an old iPad or iPhone as a home hub (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207057 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207057) requires the device stay plugged in already. I can imagine plenty of cases where an old phone could be a suitable substitute or even an upgrade over a Raspberry Pi (Pi-hole, Home Assistant, Spotify hookup for an old home stereo, etc.). If the battery is absolutely crucial for your use case, quality replacements can still be had. The iPhone 5 battery, for instance, can be replaced for $30, with all needed tools included: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/iPhone/iPhone-5-Battery/IF118-001 https://www.ifixit.com/Store/iPhone/iPhone-5-Battery/IF118-0... Anything that keeps perfectly usable devices like these out of landfills is a win in my book.
Gigachad 4y ago
A somewhat newish iPhone would be more powerful than the raspberry pi. And I have got good use out of the pi for hosting game servers for small numbers of users. You can also get old apple devices way cheaper than new equivalent single board computers.
- heretogetout 4y ago
  And as a bonus they come with GPS, compasses, accelerometers, and of course network connectivity, out of the box (if you can figure out how to access them, anyway).
- bogwog 4y ago
  And the iPhone has a built-in touch screen, wifi, bluetooth, two cameras, internal storage, a GPU, a bunch of sensors, a giant battery, physical buttons, speakers, microphone, a giant market for third-party peripherals, cases, chargers, mounts, etc...AND it's way easier to get your hands on an iPhone (especially an old one) than a Raspberry Pi today. Sure, getting everything to work in a Linux port wouldn't be easy, but it does clearly show the value of such a thing.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    I wonder about the implications of running them in an "always-on" configuration. Would it be possible to remove the battery and run them entirely on AC power? If you could do that, you might be able to have some pretty nice low-power home servers.
    - unsafecast 4y ago
      If you just want a server, you can use an android phone already. Either pick one that works with postmarketOS, or termux could work fine (I don't know the overhead of that though). No point in using an iPhone here.
      - bogwog 4y ago
        What should I do with my old iPhones then?
numpad0 4y ago
I don't know, but iDevices are more ubiquitous than other phones. It's much easier to source 100 of iPhone 6 than to collect same number of, Nexus ... whatever.
ge96 4y ago
I don't know if it's worth it but maybe contribute to cloud compute like DreamLab
schwartzworld 4y ago
> Would I be able to repurpose a device to do something useful I can’t do with iOS? How about doing anything at all? I have an iPad 2 and an iPad mini sitting around that aren't useful at all. Just sitting there, collecting dust because I don't have the heart to chuck them.
- quakeguy 4y ago
  This, and the overall build-quality of the devices makes it hard to just discard them. Even their batteries are still mostly good. I’d love to repurpose them, have several here aswell lying around.
justsomeguy123 4y ago
We still have an original iPad at an older relative. It's perfect for Solitaire. It also used to be usable to load a weather page but turns out Safari doesn't know the certificate authority since it's such an old version. I guess such an old Safari is a walking security risk too. It would be nice to be able to put Linux on it.
avgcorrection 4y ago
Realistically? Hackers who use new phones/pads are gonna repurpose them for some idle fiddling with the TV at home. That’s the extent of this “reducing e-waste” goal.

How could we benefit from having Linux on old iDevices? Would I be able to repurpose a device to do something useful I can’t do with iOS?

by vocram 4y ago

How could we benefit from having Linux on old iDevices? Would I be able to repurpose a device to do something useful I can’t do with iOS?

pabs3 4y ago

Its good for devices that stopped receiving iOS security updates, or for doing weird things that you can't do with iOS, like using your iPhone as a USB keyboard for your desktop using Linux's USB gadget support.

usrn 4y ago

Yeah, it would actually be a useful computer.

umtksa 4y ago
I'm using one of my old android phone to run node-red and display a dashboard on it. I want to use my old iphone 4 like this

simion314 4y ago

>How could we benefit from having Linux on old iDevices? On old devices that do not get updates your internet will stop working because of old browser, missing SSL certificates or old libraries. With Linux you might get an updated browser and you could use the device to browse things and you can do whatever your mind can imagine like maybe write a simple bash/python script to automate something.

brk 4y ago
Technically yes, but when? I just retired an iPhone5 that we were using as a "house controller", streaming Pandora, home automation app, etc. I retired it not because the software stopped working but because the battery won't last more than 30 minutes off the charger, and I had an iPhone8 sitting around doing nothing. IMO an iPhone with linux is going to be less of "do whatever your mind can imagine" and more of "spend countless time trying to hack random stuff into this unsupported platform". Overall, I think it is cool achievement, but (to me), it feels more along the lines of solution looking for a problem than an actual truly useful thing.
- JustinGarrison 4y ago
  Not everything has to be useful. Many years of “useless” hacking has given me a lot of experience and a great career.
- simion314 4y ago
  So this is not for you or people like you, could be a solution for poor people, all my computing devices were old second hand stuff ntill I had a good job to afford some new average PC. Android devices also suffer from this issue, some where some stuff gets outdated and many webpages or apps will not longer work for you because of security reasons forcing you to get a new device. >IMO an iPhone with linux is going to be less of "do whatever your mind can imagine" and more of "spend countless time trying to hack random stuff into this unsupported platform". That does not generalize, sure you can't imagine what you could use a device like that and the freedom but others can. On my Linux desktop I have a one line script that will speak the time to me every 15 minutes (I need it) or I have a script that when I press a button it will OCR the screen and read it to me. Sure 99% of people will buy an app that might do a similar thing or just give up BUT people like me just think "would be cool if this would work and we do it". And don't try to accuse me that it took me 12 hours to make a button to OCR my screen or other bullshit accusations, you can spend 5 minutes googling what package does a screen grab, what package does OCR from image, then you combine the 2 packages and done , 5 minutes and I had hours saved and sometimes made impossible stuff possible .
- MarioMan 4y ago
  Plenty of end of life uses work just fine living off of a charger. For instance, setting up an old iPad or iPhone as a home hub (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207057 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207057) requires the device stay plugged in already. I can imagine plenty of cases where an old phone could be a suitable substitute or even an upgrade over a Raspberry Pi (Pi-hole, Home Assistant, Spotify hookup for an old home stereo, etc.). If the battery is absolutely crucial for your use case, quality replacements can still be had. The iPhone 5 battery, for instance, can be replaced for $30, with all needed tools included: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/iPhone/iPhone-5-Battery/IF118-001 https://www.ifixit.com/Store/iPhone/iPhone-5-Battery/IF118-0... Anything that keeps perfectly usable devices like these out of landfills is a win in my book.

Gigachad 4y ago

A somewhat newish iPhone would be more powerful than the raspberry pi. And I have got good use out of the pi for hosting game servers for small numbers of users. You can also get old apple devices way cheaper than new equivalent single board computers.

heretogetout 4y ago
And as a bonus they come with GPS, compasses, accelerometers, and of course network connectivity, out of the box (if you can figure out how to access them, anyway).
bogwog 4y ago
And the iPhone has a built-in touch screen, wifi, bluetooth, two cameras, internal storage, a GPU, a bunch of sensors, a giant battery, physical buttons, speakers, microphone, a giant market for third-party peripherals, cases, chargers, mounts, etc...AND it's way easier to get your hands on an iPhone (especially an old one) than a Raspberry Pi today. Sure, getting everything to work in a Linux port wouldn't be easy, but it does clearly show the value of such a thing.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  I wonder about the implications of running them in an "always-on" configuration. Would it be possible to remove the battery and run them entirely on AC power? If you could do that, you might be able to have some pretty nice low-power home servers.
  - unsafecast 4y ago
    If you just want a server, you can use an android phone already. Either pick one that works with postmarketOS, or termux could work fine (I don't know the overhead of that though). No point in using an iPhone here.
    - bogwog 4y ago
      What should I do with my old iPhones then?

numpad0 4y ago

I don't know, but iDevices are more ubiquitous than other phones. It's much easier to source 100 of iPhone 6 than to collect same number of, Nexus ... whatever.

ge96 4y ago

I don't know if it's worth it but maybe contribute to cloud compute like DreamLab

schwartzworld 4y ago

> Would I be able to repurpose a device to do something useful I can’t do with iOS? How about doing anything at all? I have an iPad 2 and an iPad mini sitting around that aren't useful at all. Just sitting there, collecting dust because I don't have the heart to chuck them.

quakeguy 4y ago
This, and the overall build-quality of the devices makes it hard to just discard them. Even their batteries are still mostly good. I’d love to repurpose them, have several here aswell lying around.

justsomeguy123 4y ago

We still have an original iPad at an older relative. It's perfect for Solitaire. It also used to be usable to load a weather page but turns out Safari doesn't know the certificate authority since it's such an old version. I guess such an old Safari is a walking security risk too. It would be nice to be able to put Linux on it.

avgcorrection 4y ago

Realistically? Hackers who use new phones/pads are gonna repurpose them for some idle fiddling with the TV at home. That’s the extent of this “reducing e-waste” goal.